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[Music] up next a woman is murdered in broad daylight this is the monster jumping out of the
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bushes and grabbing you and killing you cell phone records and search dogs provided some leaves
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they were able to track a scent trail to a residential area that was very close to the canal trail
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but if not for some crafty police work and a chance encounter the entire investigation could have gone up in
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smoke we have an individual that's still out talking about who can do this again
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i don't know how much scarier can get during her lunch break in concord california
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kathy loreck went for a walk as she often did along a jogging trail near her office
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that was something that she just kind of did on her own as her own kind of a meditation throughout the day
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i know that sometimes she would use that opportunity to uh you know make some personal phone calls
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kathy was an executive secretary married with children on this day she spoke with her husband
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who was in europe on a business trip her husband reported that suddenly she made a loud uh a groan or a gasp
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and the phone went dead kathy's husband knew immediately something was wrong
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and called her co-workers and asked them to look for her they couldn't find her they came back
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and they called the police and the police got there within minutes about 20 minutes later a police officer
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saw what looked like streaks of blood the blood was like somebody taken a paint brush
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with red paint and simply drawn lines on the ground like you see somebody just dripping
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paint and drying with a paintbrush on a concrete the officer followed the blood trail
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down an embankment to a heavily wooded area where he found kathy lauric barely alive in a pool of
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blood he recognized that with the way her clothes were arranged and disheveled that she'd most
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likely been sexually assaulted and that she needed immediate medical attention kathy was rushed to the hospital but she
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died on route kathy had several major lacerations on her head what we believe to be the weapon was
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found um near kathy's body the weapon was a fence post was approximately two to two and a half feet
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long from what i leave [Music] detective finney came onto the phone and told me that
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my mom had died next thing i remember i kind of lost control and i think i yelled at uh
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detective finney for a little bit although kathy was using her cell phone when the
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attack occurred investigators couldn't find it anywhere in the area near her body
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when police checked her cell phone records they discovered someone had used her cell phone after
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her murder one of the numbers called when a person told us that a subject juan sanchez had called them
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investigators tracked 23-year-old juan sanchez to his residence and there they found kathy's cell phone
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in his possession but sanchez claimed he found the phone on the jogging path he explained to us that he was riding
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his bike on the canal trail and while he was riding his bike he found the cell phone
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he decided to use it for his personal use sanchez showed police exactly where he found the
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phone remarkably it was just 50 feet from kathy's body there was only one individual in our
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minds who could have had that cell phone and that would have been the individual
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who attacked kathy but sanchez denied he was the killer and denied seeing the blood on the trail
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near the cell phone investigators knew right away this would not be a routine murder investigation
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this was shocking we're talking about a woman close to her office going for a walk on a trail frequented
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by many people in broad daylight and have this kind of thing happen to her it would be like being struck by
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lightning family friends and even police were stunned by the sheer audacity of kathy lauric's
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murder i was shocked that something like that happened because i've never seen any sign of anything
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like this going on you know i still want to walk you know i don't want to be intimidated to stop and
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change my routine for this attack to occur on a beautiful sunny day with a lot of people who realistically
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could have been around the incident at the time it occurred it's pretty brazen
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and you know pretty bold on the part of the suspect an encampment of several dozen homeless
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people just a quarter mile from the trail meant a random attack was a real possibility there'd been
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concerns about transients and homeless people on that trail previously and a lot of folks felt it just wasn't
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safe to go out on that trail but that wasn't the only possibility there are numerous access and exit
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points to this canal trail either by the public roadways by individuals using adjacent fields
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and access gaze the murder weapon was a broken piece of metal fencing this perpetrator actually broke off a
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piece of metal fence post and it appears that they waited for her to return from her walk and then dragged
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her off the trail there was blood but no prince on the murder weapon kathy's autopsy confirmed that she'd
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been sexually assaulted the dna profile from kathy loryx rape kit didn't match any in
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the statewide dna database of known criminal offenders it didn't match juan sanchez the man who
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found kathy's cell phone either he appeared to be very truthful to us he didn't have any trouble answering our
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questions and he volunteered to take a voice stress analyzer test which he took and and passed it was very
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disheartening to find out that the cell phone didn't lead to any place in particular
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in a search for suspects police rounded up everyone who was on or near the trail
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at the time of the murder some were homeless people others were joggers and bikers
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about a half dozen of them told a story that was remarkably consistent they had seen a male standing at the
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fence line looking into the canal and talking about the little fishes in the canal
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and drawing this the attention of people that were walking by and this person seemed like they were
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out of place he was a white male maybe six feet tall maybe early 30s a kind of heavy set not muscular but
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maybe a little bit overweight brownish blonde hair and disheveled some of the people described him as possibly
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transcender homeless two of these potential witnesses were sent to police sketch artist
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gil zamora i asked him the question if you saw him again would you recognize him they say yes
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then i i know that i can draw the sketch with each witness zamora tried to induce
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a state of deep relaxation and then had them describe what they saw i asked them to kind of tell me what
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they were doing right before they met the person and then kind of go through the entire
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process of the meeting or the event and then up until police get involved eventually these two drawings emerged
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from witnesses who had never spoken with each other except for the sunglasses the sketches
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were virtually identical they were two independent witnesses and they did not know each other i think
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these witnesses both saw the same person then police got a huge break investigators using k-9 teams
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identified a potential lead they were able to track a scent trail to a residential area in concord
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that was very close to the the canal trail a background check revealed a man living in this neighborhood had a
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criminal history he also looked similar to the composite drawings his name was mark fisher he was known to
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be violent violent to his relatives violent to police officers and to other public
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officials witnesses in the park were shown a photo lineup which included fisher's picture at least
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three of the witnesses were positive that the photo of mr fisher was the subject
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they had seen on the trail but when investigators went to fisher's house they got some shocking news the police
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were met by a relative who told them you haven't heard my brother mr fischer
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just killed himself jumped off the golden gate bridge committed suicide mark fisher killed himself less than 24
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hours after kathy's murder this person now kills himself a day after this type of crime
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there are no coincidences like that you know it just doesn't happen in my experience
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it was our belief that after the assault that he felt remorse that he felt guilt
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and he just couldn't live with what he had done a search of fisher's room
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seemed to confirm his role in the murder we found a pair of sunglasses similar to
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the type of sunglasses seen in the sketch they seized some clothing that appeared to have blood stains on it
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and noticed that a newspaper in the house was open to an article about the murder
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and a picture of the suspect's sketch was there as well the circumstantial evidence clearly
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pointed to mark fisher as the killer but would the forensic evidence agree [Music]
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police were certain mark fisher was the man who sexually assaulted and murdered kathy lorick along the jogging
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trail police sniffer dogs tracked the killer's trail right to his front door
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several eyewitnesses chose his picture from a photo lineup and it appeared he committed suicide
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just as police were about to arrest him after fischer's suicide scientists took
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a dna sample in the morgue and compared fischer's dna profile to the biological evidence
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from kathy lorich's rape test kit shockingly it didn't match we strongly believe that mark fisher was
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responsible for kathy's death all of a sudden he's not what that means to us is that we have an individual
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that's still out walking about who can do this again that this individual is free it
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basically put us back to ground zero and we had to start over again with a killer still
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on the loose investigators instituted a dna dragnet of all the homeless men in the area who had a violent criminal
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history we began contacting everybody that used the trail all the transients that we
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knew a total of 42 dna profiles were tested against the killer's dna this was
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actually in fact the most reference samples that i had ever tested that the laboratory had ever tested
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but there were no hits then nine days after the murder investigators got a potential break
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a mountain biker called police to say he recognized the man in the composite sketch he'd seen him on the jogging
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trail on the day of cathy's murder hey dude he said the man asked him for a cigarette
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and they had a short chat although he didn't know his name mountain biker smoked one cigarette and
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this other man who he was talking to smoke two cigarettes investigators asked the mountain biker
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to show them where this happened it was within maybe 200 yards of the crime scene
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and he pointed right to the ground and said those are the cigarettes that we were smoking
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but nine days had passed and analysts were skeptical about getting dna certainly if it's been
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sitting outside if it's been exposed to uv light or rain or mud or dirt the longer it's
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been sitting out in the elements the harder it would be to develop a dna profile
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but the cyclist did provide an important piece of information he said the man told him he worked as a
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telemarketer in nearby walnut creek a background check revealed there was only one telemarketing firm in walnut
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creek the manager immediately told me that you're looking for robert frazier
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he'd gotten into some trouble he had committed some robberies he had spent time in prison he had
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committed some very violent assaults in prison and out on the street he was a drifter may have spent time in the
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chicago area in indiana as well as well as contra costa county in california frazier's co-worker said he looked like
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the composite sketch however they said he'd quit his job around the time of kathleen lorich's
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murder police visited frasier's last known address and found his ex-girlfriend she said frazier left
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town and she hadn't seen him since i think he left town but frazier's girlfriend had a parting
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gift for police frazier's toothbrush they hoped it would be the forensic answer they were looking
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for [Music] police now had a suspect in the sexual assault and murder of kathy lorick
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robert frazier but he'd left the area shortly after the murder and they had no idea where he'd gone
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investigators had cigarette butts that they thought were used by frasier while on the jogging trail the day of
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the murder but they'd been exposed to the elements for nine days before police recovered them i really
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felt that if that could happen to this victim that could happen to anyone so i felt that i really wanted to do my
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best in working hard on this case to help catch this individual fortunately for the scientists it hadn't
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rained on the cigarette butts and they were able to generate a dna profile and compare it
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to kathy's rape test kit the person who had smoked the cigarettes was kathy's
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killer scientists then compared the dna on the cigarettes to the dna on frasier's toothbrush
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unfortunately the toothbrush actually contained dna from at least three individuals male and
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female dna once i was able to actually see that within that mixture fraser's dna was on
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there you know of course i was excited perhaps most important scientists also discovered
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frasier's dna from skin cells on the bloody fence post found near kathy's body finding robert's
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dna on that fence post which was the murder weapon was very important it showed that robert
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was the one responsible for kathy's death the dna evidence established a credible
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eyewitness who saw the murderer in person on the day of the crime at the location of the
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crime scene but where was robert frazier well you know murder investigations typically don't proceed in a linear
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fashion police subsequently entered mr frazier's name into the national criminal offender
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database known as ncic and discovered that he was being held on a criminal charge in
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the state of indiana he was actually arrested for some sort of traffic infraction
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and it was learned that he was on probation and that his probation officer was looking for him california police
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immediately flew to indiana to question frazier he seemed to be very cooperative not
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nervous at all like you would expect somebody in that circumstance he talked about being
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religious of some sort in in some sort of way frazier admitted he heard about kathy lauric's murder on
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television you've ever seen her picture on tv yeah what does she look like you remember
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but frazier slipped revealing a piece of information only the killer would know she had long hair it looked like it was
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brown [Music] i don't know how did you know she had freckles because i could see it on the tv it's
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got a 43 inch screen i'm wearing makeup you can see it on the picture yeah yes you can as you can
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it wasn't until investigators told frazier they found his dna on the murder weapon
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and on kathy lorich's rape test kit that frazier changed his story the only thing robert was able to come
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up with is well maybe he was down there in the tree line area where kathy's body
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was found previously and that he had urinated in the area and that would be the only way
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prosecutors believe kathy was walking along the jogging path talking to her husband on her cell phone
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when frazier first saw her prosecutors think frazier chose kathy as his victim because
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he saw no one nearby in either direction then he struck her with a piece of a metal fence post
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[Music] he quickly dragged her from the jogging trail down the ravine where he sexually
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assaulted her afterwards he struck her several more times in the head and left her for dead
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thanks to the incredible accuracy of the eyewitness accounts a superb composite drawing and
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the chance meeting with the cyclist frazier left plenty of forensic evidence behind
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i still don't understand why it happened there really hasn't been a why he never showed any remorse
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and that that's a real sense of frustration and anger that you know that this person just didn't
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care about another human being and you wonder how anybody could be that way robert frazier was tried and convicted
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of first degree murder and rape he was sentenced to death in my opinion he's the lowest person in
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that you can be he is a he doesn't deserve to breathe another breath in this life he doesn't
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he took so much away from us and he needs to pay i think robert ward fraser for a lack of
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a better term is a monster i don't know how he became a monster and frankly i
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it doesn't matter to me how he became a monster and the dna is what solved this crime if
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this crime had happened 30 years ago robert frazier would have gotten away with it