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[Music] on December 19th 1979 Michelle Martino was a 18-year-old High School senior she was impossible to
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miss she had the big blonde hair she was that striking she was striking just a smart kind nice
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person she was a member of the concert choir they had a banquet which she attended afterwards Michelle ended up
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going to the mall so did a bunch of her friends from the choir the mall had just opened it was 2
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months old it was the place to be in Cedar Rapids at the time so she would have been parked right
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in this area yeah she would have been parked facing this direction she left the mall shortly
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before it closed it closed at 10: p.m. that night you're talking December in Iowa it's very dark it's very
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dark Michelle walks out and gets in her car this person snuck up on Michelle opened the door and climbed
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in she was stabbed and cut a total of 29 times this was a real fight it looks personal it's a lot of
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stab wounds it's Overkill it's always the boyfriend the girlfriend the husband someone really
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really close to the person did either of you know Andy cidel I knew Andy through
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Michelle that was her boyfriend I took an instant dislike to Andy he was very possessive of Michelle
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I believed Andy did it I did not see anything from the men in her life that would give any of them motive to do
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something like this I definitely didn't see that from Andy sidal the entire police force dedicated time
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and energy to try to find answers to what happened to Michelle after a couple of years the
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leads were starting to dry up the case then goes cold yeah we really had given up hope we truly had these guys never
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gave up the investigation never really stopped I've been through every piece of paper in here probably close to 8,000
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pages of reports here the biggest break came in 2005 the DNA was the key we collected DNA from 161 people we
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were looking for a needle and a hay stack we just need to get lucky it took us 13 years until we had a
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suspect we immediately call up the lab is this our guy what was the answer yes what are you doing in that
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moment I don't know what I was doing I was speechless so do you think he just all these years
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thought he got away with it well yeah cuz he [Music] did [Music] [Music] this tragic case that's been haunting
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this community for years just before Christmas in December 1979 every single police officer in
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Cedar Rapids Iowa was called to work on the horrific murder in the parking lot of Westdale Mall I've never seen anybody
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stabbed that many times including now retired detective Harvey denlinger something like that was unheard of
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around here Michelle martinko an 18-year-old High School senior had been found violently stabbed in the front seat of
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her car her killer unknown confounding generations of investigators we couldn't come up with anything and we just kept
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plugging away how old were you I was 5 years old do you remember the case no not not from
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when I was little Harvey son Matt but every single year on December 19th Michelle Martino was a bride blond the
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local news would have a Michelle Martino segment 27 years ago her life was cut short so it was really hard to miss the
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severity of it decades later Matt now a detective himself joined the investigation into
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Michelle Martino's murder I love how old this map is 36 years after his father had begun working the same case wouldn't
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it be something if I could find our suspect and my dad this still alive and as he dug into the thick files the son
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went to his father to help him make sense of it all I wanted someone to talk to about it and I wanted someone that
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really understood it the crime had stunned the small city of 110,000 it scared the hell out of this
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Tracy Price went to high school and sang in the choir with Michelle it just hit me like a
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brick it was just shocking Mike wrick had dated Michelle in high school and says her murder shattered the city's
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All-American image if that could happen and the person wasn't caught Anything could
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happen this one I think is one of our favorite pictures she's sleeping with her dog so cute here we're into the hair
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stage lots of hair pictures yep Janelle Stonebreaker is Michelle's big sister 12 years older Michelle was
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the flower girl at her wedding she and her husband John say nothing could have prepared them for the horrible news they
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got the morning after Michelle was killed we just hugged and we couldn't believe she was
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gone my dad was very stoic about it but he was angry and my mother was just brokenhearted it was a devastating blow
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to parents who had been through so much with Michelle already Janet martinko had
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suffered five miscarriages and was 44 years old when Michelle was born it was great I mean it was just so exciting
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when my sister was born and she was the miracle baby when she was 12 Michelle was diagnosed with scoliosis a curvature
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of the spine she had a wear of brace that went from her neck to her hips she felt very different very self-conscious
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so that was a tough period but at age 14 she was able to shed the brace and then Janelle says
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everything changed for Michelle ferah foset was in with the hair and my sister always had the long blonde hair so she
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thought okay I can do I can do the hair you know Michelle was blissfully unaware she
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bless of all this uh attention that she was getting from men she caught the the eye of Andy
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Sidell who at 16 was a year older than Michelle we met him roller skating Michelle's friend Gail Dawson remembers
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him and there is this flashy sports car guy you know Michelle and Andy were together for 2 years and
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then broke up friend say she didn't want to be in a committed relationship and Andy apparently didn't take it too well
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after they broke up he wanted to know her every move who she was dating why she was dating that particular person he
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would talk to her friends he just wouldn't go away police learned Andy had run into
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Michelle at the mall that fateful night they brought him in for questioning did he have an alibi Andy did have an alibi
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Andy was at home shortly after the mall closed and his mom uh provided an alibi the problem with Andy's Alibi though is
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that moms would say a lot to protect their children every male that knew her was a suspect that they had to clear you
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must have been a suspect I was Mike wrick was questioned as well and even though he was more than a 100 miles away
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at College when Michelle was murdered police knew he had also dated her all of it was a little intimidating it was hard
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it was scary Mike says the police were tough on him at one point they thought that I wasn't telling them everything
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and they laid the crime scene photos out in front of me and it was hurtful Mike was never considered a
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serious suspect because he was not in Cedar Rapids at the time of the murder but Andy was and Andy's Behavior at
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Michelle's funeral only reinforced many people's suspicions about him he was almost in the
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casket he was so emotional he has arms around her and he was just sobb in and he said to me I
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have to know who she loved when she died did she love me or did she love Mike who
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did she love when she died but police had no hard evidence pointing to Andy Sidell he left Cedar
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Rapid soon after high school and joined the Navy there's a large amount of us that were convinced that he did kill
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her I thought it was just a matter of time before he was arrested and charged [Music]
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there was no one else there really wasn't another [Music] [Music] suspect as police investigated those closest
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Michelle martinko looking for potential suspects they were also looking at the possibility that Michelle may have been
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killed outside the mall by a stranger she was out there and she was looking for a coat that her mom had put on lay
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we for her for Christmas and she was going to pay it off Michelle had $186 with her to pay for the coat but
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ultimately decided she didn't want it Tracy Price had run into her at the mall that night and gave her a protective
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warning when he saw her holding the cash put that away you know don't be flashing
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money out here in the middle of everybody Tracy only learned later that Michelle was a little anxious that night
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she was nervous about going out to the mall by herself and that she had told someone that she felt like she was being
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followed you didn't notice anybody watching her paying close attention to her I never got that feeling
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Michelle headed to her car in the dark so she was parked pretty far away yeah she was parked the ways out here I think
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she gets in I think she probably turned that car on herself and and was warming it up for a minute to get the frost off
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the windows and I think that in that moment before she puts it in drive and leaves I think he's at the door pops it
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open pushes her over and climbs in it sounds like a robbery on the surface it would sound like a robbery but she did
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have cash on her it wasn't taken she did have a bag with some items she had purchased in the back seat those weren't
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taken so is it a sexual assault it very well could have could have been the plan
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although the autopsy showed she was not sexually assaulted Michelle had defensive slice wounds on her hands and
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body you have to assume that that pretty much any motive that you can logically think of was a possibility and Michelle
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decided she wasn't going to allow that to happen she fought whatever the motive the asent had
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come prepared they found rubber glove indentations on the outside of the car in dirt they found them inside the car
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in Blood it was clear that that person was trying to conceal their identity investigators had no fingerprints no
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Witnesses and few leads although they had a blood soaked crime scene DNA technology was still years away it's
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frustrating by 1986 this casee is sitting on Ice it's that cold no one can think of anything uh more to do at that
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point Michelle's family was even more frustrated it seemed that everybody had been looked at we thought the
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investigation was pretty much dead in the water it would take almost two decades but the case would come alive
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again in 2005 detective Doug larrison was in charge coincidentally he had gone to high
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school with Michelle although they were not close her murder had deeply affected
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him so that had been on your mind since you were 18 years old how do we get this
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solved right I felt the responsibility towards my classmates actually to get this crime
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solved in the years since Michelle's murder DNA had emerged as a forensic tool technology changes science changes
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so I wanted to proceed and move the case forward and larison did just that he was reading
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Michelle's file when he discovered that sometime earlier another detective had sent blood scrapings found on the gear
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shift of the car out for testing but nobody had followed up on the results and it just stays in the file until
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somebody finds it and it can get lost in the file and until somebody actually sits down and reads the file do they go
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oh wow we have DNA those different investigators don't necessarily network with one
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another but Lar found that lab report and it showed that not only did the gearshift have DNA it was male
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DNA he had probably cut himself and that's how his DNA and his blood got mixed with her blood on the gearshift
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selector larison then sent Michelle's dress which had been safely tucked away in an Evidence Locker to the lab for
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further testing what did they find a spot of blood on her dress with a full male DNA
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profile and uh it was consistent with the male DNA profile on the gearshift selector
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larrison had identified a crucial piece of evidence I think it's just common sense that that's probably your killer
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right there detectives had the evidence now all they needed was the suspect we know we just need one person we just
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need to get get lucky you know have the sunshine on us just one day when we find
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one person that matches that but it would take many days more than a decade and it wasn't luck it was cops who
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wouldn't quit until they finally narrowed in on one very surprising suspect oh boy this is it we have
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finally gotten down to the wire on [Music] [Music] this here in America's Heartland for friends
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like Tracy Price who saw Michelle martinko the last night of her life every anniversary it goes through your
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head you know here's another year still don't know for ex-boyfriend Mike Wyrick we all
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were victims in a way well your innocence was stolen yeah exactly then the fear set in and for close friend
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Gail Dawson Michelle's murderer left a mark on all their lives you're scared you're afraid to go
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[Music] places the killer had vanished but by 2005 investigators were on to something
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new science and that male DNA profile in Michelle's dress and the DNA from the blood on her car's gear shift would it
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be fair to say you found a needle on a hyack I think there was a lot of needles in and a lot of Hy Stacks in this case
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for lead investigator Doug larrison old evidence suddenly had fresh potential he
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shipped the blood samples to cotus the Nationwide database of DNA collected from Arrested offenders if Michelle's
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murderer had a previous record cotus will give us a hit and tell us who matches the profile so you send it to
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cotus and what happens well we never got a hit dead end the DNA from Michelle's dress and
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car did not match up with anyone in the huge government file so now we had a job
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to do starting with locating all the people Cedar Rapids cops had originally interviewed we collected DNA samples
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from over a 100 different people cops had to convince them to take a DNA test it was timec consuming Mike wrick and
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Tracy Price were tested both came up negative at the top of larrison's list was Michelle's old boyfriend Andy Sidell I
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think he was probably the main suspect from the very beginning of this case Andy Sidell had lived for 27 years with
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many in his hometown believing he was a killer I said listen Andy if you give us
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your DNA and it doesn't match then you're eliminated you're cleared so he voluntarily gave his DNA
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and he was eliminated but whoever ended Michelle's life left a different but lasting mark
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on Andy Michelle's parents both died before that DNA test exonerated him they likely went to their graves believing
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Andy was their daughter's killer I feel very bad about that Andy was a victim himself because many many fingers were
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pointing at Andy larison moved on classmates friends family searching for a match with that male DNA so you do 100
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different people what comes back everybody's eliminated no matches it had been 10 frustrating years for detective
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Doug larrison I was kind of burned out so I went to my supervisors and I said hey I think you need to get somebody to
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replace me on this case one of these had the FBI profile in it and that's when Matt came in Matt denlinger Harvey's son
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that second generation searching for Michelle's killer in 2015 he took over as lead detective they would tell you
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our computer records only go back to 1990 facts hadn't changed but DNA technology had once again Advanced
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further offering tantalizing possibilities we've got this DNA profile how can we get more information from it
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can we find out eye color hair color race denlinger reached across the country to Virginia's parabon nanolabs
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and they said yeah we know what you're trying to do and guess what we can make a picture of a potential suspect from
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that DNA sample did you think that that could be possible no no I had no good concept that that
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was possible um it sounded a little bit sci-fi but I was ready to try we had to do
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something the portrait was striking parabon called the technique snapshot it put a face on a fan
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what we learned from that is our suspect was probably a white male blonde hair blue eyes this first image I show you
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here and so we had a press conference investigators had narrowed down the suspect's genetics but they did not know
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his age or have a clue as to how he wore his hair so different sketches were created each with a different
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look a town hungry for justice searched its memory for a match do you get a lot of
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tip calls we got hundreds any of them pan out no it's every blond-haired blue-eyed guy that ever walked the face
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of the Earth and step foot in Iowa are you just confused I was really confused and I did not know where to go
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next that answer came from an Infamous but totally unrelated case California's so-called Golden State killer Joseph
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D'Angelo was arrested in 2018 charged with a decades long spree of Serial murder and rape that was big news that
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was big national news then I read the article and it talked about genetic genealogy and you went bingo I went
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Bingo genetic genealogy the charting of DNA from one family member to another a DNA family tree parabon was ready to
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test that same DNA one more time they said we'll use the sample you already gave us for the uh snapshot images I
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said let's do it parabon searched a public National Database called Jed match of people who
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submitted their own DNA voluntarily to trace their own personal family tree and in July of 2018 we got a report back
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from them they said good news we found a relative of your killer Brandy Jennings is our gal in
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Vancouver Washington she's the second cousin right once removed exactly Brandy Jennings an office manager and single
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mom was a distant relative to the male whose DNA was found on Michelle's bloody dress and in her car so you start with
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her we start with her denlinger spent months Building bry's Family Tree all the way back to her great great
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grandparents we used genealogical records birth records marriage records gravestone records anything we could
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find to fill in a bunch of these unknowns as more blood relatives of Brandy Jennings provided their DNA a
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genetic puzzle filled in and the detective reached out to parabon once again and they recalibrated things and
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said listen we think your best odds are these three brothers who live in Iowa Three Brothers all from Iowa all
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likely sharing some DNA with the blood found in Michelle Martino's car a 38-year trail was heading straight back
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home 20 minutes away I was pretty excited about this [Music] one should Police use genetic genealogy
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to help solve crimes for more on the investigation go to 48 [Music] hours.com [Music]
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by October of 2018 detective Matt dinger's painstaking ancestry searches had narrowed the suspects down to three
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brothers in Iowa and all of them were still alive we immediately started doing research on these three brothers were
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Donald Burns Kenneth Burns and Jerry Burns Dan linger and his team set up a plan
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they would collect DNA samples from the brothers to see if any were a match and they would do it without them
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knowing you think one of them is a suspect you can't tell any of the three not only can I not tell any of the three
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but I was careful who I told in general Iowa is not the biggest state in the Union and you never know who knows who
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they followed one brother to lunch and grabbed his straw for the second a toothbrush was collected from his
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garbage and then the third brother Jerry we drove up to Manchester we had already established kind of a pattern or
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or some locations to try to find him after a couple of hours he spotted Jerry Burns at this pizza restaurant he drank
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at least two sodas out of a glass with a straw all three brothers samples were sent to the lab Don and Kenneth were not
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a match but the results showed Jerry Burns's DNA was an exact match for denlinger the message was clear I I
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was definitely speechless I'm almost speechless today thinking about it it turns out that parabon sketch of the
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suspect was very similar to a young Jerry Burns but Burns wasn't an obvious suspect we are not
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finding any connection at all no connection to Michelle no connection to that car even more baffling Jerry
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Burns's resume was the opposite of a coldblooded killer he had no criminal record and was even a respected
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businessman with a wife and three kids denlinger picked a particular day to interview Burns at his business hello
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December 19th 2018 hey how are you today Jerry my name's Matt the Cedar Rapid Police
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Department exactly 39 years to the day after Michelle was murdered I wanted to Rattle him I wanted to bring that up
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during the interview and see I if that would do anything to him copy of the search using a hidden camera inside a
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coffee mug denlinger tried to get a confession the reality is we have your DNA at the crime scene and so we know
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you were there that night this happened how would we get your DNA at the crime scene there Jerry I don't know but Jerry
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acknowledged he had been to the mall with his family in the past did you go to Westdale Mall oh yeah we've gone to
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Westdale Mall although Jerry couldn't remember when when he was at the mall Dinger continued to press him Terry what
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happened that night I don't know despite Burns's denes the DNA was enough to arrest him for the murder of Michelle
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martinko anything you say can Will used to get you in a court of law on the ride
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back to Cedar Rapids a camera was rolling again this time in the police car and denlinger believes Jerry offered
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something revealing he said a few things about blocking stuff out traumatic events it's possible happen I'm sure
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something like that would be possible block things out your memories you're a homicide detective your gut
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tells you something what did your gut say my gut told me the second he refused to deny it or give me a plausible
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explanation that we had the right guy for Michelle's sister Janelle news of the DNA match and the arrest signaled
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hope and day she and her husband John thought would never come we were just hooping and hollering and we were just
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talking and talking we were just so excited but for the Burns family it all came as a complete shock Jerry's
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daughter Jennifer and his brother da could not believe the man they know and love could ever be capable of such a
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gruesome act we did not believe it this could not be our dad he couldn't have done it there was just no way I mean he
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was he was always there for his family circumstance that just made it highly improbable from our perspective first of
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all there was no connection between Jerry and Michelle martinko none Leon spe is Jerry Burn's attorney he believes
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his client's demeanor during the police interview wasn't out of the ordinary I challenge anybody to to predict how any
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person is going to react let alone react being caught out of the blue Within investigator trying to attribute them to
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a a horrible horrible crime he did not commit this murder in February of 2020 Michelle
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Martino's accused killer went on trial more than four decades after her murder due to the buzz surrounding the case in
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Cedar Rapids the judge granted a venue change to Davenport Iowa an hour away the evidence will show that Michelle
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martinko was murdered that night by the defendant Jerry Burns prosecutor Nick maybanks felt the weight
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of his hometown on his shoulders a lot of eyes on this case there are Generations that grew up with this story
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and the generation who lived through the horror and suspicion always seem to be a
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happy several of Michelle's friends were called to testify including Michelle's ex-boyfriend and once Prime Suspect Andy
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Sidell who says he and Michelle were on good terms the last time they saw each other
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there was no reason for us to to part ways in a bad way we just kind of grew apart as we evolved growing into
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adulthood do you swear or Mike wrick was also called and had to relive Michelle's
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murder all over again this trial was hard on me for a lot of us brought it all back into focus in a way that it
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hadn't been in Focus since those early early days this was a random act of violence committed by a stranger from
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the start prosecution faced a number of hurdles the case and the evidence were decades old trying to take 40 Years of
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investigation and condense it into a story and a lot of things about this suspect didn't make sense what's that
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like for you you have a suspect who has no criminal background that we're aware of mhm and this heinous crime that looks
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extremely personal right yeah you have no story I don't yeah and after he was interviewed we didn't have much of a
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story either a story the Burns family believes was problematic from the start they wanted an
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explanation of how his DNA got there well how is he supposed to know from 40 years ago you know I can't even remember
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what I did last week every day so would you say it's impossible that Jerry murdered Michelle I'd say it is there's
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absolutely no way it could have happened I don't think there's any way that my dad could have done this the prosecution
00:31:57
case hinged on that one critical piece of evidence Jerry Burns DNA we got the science we got the guy there's a one in
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100 billion chance that it could be somebody else's there's only 8 billion people or so in the world but Leon spe
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argues the DNA evidence isn't foolproof there are lots of misconceptions about DNA it's not the Silver Bullet that law
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enforcement often portrays it to [Music] be do you think Jerry Burn's comment and
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the the troll car was telling join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter as the state's case wound down
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prosecutor Nick maybanks had one last card to play he called a new witness Michael Allison a drug offender who had
00:32:54
become friendly with Jerry Burns in jail yes I do I asked him directly if I asked
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him Jerry did you do do the crime and he said I can't talk about this but Burns did say something curious
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he feels like uh no matter what happens in this case that he he wins because he had had the opportunity to be out there
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with his family all these years Allison said Jerry later made another comment while they were playing
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cards that Disturbed him so much he volunt here to testify he had told me if I keep beating
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him in PE knuckle he was going to have to take me to the mall it disgusted me in his defense case Leon Spees calls
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only one witness Dr Michael Spence a mular biologist he says while there is no doubt the DNA and Michelle's car
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belong to Jerry Burns how it got there was another matter is it Dr Spence Applause explanation that the DNA
00:33:59
of Jerry Burns could have come about by a transfer yes that's a distinct possibility every time you come into
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contact with something you're shedding DNA you're leaving a biological trail of yourself she was in a shopping mall
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before she was killed a shopping mall that the Burns family had used she sat down with a friend at a food court a
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food court that Jerry Burns and his family may have sat at but how did Jerry's DNA end up on the Buick's gear
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shift Jerry's Brother Don Burns believes there could be an innocent explanation he worked in a dealership
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that sold Buick cars so there is a possibility that if if records show that that car went through that dealership
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his DNA could be in that car but detective Matt denlinger isn't buying it my question for them would be did the
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dress go to the Buick dealership too this is this fantasy World common sense says that that's not the case impossible
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impossible ladies and gentlemen of the jury good morning in his final arguments prosecutor maybanks tells the jury there
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was only one way Jerry Burns's DNA got into that car there was no chance of outside
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contamination on this dress we know how it happened and we know who did it in his closing argument spe attacks the
00:35:30
Integrity of the investigation you can consider not only the evidence but also the lack or the
00:35:36
failure of evidence produced by the prosecution and he tells jurors to consider how unlikely it is that a man
00:35:42
like Jerry could commit a crime like this the state scenario here is that Jerry Burns a married man with two young
00:35:51
children at home leaves drives to Cedar Rapids Iowa in the night leaving his wife and children
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behind armed with a knife armed with rubber gloves goes to Westdale Mall on the chance that he's going to encounter
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Michelle Maro designs to kill her and then leaves and drives back home splattered with
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blood presumably with a knife wound in his hand that's the scenario the government wants you to
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believe the jury begins deliberations on a Monday afternoon remember you are the
00:36:31
judges of The Facts nerves are on edge I was not thinking slam dunk all it takes
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is one juror to have a hung jury but just 3 hours later I said we have a verdict so we rush into the courtroom
00:36:46
sit down and we [Music] wait thank you we the the jury find the defendant Jerry Lynn Burns guilty of the charge of
00:37:00
Murder in the First Degree guilty the courtroom was silent we almost couldn't breathe it was
00:37:14
just amazing it was fabulous we were aware of how quiet was on Jerry's side and that there was no
00:37:28
reaction unfair I'd say I was stunned the verdict came back so fast I don't know if the jury really took time to
00:37:37
look at the facts what do you feel in that moment extreme relief the weight of the world was off my shoulders
00:37:45
now Harvey denlinger the investigator who was there at the beginning of the case 40 years earlier saw his son help
00:37:54
end it I'm proud as hecko of them I really am proud to to get an answer you know while he can he can
00:38:03
still appreciate it he said today how proud he is of you well all right we're going to take a
00:38:13
break finally there was an answer to the question that had haunted Cedar Rapids for so long but there is a lingering
00:38:21
question was Michelle martinko Jerry's only victim I just seen something about jod hen tro
00:38:29
recently in his interview with denlinger Burns randomly mentioned the name of Jody hen Tru you are watching news
00:38:36
channel 3 day break she was a blonde news anchor kidnapped near her car in a parking lot in
00:38:42
1995 and never found she worked in Mason City Iowa 2 hours from where Burns lived
00:38:49
though there is no evidence he knew her do you suspect that Jerry Burns was involved in other
00:38:55
crimes I don't know the answer to that my gut tells me there's probably something else
00:39:01
out there Mason City police will not disclose whether they are investigating Burns in The Who and TR disappearance
00:39:09
and his DNA is not connected to any other cases but in Michelle Martino's case she played a unique role in
00:39:17
revealing her killer she fought so hard that she caused the murderer to cut himself he
00:39:25
left his DNA and so Michelle helped solve her own murder four decades after Michelle's
00:39:34
death her friends family and generations of investigators gather to celebrate her
00:39:41
memory this case wasn't isn't just about her death it's about her life Nick maybanks worded it the best I mean he
00:39:47
said it's not about how she died it's about how she lived you can't help but wonder where life would have led her her
00:39:58
name will be forever etched in local history as part of Cedar Rapids most haunting
00:40:05
crime you've been a prosecutor for 20 years is this the biggest case you've ever had yeah every case you want
00:40:11
justice but a case like this touched so many people over so many years there'll never be another one like
00:40:18
[Music] it [Music] she killed her partner I don't believe Chris ever abused her she was a very
00:40:37
good actress murder or self-defense there were many people who saw her with black eyes with bruises she was afraid
00:40:45
for her life 48 Hours next on CBS