00:00:00
[Music] up next the murder of a convenience store employee goes unsolved for years the case always
00:00:11
bugged me we wanted to find the clown that did that police couldn't understand why the
00:00:15
victim's husband didn't report her missing every time i hear them i didn't call it
00:00:20
in because we had an argument i always wondered how can anyone believe this could new forensic testing solve
00:00:26
a 20 year old case you got to treat every single case like it's the crime of the
00:00:31
century [Music] [Music] when rod and julie este started their life together in jacksonville florida
00:00:45
as husband and wife they had to figure out like most couples how to support themselves rod drove a
00:00:53
truck for a plastics company but the only job 21 year old julie could find was working the late shift at a
00:01:00
convenience store near their home she had graduated from high school but she was a recent transplant to the
00:01:07
jacksonville area and needed that job to put food on her table convenience stores and gas
00:01:12
stations were really the only things at night that were open that people would rob i imagine sitting in
00:01:18
that convenience store without any kind of modern day surveillance or protection or panic button that
00:01:25
she must have been fearful julie normally worked afternoons and evenings and closed the store
00:01:31
at 11 pm but one night a customer noticed the store was closed at 10 30 a half hour earlier than the closing
00:01:39
time posted on the door police were asked to check it out we shined our lights in the windows
00:01:47
there was absolutely no signs of foul play nothing was disrupted nothing was overturned it just looked
00:01:54
like somebody left the store so we went back to work and went about our normal shift
00:02:00
the next morning the daytime clerk opened the store and discovered it had been robbed the
00:02:06
floor safe had been open and appeared to be empty and and that the power appeared to have
00:02:11
been cut off the night before according to the owners around 500 was missing from the safe
00:02:20
police tried to find julie but she wasn't home surprisingly julie's husband said she
00:02:26
never came home from work and he admitted he hadn't reported her missing he told
00:02:32
me at that time that they had had a small argument before she left for work and i'm like well you didn't call the
00:02:39
police when she didn't come home for you know eight hours every time i hear that story of somebody
00:02:45
saying well i didn't call it in because we had an argument i always wondered
00:02:50
how can anyone believe this later that morning four miles from the convenience store
00:02:56
police found julie's car in the woods stuck in mud the key was still in the ignition
00:03:02
one of our helicopters spotted blue camaro not a long distance away but in a wooded area that's known for
00:03:09
vehicles dumped or parked or whatever out there they saw what they perceived to be drag
00:03:15
marks leading away from the vehicle and then they followed the drag marks a few hundred feet from the car under
00:03:24
some cardboard was julie's body julie's body was found with her arms tied
00:03:31
behind her back with her very own shoelaces her shirt was pulled up with her breasts
00:03:36
exposed her pants and panties were pulled down to her socks the details of the crime just really go
00:03:43
right through you they make you realize how you know how much she really went through
00:03:55
there was a 21 year old woman who on one hand wore a high school class ring on the other one her wedding ring
00:04:02
julie's husband said he had an alibi one police had heard dozens of times over the years
00:04:10
rod estes had explained that he was by himself all evening had watched a football game
00:04:16
and had fallen asleep and no one was with him all night not the best alibi in the world if a
00:04:22
policeman thinks you might be responsible for your wife's disappearance but that's all he had and investigators
00:04:28
had another problem they suspected julie had been murdered elsewhere as investigators search for julieste's
00:04:41
killer they began by looking for clues inside her car which was found stuck in mud in
00:04:46
the woods near her body and the evidence told a story julie herself was a tall girl she was
00:04:54
approximately five eight five nine the seat had been moved all the way up as if a shorter person
00:05:01
had been driving it and so it was apparent that someone other than julie had been the last
00:05:06
person to drive that car and in fact that that person probably was shorter and they also found blood drops in the
00:05:14
trunk tests showed it was the same blood type as julie's an indication she was injured
00:05:22
elsewhere placed in the trunk then driven to the woods initially they weren't sure
00:05:29
whether that was the scene of the murder or that was simply a dump site that type
00:05:33
of development makes investigation that much more difficult because now you've got two crime scenes
00:05:39
to worry about unfortunately there were no foreign fingerprints found on or in the car and investigators found
00:05:48
no usable footprints in the mud and dirt julie's purse was discovered at the
00:05:53
scene with no money inside the convenience store's money bag was there but it too
00:05:59
was empty julie's killer had removed the laces from her shoes to tie her hands
00:06:07
but her shoes were missing julie's shoes were distinctive even back in 1985 because they were
00:06:13
purple the next day investigators got a potential lead police got a call from a man who had
00:06:20
been kind of scrounging around behind another convenience store when he came upon a purple pair of shoes
00:06:27
the purple shoes were almost certainly julie's the laces were missing a bowling
00:06:34
bag and some receipts with julie's name left no doubt the items were hers the site was just a half mile from the
00:06:42
convenience store where julie was last seen alive we found evidence that things were taken out of the trunk of
00:06:50
her car she was probably forced into the trunk then she was driven five or six miles away
00:06:58
from there where her body was found normally the evidentiary value of the items would
00:07:05
be significant but not this time the civilian that had found those items had at first
00:07:12
taken them home this meant all the evidence at what may have been the murder site was compromised
00:07:20
somebody's been there moving things around and it just makes the investigation a lot more difficult there
00:07:26
was no physical evidence that at that particular time that could identify a killer
00:07:32
in the meantime it didn't take long for investigators to eliminate julie's
00:07:36
husband as a suspect when he was perfectly willing to take a polygraph examination
00:07:41
kept in contact with the officers trying to work this case i think all suspicion was erased
00:07:48
but julie's autopsy did provide some important information about the killer the medical examiner found
00:07:56
evidence of sexual assault a rape test kit recovered biological evidence presumably
00:08:03
of the perpetrator unfortunately dna testing wasn't yet available crimes in 1985 were a lot harder to
00:08:11
solve just based on technology they're just certain things that we could yield dna profiles from today
00:08:17
you wouldn't be able to get back then as the weeks went by and the number of leads started to
00:08:23
dwindle investigators continued to search for julie's killer knowing full well they had no forensic
00:08:31
evidence to identify him but it didn't stop them from trying at this particular time when this
00:08:40
incident occurred some weird things were happening in that area seven months before
00:08:46
julie's murder the body of a missing 15-year-old girl was discovered just three miles away
00:08:54
her body was so badly decomposed the cause of death couldn't be determined and two months before julie's murder a
00:09:03
ten-year-old girl was found dead hanging in a tree in the woods just two miles from julie's convenience
00:09:11
store since these crimes happened within a radius of only three miles investigators had a hunch
00:09:19
they might be connected we really wanted to find the clown that did that investigators wondered whether
00:09:29
julieste's murder might be connected to several other crimes committed in the area
00:09:35
unfortunately investigators had no evidence to link them right now by today's standard physical
00:09:42
evidence is one of your your top factors in reviewing a case it's very significant very important
00:09:48
they make the case with no leads no evidence and no suspects the trail of juliet's killer
00:09:56
turned cold julie's family started to believe her murder would never be solved
00:10:04
after a couple of years i just gave up i said well we're up here and they're down there and
00:10:09
you know nobody cares the case always bugged me you know she went missing on my watch
00:10:21
[Music] and it bugged me i mean every time i drove by that store i thought of her
00:10:28
and it bugged me after a few years patrolman frank mccasey was promoted to chief of detectives
00:10:36
with the power to recommend cases to the cold case unit mccasey had always had a strong desire
00:10:42
to solve this case this is a case that had stuck with him and stuck in his mind through his whole career so when
00:10:48
the cold case unit got involved they broadened their search they looked at every sexually motivated crime in the
00:10:56
region and got a break just two months after julius d's murder 30 miles away in
00:11:03
another jurisdiction there had been another convenience store crime almost identical to julie's except
00:11:11
in this case the victim survived a 19 year old convenience store worker carla nobles had just closed the store and
00:11:22
given a ride to a young man she met in the parking lot she voluntarily let him in the car
00:11:32
having no idea what he was capable of she did a quick drive to the post office where he said he wanted to go
00:11:38
before they got there the man pulled a knife [Music] forced her to drive to an isolated field
00:11:47
and sexually assaulted her he then forced her to drive away she was sure he was going to kill her
00:11:57
because she could identify him but then she saw the only chance to escape a police officer directing traffic
00:12:07
what are you doing [Music] she just literally tries to run up there and get the officer's attention
00:12:23
practically hitting the officer when he got to the car the abductor had a knife to carla's throat and so he pulled
00:12:30
his revolver and the abductor dropped the knife the man was identified as james ellman he was convicted for the
00:12:39
crime and was currently serving a 22-year sentence in a nearby prison and cold case
00:12:46
investigators learned another startling coincidence ellman had a close connection to the ten-year-old girl
00:12:54
found hanging in the tree near julie's store two months before julie's murder
00:12:59
the ten-year-old was a half-sister of elman investigators now wanted to test the
00:13:06
biological evidence collected from julie's rape test kit to see whether james ellmann
00:13:13
was her killer but there was a risk the test would consume all of the evidence unfortunately sometimes you have to make
00:13:22
a choice you might have to run the entire bit of sample but at the time you're thinking this is
00:13:27
the best technology available investigators decided the gamble was worth it they consumed
00:13:35
all of the semen that was contained in those slides trying to get results results that unfortunately never showed
00:13:42
who the killer was this was a devastating setback it's just shocking it feels like you're hit with a
00:13:50
ton of bricks then you've got to start over it's like going starting from scratch again but
00:13:55
investigators refused to give up ellman has a rough history and people around james ellen tend to
00:14:03
die unfortunately if elman was julie's killer there was no longer any dna to prove it
00:14:15
they used up all the evidence and and found nothing uh that that brought them any closer to
00:14:21
a suspect after years of searching for julie este's killer investigators were convinced they found
00:14:30
him he was serving time in prison for a similar crime committed 30 miles away [Music]
00:14:42
his name was james ellman ellman was the worst of the worst we talk about he's the poster child of
00:14:49
eddie social it's a clue when the public defenders are afraid of him when the doctors are afraid of him when
00:14:57
the people at the medical treatment facility are afraid of him but investigators wanted to be sure
00:15:05
ellman was responsible for julie este's murder why because if he wasn't julie's killer was still on the loose
00:15:16
no it's not always a hollywood ending sometimes you don't get any results
00:15:19
cases still go unsolved so 16 years after julie's murder the jacksonville police department sent
00:15:27
julie's clothes to the u.s army crime lab in forest park georgia one of the most sophisticated labs
00:15:34
available the items evidence included socks and her shirt and jeans as well as other items from
00:15:41
her sexual assault kit which included like fingernail scrapings and other swabs scientists there were discouraged all
00:15:49
but one of the items had been analyzed and tested the socks had never been tested probably
00:15:56
because nobody expected to find anything useful on them the idea that forensic evidence
00:16:02
could have transferred onto julie's socks was remote nevertheless analyst brian higgins examined the socks
00:16:12
with light sources that cause genetic material to fluoresce i was kind of like wow
00:16:18
you know could these be actually semen stains i was kind of surprised actually because
00:16:21
it's not one of the more common places we would find semen the areas were removed then analyzed
00:16:28
with the new dna test that needed only a very small amount of genetic material when dna first started out you needed a
00:16:36
lot of dna and they needed to be high quality dna nowadays it can be very degraded
00:16:40
and we could have very limited quantities and still yield good results miraculously the test generated a
00:16:49
mixture of two dna profiles one female and one male one was julie's dna the other
00:16:59
was the dna of the killer they were able to identify that dna profile as the exact match
00:17:06
to james ellman we were all ecstatic i mean it was unbelievable feeling and you know that's
00:17:13
that's the reward of cold case when you have that piece that you never had before
00:17:16
and you're able just to put that one thing together and you know you've got
00:17:19
the entire case investigators confronted elman in prison with the evidence and i'm telling you that your dna is in
00:17:29
the murder scene of this this this this murdered girl i'm telling you i wasn't there i don't
00:17:36
know anything about this girl if you're not there how do you how does jen how does james helman seem to get in
00:17:41
to get in the damn crime scene [Music] is a monster that now sits behind bars i always knew that there was going to be
00:18:02
a day that they were going to say we got it this case is solved based on the dna
00:18:12
evidence prosecutors believe james ellman was probably walking by the convenience store where julie estes
00:18:19
worked around 10 30 and noticed there were no customers inside he shut off the store's electricity
00:18:34
held juliet knife point forced her to open the safe then he made her drive a half mile away
00:18:46
to an area behind an unoccupied store he used her shoelaces to tie her wrists then raped and killed her
00:19:02
he removed items from julie's trunk to make room for her body elman drove to the woods where he hid
00:19:15
her body under some cardboard the biological evidence from the attack was embedded in her cotton socks
00:19:26
elman probably wanted to keep julie's car but it got stuck in the mud and he had
00:19:31
to escape on foot authorities had plenty of suspicion but no evidence to charge element with his
00:19:41
half-sister's murder but after 17 years there was plenty of dna evidence to charge him with julie
00:19:49
estes rape and murder it just was unbelievable that it would be the socks that would
00:19:56
hold the true identity of her killer and how would you want me to say what you really want me to say i guess i
00:20:03
just asked for an explanation i mean you know how forensics works i can't give it to you
00:20:10
well the only reasonable explanation is that you're involved in the murder no that's not true
00:20:17
that's not true that's definitely not true faced with a possible death penalty ellman decided to plead no
00:20:28
contest to julie este's rape and murder in return he was sentenced to life in prison
00:20:35
with no possibility of parole the lesson for criminals would be no matter how long ago you did
00:20:41
the crime the forensic has a capability of solving it if it wasn't for forensics in this case
00:20:47
i you know the dna and everything i i don't think that they would ever solve
00:20:52
it we always talked about if we ever got out we were just going to have to we'd
00:20:56
be counting bodies he was we believed he was that bad you got to treat every single case like it's the crime of
00:21:03
the century and what i mean by that is you got to make sure that you you don't take
00:21:08
any evidence for granted