Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Mind of a Murderer.
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're.
Speaker 3: Joined today by Lindsay Wade, author of In My DNA,
My Career Investigating Your Worst Nightmares. Lindsay, thank you for
being here today.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me back.
Speaker 3: Before we get into our discussion on the reason we
wanted you to speak with us today, which is the
Codis Gap, we wanted to go ahead and extend our
congratulations on the fact that your book has been nominated
as one of the best true crime books of the
Year at the Crime con Clue Awards.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much. I'm very excited about that. I
was very surprised to receive that nomination. Yes, I'm just
happy to be in good company.
Speaker 2: So how did you find out that in My Dna
was named one of the top true crime books of
the year. Now by the time we air this episode,
they will have announced who won the grand prize. It
is truly an honor to be nominated. So how did
you find out about it?
Speaker 5: I got an email, and yes, got an email.
Speaker 6: From Crime con or I guess actually from the Clue
Awards technically letting me know that my book was one
of five finalists for the category Book of the Year.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I was pretty blown away.
Speaker 6: And they want to be like frantically reading all the
other books in the group, because I want to read
everybody's book before I get there.
Speaker 5: Sorry, no, I'm dealing with it.
Speaker 3: We're very excited. You know that you're in that amazing
group of people because it is a pretty heady category
and lots of really wonderfully accomplished people and of course
my most important question at the moment is what are
you planning to wear to the Clue Awards? Because we've
all been invited, So what are you planning to wear?
Speaker 5: Funny you should ask, because I have no idea.
Speaker 6: I probably have a couple of different things that I'm
going to bring, But I guess I'll just depend on
how bloated I am or whatever that day as to what.
Speaker 2: This is such a women's discussion. Like Kristin asked me
earlier today what I was wearing to the Clue Awards.
Speaker 3: And I did ask you, Yes, I did.
Speaker 2: Quite frankly, being a guy, I hadn't thought about it
in the least.
Speaker 5: Yes, women have to do.
Speaker 6: There's a lot more of a process into it for
the ladies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'm also I probably.
Speaker 5: Will wear a dress of some kind nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bring a couple. I had a couple with me
last year and I finally decided on my favorite. But Bill,
I gotta tell you, you know that Paul Holes and
Matt Murphy have put a lot of thought into what
there were into the Clue Awards, So you're gonna have
to step up your game a little bit.
Speaker 2: I'm not even attempting to compete at the level of
Paul Holes or Matt Murphy, who are both of whom
are big time true crime sex symbols. If we're still
allowed to use that expression.
Speaker 3: Lindsay, before we get started talking about the Codis gap,
very quickly, remind our listeners a little bit about your
background as an investigator.
Speaker 6: Sure, so, my background is law enforcements. I'm a retired
detective out of Washington State. Spent twenty one years with
the Tacoma Police Department. Fourteen of those years I spent
as a detective, primarily worked sexual assault pieces, missing persons,
homicide cases, child and bease cases, and then when I retired,
I was the cold case detective when I retired from
my agency, and then I went to work for the
Attorney General of our state for.
Speaker 5: Just under five years, just under five years as an.
Speaker 6: Investigator, working on a sexual assault kit initiative and then
worked on some other We have a unit within the
Attorney General's office which is called HITS, which is the
Homicide Investigation and Tracking System Unit, and that was actually
started by Bob Keppel. For any true crime fans that name,
so Bob started that unit. Now I'm just in the
private sector, still keeping my finger on the pulse of
what's going on in the world of crime.
Speaker 2: So how did you get your start with the Tacoma
Police Department. Is this something when you were a kid
you thought, I want to be an investigator, I want
to be a detective.
Speaker 6: I actually knew when I was in high school that
I wanted to be a detective. And I actually was
inspired by reading and We're book The Stranger Beside Me
as I think I was a sophomore in high.
Speaker 5: School and I was hooked at that point, and I guess.
Speaker 6: I was a true crime nerd before that was the
thing when it was still really weird and awkward and
you didn't talk about that kind of stuff. I knew
from that point on. And I had a friend in
school her dad was a police officer, so I was
exposed on the periphery, so to speak to a little
bit of police work, police life. I had another friend,
family friend who was a police officer. Then I did
an internship with the police department when I was in
college with a female sergeant. Yeah, like everything I did
along the way, it was like it just made me
more and more certain that this was what I wanted
to do, and this was the job I wanted. And
then when I was in college, I was actually in
my junior year of college and I got hired by
the police department.
Speaker 5: I had taken the written.
Speaker 6: Task and gone through the whole process of the physical
and the psychological.
Speaker 5: And the medical and everything you have to do, and
they offered me a job.
Speaker 6: And so I ended up putting school to go work
for the police department at the ripe old age of
twenty one, and went to the police academy, And luckily,
the police department actually did tuition reimbursement, so I was
able to go back and finish my degree later on
after I was a detective.
Speaker 3: Very cool. So you wrote a really fascinating article called
DNA's Delayed Justice, the fight to fill the gaps in Codis,
which really resonated with the two of us in light
of our own interests both within the crime and justice
space and of course the Colonial Parkway murders. What prompted
you to sit down and write this particular article at
this particular time.
Speaker 6: Wow, there was a recent cold case that was solved
as a result of getting DNA into Codis from a
long forgotten, really bad guy who was executed in Washington
date back in nineteen ninety four. As a result of
finally getting his DNA into COTIS, a cold case from
nineteen seventy five was resolved. This is a topic that
I've been very interested in and I would say slightly
obsessed with since about twenty eleven when I first stumbled
across this issue. Over the years have found example after
example of really scary guys, really violent offenders, who for
one reason or another, slipped through the cracks and were
not ever in the DNA database for the purpose of
solving cases. Most recent example just it's like a culination
of many years of all these different cases and then
here's this latest example, and I thought it was definitely
worthy of getting the word out to law enforcement, specifically
to hopefully make people take notice and take a look
at what's going on in their own jurisdictions. That this
particular case would not have been solved without changing legislation
in Washington State, and so that was necessary to even
get this person's DNA into CODIS.
Speaker 5: So that was one of the piece of it.
Speaker 6: There were just so many factors and so much work
over many years to get the but I think it's
just a really great example of what can be done
and hopefully a model that.
Speaker 5: Other states could use to do the same kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Let's tell me about the case a little bit first,
before we get to the long and very worthwhile effort
that you and others put into actually changing the law
in Washington State. So tell us a little bit more
about the case itself and how this ended up moving
on to your radar as an investigator.
Speaker 6: Really, I knew about the offender. I didn't know about
the victim. So it's like a backwards way of working
the case. That's really how it happened in this instance,
because I became aware of the offender in this case
many years ago, and he was like my poster.
Speaker 5: Child for Hey, everybody, pay attention.
Speaker 6: We need to make some changes in codis because this
is a problem. So when I would go down to Olympia,
our state capital, and testify in front of various committees
about changing our DNA law, I would always use him
as my primal example of this really heinous offender that
slipped through the cracks and is currently not in cotis.
Speaker 5: Knowing about him, and this is what I learned about him.
I was reviewing. Actually, I was working on a cold case,
and I was reviewing a list.
Speaker 6: Of convicted offenders that were not in Cotis and he
was one name on that list. And what really caught
my attention initially was that when I looked in the
status column, this is like an Excel spreadsheet that I
was reviewing, and the status column that said executed, And
so I was like, that's interesting. And I could see
that he had three convictions for aggravated first degree murder,
which is the highest level of murder that you could
be convicted of in my state.
Speaker 5: And so I thought, this is interesting.
Speaker 6: I really I want to dig into this guy and
find out what he actually did, because this is scary
that he's not in co And so I went down
the rabbit hole looking at his criminal history, googling, looking
at basically anything I could get my hands on to
try to get a handle on who this person was.
Speaker 5: And what I came to learn was that he was
a career criminal.
Speaker 6: He had committed a stranger sexual assault back in nineteen
seventy four, he had gone to prison, and even though
he was sentenced to thirty years in prison, he was
out in less than six years.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we both were just like horrified when we read that, like,
how in the world does a thirty year sentence turn
into six years and the guys out on work release.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and unfortunately that was not uncommon during those times.
Speaker 5: Back in the seventies and eighties, it was.
Speaker 6: Not uncommon for people to get sentenced to really long
sentences and be.
Speaker 5: Out in five years or less. But that's a different matter.
Speaker 6: Nevertheless, he was released, the victim wasn't notified that he
was released from prison, and he actually was being in
a halfway house very close to where she lived. And
so within less than a year of him being on
work release, he returned to her home and murdered her.
Speaker 5: Her eight year old daughter, and her neighbor.
Speaker 6: It was probably one of the most outrageous and shocking
crimes that really ever occurred in Washington State. It really
just horrified people. He was arrested very soon after. I
don't think it took a rocket scientist to figure out
who did it. He was ultimately convicted of the three
murders and he was put to death. He was actually
the last person in Washington State to be hanged in
nineteen ninety four. So learning all of that history, I thought, Okay,
this is a really dangerous predatory offender.
Speaker 5: He's not in COTIS.
Speaker 6: So I thought, Okay, I'm going to start I'm going
to find a sample for this guy, and he needs
to be in the system. And part of my thought
process when I would look at these cases was maybe
this will solve the cases.
Speaker 5: That I'm working on.
Speaker 6: Maybe person's DNA will help solve these other cases. So
that was always in my mind when I was looking
at these kinds of offenders. And I knew that this
particular offender was not going to be responsible for the
two cases that I was investigating from eighty six because
he was already in custody by that point, but I
still thought he could be responsible for other BOLD.
Speaker 5: Cases, so he really needs to be in the database.
Speaker 6: So I started doing some checking and was really excited
to find out that there actually was either a blood
card or a tissue block available at the Medical Examiner's
office from his autopsy, and so I got all excited.
Speaker 5: I called a.
Speaker 6: Time lab just to be told that he didn't qualify
to go into Cotis.
Speaker 2: Now let's just stop for a second. We're both like
making the OMFG face here. How in the world does
someone this heinus who's already been convicted of rape and
now gets out of prison on work release, tracks down
the woman that he attacked before brutally kills her, her
eight year old daughter, and their neighbor who was also
a witness. How in the world is that guy's DNA
not in the system in Washington State.
Speaker 6: The reason he wasn't in the system already is because
he was convicted before there were even DNA laws. He
was convicted before anybody was using DNA and criminal investigations.
Speaker 5: However, the real issue was that he.
Speaker 6: Didn't qualify to go in in twenty eleven or whenever
it was that I found his name.
Speaker 5: He didn't qualify to go into the database for the
same reasons.
Speaker 6: He was convicted before the law went into effect, he
died before it became retroactive for inmates, and so basically
he fell into this loophole or gap in the system.
Speaker 2: So yet another example of the CODIS gap. If you
don't mind spend a minute or two explaining for us,
were civilians right and what the CODIS gap means?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And unfortunately there's not just one gap.
Speaker 6: There are lots of different reasons why offenders are missing
from the database. Some of those are legislative issues that
have to be corrected.
Speaker 5: Some of them are policy issues.
Speaker 6: Some of them are just because they were just missed
and no one has gone back and taken a look
at who actually owes DNA and their jurisdiction and how
do we get it collected. For a lot of states,
the way that the law is written for DNA collection
is extremely convoluted. Sometimes I think it was written that
way on purpose so that there could be lots of
different ways to get that DNA into collected and into
the system. But when you do that and you don't
lay out a specific path that needs to be taken,
any specific person who's responsible, then what happens. Everybody points
the finger at somebody else right now their responsibility, No,
your responsibility.
Speaker 5: To do it.
Speaker 6: You will collect it when they get to prison. Oh no,
you'll get it at the jail. Oh I thought you
were to collect it in the courtroom. And these are
all places where people's DNA theoretically could be taken, and
oftentimes everyone assumes somebody else did it, and then it
doesn't get done.
Speaker 3: Is there some reason why they can't take it in
all three places? Just to make sure that they've covered
their bases. I feel like there needs to be a
flow chart here. But I'm also wondering, why don't we
have multiple redundancies worked into the system just in case
I forgot it at the courtroom. Don't worry. We've got
it at the jail cell and we've got it elsewhere too.
Speaker 6: That's a good question, and I would say that the
reason not that I agree with this, but the reason
that most jurisdictions wouldn't want to collect it multiple times
is because it's the drain on resources. Even the collection
kits to collect the sample. You would think it's just
like a cute tip, and that's not actually what happens
when you collect a convicted of fender sample. There's a
bit more that goes into it, to include taking fingerprints,
documenting what the qualifying offense was. There's a little bit
more that goes into it, and there's a cost associated
with those kits. I think that's part of the issue.
But bigger problem, in my opinion, is that we just
have too many points along the way where someone can
be missed. As you said, there needs to be a
flow chart, and unfortunately everybody in the.
Speaker 5: Criminal justice system doesn't follow the same path. When they
are convicted, right.
Speaker 6: Some people, when they are convicted for qualifying events, go
to jail. Some people go to prison, some people get
home monitoring, some people get probation. So depending on what
their path is will oftentimes dictate when and if their
sample is collected.
Speaker 2: One of the things that really shocked me in the article,
which and will include a copy of your link to
your article in the show notes for this episode, was
the fact that in some jurisdictions there seems to be
a policy that offenders only give their DNA when they're
being released from prison. So they've gone in, they've served
their sentence, they're being released back out into the community,
hopefully not to reoffend. Yet that's the time their DNA
is often taken. And that seems completely backwards to us.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, do you want to go track somebody down
after you've released him if you get a hit and
now we'll find them again. No, And that is an
old school mentality, and that's an old school policy to
collect DNA upon release. I hope that most correctional facilities
are not doing that any longer, but that certainly was
the standard and the norm back earlier on when DNA
laws were first being implemented, and I don't really coming
from a cold case investigator perspective, I don't understand what
kind of sense that makes. Just like you pointed out,
I think their thought process was we'll get it before
they leave, and they're not hurting anybody while they're in here,
so it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: And I push back on this a lot as the
family of a murder victim. Right, it isn't just about
he's about to re enter society, hopefully to be successful
and not be continuing his criminal ways. But for you,
as an invent investigator, to find out that he's already
out back in the community, possibly reoffending, versus when you're
working in an investigation actively and going through a cold case.
Wouldn't it make a heck of a lot more sense
if you said, I think my guy is Joe Smith,
and Joe Smith is at such and such prison, and
I can go visit with him and reconfirm via DNA
that I've got the right guy, or maybe I should
be looking for another Joe Smith.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 6: Yeah, A controlled environment is definitely the better solution there.
Once someone is released, you don't know where they're going
to go or what's going to happen or what they're
going to do after their release. Collecting at the time
of release is not a great solution, in opinion.
Speaker 3: One of the things I was really interested in when
I read your article is the fact that Ted Bundy's
DNA isn't in cotis. That kind of blew my mind?
How did that happen? He is probably one of the
most notorious serial killers of our times. Does he not
have his DNA and codis? That really just clowsed my mind? Yes,
so that.
Speaker 6: Blew my mind as well, And that was another For
some reason, twenty eleven was the year for me to
learn about all these crazy things happening, and Ted Bundy
was at the top.
Speaker 5: Of the list that year of shockers.
Speaker 6: I think before that I just assumed that if you're
a serial pillar, your DNA is going to be in
the national database for the purpose of linking cases together.
But that's not necessarily the case. Really, it goes back
to a lot of these guys that were operating in
the seventies, eighties, even the nineties. They probably were convicted
before a DNA law was even on the books in
their jurisdiction, and depending on the state and depending on
what their policies and procedures were and what their DNA
statute says. The prison officials may not have ever gone
back and collected from these guys if they were already
locked up when the prison started routinely collecting samples from inmates.
And this is this is very common to see offenders
that went in before the DNA laws even went into effect.
Speaker 5: They just got forgotten about. Now. There are even some.
Speaker 6: States that actually are not allowed to go back and
collect DNA samples from individuals today who were locked up
before the DNA law went into effect, you know. And
so unless there's specific language in the statute about retroactivity,
they don't qualify.
Speaker 2: This is the sort of thing that makes me insane.
Oh yes, I know, and I've talked to law enforcement
officials about this. This isn't just about convicting people. This
is also about providing answers. And I know how victim
centric you are and how family focused you are. The
fact that there are offenders, including people that are rapists
and murderers and multiple offenders and serial killers whose DNA
is not in the KODA system, Kristen said. Ted Bundy
obviously is the super high profile example, but you actually
worked to get his DNA Bundy's DNA into the system
even though he was in Florida and you're all the
way in Washington State. How did that work?
Speaker 5: Believe it or not.
Speaker 6: Our oldest cold case on the books in Tacoma is
the nineteen sixty one abduction of Anne Marie Bird. She
was an eight year old who went missing from her
home in the middle of the night in Tacoma. If
her case is still unsolved today, she's never been found
ted Bundy came onto the scene as a suspect in
her case after he was revealed to be who he was.
He was also born and raised in Tacoma. He also
lived in the North End of Tacoma, and there were
lots of wild rumors he was her paper boy, they
knew each other.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 6: None of that stuff is true. But the fact of
the matter is he was a high profile serial killer
living in Tacoma at the time this went missing. He
of course was a suspect in her case. Now, he
was only fourteen at the time that she went missing,
and there's lots of debate about whether or not he
actually could have done it. But aside from that, I thought, Okay,
we're going to be re examining this cold case. We're
going to be sending things out to the crime lab
for testing. Do we even have anything to compare too
if we get some DNA evidence from this crime scene,
from these crime scene items that.
Speaker 5: Were collected in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 6: And so I started making calls again and quickly found
out No, Ted Bundy's DNA is not in CODIS in
Washington because he's not been convicted of any crimes in Washington.
Even though he confessed to eleven murders in Washington, he
was never convicted for any in Washington, so he doesn't
qualify for CODIS in Washington. But he was convicted in Florida,
and that's where he was ultimately executed. So I ended
up contacting authorities in Florida. Contacted a medical examiner's office
where he was had his autopsy for he was executed.
They had tried to do DNA testing at one point,
but it was the old style RFLP DNA testing, which
does look back to COTIS. It's a different type of testing,
and they didn't have anything left to do current DNA
testing using STRs.
Speaker 5: So then it was like Okay, who else can I call?
Speaker 6: So I ended up calling the Florida State COTIS administrator, so,
like every state has basically a manager of their CODIS database.
So I call him and he tells me that he
gets called several times a year from detectives asking him
the same question from all over the country. Is Ted
Bundy's DNA and CODIS? His answer was no, it's not.
And so I'm like, Okay, this.
Speaker 5: Is the problem. So how do we fix this? How
do we find a sample?
Speaker 6: So we put our heads together and came up with
basically some a strategy for locating a sample. I decided
that I was going to reach out to Ann Rule
here in Washington, because had of course had read her books,
and I knew that she had written Bundy in prison
and he had written her, and I knew that she
kept the letters that he wrote her with stamp Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Interesting, thought, wow wow.
Speaker 6: And so I was like, I don't know, it probably
won't qualify for CODIS, but even if we could get
a profile to do a keyboard search or a one
to one comparison, we can be better than the things that.
So I met with Ann Role, got to have lunch
with her, wow, which was really cool.
Speaker 5: She signed my book The Stranger Beside Me.
Speaker 2: Which you go which is one of the reasons why
you got into the field in the first place.
Speaker 6: And then she handed me multiple letters and envelopes that
she had been keeping in her safe for all these years,
and so I took those back to the police department,
and my intent was to send those.
Speaker 5: Out to the crime lab. At the same time, the
CODIS administrator in.
Speaker 6: Florida had located these wax molds of Bundy's teeth. So
after he got arrested for the Kyomega murders, they took
wax molds of his teeth because he had those unusual
He had very unusual teeth, but there were bite marks
on at least one of the victims. They still had
the wax molds of his teeth at the crime lab.
Speaker 5: Apparently they have like a Bundy museum of sorts. At
the crime lab. They had these wax molds.
Speaker 6: He attempted to swab those and potentially get a profile
from the wax molds, but he didn't get enough of
a profile to develop for CODIS. But he was able
to somehow locate a vial of Bundy's blood that had
been collected in nineteen seventy eight at the time of
the rest in Pensacola, and it was in a safe
in a clerk's office at a room temperature.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, this was sitting in a
refrigerator somewhere, right.
Speaker 6: Refrigerator, a room temperature safe in Florida since nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, let's me an ideal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's not going to be good at black
is going to be.
Speaker 2: Completely broken down.
Speaker 6: So he wasn't hopeful that he was going to be
able to get anything from it. But miraculously, while the
blood itself in the bile was not going to be
worth anything, there was dried blood on the lid of
the vacuue tanner. He was able to flake off a
couple of little pieces of dried blood.
Speaker 5: Wow, there's enough there to get a full profile.
Speaker 2: It worked, surely, Cow.
Speaker 6: Then the profile was entered into Florida's database and that's
where it was going to stay because he didn't qualify
to go into the national database.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, yeah, this makes no sense. We're both
looking at each other like what Yeah.
Speaker 5: That's what I said. So I'm like, this is good I'm.
Speaker 6: Glad that he's in Florida's database, but that doesn't go
if he's not in the national database. Let's say he
committed a homicide or sexual assault in Washington and we've
got evidence on a case in Washington that doesn't meet
the criteria to make it up to the national database,
will never get a match. And basically, after some legal
wrangling with the INDUS Custodian and US IS the national
D and DA database, it was decided that the sample
would go into the national database in the legal index.
Speaker 5: So he is not in the offender index. He's in
the legal index.
Speaker 6: However, he's still the legal index still searches against the
crime scene or forensic index.
Speaker 5: So that's basically what we need.
Speaker 6: We need his profile to be searching against crime scene profiles.
Speaker 5: And it is now as.
Speaker 2: Of twenty twelve, 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. Before we get back to
the podcast, just wanted to remind you that we have
a go fundme effort going on right now. This campaign
is designed to help us raise funds to help promote
mind over murder, and specifically to push the Colonial Parkway
murders investigation forward. We'd love it if you could support
us in any way that you can. Any donation from
five dollars to whatever you can afford is very much
appreciated and will be incredibly helpful. The link is in
the show notes and in our social media pages. As always,
thanks for your support. Now back to mindover Murder.
Speaker 3: So I don't understand why do CODIS laws and policies
vary from state to state. Wouldn't it just make more sense.
Do you have one set of national policies and that
way we are all on the same page one hundred
percent of the time or I don't know. Am I
thinking about it too simplistically? It just it seems like
the obvious answer would be yes, it's better to have
one set of policies. Why are we doing fifty states
fifty policies.
Speaker 6: I think the reason is because every state gets to
make their own laws, and CODIS rules are directly related
to the laws in that particular state. One state can
do certain things, another state cannot. Some states take DNA
upon arrest, and some states like mine do not. Every
state because they all have different laws with regard to
who owes a DNA sample. That makes it very convoluted
and very complicated because every state then has a different
standard for who can be entered into the database.
Speaker 2: I'm going to chime in here and say, this is insane,
the fact that we have allowed this system to develop.
This makes no sense whatsoever. Offenders offend all over the place.
And the Bundy example that we just spoke about, which
was fascinating, but I had forgotten that he had lived
in Tacoma, Washington, and yet I associate him with offenses
in other parts of the country. And of course we
know the story about Florida because we've talked with Kathy
Klina Rubin about surviving Ted Bondy's attack when she was
a college student in Florida. This makes no sense. And
I'll go a step further.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm not a professional, and Kristen isn't either, but I
am the brother of a murder victim. It's my intention
to pivot. When we solve the Colonial Parkway murders, it's
my intention to pivot to this larger issue of two
hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides across the United States.
This is so so half asked as to not be believed.
We're not running the country like a real country. You
can't have fifty different sets of rules. We need one
set of rules for the entire country. And quite frankly,
I think the databases should all be shared as well.
I thought that was the idea of CODIS. It feels
to me like we need to revamp this entire system.
I can't believe that every single state Virginia in the
Colonial Parkway murders example, every state has a different set
of rules and parameters. As Kristin was saying, this is insane.
Speaker 6: It's very complicated, and I completely understand your frustration because
I've lived at I can't even tell you how many
times I just felt like banging my head against a
wall because things that seem like constants are not necessarily
and unfortunately, what it's going to take is legislation. That's
the bottom line is it's going to take either some
type of federal legislation to mandate that all the states
have the same rules, or it's going to each individual
state is going to have to amend their DNA collection
statutes so that everyone's on the same page. And honestly,
you can't even get all the states to agree on
collecting DNA upon arrest.
Speaker 2: So I think we need one set of rules, and
I think the lack of leadership by the Department of
Justice here is shocking. For God's sake, develop one set
of parameters and these will oversee what should be a
federal system. You can't have one set of rules in
Oklahoma and a different set of rules in Tennessee or
Washington State and Florida. It just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately.
Speaker 6: Yeah, every state has their own DNA database, and so
I don't know if you're really familiar with how cotis works,
but cotis is a software That's what cotis is. It's
a software program the DNA database itself. There are multi
levels of what we call codis, So there's oftentimes states
will have local levels of cotis where maybe their individual
crime labs have a database within the state, and then
they've got their ESTIE database, which is their state database,
and then.
Speaker 5: There's the national database.
Speaker 6: And so the samples that are in the state database,
if they meet their criteria, they can be uploaded to
the national database and then they can be searched against
other profiles that are in the National database, so that
the only DNA database that the FBI controls is the
National DNA database. The other ones are controlled by the states. Now,
they still have to abide by COTIS rules which are
set forth by the FBI, but again they have to
abide by.
Speaker 5: Their own state laws as to whose DNA can go
into the system.
Speaker 6: And I mentioned earlier that there are samples that don't
meet the requirement to go into the national database.
Speaker 5: That's something that I don't think most people know.
Speaker 6: We're understand there are some cases, both offender samples and
crime scene evidence samples.
Speaker 5: That don't make it into the national database.
Speaker 6: And this is because the sample may they may not
have obtained enough core low side or locations on the
genome identified when they did the DNA testing to upload
it to the national database. Most state DNA databases have
a lower threshold and a lower number of core low
side that they have to obtain in order to enter
that profile into their state level.
Speaker 5: But once you go up to national the standard.
Speaker 6: Is higher, right because you have more profiles, so you
have to be more discerning with those profiles. That's something
that even a lot of investigators don't understand when they're
working cold cases is when someone tells you, oh, yes,
the profiles and code is, you should be asking.
Speaker 3: Where one level lindsay, I feel like we need to
sit down at crime kind and come up with a
flow chart that shows all of these different levels of it,
because even now you've just explained and it's so beautifully,
but it's I'm not going to be able to retain
this because there's not because of the way that you've
explained it or anything like that, but just because it
is head spinning. It just seems so counterintuitive. It really
does feel like it should be the national database and
the state databases feed into it. You're saying that it
doesn't work like that, and that's making me go, but
why it's I'm sure that's very frustrating.
Speaker 5: It is, and it's I would say more than I
think at this point.
Speaker 6: As a as an investigator, you just have to really
educate yourself. If you're going to work cold cases, you
better understand how CODIS works and understand that just because
you have a suspect that's in prison doesn't mean they're
in CODUS. Just because your suspects in CODIS doesn't mean
they're at.
Speaker 5: The national level of CODIS.
Speaker 6: Just because your crime setne evidence is in CODIS, it
doesn't mean it's at the national level of CODIS. They
need to understand, like how do I confirm that? How
do I find this out?
Speaker 5: And then if it's not, how do I what do
I do about it?
Speaker 3: So theoretically, is there a way to get one hundred
percent of all offenders currently incarcerated into CODIS. Is there
a way to do this or is it just not
going to work the way that we optimistically want it to.
Speaker 5: That's a trick question, Chris, because.
Speaker 3: Not intentional, not intentionally at all, Like this is from
a civilian standpoint, someone who wants the best for victims.
That my question is, why can't we go through and
just swab everybody and toss them all in there? I'm
guessing that isn't the answer, though theoretically.
Speaker 5: We should be able to do that.
Speaker 6: It really depends and I hate to go back to
the state, but it depends on that particular state's law
if their laws retroactive. So that's one hurdle, and then
two is actually getting somebody to go back and count
doesn't take legislation, it doesn't take anything special. It just
takes someone to go back and actually do a census
or a survey to identify. Okay, I want a list
of everybody in prison in our state, and then we're
going to cross reference that against the code of database
and find out who's in there and who's not.
Speaker 5: That's not rocket science.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I can tell you.
Speaker 5: That that's not happening.
Speaker 6: This has not yet been identified as a major issue nationally.
Speaker 2: I'm making the aha face because I actually think we've
talked with you about this before, We've talked with Rock
Harmon and other experts about this. I actually think we
need to steer this in a direction where this becomes
a national conversation. The other thing is I've said on
Mind over Murder and Kristen has two the fact that
there are two hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides,
which maybe a conservative number, even that is not something
that's well known in our opinion, and it should be
a national scandal because we've all watched these procedurals on TV,
which are fun to watch, but as we all know,
not terribly realistic. We've all been sold a bill of goods,
which is that we think that crimes are solved quickly
and easily in state of the art labs with lots
of colored water or something going up and down with bubbles,
and exceptionally well dressed and often quite lovely people, both
women and men, solving all of these cases in forty
eight minutes or less. And yet you're here to tell
us that's not the reality.
Speaker 6: No, I fully understand where you're coming from. On the
cold cases. Why do we not have a national cold
case database?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yes, great question.
Speaker 3: We agree, and I will give Virginia mad props here.
Virginia just started a cold case database. Hats off to
them for doing it. The issue that I have found, though,
is someone who goes scrolling through the cold case database
here in Virginia on the regular is it is almost
impossible to use. It is very hard to search. It
is even when you put in the names of people
that you know to be victims, they don't always come up.
Not every cold case is in there, and we don't
have a really good explanation for why that might or
might not be. I love the idea of a national
cold case database, but if it is done, boy, I
hope it's going to be managed a little bit better
and made a little more user friendly than some of
the ones that I know were at the various state levels.
Speaker 6: But honestly waiting to get Amazon to build it, right,
because all you have to do is just look at
your Amazon car and it knows what you're searching for.
Speaker 5: So basically you just have to talk.
Speaker 6: About Amazon, and now you've got all these these suggestions
about things you might like.
Speaker 5: That's basically what you need your cold case database to do. Right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're searching for this person that's going to give
you a list automatically of other cases that potentially might
be associated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, seriously, the people who run Amazon need to be
doing all of this stuff like. They've clearly got it together.
They have somehow managed to optimize it. We need this
as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's because our phones listen to our conversations and
then suddenly start suggesting things. Yes, but perhaps we should
talk more loudly in the kitchen sometime about the fact
that we need a national cold case database.
Speaker 6: Yes, exactly, and maybe that's a good I was trying
to think. I don't know who else going to be
at crime con but there have to be some movers
and shakers and people there that can make something like
this happen. I don't know, and it doesn't seem like
rocket science. We do have name this which is great.
Namous is for unidentified and missing persons. It is not
cold case homicides.
Speaker 3: I don't want to let you off the call without
asking you a little bit about the SAKI grant program,
Sexual Assault Kit Initiative program, because the SAKE program here
in Virginia is actually what led to the recent identification
of an offender in three of the cases associated with
the Colonial Parkway murders.
Speaker 2: Let me just ask one generalized question, why are the
numbers so low of the number of law enforcement agencies
that are utilizing the SAKI grants here? As Christen said,
just a moment ago, the folks at the Virginia Department
of Forensic Science applied for SAKI grants, which we totally supported,
and that led directly to the identification of an offender
after thirty seven years of waiting for answers. So we're
thrilled and we really appreciate the work that's being done.
Do you know have any sense of how could we
make the SAKE program more widely used? Is that a
fair question and one you could answer.
Speaker 6: You know, it's available to any law enforcement agency that applies,
not that everyone would get it if they apply. It's
like it's a federal grant. You have to apply and
you have to respond to a solicitation that comes out annually,
and it's a standard federal grant. And I'm pretty sure
most law enforcement agencies are well aware of the federal
grants that are available.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd love to see it more widely used. And
of course we're an example of here's a case now
that's very near and dear to our hearts that's moving
forward again because Virginia applied for and got ZACKI grants
and they're out there working it. Our understanding is they're
continuing to do so, and this gives families like mine
and folks across the country will hope that their cases
are going to be solved. And we understand that in
a case like ours that's thirty seven years old, there
was a real good chance that this offender and perhaps others.
We understand they may be dead. It's been a long time.
But at the same time, those answers that I mentioned
a few minutes ago are so important and they're inquity
meaningful to the family.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I'm a really big proponent of evaluating deceased
offenders for DNA locily DNA collections for.
Speaker 5: That very reason, because I've taught classes.
Speaker 6: And given presentations on collecting DNA samples for offenders who
have slipped through the cracks, and oftentimes people will say,
why does it matter? Why do you care about collecting
samples from somebody who's dead, Just exactly as you just stated,
because someone out there is waiting for an answer.
Speaker 5: Someone wants to know what happened to their loved one.
Speaker 6: Victims want answers, And frankly, do you really want your
law enforcement agencies spending time and resources investigating cases and
spinning their wheels when the answer could be sitting right
in front of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And as you were saying at the top
of this conversation, in the example that you walked us through,
that was a situation where the offender had been put
to death by the State of Washington years before, and
yet answers were provided as a result of your and
your teams working together to look for these answers. The
offender dispatched, but the answers for those families were incredibly
important and meaningful. That's why I reminded everybody in law enforcement.
It isn't just about putting offenders away or appropriate levels
of punishment. It's also for answers for those families that
are waiting, sometimes for decades.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, this most recent case was almost fifty years old,
forty nine years old. That victim's family for forty nine
years had no idea who was responsible. I don't know
if that helps them to know who did it. I
don't know that I can say that. I hope it
gives them at least some peace of mind that law
enforcement didn't forget about them, and that someone still cared
enough to still work on it, and that Charles Campbell
was never a suspect in that case. He was not
on the radar for that case at all, in any way,
shape or form, never would have been linked to that
case otherwise had it not been for the DNA.
Speaker 2: I can say for sure that in the Colonial Parkway murders,
we've spoken to those other family members who received this news,
and Kristin and I talked about this times recently. I
hope people can understand that you've been looking for answers
for that long. It's actually good news to have a
question that's been hanging over your family for decades, have
an answer. The answer was never going to be a
truly satisfying one, but at least they know what happened
to their loved one and they have a somewhat better
understanding of how and why this happened. It was never
going to make complete sense, and it wasn't going to
be acceptable to them, but they have answers that they've
been seeking for more than thirty years.
Speaker 6: Exactly well, for a lot of victims and survivors and
family members of victims, I don't know if satisfied is
the right word, but they are pleased with just receiving
news that someone is working on the case and that
someone cares and that they haven't been forgotten, even if
at the end of the day they don't get what
they ultimately wanted, or maybe they don't get the the
sentence that they ultimately wanted, or maybe the of vendors dead,
and so they don't actually get punished.
Speaker 5: As you said, sometimes it's just having the answer.
Speaker 6: And I just from my experience working with victims and
with family members of victims, a lot of I've had
people tell me that it really just changed a lot
of things for them, just knowing that someone actually cared
about them enough to pick up the phone or drive
to their house, sit down with them and talk. And
not everybody wants that, but some people do, and people
just they want to know that the police or the
law enforcement agency is still actually cares about them and
that they're not just a number or a statistic or
that they have been moved to the side to handle
current cases that are coming in.
Speaker 3: Very well said, so, Lindsay, we will put a link
to your article in our show notes, but tell everybody
where they can find your book in my DNA.
Speaker 6: My book is available anywhere you can buy books Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, or you can buy it
directly from the publisher's website, which is actually better for me.
So if you just spe you can order it from
one Idea at press dot com.
Speaker 3: Lindsay, thank you so much for joining us, and we
look forward to seeing you at Crime Con in just
a couple of days.
Speaker 5: Me too. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: That is going to do it for this episode of
Mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.