You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together
with Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a
researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social
media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas. A brief warning before we start this interview with
Ashley Spence. We speak plainly about sexual assault in this interview, and if
you find yourself triggered by such conversation, you might want to be aware of
that fact before the interview starts. Thanks as always for listening to Mind for
Murder. Welcome to Mine Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley and I'm Bill Thomas,
and we're joined today by victim's advocate and fellow Sun Devil Ashley Spence,
here to talk to us about the DNA Justice Project. Ashley, thank you
for joining us. Thank you both so much for having me. I'm so
grateful. You have to explain what a sun devil is, Ashley. You
want to do the honors, you can do it. So I'm a sun
devil and a longhorn. I was born and raised in Austin, and three
case my dad hears this, I need to really I'm really a longhorn first,
okay, and then I'm also there's some dual loyalties there. I think
we're very serious here in Texas. Absolutely, And I'm actually of the two
colleges that I went to, a SU is the only one that has a
mascot. My undergraduate college does not have a mascot. It is a women's
only college, and we just don't have a mascot. We're just the Hollins
University Sun devil is the only mascot I can play too. So I'm a
Sun devil. Bill looks absolutely just perturbed by that. So if one attends
Arizona State University, as you both did, you are a sun devil,
correct? And what does a sun devil look like really fierce little guy with
a pitchfork. Pitchfork is what it comes to mind. Yes, okay,
pitchfork. If you went to the women's basketball team, would there be somebody
walking around with a Sun Devil? Yes, yes, pitchfork. Yeah,
absolutely. I actually spent a lot of time going to the Sun Devil women's
basketball because the guy I was dating back then was a huge Sun Devil's women's
basketball fan, So I went to a ton of Sun Devil's basketball games.
Yes, you are not wrong about any of what you just said. I
thought for sure you were going to say you were dating the guy that wore
the red face fuzzy hat with them pitch fork for Jane would have loved that.
Actually, I think he would have. I think he would have eaten
that up with a spoon. And Hi, Dave, I know you're listening
the Sun Devils. Okay. See, I feel better now I have a
clearer understanding of your shared history. You and Ashley are both sun Devils,
yes we are, and longhorns. We can't forget before we get. Now
that we've gotten that out of the way, Ashley, tell us a little
bit about yourself, please, and the amazing advocacy work that you're doing.
Yes, thank you so much. My time at Arizona State was a little
bit short lived. I was really excited to go there. I loved the
school, and I was about to start my sophomore year at Arizona State.
Actually, and what I'm about to say might be a little bit triggering.
I always just like to give that preface about sexual assault. But I think
it's really important that we have these conversations. Well, I had gone there
for my freshman year. I loved it, and I was about to start
my sophomore year in two thousand and three. I went to college early just
to get to know my new roommate. I was really excited. We were
going to our first apartment while we were out of the dorms, and I
felt so cool and so we were really excited to get settled in. But
we were in a really giant apartment complex. You know this too, Christen.
It's very college oriented. So I was there before school started and it
was pretty empty at the time, in this big, giant apartment complex,
and they moved us into the very back corner, ground floor unit. I
will never forget it, building, k It's etched in my memory. This
was before school had started, and I had been there about a week.
I went to bed one night. I had a feeling that day. It
was really strange. I had this feeling. I was on the phone with
my mom and it was a warm summer Arizona night, and I just remember
the sky was like pink and purple and started to get blue, and the
sun was setting, and as I'm speaking to my mom on the phone,
I just felt the sinking feeling in the pit of my gut. Now it
wasn't like I don't know if you'll know, like that anxious feeling where you
feel like it's in your chest right, you know what it sa. It
wasn't that. It was like this piercing, grounded, dark inner knowing that
something was really terribly wrong. But I had no idea what it was.
And as the sun went down, I talked to my mom and I remember
thinking, I don't want to get off the phone. I don't even want
to go. I was supposed to be meet up with my friends. I
didn't know. I had no idea. I'm like, I'm going to get
it be in trouble for going out in college. I had no idea,
but I knew something was wrong. I hang up the phone. I go
out with my friends. We come back to my apartment and it started to
get late. We were all talking, and I remember I had told my
friends, like, why don't you just stay here? You can some of
you can save in the bed. We have the couch, and my roommate
went to sleep with her boyfriend, and eventually my friends left. They took
a cab and they went home, and I went to bed that night.
As I for my whole life had been fortunate too, I felt like I
was safe in my own home. I'm very blessed in that I came from
a safe environment. I always felt protected. I never, in a million
years much probably like what you all have endured. Imagine that these horrific times,
whatever happened to me, but they do, they can happen to anyone.
I went to bed and in the middle of the night and intruder broke
into my apartment. While I was asleep. He smothered my face with a
pillow and began to tear off my clothes. I remember just thinking, this
is a dream, those nightmares you have and you can shake yourself and wake
up. And I kept being like, wake up, Ashley, wake up,
trying to shake myself, and I realized really quickly, oh my god,
this is not a dream, this is real life, and I need
to fight. And in that moment, I began to try to fight and
yell and move my arms and legs with everything I had in me, and
I was nearly killed. The pillow was suffocating my face so tightly. I
tried to move my face all around, and I was beaten so severely,
and I knew in that moment, I just thought, I have two choices.
I continue to fight and I die right here, right now, or
I have to let it happen to try to live. And I desperately wanted
to live, so for hours throughout the night, I endured this torture in
every unimaginable way possible. The entire time, I could not see the face
of the person that was committing these horrific crimes against me. I am so
fortunate because I am standing here today, I'm able to share my story.
I survived it physically, but he got away and I never saw his face,
And before he left, he said, do not remove the pillow from
your face until I'm gone, and do not tell anybody, because if you
do, I will be watching you and I will kill you. I was
trembling, but I thought, oh my god, I'm going to survive.
I might survive, and but I had to just use my senses. When
I felt like he was gone, I jumped out of bed. I slammed
the door shut, locked it. I put on clothes, and I desperately
looked for my phone. I knew I went to bed with it, but
it was gone. So I had to think quick. I had to get
out of that apartment. So I broke the window. I jumped out the
window and ran to my roommate's master patio door and I was just beating the
door down, and she opened the door, and I will never forget the
look on her and her boyfriend's face. I'm standing there, covered in blood,
just screaming, I've been raped. Call nine when one I've been raped.
And I was fortunate. I had a really good responding law enforcement officer,
Williams, and I was pacing in the parking lot. I didn't want
to go inside, and when we met ies, he pulled up in the
police car, and it felt like it was months. I don't know how
long it was, but it felt like it had been a really long time
and locked eyes and I could just see him mouth the words, oh my
god when he saw the state I was in. And I mean I worked
day and night with detectives. I had a rapekud examination done, I did
everything, but there were just no leads. What agency were you dealing with
at the time of the attack? Who was the responsible law enforcement agency?
So I was in Tempee at the time of the attack. He was amazing
And I tell people this all the time. It is so important every single
victim needs to have that first initial response be someone that is either trauma and
for him trained, or that has that compassion. Because had it not been
him, I would not have felt safe enough to go forward. I truly
wouldn't have. I would have been scared to death. Because of him,
he opened up this safety for me to take the next step to have a
rape kit examination done. Did you go to the hospital right away then to
do your rape kit? Tell us a little bit more about how the rest
of the evening unfolds than once you've reported the sexual assault. Yeah, so
this was the morning. This was like morning daytime at that point, and
I remember I had gone in back into the house when the police officer arrived
and I saw in front of my roommate's doore was a barricade of stools and
pillows and all these items from my house that this guy had put in front
of the roommate's doore because it opened outward, so he wanted to be able
to have some notice if anyone was coming down. So I saw that.
I was pretty startled by that, and I just remember him saying, we
have to act quick. He didn't really say these words to me, but
after the fact he knew that there was no eyesight evidence. I didn't see
him, so they needed to get any evidence possible, any DNA, anything
that they could find. I knew nothing about rape kids. I didn't know
anything about it. I don't even know if see if I was around at
the time, Like, I didn't know anything about the process at all.
I remember just saying, he was like, we're going to take you in
a van, and we need to go and have evidence collected and get you
checked out. And I remember I just said, oh, I have to
shower first. I'm not going anywhere. I need to think an hour,
I need to brush my teeth. I feel disgusting, like I was just
felt disgusting, and he just said, I'm so sorry you can't shower,
you can't brush your teeth, that you're going to be safe. And again
I trusted him. So I got in a van and I went to a
hospital and I was very fortunate once again I had a trained I didn't know
anything about saying a sexual SELT nurse examiner, and she was changed. Her
name was Jennifer, and I can tell y'all, I don't remember the hours
of evidence collection, photographing. I don't remember that. I do remember,
though, how she made me feel. And after an attack this traumatic,
but any attack is tried, any sort of one. You can imagine having
to get undressed and to have evidence like taken off your body. It would
really just terrible. But for me the experience, she made me feel calm,
She made me feel supported, She was compassionate, like all these amazing
I call them my angels because I know not everybody has had this experience,
but I want to share it because there is good out there, and I
think this should be the model, the level that we all achieve and strive
for. And so she worked very hard in what we would find out down
the road was that this guy was very good at what he did, as
a lot of these very serial predators are I've heard you speak about this too,
but maybe not book smart, but smart criminal smart. Okay, it's
scary, it's different, but he's smart. So they actually she would end
up getting the evidence, which was a tiny bit of saliva on my chest
and this is graphic, but he was pretty good at protecting everything else and
all the other evidence even really even through these violent attacks. So that was
the small evidence that ended up being collected. But I didn't know much about
it. But so what they do then is they take your kit and hopefully
if all goes right and if there's not backlogs, it gets tested, it
gets stored properly, it's not destroyed, it's taken care of very well.
And luckily that happened to mine and it was entered though into Cotis and there
were no hits. The detectives working on my case were fantastic, and I
think they collected DNA from over fifty people that would actually give their DNA or
they'd chase them down because you can get you can obtain DNA off a cup
or whatever it is. But all these guys were actually giving up their DNA.
And at this point we ran out of people because school hadn't started yet.
We took DNA from everybody, possibly every mail that I thought possibly could
have been at school around They gave their DNA and there were no matches,
and I just I couldn't take it anymore. I can tell you all.
The fear was so scary that I had thought, not only am I all
over the news. He told me he would be watching me. He said,
if I told anyone, he's gonna kill me. And now there's no
leads, Like I'm terrified. I lived in a state of perpetual fear.
And I tried to go to school and I sat in class and I had
this horrific panic attack, and I just thought, is he sitting behind me
right now? Yeah? I was thinking the same thing, is this Could
he be in the same lecture hall with him? Like, I just lived
in the state of absolute terror, and I couldn't even do things like wash
my face because it would mean I would shut my eyes. Now when I
look back on it, and as you all know, your story is just
it breaks my heart to lose a family member or sister, to lose someone
to violence, It's so unfair and it breaks my heart and for me,
I didn't even realize the impact it had on everyone that I went to school
with. How terrifying. We're nineteen, we're kids. In the end,
Did you end up feeling like I have to step away from school, This
isn't going to work for me, even though I'm just entering my sophomore year,
which should be a really exciting time. Yes, I remember I was
in the sort of state of and this was before like PTSD was talked about.
I didn't really know anything about, but I was in this. I
think of it as like a trance or a day is just moving my going
through emotion and trauma. We have all had different traumatic experiences, but it
can infect the brain and the body, and our response is the same.
So I think we can all say in our own ways, we've experienced some
sort of reaction like that to the things that have happened to us. I
just felt like a daze and one foot, like just surviving. I was
just surviving, and I dropped out of school, and I remember I had
to sit in the office and the person I was telling at the school was
not very compassion I don't know if they were worried because it happened on it
was a campus. I don't know, but it was handled really bizarrely,
I would say, But I just dropped out of school. I couldn't do
it anymore. I was all bruised up trying to go to school. Everyone's
staring at me. I'm all over the news, and it just it's stripped
away. I will never be the same. And I think I heard you
Bill talk about this as well. It's you can go back to those places.
And I was in it for a long time, a long like scary
which I'll touch. It changes you forever, and it doesn't mean that you're
broken per se, but you lose a part of yourself that you can ever
get back. And I refer to this kind of because now it's two thousand
and three and I've had closure. I've been doing healing work a lot of
I've tried every healing anything you can imagine. I've tried. But there are
times when I think that it's a star, and then all of a sudden,
something will happen and then I feel like it's like a gaping, deep
wound that's bleeding. I don't know if that makes sense. But you feel
like I've healed, and then all of a sudden, it's just ah,
it's there again. It's alive. It's painful, it's dark, it's hard,
but we have to face it and choose to look for the good things
in the light. And I dropped out of school and I picked Newport Beach,
California to live it. I moved there with my friend and it was
a random place I'd never thought about living. But I'm like, I'm going
to the ocean. I'm just going to be Ashley, no more victim.
No one's gonna know. I'm not going to talk about it. It's gonna
be amazing. I'm gonna start fresh. And it's not that easy to restart.
But so I moved to Newport Beach. I struggled. You know,
on the outside, you might think I was okay, but my roommate knew
the darkness and bless her, I mean, what she endured and how she
stuck through me, she was an angel. I thought I was doing okay,
but I mean I was numbing out with massive amounts of alcohol, pills
nipael during the day because I couldn't sleep. At night, I would hear
like muffled screams of women that he was hurting. I knew he was out
there. Like that was the most awful thing for me was I could hear
how I was trying to scream in that pillow, but I would hear it
on repeat in my head at night because I knew he was out there.
And we know these people do not stop. They don't stop. They don't
wake up one day and say I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm
not going to violently rape and break into people's homes or kill people. I'm
just decided I'm not doing that. That doesn't happen, let's be real.
So that was terrifying for me. And I can remember not just one time,
but there were two times that I would peel my eyes open and it
was like I felt like I had been hit over the head with a brick.
My eye is hazy, and I could see my cry my eye open
with a pounding migraine, and I would see a hospital band on my wrist.
And I wouldn't remember not only not going in an ambulance from the bar
because I overdrank, I wouldn't remember being clear to go home, okay,
Like it was absolutely terrifying, and I won't go into this whole story,
but I ended up getting into yoga. My mom had done it, and
my friend took me there and I started to get more clear. Like yoga
gave me this clarity of healing and it was a pathway for me that really
worked. And I started to be able to feel my pain, to process
it, to let go, and to know that some things I have to
surrender to. Sometimes the power is just surrendering and accepting that I can either
continue to self medicate and kill myself I should, or I can take this
and put one foot in front of the other, get my head clear and
start my life. No more victim mentality, pick up the pieces. It
got to that point and I said, I can't live like this anymore.
So I got clear headed. I ended up going back to college. I
got a job, I graduated college. It was really awesome and that's a
big deal. And I decided to move back to Austin eventually, and it
was here in twenty ten. So seven years after my Attech, I get
a call from the detectives and there was a DNA match in my case.
Wow, after seven years, I endured such a wide range of emotion.
I was shocked because I had to in order to get on with my life.
I had decided, you know what, I just am't accepting that I
might not ever have an answer to this, and so it was shocking.
The irony is I moved to Newport Beach, out of all the places in
the country, to escape this man. In reality, I moved to the
very city that he lived, Newport Beach. Have you all been there to
Newport Beach? Yes, No, I haven't been. Okay, it's a
tiny beach town. Tiny, Okay. So I lived on the Peninsula on
fortieth Street. I know when they arrested him. Guess what he was on
forty first Street, one block from where I live. Oh, is this
this is not him following you or anything like that. It's bizarre. No,
he actually told the court that I followed him there. I don't know.
He said that I saw him, that I went to like restaurant,
said he was in, that he saw me on the peninsula. There was
a time like in my jeep there were photographs from like a rooftop taken and
put in the front seat of my car, and I called the detective on
my case, thinking I don't know if it's connected, I still will never
know, but whether or not, like he saw me out or he was
just saying that it's just eerie. It's just one of those weird what I
don't know. It doesn't make total sense, but there's a reason that it
was a blessing. He was caught in Newport Beach trying to break into a
home one block from where I lived all those years. He was tinkering with
the door. Three young women lived in this home. A police officer saw
him, questioned him, then tried to arrest him. He resisted the officer's
arrest. In California, that's a felony offense. Thankfully, California was one
of just eighteen at the time. My home state of Texas, we just
became the nineteenth state. I'm so proud to collect DNA upon all felony arrest
So the difference is fifty states. So all fifty collect upon conviction of a
felony thirty one states. Virginia is included in this. Thirty one states collect
for certain violent felony arrest and burglary. Of those, nineteen do all felony
arrests. California was one of the states at the time. Thankfully it was
in California that he was arrested. Because what they did was when they took
him down, they took his fingerprints, they took us photographs, they took
a DNA cheek swap, so it's a minimally invasive cheek swab of saliva.
They uplifted in dakotas our national database and it hit a match back to my
case all those years before and others. My DNA evidence was strongest, so
they were going to trial with mine first. He was a violent serial predator.
He had a wife and a son, and a shed behind his home
full of women's underwear and ID cards like his trophies from all over the world.
He would take odd job chainting. He went to the Olympics. The
amount of people that he has harmed we will not ever know. And I
can tell you there is a reason why too, because the level of fear
he instills in his victims is next level. I just that was my automatic
response, go tell, like I can see many circumstances where people are not
telling, or it takes the while, or they're not coming out. But
he had trophies of all these women in there, so they arrested him.
He was extradited to Arizona. But as the lost hands in Arizona today,
he would still be free to rape and harm other women because they wouldn't have
taken his cheek swab there right, Anyways, I wait on trial for five
years, so twenty ten to twenty fifteen. Wait, let's stop for a
second. Why did you have to wait five years for a trial? Two
big reasons. One, this guy was he's insane and he thought he wanted
to represent himself. And so again, as we're saying, he might not
have been the smartest businessman, but he was criminal smart, like he knew
how to play the system. So he represented himself. But the really big
reason, the most important one, is that there was a Supreme Court case
twenty thirteen. There is a case called Marilyn versus King. In this they
found that taking your DNA cheek swab for a qualifying arrest is a reasonable and
just part of the book procedure, just like taking your fingerprints, just like
taking your photographs. So this was challenged that it was a violation of the
Fourth Amendment. They found no, that it is not a violation of the
Fourth Amendment for qualifying arrest. So because of that ruling, Thank goodness,
we were able to go to trial. Had they found that not had that
ruling not gone that way, I would have never had disclosure. This man
could have still been out there. Because of that, trial was postponed.
But then we eventually we went and I remember, I'll never forget it.
At this point, I had yoga studios in Austin, and I gave birth
to my son. All these big achievements for me that I never thought could
be possible. Again when I had trouble getting pregnant with my son, and
I remember the prosecutor called and he said, Ashley trial is happening May of
twenty fifteen, and there's no going back. We're going to trial. And
I just was on the phone, like, wait, in my business,
we're finally turning a profit. You know how hard that is. I'm not
crying on the steps anymore inviting homeless people to come take my yoga class for
free, just to fill the room. This is a big deal. But
I had a son and I said, he's eight months old, as too
young. He can't be separated from me. I'm his mom. Deep down,
I was just terrified, like this guy told me he would kill me.
And now I'm a mama and I have a child to protect if they
find him not guilty. It's just I never saw a space. I don't
know this guy. He was a stalker and a stranger. I'd never seen
him before. It really scared me. And he said, Ashley, if
you don't show up, this is totally He was really kind about it,
but he said very directly, the maximum this man can get his ten years.
And I said, I'm gonna have to think about it. I hung
up the phone, went about my business, and I remember I got the
shocking news that I was pregnant, and just a complete and total shock.
And so with my son, we didn't find out the sex, but with
this child, surprise or pregnant when I didn't think I could get pregnant on
my own, and I was, and I'll never forget when I just got
the letter and it just said you're having a baby girl, and I thought,
oh my gosh, Ashley, well because you're going back for her,
You're going back for everyone's daughter, sisters, friends like you were going to
trial. So pregnant as can be with my daughter, I lied to Arizona.
When I face this man, and there was a lot of darkness,
but I persevered through and there was a lot of light. The officer,
the forensic nurse, the DNA analysts, they were able to prove purely through
DNA it was thirty eight trillion times more likely his DNA on me than anybody
else's, Okay, thirty eight trillion. The real compelling evidence in court was
by twenty ten they were able to do what is called ysdr analysis, and
what they did was they extracted the X and the Y chromosome. When they
did that, they retested the DNA and they found his DNA all over my
body, everywhere. And guess what it aligned with every story that I told
detectives and lawn immediately after the attack, which made for extremely compelling evidence and
quorus. So they found him guilty. We waited on sentencing for a year,
so this was May of twenty sixteen. At this point my daughter was
born. I fly back to Arizona for sentencing. I'll never forget, the
prosecutor says Ashley. This man's family is here, and I just start sobbing
because it humanized him, and I'm like, no, like this is he's
a monster. I don't want him to be human at all. It broke
my heart. And he said, they are here, but they're here in
support of you. And I said what, And he said, and they
want to know if they can talk to you. And I just said,
okay, tears falling down my face, and oh, this one gets me.
I don't cry a lot when I talk anymore, but this always makes
me choke up because I'll never forget hugging his sister and his nieces and his
family. And I was just sharing how sorry we were for one another,
all crying in each other's arms. Powerful. And his sister stood up that
day at sentencing, his own sister, and she looked the judge straight in
the eye and said, she said, I grew up with this man as
a brother. I had to become a detective because I had to live with
him as my brother. Not only is what he did horrific to her,
but we are certain that he has killed people. Do not ever let him
see the light of day again. His own sister point, there was a
man that kind of made me feel uncomfortable, that sat behind in trial,
and so that you have this amazing victim advocate that holds the hand of a
stranger on. I love her so much. I always think of helped me
rond that she really helped me that song. She was a little angel too.
And she went to ask him, she said, who are you?
And he said, I grew up with this guy in high school and I
drove all the way here from California to see him. Fry he is a
bad man. Oh wow. So he wasn't support either, and he had
been in and out of trouble burglary voyeurism, never had his DNA collected,
but he's not getting caught for the homicides. For his sister says, she's
certain that these murdered people. Okay, in my evidence it was the small
amount of saliva that actually they got it off of. But they actually sentenced
him to one hundred and thirty seven point five years in prisons. You're listening
to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors.
We're back here at mindover Murder. I sat in the back of court
and I just saw and I felt like this weight of justice, that piece
that I felt. I thought when I flew home and I ended up reconnecting
with my forensic nurse, and I thought you know what, I can't live
in silence. I never told anybody, my own brother, who was very
close to me. He was so young at the time. We just said
that someone broke in and robbed my house. I'm going to start telling people,
and all victims deserve justice, every single one, every single victim deserves
closure. We can't stop it all from happening, but we need to do
everything we can. And I was terrified when I realized that every state did
not collect UNA upon felony arrest right fifty conviction. How many of these people
are getting convicted of these felonies, they get it taken down to a misdemeanor,
they flee. The most prolific serial rapist of young girls in Colorado was
caught not through serial raping young girls. He was caught through a felony level
forgery. Fellony level forgery. Okay, So we're not talking about swabbing DNA
for a routine traffic stop. Okay, that's illegal, But we are saying,
if you are arrested for a violent felony offense, we need to collect
your DNA. It's interesting because now I advocate for this with DNA Justice Project.
I formed it to not just you know, help with victim advocacy,
but tried to change laws and I got inspired in twenty seventeen. Actually I
was testifying in Texas, just on the side to try to get it to
certain violent felonies. It didn't go. In twenty seventeen, twenty nineteen,
it got across and I met this woman named Jane Seppich. I don't know
if you all are familiar with her or her daughter's story. So Jane's wonderful
and her daughter, Katie Seppich, was a twenty three year old grad student
in New Mexico in two thousand and three, so the same year of my
attack. Her story did not end as well. She was walking home from
a party. She had gotten in an argument with her boyfriend. She left
and she was walking alone at night, and she ended up being very brutally
raped, murdered. Her body was lit on fire, and she was dumped
in a field. Oh my gosh, horrible she had and you've lived through
this the effect. She had siblings, you know, a sister, a
young sister I think she was nine at the time, and an older brother,
and they did not know who did it. For a while, I
thought maybe it was a boyfriend because they had gotten in that argument. But
I remember when Janne tells this story, she said, very directly to the
law enforcement officer, So, Katie, the stories that you hear of her
and meeting her mother, when you know her, she's become like a second
mom to me. Katie was a fighter. And the only evidence that they
had because her body was burned, was actually under her fingernails. She had
fought for her life so hard that his skin was the DNA was under her
fingernails, so they were able to collect that. And Janne told the detective,
this guy, he's repealed, he'll do it again. People like this,
don't just stop. Like we're all like, we all know, and
when they arrest him for another felony, they'll just take his DNA and then
we'll find the match. We're going to find this guy. And the detective
just said, no, you actually you can't. That's illegal to take DNA
upon felony arrest and explain to her, and she was she's felt gutted.
So three years later, her perpetrator was actually caught convicted of a felony,
and that is when they swapped him for DNA and they found that had they
had the law, which is now called Katie's Law in Mexico. Jane is
a fierce warrior with her husband, Dave and kids, and they fought for
this. Katie's all there. It saved many lives. But had they had
that law, her family would have had justice two months after her murder instead
of three years. And you know the pain, and I can't imagine thirty
plus years of waiting, but to not have that closure and to know that
there are ways that are loopholes that we have today in our criminal justice system
and in the way that we can actually make this change like we can't.
So she fought for that. She trained me and she since retired, so
she entrusted me to step into her big you know, the big wings of
her. But I do. I carry Katie's memory and I won't be carrying
your sisters as well in this work because we can't give up hope. We
have the tools, we have these DNA databases that are incredible. Cotus is
incredible. My greatest challenge is trying to convince legis on why we need to
do this. But I'm like, why don't we all need to be doing
this? It's crazy to me it's absolutely crazy. It makes no sense.
I get it though, because people say, if you collect my DNA before
I'm convicted, that's a violation of my civil liberties. I hear that a
lot, and here's why it's not. And I love when people come with
these challenges because I've really studied. I was no forensic expert before this.
I don't if I was a younger girl that had a business. I mean
I ran astud, I had some, but not this come on. But
I just began to get fascinated with the database and learn why and study the
ins and outs of it. And COTIS, So if you don't mind me
going into this really quick, it's it's been around since nineteen ninety eight.
It leaked the local, state, and national DNA databases. Since nineteen ninety
eight, we have never had a breach into the database. Okay, now,
even if someone were to break into the database, all they would find
our numbers. So people think that cotis is like twenty three and meters ancestry
dot com and forensic geology is doing incredible things to solve crimes. It's amazing,
But that is not what this is. And I think this is important
to talk to and what codis is that is not it at all. So
what goes into CODIS is not your whole dnago made up of three billion markers.
So markers are two sets of numbers. Okay, so three billion of
those. That's all of our information. It wouldn't say in CODIS if I
were to get arrested for phony, wouldn't say that I am Lebanese, that
I have brown hair, if I'm predisposed to any genetic diseases. It wouldn't
say my siblings unless you have familial CODIS laws in place that allow that.
But that's not even what we're talking about. It wouldn't say even a name.
So the only thing it has it's an auto generated specimen ID number that
is given by the lab. So these numbers are so precise that there's twenty
to twenty four depending on the state. But it doesn't say any coding information.
The only thing you could tell, if you knew how to read it,
would be male or female. That's it. Okay. Now the second
part, you guys still with me? Yeah? Oh absolutely, yeah,
yeah, keep going so much. I love this stuff, so you just
stop me whenever. But okay, so the second part is where are the
names stored then, okay, So if there is an actual match into the
database of those numbers, the names are stored actually in an offline computer at
the state lab. So these are state the state owns. Holy what goes
into codis in the database. Okay, that's important too. So what happens
then, is there's a match, the name is kept in this offline computer,
they reaffirm, they retest. Okay, that is a match. So
the person that owns this computer, there's only a limited number of people that
have access to it. There are heavy fines of upwards to one hundreds some
states two hundred and fifty thousand dollars if you violate this and jail time if
you violate the privacy. They can release the name to the detectives working the
case. They can only use this DNA match is an investigative lead, so
they have to build their own case. They have to get a search warrant
for the arrest. For the second swab of DNA, they re swab,
they put it into codis and that if that matches, that is the DNA
that is in miss in court. So very protected and it's very accurate.
Now, if you are found not guilty for whatever reason, you're not guilty.
It is a federal law and requirement. You have to be able to
have your DNA completely expunged and destroyed from the database. So the Office of
the Inspector General does annual and random audits on the crime lab and again they
are heavy fines if it's violated. So I tell people, do you believe
in fingerprinting? And some of them say no, And I just say,
oh, I don't know what to tell you. But if you believe in
finger printing, then you should believe in this because it's even more accurate.
And why are we not maximizing this Because not only can it provide justice to
families like yours that are desperately waiting and not giving up hope, it can
prevent these crimes from happening to our children. It exonerates those that are wrongfully
in our prison and it protects the civil liberties and the privacy of those that
are arrested. Your DNA is not accessible by third parties. You can't look
it up, you can't be prohibited from getting a job having your DNA in
the database. The only thing that's public is your arrest record, and that's
going to be public, but your DNA it's not. Why is it that
there are so many violent offenders that just aren't in the CODA system. What
is the problem here, because this sounds like a great system. What is
going on that we're not having every violent offender put into codis? Please help
us understand that really crucial question. There's many reasons unfortunately that I keep finding
it learning more and more. But I like to look at these as opportunities
of growth, shed light so that we can work towards fixing them. For
one, the DNA collection laws, so states just aren't collecting unless it's a
conviction of a felony. That's not good. Honestly, we are missing the
bulk of these people. Okay, we have answers that can be given today
if we start to collect for all felony arrests. That's why I think a
good stepping stone is if your state's newer to it. But up north and
where y'all are, I'm really eager to get stuff going. I had I
have a billstone West Virginia, but it didn't go as well. In the
House. The Senate side, I have Snator Olavario, who's amazing. He's
resurrected it. He believes in it so much. He's such a fighter for
good and I'm so grateful to him no matter the outcome, because he's brought
it back to life. Pennsylvania have incredible sponsors Kentucky, but up north we
don't have a lot of this. It's all I have a map, and
I have it color coordinated, dark blue for all felony arrest, light blue
for violent felonies, and then white. And up north it's all white basically
because you only do conviction and these criminals they don't stay their lane or their
state. They are on the move, and so we need to do this.
We will solve so many crimes, so many So that's one area.
Another one is we have incredible technology at our fingertips as well as you all
know too. Whether it's there's different advancements with forensic genealogy. Again it's not.
I don't know as much about that, but I do know things.
I had a bill in Arkansas, we did a working group. There's technology
called rapid DNA technology. To give you some background, we have an issue.
I was shocked to find out the Department of Justice estimates that we are
missing her state between forty to fifty thousand samples of lawfully oed DNA or uncollected
offender DNA. So what does this mean. It means as the last stands
for conviction or for a violent filund arrest, or whatever your law is in
your state, we're missing, on average per state forty to fifty thousand samples.
Process that these are not just samples. These are violent repeat offenders,
and we could expose a lot of cases, but we have to be swabbing
for the DNA. It's just like the rape kit backlog. It's amazing.
There are all these organizations that have done great work, Joyful Heart Foundation rate
incredible things. But we can do all this work on clearing the backlog,
but if we're not utilizing the other side of the coin, the DNA database,
we will not get the hits. So we have to enhance our DNA
database so with lawfully Oh why does this happen? There's a multitude of reasons.
It's hard to pinpoint just one. One offender flees. Two, there's
unclear communication. They don't know that they're supposed to give their DNA. Three
Sometimes people are in prison and they're supposed to give their DNA after their prison
sentence. Okay, that makes sense to me. After so some people are
in there for twenty years and then you're just going to take their DNA.
Also, what if they're innocent, But think of the other crimes that you
can close the other offenses if you're collecting the DNA aut front. So we're
also missing them in prison. Some people aren't trained there, so they don't
know. There's miscommunication amongst agencies, and so these people are being missed in
the system. It breaks my heart and this is something that everyone should uncover.
And Alaska did their numbers and they're small population wise, and they had
twenty one thousand laslio DNA samples in Arkansas and I was there for the working
group which I'm going to retouch on. They had forty two thousand samples that
were missing. So the list goes on. This is a real issue and
we can't point fingers, but we need to say why is this happening?
And we need to make some solutions. Okay, one of the solutions.
It's just a tool too, but you have more updates and technology. There's
rapid DNA technology. Louisiana. I just got back from visiting there a few
months ago, and we just launched this in Arkansas. So it's a technology.
It looks like a print. Okay, it's a tiny size. If
you have the policy, which is to collect DNA upon arrest and booking,
so you have to be able to collect DNA when you're booking someone. You
can actually take a cheek swab when you take their fingerprints and their photographs,
you upload it into the national database and it counts down within ninety minutes,
it can turn green and if they are linked to any of the most violent
offenses unsolved in the disc nationwide, then we will know right away within twenty
four hours. It can search all of CODIS right now, we know it
can take weeks, months, sometimes years. You have the ability and again
these are just tools, right, but this could help with Laflo DNA because
they're not fleeing, and it can help make really good decisions on bail and
bond and things of that nature. It can exonerate people really quickly, So
there's that. There is also it's pretty disheartening to know that sometimes our CODIS
hits actually aren't followed up on. There's now a company that they have hit
tracking systems in so sometimes and again, whether it's from the lab side or
law enforcement, we're missing. There could be a ding, there's a a
linked A hit to codis like a violent homicide or sexual assault, and it
gets missed for whatever reason. And so I'm working on some legislation in a
few states to try to make an accountability process so that within five days of
finding the hit, the lab has to inform and vice versa. Because things
are just they're just so many loopholes, and we have great systems in place,
and we do have great people doing these jobs, and I've towarded some
of the most fantastic labs in the country. But we have to keep evolving
because this means that people will not have justice and they will sit when we
can find solutions, we can find answers, we can find the truth.
Do you think the CODAS system is irreparably broken? Is this too much damage
to fix or is there a way to make this system workable to the extent
that we can get justice for everybody who deserves it. I love CODAS because
it's how I think my story is a way of how it can work really
well. Right, we know that there are loops, but codis in itself
is one of the most powerful tools for law enforcement today. It's how we
are solving it. But the more we can enhance our DNA in the database,
this is where the loophole is for me. We have to continue to
enhance the DNA in the database in a just way. The more we continue
to enhance the DNA in the database, the more hits we're gonna get.
The right people will get the wrong people up the street will also save money.
This cares like to legislators. They want to know why is this important?
Doctor Jennifer Doli I did a great study. She's on a lot of
them. She's fantastic. If anyone wants to study more on arresting legislation and
the power of it, she's great. And she found that for every thirty
so the swab samples of the kits that you put into CODIS, they can
cost between thirty five to fifty dollars, depending on the state. For every
sample that's put into the CODIS, we prevent er point five to seven crimes.
Because of that crime prevention, the taxpayer sees twenty seven thousand dollars in
savings. I tell people, you save money, you save lives. Come
on, it's a way and you give justice to people. But the problem
is not Cotis the problem. Cotis is fantastic in my opinion, But the
problem is we are not getting the DNA that we need in da Kotis.
We're going to get more hits. The more we get it in there,
the more hits we're going to get. And tell me Jennifer's last name again,
the person that authored the study, doctor Jennifer Doliac dol Eac. She's
fantastic. Do you know why the rules for courtis seem to vary from state
to state? Why do we not have the same set of rules across all
fifty states? That just seems like that would be a really good place to
start for all of us, so that we're all on even footing. Let's
all have the same rules for every single state. What's the deal on that.
That's a great question. State law. You have to do it state,
but in UK they do it UK it's federal and federally. If you're
arrested for any crime at the federal level like that, your DNA is taken,
so it it's federally you are you do that. You have to do
this, but state to state, I wish I had the end. I
think a lot of the constituents, okay, and maybe even a lot of
listeners think, don't we already do this? Don't we already collect in it?
If you're arrested, don't you do that? But no, we don't.
It's a tough battle. It really is still to see the map and
to see so many states fighting to not have DNA, which I think is
a totally protected It's just it's a great system. It can help eliminate racial
bias because we're not talking. If there's no coding information, it's not a
photo way d I have a friend James Tillman, James Calvin Tillman, if
you want to look him up and be inspired. But his story is horrible.
We met at the California Department of Justice speaking on the power of DNA.
He was victimized in a way that I can't imagine. He was a
young boy. I think he was like eighteen or nineteen and his mom was
making a mistake and there's a knock at the door and you hear him tell
the story and it just breaks your heart. The steak is sizzling and they
say, mister Tillman, come with us. You're arrested for the rape of
this woman, and he says, Mom, hold my steake, I didn't
do it. Eighteen years later, eighteen of his life. Actually, the
man that committed the rape was imprisoned at one time with them and knew that
mister Tillman was serving time for this rape. And this guy did it,
okay. So eighteen years he wrote a book on the power of conviction and
faith and forgiveness. I don't know how he did that, but the Connecticut
Innocent Project kept pushing test the DNA they hadn't tested it. Finally tested it
and exonerated him. But after all that time, he was the very first
person to be exonerated by DNA in the state of Connecticut. So this is
what I'm saying. We have good systems in place, but we are not
utilizing them. There's so many loopholes we have to fix them. Even recently
in the Colonial Parkway murders. Our big break came because a Sexual Assault Kit
Initiative grant was applied for by the Department of Forensic Science and the Virginia State
Police, which is something we've been asking for for a number of years.
They finally get the grant. They run the tests and they identify Alan Wade
Wilmer Senior as the offender in one of the double homicides in the Colonial Parkway
murders. So Robin Edwards and David Nobling's killer is identified, and then at
the same time, in checking other unsolved cases in the area, they discover
that this man is also responsible for the nineteen eighty nine murder of Teresa Howell.
So this is another situation where if we conduct DNA testing, we find
that we can identify offenders and hopefully more cases will be solved. This man's
never going to prison. He died in twenty seventeen. But as Kristin and
I have said many times on the podcast, getting answers is incredibly important when
you've been waiting, in some cases more than thirty years for answers in these
unsolved homicides, incredibly important. And I can't even imagine. I can't imagine
just the pain of that. It's unimaginable. I'm so sorry. And we
might not be able to stop every crimeer solve, but we can solve a
lot of them by testing this evidence. We can the DNA is it's key,
it's DNA is science, it's accurate, it's truth, and yes,
you have to I had a great you have to have the whole investigation with
it. But it's such a good, solid system we have to continue to
maximize it. We just do, we will be able to close a lot
of these cases out. So a good example of this isn't with the arreste
legislation. So Texas, my home state, we in twenty nineteen when it
got across, it was pretty divisive, honestly hard. It was hard to
get past, and I was still new, pretty new at the time to
this. I still am in the scheme of things. But you learn quick
when you're thrown in the fire with legislators. Let me tell you about So
we got it across from twenty nineteen for certain violent felonies and burglary. So
in the first year of that we closed over two hundred and thirty cases that
were cold. Twenty twenty one, fast forward, over six hundred and forty
cases cold cases closed through this. So we go back huge, So we
go back. The proof is in the numbers. We're saving lives, We're
closing cases. A lot. We solve violent homicides that were cold cases,
sexual assaults of children. So you see that it's working. You have an
uprund investment from the state that we're actually saving money because we're getting the right
people, we're closing out the case. The time is the time that it
is put into these cases and what it costs. So we're doing that.
Then we go back and I expected to have because it's traditionally a little bit
more. I don't know why, it's more what do you say, has
a little more drama behind it. People fight over it, the DNA legislation.
It just does. So I was surprised and so grateful to see everyone
voted it through. I didn't have anyone come to testify against it. We
were actually were allocated fourteen million dollars in funding from Governor Abbott just to get
this program launched because they saw that it works. So the proof is in
the system. Texas was a state that cares tremendously. They still do with
several liberties right, but this they realize this is not affecting at all.
In fact, we are closing cases, we're saving money, we're saving lives.
Like it's a win. I love to share that because it shows the
proof it works. And that's why I tell states that I try to get
this legislation pass start here. Then if anything start with certain violent felonies and
burglars, we're still not going to get them, all right, because they're
doing my guy resisting the officer, But you're going to start to get more
and then people develop trust in the system. They see it. We're going
to give justice to people that are waiting for it. It just it works
ashually. This is amazing work that you're doing. And obviously you have a
lot of passion behind this, which is so admirable. And I'm really in
awe of you right now. What is next for you in terms of projects?
What to the next couple of months and probably I'm imagining you're scheduled out
the next couple of years looking like for you, I'm just riding the wave
of higher power you could have never found. I could have never picked this
out to be my life in the first place. But I'm going to keep
fighting. It's been an emotional legislative session and that's why are so sweet,
because you have to fight and lose. I lose a lot in this and
it always breaks my heart a little bit, to be honest, and it's
raw and it's real and it can be very lonely on the road, but
I'm doing it. I hope one day that we get your sister's perpetrator.
That's going to be a life mission of mine too, because they're good people
out there fighting, and so I'm going to keep up this fight wherever it
takes me. Hopefully we'll have some success with some states up north getting some
legislation passed, and I'm just going to keep trying to educate along the way.
Ashley Spence of the DNA Justice Project, thank you so much for joining
us today and sharing your story. It is very painful, but so ultimately
heartening and inspiring. So thank you for taking the time to be with us
today. It is my true honor. Thank you so much. And where
can we find you online if we're more, if we're interested in learning more
about the DNA Justice Project. Yes, I have. I'm a one woman
show, so I don't judge. I have a website DNA Justice Project dot
org. Social media. I do that and I do more updated on what's
going on legislatively, news and things of that nature, and you can follow
me there as well. I would be really grateful. And that's about it,
all right. Ashley. Thank you so much. Thank y'all so much
for joining us for this episode of mind Ever Murder. We'll see you next
time. Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions.
Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is
by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud. Mind Over Murder
is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook,
Twitter, or Instagram. You can also follow our page on the Colonial
Parkway Murders on Facebook, and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter
at Bill Thomas. Five six. Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.