Speaker 1: This is a story of the anguish of Kern County
Speaker 1: families whose loved ones were brutally murdered two decades ago.
Speaker 1: The families want this story told, but to tell it
Speaker 1: it is necessary to describe vicious sex assaults. These descriptions
Speaker 1: may be too intense for some viewers.
Speaker 2: It's incredibly uncommon for that to happen.
Speaker 3: It was surreal. She had a lot of defense moves
Speaker 3: on her hands.
Speaker 1: Someone is killing women in Bakersfield.
Speaker 4: And her daughter will live with that image for the
Speaker 4: rest of her life.
Speaker 1: I certainly don't want to alarm the public.
Speaker 5: At this point, we knew that she had been stabbed
Speaker 5: multiple times.
Speaker 1: A rash of murders paralyzing the city.
Speaker 3: It never goes away ever.
Speaker 2: It was so brutal, missus really weird.
Speaker 1: But I do believe they need to be informed.
Speaker 6: It is unusual, and especially women who may be out
Speaker 6: walking late at night.
Speaker 7: She too, was repeatedly stabbed to death.
Speaker 1: This is a special edition of seventeen News Bakersfield Secret
Speaker 1: series You'll Kill Her Now Here's Olivia La Voice.
Speaker 3: Women vanishing from the streets of Bakersfield. To this day,
Speaker 3: these vicious homicides are unsolved, but are they related, it's
Speaker 3: one man responsible for killing these women. Evidence suggests after
Speaker 3: their deaths, their killers spent time with their bodies, posing them,
Speaker 3: positioning them, maybe so he could admire his work, maybe
Speaker 3: so he could further abuse them. A serial killer hunting
Speaker 3: women in our city. Yet somehow it was largely kept
Speaker 3: from the public until now. For more than a year,
Speaker 3: we've been looking into these unsolved murders. We want to know,
Speaker 3: could one man be responsible for all of these killings.
Speaker 3: It wasn't long before Christmas. Christmas nineteen ninety six came
Speaker 3: and went.
Speaker 4: I think she was coming from the store. She was
Speaker 4: gone too long, longer than normal.
Speaker 3: Forty four year old Maryan Perkins vanished. It was on
Speaker 3: a rainy dat a couple viewing a vacant home in
Speaker 3: East Bay Kersfield made a horrifying discovery in the backyard.
Speaker 4: How they identified her was through her dentures.
Speaker 3: Her body decomposing. She'd been beaten and stabbed numerous times,
Speaker 3: her nude body tied in a blanket.
Speaker 4: She was just such a beautiful person.
Speaker 3: Two years later, I don't know why this person did
Speaker 3: this to Mama. I used to talk to her every
Speaker 3: single day, several times a day. Thirty nine year old
Speaker 3: Leslie Don Preston was found in a field on Madison Street.
Speaker 3: She was lasting live three days prior. Her body was nude.
Speaker 3: The killer had posed her. She had been stabbed in
Speaker 3: her neck, chest and face. He stabbed her nineteen times
Speaker 3: and left her there. Two more years go by.
Speaker 6: Yes Mahelia Jackson walked in the next morning and found
Speaker 6: her mother dead on her bed.
Speaker 3: Ruby Lee Merriweather, a single mother of four, was nude,
Speaker 3: stabbed eighteen times.
Speaker 5: And sexually assaulted.
Speaker 3: There was no forced entry to her home, and it was.
Speaker 5: Clear that Ruby had tried to escape her attacker by
Speaker 5: crawling under the bed.
Speaker 2: The detectors are out right now going door to door
Speaker 2: trying to locate any witnesses that might have seen her
Speaker 2: in the last couple of days.
Speaker 8: We had to take care of each other. From wherever
Speaker 8: she left off, we had to pick it up, and
Speaker 8: that's harsh.
Speaker 3: Six months later, eleven days before Christmas.
Speaker 7: On the morning of December fourteenth, they say attractor repair
Speaker 7: man finds the body of twenty seven year old Katrina
Speaker 7: Antoinette Pink near Ridgeview High School.
Speaker 3: The twenty seven year old's t shirt was pulled up,
Speaker 3: her pants pulled down with long, deep gashes across her neck.
Speaker 3: She was last seen two days before at the Tropicana
Speaker 3: Motel on Union Avenue. One month later. Billy Jean Bear
Speaker 3: was from a small town in Alaska. She'd had a
Speaker 3: tough life. She came to Bakersfield on a bus with
Speaker 3: ten dollars in her pocket just a few months before
Speaker 3: she was murdered. The forty two year old was riddled
Speaker 3: with stab wounds to her neck. She is left with
Speaker 3: her pants and under were pulled down. The murders of
Speaker 3: Katrina Pink and Billy Bear were clearly similar to investigators
Speaker 3: and seventeen News reporters.
Speaker 7: Both had previously been arrested for prostitution and were known
Speaker 7: to work the Baker Street and Union Avenue areas, and
Speaker 7: the most obvious similarity the murderer used a knife. For now,
Speaker 7: police are not calling these murders the work of a
Speaker 7: serial killer, but until they're certain, they are asking you,
Speaker 7: especially if you're a woman, to use extra caution when
Speaker 7: going out at night.
Speaker 3: But that was two thousand and one, and despite that warning,
Speaker 3: three months later, another woman.
Speaker 5: Was murdered a founder land on the Siwalk.
Speaker 3: Blood soaked the concrete near the train tracks in East Bakersfield.
Speaker 6: How lung does she lay there?
Speaker 3: Summer twenty nine, year old Patricia Bessie Martin was to death,
Speaker 3: her shirt pulled up, her prop pulled down to somebody.
Speaker 4: She was insignificant, but I think to everyone here she
Speaker 4: was extremely significant.
Speaker 3: Patricia Martin former Baker's Who police sergeant Bill Darby, was
Speaker 3: a new patrol officer in the spring of two thousand
Speaker 3: and one.
Speaker 2: It would have been the first murder I'd seen to
Speaker 2: that extent, and the viciousness.
Speaker 3: The gruesome murder scene stuck with him. Four years later,
Speaker 3: Darby's mentor impaired the wisdom of a veteran cop.
Speaker 2: He told me to keep an eye out for a
Speaker 2: series of murders that happened in the late nineties early
Speaker 2: two thousands. He believed they were all connected based on
Speaker 2: their lifestyles and definitely the types of murders, the weaponology.
Speaker 3: Six in all were they linked.
Speaker 2: Whether it's told to the press or not, this would
Speaker 2: have been obvious that there was a serial killer.
Speaker 9: Most murders are a result of sex, drugs, or money.
Speaker 3: Now retired, Greg Laskowski analyzed thousands of current county crimes
Speaker 3: during his thirty year career.
Speaker 5: It's just a vicious killing him aprosse tote.
Speaker 1: You know this ritualistic.
Speaker 4: Murder, then you may look at it. This person has
Speaker 4: an issue and.
Speaker 1: May be doing this again and again, be a repeat offender,
Speaker 1: a killer on the streets of Bakersfield.
Speaker 3: It was very brutal.
Speaker 5: The victim was stabbed multiple times and sexually assaulted, and
Speaker 5: it was very obvious that she had been sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1: Bakersfield Secret serial killer, Bakersfield secret serial killer. Here's Olivia
Speaker 1: a voice.
Speaker 3: Mary Anne Perkins, Leslie Don Preston, Ruby, Lee Merriweather, betweena
Speaker 3: pink Billy Behar and Patricia Martin.
Speaker 5: We have someone out there that is harming women in
Speaker 5: an extremely an ordinary way.
Speaker 3: Police quietly pieced together a theory that a serial killer
Speaker 3: had killed six women, but time moved on the cases
Speaker 3: of all the victims grew cold until.
Speaker 6: My street name was Gypsy Rose.
Speaker 3: It was a few days after Thanksgiving two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: Gypsy Rose was working Union Avenue.
Speaker 6: He had paid me and it was like Jacoline Hide.
Speaker 6: He became real aggressive, real wrath. He pulled out an ie.
Speaker 3: She'd been raped before, but she never experienced anything like this.
Speaker 6: Was humiliating, it was dirty. If I had gotten any
Speaker 6: kind of DCS on the on the seats of the car,
Speaker 6: he made me lick that up.
Speaker 3: Even more horrifying than the violent sexual assault.
Speaker 6: He had told me that, and there were winds in
Speaker 6: that he had killed behind dumpsters in his basement, in
Speaker 6: his car. He told me that if I didn't be quiet,
Speaker 6: that I was going to end up like some of
Speaker 6: the other girls.
Speaker 3: She says he held her for six hours.
Speaker 6: What really honestly saved my life was that street cleaner
Speaker 6: that came around the corner.
Speaker 3: Badly beaten and naked. She took the one chance to survive.
Speaker 3: A month later, Christmas Eve two thousand and seven, another
Speaker 3: prostitute gone to a man's car. Suddenly he became violent.
Speaker 3: She begged to be let go, and after hours of
Speaker 3: assaulting her, he told her to get out of his car.
Speaker 3: In March nineteenth, two thousand and eight, a car pulled
Speaker 3: up to a woman working as a prostitute on Union Avenue.
Speaker 3: Once she was in the car, the man locked the
Speaker 3: doors and said you're mine now. Hours of brutal beatings
Speaker 3: and average rape followed. The victim was sodomized and forced
Speaker 3: to eat her own feces. When she jumped from the
Speaker 3: vehicle and tried to run, the rapist hit her with
Speaker 3: his car.
Speaker 10: He drove five blocks, swerving to shake her loose, and
Speaker 10: slammed on the brakes, causing her to fly into this
Speaker 10: ditch behind a clinic in downtown Bakersfield. The woman woke
Speaker 10: up naked and battered, but thanking God she was alive.
Speaker 3: Three days later, yet another woman working as a prostitute,
Speaker 3: got into a man's car off of Union Avenue, and
Speaker 3: as they began to engage in sexual activity, he stopped,
Speaker 3: looked at her and said, you know what I really want.
Speaker 3: I want to keep you. He choked her until she
Speaker 3: passed out. When she came to, the man shoved her
Speaker 3: out of the car, nude from the waist down. Four
Speaker 3: prostitutes attacked while working Union Avenue between two thousand and
Speaker 3: seven and two thousand and eight. They shared the same
Speaker 3: suspect description, a man who was brutal, vile, talked of
Speaker 3: killing other women in the past. They described his car
Speaker 3: and a tattoo of a tiger on his arm.
Speaker 6: Goin right away because I was so embarrassed.
Speaker 3: Two days later, she summoned the courage to tell police
Speaker 3: about the rape and what her attacker said about keeping
Speaker 3: women in his cellar and killing them.
Speaker 5: We didn't have very many of those women that would
Speaker 5: come forward to say that they were assaulted.
Speaker 3: Crime Scene technician Sherry Hill worked with one victim to
Speaker 3: create a composite sketch. The rapist eluding capture is now
Speaker 3: on detective's radar. Two days after the last assault, patrol
Speaker 3: officers on Union Avenue spotted a car with a cracked windshield.
Speaker 3: Looking closer, they realized the car matched the vehicle description
Speaker 3: of the serial rapist, even down to a wiper that
Speaker 3: was missing, Matching one of the victim's stories. They pulled
Speaker 3: over the Gold Mercury and found the man driving the
Speaker 3: car matched the suspect description, from his physical features to
Speaker 3: tattoos and gold necklace. His name Michael Charles Brown. Officers
Speaker 3: brought Brown in on a traffic violation, ready to question
Speaker 3: him about the fourest Salts.
Speaker 2: Seemed intelligent, he seemed calm. We knew certain facts that
Speaker 2: were indisputable fact and he chose to lie, and all four.
Speaker 3: Rape victims positively identified Brown as their attacker. Ultimately, DNA
Speaker 3: recovered from three of the Union Avenue victims matched to Brown.
Speaker 3: As prosecutors were building their case against the suspected rapist,
Speaker 3: the thirty three year old's DNA was entered into the
Speaker 3: nationwide DNA database. Cotis another match nine years after Ruby
Speaker 3: Merriweather's daughter ran out into the streets screaming for her mother.
Speaker 3: Finally a DNA match.
Speaker 4: I could tell he's sick.
Speaker 8: I mean, who would even find that in there? You know,
Speaker 8: take that in a mind to do someone like that.
Speaker 3: Michael Brown's DNA was found in feces located on Ruby
Speaker 3: Merriweather's body. Brown was twenty five years old when the
Speaker 3: murder occurred in two thousand. Investigators to this day have
Speaker 3: no idea if the pair knew each other or how
Speaker 3: Brown got into her home. Brown denied everything, no explanation
Speaker 3: for why his DNA was at the Merriweather crime scene.
Speaker 5: I thought that we would be able to finally close
Speaker 5: several cases.
Speaker 8: Asked her how many more families it was, so that
Speaker 8: I'd know it's more families.
Speaker 3: All eyes are on. Michael Charles Brown born into a
Speaker 3: big family in the small central Mississippi town of Grenada,
Speaker 3: with family in Bakersfield, he visited periodically. He even spent
Speaker 3: a year attending Highland High School. In the summer of
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety six, Brown made the permanent move from Mississippi
Speaker 3: to Bakersfield after being discharged from the Army. None of
Speaker 3: Brown's friends or family wanted to talk to me about
Speaker 3: how Brown spent his time in Bakersfield, and mine's Olivia
Speaker 3: always in reports of seventeen years. I called you before
Speaker 3: I'm doing a story on your son, Michael.
Speaker 11: And I just want to, Okay, can I give you
Speaker 11: a letter?
Speaker 5: At this point in the investigation, detectives have very little
Speaker 5: to go on.
Speaker 7: Two things have been determined.
Speaker 5: There was no sign of forced entry, and the victim
Speaker 5: was last scene.
Speaker 3: About ten o'clock, homicide Detective Bill Darby was reviewing the
Speaker 3: Ruby Merriweather case in his office.
Speaker 2: Looking into that case, and I was looking at crime
Speaker 2: scene photos as a police service technician had walked in
Speaker 2: and just to shoot the breeze and she says, oh,
Speaker 2: I took those pictures. Said we just came back a
Speaker 2: DNA hit And she said, Kathleen's case, there's a DNA
Speaker 2: And I said, now, this is a Ruby Merriweather. It
Speaker 2: was almost like you could see it in her saying,
Speaker 2: this is really weird. You know, this looks just like
Speaker 2: the pictures I took of Kathlen.
Speaker 3: Heising's Puzzled over two different crime scenes, the technician confused
Speaker 3: the July nineteen ninety eight bloody murder of beloved elementary
Speaker 3: school principal Kathleen Heisey with the pictures taken at the
Speaker 3: Ruby Merriwether homicide from two years later.
Speaker 2: The similarities, I'll just say, are We're obvious. The similarities
Speaker 2: are incredibly obvious.
Speaker 3: But Darby wasn't the first person to notice.
Speaker 5: I had seen very many homicides at that point, but
Speaker 5: this was unique.
Speaker 3: Single mother, fifty year old Kathleen Heisei was, by all accounts,
Speaker 3: a very unlikely target for murder. Atalani June thirtieth, nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight. The voicemail to her daughter is the family's
Speaker 3: last contact with Kathleen. She was most likely dead within
Speaker 3: hours of making that call.
Speaker 5: Her case almost never left my desk in my entire career.
Speaker 5: Between Ruby Merriweather and Kathleen Heisei, both of the victims
Speaker 5: were stabbed multiple times.
Speaker 3: There was no forced entry, and it didn't seem like
Speaker 3: the killer was in any hurry. At either crime scene.
Speaker 5: There were similarities on what was actually done to each victim.
Speaker 3: The Merriweather murder the Heisy murder.
Speaker 5: They weren't identical, they were similar.
Speaker 3: Kathleen heise had no criminal history, she had come from
Speaker 3: a well known Current County family, and her case, unlike
Speaker 3: the others, received massive media attention. For the first time
Speaker 3: in years, the unsolved murders were linked and pushed to
Speaker 3: the forefront.
Speaker 2: The theory started to arise that they were possibly related.
Speaker 1: To Kathleen Heisey.
Speaker 2: The victimology, for lack of a better term, is just
Speaker 2: so far off that, no, you wouldn't put those together.
Speaker 2: In hindsight hid INSIGHT's twenty twenty, you could go into
Speaker 2: certain aspects of both cases which we have and see
Speaker 2: a lot of things that we should have seen.
Speaker 1: A rash of unsolved murders plagues Bakersfield. Have investigators caught
Speaker 1: their man? Bakersfield secret serial killer, Bakersfield secret serial killer.
Speaker 1: Here's Olivia la Voice.
Speaker 3: Memorial Day weekend two thousand and one, we.
Speaker 2: Were made aware of a case by one of the
Speaker 2: detectives of the case with Wendy Kyle.
Speaker 3: There's nothing worse than losing a child, especially in the
Speaker 3: satic way firefighters responded to a house fire on Circle
Speaker 3: Drive in Oildale. Inside was the body of twenty four
Speaker 3: year old Wendy Kyle. Details of the crime scene matched
Speaker 3: some of the others. She was found near the foot
Speaker 3: of the bed, partially nude and stabbed numerous times before
Speaker 3: the fire was set.
Speaker 5: And I feel like I've lost a part of me.
Speaker 3: She was born on my birthday. We celebrated our birthdays together.
Speaker 4: Now, the man that murdered your sister.
Speaker 3: This is Wendy's sister reaching out to a psychic on
Speaker 3: the Montell Williams talk show.
Speaker 4: The place was on fire and she lived in a
Speaker 4: small guesthouse.
Speaker 6: Will they find this person, Yes, they will, absolutely they will.
Speaker 3: Tragically, Wendy died on her sister's birthday. There were several
Speaker 3: persons of interest in Wendy's murder, a man she had
Speaker 3: dated who had made incriminating statements, and this man sitting
Speaker 3: next to Wendy. He has never been identified. Despite several leads,
Speaker 3: the Wendy Kyle murder case went cold for years.
Speaker 4: She wasn't what they made her out to be at all.
Speaker 3: Witnesses contacted law enforcement and seventeen News, providing information placing
Speaker 3: Michael Charles Brown and Wendy Kyle together at the downtown
Speaker 3: Bakersfield Mint Bar the night she was murdered. A friend
Speaker 3: of Wendy's who will call Jane, has tried to help
Speaker 3: investigators from the start, providing key information about the case
Speaker 3: through the Secret Witness Program. Now, to protect the integrity
Speaker 3: of the Secret Witness program, we've agreed to conceal her identity.
Speaker 3: She knew Wendy, and as it turns out, she also
Speaker 3: knew Michael Charles Brown.
Speaker 4: Very nice, friendly, personable, well spoken.
Speaker 3: Hanging at the Mint Bar in the late nineties and
Speaker 3: early two thousands. They all ran in a similar social circle.
Speaker 4: I trusted him. I trusted him, and he was charming
Speaker 4: and kind.
Speaker 3: When she heard Brown had been arrested for viciously raping
Speaker 3: four women and killing Ruby Merriweather.
Speaker 4: Wendy immediately kind of popped in my head.
Speaker 3: A whole string of murders popped into the heads of detectives,
Speaker 3: and all eyes are on Michael Brown. But who was
Speaker 3: this man? He was in and out of jail dozens
Speaker 3: of times during the twenty two years he's lived in Bakersfield.
Speaker 3: Now overlaid that timeline with the calendar of the murders,
Speaker 3: and it's clear Brown was free and in town at
Speaker 3: the time of every homicide. Brown was out of jail
Speaker 3: and living less than a mile from Maryan Perkins when
Speaker 3: she was killed in nineteen ninety six. A week later,
Speaker 3: he was arrested for stealing a car. He was incarcerated
Speaker 3: for that until March nineteen ninety eight, four months after
Speaker 3: he got out. The bodies of Leslie Don Preston and
Speaker 3: Kathleen Heisey were found just one day apart. Two years later,
Speaker 3: June fifteenth, two thousand, a woman walking down Chester was
Speaker 3: forced into a stranger's car after he raped her. He
Speaker 3: drove off. Four days later, Ruby Marywe's body was discovered.
Speaker 3: Michael Charles Brown was arrested on July tenth, two thousand.
Speaker 3: From then on, he was in custody as the DA's
Speaker 3: office built their case against him until December fourth, prosecutors
Speaker 3: abruptly dismissed the case and Brown was free to go.
Speaker 3: Ten days later, Katrina Pink was found murdered. Records also
Speaker 3: show in January of two thousand and two, Brown and
Speaker 3: his brothers were arrested at a party after a man
Speaker 3: was stabbed to death. Investigators couldn't pinpoint which of the
Speaker 3: brothers committed the crime, so the Browns were released. After that,
Speaker 3: Brown was in and out of jail, mostly for duys.
Speaker 3: In March two thousand and three, Brown was arrested for
Speaker 3: hitting a pedestrian, Gary White. As a result of the crash,
Speaker 3: White's body became lodged in the windshield of Brown's car
Speaker 3: turned into the Duener Schnitzelan.
Speaker 6: He and his brother had to remove the body from
Speaker 6: the windshield and they left it behind.
Speaker 3: Goldie White is the pedestrian's cousin.
Speaker 12: What to put a dead body or a ro aman winshield?
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 3: Brown was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to prison.
Speaker 3: Four years later, he was released his last two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven term ended in October. A month later, the
Speaker 3: prostitute rapes began. This is kg ET's murder book, documenting
Speaker 3: every homicide in Kerr County, the cause of death, the
Speaker 3: weapon used, the way the killer left the victim. For
Speaker 3: this investigation, I found each woman was murdered in Bakersfield,
Speaker 3: stabbed numerous times, left either completely or partially nude, most
Speaker 3: with their body displayed in a sexualized manner. All of
Speaker 3: these women fit a profile. No other homicide in Kerrent
Speaker 3: County has matched these same characteristics since the killing of
Speaker 3: Wendy Kyle in two thousand and one. What looks to
Speaker 3: be a pattern left behind by a single.
Speaker 1: Killer, Bakersfield secret serial killer.
Speaker 2: I personally believe that Michael Charles Brown killed all of
Speaker 2: those women and Kathleen.
Speaker 3: After our twenty sixteen investigation into the Kathleen Heisie case,
Speaker 3: we received numerous tips from viewers, but one call stood out.
Speaker 3: A woman said she lived just down the street from
Speaker 3: Kathleen Heisei, remembering the day before her murder, something strange happened.
Speaker 3: A young black man offered to clean her carpets for free.
Speaker 3: She declined his carpet cleaning services. Moments later, she called
Speaker 3: a friend who lived a few houses down, only to
Speaker 3: find that the same man offered the neighbor free carpet
Speaker 3: cleaning and she had accepted. So our caller went to
Speaker 3: her friend's house. When she arrived, the man seemed startled.
Speaker 3: He told the two women he needed to get his
Speaker 3: equipment from his car. The man walked out and never returned.
Speaker 3: Both women were slightly rattled by the situation, but they
Speaker 3: didn't report the incident until they heard the very next
Speaker 3: day about Kathleen Heisi murder.
Speaker 4: It was like a commercial type van.
Speaker 3: But remember Jane, the friend of Wendy Kyle and Michael
Speaker 3: Charles Brown.
Speaker 4: He had been saying he was doing carpet cleaning.
Speaker 3: Brown was tried for Ruby Meriweather's murder and the rapes
Speaker 3: of the four women.
Speaker 8: The judgment in.
Speaker 9: Order of this court that you shall suffer the death
Speaker 9: penalty said penalty to be inflected within the walls of
Speaker 9: the State President at sveth weesn California.
Speaker 3: When it came time for him to plead for his
Speaker 3: own life to avoid the death penalty, Michael Charles Brown
Speaker 3: declined to fight it. The vicious killer displayed no emotion
Speaker 3: as he was sentenced. Much about Brown remains a mystery,
Speaker 3: like why he spent Christmas Eve prowling Union Avenue before
Speaker 3: picking up a prostitute he'd then assaulted, and the most
Speaker 3: violent attack he committed on a living victim took place
Speaker 3: on his birthday. The person we wished to speak with
Speaker 3: the most the killer himself, who's never before spoken with
Speaker 3: a reporter. Brown and I wrote letters to each other
Speaker 3: as he sits on death row, where no inmates has
Speaker 3: been executed in over twelve years. He wrote, I'm dealing
Speaker 3: with a lot right now, so it's not the best
Speaker 3: time for our meeting. My story still has to be told,
Speaker 3: and I hope you will still be around when the
Speaker 3: time is right. For the sake of the family members
Speaker 3: and friends of all his victims who ask us to
Speaker 3: find answers to their heart wrenching questions, We'll be waiting.
Speaker 12: Definitely a doctor Jacko and mister Hyde. If you asked
Speaker 12: me if he did all this stuff and all these themes,
Speaker 12: there is actually you know, two people inside of everyone,
Speaker 12: because I never could see that on here at all,
Speaker 12: at all, at all.
Speaker 1: If you have information that could help detectives solve any
Speaker 1: of these cold cases, contact the Bakersfield Police Department and.
Speaker 9: Welcome back Jim Scott with Tammy Melchak and Olivia la
Speaker 9: Voice here. Just before we go into our special edition
Speaker 9: of seventeen News eleven, a couple of questions for you.
Speaker 9: First of all, could work great wow wow. For our
Speaker 9: viewers out there who just watch this special report, what
Speaker 9: do you really want them to take away from this report?
Speaker 3: I want everyone to keep in mind that all of
Speaker 3: these homicides we discussed tonight. Aside from the Ruby Merriweather case,
Speaker 3: all of those cases are still unsolved. That is seven murders.
Speaker 3: All of the families of those women really still have
Speaker 3: no answers. Everything we discussed tonight is still just a theory,
Speaker 3: and that's not enough. These families really need concrete, definite answers.
Speaker 11: In order to in order to have closure right, no
Speaker 11: matter how long it takes. And when you listen to
Speaker 11: all those interviews and your research, I mean, it seems
Speaker 11: pretty cut and dry that mister Brown is the killer
Speaker 11: in all these cases. What is the status of the
Speaker 11: investigation into those cases where he's not been charged?
Speaker 3: Well for the integrity of the unsolved cases. Bakersfield Police
Speaker 3: decline to be interviewed for this story. However, we do
Speaker 3: know that all of the cases are still open, the
Speaker 3: investigations are active. But I cannot stress enough the importance
Speaker 3: of people calling in with information, even if you think
Speaker 3: it's insignificant or irrelevant or potentially has already been reported before.
Speaker 3: Please still pick up the phone and call the police department,
Speaker 3: our law enforcement. They're so incredibly busy you can't rely
Speaker 3: on them to go ahead and periodically review these cold
Speaker 3: cases on their own because the reality is they just
Speaker 3: don't have time.
Speaker 1: They are a lot of other cold cases, yes well.
Speaker 3: They they and new cases as well. But if you
Speaker 3: call and give them information, they will follow up on it.
Speaker 3: I can attest to that they did that several times
Speaker 3: throughout my research for this story, and we passed on tips.
Speaker 3: They followed up on it immediately. They interviewed people for
Speaker 3: the first time in over twenty years. So please please
Speaker 3: call if you have any information whatsoever.
Speaker 9: And speaking of the law enforcement officers you interviewed for
Speaker 9: your special report, these are very dedicated people.
Speaker 1: And they're retired though.
Speaker 3: Right, yes, yes they are. They're still Bill Darby and
Speaker 3: Cherry Hill. They have been amazing. It's been incredible to
Speaker 3: work with them. You know, they have never given up
Speaker 3: on these cases. And there were so many setbacks with
Speaker 3: this story. But no matter what, I knew that I
Speaker 3: could and quit because Bill Darby and Sherry Hill, they
Speaker 3: never did that. And I really feel that that is
Speaker 3: the that is the attitude the community needs to adopt
Speaker 3: when it comes to these unsolved cases.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I know, you have a real passion for helping
Speaker 11: the victims and the victims' families. And I know also
Speaker 11: on Facebook that you periodically are posting cold cases too,
Speaker 11: where folks can go there.
Speaker 3: Yes, I just think it's so important to just remind
Speaker 3: people that these cases are still unsolved. A lot of
Speaker 3: times I'll post about a story and viewers will come
Speaker 3: in and say, I had no idea this case is
Speaker 3: still open. So just that reminder, you know, we just
Speaker 3: need to keep these cases alive until they're solved.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and help those families, like you said, get some closure,
Speaker 11: even if it's been twenty years, they still need that closure.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Time does not heal those wounds of anything. I think
Speaker 3: it could make it worse in some ways, because they
Speaker 3: feel that their loved ones are forgotten, and you know,
Speaker 3: we don't want anyone to feel like that.
Speaker 9: It's well, we hope that this report triggers some memories
Speaker 9: and some people and perhaps new information will come forward
Speaker 9: out of this. Olivia, once again, great great work, all right,