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Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 10 - San Bernadino Bodies - Full Episode

June 01, 2022 / 41:50

This episode covers the discovery of human remains in the Mojave Desert, the investigation into the murders of Pamela Sally and William Lane, and the use of genetic genealogy to identify the victims.

In November 1980, human bones were found in a shallow grave near Ludlow, California, leading to an investigation by local authorities. The remains were identified as belonging to a male and female, both of whom had suffered significant trauma. The investigation stalled due to a lack of evidence until a suspect, Howard Neal, was identified.

Howard Neal, who had a violent history, was eventually arrested for other murders and linked to the Ludlow case. Despite being in prison, he refused to cooperate with investigators regarding the identities of the victims.

After years of searching, in 2019, investigators turned to genetic genealogy to identify the victims. They successfully matched DNA from the remains to Pamela Sally's daughter, leading to the identification of Pamela and her companion, William Lane.

The episode concludes with the emotional return of the victims' remains to their families, providing closure after decades of uncertainty.

TL;DR

The episode details the 1980 murders of Pamela Sally and William Lane, their identification through genetic genealogy, and the return of their remains to family.

Episode

41:50
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1980 the mojave desert human bones are
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discovered in a shallow grave near the
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small town of ludlow california
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there was a archaeologist out there
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working in the desert and had found some
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bones that turned out to be human
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remains police launched an investigation
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to identify two young victims
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we always had a gut feeling
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that family was going to be looking for
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them
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i didn't want to believe that she
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wouldn't come back
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investigators identify a suspect with a
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horrible history but with no hard
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evidence the case reaches a dead end
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i would describe anybody that can commit
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five murders
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bury bodies
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as a bona fide psychopath
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the young victims remain jane and john
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doe for decades until their killer gives
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investigators a small break
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so he said i had to kill him because he
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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
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points to something entirely different
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this is the tragic story of pamela sally
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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
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california a hiker calls police after
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finding what he believes to be human
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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
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people are out there looking for
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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
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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
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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
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deputies that were already starting the
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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
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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
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scavenging had pulled the remains from
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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
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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
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any type of identification that may have
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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
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that was used to kill those two people
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they were 22 caliber
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bullets
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if they find a gun somewhere that they
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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
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they'd have and they could say yeah this
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gun killed those two people
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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
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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
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specialists that's what happened here
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and these experts are able to provide
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investigators with a rough physical
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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
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examination estimated both bodies to be
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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
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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
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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
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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
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like that
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investigators visit the small town of
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ludlow to see if anyone can help id
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these victims
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in the early stages of this
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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
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no one in ludlow can help with a
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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
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ludlow said that you need to talk to
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howard neal because howard was always at
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the gas station always knew the people
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that were coming through here because he
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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
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going to benefit him that that's what he
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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
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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
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1980 san bernardino county sheriffs get
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a lead at the double murder of two
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unidentified bodies found out in the
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mojave desert the young victims were
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found near the small town of ludlow one
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month earlier police now looking for a
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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
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interview him in regards to the bodies
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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
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discover they're not the only
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investigators looking for howard neal
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so howard neal is arrested on march 6
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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
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his half brother
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his niece and her cousin
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when investigators learned the horrible
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details of the mississippi murders
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they're confident howard neal is also
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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
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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
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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
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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
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and for the next 10 days
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they find nothing no sign of them
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anywhere
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then february 6
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a young girl's body is discovered
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so this man on his way to a fishing hole
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discovers amanda joy's body
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it was clearly evident she was strangled
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there was evidence she was beaten among
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the face
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and upper body
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she was shot with a shotgun in the
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abdomen
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it's clear that somebody brutalized this
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young child
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and left her on the side of the road
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and it's not long before another body is
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found
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melanie sue poke was found about 900
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yards away from
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her cousin
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and it was clear
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from that crime scene from the forensic
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examination that she had been
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shot
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as well
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it takes a little longer however to find
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bobby neal's body
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about a month after the girls were found
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bobby nail was found several miles away
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he was shot
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and he was bound
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stockton police arrest howard neal and
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question him about the murders in
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mississippi
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so after being interrogated
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he decides he's going to tell stockton
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police
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exactly what happened
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out there in mississippi
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with his half brother his niece and her
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cousin
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so howard neal says he went over to his
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half brother bobby's house
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and the two girls were there
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and
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that under their own free will
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they decided
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with him
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and bobby they were all gonna go for a
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ride and that the two girls sat in the
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front and bobby sat in the back and out
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they went
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he claims that bobby got upset with him
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because he had his hand on one of the
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girl's
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thigh
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and he demanded to stop the car
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so we did
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they get out
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and howard says he brought his gun with
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him
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and they start walking away from the car
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and that
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he shot bobby
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when amanda joy was found there was
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evidence on her wrists that she had been
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bound and restrained
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but now
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in his confession howard neal says i
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never did
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that when howard gets back to the car
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the girls immediately ask him
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what was that shot about he shot the gun
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in the air and that bobby decided he was
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gonna walk home
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and howard claims the girls believed
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them
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it's horrible to even imagine but this
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sick
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vicious suspect actually tells
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investigators the 12 and 13 year old
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girl victims were willing participants
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in his brutal sex attack on them
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howard neal tries to make police believe
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that
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these 12 13 year old girls willingly had
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sex with him that they wanted it
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he claims that he had sex with melanie
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sue poke
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and then amanda ii
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and that the girls liked it and they
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wanted it
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when all the evidence points to
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rape that he bound them and that he
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raped them and then he killed them
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he says he shot amanda what he believed
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was in the chest
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and that when he shot her melanie sue
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started screaming so he pointed the gun
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at her and shot her
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he said when he was finished with the
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triple murder
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he went back to his family
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picked them up
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and then drove back to texas
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howard neal is tried and found guilty of
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the murders in mississippi
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howard neal is currently serving three
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life sentences in mississippi he was
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given the death penalty
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he was mentally incompetent
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so he was tested and found that he was
00:17:25
mentally
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those were the words that were used and
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used in court it's in the court
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transcripts basically he had no
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education he didn't remember going to
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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
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life terms without the possibility of
00:17:42
parole
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now san bernardino investigators are
00:17:48
eager to interview howard neal about
00:17:50
their double homicide but he refuses to
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speak with them so they tracked down his
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wife
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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
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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
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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

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Episode Highlights

  • Discovery of Human Remains
    In 1980, human bones are discovered in the Mojave Desert, leading to a chilling investigation.
    “We always had a gut feeling that family was going to be looking for them”
    @ 00m 36s
    June 01, 2022
  • Identifying the Victims
    The young victims remain Jane and John Doe for decades until a breakthrough occurs.
    “The evil they encounter that ends their young lives”
    @ 01m 33s
    June 01, 2022
  • Howard Neal's Dark Past
    Howard Neal, a suspect in the murders, has a history of violence and evasion.
    “Howard had realized that the police were looking to interview him”
    @ 10m 25s
    June 01, 2022
  • Howard Neal's Confession
    Howard Neal admits to killing two victims, claiming self-defense against a male victim.
    “If I didn't kill him, he would have killed me.”
    @ 24m 35s
    June 01, 2022
  • DNA Match Leads to Identification
    Investigators finally identify Pamela Sally through a DNA match with her daughter.
    “We were ecstatic to hear the news that there was a close match.”
    @ 30m 55s
    June 01, 2022
  • Closure for Families
    Families receive the remains of their loved ones, bringing closure after decades.
    “She was really appreciative of that and talked about her son.”
    @ 38m 47s
    June 01, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • I didn't want to believe that she wouldn't come back.
    Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 10 - San Bernadino Bodies - Full Episode
  • Here's a guy just making up a confession as he goes along.
    Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 10 - San Bernadino Bodies - Full Episode
  • This is the tragic story of Pamela Sally and William Lane.
    Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 10 - San Bernadino Bodies - Full Episode
  • I had to kill him because he would have killed me.
    Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 10 - San Bernadino Bodies - Full Episode
  • Please, I have a young daughter.
    Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 10 - San Bernadino Bodies - Full Episode
  • I always had that little bit of hope that she would come back.
    Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 10 - San Bernadino Bodies - Full Episode

Key Moments

  • Investigation Launched00:29
  • Victims Identified as Doe01:06
  • Suspect's Confession01:16
  • Autopsy Findings05:39
  • Interviewing the Suspect22:38
  • Murder Justification24:35
  • Desperate Plea26:03
  • DNA Breakthrough30:55

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

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