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[Music] up next a young girl sees her mother's killer but can't identify him there was nothing she was a complete
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blank with no other evidence the case turns cold after kathy was laid to rest i was always struggling trying
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to find out who could have done this until forensic scientists decided to play act the crime
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basically what we were doing was we were strangling each other and when they did found evidence hidden
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for 15 years it takes science and luck to solve cases in this case it took a lot of luck
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[Music] mike odum met kathy martin in high school they dated and soon decided to make a
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life together but before they could get married mike was arrested for selling heroin
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a mistake that put him behind bars for two years i remember while he was in the penitentiary and kathy was dead set on
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waiting on him to get out to date him again which she did shortly after his release mike and kathy
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did get married and had two children tasha and shawn kathy's father even gave mike a job
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working in his sign business kathy was set on making the marriage work did everything she could
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things were going well until one night when mike couldn't get in touch with kathy who said
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she'd be home with the two children kathy didn't answer the phone so mike called his next-door neighbor
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and asked him to see if anything was wrong the neighbor went over beat on the door
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nobody answered he looked in and i think the tv was going there was just something suspicious
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but instead of calling police the neighbor drove a quarter mile into town found a policeman and they both went
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back to the odom's house together the officer entered the unlocked house inside on the living room sofa was
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four-year-old tasha beaten and unconscious but still alive [Music] he found two-month-old sean unharmed in
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the back room in the next room he found kathy odum on the floor naked and covered in blood
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she'd been stabbed to death an ambulance rushed four-year-old tasha to the hospital
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when kathy's father arrived at the scene police told him little about what had happened
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i said where's the children he said well the children have been taken to the hospital
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and he said that would be a good place for you to go and check on the children frank described to me what it was like
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to be sitting in the hospital and he looked up at a tv set and that's when he learned that his daughter had
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been killed i didn't know that at the time and i seen that well i went outside the hospital and sat
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down cried a long time until i got myself back together a little bit to uh you know i i never did go back to the
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house that night which was strange when mike odum got there police paid special attention
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to his appearance mike owed him the husband drives up and he's wearing blue jeans and a blue
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shirt and one of the investigators notices that he's got stains on his shirt is that blood is it not blood a search
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of the odom's home revealed blood in the bathroom which meant the killer had cleaned up before leaving
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but police found no evidence of a break-in all the doors were locked except the front door this indicated
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kathy probably knew her killer [Music] kathy odom's autopsy showed she had been stabbed
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19 times and sexually assaulted this is a crime of passion that it's not a stranger killing because
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why would a stranger feel the need to stab her 16 times plus slash her throat three more times
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kathy odom's clothes told police something about what happened she took them off she folded them up
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deliberately you know her clothes haven't been ripped off of her so she voluntarily
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took her clothes off police believe that the killer attacked kathy odom's daughter tasha
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in order to make kathy do whatever he wanted number one it would make tasha stop
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crying and more importantly it would convince kathy that he's serious and she better go along with what he's
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going to do apparently the killer used a cord from a nearby lamp and bound kathy's wrists before sexually
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assaulting her then stabbing her to death in the end she ended up losing her life while she
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was protecting herself and her children as family members tried to cope with kathy's murder
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they prayed for four-year-old tasha's recovery they had tasha on ivs she was in a coma
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state she had been beaten bad as doctors worked on the little girl police talked to her father mike his
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emotions i mean he was emotional he was distraught but there were some people that at the scene that thought
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we need to look at this person a little bit more also suspicious mike odum didn't come
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straight home after work on the night kathy was murdered instead he went out with friends that's why he
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was calling his wife that night to let her know he'd be late we've seen it before
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where an individual has arranged a murder he's at another location he calls the person
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you know go check on my wife so we're always suspicious of the husband until we can get them cleared out when
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police interviewed mike odum they saw stains on his shirt which was taken to the forensic lab for testing police
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also found suspicious stains on the floor mats of tim robinson's car the neighbor who first contacted police
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we had to get the floor mat we had to send it to the lab and have it tested the medical examiner estimated that
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kathy odom was murdered about six hours before her body was found which would have been about one o'clock
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in the afternoon mike odum and his neighbor tim robinson both claimed to be at work at the time
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while investigators checked their alibis they got a potential witness tasha odom
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emerged from her coma and told investigators she remembered a man entering the house and coming up to her
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what tasha could remember was that the person put their hands up over their face and
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so that tells you right there they knew tasha she said he had yellow hair like you nanny your hair yellow
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my godem didn't have blonde hair and neither did tim robinson but the killer's hair
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color was all tasha could remember there was nothing she was a complete blank she remembered nothing
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when the forensic tests came back the stains in tim robinson's car turned out to be
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motor oil the stains on mike odom's shirt were paint in addition co-workers provided
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solid alibis for both of them and they each passed polygraphs they don't have anything to
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do with it then we want to get them cleared out as quickly as possible so we can move on to
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the next person and that next person was mentioned by everyone who knew kathy it was
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her brother-in-law greg marquart everyone knew their relationship and that it wasn't good that he had this
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weird obsession for her that she didn't like him that she was afraid of him and that he had tried to
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make advances toward her before to put a move on her before and she didn't like it and there was ample
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evidence greg had been in the house they found his fingerprints his hair throughout the scene
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there was only one problem as a family member who'd been in the house numerous times this didn't
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prove a thing the only witness to kathy odom's murder her four-year-old daughter tasha
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had sustained a massive blow to her head she had injuries to her face with swelling and everything
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and it would appear that she was hit you know with a fist but after two days in a coma tasha
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rallied before her release from the hospital her uncle greg marquart came to visit it was an
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encounter tasha's grandmother would never forget natasha how are you doing hi greg
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how's she doing tasha when she saw greg she looked over at me like scared to death look
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when they asked little tasha whether it was her uncle greg who entered the house
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on the day of the attack she said she couldn't remember they tried different things to try to bring
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out those memories at one point they even hypnotized her hoping they could find some grain of memory she was so
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traumatized you know she never recalled it thirty-five-year-old greg markwart had
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been married to kathy odom's sister shelley for four years shelley and greg had served time in prison for possession
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of cocaine it's the drug scene of the 80s they were caught up in in fact one of the reasons kathy wanted
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to move to a new house was to get away from greg who had made many sexual advances toward
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her she was scared of greg she said i would not want to be alone with him by myself oddly
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despite these rebuffs greg marquart was surprisingly open about his attraction to kathy
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particularly to one part of her body he had a thing for kathy's tummy which is sort of odd i
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mean why would he pay attention to her tummy and be obsessed by that this fixation was so obvious
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kathy talked about it with friends kathy even was saying i don't know what it is
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but he's just you know there's something about my stomach that you know and he wants to have sex with
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me i've heard of people having fetishes with feet or hands but that's the first one having
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a fetish with a stomach that i've heard of coincidentally kathy odom had been stabbed repeatedly
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in the stomach and these are deep penetrating wounds when questioned by police mark wart
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denied any involvement but said little else at some point in that detective's interview greg
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said uh excuse me i need to go out and put money into the parking meter he got up
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he left he never came back greg's wife shelly the victim's sister said greg drove her to school at 10 30 on the day
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of the murder and picked her up again at 2 30. this four-hour window was more than
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enough time for greg to commit the murder and clean up before picking up his wife
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from school the way i would describe shelly is she's extremely codependent and absolutely was under the control of greg
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marquart this much i know that he got her hooked on heroin which to me is the worst thing that a
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human being could do to another one an analysis of the crime scene provided little help
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greg's fingerprints and hairs were found in kathy's house but other family members prints were found
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there as well he was her brother-in-law and he had been to the house before so it was natural that you would find
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his fingerprints and his hairs although kathy had been sexually assaulted this crime occurred years
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before dna was widely used in murder investigations at the time in the 1980s they were using
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serology basically they were doing blood group typing and it was very difficult you
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need a very large sample and plus you would only get a blood type the blood type from the rape kit
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was consistent with greg marquart's blood type he was a type o about 50 of the population is a typo so that's not
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giving you much information so without more evidence the case went cold after kathy was laid
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to rest and time went on i found myself at the cemetery most all the time but i was always struggling trying to
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find out who could have done this they say if you don't solve the crime within a month with all the fresh leads that's
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not a possibility there that you would greg and shelly marquart went on with their lives
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but for kathy's father it was especially difficult the idea that he had to go through his
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daughter's murder and then live believing for all those years with all his heart
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that the man who did it was married to his other daughter can you imagine what that would be like
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it took 11 years before dna testing became dependable enough to generate a dna profile
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from the biological evidence in kathy odom's rape kit when that profile was compared to greg
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markwart's dna it wasn't a hundred percent conclusive but it did show that greg was among the two
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percent of the general population who could have been the perpetrator well when this came forward i thought sure we
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had him but greg had an explanation he claimed he and kathy were having a consensual affair
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and was with her on the morning of her murder but he insisted she was alive when he left greg
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marquart was not arrested at that time because the district attorney we were talking to
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did not feel like we could get a conviction on this case with him saying at that time i was
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having an affair with her that we were having consensual sex they would have to prove
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that greg was there that day and that greg was there to murder kathy but how would they do it
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[Music] it had been four years since dna testing showed that greg mark ward was among the two percent of the general
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population who could have sexually assaulted and presumably murdered kathy odom but investigators weren't
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sure how to counter greg's claim that he was involved in a consensual affair with kathy around
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the time of her murder while this was taking place investigators were working with
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catherine long at orchid cell mark a private forensic lab in dallas catherine long her dad was the chief of
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police in el paso texas so she thinks a little differently than your normal scientist
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and cell mark was doing some unusual experiments at the time basically what we were doing was we were
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strangling each other not for fun it was business to determine whether a killer would deposit skin
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cells in the act of choking a victim we would swab their neck we would also swab the hands of the person who
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performed the choking that's when they realized there was a significant transfer of skin cells and it was
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actually very high investigators needed to find something in kathy's evidence file
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that would have contained the perpetrator's skin cells the answer was the electrical
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cord used to bind kathy's hands anytime you go anywhere you leave a piece of yourself behind
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be it skin cells be it a hair follicle be it a fingerprint in an incredible piece of
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luck the cord had been stored not in a plastic bag but a paper bag that paper bag
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provides breathability so that if there isn't any moisture on that item it's going to dry and that will
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therefore prolong the dna life it will actually preserve the dna longer than it would in a plastic bag
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the cord was covered in blood so scientists swabbed the cord for the blood and any
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skin cells that existed with the blood testing revealed two genetic profiles one was kathy
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odom's dna the other was greg markwarts the only way marquart's dna would have been on the bloody electrical cord
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found wrapped around kathy's hands was if he were the killer greg marquart was arrested and charged
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with kathy odom's murder in prison markwart told the whole chilling story to a fellow inmate
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marquart said he was high on heroin when he drove to kathy's house that day once inside he made a sexual advance
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which she rejected you're gonna tell me that stop you're saying we don't feel like get out of
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here to force her to comply he struck his four-year-old niece tasha repeatedly in
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the head leaving her for dead the baby shawn was in the next room and greg threatened to kill him too
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in order to save the baby's life kathy complied [Music] using a knife from the kitchen greg
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cut the electrical cord from a lamp and bound kathy's wrist leaving his dna on the
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cord after he sexually assaulted kathy he stabbed her to death [Music] he washed up in the bathroom and changed
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into kathy's husband's clothing to keep blood out of his car little did markwart know advances in
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science would be able to identify him as the perpetrator 15 years later sweet thank you god justice god knows what
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we're going to have in 10 years or 20 years it's even better and more advanced than what we have now
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it's amazing when faced with this evidence greg markwart pled guilty to kathy's murder
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and was sentenced to 45 years in prison he died of liver disease after serving four years of his sentence
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he was 56 years old couldn't happen to a nicer guy that's the way i feel about it
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[Music] doesn't bring back kathy i'll always remember her the house she put together the things we
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did it's tough to lose a child but i thank the good lord for everything he did it's just one of those cases that you
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know just make i guess it makes you proud to be a part of uh that we were able to have a
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good ending to it you know and that's just filing on him like greg was not able to get away with
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murder in this case but there's a lot more out there that that are still unsolved
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you