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Hey, good morning. Good morning. You're listening in to Dateline's morning meeting.
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Let's go ahead and get started on this really hot day. Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news.
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She was sentenced, judge threw the book at her. We've got a lot of booking things in motion.
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Good getting on it. Thank you very much. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning.
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It's June 26th, and here's what's on our docket. It's been called Kentucky's trial of the decade.
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Nearly 10 years after Crystal Rogers vanished from the small town of Bardstown, her former boyfriend is standing trial for her murder.
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According to family members, Brooks and Crystal's relationship was on the rocks at the time of her disappearance.
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In Dateline Roundup, we've got an update on the murder trial of former Major League Baseball player Dan Serafini.
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and will take you inside the courtroom for the sentencing of the wife of murdered celebrity
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hairstylist Fabio Cementilli. Emotions were running high. There are days I cannot even breathe.
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I cannot function because the weight of Fabio's murder sits so heavily on my chest.
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Plus, you've seen them in high-profile cases, age-progression photos of missing children.
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But do they really make a difference? Not only do we have to do the image correctly,
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We have to get it out to the public. We have to have the public engaged. Before all that, we're heading to Colorado,
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where there is big news in a case we've been following ever since it broke five years ago.
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Keith Morrison first brought you the story of missing mom Suzanne Morphew in his Dateline episode, Echoes in the Canyons.
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A 49-year-old mother of two had taken her bike for a ride, and she didn't come back.
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Within days, Suzanne's husband, Barry, appeared in an emotional video posted on Facebook
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pleading for any tips about where Suzanne might be. Suzanne, if anyone is out there that can hear this,
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that has you, please do whatever it takes to bring you back. We love you, we miss you, your girls need you.
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Years went by with no sign of Suzanne until September 2023. Investigators stumbled across her remains
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in a remote area of Colorado. Then, this past Friday, there was a major development in the case.
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Barry was charged with Suzanne's murder the second time he's been arrested for allegedly
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killing her. Joining us now to unpack all of this is Dateline producer Haley Barber, who has been covering
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this story from the very beginning. Welcome back, Haley. Thank you so much, Andrea.
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Just start by giving us a little bit of background on Suzanne and Barry. What do we know about this couple, you know, obviously before this tragedy happened?
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Yeah, of course. So Suzanne and Barry are originally from a small town in Indiana, and they had moved
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to Colorado, and they have two daughters by all accounts. Suzanne was just a really kind person.
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She was loved by everyone. What did Barry have to say after Suzanne went missing?
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So Barry told investigators that he had been close to Denver that day, which is more than two hours away on a work site.
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And that the last that he had seen Suzanne was when he had left that morning and she was sleeping.
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Okay. And he told investigators that they had just spent a wonderful weekend together, that everything was fine?
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That's right. He said that everything was rosy. Suzanne, however, had told people before her disappearance that things were not so rosy.
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She had confided in close friends that she was unhappy and she was feeling very lonely in the marriage and had even talked about divorce with Barry.
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Okay, so Barry says that he's out of town the day that Suzanne goes missing. What did the investigators find as they really dug into his alibi?
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So as investigators dig in, they uncover video of Barry from the day of Suzanne's disappearance,
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discarding trash at different locations, dumpsters behind a McDonald's, different places.
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So his story is kind of not adding up. They end up searching the house because she's missing and she doesn't turn up quickly at all.
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What did they find? Any clues that they could use? So they found something interesting in the house. You know, in Colorado, deer hunting is very popular, but they actually found a needle cap from a dart from a tranquilizer gun for a deer in the dryer. And that sort of got them asking questions. So that's one of the things that was collected and ended up becoming very important to the investigation later on.
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Barry had an explanation, of course, for the tranquilizer gun. He did. He was a hunter. He said that was nothing out of the ordinary for him.
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Okay. And so almost a year after Suzanne went missing, Barry was arrested and charged with
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first-degree murder. Barry maintained his innocence, which he still maintains to this day.
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Ultimately, Haley, after that first arrest, the charges against him were dropped. What happened?
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This was a stunning moment in the case. He was a little over a week away from going to trial,
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And the defense alleged that there was evidence that had been withheld by the prosecution, including exculpatory evidence that could have proved that Barry, you know, was not guilty of this crime.
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The prosecution denied doing anything wrong, but asked the judge to drop the charges, which he did.
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The charges, however, were dismissed without prejudice, which, of course, left the door open to go after Barry again.
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That's right. Okay, so let's remind everyone, Suzanne's body up to this point had not been found,
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which always makes these cases difficult when there's no body. But there was a big turning
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point in the case in September 2023 They found Suzanne remains That right Investigators from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation happened upon a shallow grave outside a town called Moffitt which is a very small town in Colorado about 40 miles from
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where Barry and Suzanne had lived. And in fact, the remains were very telling because they were
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able to determine there was a chemical in Suzanne's system called BAM. And that's short for a lot of
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of different chemicals, but it's ultimately a tranquilizer used for animals. And this was
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shocking to investigators because as you remember, they had found that needle cap in the dryer.
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So that's kind of a big revelation as well. Yeah. This is a very big reveal here in this case,
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big movement going on. All right. So that led to a new investigation and Friday,
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Barry was arrested for Suzanne's murder again. What have we learned from this new indictment?
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There's a lot to unpack here, Andrea. The indictment is 10 pages, and possibly one of the
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most important things that we've learned is that the chemical that was in Suzanne's body is not
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something that's very easy to get. In fact, investigators were able to determine that the
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only person who had access to that chemical in that area of Colorado within four years of Suzanne's
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disappearance was Barry Morphew. They allege that he used this tranquilizer on her before he killed
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her. And I think what we're going to see is that they are going to say they can trace this right
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back to him. And they're saying he is the only private citizen in that area with access to this
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bam. That's right. In fact, the Colorado Department of Fish and Wildlife is one of the people that
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they had to get involved in this investigation to say, is there anybody besides you guys who
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had this chemical? And they said no. What happens next? So Barry had moved to Arizona. So when
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authorities arrested him, he was living in Arizona at the time. And now he has waived extradition.
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He will be sent back to Colorado where he will stand trial. There was a press conference where this new prosecutor came out and said, you know, we were never going to give up on Suzanne.
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While it may seem at times that the world forgets about these victims, I can assure you that my law enforcement partners and Colorado's law enforcement community do not forget.
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We kind of will wait now, you know, to see when this case will go to trial. Well, one thing I know is you'll be all over it.
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Haley, thank you for this. Of course. Thanks for having me. Coming up, we're heading to Kentucky for what's been called the state's trial of the decade.
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in july 2015 crystal rogers a 35 year old mother of five vanished from the town of bardstown kentucky
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the only trace of her was her car found abandoned on the side of the bluegrass parkway
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the keys still in the ignition. Now, nearly 10 years later, and in a courtroom more than 100
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miles away, Crystal's former boyfriend, Brooks Houck, and a man who worked for him by the name
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of Joseph Lawson are standing trial on charges connected to her alleged murder. Because of
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massive pretrial publicity, the judge had ordered the case to be moved to a completely different
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county. Both men have pleaded not guilty. They are not the first to go to trial in this case.
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Earlier this month on the podcast, we told you about the trial of Steve Lawson, Joseph's father, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with evidence.
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But this trial is the first time we'll get a detailed look at what prosecutors believe
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actually happened to Crystal Rogers. Dateline producer Rachel White was in court as opening
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statements began. She's joining us now to tell us what she learned. Thanks for coming on the
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podcast, Rachel. Thanks for having me. So what is it like at court now that this second trial
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is underway. The trial started on Tuesday. The judge called more than 100 potential jurors
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to the courthouse. It took all day to seat a jury. So not only was the actual courtroom
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completely packed wall to wall, but so was the media overflow room. There were a number of local
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news stations there covering this case who've been on it for the past 10 years. Rachel, this case has
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a lot of twists and turns. What do you think it is about this case that's garnered just so much
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attention? I think that Crystal Rogers' family, particularly her mother, Sherry, has really done
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a fantastic job of keeping Crystal top of mind locally and on a national scale. She really has
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just been in the media, keeping Crystal just right in the face of everybody who comes anywhere near
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Bardstown. And so I think this has been a long time coming for people here in Kentucky. And I
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think that people feel like they want to see this justice for her and justice for Crystal.
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The local sheriff named Crystal's boyfriend as a suspect in her disappearance a few months into
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the investigation. And Crystal's family suspected him from the very beginning. Why?
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According to family members, Brooks and Crystal's relationship was on the rocks at the time of her
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disappearance. So I think that's why they suspected he had something to do with this.
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Rachel, so eight years passed before investigators charged anyone with Crystal's murder.
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What happened and what finally broke that they were able to make some headway? The FBI took over the investigation in 2020.
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And over the next several years, they conducted searches of Houck's properties and other locations around Bardstown.
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And in 2023 the FBI arrested Joseph Lawson who worked for Brooks Houck investigators allege that Joseph was the person who actually drove Crystal car to the side of the parkway and left it there And then the FBI arrested
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Brooks Houck and charged him with Crystal's murder and tampering with physical evidence.
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Okay, and Joseph was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with evidence.
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So, Rachel, opening statements in this trial were on Wednesday, and this was the most we've learned about the case so far.
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So attorney Jim Lasowski told the jury that prosecutors believe that the plans to kill Crystal Rogers began around two weeks before July 3rd, 2015, the day that Crystal was last seen alive.
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The prosecutor said that he believes Brooks called Crystal and asked to have a kids-free romantic night together.
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But instead of going out, the prosecution alleges Brooks and Crystal actually went to the Houck family farm where they say she was murdered.
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Even though she hasn't been charged with anything, prosecutors suggest that Brooks'
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mother, Rosemary, might have been involved. He said she and Crystal did not have a good relationship and that the prosecution plans
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to show that Rosemary Houck reached out to a man because she was looking for someone
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to get rid of Crystal. The prosecutor also referenced Brooks' brother, Nick, who he called a, quote,
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unindicted co-conspirator, along with Rosemary. Then you heard from the defense.
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How did it lay out its case? Brooks Houck's defense told the jury that pressure from the media led investigators to hone in on Brooks very early on in the investigation and that everything they did in their investigation was to fit that theory.
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The defense also brought up that there were a number of searches conducted and yet no physical evidence was ever found tying Houck to the crime.
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Crystal's body still hasn't been found. This is a no body homicide case. Okay. Did you see Crystal's family in court? I know it's far from home for them with the change of venue, but I also know that obviously this has been very important to them to get to this day.
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Yeah, so we were in a media overflow room, and they actually had the family for the prosecution
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and the defense in that same room with us. And there was just a sea of pink, which we know was
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Crystal's favorite color. So her family and supporters always show up wearing that color
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to court. And there were a number of them, at least 30 people here for her. You talked about the defense on the defense side. So what about Brooks? Are there supporters there
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for him. Yes, I saw his son, who he shared with Crystal, his sister and his mother's boyfriend.
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Okay, so how long is this trial expected to last? When they were trying to seat a jury,
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the judge made sure that any potential jurors would be free until July 8th. So he's expecting
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it to last until then, I would assume. Okay, well, Rachel, we look forward to hearing more from you
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in the days to come and to hearing about those details, the missing pieces, if you will,
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that the public doesn't know about yet. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup.
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The wife and convicted killer of celebrity hairstylist Fabio Sementilli learns her fate.
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And the latest on the prosecution's case against former Major League Baseball pitcher Dan Serafini.
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Plus, it's a tool investigators have used for decades to try and find missing children.
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Age progression photos. But do they actually work? Welcome back. Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline Associate Producer Alex LaRae. Hey, Alex.
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Hi, Andrea. Thanks for having me. Sure thing. Up first, we are checking in on the trial of former Major League Baseball pitcher Dan Serafini.
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He is the man accused of murdering his father-in-law, Gary Spore, and attempting to murder his mother-in-law, Wendy, at their Lake Tahoe house in 2021.
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He has pleaded not guilty, and it has amazingly been five weeks already since this trial began.
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What is the latest from the courtroom? So the last time we talked about this case, Samantha Scott was on the stand.
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She's the woman who admitted she drove Serafini to the victim's house before the attack.
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She testified Serafini had confessed to her and they'd become lovers. So on cross-examination, the defense attacked Scott's credibility, asking her if she gave prosecutors the story they wanted in return for a plea deal that could get her out of jail.
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Scott responded that she told the truth to investigators and had no expectation of anything in return for her testimony.
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So this week, Serafini's wife, Erin, took the stand. She's one of the most highly anticipated witnesses of the trial.
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Alex, what did she say? She testified that she knew her husband was having a sexual relationship with Samantha Scott and that she didn't care.
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They had an open relationship, and she said that Dan was a great provider for their family.
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She cried on the stand identifying her parents in home security video the day of the attack, and she's expected to continue her testimony this week.
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For our next story, Alex, we are back in South Carolina with an update from Michael Colucci himself.
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He is the South Carolina jeweler whose murder trial came to an abrupt halt last week after a judge dismissed the charges against him.
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Alex, quickly remind us of what happened here. Absolutely. And just a heads up to listeners that this story involves discussion of suicide.
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So in 2015, Michael Colucci called 911 after he said he found his wife, Sarah Lynn, hanging from a fence.
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By the time paramedics arrived, she was dead. Michael told investigators that he suspected his wife had taken her own life, but he was actually charged with her murder.
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His first murder trial in 2018 ended with a hung jury, but prosecutors took him to a trial a second time.
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Last week, just before opening arguments were about to start, the judge dropped the charges against him.
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And as a reminder, those charges were dropped because of what the judge said was prosecutorial misconduct.
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So for a decade Michael Colucci has maintained his innocence And last week he sat down to talk about all of this with our affiliate WCBD News 2 in Charleston What was going through your mind when the judge
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dismissed this case yesterday? That's a range of emotions, a range of feelings. I felt very
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blessed. I love my wife. She was my soulmate. I lost my wife. I wish people would take a second
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to understand the magnitude of what I just said. I lost my wife. To be turned around and charged for
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for whatever I was. It's absurd. The judge dismissed the charges without prejudice. That
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means the prosecutor can go back to the grand jury and seek another indictment. And we don't really know yet what they're thinking.
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And for our final story, we're going back to Los Angeles for a case we covered quite a bit on the
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podcast, the murder of famed hairstylist Fabio Sementilli. Monica Sementilli, his wife, was
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sentence this week after a jury found her guilty of conspiring with her lover and racquetball coach
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Robert Baker to kill Fabio. Fabio's sisters had harsh words for their sister-in-law of 20 years.
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Yes, Fabio's oldest sister, Loretta, said the same woman they welcomed into their family
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had betrayed them. The same woman who sat at our dinner tables, left with us at our birthdays
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and holidays was the calculating architect of my brother's murder. Fabio's sister, Mirella, gave a statement as well.
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There are days I cannot even breathe as my throat chokes. My throat closes and I can't speak.
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I cannot function because the weight of Fabio's murder sits so heavily on my chest.
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What was her sentence, Alex? Life in prison without the possibility of parole. And after the sentencing, Monica's defense attorney said that Monica continues to maintain that she did not commit this crime and is innocent.
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Okay, Alex, thank you so much for these updates. It's always a pleasure, Andrea.
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In the summer of 1980, an infant by the name of Kevin Verville was kidnapped in California.
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His mother never saw him again. He was just 17 days old. This month, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released a photo showing what Kevin might look like today at the age of 45,
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with hopes that someone might recognize him and help solve the mystery of what happened to him.
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It made us wonder, how exactly are age-progressed images made, and how successful are they in reuniting families with their missing loved ones?
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Here to talk us through that is the Center's Director of Communications, Angeline Hartman,
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and supervisor of the Forensic Imaging Unit, Colin McNally. Welcome to you both.
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Thanks for having us. Hi, Andrea. Hi, thank you. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was one of the first organizations to
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work with age progression images way back in the 80s. Where did the idea come from?
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These digital age progressions were sort of crafted based on a new technology developed by
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the FBI's retired forensic artist named Horace Hefner. Traditionally, forensic artists utilize
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pencil sketching, compositing techniques, and the inception of computer technology made it
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available for us to do this work quicker and more accurately. I'm sure you must have created so many
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images over the years. How successful have they been? So we consider these to be a success in a
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few different ways. Of all the age progressions we've created, and this includes updated age
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progressions for certain children, we've done about 8,000 of those since 1989. About 1,700
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children had been recovered where an age progression was done. And hundreds of those
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case files actually note that the age progression was seen by a member of the public. But they also
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function as a sense of hope and relief for the families, you know, years, if not decades of a
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child being missing. The family gets to collaborate with a forensic artist and their NECMEC case
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manager on every single age progression. Colin, there's so much that goes into these photos. How does it get started and what all do you need to create something like this?
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We generally get dozens of pictures of that missing child. But what's really helpful for us, especially in a case like Kevin's, is having family reference photos provided to us. So we really got a good chance to understand what that family looks like and actually digitally composite from the biological family's facial features to craft what Kevin might have looked like over 40 years later.
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We obviously wouldn't do any sort of release of the image until the family says that they are satisfied with the image.
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It must be emotional and hard to see that. Emotional, for sure. For sure. Yeah, sometimes they're not quite ready to see what their child might look like today.
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And we have families who say we call all the members of our family together and we sit down and we look at this together and decide, you know, how do we feel?
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What is the feedback we're going to give to Colin? And, you know, the ears might be bigger.
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The note we feel like would look more like dad or whatever. But it is definitely an emotional journey for the family.
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Angeline, do you have any story to share of someone who was reunited with their loved ones through a photo?
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Well, you know, there is the story of Eric Austin. And that is a very unique case because he disappeared when he was a baby.
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And there was an age progression done. But fast forward to decades later, and he was found. And the age progression was part of that story. And that's what we're hoping will happen with the Kevin Verville case, because this was 45 years ago when he was abducted.
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We believe that he's out there and he has no idea who he is. He was abducted at 17 days old. The woman who took him likely took him to raise him as her own.
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And so now here you have this 45-year-old man walking around on this earth thinking his life is one thing, and his biological parents have been looking for him all these years.
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And now it's getting fresh eyes because of this age progression. So we're very, very hopeful.
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Where can people go to see this photo of Kevin that you've created? Well, we have the full story in our blog on missingkids.org.
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So that's the NCMEC blog. And the FBI is honoring a $10,000 reward that they had offered way back then.
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And so, again, where everybody is trying to come together to say this is not an old case.
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This is a case that's happening right now because he's out there. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
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Well, gosh, thank you, Angeline and Colin, not only for for giving us all this really great information, but for what you do every day.
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Well, thank you. We appreciate you helping us get the word out. That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly.
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But if you want to learn more about missing persons cases, don't forget to check out Josh's new season of the Dateline Missing in America podcast.
00:25:12
Episodes one through three are now out wherever you get your podcasts And in one case we cover this season I might have encountered the missing person myself I had a strong sense when I heard her name that I had met your mom
00:25:28
Listen closely. You could be the key to solving a mystery. And coming up this Friday on Dateline,
00:25:35
I'll be bringing you one of the wildest stories I've ever covered involving a murdered exotic
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pet dealer, a crime scene surrounded by snakes, and a poisonous relationship. There has been some beasts in the reptile world. Was it a rival jealous of Ben's collection?
00:25:53
Watch my episode, Secrets of the Snake Farm, this Friday on NBC at 9, 8 central. Thanks for listening.
00:26:01
Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Frannie Kelly and Katie Ferguson. Our associate producers are Carson Cummins and Caroline Casey.
00:26:09
Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Kurloff Production and fact-checking help by Mackenzie Matwick
00:26:15
Veronica Mazzaca is our digital producer Rick Kwan is our sound designer Original music by Jesse McGinty
00:26:21
Bryson Barnes is head of audio production Paul Ryan is executive producer And Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline
00:26:29
Bye everyone, see you soon