Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Be Gay Solve Crime, a production
Speaker 1: of lesbian chronicles. Hey Melissa, Hey, how's it going good.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here in Providence, Rhode Island, where I think
Speaker 1: God has forgotten about abandoned us because it's still snowing,
Speaker 1: like insane feet of snow outside my hotel. And the
Speaker 1: reason that I'm here was for Owen's production, which got canceled.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but anyway, I'm still really psyched to be here.
Speaker 1: It's fine. Desease now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally seen some some pretty cool videos. It looks
Speaker 2: like people in New York City are kind of like
Speaker 2: taking a little snow day.
Speaker 3: Cool to see.
Speaker 2: In Atlanta, we're back and forth where we were eighty
Speaker 2: one degree something like that, I think now in some
Speaker 2: places and now it.
Speaker 1: Was cold when I left.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's warm back up.
Speaker 2: I went for a walk just now.
Speaker 3: No jacket needed, so nice.
Speaker 2: But yeah, ready to dive in on this case again
Speaker 2: with Katie Janis's murder that happened back in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: It's been interesting, you know, the more that episodes that
Speaker 2: we record and the more that we read on this,
Speaker 2: it's like there's just little corners of the Internet that
Speaker 2: you don't even know about that.
Speaker 3: How different.
Speaker 2: I mean, I want to say facts, but we all
Speaker 2: know the internet's full of fictional tales, so who knows
Speaker 2: what's real again, you know. I just want to say
Speaker 2: that our mission in doing this podcast is just to
Speaker 2: bring more attention to this case because we as Atlanta
Speaker 2: residents and members of the LGBTQ community, we feel like
Speaker 2: it's been kind of overlooked. So that's that's our mission here, yes, And.
Speaker 1: We're so so fortunate to have Vincent val Squez come
Speaker 1: join us from The Murder Mind, which I happened to
Speaker 1: be a fan. So when I reached out to Vincent,
Speaker 1: I thought this is a total long shot, and actually
Speaker 1: I was already a listener. And then Melissa you sent
Speaker 1: me and said, just try to get this guy. You
Speaker 1: probably can't, and I just threw a line and I
Speaker 1: was so thankful that you've responded. Vince, Welcome to the.
Speaker 3: Show, Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: And I got to tell your show is incredible, Like
Speaker 4: I love the energy that you two have, like it's
Speaker 4: just it. When I first listened to it, it's like
Speaker 4: it feels like you're at home at a table breaking bread,
Speaker 4: having coffee and just chatty. Like it's not it's not pretentious.
Speaker 4: It's just really casual and calm and cool, like feel
Speaker 4: like I don't know you guys, but I feel like
Speaker 4: I know you.
Speaker 3: Congratulations.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. That's kind of was when we started
Speaker 1: Lesbian Chronicles. We were like, we wanted to feel like
Speaker 1: we're sitting at dinner with friends.
Speaker 2: That's safe space that everybody needs and it's you know,
Speaker 2: scary everywhere else.
Speaker 4: I mean, when you know, you think about it, you
Speaker 4: you listen to some podcasts or even watch the news
Speaker 4: and TV shows and it's just so structured.
Speaker 3: It's just so mechanical.
Speaker 4: And what I really enjoy when I listen to podcasts
Speaker 4: and and you know, it doesn't have to be true crime.
Speaker 4: I listened to a million podcasts like This American Life,
Speaker 4: just about issues that Americans have in this country. Uh,
Speaker 4: And I really enjoy when the hosts are just very
Speaker 4: real people, you know. And that's one thing I really
Speaker 4: like about your show because it's relatable, you know. It's
Speaker 4: like you know again, it's like then they sound like me,
Speaker 4: you know, like I talk like that, you know, I
Speaker 4: just say what's up my mind? And I you know
Speaker 4: flubb words sometimes and we're human, you know, so I'm
Speaker 4: not really you know, And that's how my podcast is.
Speaker 4: My podcast is just me and God. If you saw
Speaker 4: the outtakes, you know, some of it we can't air.
Speaker 4: But like I can't say that, I can't say that.
Speaker 3: We know all about that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, it's true. Well, Vince, how did you
Speaker 1: get into I know you're a retired homicide detective times
Speaker 1: seventeen years? Did you tell me?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was twenty two years with Atlanta PD. Of
Speaker 4: those twenty two I was in homicide as a detective
Speaker 4: for seventeen years before I retired.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I told Vince, he looks too young to already
Speaker 1: be retired.
Speaker 2: I wasn't say like, yeah, please start when you were seven?
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, thank you, you were seven, thank you?
Speaker 1: Okay, So then you what got you into Murder Mind?
Speaker 4: Well, Murder Mine is this iteration of other shows that
Speaker 4: I've done. So while I was working homicide, first forty
Speaker 4: eight arrived in Atlanta and they were with us for
Speaker 4: a number of years, So I had the pleasure to
Speaker 4: have that opportunity to you know, be part of that team.
Speaker 4: On First forty eight.
Speaker 3: It was a little.
Speaker 4: You know, it was kind of a nerving at first
Speaker 4: to have cameras following you around, but again, I'm just
Speaker 4: me and again that's who I was. So that was
Speaker 4: my you know, my first kind of intro to like
Speaker 4: national TV exposure. Once I retired, my partner and I
Speaker 4: and Homicide. We had some contacts over the years working
Speaker 4: on other shows like Cold Case Files Americas most wanted,
Speaker 4: so we decided, you know, let's see if we can
Speaker 4: have a show of our own. Long story short, we
Speaker 4: you know, got with an old producer. We kind of
Speaker 4: formed a team. We filmed the sizzle reel in my
Speaker 4: living room. We started shopping it around and as fate
Speaker 4: would have it, TV one network came in, you know hot,
Speaker 4: they were like, we want you guys, and our first
Speaker 4: contract with TV one, they wanted.
Speaker 3: Twelve episodes off the bat, So.
Speaker 4: From that we ended up having four seasons and total
Speaker 4: we had about sixty plus episodes of our cases telling
Speaker 4: our cases. From that, we went into a spinoff show
Speaker 4: called Deadly Case File, same network, TV one. We did
Speaker 4: one season of that for fifteen episodes, and you know,
Speaker 4: true crime space is very fickle. We were very fortunate
Speaker 4: the last four seasons with one show with the other.
Speaker 4: So after that, my producer and I formed a company,
Speaker 4: a production company where we're not just trying to tell
Speaker 4: stories from my perspective, but we're also looking at other projects,
Speaker 4: media projects. So we had the brainch out of creating
Speaker 4: a show called Murder Mind, which is me telling my stories,
Speaker 4: but we're doing it on YouTube and long format. So
Speaker 4: the shows that we had on the networks were all
Speaker 4: forty two minutes. It's an hour show. Forty two minutes
Speaker 4: are the actual case. The rest are commercials. So imagine
Speaker 4: trying to explain a complex homicide. It lasted two years
Speaker 4: an investigation in forty two minutes. The Murder Mind shows different.
Speaker 4: We're spreading this out over eight to ten episodes where
Speaker 4: you get everything, you get all the details to bring
Speaker 4: one hundred percent yeah, showing the real interviews of full interrogations,
Speaker 4: and we're bringing the viewers along with us, almost as
Speaker 4: if they were my partner.
Speaker 3: On the case. Right. It's incredible.
Speaker 4: The comments are like, oh, check the phone records and
Speaker 4: you know. So that's the engagement that we are so
Speaker 4: wanted to do, and so far we've been successful. We
Speaker 4: launched in July and we're discontinuing to grow. We're very
Speaker 4: happy about that.
Speaker 1: I have to say Evince that, like, as I listen
Speaker 1: to your show, it's like, right, like, for instance, the
Speaker 1: one I'm listening to right now, you're like, okay, and
Speaker 1: now I'm going to interview the neighbor, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I get to hear the actual neighbor,
Speaker 1: like and so it is like you're in the living
Speaker 1: room of these potential suspects, hearing the questions and then
Speaker 1: hearing their voice answer. It's just like, I don't. It
Speaker 1: is captivating because you'll listen to the preamble and then
Speaker 1: you get to meet the person because of your job.
Speaker 1: But basically so I thought that was so cool.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we really want to make sure that the viewers
Speaker 4: and we have an accompanying podcasts as well on all
Speaker 4: podcast platforms.
Speaker 3: So we want to make sure our listeners and our
Speaker 3: viewers get that full experience.
Speaker 4: Because when you hear me tell a case and you
Speaker 4: hear me start talking about what I did, and then
Speaker 4: we flash back to where you hear me actually interviewing somebody,
Speaker 4: that's an iteration of me that is different, that's me
Speaker 4: in detective mode.
Speaker 3: So you actually get to see and hear me.
Speaker 4: How I would act as the detective. Now when I'm
Speaker 4: telling you what I did is different, but when you're
Speaker 4: actually hearing me in the moment, it's a version of myself.
Speaker 4: But it's me, but it's not me, you know, I
Speaker 4: know what I have to do. When I go in here,
Speaker 4: I start to pick up on these subtle clues perhaps deception.
Speaker 4: I start shifting my tone, perhaps I mean, my inflection
Speaker 4: goes up and down, and you see all those things
Speaker 4: you see on TV dramas where detectives, you know, really
Speaker 4: have to like basically be a chameleon.
Speaker 3: You have to really adapt to that situation.
Speaker 4: So I think the viewers really enjoy that listening to
Speaker 4: that real time at real time investigation.
Speaker 1: You know, first and foremost, you're interviewing a grieving widow
Speaker 1: who is also could be a suspect, but it's just
Speaker 1: like you have to go into it with she's not
Speaker 1: guilty yet and maybe it never will be. But hearing
Speaker 1: that was it's interesting. I can't turn it off, Like
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated. I love true crime, but I think your
Speaker 1: show is really good.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: So diving into the Katie Janis case that happened here
Speaker 2: in Atlanta in July twenty twenty one. Were you still
Speaker 2: a detective at that time or had you retired at
Speaker 2: that point.
Speaker 3: I had retired, So I retired in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: And I was shocked, as most of our community was
Speaker 4: when I saw that on the news, And of course,
Speaker 4: all the wheels in my head were spinning when I
Speaker 4: saw the case. You know, I'm thinking, you know, checklist,
Speaker 4: what did they do this? Did they did they do that?
Speaker 4: And honestly, this case really, you know, even for me,
Speaker 4: it was a little shocking.
Speaker 3: It was just it was so bizarre, It was.
Speaker 4: So out of the norm, it was so egregious, it
Speaker 4: was it was just so horrific.
Speaker 3: It really one.
Speaker 4: I know, it shocked the public conscience, but to shock me,
Speaker 4: you know, and I listen, I've stood over hundreds of
Speaker 4: you know, homicide victims. You know, I hate to say that,
Speaker 4: and I am somewhat desensitized, but I had a visceral
Speaker 4: moment with that, right and I can only imagine, and
Speaker 4: I can only imagine someone who's not in this space
Speaker 4: what they felt.
Speaker 1: And the gay community, I mean, we felt, you know,
Speaker 1: at that time period Midtown, the gay bars, like it
Speaker 1: was such a part of the fabric of the gay community,
Speaker 1: Piedmont Park, Henry's, you know, like these bars that we
Speaker 1: all frequent, and then to have this happen, I think
Speaker 1: for our community was like, I mean, everyone immediately goes
Speaker 1: to hate crime, but then as it kind of progressed,
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's the case. I don't know,
Speaker 1: what do you think?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can imagine, you know, for a community that
Speaker 4: has had challenges, you know, there's people who their ideology
Speaker 4: doesn't align with that and they are proactive in disrupting that.
Speaker 4: So I can imagine people in the gay community automatically
Speaker 4: going Okay, you have to assume or at least consider
Speaker 4: that it could be a hate crime. You know, that
Speaker 4: affects your community in a way that you know, I
Speaker 4: wouldn't understand. I'm heterosexual, but as a human right, the
Speaker 4: loss of life is just as tragic. When I started
Speaker 4: to really start looking at this case and wondering, you know,
Speaker 4: what would I do all the considerations that certainly would
Speaker 4: be at the top of the list. Is there someone
Speaker 4: out there targeting the gay community.
Speaker 3: If that is the case, then that may be easier
Speaker 3: to solve.
Speaker 4: There could be an avenue there where or path that
Speaker 4: an investigation can go down, but all the you know,
Speaker 4: everything's on the table, all considerations are there. If it's
Speaker 4: not that, if it is personal, where it's rage and
Speaker 4: it's emotion involved, and then the other possibility is just random,
Speaker 4: where there's someone who's has this psychosis about them that
Speaker 4: you know, irrespective of the gender, irrespective of the sexual orientation,
Speaker 4: they want to commit this harm on somebody. And with
Speaker 4: all of those considerations, that really opens up the suspect
Speaker 4: pool is such a broad arena that it can be
Speaker 4: insurmountable to think, how how are we going to solve this?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Because it does feel like that, I mean, if it
Speaker 1: was like a random I mean, that is always kind
Speaker 1: of what I thought is it's just someone lost their
Speaker 1: mind in the park and did this thing. But it
Speaker 1: was so egregious, and it just seems like if you're
Speaker 1: that crazy, you would have left a lot more evidence.
Speaker 2: It was random, and you just suddenly lost it in
Speaker 2: this rage, Like I would think someone in that case
Speaker 2: would have made a mistake in some sort evidence behind.
Speaker 3: And maybe you can.
Speaker 2: Speak to this. This has been a question that Ali
Speaker 2: and I have had is you know, when when a
Speaker 2: case like this is under investigation, I know that some
Speaker 2: information is withheld to kind of protect that investigation. Could
Speaker 2: that be the case here as to why we're not
Speaker 2: hearing things? You know, we always bring up the ninth
Speaker 2: sheath that was left behind in the Idaho four case, Like,
Speaker 2: if there's something like that that maybe they do have,
Speaker 2: they're just not releasing to that to the public. Is
Speaker 2: that something that's kind of traditionally done by the police.
Speaker 4: I think in this particular case, if there was something
Speaker 4: and item like that at this point where we don't
Speaker 4: really see the needle moving in the investigation, I would
Speaker 4: imagine that if the police had something like that, they
Speaker 4: would have released that. They would want the public's help.
Speaker 4: An item that was left behind, it's distinctive to put
Speaker 4: that out there. Can use the Nancy Guthrie case where
Speaker 4: you know the surveillance video Nancy Guthrie from Arizona. I
Speaker 4: think if the Atlanta Police Department had something like that,
Speaker 4: by now we.
Speaker 3: Would see that because they need the public help.
Speaker 4: There was DNA on an item left behind, you know,
Speaker 4: and let me just explain the DNA piece of this thing.
Speaker 4: So your listeners can understand the possibilities with DNA. So
Speaker 4: we have a national database of DNA and the state
Speaker 4: has a database, and that database is for offenders, especially
Speaker 4: in Georgia in most states, that have been convicted and
Speaker 4: went to prison.
Speaker 3: That's when they get swabbed.
Speaker 4: So if you're arrested in this state, you're not swab
Speaker 4: for DNA. So all of those people, and there are
Speaker 4: way more people who have been arrested that didn't get
Speaker 4: convicted or were convicted and didn't serve time in prison
Speaker 4: just the county jail, they're not going to have We're
Speaker 4: not going to have their DNA.
Speaker 3: In the database.
Speaker 4: So if they had a DNA profile, if they do
Speaker 4: at this point, and they ran it through what's.
Speaker 3: Called CODIS, which is the local.
Speaker 4: And national database, and there's no hit, then you still
Speaker 4: have to develop a suspect and then do a one
Speaker 4: on one comparison to say that's the person that may very.
Speaker 3: Well be the case here.
Speaker 4: I've read that there was, you know, consideration that the
Speaker 4: dog Bowie may have bitten the perpetrator.
Speaker 3: Great possibility. We all assume our dogs will want.
Speaker 4: To protect us, so that's reasonable if they have a
Speaker 4: partial profile or a full profile and they don't have
Speaker 4: a suspect right now. That's not doing us any good.
Speaker 4: We can't compare that to anybody. We don't know who
Speaker 4: it is. So that's one piece. If there is anything
Speaker 4: that they're withholding right now, it could be something sensitive that.
Speaker 3: You know, we don't want.
Speaker 4: Police don't want people calling in with information that they
Speaker 4: get from the media. They have been false confessions or
Speaker 4: people who want notoriety. It could be something like that,
Speaker 4: and it could be something that they have to keep
Speaker 4: close to the chest because.
Speaker 3: It's something only the killer would know.
Speaker 4: Therefore, if we put it out there and they identify
Speaker 4: a suspect and you know there's some type of nexus
Speaker 4: between that piece of evidence and the suspect, they've already
Speaker 4: got that information.
Speaker 3: So they got to be real careful.
Speaker 4: So when I'm interviewing somebody, and you know, I ask
Speaker 4: roundabout questions. If you if you listen to my show,
Speaker 4: you know, listen to some of my interviews, I ask
Speaker 4: a lot of open ended questions.
Speaker 3: You know, as an.
Speaker 4: Example, so do you drive a car or do you
Speaker 4: you know, take the bus, what do you do like,
Speaker 4: let's just say mass transit is a piece of my investigation,
Speaker 4: and the suspect says to me, I don't own a car, okay,
Speaker 4: so how do you get around?
Speaker 3: I take a bus? Checkbox, I've checked that off right now.
Speaker 4: I know this person I'm interviewing has now indicated that
Speaker 4: they take mass transit, and mass transit is a huge
Speaker 4: piece of my puzzle. Now it doesn't mean he did it,
Speaker 4: but that's just one piece, and I'm moving folding in another.
Speaker 4: I'm moving folded in another direction. We don't know what
Speaker 4: we don't know. So if the Atlanta Police Department has
Speaker 4: something that is crucial to this investigation and they're not
Speaker 4: releasing it to the public, there's a really good reason
Speaker 4: for that. I don't know what that reason is right now.
Speaker 4: I can only surmise, but there is a possibility that
Speaker 4: that does exist.
Speaker 3: Though, if you.
Speaker 1: Have DNA, okay, so you can't get someone's DNA, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's because it's an infringement on their rights in
Speaker 1: some way. But is it like if you know that
Speaker 1: someone or you think somebody is guilty, but you have
Speaker 1: no way to know because they're not in Codis is
Speaker 1: it like then you get the warrant to get their DNA? Like,
Speaker 1: how do you then do it.
Speaker 3: There's two ways you could do that.
Speaker 4: If you have enough probable cause to get that warrant right,
Speaker 4: there's some nexus between that suspect in the crime, there's evidence,
Speaker 4: not enough so much to arrest them, but enough for
Speaker 4: a judge to sign a warrant.
Speaker 3: Then you go present the warrant and you swab them.
Speaker 4: The other way is surreptitious samples where you actually follow them,
Speaker 4: and there's many cases where this has happened, in high
Speaker 4: profile cases where they follow them to a restaurant and
Speaker 4: they discard their straw or their fork or they leave
Speaker 4: it on the table. Once you walk away from that table,
Speaker 4: you have no longer had an expectation of privacy. You
Speaker 4: can then take the fork, take the straw. A lot
Speaker 4: of times. You know, I did a case one time
Speaker 4: where I had a suspect. He ended up not being
Speaker 4: my suspect, but he was so hinky he wouldn't give
Speaker 4: us DNA.
Speaker 3: He looked like the sketch.
Speaker 4: We had a you know, artist rendition of what he
Speaker 4: looks like from a victim.
Speaker 3: Because he killed one.
Speaker 4: Girl and raped her, and then he raped another girl
Speaker 4: so that and didn't kill her. So that young girl
Speaker 4: was able to give us a sketch, would not give
Speaker 4: us this DNA, tried to give him a bottle of water,
Speaker 4: took it with him, acting completely bizarre, and I was
Speaker 4: convinced this is my guy. So I ended up having
Speaker 4: to do almost a week surveillance, a week long surveillance
Speaker 4: of him at his residence. And for all accounts, we
Speaker 4: didn't think he smoked. We asked people that knew him
Speaker 4: and said he doesn't smoke. And lo and behold, like
Speaker 4: day six of this surveillance, he leaves his house. I'm
Speaker 4: filming him and he starts to smoke a cigarette and
Speaker 4: I follow him, and I've got this old camp quarter
Speaker 4: and I'm trying to drive and I'm filming him and
Speaker 4: I see him throw the cigarette butt down, So I
Speaker 4: just get out and I'm zooming in.
Speaker 3: It's still smoldering. I know I got the piece. I
Speaker 3: get a pin, I put it in there, and now
Speaker 3: I have his DNA.
Speaker 4: Well it wasn't him, but that's that's called a surreptitious sample.
Speaker 4: So you can do that if they had a suspect
Speaker 4: in this particular case, and there wasn't. There wasn't enough
Speaker 4: probable cause to get the warrant. That's one way they
Speaker 4: could do it.
Speaker 1: I mean it leads me to think, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to armchair quarterback, but like with the unhoused population
Speaker 1: that kind of lives in that area of Piedmont Park,
Speaker 1: that maybe there'd be lots of opportunities to do that
Speaker 1: type of collection.
Speaker 3: I would think. So if they had a suspect.
Speaker 4: I believe if the police had a suspect, if it
Speaker 4: was me and I had a very strong suspect in
Speaker 4: this case, I would bring them in. I would, you know,
Speaker 4: find a way to say, look, I need to talk
Speaker 4: to you. Come into my office and try to find
Speaker 4: just some evidence through that testimony, through that statement or
Speaker 4: interrogation that brings me closer to believing. And many times
Speaker 4: through that investigation I may develop or I'm sorry, through
Speaker 4: that interrogation, I may develop enough probable cause at that
Speaker 4: moment to now say you are detained and then get
Speaker 4: a warrant and swab them.
Speaker 3: So that's one way to do it. That's what I
Speaker 3: would do. I would try that first.
Speaker 4: If that didn't work, then I would go into surveillance
Speaker 4: mode and try to see where they go, eat, what
Speaker 4: they discard, some type of article, that they discard that
Speaker 4: may have potential DNA on it, and even your hands,
Speaker 4: you know, epithelial cells from your skins are left. I
Speaker 4: wear glasses. Like if you take the I see Melissa,
Speaker 4: you wear glasses, well, you both wear glasses.
Speaker 3: If you take the piece of glass the frame that
Speaker 3: goes around your ear and you swab that, there's going
Speaker 3: to be a bunch of DNA skin cells there.
Speaker 4: So there's many ways to do that. But I don't
Speaker 4: really think they have a suspect identified. I think if
Speaker 4: they did, they would have interviewed him by now. If
Speaker 4: they if they had a potential suspect in the interviewed
Speaker 4: and they may have already eliminated that person. But I
Speaker 4: think if they had a crime suspect in this case,
Speaker 4: he would have been arrested by now. Let me let
Speaker 4: me correct myself, he or she would have been arrested
Speaker 4: because you know, we're so we're so quick to assume
Speaker 4: it's a man. It may very well not be. It
Speaker 4: could be a woman.
Speaker 2: As far as you know, not having a suspect, it
Speaker 2: seems it's interesting to me because I feel like, you know,
Speaker 2: in a lot of the kind of crimes, someone ends
Speaker 2: up talking someone ends up the way.
Speaker 3: If it was among the.
Speaker 2: Houseless population within that community, I would think that someone
Speaker 2: within that population would know and maybe say something. But
Speaker 2: then again, I'm also like, is there like a little
Speaker 2: bit of a protection there, like we're looking out for
Speaker 2: each other, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, let's dissect this a little bit. Let's let's
Speaker 3: let's look at.
Speaker 4: The you know, the crime itself. So unfortunately, Katie was
Speaker 4: stabbed over fifty times, right, I mean it was, it
Speaker 4: was brutal, and that amount of that amount of wounds
Speaker 4: on a body, there's gonna be a tremendous amount of blood.
Speaker 3: That transfers to the person that's doing it.
Speaker 4: I've had cases like this where victims were stabbed multiple
Speaker 4: times and blood.
Speaker 3: Is everywhere where the perpetrator went to the bathroom, cleaned up,
Speaker 3: and changed clothes.
Speaker 4: So, if this was a homeless person or any you know, whoever,
Speaker 4: the suspect is at some point when they leave the scene.
Speaker 3: They have to be covered in blood.
Speaker 4: So if they now encounter someone else, that's going to
Speaker 4: be extremely noticeable.
Speaker 3: So if it's a.
Speaker 4: Homeless person and they're in an encampment, is there a
Speaker 4: possibility that in Piedmont Park it was a homeless person
Speaker 4: and they went to.
Speaker 3: You know, in the streets. They call it the cut,
Speaker 3: their cut where they where they sleep right, their little
Speaker 3: area could be anywhere near a tree or you know,
Speaker 3: shrubbery wherever they lay their blankets down.
Speaker 4: And they made it there unseen by anyone. That's very possible.
Speaker 4: And they had to change to clothes. I know the
Speaker 4: park was searched vigorously multiple times. Could it have been missed?
Speaker 4: Maybe that's a possibility. If it's not a homeless person.
Speaker 4: And now they have to get from point A crime
Speaker 4: scene to point B wherever they are to recover or
Speaker 4: continue their life. There has to be something that's going
Speaker 4: to transfer. If they're walking, probably not, but if they
Speaker 4: get into a vehicle or a bicycle, there's going to
Speaker 4: be a transfer of blood. And now you have the
Speaker 4: potential of so many people seeing you. Now, it was nighttime,
Speaker 4: it was July, so people weren't really wearing a lot
Speaker 4: of outer clothing.
Speaker 3: So I would imagine somebody would have said, wow, this
Speaker 3: guy's what is all that stuff on him or her?
Speaker 4: So these are just you know, I'm just giving you
Speaker 4: like a hypothesis of possibilities, Like I don't know, I
Speaker 4: don't know the answer to this.
Speaker 3: But the fact is that the person.
Speaker 4: Had to get from the crime scene somewhere and did
Speaker 4: they encounter somebody. Is there somebody out there that knows
Speaker 4: what happened, that saw them and just hasn't come forward. Maybe,
Speaker 4: but I think those are the types of things that
Speaker 4: you know, investigators looking at. So one of the things
Speaker 4: that happened after I retired in this case happened I
Speaker 4: was contacted by the Atlanta Police Department, myself and my partner,
Speaker 4: David Quinn from Homicide to come back and consult on
Speaker 4: the case. So I had the opportunity to come back
Speaker 4: and meet with the lead detective, who was fairly new,
Speaker 4: but I can say extremely bright, extremely skilled, extremely analytical, and.
Speaker 3: We sat down and we went through everything.
Speaker 4: Now I can't share with you or your listeners some
Speaker 4: of the information I would share with me because it's
Speaker 4: still sensitive and it's still an open investigation.
Speaker 3: But I can tell you that it wasn't just this
Speaker 3: lead investigator.
Speaker 4: It was a team of people, and the team was
Speaker 4: the other detectives that I worked with. I was part
Speaker 4: of a small unit within Homicide called the Complex Cold
Speaker 4: Case Squad. So what we were tasked with was investigating
Speaker 4: just what it sounds like, complex cases, multiple murders, multiple
Speaker 4: robberies that lead to a murder or sexual assault. And
Speaker 4: so we were the skilled of the skilled detectives within homicide.
Speaker 4: Those detectives were assisting this lead investigator. These are people
Speaker 4: I worked with side by side, some of them I've trained,
Speaker 4: and very competent, very capable, and I can say that
Speaker 4: they left no stone unturned. I wish I could share
Speaker 4: with you some of the details. I just can't, which
Speaker 4: left me scratching my head, to be quite honest with you,
Speaker 4: some of the questions I was asking.
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, did you do that?
Speaker 4: And I think outside of the box all of my cases,
Speaker 4: you know, like if you tell me if you're a suspect,
Speaker 4: and you tell me, yeah, well you know I didn't
Speaker 4: do it, and I can.
Speaker 3: Prove it to you because it was a clear sky
Speaker 3: on the night and the spaceship dropped me off at
Speaker 3: the West End Mall. Now is that possible? No?
Speaker 4: Probably not. But you know what I'm gonna do. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna check the National Weather Service at least to see
Speaker 4: what the skies were that night. Right, He said they
Speaker 4: were clear skies. Okay, that jibs now.
Speaker 3: Is that a plausible alibi?
Speaker 4: Absolutely not. That's how we think outside the box. So
Speaker 4: did these detectives so they really were sufficient in in
Speaker 4: my opinion, on everything they did. Some of the things
Speaker 4: I wish I could talk to you about they were
Speaker 4: I would say, thoroughly vetted. Katie's partner was thoroughly vetted.
Speaker 1: We were curious about that because I mean, to me,
Speaker 1: it's she loved the dog, she loved her partner, like
Speaker 1: it's so.
Speaker 2: And I think that would be good for you to
Speaker 2: reiterate vents is that. I know a lot of people
Speaker 2: speculate about that sort of thing. And you know, what,
Speaker 2: what does it mean to be cleared by the police?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what doesn't that's a good question.
Speaker 2: Also share a little bit more about that of the
Speaker 2: reasons why Emma is not you know at the forefront.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, Emma. I listened to the
Speaker 3: nine one one call that Emma made. And one of
Speaker 3: the things that we do is we evaluate what I do.
Speaker 3: I try to evaluate the affect of that person. You know,
Speaker 3: how does this sound like?
Speaker 4: You know, I have never personally experienced, you know, walking
Speaker 4: up on a tragic crime of someone that I know.
Speaker 4: So I don't know what my emotional response would be.
Speaker 4: I would probably be a mess. But I listened to
Speaker 4: the nine one one call and she's extremely emotional, so I.
Speaker 3: Had to consider that. Okay, could you be a good actor? Yeah?
Speaker 4: To your question, what, how do you really rule somebody
Speaker 4: out completely?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: There's a lot of ways, like if you are actually
Speaker 4: if you to actually clear someone out, whether they actually
Speaker 4: did the crime. One of the best ways is they're
Speaker 4: somewhere else and it's verified through other people that were
Speaker 4: with them, perhaps are on video somewhere else at the
Speaker 4: time the crime happened.
Speaker 3: That's sufficient. You are certainly ruled out.
Speaker 4: Phone records can help self, tower locations can help.
Speaker 3: But really the only.
Speaker 4: Way, because you know, you have to consider, you know,
Speaker 4: if you didn't commit the crime, is there a possibility
Speaker 4: that you are complicit in the crime. So that's where
Speaker 4: it gets a little murky. How do you really clear
Speaker 4: someone out as a suspect one? Did they actually do it?
Speaker 4: You can certainly do that sufficiently. Did they have something
Speaker 4: to do with it? Was there a conspirac see to
Speaker 4: commit this? Did they pay for it to happen? All
Speaker 4: those questions you know those things. You may never really
Speaker 4: understand how that plays out. The really the best way
Speaker 4: to really rule out all other suspects is you find
Speaker 4: the right one. So once we find the right person
Speaker 4: like that, scientifically conclusively, we know they did it. Now
Speaker 4: of course everybody's ruled out. I'm going to go back
Speaker 4: to the Nancy Guthrie case. So you know, I've been
Speaker 4: on Court TV many times talking about this, given comments
Speaker 4: on the case. The sheriff of the county there in
Speaker 4: Arizona recently came out and said that he has cleared
Speaker 4: the family as suspects. I think that was, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't believe the family has anything to do with it,
Speaker 4: But to make a statement like that, I think was,
Speaker 4: you know, premature, and again, you don't really know how
Speaker 4: deep that goes. So with with Katie's case, I don't
Speaker 4: really know how deep this goes. Now, I have my
Speaker 4: my own theories, I have my own ideas. I'm going
Speaker 4: to give you an example. I had a cold case
Speaker 4: from nineteen ninety four. Before I go into that, I
Speaker 4: want to just go back to Katie's crime scene, the
Speaker 4: viciousness of it, the amount of this, where the wounds
Speaker 4: were located, in her face, in her private parts, and
Speaker 4: then what we believe to be some initials that may
Speaker 4: have been carved on our body. Considering all that, now,
Speaker 4: think about the person who committed that crime and what
Speaker 4: their motive was. Now, in homicide cases in Georgia, for
Speaker 4: a successful prosecution, you don't have to prove motive, but
Speaker 4: as an investigator, motive is very important because many times,
Speaker 4: if I can.
Speaker 3: Figure out the motive right of that's the why it happened,
Speaker 3: it can many times lead me to the who it happened.
Speaker 4: In retrospect, we could always look back once we figure
Speaker 4: out who the person is and then find out, oh,
Speaker 4: it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Of why they did that. Back to this cold case.
Speaker 4: Nineteen ninety four, a young young lady named Valerie Peyton
Speaker 4: was brutally murdered here in Atlanta. I reopened this case.
Speaker 4: Her tragic murder was similar to Katie's. Ironically, when I
Speaker 4: saw the news on this case Katie's case, the first
Speaker 4: thing I did was I went to the Georgia Department
Speaker 4: of Corrections to see if the person who I put
Speaker 4: in jail for the murder of Valerie Peyton in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety four somehow was released because He was my.
Speaker 3: First go to. If this guy got out, he probably
Speaker 3: did it.
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety four, Valerie Peyton was found stabbed to
Speaker 4: death near railroad tracks, not far from Kirkwood. I know
Speaker 4: Kirkwood is something you're familiar with, and this, this is
Speaker 4: how crazy. If you look at the comparisons of these
Speaker 4: two cases. Valerie Peyton was found stabbed over fifty times.
Speaker 4: On her face was carved the letter V would look
Speaker 4: like a V. Many of the wounds were post mortem,
Speaker 4: just like Katie's.
Speaker 3: Right. The heart's not pumping.
Speaker 4: There's not a lot of blood around the wound, so
Speaker 4: we could tell what's you know, perry mortem that's at
Speaker 4: her near the time of death, you know, pre death
Speaker 4: and then post mortem.
Speaker 3: This perpetrator in the suspect, I.
Speaker 4: Can name him. He's been convicted and he's in jail.
Speaker 4: His name is Michael Harvey. After killing her, let me
Speaker 4: go back to the wounds. Not only did he stab
Speaker 4: her over fifty times, he carved her body post mortem
Speaker 4: to include her genital area, much like some of the
Speaker 4: wounds that we.
Speaker 3: Occurred with Katie.
Speaker 4: He then left a note on her chest and it
Speaker 4: was written on the back of a photograph of her
Speaker 4: son and the note read I'm back Atlanta, mister X.
Speaker 4: Now this was a cold case. This case went cold.
Speaker 4: They never identified this suspect. And what listeners should understand
Speaker 4: with this particular case, earlier in the late eighties, there
Speaker 4: was a rash of prostitutes that were coming up murdered
Speaker 4: in Atlanta, so they thought it was one person committing
Speaker 4: multiple crimes in essence, a serial killer. They created a
Speaker 4: task force back in the late eighties, and they couldn't
Speaker 4: really put it all together. And the way I cracked
Speaker 4: this case was we retested the rape kit with modern technology. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: Michael Harvey, as I'd explained before, had went to prison,
Speaker 4: he was swabbed, he's in codis and once I put
Speaker 4: the new sample in, we got a match. Now if
Speaker 4: you examine a forensic examination. Now we're twenty twenty looking back.
Speaker 4: When I look at Michael Harvey's history, he had multiple rapes.
Speaker 4: One particular victim, he took the photographs of her children.
Speaker 4: And remember on Valary Payton he wrote rot on the
Speaker 4: back of a photo of her child. So all of
Speaker 4: these patterns start to emerge, So I can start to
Speaker 4: see the psychosis that existed at the time. Now, one
Speaker 4: of the things that he I said in his interrogation
Speaker 4: was chilling. So I asked him, I said, do you
Speaker 4: recall all of the prostitutes that were being murdered around
Speaker 4: the eighties. He goes, I remember that, And I said,
Speaker 4: what did you leave the note? And his answer was.
Speaker 3: To throw the cops off.
Speaker 4: I wanted him to think that it was part of
Speaker 4: everything else. But like Katie's case, he took time to
Speaker 4: sit there and carve.
Speaker 3: Her body to stab her.
Speaker 4: He took an enormous amount of time. He's not concerned
Speaker 4: with someone seeing him.
Speaker 3: Just like this perpetrator in Katie's.
Speaker 4: Case, time is going by opportunity for someone to see
Speaker 4: him be caught, it's irrelevant.
Speaker 3: So he's driven.
Speaker 4: He's driven by the psychosis in his motivation because he
Speaker 4: had some mental illness. So that's one consideration when I
Speaker 4: compare that case to Katie's case, that I have to
Speaker 4: think if someone wanted revenge against Kate and they just
Speaker 4: wanted her dead, that's.
Speaker 3: A really quick thing to do. You can do that
Speaker 3: rather quickly.
Speaker 4: If Bowie attacked first, and they killed Bowie and then
Speaker 4: they stabbed Katie, you know, one, two, three of those
Speaker 4: first kniphones could have been the fatal blow. And now
Speaker 4: mission accomplished. She's incapacitated.
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 4: I've accomplished what I came here to do. To kill her,
Speaker 4: that's not.
Speaker 3: The case here. This person sat there and he took
Speaker 3: their time.
Speaker 4: To inflict the most amount of damage that they possibly
Speaker 4: could and literally try to eviscerate her. That speaks rage. Now,
Speaker 4: what's the motive behind that? I don't know if it's revenge.
Speaker 4: It doesn't seem like that. It seems like someone was
Speaker 4: and I say revenge in the sense there's the consequence
Speaker 4: of getting caught and taking more time to fulfill that
Speaker 4: rage and revenge.
Speaker 3: I think a sane person would realize that I've got
Speaker 3: to get out of here. Yeah, that's why I tended right,
Speaker 3: That's why I tend.
Speaker 4: To think that whoever this perpetrator is, if they have
Speaker 4: some other external factors, some mental illness, that irrespective of
Speaker 4: being caught, they were so wrapped up in the motive
Speaker 4: that didn't care. And I'll take you back to I
Speaker 4: think it was last August Charlotte, North Carolina, the young
Speaker 4: Ukrainian girl on the bus in front of everyone and
Speaker 4: cameras and every passenger. This man, this monster just pulls
Speaker 4: out a knife and just starts stabbing her in the neck.
Speaker 4: So he's not worried about the consequences. He's not worried
Speaker 4: about getting caught, right, He's worried. His motivation is to
Speaker 4: do to kill her, to harm her, irrespective of what's
Speaker 4: going to happen next. So there's some type of psychosis
Speaker 4: going on there.
Speaker 1: So it's like that motivation trumps you're saying getting caught, like,
Speaker 1: I don't care. I need to do this so bad
Speaker 1: that I don't care.
Speaker 4: Correct, you're caught up, caught up, you can't focus on
Speaker 4: anything else.
Speaker 1: But it's like even if they have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: kill the dog, Like to me, it's like if I'm
Speaker 1: walking my dog in Piedmont Park and someone approaches the
Speaker 1: dog and it's my dog, and my dog's going crazy.
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm screaming, like it's like, how did
Speaker 1: no one hear her at the entrance of Piedmont Park.
Speaker 1: There's tons of people out on a hot night like
Speaker 1: that in July.
Speaker 3: Unless he attacked her first, And that's that's my theory.
Speaker 3: My theory is.
Speaker 4: Always been that he attacked Katie first. Incapacitated her. The
Speaker 4: dog is still going to do what a dog does, right,
Speaker 4: He's probably barking when he's approaching her. Perhaps he got
Speaker 4: Katie from behind, inflicted damage enough to make her go down,
Speaker 4: incapacitated her, and she is now incapacitated.
Speaker 3: He can then take care of the dog, especially if
Speaker 3: Bowie attacks, and then go back to Katie.
Speaker 4: And I think, in the sequence of events and me
Speaker 4: in my perspective, that makes more sense, that's more reasonable,
Speaker 4: and that's likely what happened.
Speaker 2: Do you know where her body was? From what I understand,
Speaker 2: Bowie's body was closer to the entrance. Hers was a
Speaker 2: little bit farther in on that Charles Allen entrance, But
Speaker 2: you know there's a paved area and then there's a
Speaker 2: little bit of like wooded area there that would provide
Speaker 2: a little bit more I guess protection if the killers
Speaker 2: where as to where they were carrying this out. I
Speaker 2: guess this is my question because I would imagine if
Speaker 2: it was like right there on in the open and
Speaker 2: the pavement where I'm envisioning that she was found, that
Speaker 2: it would just be like I mean, there's lights and everything.
Speaker 2: It would be so much easier to be found, but
Speaker 2: maybe if it was over in that wooded area, it's
Speaker 2: not quite as noticeable. But also if we're speaking to
Speaker 2: a psychosas state as someone even thinking about any of
Speaker 2: that stuff, you.
Speaker 3: Know, good question. I don't think so.
Speaker 4: I think, considering that person's state of mind, I don't
Speaker 4: think they planned all that out.
Speaker 3: To where I got to get her by the bushes.
Speaker 3: That's stark here.
Speaker 4: I think the attack happened close to where her body
Speaker 4: was found. I think there's evidence that suggests, you know,
Speaker 4: this crime scene was moving a little bit. You know,
Speaker 4: as far as Bowie goes, if I follow my theory,
Speaker 4: the sequence of events where he attacks Katie first, Katie
Speaker 4: then goes down, Bowie attacks, He then attacks Bowie and dogs.
Speaker 3: You know, if Bowie knows.
Speaker 4: He's injured and he's hurting, and he's completely you know,
Speaker 4: dogs run, it doesn't surprise me that Bowie was found
Speaker 4: somewhere else because he's now injured, he's hurting, and he doesn't.
Speaker 4: You know, dogs sometimes, as we know, they go off
Speaker 4: to die, you know.
Speaker 3: Older dogs. You know the pet. You know, he let
Speaker 3: him out to use the bathroom.
Speaker 4: He never came back, and they find him in the
Speaker 4: woods because they know something's about to happen, and that
Speaker 4: very well may be the case with Bowie.
Speaker 3: I really don't know.
Speaker 4: Exactly as far as the perpetrators. You know, his state
Speaker 4: of mind of what he was thinking about planning this. Now, again,
Speaker 4: if Katie was targeted, and I say targeted to me,
Speaker 4: it's Katie is.
Speaker 3: My target, not a random person.
Speaker 4: All of these things have to line up, like all
Speaker 4: the stars will start lining up. Because they would have
Speaker 4: had to surveil her house, they would have had to
Speaker 4: known exactly when she was going to take.
Speaker 3: The dog out.
Speaker 4: They would have had to sit there. You know, I'll
Speaker 4: take you back to when I was trying to get
Speaker 4: that sample of DNA from this guy. Took me six
Speaker 4: days to do this. I had no idea when he
Speaker 4: was going to leave his house. And I'm the cops,
Speaker 4: right so I know his patter, I know I know
Speaker 4: I know when.
Speaker 3: He takes his garbage out. You know, I know his
Speaker 3: light bill, I know what he ate for breakfast yesterday.
Speaker 3: I know all this stuff. I have more information in
Speaker 3: an average person.
Speaker 4: It took me six days to follow him, So I
Speaker 4: don't believe that's reasonable that somebody was actually targeting Katie.
Speaker 4: Like I want her, and I'm going to sit out
Speaker 4: here to who knows when she's to.
Speaker 3: Take the dog out? Oh there she goes, right, But
Speaker 3: how long do you have to sit out there? Right?
Speaker 3: Five hours?
Speaker 4: Maybe the dog, you know, doesn't need to go out tonight.
Speaker 4: But nevertheless, there's nobody following Katie through the crosswalk. As
Speaker 4: we see the video of her crossing the crosswalk with Bowie,
Speaker 4: there's nobody behind her that we can see in the video.
Speaker 4: So I think it's a crime of opportunity. I believe
Speaker 4: it's more random that is anything else, and that lends
Speaker 4: to trying to figure out what.
Speaker 3: The motive is.
Speaker 4: Me as an investigator, I would really start to try
Speaker 4: to figure out what.
Speaker 3: The motive is.
Speaker 4: One thing that we have in law enforcement is called
Speaker 4: by CAP is a system where it's a national database
Speaker 4: of crimes that may be similar. So, as an example,
Speaker 4: Katie's crime is now in YCAP. So let's just say
Speaker 4: a detective in you know, Port Smith, Iowa.
Speaker 3: I just made that up.
Speaker 4: I don't even know if that's a city, but let's
Speaker 4: just say there's a Port Smith, Iowa that all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, two years after Katie's murder, has a woman
Speaker 4: found stabbed to death in similar fashion as Katie. They
Speaker 4: can check ViCAP to see if any cases fit a
Speaker 4: similar pattern, and now we may see a pattern emerge
Speaker 4: of the same person. What was not in VISCAP before
Speaker 4: Katie's murder was something like Katie's murder, so nothing matched that.
Speaker 4: So imagine if this was a serial killer who has
Speaker 4: a compulsion to do this. It doesn't seem to have
Speaker 4: happened before, and it doesn't seem to have happened afterwards.
Speaker 3: It seems more isolated. Why, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It seemed like Valeries a little, but you're saying not
Speaker 1: enough to meet the criteria VISCAP.
Speaker 4: So Valerie's case wasn't in ViCAP because I solved it, right,
Speaker 4: So ViCAP is more for unsolved cases. But also, well,
Speaker 4: I'm saying also soft cases too. So Valerie's case, although
Speaker 4: it wasn't put into CAP, was solved through DNA. So
Speaker 4: right now I'm looking for patterns. I'm looking for child
Speaker 4: if it's a child abduction, what other child abductions are
Speaker 4: going on? Serial rapists are rampant, like, there's many in
Speaker 4: this country that happened, So you start to see a
Speaker 4: pattern in retrospect that can go back and look at
Speaker 4: valorious case and say, I see the pattern he committed
Speaker 4: three other rapes prior to that. There's similarities in how
Speaker 4: he killed these my victim and how he tried to
Speaker 4: kill some of the other rape victims, like choking them.
Speaker 4: So in retrospect we can see that, But there hasn't
Speaker 4: been another case that we know of anywhere in the
Speaker 4: country that's similar to Katie since it happened or even before.
Speaker 2: That kind of leads me to a question that I've
Speaker 2: had as far as the similarities, because I feel like
Speaker 2: it is kind of similar to the Idaho for where
Speaker 2: the brutality of it, the overkill with one of the victims,
Speaker 2: they did have a carving in their leg. I think
Speaker 2: the male victim did. I'm sure, you know, all the
Speaker 2: experts in the world have probably ruled all that out,
Speaker 2: but it is kind of like interesting to me that
Speaker 2: to me there seems to be similarities. But on top
Speaker 2: of that, you know, serial killers are not like that.
Speaker 1: Prevalent anymore, you know.
Speaker 2: I feel like with the advancements in DNA and investigation techniques,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, there's not like a BTK situation happening.
Speaker 3: You know anymore.
Speaker 2: It's like they're solving these things pretty quickly before it
Speaker 2: gets down the line of years and years and years
Speaker 2: of people committing crimes. Just I mean, maybe you have
Speaker 2: a different take on that.
Speaker 3: Well, I think what happens is we as the public,
Speaker 3: because I'm a civilian, know, we're consumed with what we
Speaker 3: think serial killers are. We see TV.
Speaker 4: Dramas and they're so over dramatized where there's some nefarious,
Speaker 4: satanic sexual component that's driving.
Speaker 3: The serial killer.
Speaker 4: Those do exist, they have existed, But what a lot
Speaker 4: of people don't realize is that there are a lot
Speaker 4: of serial killers.
Speaker 3: That don't have those same components.
Speaker 4: In my career, most detectives go their entire career and
Speaker 4: never have one serial killer.
Speaker 3: I've had four. Well you've never heard of four serial
Speaker 3: killers in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: You've never heard of And the motivations exactly there you go, Right,
Speaker 4: That's what I'm saying. Right, But see, your reaction is
Speaker 4: exactly what I would expect because am I safe.
Speaker 3: Well, those serial killers.
Speaker 4: In their victims were confined to a small ecosystem, right,
Speaker 4: It wasn't like they're just going out to rape women
Speaker 4: and kill them. We would hear about that nationally, right,
Speaker 4: there's a rapist killer on the loose. That's not what
Speaker 4: these cases were. These were one happened to be a man,
Speaker 4: a man.
Speaker 3: Who is gay, who was killing his customers.
Speaker 4: He was a male prostitute, and he was a street
Speaker 4: male prostitute where they would just drive up and pick
Speaker 4: him up, and his motivation was to take money in
Speaker 4: their car and take things of value from them. And
Speaker 4: I got involved where this particular person killed my victim
Speaker 4: in Atlanta, Mark Shaler, I think it was in two
Speaker 4: thousand and four, who lived in midtown, And from there
Speaker 4: I was able to branch out and find these other cases.
Speaker 4: One was into cab another one was in another jurisdiction,
Speaker 4: and we put them all together. So we all worked
Speaker 4: as a team, but didn't make national news because that
Speaker 4: motivation was a little different. I had another one who
Speaker 4: was killing women. One he killed a woman that he dated,
Speaker 4: then he killed a woman that he had a romantic
Speaker 4: interest in, and then he killed another woman because he
Speaker 4: wanted to burglarize her home. So different motivations, but in
Speaker 4: all respect his respects.
Speaker 3: He still serial killer.
Speaker 4: So this particular case again, let's examine this. Let's fast
Speaker 4: forward into the future. Let's just say we now know
Speaker 4: who the person is. Now it's easy to go back
Speaker 4: and see the patterns. There's going to be patterns that exist.
Speaker 4: Even though we don't see another woman that was mutilated
Speaker 4: like Katie was, we may see where he attacked somebody
Speaker 4: or presented a knife, you know, get away from me,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna kill you. So now the knife may be
Speaker 4: the thing. One of the things with my case that
Speaker 4: I use Valerie Peyton, my victim from nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 3: She was stabbed, strangled, stabbed, and carved with a knife.
Speaker 4: Many of his other interactions where he had conflict with people,
Speaker 4: he would present a knife. So there's a pattern that
Speaker 4: starts to emerge. If we were to fast forward and
Speaker 4: now know who this suspect is, we I'm certain that
Speaker 4: we would go back and.
Speaker 3: See where it all fits together.
Speaker 4: There may be other victims that were stabbed that weren't
Speaker 4: killed and like, yeah, you know, he jumped out at
Speaker 4: me and me on the leg and I ran away unidentified. Right,
Speaker 4: let's just say this woman is like I never knew
Speaker 4: who this guy was. He just jumped out of the bushes.
Speaker 3: And got away.
Speaker 4: But now we can piece those things together. Right, it's
Speaker 4: not a murder, it's just an aggravated assault. How do
Speaker 4: those two things in or connect. We don't know yet
Speaker 4: because we don't know who it is.
Speaker 1: Does that surprise you that nothing turned up for Katie.
Speaker 3: A little bit?
Speaker 4: You know, I'm not trying to be critical, and I'm
Speaker 4: not of the police, because you know, again, I know
Speaker 4: this team and I know they.
Speaker 3: Did a great job.
Speaker 4: What surprises me is that because Pimont Park is so
Speaker 4: centrally located. Now, of course, you know, for your listeners
Speaker 4: that don't know Pimont Park, it's one hundred and eighty
Speaker 4: one hundred and ninety acres.
Speaker 3: It's huge.
Speaker 4: It's our central Park. It's an equivalent of New York
Speaker 4: Central Park for Atlanta. Yeah, and it's big in respect
Speaker 4: to our city.
Speaker 3: It's a big park. It's a big area.
Speaker 4: A lot of people frequent that park. It's July, the
Speaker 4: weather's nice, people are out, the.
Speaker 3: Bars are open, the bars are open.
Speaker 4: So again I go back to not so much seeing
Speaker 4: when it happened, but seeing after it happened, like where
Speaker 4: did this person go? Did they you know, did they
Speaker 4: have a car? I don't think so. I think this
Speaker 4: is someone who's local. I think it could be someone
Speaker 4: who's transient that may have been sleeping in the park
Speaker 4: and it's a really easy place to lay low for
Speaker 4: a while. Think about it, like one hundred and eighty
Speaker 4: acres that's really all green space.
Speaker 3: Imagine all the areas that you could hide it. Could
Speaker 3: they have missed them? Absolutely? So I'm surprised though that
Speaker 3: if it is.
Speaker 4: An unhoused person, I'm surprised that the unhoused people that
Speaker 4: have knowledge wouldn't come forward. One of the serial killer
Speaker 4: cases that I work with my partner was someone killing
Speaker 4: homeless people. And believe it or not, like God blessed
Speaker 4: the homeless because they're not all mentally ill, they're not
Speaker 4: all drug addicted.
Speaker 3: There's people out there that are just really good people, just.
Speaker 4: Down on a lucky interviewing homeless folks and they were like, man,
Speaker 4: you know, I saw they were given information. It wasn't
Speaker 4: the right information, but they were so willing to help, right,
Speaker 4: They were so willing to help because they they you know,
Speaker 4: they don't want to see anyone killed.
Speaker 3: So it surprises me that if it.
Speaker 4: Wasn't unhoused or homeless person, that no one in that
Speaker 4: community has information has come forward.
Speaker 2: One thing I was looking at was some stats on
Speaker 2: how many officers are employed by the Atlanta Police Department,
Speaker 2: and what I was seeing was that it's declined a
Speaker 2: lot over the years. Is this also kind of like
Speaker 2: the factor of just not having enough manpower to put
Speaker 2: towards this.
Speaker 4: I don't think so. You know, we've been teetering around
Speaker 4: two thousand. I think that's been the goal, and that's
Speaker 4: pretty much in line with our population. I think that's sufficient.
Speaker 4: I think somewhere when I would retire, we were around
Speaker 4: seventeen fifty to eighteen hundred. The homicide unit has always
Speaker 4: been adequately staffed, so to speak. And one of the
Speaker 4: things that we do is if we need people to
Speaker 4: go out and do a mass canvas, you know, in
Speaker 4: the case of this magnitude, we drop what we're doing.
Speaker 4: We get people from other units, we get recruits that
Speaker 4: are in school out there.
Speaker 3: And I know they did that with this case.
Speaker 4: I don't believe that's a factor in why this case
Speaker 4: hasn't been solved yet. I think it has more to
Speaker 4: do with just I hate to say it, but the
Speaker 4: perfect storm. Like you know, in most crimes, most criminals
Speaker 4: get caught when they overplan a crime. Many times criminals
Speaker 4: get away with crime that is spur of the moment
Speaker 4: that doesn't take a lot of planning.
Speaker 3: It's like instant rage or whatever, and they just slip
Speaker 3: into the darkness and they get away.
Speaker 4: Right, So if this thing was more planned, we would,
Speaker 4: let's just say, you know, it was something someone close
Speaker 4: to Katie, there would be some type of evidence, digital evidence,
Speaker 4: forensic evidence, something tying back to that.
Speaker 3: And we don't see that. So I certainly believe this
Speaker 3: is a stranger.
Speaker 1: Two questions just this. I want to know if this
Speaker 1: is too much to ask the homicide department. But like
Speaker 1: I kept thinking, why wouldn't they just take every single
Speaker 1: cell phone pay within a half a mile of the
Speaker 1: body at that between one and two am and just
Speaker 1: every single one of them trace the phone? Like is
Speaker 1: that way too hard to do? Am I oversimplifying it?
Speaker 3: So the way that works is is they did that.
Speaker 4: So they pulled all the cell towers, right, and what
Speaker 4: happens is all the towers, like from Verizon to Mobile,
Speaker 4: all the towers that are surrounding the park. Everyone that
Speaker 4: lives in the park or lives near the park, frequents
Speaker 4: the park, The businesses patrons of bars. The minute they
Speaker 4: get alike on a Facebook page, the minute they get
Speaker 4: any activity through an app on their phone, it's connecting
Speaker 4: to that tower.
Speaker 3: So when you.
Speaker 4: Dump the tower, what that does is gives you all
Speaker 4: the phone numbers during the period of time that you
Speaker 4: specify that are stored on that tower.
Speaker 3: And the way that works is reversed.
Speaker 4: It's insurmountable of you know, to think that you could
Speaker 4: go through every single phone.
Speaker 3: Number, it would take forever and then right years.
Speaker 4: The way it works is once you identify a suspect
Speaker 4: if they had a phone, and then you say, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, were you at Petmont Park?
Speaker 3: Were you near Petmont Park?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I wasn't.
Speaker 4: I was thirty miles away. I was in Flowery Branch, Georgia,
Speaker 4: up north. No I wasn't there. So if you're in
Speaker 4: Flowery Branch, Georgia, there's no way that your phone could
Speaker 4: ping at a tower near Petmont Park. And when they
Speaker 4: say no, and now we know what phone number they
Speaker 4: had at the time we find it on the tower,
Speaker 4: we know they're lying.
Speaker 3: So that's really how that works. When you pull a.
Speaker 4: Tower, thousands and thousands of phone numbers are on there,
Speaker 4: it could be someone just driving by, and.
Speaker 1: Then the cameras that were surrounding not we know the
Speaker 1: cameras in the park weren't working, But what about every
Speaker 1: single face that was walking on the outside. I mean,
Speaker 1: the bars have cameras. There was obviously the crosswalk, there
Speaker 1: wasn't anything there. But I only remember three people that
Speaker 1: they really looked at that they didn't know who they were.
Speaker 1: When was a jogger, One was a group of women
Speaker 1: on like a girl's night out, and then there was
Speaker 1: a third one. But certainly there were more. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that they vetted. But would that be like we're going
Speaker 1: to take every single face that showed up on camera
Speaker 1: and find them.
Speaker 4: Well, I know they pulled all available video from you know,
Speaker 4: they went house to house looking for doorbell cam video businesses.
Speaker 4: You know they had video cameras. And again when you're
Speaker 4: looking at that, I'll use your example. The people that
Speaker 4: you described, the videos that we've scene, they identified the jogger.
Speaker 3: So they did interview that person. He was interviewed.
Speaker 4: He was jogging and you can see when you look
Speaker 4: at that video, he's got a white shirt on, he
Speaker 4: doesn't have blood.
Speaker 3: On him, he's got a headlamp on he's jogging.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's three people walking casually, having casual conversations.
Speaker 4: Did three people commit this crime? If one of them
Speaker 4: did and then rejoined his group, he's going to.
Speaker 3: Be covered in blood. So you have to vet all
Speaker 3: that information as you're looking for that video. If there
Speaker 3: was a.
Speaker 4: Camera that had footage of someone acting suspicious, you know,
Speaker 4: very broad turned, but walking around looking around, looking behind them,
Speaker 4: looking suspicious, going into the bushes, coming back out, you know,
Speaker 4: looking around like he's looking for somebody, that would be
Speaker 4: somebody that I would focus on. I don't know that
Speaker 4: that happened. If that, if that was captured on the video,
Speaker 4: I'm sure they would.
Speaker 3: Have vetted that out and trying to They would have
Speaker 3: put that video.
Speaker 4: We would have seen that by now, so yeah, they
Speaker 4: would have put that on the news and say if
Speaker 4: you know who this person is, he's a person of interest,
Speaker 4: you know, please identify him and call us.
Speaker 3: So I don't believe that that's the case.
Speaker 1: That makes me feel better. The other only other thing
Speaker 1: I was curious about is they did open the park
Speaker 1: like the next day. Basically the park was back open,
Speaker 1: and I was always curious like that seemed crazy to me.
Speaker 1: But then would they ever have done that strategically thinking
Speaker 1: the killer will come back and we're going to open
Speaker 1: the park and see who shows up.
Speaker 4: Or is that they could have And I think one
Speaker 4: of the things that I think they did and I
Speaker 4: certainly would have done, is people have patterns. There are
Speaker 4: people who may take walks every day around the same time.
Speaker 3: So I would be interested to see what does the
Speaker 3: park look like, you know, the next night, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ask people like, hey, you know, I noticed you know,
Speaker 4: we're investigating this case.
Speaker 3: You know, do you live around here? Yeah, I live
Speaker 3: over here. Do you you know, do you frequent the park? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Usually I take my walks.
Speaker 4: Every night around nine o'clock. Oh great, you might have,
Speaker 4: you know, a few minutes of your time. Then you
Speaker 4: start asking that person questions when you take walks. Let's
Speaker 4: go back two weeks ago. Have you ever seen anybody
Speaker 4: that looked suspicious?
Speaker 3: Do you ever see.
Speaker 4: Anybody that you know approached you felt uncomfortable with? That's
Speaker 4: how you start, you know. Yeah, I'm of the opinion
Speaker 4: if you shake a tree hard enough, something is going
Speaker 4: to fall out of it, something right branch and leave something.
Speaker 4: And I think they did that so I don't. It
Speaker 4: doesn't surprise me that they open the park back up,
Speaker 4: and I believe that's the reason why got it.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Actually, thence you've been so helpful. Thank
Speaker 1: you for spending so much time with us.
Speaker 4: No, it's my pleasure. And you know, and this is
Speaker 4: such a tragic case. Like I, I really I'm interested
Speaker 4: in seeing this thing solved. I don't have access to
Speaker 4: what's going on right now. I wish I did to
Speaker 4: give you a little more information, but I can tell
Speaker 4: you that again, like I know, they're doing the best
Speaker 4: they can u in some cases, unfortunately, time is our enemy.
Speaker 3: We just have to wait, right And I hate to say, I.
Speaker 4: Don't want anything to happen to anybody else. But whoever
Speaker 4: this person is, they they may have committed another crime,
Speaker 4: maybe not to the level of homicide, but I think
Speaker 4: there's somebody out there. They just don't know that that
Speaker 4: person that may have assaulted them or approached them is
Speaker 4: the killer. So whoever listens, you know, if it's anybody
Speaker 4: that listens to this podcast that it's from Atlanta that
Speaker 4: knows about this case. There's no information that's trivial. There's
Speaker 4: no information that's insignificant. If you have just a crazy
Speaker 4: thought process idea, call crime stoppers, you know, let them know.
Speaker 4: I've had some crazy tips come in.
Speaker 3: Like when I read it, I'm.
Speaker 4: Like what And then I dug deeper and I'm like, damn,
Speaker 4: this is this got meat on the bone.
Speaker 3: There's something here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, because that guy, I'm sure somebody at
Speaker 1: some point they have no idea they saw him, but
Speaker 1: they saw him. I mean, you don't. You can't just
Speaker 1: be at Piedmont Park at you know, and never be
Speaker 1: spotted by anyone.
Speaker 4: Totally agree, he didn't disappear in the thin air, where
Speaker 4: he went and who he saw on the way there,
Speaker 4: those are the people that I think the police need
Speaker 4: to find.
Speaker 1: Agreed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just a reminder to our listeners. We do
Speaker 2: have the crime Stoppers information crime Stoppers ATL listed in
Speaker 2: our show notes, so if you need a quick link
Speaker 2: as to how to get there, and again it's anonymous,
Speaker 2: and there's a reward too in this case, so it's
Speaker 2: an incentive there you go, right, But yeah, thank you
Speaker 2: so much Vince for taking the time to chat with us.
Speaker 2: You're very smart in this field. I've learned a lot,
Speaker 2: so thank you. So much for sharing your time with us.
Speaker 3: My pleasure. You guys continue doing great things. Love it,
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you vents. Bye bye bye bye.
Speaker 1: Sources for this episode could be found in our show notes,
Speaker 1: and just a reminder, these are opinions and speculations surrounding
Speaker 1: this case and in no way an assumption or accusation
Speaker 1: of guilt towards any specific person.