00:00:00
[Music]
00:00:05
up next
00:00:06
a killer seemingly gets away with murder
00:00:10
it was probably the cleanest crime scene
00:00:12
as a detective i'd ever been handed
00:00:14
he took everything with him for years
00:00:16
the case went cold
00:00:18
then he struck again someone just left
00:00:20
my house
00:00:21
that wrecked me okay do you know who it
00:00:23
was no
00:00:25
he had selected me and planned it while
00:00:27
the killer may have gone
00:00:28
dormant science did not my jaw dropped
00:00:32
when he told me the name
00:00:33
i was floored i was just floored clearly
00:00:36
dna made this case
00:00:37
it not only identified the suspect in
00:00:40
the case but it exonerated someone else
00:00:44
[Music]
00:00:52
when tammy tatum first met jim meadow in
00:00:54
longmont colorado
00:00:56
they were instantly attracted to one
00:00:58
another
00:00:59
it wasn't long before the two moved in
00:01:01
together and decided to start a family
00:01:05
she called me the moment she found out
00:01:07
she was pregnant
00:01:09
and was so excited and just
00:01:12
knew that her dreams were coming true
00:01:14
what tammy wanted most in life was to be
00:01:16
a wife and a mother tammy gave birth to
00:01:20
a healthy baby girl
00:01:21
they named sadie but soon after the
00:01:25
baby's arrival
00:01:26
the couple's life took a downward turn
00:01:30
jim meadow had a major substance abuse
00:01:33
issue
00:01:34
he would get drunk and get into scrapes
00:01:36
he had numerous duis
00:01:39
jim also got into a serious altercation
00:01:42
at a local food store he was drinking he
00:01:46
got into a fight with a customer at that
00:01:48
store
00:01:48
actually tried to choke the customer
00:01:52
jim was charged with disorderly conduct
00:01:55
and soon his violence was directed at
00:01:58
tammy
00:02:00
according to friends there was often
00:02:02
abuse in the relationship
00:02:04
uh jim meadow getting intoxicated and
00:02:07
striking out at tammy
00:02:09
there were actual reports also of him
00:02:11
strangling her
00:02:12
it was a very violent abusive
00:02:14
relationship
00:02:16
and you know she had confided in me and
00:02:18
talked to me about this before
00:02:20
my mother was aware of it my mother told
00:02:22
me about it
00:02:23
after his fourth dui arrest jim was
00:02:26
sentenced
00:02:27
to six months in a drug and alcohol
00:02:29
treatment center
00:02:30
that was within walking distance of
00:02:32
their home
00:02:33
it's a residential facility where folks
00:02:36
can live
00:02:37
and work and check in and just be in a
00:02:40
structured environment
00:02:41
and follow court orders jim had to live
00:02:45
in the treatment center but tammy would
00:02:47
pick him up every morning
00:02:48
and take him to his auto mechanic job
00:02:52
but one morning tammy didn't show up
00:02:56
jim later told police he walked to their
00:02:59
apartment
00:03:00
to find out why found the door locked
00:03:04
and kicked it in
00:03:09
[Applause]
00:03:13
my wife
00:03:26
apartment number two
00:03:29
this is now the kitchen area
00:03:33
body is found on the bed her arms were
00:03:35
above her head which is not a natural
00:03:37
position
00:03:38
especially when someone is is defending
00:03:40
against a strangulation
00:03:41
it really looked like the body had been
00:03:43
posed after death
00:03:45
the couple's baby was unharmed the
00:03:48
medical examiner estimated that tammy
00:03:50
had been strangled
00:03:52
several hours before her body was
00:03:54
discovered
00:03:57
investigators had no doubt about the
00:04:00
killer's motive
00:04:02
this was a sexually motivated crime
00:04:04
there was injuries around the breast
00:04:05
area as well as the vaginal area
00:04:07
but there wasn't any clear evidence of a
00:04:09
sexual assault
00:04:11
the cause of death provided a possible
00:04:14
clue to the killer's identity
00:04:16
the act of strangulation is a very
00:04:18
personal crime
00:04:19
we felt that whoever killed the victim
00:04:22
probably knew the victim very well
00:04:24
and that made jim meadow the primary
00:04:27
suspect
00:04:29
her friends had seen her with black eyes
00:04:31
black eyes
00:04:32
as soon as 30 days before the homicide
00:04:35
when i heard that she had been murdered
00:04:37
my first thought was
00:04:39
she told him she was leaving and they
00:04:41
got into a massive
00:04:42
argument and it ended up in a murder
00:04:47
one of jim's fellow inmates at the
00:04:48
treatment center
00:04:50
rudy gaetan told police he thought
00:04:53
jim did it he said he would rip her
00:04:55
heart out
00:04:56
if he caught her cheating on him jim
00:04:59
meadow would make statements to these
00:05:01
other inmates about how he could just
00:05:02
kill her
00:05:03
or how he could just strangle her jim
00:05:06
insisted
00:05:07
he was at the treatment center when the
00:05:08
murder occurred
00:05:10
which the autopsy indicated was between
00:05:13
9 pm
00:05:14
and 9 am records show that he signed
00:05:17
back into the facility
00:05:18
at 9 43 p.m
00:05:22
jim and tammy's apartment was only a
00:05:24
15-minute walk from the treatment center
00:05:26
which didn't help jim's alibi it was
00:05:30
possible for him to commit the crime
00:05:32
before leaving the apartment to head
00:05:34
back to the halfway house
00:05:36
but it was something else in that
00:05:37
apartment that all but confirmed
00:05:39
detective suspicions
00:05:41
that jim was the killer
00:05:48
tammy tatum's common-law husband jim
00:05:50
meadow was the prime suspect in her
00:05:52
murder
00:05:53
he had hit her in the past and
00:05:55
threatened to kill her
00:05:57
letters found after tammy's murder made
00:06:00
it clear
00:06:01
she was terrified of him a lot of these
00:06:04
letters talked about the violence in the
00:06:05
relationship
00:06:06
and how scared tammy was when he hit her
00:06:10
and that the last time he hit her it
00:06:11
scared her so much that she wanted to
00:06:13
leave
00:06:14
when james meadow knocked in the door
00:06:17
heard the baby crying he allegedly
00:06:19
kicked in the door
00:06:22
another fact pointing to jim meadow was
00:06:25
that the killer appeared to be
00:06:26
comfortable in the apartment
00:06:29
he took the time to use a towel found
00:06:32
near tammy's body
00:06:34
to clean her and the rest of the bedroom
00:06:38
there was no evidence that tied anything
00:06:41
or anyone to the crime scene
00:06:42
it was probably the cleanest crime scene
00:06:45
as a detective i'd ever been handed
00:06:49
and tammy's killer had also taken the
00:06:51
time
00:06:52
to pose her body i thought the scene had
00:06:55
been staged to look like a sexual
00:06:57
assault
00:06:58
it was a very strange crime scene but
00:07:00
even though tammy's murder was sexually
00:07:03
motivated
00:07:04
and there were indications of sexual
00:07:06
activity
00:07:07
the medical examiner did not believe
00:07:09
she'd been raped
00:07:11
we find in the trash a used condom that
00:07:14
had been tied shut
00:07:15
dna from the condom matched jim meadow
00:07:19
but meadow claimed they had consensual
00:07:22
sex the night before
00:07:24
and that when he left to return to the
00:07:26
drug and alcohol treatment center
00:07:28
tammy was alive investigators didn't buy
00:07:32
it
00:07:34
our thought was that after that they got
00:07:37
into an argument
00:07:38
and that may have been when he choked
00:07:40
her to death
00:07:41
finding this condom was consistent with
00:07:43
jim meadow
00:07:44
performing a sex act and killing tammy
00:07:46
tatum
00:07:47
but even though the killer had spent a
00:07:49
lot of time cleaning the scene
00:07:52
he missed something on tammy's bed
00:07:56
amid numerous hairs from jim tammy and
00:07:59
their baby
00:08:00
was a single foreign hair
00:08:04
and the medical examiner also found a
00:08:07
tiny amount of skin and blood
00:08:09
under tammy's fingernails unfortunately
00:08:13
in 1993
00:08:15
a larger sample was needed to generate a
00:08:17
dna profile
00:08:19
and scientists were worried if they
00:08:21
tested these samples
00:08:23
and were unsuccessful there would be
00:08:25
nothing left to test
00:08:26
later when dna testing improved
00:08:30
it was very very frustrating to to spend
00:08:34
as much time as we had spent
00:08:37
and to come back with really nothing
00:08:40
that would help us at all
00:08:43
there was clearly probable cause to
00:08:45
arrest jim meadow but there wasn't
00:08:47
enough evidence to convict him
00:08:49
although no other suspect surfaced
00:08:52
prosecutors chose
00:08:53
not to charge jim meadow with tammy's
00:08:56
murder
00:08:57
and the case went cold i thought he was
00:09:00
getting away with murder
00:09:01
um but i didn't think he'd get away with
00:09:04
it forever
00:09:05
then three years later just one
00:09:08
mile away police received this 9-1-1
00:09:12
call someone just left my house that
00:09:15
raped me
00:09:16
okay do you know who it was no i didn't
00:09:18
see any blindfold in my eyes with tape
00:09:21
but he had my hands tied together too
00:09:23
how did he get in
00:09:24
i have no idea i woke up and he had a
00:09:27
knife
00:09:27
on my face he said don't open your eyes
00:09:30
or i will cut you
00:09:32
which he said quite a bit until he got
00:09:35
the tape around
00:09:37
um and then he started telling me don't
00:09:39
make a noise or i will kill you
00:09:44
the victim was renee delaney
00:09:47
at one point decided that the best thing
00:09:49
i could do was convince him that i was
00:09:50
not going to
00:09:51
call the police or anything that was the
00:09:55
best chance i had for living
00:09:58
renee's rapist spent a lot of time in
00:10:00
her apartment making sure
00:10:02
he left no evidence behind
00:10:05
when he was finished he dumped water
00:10:09
over me and then used a towel and wiped
00:10:12
me off so he definitely was trying to
00:10:16
clean up when the rapist actually left
00:10:19
the residence he took
00:10:20
everything with him he took the tape he
00:10:23
took the knife he took the items that he
00:10:25
brought with him so there wasn't a lot
00:10:26
of evidence
00:10:27
to be collected on the scene to
00:10:30
investigators
00:10:31
the mo of the rapist seemed similar to
00:10:34
that of tammy tatum's killer
00:10:37
was it possible the two crimes
00:10:40
were connected
00:10:46
renee delaney was sleeping in her
00:10:48
apartment in longmont colorado when
00:10:50
an intruder broke in before dawn and
00:10:53
sexually assaulted her i was just trying
00:10:56
to remember
00:10:57
details about him for the police but you
00:11:00
just have to
00:11:01
kind of shut it out there's not a whole
00:11:03
lot you can do you can't really absorb
00:11:05
what's happening to you
00:11:07
the attack happened shortly after
00:11:09
renee's grandmother left for work around
00:11:11
5 a.m
00:11:12
both renee and police were convinced the
00:11:15
perpetrator had planned this attack
00:11:18
carefully he had selected me and planned
00:11:21
it and
00:11:22
and watched to see what time my
00:11:23
grandmother left in the mornings and
00:11:26
came in knowing that she'd be gone
00:11:29
the assault lasted for two hours
00:11:33
even though renee was blindfolded she
00:11:35
could tell
00:11:36
her attacker was going back and forth to
00:11:39
the bathroom
00:11:40
to wet a towel and wipe down surfaces in
00:11:43
the room
00:11:44
i knew he was trying to not leave
00:11:46
evidence and i was so afraid it was
00:11:48
going to work
00:11:49
but incredibly despite all these
00:11:52
precautions
00:11:53
renee's rape is still left biological
00:11:56
evidence behind it looked like he had
00:12:00
no knowledge of dna evidence but felt
00:12:02
certain
00:12:03
that law enforcement could get
00:12:05
fingerprint evidence off of a body and
00:12:07
that's why he wiped down
00:12:08
rene delaney a dna profile was generated
00:12:12
from the biological sample in renee's
00:12:14
rape kit
00:12:15
unfortunately it did not match any of
00:12:18
the dna profiles
00:12:19
in the colorado state database of known
00:12:22
criminal offenders
00:12:25
renee's former boyfriends and her
00:12:27
co-workers and fellow students
00:12:29
willingly submitted dna for comparison
00:12:33
none matched this case goes cold
00:12:36
no one is arrested no suspects are named
00:12:39
you absolutely live in fear
00:12:41
i mean you have this person who's told
00:12:43
you that they were going to kill you and
00:12:45
they've certainly shown you that they're
00:12:46
capable of it
00:12:48
it wasn't until 10 years later after
00:12:50
colorado officials were able to input
00:12:52
all of the dna samples from past
00:12:55
criminal offenders
00:12:56
into their statewide dna database that
00:12:59
investigators
00:13:00
finally got a break the dna
00:13:03
from renee's case turned up a hit
00:13:07
this was huge having an investigative
00:13:09
lead
00:13:10
developed nearly 10 years after the sex
00:13:12
assault
00:13:13
that hadn't happened before the d.a
00:13:16
called me
00:13:18
and asked me if i was sitting down
00:13:22
and proceeded to tell me that
00:13:25
they had arrested him and that if i
00:13:28
would check my email there was an email
00:13:29
with the photo
00:13:31
the dna profile from renee delaney's
00:13:33
rape kit
00:13:34
matched rudy gaetan a 48 year old auto
00:13:38
mechanic who was married with two
00:13:40
children
00:13:41
coincidentally he also lived in renee's
00:13:44
apartment complex
00:13:47
it was shocking upsetting um to find out
00:13:50
that it was someone that had lived
00:13:52
um right next door in fact
00:13:55
renee had identified gaetan as a
00:13:58
possible suspect
00:14:00
the night of her rape i don't want to
00:14:03
say this because i'm afraid i'll be
00:14:04
wrong but
00:14:04
it's one that sounds kind of like one of
00:14:06
the people in the next building
00:14:08
it might oh it did she have it off the
00:14:10
awful side
00:14:14
but renee always felt uncomfortable
00:14:16
around
00:14:17
gaytan he was the creepy neighbor that
00:14:20
always tries to talk to you
00:14:22
at the time police had no probable cause
00:14:24
to search gatan's apartment
00:14:26
or get a court-ordered sample of his dna
00:14:30
but just two weeks after renee's rape
00:14:33
kitan was involved in a serious car
00:14:35
accident
00:14:36
and there were consequences that went
00:14:38
well beyond
00:14:39
broken bones it's almost like instant
00:14:42
karma rudy gaytan gets hooked on pain
00:14:45
medications
00:14:46
and that's what ultimately lands him in
00:14:48
prison in the department of corrections
00:14:50
in colorado is his
00:14:51
falsification of these prescriptions
00:14:54
since writing
00:14:55
false prescriptions is a felony gaetan
00:14:58
had to provide a dna sample upon his
00:15:01
release from a three-year prison
00:15:03
sentence
00:15:04
had rudy gaetan not been involved in
00:15:06
this motor vehicle accident
00:15:08
chances are we would never have gotten
00:15:10
his dna now
00:15:12
police looked further into his past
00:15:15
and were shocked by what they found i
00:15:18
knew who rudy was
00:15:19
i was floored i was just floored
00:15:23
police recalled that rudy gaytan
00:15:26
was the man who provided incriminating
00:15:28
evidence against
00:15:29
jim meadow during tammy tatum's murder
00:15:32
investigation
00:15:34
he was one of the witnesses that
00:15:35
provided information about
00:15:37
seeing tammy with bruises and the black
00:15:40
eye
00:15:40
and some of the violence that was
00:15:42
involved between jim and tammy
00:15:45
gaytan knew jim meadow since the two
00:15:48
attended the same
00:15:49
drug and alcohol rehab center
00:15:52
was it possible that gaetan was involved
00:15:56
in
00:15:56
tami's murder
00:15:58
[Music]
00:16:03
ten years after renee delaney's sexual
00:16:05
assault
00:16:06
the dna testing identified rudy gaetan
00:16:10
as her rapist surprisingly
00:16:13
gaetan was also connected to the tami
00:16:15
tatum murder case
00:16:18
he was friends with both tammy tatum and
00:16:20
her common-law husband
00:16:22
jim meadow jim meadow had actually
00:16:25
introduced
00:16:25
rudy gaetan to tammy tatum but tammy
00:16:29
told people she didn't like rudy gaetan
00:16:33
she complained to her friends that she
00:16:34
found rudy creepy and that he made her
00:16:37
uncomfortable
00:16:40
there were many similarities between
00:16:42
tammy tatum's murder
00:16:43
and renee delaney's rape there was a
00:16:46
startling connection between the two
00:16:48
cases
00:16:48
the sex assault occurred in the early
00:16:50
morning hours in addition to that there
00:16:52
was no forced entry found
00:16:54
there was use of water and a towel to
00:16:57
wipe down renee's and tammy's body
00:17:00
although there was no seamen in tammy's
00:17:03
murder case
00:17:04
investigators did find one foreign hair
00:17:08
with the root intact
00:17:12
when an analyst finds a bulb on a hair
00:17:15
typically
00:17:15
that means that the hair had been
00:17:17
forcefully removed
00:17:19
in 1993 it was difficult to get dna from
00:17:22
that hair bulb
00:17:23
but in 2006 it was there for the taking
00:17:29
when the dna from the hair had been
00:17:31
analyzed it produced a dna profile
00:17:34
that was identified as rudy gayten
00:17:37
guitarn's dna was also found on other
00:17:40
items in tammy's apartment
00:17:42
most significantly the towel that was
00:17:45
used to
00:17:46
wipe her body clearly dna made this case
00:17:50
it not only identified the suspect in
00:17:52
the case but it exonerated someone else
00:17:55
after all of those years we were able to
00:17:59
finally clear jim meadow
00:18:03
when confronted with the dna evidence
00:18:05
against him
00:18:06
in the tami tatum murder gaetan
00:18:09
confessed
00:18:10
but police found parts of the confession
00:18:13
unbelievable
00:18:15
he claimed it was a consensual affair
00:18:18
gone wrong
00:18:19
but he was very clear on the murder
00:18:22
you're saying i
00:18:26
said a lot of it it is rage so i'm not
00:18:28
expecting you to have
00:18:29
a lot of detail but when you started to
00:18:31
strangle her
00:18:32
what did you have a pinned on the bed so
00:18:34
you were on top of them
00:18:38
and how long do you think you know i
00:18:41
mean how long did she fight back before
00:18:43
you know she wasn't fighting back
00:18:44
anymore
00:18:44
do you have any idea
00:18:53
prosecutors believe that on the night of
00:18:56
tammy's murder
00:18:58
rudy waited until jim medal left the
00:19:00
apartment
00:19:01
and then knocked on the door
00:19:04
tammy opened the door possibly in the
00:19:07
belief it was her husband
00:19:08
and gay tan forced his way in
00:19:13
the two fought and during the struggle
00:19:16
tammy pulled a single hair from his head
00:19:20
rudy overpowered her then strangled her
00:19:23
to death
00:19:25
he knew jim was at the treatment
00:19:28
facility and wasn't
00:19:29
coming home so he had all the time he
00:19:33
needed
00:19:34
to clean the crime scene and
00:19:37
his victim
00:19:45
three years later he attacked renee
00:19:48
delaney
00:19:50
but despite his meticulous cleaning of
00:19:53
that crime scene
00:19:55
he still left biological evidence behind
00:20:03
the dna from renee's rape kit and the
00:20:06
single hair from tammy's bed
00:20:08
ultimately tied him to both crimes
00:20:13
rudy gaetan was convicted of
00:20:15
second-degree murder in the death of
00:20:17
tammy tatum
00:20:19
and first degree sexual assault of renee
00:20:22
delaney
00:20:24
he chose to kill her and i got to live i
00:20:27
feel
00:20:27
responsible to make sure i you know live
00:20:29
a good life because
00:20:31
hers was taken from her gaetan was
00:20:34
sentenced
00:20:34
to a total of 72 years for both crimes
00:20:38
and will not be eligible for parole
00:20:40
until
00:20:41
he's 103 years old
00:20:44
forensic evidence and the emerging
00:20:46
technology of dna
00:20:48
was critical in the solving of this case
00:20:51
without the dna evidence that was
00:20:53
recovered from
00:20:55
tammy tatum this case would have never
00:20:57
been solved
00:20:58
i always knew that the technology would
00:21:00
catch up with the samples that they had
00:21:03
i never gave up hope i never gave up
00:21:05
hope
00:21:06
this had to be done it had to be
00:21:08
resolved and i knew it would be
