00:00:13
1980 the mojave desert human bones are
00:00:17
discovered in a shallow grave near the
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small town of ludlow california
00:00:23
there was a archaeologist out there
00:00:25
working in the desert and had found some
00:00:28
bones that turned out to be human
00:00:29
remains police launched an investigation
00:00:32
to identify two young victims
00:00:36
we always had a gut feeling
00:00:38
that family was going to be looking for
00:00:40
them
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i didn't want to believe that she
00:00:42
wouldn't come back
00:00:45
investigators identify a suspect with a
00:00:48
horrible history but with no hard
00:00:51
evidence the case reaches a dead end
00:00:55
i would describe anybody that can commit
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five murders
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bury bodies
00:01:02
as a bona fide psychopath
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the young victims remain jane and john
00:01:09
doe for decades until their killer gives
00:01:13
investigators a small break
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so he said i had to kill him because he
00:01:17
would have killed me
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here's a guy just making up a confession
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as he goes along with the evidence
00:01:23
points to something entirely different
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this is the tragic story of pamela sally
00:01:30
and william lane the evil they encounter
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that ends their young lives and how the
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bloodline detectives restore their
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identities after decades i'm nancy grace
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this is bloodline detectives
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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november 19 1980 mojave desert
00:02:13
california a hiker calls police after
00:02:16
finding what he believes to be human
00:02:20
bones in our desert area we have a lot
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of untraveled territory that people like
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to go hiking on and a lot of those
00:02:29
people are out there looking for
00:02:31
rocks
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fossils in this case there was a
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gentleman i believe he's 65 70 years old
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he was out there doing that with his son
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and they came across
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a partially
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opened up grave that was very shallow
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and had found some bones that turned out
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to be human remains reported them
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and our department went out took the
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report
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they sent a deputy sheriff out there to
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verify if in fact that was a dead body
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which he did
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he then notified dispatch who then
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notified the homicide detail
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who sent two detectives out there to
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work the crime scene
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the crime scene was a shallow grave vast
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desert out in the middle of nowhere just
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above ludlow which is a very small
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community in san bernardino county
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initially when they responded there was
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remains some some bones that it looked
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like animals had dug up one of the
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shallow graves in the desert at sandy
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soil
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once they collected those bones they're
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able to determine that they were in fact
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human
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then they were able to determine that
00:03:38
there was actually two grave sites it
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would appear to be a male and a female
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the female had long red hair
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and there weren't any clothes on them at
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all there were no clothes in the
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actual grave so it appeared they would
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have been buried naked
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the coroner is contacted
00:03:57
so the coroner's office was notified the
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following morning
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they were notified by the sheriff's
00:04:02
deputies that were already starting the
00:04:04
investigation out near ludlow
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and they sent a deputy coroner to the
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scene in order to initiate the coroner
00:04:11
investigation it appeared from the scene
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that the two bodies were interred in the
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gravesite and it was likely animal
00:04:19
scavenging had pulled the remains from
00:04:21
the gravesite out into the desert
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they were mostly complete they were an
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advanced state of decomposition they
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were partially skeletonized but there
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was some hair and tissue still on the
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remains
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the coroner retrieves the skeletal
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remains investigators look for other
00:04:38
evidence
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they would have walked the area looking
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for tire tracks shoe prints shoe
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impressions
00:04:46
any type of identification that may have
00:04:48
been discarded by the perpetrators that
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would have been their course of action
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there at the scene there wasn't any
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clothing so you couldn't remove a wallet
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or id card or anything like to identify
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them since they weren't clothed so they
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were john and jane doe
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[Music]
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within that grave they also found shell
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casings and projectiles
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to a weapon that was probably the weapon
00:05:13
that was used to kill those two people
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they were 22 caliber
00:05:17
bullets
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if they find a gun somewhere that they
00:05:20
think might have been the one they used
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they could compare the bullets they
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collected
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to test firing bullets from the gun
00:05:26
they'd have and they could say yeah this
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gun killed those two people
00:05:31
the two bodies are transported for
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autopsy while police gather more
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evidence
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when the bodies were taken to the
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coroner's office an autopsy is performed
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on both bodies all the bones are removed
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and actually placed on the table just as
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they would be in a normal human body
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the first physical examination was the
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following day after they were recovered
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that included an external examination at
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that point the pathologist noted that
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both remains had significant head trauma
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after that initial examination was
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completed the bodies had complete x-rays
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taken
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and a secondary exam was performed a few
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days later when the x-rays revealed that
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both bodies had evidence of possible
00:06:15
gunshot wounds some projectiles were
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recovered from that autopsy to help the
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pathologist establish the cause of death
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there were three projectiles recovered
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from the male remains those were deemed
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to be 22-caliber fired bullets
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and those were collected as evidence as
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part of the initial investigation
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the female remains did not have any
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fragments or bullets recovered but there
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was evidence of gunshot wounds during
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their examination
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she was shot in the head and she'd also
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been bludgeoned to death probably by the
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shovel that was used to dig the grave
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[Music]
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often in autopsies like these a
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pathologist calls in identification
00:07:00
specialists that's what happened here
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and these experts are able to provide
00:07:05
investigators with a rough physical
00:07:08
description of the victims
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at least it's a start
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the female was described as having
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strawberry blonde or light brown hair
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approximately 7 to 10 inches long
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the male was described as having 14 to
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15 inch long hair secured in a ponytail
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the color was designated as brown light
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brown those descriptors were observed in
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the initial investigation
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and then a dental examination was
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completed the following day
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that also helped in establishing a
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possible age range
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the odontologists that did that
00:07:45
examination estimated both bodies to be
00:07:47
in their late teens and then the
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forensic anthropologist was brought in
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and her examination established a
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stature based on measurements of both
00:07:56
femurs the anthropologist's estimation
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was that the female victim was between
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17 to 22 years old and the male victim
00:08:04
somewhere in the range of 21 to 30 years
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old
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now it's critical to establish just how
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long the two bodies have been in the
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ground
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based on the coroner's report and the
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assessment it was estimated that they
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had been deceased for about one to six
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months prior to being found
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so areas of the bodies would have been
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exposed to the sun and due to the animal
00:08:26
scavenging that would have increased the
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decomposition due to loss of tissue and
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the scattering of extremities and things
00:08:33
like that
00:08:34
investigators visit the small town of
00:08:36
ludlow to see if anyone can help id
00:08:39
these victims
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in the early stages of this
00:08:43
investigation the detectives would have
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been trying to identify who the victims
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were and who
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they were associated with the people
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that live there live there because they
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want to get away from normal everyday
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life
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why were they there in ludlow
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where are they passing through it ludlow
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is a very small community nobody really
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lives there at the time there was a
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diner and like a rest area there
00:09:06
no one in ludlow can help with a
00:09:08
possible id of the victims investigators
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however do receive information that
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points to one man
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the owner of the gas station there in
00:09:20
ludlow said that you need to talk to
00:09:21
howard neal because howard was always at
00:09:24
the gas station always knew the people
00:09:26
that were coming through here because he
00:09:27
made it his business to do so so
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basically to either rob them or
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pull a scam on them or anything that's
00:09:34
going to benefit him that that's what he
00:09:36
was doing there howard neal lived in
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ludlow with his wife at the time the
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bodies were found
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investigators start looking for howard
00:09:45
neal as we see next on bloodline
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detectives the suspect is a man with a
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very dark past
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[Music]
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december
00:10:02
1980 san bernardino county sheriffs get
00:10:06
a lead at the double murder of two
00:10:09
unidentified bodies found out in the
00:10:11
mojave desert the young victims were
00:10:14
found near the small town of ludlow one
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month earlier police now looking for a
00:10:19
suspect named howard neal
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but he is not slow to act
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howard had realized that the police the
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homicide detectives were looking to
00:10:29
interview him in regards to the bodies
00:10:31
that were found a short distance from
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his home howard and his wife quit their
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jobs and then left ludlow altogether
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just vanished
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police launched a nationwide search they
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tracked down the niels in stockton
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california a few months later detectives
00:10:47
discover they're not the only
00:10:49
investigators looking for howard neal
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so howard neal is arrested on march 6
00:10:55
1981 in stockton california for
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shoplifting
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so they routinely run his information
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through the system and bang a hit comes
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up that he's wanted in mississippi for
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three
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murders
00:11:10
his half brother
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his niece and her cousin
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when investigators learned the horrible
00:11:19
details of the mississippi murders
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they're confident howard neal is also
00:11:25
responsible for the ludlow murders
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on january 24th 1981
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bobby neal howard neal's half-brother
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along with his daughter amanda joy
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13 went to go collect her cousin melanie
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sue poke so she could spend the night
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and they could go to church the next
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morning
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the last time they were seen was in
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langston at 10 o'clock on saturday night
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january 24 1981
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so when 12 year old melanie sue's mother
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realized she hadn't come home
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she was concerned
00:12:04
what's going on
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so she went over to bobby neal's house
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to see if she could find out
00:12:11
where her daughter was and what she
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found was bobby neal's truck parked in
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the driveway
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and then she went into the house let
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herself in
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and she found the house fine there was
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no struggle
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but nobody was there
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the only thing that concerned her was
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that bobby neal's glasses which he wore
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all the time he needed them were on the
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table
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she becomes quite alarmed by this
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because the glasses are so important to
00:12:40
him so she calls the lawrence county
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sheriff's department
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and reports
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bobby neal
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her daughter
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and the cousin
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missing and they begin a search
00:12:54
and for the next 10 days
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they find nothing no sign of them
00:12:59
anywhere
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then february 6
00:13:04
a young girl's body is discovered
00:13:08
so this man on his way to a fishing hole
00:13:12
discovers amanda joy's body
00:13:16
it was clearly evident she was strangled
00:13:18
there was evidence she was beaten among
00:13:19
the face
00:13:21
and upper body
00:13:23
she was shot with a shotgun in the
00:13:25
abdomen
00:13:27
it's clear that somebody brutalized this
00:13:31
young child
00:13:32
and left her on the side of the road
00:13:35
and it's not long before another body is
00:13:38
found
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melanie sue poke was found about 900
00:13:43
yards away from
00:13:45
her cousin
00:13:47
and it was clear
00:13:48
from that crime scene from the forensic
00:13:50
examination that she had been
00:13:53
shot
00:13:54
as well
00:13:57
it takes a little longer however to find
00:13:59
bobby neal's body
00:14:02
about a month after the girls were found
00:14:04
bobby nail was found several miles away
00:14:08
he was shot
00:14:10
and he was bound
00:14:12
stockton police arrest howard neal and
00:14:15
question him about the murders in
00:14:17
mississippi
00:14:19
so after being interrogated
00:14:22
he decides he's going to tell stockton
00:14:24
police
00:14:25
exactly what happened
00:14:27
out there in mississippi
00:14:30
with his half brother his niece and her
00:14:33
cousin
00:14:34
so howard neal says he went over to his
00:14:37
half brother bobby's house
00:14:39
and the two girls were there
00:14:42
and
00:14:44
that under their own free will
00:14:46
they decided
00:14:48
with him
00:14:49
and bobby they were all gonna go for a
00:14:52
ride and that the two girls sat in the
00:14:54
front and bobby sat in the back and out
00:14:57
they went
00:14:58
he claims that bobby got upset with him
00:15:01
because he had his hand on one of the
00:15:03
girl's
00:15:05
thigh
00:15:06
and he demanded to stop the car
00:15:09
so we did
00:15:11
they get out
00:15:12
and howard says he brought his gun with
00:15:14
him
00:15:15
and they start walking away from the car
00:15:17
and that
00:15:18
he shot bobby
00:15:24
when amanda joy was found there was
00:15:27
evidence on her wrists that she had been
00:15:30
bound and restrained
00:15:32
but now
00:15:34
in his confession howard neal says i
00:15:36
never did
00:15:38
that when howard gets back to the car
00:15:41
the girls immediately ask him
00:15:45
what was that shot about he shot the gun
00:15:47
in the air and that bobby decided he was
00:15:49
gonna walk home
00:15:51
and howard claims the girls believed
00:15:53
them
00:15:55
it's horrible to even imagine but this
00:15:58
sick
00:15:59
vicious suspect actually tells
00:16:02
investigators the 12 and 13 year old
00:16:04
girl victims were willing participants
00:16:08
in his brutal sex attack on them
00:16:12
howard neal tries to make police believe
00:16:15
that
00:16:17
these 12 13 year old girls willingly had
00:16:20
sex with him that they wanted it
00:16:22
he claims that he had sex with melanie
00:16:25
sue poke
00:16:26
and then amanda ii
00:16:30
and that the girls liked it and they
00:16:32
wanted it
00:16:34
when all the evidence points to
00:16:37
rape that he bound them and that he
00:16:39
raped them and then he killed them
00:16:42
he says he shot amanda what he believed
00:16:46
was in the chest
00:16:48
and that when he shot her melanie sue
00:16:50
started screaming so he pointed the gun
00:16:52
at her and shot her
00:16:57
he said when he was finished with the
00:16:59
triple murder
00:17:01
he went back to his family
00:17:03
picked them up
00:17:05
and then drove back to texas
00:17:07
howard neal is tried and found guilty of
00:17:10
the murders in mississippi
00:17:13
howard neal is currently serving three
00:17:15
life sentences in mississippi he was
00:17:18
given the death penalty
00:17:20
he was mentally incompetent
00:17:22
so he was tested and found that he was
00:17:25
mentally
00:17:26
those were the words that were used and
00:17:29
used in court it's in the court
00:17:30
transcripts basically he had no
00:17:32
education he didn't remember going to
00:17:34
school he was abused as a child based on
00:17:37
that his lack of intelligence they
00:17:38
reduced his crimes to three consecutive
00:17:40
life terms without the possibility of
00:17:42
parole
00:17:45
now san bernardino investigators are
00:17:48
eager to interview howard neal about
00:17:50
their double homicide but he refuses to
00:17:53
speak with them so they tracked down his
00:17:55
wife
00:17:57
ludlow detectives were
00:18:00
hell-bent on the fact that howard neal
00:18:03
killed those two people that they found
00:18:07
buried
00:18:08
so they kept pestering him and pestering
00:18:10
the court to question him but his
00:18:12
lawyers fought it off
00:18:15
they interviewed howard neal's wife
00:18:17
darla darla also worked as a dishwasher
00:18:20
at the coffee shop in ludlow at the time
00:18:22
where the bodies were found
00:18:24
darla had indicated that howard her
00:18:26
husband
00:18:27
may have been responsible for
00:18:29
hitchhikers that were passing through
00:18:31
ludlow
00:18:33
she also had said that howard drove her
00:18:35
by the gravesite
00:18:37
and showed her where they were buried
00:18:42
howard neal is behind bars for the rest
00:18:44
of his life but refusing to talk about
00:18:47
the ludlow murders the victims are still
00:18:51
jane and john doe
00:18:53
detectives try other investigative
00:18:55
methods to try and identify them
00:19:00
after the initial investigation if they
00:19:02
didn't have any good leads to who these
00:19:04
victims might possibly be in this case
00:19:07
within a few weeks they started amassing
00:19:09
these descriptors and they submitted the
00:19:12
case to the department of justice and
00:19:14
entered the cases into the missing and
00:19:16
unidentified person system which we
00:19:18
refer to as mupps
00:19:20
that listing in mups would indicate that
00:19:23
the male and female were found with
00:19:25
their identifying descriptors
00:19:28
as much information as possible
00:19:29
including their age estimation possible
00:19:32
stature
00:19:33
the dental information from the
00:19:35
dentist's examination
00:19:37
and then that record would be searchable
00:19:39
against any missing persons that has
00:19:41
entered into that system nationwide
00:19:45
after the case was entered into mups
00:19:48
over the course of years there were a
00:19:50
number of exclusions based on
00:19:52
circumstances stature dental comparisons
00:19:55
to other missing persons
00:19:57
the case is running cold there are no
00:20:00
new leads after eliminating other
00:20:02
missing person cases and in 1980 dna is
00:20:06
not a viable option
00:20:08
after the autopsy because the remains
00:20:11
were not identified they stayed in house
00:20:14
for a couple of years in 1983
00:20:18
they filed a petition with the courts to
00:20:20
file their death certificates and they
00:20:22
were buried
00:20:23
intact
00:20:24
in the county cemetery at that time
00:20:28
someone in the office deemed it
00:20:29
necessary to retain their skulls
00:20:32
as evidence of the investigation and to
00:20:35
assist with ongoing identification work
00:20:38
and those skulls were retained in
00:20:40
curation here at the coroner's office
00:20:42
so because of that we had access to them
00:20:45
to do these additional
00:20:47
types of searches we try everything we
00:20:49
do isotope testing you know we compare
00:20:51
cases using gis mapping we use many out
00:20:55
of the box
00:20:56
techniques in order to try and identify
00:20:59
folks when even the dna does not give us
00:21:02
our immediate answers through the doj
00:21:04
system
00:21:06
the unidentified skulls are tested for
00:21:08
dna in 2006.
00:21:12
the bones initially were sent for dna
00:21:14
and they were able to get an extraction
00:21:16
to establish that profile in codis but
00:21:18
codis only uses anywhere from 13 to 20
00:21:21
loci
00:21:22
to store into their database the codis
00:21:25
submission was initially in 2006.
00:21:29
the other investigators that have been
00:21:30
assigned to essentially what we deem is
00:21:32
the missing and unidentified persons
00:21:33
section here at the coroner's division
00:21:35
are continually working to make sure
00:21:37
that those samples are complete
00:21:40
additional samples were sent in 2010
00:21:43
to help establish a more clear profile
00:21:46
for codis
00:21:47
and at that time that was when we were
00:21:50
able to
00:21:51
make sure that
00:21:52
they had a full codis profile
00:21:55
but there were no hits because there was
00:21:57
no exemplars or family samples in the
00:21:59
system to compare to
00:22:03
next almost 40 years since the two
00:22:05
bodies are found in 2017 san bernardino
00:22:10
county investigators garrett teslar and
00:22:12
steven shumway
00:22:14
finally question howard neal
00:22:17
that's next on bloodline detectives
00:22:21
[Music]
00:22:29
2017 almost 40 years after an
00:22:32
unidentified pair of bodies found in the
00:22:35
mojave desert the bloodline detectives
00:22:38
are able to question a suspect
00:22:40
that suspect howard neal he's already
00:22:43
serving life behind bars in the brutal
00:22:46
killing of two children and his own
00:22:48
brother
00:22:49
there's a legal complication however for
00:22:52
investigators
00:22:56
tesla and i went in to interview him and
00:22:58
we introduced ourselves he's 64 at the
00:23:00
time we interviewed him he was willing
00:23:02
to chat he was very thankful actually
00:23:04
somebody came to talk to him
00:23:07
so we explained why we were there and
00:23:09
what our purpose was and if he knew
00:23:11
anything about the victims that he spent
00:23:13
time with them where they were from
00:23:15
their names anything that he could
00:23:16
remember now granted this is 2017 you're
00:23:19
talking 37
00:23:21
years later you know his memory is
00:23:23
probably
00:23:24
you never know you never know but we had
00:23:26
we had to try
00:23:28
well the sole purpose of going to
00:23:29
interview howard neal
00:23:32
was to get him to tell us who he thought
00:23:34
those two dead people were
00:23:37
now in order to do that we had to come
00:23:39
up with what's called a use immunity
00:23:41
agreement in other words the da's office
00:23:43
draws up paperwork that says you can go
00:23:45
talk to him whatever he tells you
00:23:48
you can't use it against him
00:23:50
first he denied it of course he denied
00:23:52
it denied it and then he admitted to
00:23:54
meeting them and then that they needed a
00:23:56
place to stay they were hitchhiking
00:23:57
across the country
00:23:59
he made mention in the interview that he
00:24:00
thought this girl was pretty well that
00:24:02
kind of kind of set off a little light
00:24:04
bulb
00:24:05
based on his mo and what motivated him
00:24:08
back in the past i think that he was
00:24:10
attracted to that female
00:24:13
howard neal starts opening up to
00:24:15
investigators
00:24:17
he picked him up they go back to his
00:24:20
house
00:24:21
and he mentions to steve and i that
00:24:24
he was trying to put the move on her
00:24:27
the male victim had gotten really upset
00:24:32
we asked him well why did you kill him
00:24:35
if i didn't kill him he would have
00:24:36
killed me
00:24:38
because that guy was so upset about the
00:24:40
fact that
00:24:41
he was trying to put the move on on the
00:24:43
girl that he was with
00:24:45
so he said i had to kill him because he
00:24:47
would have killed me
00:24:50
he killed him first
00:24:52
shot him
00:24:55
and then had her help him put the male's
00:24:58
body in the station wagon transported
00:25:00
that male victim to this area where they
00:25:02
were buried
00:25:03
had her
00:25:04
help dig the grave
00:25:08
i believe that she was pleading with
00:25:10
howard to don't kill me because i have a
00:25:13
small daughter
00:25:16
and then he killed her
00:25:18
and put her in the grave too
00:25:22
investigators have no doubt the murders
00:25:24
were premeditated and howard neal is the
00:25:27
killer
00:25:29
howard definitely was in full control
00:25:31
and knew exactly what he was doing had
00:25:33
planned what he was going to do had
00:25:35
planned the location he was going to put
00:25:37
them in because there's nobody around to
00:25:40
see you or to hear gunshots howard did
00:25:42
not show any remorse at all he's
00:25:44
actually one of those guys he's just
00:25:45
dead inside he killed five people that
00:25:48
we know of
00:25:49
howard neal gives investigators critical
00:25:52
information even though they are not
00:25:54
able to hold neil accountable for the
00:25:57
murders
00:25:59
when he said they had a daughter and it
00:26:00
stuck with howard she pleaded for her
00:26:02
life saying please i have a young
00:26:03
daughter she knew what the inevitable
00:26:06
was going to happen that's why i
00:26:07
believed there was going to be a
00:26:09
daughter family members searching for
00:26:11
their mom
00:26:14
the search is on
00:26:16
with the limited information they have
00:26:18
and the possibility of a dna match
00:26:20
somewhere down the line
00:26:25
after interviewing howard that we were
00:26:26
going to extract dna from both victims
00:26:30
and get that dna profile and then upload
00:26:32
that into jed match ancestry family tree
00:26:35
dna to hopefully have one of their
00:26:38
relatives match
00:26:41
what will it take for investigators to
00:26:44
finally id the two young victims left
00:26:48
dead in the mojave desert we find out
00:26:51
next on bloodline detectives
00:26:54
[Music]
00:27:02
2019 san bernardino county investigators
00:27:05
identified serial killer howard neal as
00:27:09
the murderer of two hitchhikers their
00:27:12
skeletons discovered in the mojave
00:27:14
desert almost 40 years ago
00:27:16
exhausting all other avenues
00:27:18
investigators decide to use the new
00:27:21
crime solving tool genetic genealogy to
00:27:25
try and identify the victims
00:27:28
in this case all we had were victims
00:27:31
we knew who the suspect was but we
00:27:33
didn't know who the victims were
00:27:35
there was dna uploaded into codis and
00:27:37
there's no matches
00:27:39
so i talked to coroner's office and
00:27:42
verified we have bone available
00:27:44
but it was very difficult
00:27:46
extracting dna for the snip profile
00:27:49
because they had been exposed to
00:27:51
sunlight they've been out in the desert
00:27:53
for
00:27:53
maybe eight months or more
00:27:56
and it really degrades dna
00:27:59
in 2019 i was reviewing cases for the
00:28:03
use of genetic genealogy for
00:28:04
identification
00:28:06
and reviewing this case with the ludlow
00:28:08
victims
00:28:09
it looked like we did have bone
00:28:11
available
00:28:12
the quotas profile is called an str
00:28:15
profile and think of it as a very basic
00:28:18
profile of dna minimal amount of
00:28:20
information but it works very well for
00:28:23
codis for direct matches and immediate
00:28:25
family matches
00:28:27
when you use genetic genealogy you need
00:28:30
what's called a snip profile which is a
00:28:32
lot more information
00:28:34
and you can match up to distant cousins
00:28:37
the forensic process is very complex
00:28:40
especially on bone you have to go to
00:28:42
whole sequencing whole genome sequencing
00:28:45
and then they pull the snip profile that
00:28:48
you need out of that whole sequence that
00:28:50
can be uploaded into ged match or family
00:28:53
tree dna
00:28:56
and then you look at your matches and
00:28:58
how close or how distant
00:29:00
and it depends on the
00:29:02
amount of sonomorgans matching
00:29:05
as to how close or how distant the
00:29:07
matches are
00:29:08
so once you have so many matches you
00:29:11
have to take those people
00:29:13
build their family tree up
00:29:16
and
00:29:17
eventually they all intersect and you
00:29:19
get to
00:29:20
what's called the most recent common
00:29:22
ancestor
00:29:23
so now you know
00:29:25
that your victim is descendant of those
00:29:28
most recent common ancestors so then you
00:29:31
have to take those people
00:29:33
and build their trees all the way down
00:29:37
and this can be a very detailed and
00:29:39
time-consuming job
00:29:42
and then you just have to call up people
00:29:43
within those family lines and ask them
00:29:46
to do what we call a target test
00:29:48
where you get their dna and compare it
00:29:50
to your victim
00:29:52
and if you're in the right line the
00:29:54
match gets bigger and bigger and you can
00:29:56
narrow it down so you can finally
00:29:58
identify their victim
00:29:59
and some cases it can take a year or
00:30:01
more
00:30:05
the detectives agree on a plan to
00:30:07
identify the victims
00:30:10
we had gotten both victims extracted
00:30:14
and
00:30:15
again because of the suspect saying
00:30:18
he talked to him for a while and the
00:30:20
female victim said she had a daughter
00:30:22
she left at home with family
00:30:24
we decided to try her first so we had
00:30:27
her sequence first
00:30:29
and uploaded to judd match
00:30:32
when it's uploaded in there it takes a
00:30:34
while for the matches to populate so you
00:30:37
just have to keep going back and
00:30:38
checking
00:30:41
then it popped up we've got a match a
00:30:43
parent-child match
00:30:45
and
00:30:46
this has to be her daughter
00:30:49
is her daughter is looking for her we
00:30:51
can
00:30:52
tell her what happened to her mom now
00:30:55
we were ecstatic to hear the news that
00:30:56
there was a close match and that we
00:30:59
finally had a lead to identify this
00:31:02
couple it was really really a great
00:31:04
thing because we knew that using this
00:31:06
technique
00:31:07
was going to lead us to this family
00:31:11
very often there are anxious moments for
00:31:14
investigators waiting for a dna match
00:31:17
and this is one of those moments when
00:31:20
investigators get their potential match
00:31:22
it's not what they're expecting it's not
00:31:24
the match they thought it would be
00:31:27
[Music]
00:31:29
we pulled the profile and found out it
00:31:32
was a private eye that actually uploaded
00:31:34
it into jet match
00:31:36
when i contacted her she told me that
00:31:39
christine sally was her client
00:31:42
and was trying to find her mother
00:31:44
and she had uploaded christine's dna
00:31:47
into ancestry and then transferred it
00:31:49
into ged match and she gave me
00:31:51
christine's information
00:31:53
out of the blue christine sally gets the
00:31:57
phone call
00:31:58
so i was at work one day
00:32:01
and i
00:32:02
got a call it says san bernardino on it
00:32:05
and you know nowadays with all the robo
00:32:07
calls
00:32:08
you don't want to answer all these
00:32:09
unknown calls so i let it go to
00:32:11
voicemail and they left me a voicemail
00:32:14
and it was detective heathley from the
00:32:16
san bernardino county sheriff's
00:32:18
department so i did call him back i
00:32:20
kinda at the moment kinda knew what it
00:32:23
probably was because who from california
00:32:25
and the sheriff's department is just
00:32:26
gonna call me randomly
00:32:28
he answered and
00:32:30
he was kind of
00:32:32
confused still in figuring things out he
00:32:35
told me that there had been a dna match
00:32:38
on jed match and that he believed it was
00:32:41
my mother and
00:32:43
that he didn't have a lot of information
00:32:45
he didn't even have a name to give me
00:32:47
and that's when i told him that i had a
00:32:49
name to give him
00:32:52
christine sally discloses the name san
00:32:54
bernardino investigators are looking for
00:32:57
it's pamela sally her mother
00:33:01
now christine is able to tell police
00:33:03
more about her family
00:33:06
i was born on september 17 1979 in fort
00:33:11
myers florida to pamela diane duffy
00:33:15
my
00:33:16
parents divorced on december 17th of
00:33:18
1980
00:33:20
sometime after that my mother took me
00:33:23
and started traveling she was traveling
00:33:25
north she was with a couple of guys one
00:33:27
of them
00:33:28
was digger lane
00:33:30
at that point they were struggling to
00:33:32
keep me clothed and other things like
00:33:34
that they ended up staying in the back
00:33:36
room of a pool hall and something
00:33:38
happened with diggerland and he ended up
00:33:40
getting arrested at some point
00:33:43
and that's when social services started
00:33:44
to intervene thinking that a child had
00:33:46
been neglected
00:33:48
and i was taken into foster care at that
00:33:50
time
00:33:54
at some point my grandmother brought her
00:33:56
from mobile back over to florida but
00:34:00
unfortunately when pam had left the
00:34:02
state of florida with me in december she
00:34:04
was on probation at the time so she
00:34:07
ended up absconding from probation so
00:34:09
when she had went back to florida they
00:34:11
had arrested her for leaving the state
00:34:15
then in june of 1980 she
00:34:17
was released and she signed her rights
00:34:19
to me away
00:34:21
and that's when she told my grandparents
00:34:22
she was going to go travel with her
00:34:24
friend digger lane across the country
00:34:26
and they were going to go hitchhiking
00:34:27
across the country
00:34:29
and that was the last time
00:34:31
anyone really talked to her i do believe
00:34:33
she did call my grandparents a few times
00:34:35
while she was out on the road but after
00:34:37
a while the phone calls did stop
00:34:40
[Music]
00:34:42
the challenge now is to definitively
00:34:44
match the dna
00:34:45
and prove the victim for the mojave
00:34:47
desert is pamela sally
00:34:51
once you identify someone through
00:34:53
genetic genealogy you still need to
00:34:57
obtain a codis profile from an immediate
00:34:59
family member to get the legal
00:35:01
identification
00:35:03
after the original first match came and
00:35:05
then i was in got in contact with san
00:35:07
bernardino county sheriff's department
00:35:10
later we did an official dna swap where
00:35:13
the state troopers came out and did the
00:35:15
whole mouth swab thing for their
00:35:17
official codis database
00:35:20
investigators identified pamela sally as
00:35:24
one of the two victims from a
00:35:26
40-year-old murder case but can they
00:35:29
identify the other skeleton
00:35:32
is it pamela's companion digger lane
00:35:34
that's next on bloodline detectives
00:35:38
[Music]
00:35:46
by early 2021 san bernardino county
00:35:49
investigators very close to identifying
00:35:51
a skeleton a skeleton of a male victim
00:35:54
found out in the mojave desert 40 years
00:35:58
earlier the science of genetic genealogy
00:36:01
has already identified a female skeleton
00:36:04
found alongside him her name pamela
00:36:07
sally now pamela's daughter christine is
00:36:10
able to fill in the blanks for
00:36:12
investigators
00:36:15
in talking to christine we learned that
00:36:17
her mother left with male known as
00:36:20
digger lane and he had recently been in
00:36:23
custody in virginia
00:36:25
and that's all the information that we
00:36:27
had at that point so we contacted the
00:36:29
local law enforcement back there
00:36:32
to review their records and they were
00:36:34
able to come up with the name william
00:36:36
lane
00:36:37
as a probable match
00:36:40
once we identified a possible victim as
00:36:44
william lane
00:36:46
we were able to determine that he was
00:36:48
also missing out of florida and his
00:36:51
family had not seen him since 1980 also
00:36:56
in a final act detectives returned the
00:36:59
remains to their loved ones
00:37:03
once we had the legal identification
00:37:06
for both of the victims
00:37:08
then we worked with our da's office and
00:37:11
our coroner's office
00:37:13
to
00:37:14
obtain all the remains from both victims
00:37:17
and return them to the families
00:37:21
our district attorney jason anderson
00:37:23
thought it was important that we
00:37:26
returned the remains to the family
00:37:28
members we made all the arrangements to
00:37:30
travel back east and connected with the
00:37:32
families and made sure that they were
00:37:35
delivered in the appropriate manner
00:37:36
which was in person
00:37:39
we were in contact with the airlines to
00:37:41
see if there's any special circumstances
00:37:43
or rules in place in transporting them
00:37:46
on a plane and and so forth we had to
00:37:49
obviously tell a security and tsa that
00:37:51
we had them and they just had to run
00:37:53
them through the scanning machine and
00:37:54
make sure there wasn't anything
00:37:55
concerning
00:37:56
that showed up on the scan we took them
00:37:58
out in a suitcase and made sure they
00:38:00
were with us at all times and kept safe
00:38:02
to the best of our ability being on an
00:38:04
airplane
00:38:08
they came out all the way from
00:38:10
california to deliver the ashes and it
00:38:12
meant so much to me to have someone
00:38:16
personal come out and actually give
00:38:18
their their condolences and sympathies
00:38:21
and actually
00:38:22
be with me as i was accepting those
00:38:25
ashes
00:38:26
then we continued from virginia to
00:38:28
florida where we returned the remains of
00:38:30
william everett lane to his mother
00:38:32
sandra blair
00:38:34
it was a very emotional
00:38:37
time for her you can tell she was really
00:38:39
heartbroken not knowing what had
00:38:41
happened to her son and then learning
00:38:43
that he had been murdered
00:38:44
and so for her to receive
00:38:47
the remains she was really appreciative
00:38:49
of of that and talked about her son and
00:38:53
the relationship that they had
00:38:55
and really felt
00:38:57
that she would be at peace now that he's
00:39:00
home
00:39:04
investigators witnessed the meaning of
00:39:06
closure for the families now that this
00:39:08
double murder is finally solved
00:39:12
i think deep down i always knew
00:39:15
that she had probably passed
00:39:17
because i i couldn't
00:39:20
i didn't want to believe that she
00:39:21
wouldn't come back
00:39:23
of course you always have that little
00:39:25
bit of hope
00:39:26
that you're wrong and that she maybe is
00:39:29
in europe
00:39:30
but yeah i always had that little bit of
00:39:32
hope that she would always come back but
00:39:34
i think deep down i always knew that she
00:39:36
really was gone because i knew she
00:39:38
wouldn't be gone for this long
00:39:40
if it was on her terms
00:39:44
right now i'm still mourning the loss of
00:39:47
the little hope that i had that that
00:39:50
small little
00:39:51
bit of hope is is now gone and i think
00:39:54
that's what i'm
00:39:55
what i've been warning
00:39:58
but i do feel that closure will come
00:40:00
soon
00:40:02
but right now i just
00:40:05
i can't stop thinking about her last
00:40:07
moments
00:40:10
and how she died it hurt so bad
00:40:13
to know those were her last moments
00:40:17
but i'm sure closure will come soon
00:40:19
it'll come soon
00:40:22
there seems to be no limit as to how far
00:40:27
the bloodline detectives and their use
00:40:29
of genetic genealogy can reach back to
00:40:32
solve previously unsolvable cases
00:40:36
how far can they go four decades as in
00:40:39
this case
00:40:40
five
00:40:41
ten
00:40:42
families with missing loved ones
00:40:45
please hold out hope
00:40:47
every day the bloodline detectives get
00:40:50
closer to identifying a new jane doe or
00:40:54
a new john doe
00:40:56
now more than ever
00:40:58
closure could be
00:41:00
just beyond the horizon
00:41:02
i'm nancy grace
00:41:04
thank you for joining us on bloodline
00:41:06
detectives
00:41:09
[Music]
00:41:19
[Music]
00:41:20
[Applause]
00:41:22
[Music]
00:41:39
[Music]
00:41:48
you
