00:00:05
NARRATOR: In February 1993, detectives in Hillsboro, Oregon
00:00:10
were unaware that a serial killer had
00:00:12
been active across the city.
00:00:15
The murders of four women were being treated as separate cases
00:00:19
until a prisoner in a local jail house
00:00:21
began bragging to his fellow inmates.
00:00:26
He would take combs and little miniature bars of soap
00:00:30
and he would place them on the floor
00:00:32
to show the respective location of Martha Ryan's Volkswagen
00:00:36
with his Chevrolet.
00:00:38
And he would imitate the sound of Martha
00:00:40
Bryant's effort to draw breath.
00:00:43
NARRATOR: The loose lipped convict was 32-year-old Cesar
00:00:47
Barone, who'd been sexually assaulting
00:00:49
and murdering women across Hillsboro
00:00:52
for the previous two years.
00:00:55
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Margaret was found naked
00:00:56
and spread eagled on her bed.
00:00:58
He didn't just want to kill her, he
00:01:01
wanted to degrade her, and demean her, and humiliate her.
00:01:05
NARRATOR: As detectives began to learn the awful truth
00:01:08
behind Cesar Barone's crimes, they
00:01:11
discovered he'd begun attacking women in Florida
00:01:14
when he was just 15 years old.
00:01:17
ERIC APALATEGUI: He is that type of person
00:01:19
who has on the outside almost multiple personalities.
00:01:22
I think on the inside he was just all evil.
00:01:25
NARRATOR: Cesar Barone had revealed himself
00:01:28
as one of the world's most evil killers.
00:01:32
[MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01:51
In January 1995, 35-year-old Cesar Barone
00:01:57
was sentenced to death for taking the life of four
00:02:00
women in and around Hillsboro, Oregon
00:02:03
ranging in age from 23 to 61.
00:02:07
Barone's M.O. would often change from rapist to robber,
00:02:11
and strangler to shooter, making him
00:02:14
highly elusive to detectives who couldn't link the crimes.
00:02:22
Journalist Eric Apalategui met with Barone while he
00:02:26
was on death row in 1997.
00:02:30
ERIC APALATEGUI: We were standing up to go,
00:02:32
and he stuck his hand through that hole to shake my hand.
00:02:37
It totally caught me by surprise.
00:02:38
And I remember thinking, do I shake it
00:02:40
because I know that he has strangled
00:02:43
people with those hands, right?
00:02:47
NARRATOR: It took the skills of dedicated lawyers
00:02:50
and detectives to build a compelling case against Barone
00:02:54
in the lead up to his 1994 trials.
00:02:59
This case was really the most memorable case that I ever
00:03:03
dealt with, and it was because of its complexity, the number
00:03:08
of victims, the lives it impacted,
00:03:11
the trauma that it created for so many people.
00:03:15
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: Part of what made him so dangerous
00:03:18
was the fact that he broke all the rules
00:03:21
that a profiler would use in analyzing
00:03:25
a certain violent crime.
00:03:28
He killed people he knew, he killed strangers.
00:03:32
And that's one of the reasons he got away
00:03:34
with his despicable behavior for so long.
00:03:39
NARRATOR: This killer's story begins in December 1960.
00:03:43
Cesar Barone was born Adolph James Rode
00:03:47
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
00:03:50
Known as Jimmy to friends and family,
00:03:53
his young life got off to a far from perfect start.
00:03:58
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: At the age of four,
00:04:00
his mother leaves and sets up a new life somewhere else.
00:04:04
And I think this is at the root of a lot of Rode's issues.
00:04:09
I think there is an unresolved conflict that happens
00:04:12
at that point, and it continues for him for many years
00:04:16
because I think as a four-year-old,
00:04:18
you can't really make sense of why your mother's left.
00:04:22
You probably have a tendency to blame yourself for it,
00:04:24
was it something that I did?
00:04:27
NARRATOR: In March 1967, Rode's father
00:04:30
got married for a second time.
00:04:33
It was a happier, more affluent household to grow up in.
00:04:38
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: He led a pretty normal childhood.
00:04:40
His grandparents had a nice home with land
00:04:45
outside of Fort Lauderdale.
00:04:48
They had a pony that they bought mostly for Cesar
00:04:52
and his brother and sister.
00:04:54
He started approaching his teens,
00:04:57
he really started going downhill in terms of his behavior.
00:05:04
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: As an adolescent,
00:05:06
Rode really was a hell raiser.
00:05:08
He broke rules left, right, and center.
00:05:10
He didn't think the rules applied to him.
00:05:13
He was mean to other children.
00:05:15
He didn't really have decent relationships with his peers.
00:05:19
And he caused such havoc that his stepmother actually ended
00:05:23
up leaving the family home.
00:05:25
So that is the level of disruption
00:05:28
that this young man was causing.
00:05:29
This is very serious behavior indeed.
00:05:32
NARRATOR: Rode's conduct spiraled out of control.
00:05:36
And he had a bad reputation with the local authorities.
00:05:40
ERIC APALATEGUI: He was known to police around there
00:05:43
as this kid who was just a bad kid,
00:05:48
who would just steal anything.
00:05:51
He was an opportunist who graduated
00:05:54
into assaulting people.
00:05:56
And I think he found out that he liked that, honestly.
00:06:02
NARRATOR: By 1976, 15-year-old Jimmy Rode
00:06:06
had developed an unhealthy sexual appetite
00:06:09
for much older women.
00:06:11
And he focused his newfound perversity
00:06:14
on his neighbor, Alice Stock.
00:06:16
Alice was a 70-year-old ex teacher.
00:06:19
She was a very patient, very calm,
00:06:22
very understanding person.
00:06:23
She'd worked with children with special needs,
00:06:26
and she was somebody that Rode knew.
00:06:28
And he breaks into her house.
00:06:31
He threatens her with a knife, and he asks her
00:06:34
to remove some of her clothing.
00:06:37
And she says, I know who you are, you're Jimmy Rode,
00:06:41
you live right down the street.
00:06:43
Now get the hell out of my house.
00:06:46
And he did.
00:06:47
Of course she instantly called the police.
00:06:50
NARRATOR: Jimmy Rode, spends 10 weeks
00:06:52
in a youth detention center as punishment
00:06:55
for the attempted attack.
00:06:57
The prolific criminal remained in and out of prison
00:07:00
over the next three years.
00:07:02
All the while, his assault on Alice Stock
00:07:05
remained fresh in his memory.
00:07:09
BOB HERMANN: In 1979, he was released.
00:07:11
15 days later, someone entered her home
00:07:14
by cutting the screen to her window,
00:07:17
entering through the window, strangled Alice Stock,
00:07:21
left her displayed on the bed.
00:07:24
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Clearly he is the prime suspect
00:07:26
because this lady and what she experienced
00:07:29
and what she reported to the police
00:07:32
were what led to him first going to prison.
00:07:34
So he harbored a grudge, he harbored resentment.
00:07:37
And the fact that he sat on this resentment
00:07:39
for a good couple of years, shows
00:07:42
me the kind of person he is.
00:07:43
He is a grievance collector.
00:07:45
And if somebody wrongs him, he's going
00:07:47
to get his own back, whether that's next week or next year.
00:07:52
NARRATOR: All the evidence in the case was circumstantial,
00:07:56
and it wasn't enough to charge Rode with Alice's murder.
00:08:01
It's alleged that in January 1980,
00:08:04
18-year-old Rode raped his stepmother.
00:08:07
And just months later in April, he
00:08:09
was arrested and charged with attacking his own grandmother.
00:08:15
BOB HERMANN: She was beaten severely so Jimmy Rode was
00:08:18
charged with attempted murder.
00:08:20
It went to trial and he was acquitted.
00:08:23
And those involved in the case said
00:08:24
that the grandmother had trouble testifying,
00:08:27
she didn't want to testify.
00:08:29
And the defense basically was she's mistaken,
00:08:32
Jimmy had been there but it was somebody--
00:08:35
and it was somebody else.
00:08:36
He was acquitted.
00:08:38
NARRATOR: It seemed that murder just wouldn't stick.
00:08:41
Nevertheless, Jimmy Rode was back in prison by August 1980
00:08:46
sentenced to five years for the comparatively
00:08:49
minor offense of burglary.
00:08:52
And after assaulting a 59-year-old female prison
00:08:55
officer, three more years were added
00:08:58
to his sentence in which time he began to completely
00:09:02
change his identity.
00:09:05
He moves to a new prison and he basically
00:09:08
starts to rewrite the story of his life
00:09:10
in the information he gives to the officers in that prison.
00:09:14
He claims that he has a degree from an Italian University.
00:09:18
He claims that he's a widower.
00:09:19
That he's going to go back to Italy after his sentence.
00:09:23
So he's embellishing, he's exaggerating,
00:09:26
he's making himself more interesting.
00:09:28
And when people do this, when they engage
00:09:31
in this kind of narcissistic behavior,
00:09:34
it's essentially because they are fundamentally
00:09:36
ashamed of who they really are.
00:09:38
They don't want to be themselves so they
00:09:40
invent somebody else to be.
00:09:43
Somebody who can lord it over other people
00:09:45
because they're special and they're interesting.
00:09:48
NARRATOR: Rode was still the prime suspect
00:09:51
for the murder of Alice Stock.
00:09:53
And when he was released in 1987,
00:09:55
he was determined to put distance between himself
00:09:58
and the allegations.
00:10:01
He'd met a woman via newspaper lonelyhearts service,
00:10:04
and headed 2 and 1/2 1,000 miles across the US
00:10:08
to Seattle to be with her.
00:10:10
And he adopted a new name, Cesar Barone.
00:10:16
The couple married and settled in Hillsboro, Oregon,
00:10:20
but Barone didn't hang around for long.
00:10:23
In January 1989, the 28-year-old career
00:10:27
criminal enlisted in the Army.
00:10:32
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He signs up but because he's somebody who's
00:10:34
not very good at following rules,
00:10:36
he doesn't have a particularly smooth time in the army.
00:10:39
And he is eventually dismissed from the army
00:10:43
when he goes and harasses an elderly woman in her home,
00:10:47
and also when the army discover that he's
00:10:49
in possession of a firearm, and that he's a convicted felon.
00:10:53
So all of this unravels, and his dream
00:10:57
of what the army could potentially have been for him
00:11:00
comes to an end.
00:11:03
NARRATOR: By early 1991, Cesar Barone
00:11:06
was back living in Hillsboro with his wife and baby son.
00:11:11
On April the 19th, not too far from the Barone family home,
00:11:16
a crime stunned the community.
00:11:20
BOB HERMANN: Margaret Schmidt was a woman in her early 60s.
00:11:23
She lived in downtown area of Hillsboro in a small house.
00:11:27
Margaret had broken her leg.
00:11:29
And because of the leg injury and some of her health issues,
00:11:32
she used a Walker to get around.
00:11:37
ERIC APALATEGUI: Somebody broke into her house.
00:11:41
She was sexually assaulted and strangled.
00:11:46
And it was one of those cases as a reporter that--
00:11:50
I remember she was one of those types of people
00:11:53
that everybody would say, well, why would
00:11:55
you kill Margaret Schmidt?
00:11:58
NARRATOR: The case landed on the desk of homicide
00:12:01
detective, Michael O'Connell.
00:12:05
She would sit out on her porch and talk
00:12:07
to the kids from the grade school right next to her house.
00:12:12
And that's probably how he spotted her, driving by
00:12:15
and probably saw her out on her porch.
00:12:19
NARRATOR: Margaret's carer had arrived to check in
00:12:22
on the 61-year-old but instead stumbled
00:12:26
upon a horrific crime scene.
00:12:29
Margaret was found naked and spread eagled on her bed.
00:12:34
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: She'd been strangled,
00:12:35
and also it appeared she'd been smothered with a pillow.
00:12:39
The pillow was still laying on her face when we got there.
00:12:44
There was either a sexual assault or an attempt
00:12:47
at a sexual assault. The suspect had
00:12:51
knocked over a bottle of talcum powder in the bathroom
00:12:55
and left some of the best shoe prints
00:12:58
that I've ever seen at any crime scene.
00:13:00
You could actually read the word Reebok.
00:13:03
BOB HERMANN: Maybe you see that a lot on TV
00:13:05
but in a lot of murder scenes that I've seen,
00:13:07
you don't typically see foot prints in a residence.
00:13:10
And that led to a significant lead.
00:13:13
And really quite frankly, was the only lead
00:13:15
after the initial investigation that the police
00:13:18
had that they thought they may somehow
00:13:20
be able to follow up on.
00:13:23
NARRATOR: There seemed to be an obvious way to solve the case,
00:13:27
find the distinctive shoes, catch the killer.
00:13:31
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: I became somewhat obsessed with them,
00:13:34
and for the next couple of years,
00:13:37
I was always looking for them to see if I
00:13:40
could see someone wearing them.
00:13:41
I only saw two people wearing them.
00:13:44
One was a kindergarten teacher who I knew.
00:13:47
I knew she wasn't a suspect, and the other one was a fellow
00:13:51
at the Spokane airport.
00:13:54
NARRATOR: But in fact the owner of
00:13:56
the shoes lived just two miles away
00:13:58
from Margaret Schmidt's house.
00:14:00
Cesar Barone's lust for older women had driven him to murder.
00:14:06
In the following months, the 30-year-old
00:14:08
separated from his wife and moved out of the family home
00:14:12
before beginning an ominous new career,
00:14:16
working in an elderly care home.
00:14:19
GEOFFERY WANSELL: What could be more frightening than having
00:14:22
someone who's already killed a 61-year-old to get
00:14:25
a job as a care home assistant?
00:14:28
Well, criminal records checks were not what they are today.
00:14:34
He was plausible enough.
00:14:35
And on the surface, he presents as unfrightening.
00:14:41
He's quite amenable.
00:14:42
And I can only imagine that he must have been literally
00:14:46
like the fox in the hen house.
00:14:50
NARRATOR: On the 9th of October 1992,
00:14:53
Oregon awoke to the news of another murder.
00:14:56
41-year-old midwife, Martha Bryant
00:14:59
had been targeted by a gunman in the early hours of the morning
00:15:03
while driving along Cornell Road in Hillsboro.
00:15:08
BOB HERMANN: I learned about it early when I
00:15:10
got up on, "The Morning News."
00:15:11
It was front and center.
00:15:12
They actually had footage of the Volkswagen
00:15:15
that Martha had been driving because it
00:15:17
remained alongside where she had been forced off the road.
00:15:22
That's told the story that this is an enormous happening
00:15:25
that someone would be shot, and you
00:15:26
could see the bullet holes, the many bullet
00:15:29
holes in the vehicle.
00:15:31
I believe she was probably working her way to turn up
00:15:34
to Highway 26, we call it Sunset Highway,
00:15:37
and then on into Portland where she lived.
00:15:40
But at some point on Cornell Road,
00:15:43
somebody started shooting at her car where one of those bullets
00:15:47
passed through the door and struck her inside.
00:15:52
And that caused her to stop the car
00:15:56
and suddenly not really in full control.
00:16:01
NARRATOR: One of the high caliber bullets
00:16:03
had ripped right through the car and pierced Martha's left lung.
00:16:09
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: Several people heard the gunfire
00:16:11
and called 911 because you shouldn't have gunfire
00:16:16
along Cornell Road at 3:00 AM.
00:16:18
In that neighborhood, you shouldn't
00:16:20
have gunfire any time.
00:16:23
One of the callers actually looked out her bathroom window
00:16:26
and saw Martha Bryant's Volkswagen,
00:16:29
and she heard yelling.
00:16:31
And she thought it was two males but you have to remember,
00:16:35
Martha Bryant had suffered a sucking chest wound.
00:16:39
NARRATOR: The assailant abducted the gravely
00:16:42
injured Martha from her abandoned vehicle
00:16:45
and drove her to a quieter location.
00:16:48
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: When she couldn't do what he wanted,
00:16:51
he dragged her out of the car, put a 22 caliber revolver
00:16:55
to her temple and executed her.
00:16:58
Left her in the middle of the road with her pants
00:17:01
down at her ankles.
00:17:05
Martha Bryant was found a short time later about 3/4
00:17:11
of a mile away laying in the middle of a side street,
00:17:17
and she'd been sexually assaulted.
00:17:22
GEOFFERY WANSELL: It is premeditated.
00:17:24
It is excessive cruelty once again,
00:17:28
and a complete disregard for human life,
00:17:30
of how anyone else might feel.
00:17:32
It is psychopathic behavior of the most clear cut.
00:17:37
NARRATOR: The seemingly random killing of a local midwife
00:17:41
left the city in shock.
00:17:44
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: It captured the attention of the community
00:17:48
in a very powerful way.
00:17:49
You just don't have that kind of crime out here in Hillsboro.
00:17:53
You really don't have that kind of crime very often anywhere.
00:18:00
ERIC APALATEGUI: We knew very quickly that Martha Bryant was
00:18:02
a nurse midwife, that she had just helped deliver a baby
00:18:07
at Tuality Community Hospital.
00:18:10
That fact alone that she had just helped bring a new life
00:18:15
into the world, and then her life was so suddenly
00:18:19
and violently taken, the way those two things came together,
00:18:23
I think just grabbed everybody.
00:18:25
It was just one of those things where
00:18:28
you just see the best and the worst of life,
00:18:32
and just minutes apart.
00:18:36
NARRATOR: Cornell Road residents had seen Martha's killer abduct
00:18:40
her but because it was so dark, detectives
00:18:43
were left with little to go on.
00:18:46
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Police started to put together
00:18:48
a picture of what happened from the evidence
00:18:50
that the witnesses gave them.
00:18:52
So they'd seen a white muscle car, a souped up vehicle.
00:18:57
They'd seen a man, he was around about 6 foot
00:18:59
tall with dark brown hair going away from the scene.
00:19:03
So they have little pieces of the puzzle to put together.
00:19:08
NARRATOR: What the police didn't know
00:19:10
was that Martha's killer was Cesar Barone.
00:19:13
In a complete change of his regular M.O.,
00:19:16
the 30-year-old had struck for a second time.
00:19:19
And just two months later, he would claim a third victim.
00:19:24
On the 30th of December 1992, Detective Scott Ryon
00:19:30
was alerted to the discovery of a body along US Highway 26
00:19:35
near Vernonia, Oregon.
00:19:38
SCOTT RYON: We got up there and the body
00:19:40
had been there for some time.
00:19:42
We weren't sure if this was somebody
00:19:44
that was struck by a vehicle or dumped body
00:19:48
or what immediately.
00:19:51
But after a period of time, I located a gunshot
00:19:54
to the underside of her chin.
00:19:56
And at that point, it was beyond suspect
00:20:00
that this was a homicide.
00:20:02
NARRATOR: It would take some expert detective
00:20:05
work just to identify the victim let alone solve the crime.
00:20:11
SCOTT RYON: When we first went through the victim's pockets,
00:20:14
we had very little information as far as who she was.
00:20:19
After doing some legwork on her phone number and address,
00:20:22
we were able to track down a house in Southeast Portland,
00:20:26
I believe it was, and found out she was a roommate
00:20:31
and had taken a room in a house there.
00:20:34
And we were able to locate information in that room
00:20:38
as to her actual identity.
00:20:41
NARRATOR: 23-year-old Chantee Woodman had last
00:20:45
been seen the previous night looking
00:20:47
for a ride home outside a nightclub in Portland.
00:20:51
Chantee was probably what one would refer to as a traveler.
00:20:57
She had followed the music scene throughout California
00:21:01
in the Northwest.
00:21:02
And I believe this was probably one of her visit--
00:21:05
first visits into the Portland area.
00:21:09
NARRATOR: Once again, detectives had few leads to follow.
00:21:13
They had no idea that Chantee Woodman
00:21:16
had become the third victim of Cesar Barone.
00:21:19
But this time, he had an accomplice.
00:21:22
Leonard Darcell known by his nickname Germ,
00:21:26
worked with Barone in a nursing home,
00:21:29
and was seven years younger than the 31-year-old killer.
00:21:32
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think he was somebody who was
00:21:34
seen as a bit of an outcast.
00:21:36
So I think Barone thought that here's somebody that I can
00:21:39
manipulate, here's somebody who's going
00:21:41
to be really impressed by me.
00:21:44
ERIC APALATEGUI: He was the type of guy who would look up
00:21:46
to someone like Cesar Barone, who would admire
00:21:49
someone like Cesar Barone.
00:21:50
And I think Cesar Barone liked to have someone like that
00:21:55
around.
00:21:56
I think he got a kick out of that.
00:21:58
I don't think that Leonard Darcell necessarily
00:22:01
signed up to be a wing man in a murder,
00:22:04
but he was no boy scout.
00:22:07
NARRATOR: Barone and Darcell had picked up
00:22:09
Chantee Woodman outside a nightclub in Portland.
00:22:13
And just hours later, Barone executed her in front
00:22:18
of his younger colleague.
00:22:20
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She begs for her life.
00:22:22
She's absolutely terrified at this point in time.
00:22:25
But Barone, this is not a barrier for him.
00:22:28
This is now a performance because Leonard Darcell is
00:22:31
there watching this unfold, and he
00:22:34
wants this to be as performative,
00:22:36
as dramatic as possible.
00:22:39
GEOFFERY WANSELL: And then finally in an act
00:22:41
of such barbarism, it almost takes your breath away,
00:22:45
Barone puts the gun not to a temple but underneath the chin
00:22:50
and blows her head off, effectively
00:22:52
killing her in an instant.
00:22:58
NARRATOR: Cesar Barone was out of control.
00:23:01
He'd now killed three women in completely
00:23:04
unrelated circumstances.
00:23:06
The police had a serial killer in their midst
00:23:09
but they had no idea.
00:23:12
The differing M.O's and varying ages of the victims
00:23:16
appeared too random to be linked by detectives.
00:23:20
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: We didn't think
00:23:21
that the Woodman murder, the Bryant murder, or the Schmidt
00:23:24
murder were connected.
00:23:25
They were all very different.
00:23:26
You have an elderly woman killed in her home,
00:23:29
you have a 23-year-old left along the side of the highway
00:23:33
in a rural part of the County, and then
00:23:35
you have the nurse midwife shot in her car,
00:23:38
and then kidnapped and ultimately executed.
00:23:42
We didn't think they were connected.
00:23:44
NARRATOR: The killer of all three women was Cesar Barone.
00:23:49
Despite his violent and sometimes public attacks,
00:23:53
the 32-year-old care home worker had
00:23:56
managed to fly under the radar.
00:23:58
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is a really
00:23:59
mixed kind of victimology.
00:24:02
But we've got to remember all of these victims are women.
00:24:06
It's all being driven by a misogynistic ideology
00:24:09
and a value set.
00:24:11
So I think the police would have struggled in the early days
00:24:14
because of that disparity of the victims
00:24:16
but the nature of the murders was quite similar.
00:24:20
So there were pieces of the puzzle that
00:24:22
would eventually come together.
00:24:24
NARRATOR: In January 1993, Barone
00:24:28
attended a small party hosted by 51-year-old waitress, Betty
00:24:33
Williams who lived in the same apartment block as Barone's
00:24:36
girlfriend in Cornelius.
00:24:39
The following morning, Betty was found dead.
00:24:44
BOB HERMANN: She was discovered by one of her sons
00:24:46
who came over to her house, found the front door unlocked,
00:24:50
which again was unusual.
00:24:52
Came in looking for his mom, and found
00:24:54
her in the bathtub with a couple of inches of water in it.
00:24:59
And she was laying half in and half out of the bathtub.
00:25:02
Her clothing was down to her ankles,
00:25:04
and she was clearly dead.
00:25:07
NARRATOR: There was nothing at the crime scene
00:25:10
that would immediately suggest foul play.
00:25:13
BOB HERMANN: They thought that she had been sitting
00:25:15
on the toilet and had a heart attack,
00:25:17
and then in her movement had fallen into the bathtub.
00:25:23
NARRATOR: Two items found in Betty's apartment
00:25:26
meant detectives would keep an open mind about her death.
00:25:31
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: There was a broken jar of change found,
00:25:34
there was a gun there.
00:25:36
We thought it was her gun.
00:25:38
And when we asked her sons, they said, yeah, it might be.
00:25:41
But then her autopsy determined it was a heart attack.
00:25:45
And then as things progressed, it turned out that she
00:25:49
did die of a heart attack.
00:25:50
But she died of a heart attack because he
00:25:53
was threatening her with a knife and that gun, that 22 magnum.
00:25:59
So in effect this is an oversimplification
00:26:02
but it's basically what happened was he scared her to death.
00:26:07
NARRATOR: It was impossible for the police to link the cases
00:26:11
but Betty Williams had in fact become the fourth victim
00:26:15
of Cesar Barone.
00:26:17
The following month in February 1993,
00:26:20
Barone's ex mother-in-law was found dead in her home.
00:26:25
It was a death that would inadvertently
00:26:28
lead to the killer's downfall.
00:26:31
At the time, the death was considered natural causes.
00:26:35
I believe they thought it likely was a heart attack.
00:26:39
It would come to light that Cesar Barone was using
00:26:42
her ATM card after the death.
00:26:46
NARRATOR: The family filed a complaint that Barone was
00:26:50
responsible for the theft of $3,000,
00:26:53
and a police investigation began.
00:26:56
While looking into Barone's past,
00:26:58
detectives discovered a colorful criminal history,
00:27:02
including attacks on 70-year-old Alice
00:27:05
Stock and his own grandmother.
00:27:08
SCOTT RYON: There were some issues coming
00:27:09
up that just didn't make sense.
00:27:12
Cesar Barone appeared to come out of nowhere.
00:27:15
And in further checking, we found
00:27:17
there had been a name change.
00:27:20
Cesar Barone was actually a fictitious name,
00:27:23
an assumed name later on.
00:27:26
That Barone's real name was Jimmy Rode.
00:27:29
NARRATOR: As the investigation into the stolen money
00:27:32
continued, Barone remained a free man.
00:27:35
He'd killed four women without any repercussions.
00:27:40
And the rate of his assaults began to escalate.
00:27:44
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: There are a couple of sexual attacks
00:27:47
that he carries out on to older women.
00:27:50
He goes to their houses, he asks them
00:27:52
if he can use their phone because he's
00:27:54
having some car problems.
00:27:56
In one of these incidences, he goes in
00:27:58
and demands that the woman gives him oral sex and she refuses
00:28:02
and he fleece.
00:28:04
In another one of these incidences,
00:28:06
the victim sets off her personal alarm which really
00:28:10
spooks him so he flees again.
00:28:12
And I think at this point in time
00:28:14
he's feeling really frustrated because he has a right
00:28:16
to demand these things that he's asking for,
00:28:19
and he's not getting them.
00:28:21
NARRATOR: One of the victims, a neighbor of Barone
00:28:24
identified the 32-year-old and reported him to the police.
00:28:29
Investigators didn't know it but they were about to capture
00:28:32
a serial killer.
00:28:34
Barone was promptly put behind bars.
00:28:37
It was only then that the truth about his career of murder
00:28:42
came to the fore.
00:28:44
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: In prison, Barone
00:28:45
is still very much the narcissist
00:28:47
that he was on the outside.
00:28:49
He wants attention, he wants recognition,
00:28:51
he wants validation.
00:28:53
So he starts showing off.
00:28:54
He starts bragging to his fellow prisoners about the crimes
00:28:58
that he's committed, about the murders of elderly women,
00:29:02
about the assaults on women.
00:29:04
And they are horrified at what they've heard.
00:29:07
And they basically want to share that information.
00:29:12
NARRATOR: Barone bragged about the killing
00:29:14
of 41-year-old midwife, Martha Bryant.
00:29:18
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: When he would describe what he did
00:29:19
to these other inmates, he would take combs and little
00:29:24
miniature bars of soap that they were issued in the jail,
00:29:27
and he would place them on the floor
00:29:29
to show the respective location of Martha Ryan's Volkswagen
00:29:33
with his Chevrolet.
00:29:35
And he would imitate the sound of Martha
00:29:38
Bryant's effort to draw breath.
00:29:42
NARRATOR: Barone had sold his two-door Chevrolet soon
00:29:46
after Martha's murder but detectives
00:29:49
managed to track it down.
00:29:51
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: I remember Susan [INAUDIBLE]
00:29:53
one of the criminalists from the State Police Crime Lab
00:29:56
coming out to our evidence facility.
00:30:00
And she looks at the car, she points
00:30:02
to a spot in the back seat.
00:30:05
She says someone has scrubbed that spot harder
00:30:08
than the rest of the car.
00:30:10
And we're going, OK, if you say so.
00:30:13
She slices open the seat, the cushion
00:30:16
is soaked with dried blood which was Martha Bryant's.
00:30:22
That blood evidence was from when he had placed
00:30:25
her in the back of his car.
00:30:28
NARRATOR: Another murder that Barone
00:30:30
talked about while in jail was that of a 23-year-old Chantee
00:30:34
Woodman.
00:30:36
We had information from the inmates
00:30:38
in the jail that Barone had described
00:30:41
Woodman's attack and murder.
00:30:44
And he stated that during that incident,
00:30:47
he had a subject by the name of Germ accompanying him.
00:30:51
We had no further information to go on,
00:30:53
and we started calling in on different police resources.
00:30:56
And located an a.k.a.
00:30:58
of Germ as being Leonard Darcell who surprisingly
00:31:02
was a Cornelius resident, and lived not far
00:31:05
from where Cesar Barone had lived.
00:31:08
NARRATOR: Detectives paid a visit to Leonard Darcell
00:31:11
to hear his side of the story.
00:31:15
SCOTT RYON: We told Leonard that we had some information that we
00:31:18
needed to share with him, and that information
00:31:21
regarded Cesar Barone.
00:31:24
At the point of hearing Cesar Barone's name,
00:31:29
there was a huge transformation, Leonard Darcell's
00:31:33
face turned white as a sheet.
00:31:36
He tried about three times to speak, he couldn't.
00:31:39
As he had finally started to speak, he looked at us
00:31:43
and said, what I'm about to tell you is probably going
00:31:46
to change the rest of my life.
00:31:50
NARRATOR: Darcell began to confess about what had happened
00:31:53
on the 30th of December 1992.
00:31:57
He told detectives that he and Barone had picked up Chantee
00:32:01
and took her to an apartment in Cornelius.
00:32:04
He said he had consensual sex with the 23-year-old
00:32:08
but when she rejected Barone's advances,
00:32:11
he forced her to get into his car and pointed a gun at her.
00:32:16
Darcell went along for the ride.
00:32:19
SCOTT RYON: Ultimately, she ended up out on Highway 26.
00:32:22
And he told us it was Barone that had got her out of the car
00:32:27
and taunted her and tormented her
00:32:30
while she was standing there on the shoulder of the road.
00:32:33
He said she was crying, she was sobbing.
00:32:37
And he stroked her hair and told her everything
00:32:40
was going to be OK.
00:32:41
Everything was going to be fine, don't worry.
00:32:44
And at that point, he moved the gun
00:32:46
from where he had been popping it into the bottom of her chin.
00:32:52
Then turned it and came underneath, and said
00:32:55
everything's going to be OK, and the gun fired.
00:32:58
And she collapsed
00:33:01
NARRATOR: Darcell could not believe what he had witnessed.
00:33:06
SCOTT RYON: He said that was at the point
00:33:07
that Cesar Barone grabbed her by the legs
00:33:09
and spun her around, and threw her off into the shoulder.
00:33:13
And they then got into the car and left the scene.
00:33:17
And it was at that point that Cesar Barone wanted to hi five
00:33:20
him.
00:33:21
He was pounding the wheel, he was euphoric.
00:33:24
He was just totally excited about how good
00:33:28
that felt. Leonard stated it nearly
00:33:31
made him sick at that point.
00:33:33
And he knew that he didn't want anything more
00:33:35
to do with this individual.
00:33:39
NARRATOR: In March 1994, for his role in Chantee
00:33:43
Woodman's murder, Leonard Darcell was sentenced
00:33:46
to 20 years in prison.
00:33:50
During his jailhouse confessions,
00:33:53
Barone had spoken to fellow inmates
00:33:55
about how in January 1993 he'd scared
00:33:59
Betty Williams so much she suffered a heart attack.
00:34:03
The gun that had been found at her apartment
00:34:05
was the same one that had fired the shot
00:34:08
that killed Chantee Woodman, a direct link
00:34:11
between both deaths.
00:34:13
Searches of Barone's home uncovered
00:34:16
even more evidence against him.
00:34:19
SCOTT RYON: There was another gun found in the search warrant
00:34:21
at Cesar Barone's house.
00:34:23
It was a Browning Hi-Power.
00:34:27
When that gun was matched with forensics,
00:34:30
that tied back into the Martha Bryant case.
00:34:34
The shell casings found on Cornell Road
00:34:36
were consistent with the striker marks
00:34:39
that this Browning Hi-Power made.
00:34:41
NARRATOR: And the search of one of Barone's former residences
00:34:45
led Detective Michael O'Connell to discover
00:34:48
something he'd been searching for for almost two years.
00:34:53
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: During the service of that search warrant,
00:34:55
what do we find in Cesar's property?
00:34:59
A pair of size 8 and 1/2 or 9 Reebok IRS tennis shoes.
00:35:05
Ultimately, the shoes were matched to the shoe prints
00:35:08
in Margaret Schmidt's bathroom including the little nicks,
00:35:13
the little artifacts.
00:35:14
You could look at the bottom of the shoe and see it,
00:35:16
and you could look at the picture of the shoe print
00:35:19
and see it.
00:35:23
NARRATOR: As well as evidence linking Barone to four deaths,
00:35:27
detectives had uncovered a series of other crimes
00:35:30
he'd committed including rape, sexual abuse, and theft.
00:35:35
In February 1994, he faced trial for crimes
00:35:38
against the surviving victims and was sentenced
00:35:42
to 44 years in prison.
00:35:45
The career criminal was behind bars
00:35:48
but detectives weren't going to rest on their laurels.
00:35:51
Cesar Barone was about to get his comeuppance for the lives
00:35:55
he'd cruelly taken.
00:35:58
In November, the 34-year-old was back in court, this time
00:36:03
charged with the high profile murder of an innocent midwife.
00:36:11
ERIC APALATEGUI: The Martha Bryant murder
00:36:12
was such a big deal because people really
00:36:15
cared about that case, and they really wanted
00:36:17
to see Cesar Barone put away.
00:36:20
And it was a capital murder case so he was facing
00:36:25
a potential death penalty.
00:36:27
NARRATOR: Barone was prosecuted by Chief
00:36:30
deputy DA, Bob Hermann.
00:36:33
BOB HERMANN: I told the jury that this was clearly
00:36:35
an execution both by the nature of the gunshot
00:36:39
wound to the temple, and he clearly displayed the body
00:36:42
by dumping her in the middle of the road in the manner
00:36:44
that he did.
00:36:45
It was obvious that his conduct was deliberate,
00:36:49
which under our law in Oregon is significant when it comes
00:36:53
to a death penalty imposition.
00:36:54
The homicide need not be just intentional,
00:36:57
it has to be deliberate as well.
00:36:59
And that was about as deliberative
00:37:01
as you could possibly imagine.
00:37:05
NARRATOR: Barone denied all the charges
00:37:07
against him pleading not guilty and refusing to testify.
00:37:12
But the evidence against him was undeniable.
00:37:16
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: In terms of Martha Bryant's murder trial,
00:37:18
there really wasn't any doubts that Barone had killed her.
00:37:22
He'd bragged about it.
00:37:23
He'd actually shared details of the crime with others.
00:37:28
There was a blood stain in the back of the muscle car
00:37:31
that matched up to her DNA.
00:37:33
And also the 9 millimeter pistol that he'd used in this case
00:37:37
was found in his own residence.
00:37:39
So all paths led to Barone, there was very little doubt
00:37:43
he was responsible for this.
00:37:46
ERIC APALATEGUI: I think the evidence that maybe is more
00:37:49
emotional is the stuff that kind of gets me now is just
00:37:52
the descriptions of how he basically
00:37:54
hunted her down and killed her.
00:37:57
Those were the things that anybody could understand,
00:38:02
we've all seen movies and everything
00:38:04
but here it was real life and close to home and all of that.
00:38:10
So that's the kind of stuff that probably sticks with me more.
00:38:17
NARRATOR: In December 1994, Cesar Barone
00:38:20
was found guilty of the murder of Martha Bryant
00:38:23
and sentenced to death.
00:38:25
He received two more death sentences
00:38:28
for the murders of Margaret Schmidt and Chantee Woodman.
00:38:32
Barone was also convicted of causing
00:38:34
Betty Williams death known in Oregon as felony murder.
00:38:39
For this he received an 89 year sentence.
00:38:44
The state of Florida were also keen to speak to the man
00:38:47
they knew as Jimmy Rode.
00:38:50
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: They eventually indicted him
00:38:52
for the murder of Alice Stock.
00:38:54
After his appeals were all denied on the Martha Bryant
00:38:57
case, they ended up dismissing their case under the belief
00:39:02
that, OK, the very least he's going
00:39:05
to spend the rest of his life in prison in Oregon
00:39:08
and possibly even be executed.
00:39:11
They decided to drop their case.
00:39:15
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: There is no such thing as coincidence when
00:39:17
it comes to serial killers.
00:39:19
And I think it's safe to say that is anybody else
00:39:24
responsible for Alice's murder?
00:39:26
I'd say probably not.
00:39:30
NARRATOR: In 1997, journalist Eric Apalategui
00:39:34
was given the opportunity to sit down with Cesar Barone
00:39:38
to try and find out his side of the story.
00:39:42
I had never interviewed someone on death row.
00:39:45
So that day when I went down to Salem,
00:39:49
Oregon State Penitentiary, I was admittedly anxious.
00:39:53
I didn't know what it would be like.
00:39:55
And then they brought me into a little interview room,
00:40:00
and there was a chair and a little desk in front of me.
00:40:07
And then there was this big thick plate glass with a hole
00:40:12
right here that we were going to talk through.
00:40:14
The guard brought Cesar Barone in to the other side of this,
00:40:18
sat him down, and they gave us space to talk.
00:40:24
And he was very amiable like happy to see me,
00:40:31
how are you doing kind of thing.
00:40:34
NARRATOR: But Barone's mood would soon change when
00:40:37
Eric brought up the murders.
00:41:02
ERIC APALATEGUI: Whenever I asked a question that didn't
00:41:05
fit with his explanation of things, what
00:41:08
about the DNA evidence?
00:41:10
What about this, what about that?
00:41:13
If he couldn't come up with a good answer,
00:41:15
then his answer was that it was planted
00:41:17
so that he could be convicted of all of these crimes.
00:41:20
They could clear the books of these crimes,
00:41:22
they could get all the glory.
00:41:25
That was his-- that was his argument.
00:41:31
NARRATOR: Cesar Barone died of cancer on Christmas Eve 2009.
00:41:36
He was 49 years old.
00:41:39
On discovering the killer was terminally ill,
00:41:42
Detective Michael O'Connell visited him
00:41:45
in prison for one last attempt at finding out
00:41:48
the truth behind his crimes.
00:41:50
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: I said, I'm not
00:41:52
going to read you your rights.
00:41:54
Basically I was trying to assure him
00:41:56
that I couldn't use anything he going to tell me against him.
00:42:01
Still didn't matter, he just, no, no.
00:42:05
I said, is it possible to tell us that maybe one
00:42:08
of your victims didn't suffer?
00:42:11
I said, something that maybe could put a mother or a husband
00:42:16
at ease?
00:42:18
Give them some peace of mind?
00:42:21
Wouldn't touch it, wouldn't even come close.
00:42:25
SCOTT RYON: As far as Cesar Barone having any remorse
00:42:28
for his crimes, absolutely not.
00:42:32
It was my impression that he loved revisiting those mentally
00:42:37
and recommitting the crime again.
00:42:40
Truly a sick evil individual.
00:42:44
NARRATOR: In total, Cesar Barone was
00:42:46
responsible for the deaths of at least four women
00:42:50
and the assault of many others.
00:42:52
He has taken the reasons why to the grave.
00:42:57
When we look back on the victims of Barone's crimes,
00:43:01
these were women just going about their daily life,
00:43:04
and this predator comes along and decides that he
00:43:07
has a right to kill them.
00:43:08
He has the right to violate and abuse them.
00:43:11
And I think what we need to take from this case is their memory
00:43:15
because very often the victims in cases
00:43:18
of serial murder symbolize everything
00:43:20
that the perpetrators are not.
00:43:22
They are independent, they are loved, they are hopeful,
00:43:25
they're people who have bright futures ahead of them.
00:43:28
So I think we need to honor the victims
00:43:30
and just forget about Barone because he was a nobody,
00:43:33
and he always will be a nobody.
00:43:36
NARRATOR: Barone was a twisted individual who seemed
00:43:39
to enjoy causing pain to women.
00:43:42
He was driven by an unhealthy sexual appetite
00:43:45
that would stop at nothing.
00:43:48
By attacking women in their homes, their cars,
00:43:51
or even on the street, he always preyed
00:43:54
upon their vulnerabilities, which
00:43:57
makes Cesar Barone one of the world's most evil killers.
00:44:02
[MUSIC PLAYING]
