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by the early 2000s investigators had received over 3,000 leads and advances in technology made them hopeful they
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entered the DNA from the crime scene into the recently established Koda system a national DNA database that
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includes profiles of convicted offenders the strategy was to continually try to see if there would ever be a match while
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also investigating leads but over time there appeared to be no match for us to have DNA evidence from the suspect but
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not have that link to anybody it just didn't make sense it it seemed hard to believe that
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the suspect hadn't committed any other prior crimes where his DNA wouldn't be in the
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system that's when he says detectives realize they had to go in a different direction my name is Colleen Fitzpatrick
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and I'm one of the pioneers of forensic genetic genealogy in 2011 investigators reached
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out to Fitzpatrick to inquire about using forensic genetic genealogy the practice of using software to compare
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unknown DNA profiles to information from public DNA databases and searching family trees to identify suspects
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genetic genealogy is well known now and has been used to solve numerous cold cases but at that time it was in its
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infancy when I started in this field it didn't exist Fitzpatrick says most police agencies had been skeptical of
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this new investigative tool the police thought I was crazy you know this little old lady with a crazy idea and I was
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actually almost laughed out the room but the King County Sheriff's Office took a
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chance on Fitzpatrick it was for free I just wanted to see if it worked what are
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you going to lose if you try something the Y Bros were encouraged I think it wasn't until we met Colleen
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Fitzpatrick that I really began to think you know they're going to find this person and it didn't take long before
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Fitzpatrick came up with the name of a possible suspect that surprised just about everyone everyone
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went no way [Music] from the beginning it was very promising and the story took some really
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bizarre twist in 2011 20 years after Sarah's murder when forensic genetic genealogist
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Colleen Fitz Patrick started working the yoro case she traced Sarah's Killer's family tree back to a man named Robert
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Fuller whose family had come to America on the Mayflower I found numerous matches to the name
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Fuller when Fitzpatrick gave the name Fuller to the King County Sheriff's Office they immediately knew of one
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person with that last name Bill Fuller the yar's close family friend who helped get that Memorial bench built for
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Sarah naturally that peat our interest from the beginning Sarah's family and friends believe Bill Fuller
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had nothing to do with Sarah's murder he didn't look at all like the suspect the
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wrong hair color he's short he's not tall he just didn't fit the profile at all Fuller's age didn't match the
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profile either he's 79 years old now but was 48 years old at the time of Sarah's
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murder at least two decades older than the man Drew Miller described there is no no way that I could be even remotely
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connected to the case he fully cooperated with police and voluntarily gave them a DNA sample it
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didn't match the DNA found at Sarah's crime scene yet Fitzpatrick remained optimistic the good news is that we came
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up with a possible last name to investigate and this was the first break in the case in 20
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years Fitzpatrick knew that Sarah's killer was in the Fuller family tree somewhere so she and her team went back
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to work and as the years went by she knew she was only getting closer especially after 2018 when forensic
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genetic genealogy was used to identify the Golden State killer Golden State Killer really started the big revolution
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things had evolved that we had the data to work with the technology was in place
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that we could go for it then in September of 2019 Fitzpatrick's team made a breakthrough
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they came up with two new possible suspects Brothers Edward and Patrick Nicholas who as the DNA showed were
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distant cousins of Bill Fuller you know this is eight years of on and off and looking at it never giving up this is it
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this is exciting Edward Nicholas was a registered sex offender his DNA was in the system was in
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cotus but Edward's DNA wasn't a match so they zeroed in on his brother Patrick who in 2019 was a divorced loner who
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lived a couple of towns away from Federal Way we learned that he was working at a at a auto part store lived
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alone uh no children no friends or acquaintances that would even visit him everything that he did was mostly by
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bus he wasn't driving detective fre says he discovered that when Sarah was murdered the bus
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route Nicholas often took happened to go past Federal Way High School back then Nicholas was just 27
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years old and around that time looked very much like the description of the sketch it looked promising at that point
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but we still needed to get a DNA sample from him to match up to the DNA evidence
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that we had so in late September 2019 investigators came up with a plan we assigned a team of undercover
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detectives to start doing surveillance on Patrick Nicholas in the hopes of obtaining a surreptitious DNA sample
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eventually undercover detectives followed Nicholas to a laundromat they saw him go outside and smoke a cigarette
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and Patrick Nicholas was seen throwing the cigarette butt on the ground that was collected by our detectives that's
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what you needed right there that cigarette butt Yes actually he dropped two cigarette butts and a nap that fell
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out of his pocket and all three items were collected the DNA samples were rushed to
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the crime lab and within days detectives received the call they had been waiting
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for the DNA match this was our suspect perfect match yes Patrick Nicholas was arrested there were so many suspects
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over the years was Patrick Leon Nicholas ever named as a suspect out of 4,000 tips he was never named
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I was I was pretty in shock the news was a relief for Sarah's family and friends
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who had never given up hope that they would get answers one thing the detectives kept telling us was
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eventually technolog is going to solve this case I trusted that and they turned out that they were
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right and I remember going out to my car and balling just just balling finally finally they got
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him when Drew Miller who had seen Sarah's killer back in 1991 saw Patrick Nicholas's face he says
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he knew they had the right person what did he look like the same guy just older just the same evil eyes those evil eyes
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stayed the same all these years later yeah but it was not over yet what do you think you're here I have no clue during
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his interrogation when detectives specifically asked him about Sarah's murder he gave an alarming
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response what we're investigating is is the death of a young girl her name s interestingly he asked what year this
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was and that really sent up a flag why why would you ask that he's being told this is a murder case we're wondering at
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this point are there other victims this is it I'm not going say after one and a half hours Nicholas asked for an
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attorney and stopped talking but his criminal record would speak volumes I am the one that got
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away