00:00:00
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: August 5,
1984, Sanford, Florida. The body of a young Navy recruit
found in an abandoned lot.
00:00:21
She's naked except
for her underpants. Her clothes are strewn
around the crime scene.
00:00:28
The victim's name,
Pamela Cahanes, a 25-year-old young
woman from Minnesota, who has just finished
basic training.
00:00:38
I think any reasonable
person would look at the murder as shocking, as
horrid, but more than
00:00:44
anything else, as senseless. NANCY GRACE: A homicide
investigation begins. Police work the case for
years hoping for solid leads.
00:00:54
Most tips from the
public lead nowhere. The case goes cold. I think somebody was
always looking at this case.
00:01:03
The amount of information
coming in would have diminished. Within a year or two,
the case got cold.
00:01:09
NANCY GRACE: Investigators
reopen the case two decades later, hopeful that
forensic genetic genealogy
00:01:15
can finally solve the mystery
of who murdered Pamela Cahanes. Pamela Cahanes joined the
Navy to fight for her country,
00:01:26
and she spent the last
eight minutes of her life fighting for her life. This is the story of a
young woman ready to fight
00:01:36
for her country but instead
she has to fight for her life and she loses the fight and
her life to a vicious predator.
00:01:46
I'm Nancy Grace. This is a "Bloodline
Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Sanford,
Florida, August 5, 1984.
00:02:18
Seminole County deputies respond
to a 911 call near the Naval Training Center at Lake Monroe.
00:02:27
So on the morning
of August 5, 1984, Charles Grier is
driving to work. It's 7 o'clock, but out
of the corner of his eye,
00:02:35
he notices a figure near
the side of a house. This is a house that's sort
of effectively abandoned.
00:02:43
The doors are unlocked. There's very little
inside of it. The grass is overgrown.
00:02:49
A bizarre scene. And he stops his car and he
glances over at the figure, and he rolls his window down,
and he yells at the figure.
00:02:58
He can tell it's a woman, and
she's slumped over herself. And she doesn't respond.
00:03:03
So he tries again, and
she doesn't respond. So he puts his car in
park, opens the door,
00:03:08
walks around the side, and
he goes over towards her. And as he's walking over
there, he can notice--
00:03:13
he can see that there is clothes
strewn all about the yard. And he gets closer to
her, tries to communicate,
00:03:19
and it's very clear
that she's dead. So he runs right back to
his car, he goes home,
00:03:25
picks up the phone
calls the police. The police are there very
quickly, within 10 minutes.
00:03:32
They started photographing the
scene, photographing her body. She was lying face down,
somewhat in the fetal position.
00:03:41
You could see her face, and she
had a lot of blood on her face. You could see the
marks on her neck.
00:03:49
There was a lot of
bruising on her neck. You could tell that
she had really fought.
00:03:55
You could tell that she
had been there overnight. She had what appeared to
be insect bites on her.
00:04:03
She had cuts around
her lip area. All these things were noted
immediately by law enforcement.
00:04:09
The authorities
were able to identify the victim very quickly,
in part because she
00:04:13
had served in the military. So some of her clothing items
had her name etched into them,
00:04:20
and then also her military
ID was laying on the ground nearby her body. NANCY GRACE: The
victim identified
00:04:27
as 25-year-old Pamela Cahanes. Pamela was a small town girl,
who wanted to see the world.
00:04:36
She was from Minnesota,
came from a large family, and at a certain point,
decided a little later in life
00:04:45
that the way she thought
she could see the world and experience things
in a different way
00:04:49
was to join the armed forces. And so like so many
before, and so many after, she viewed the
military as an opportunity
00:04:57
for not only career
advancement but to make a mark in the universe. I was number four in line
and Pamela was number seven.
00:05:08
We lived on a farm in
Stillwater Baytown Township, about a 200 acre farm. Pam was just a good girl,
a good-hearted girl.
00:05:19
Always happy. She's a hero. You know, she
joined the military to fight for our country and
she died fighting for her life.
00:05:29
NANCY GRACE: Detectives
focus on Pamela's background for any potential leads, while
crime scene investigators
00:05:36
recover and preserve any and all
physical evidence at the scene. In terms of the
physical evidence
00:05:44
that was found at the crime
scene, there was quite a bit. There was a hair
found on her shoulder.
00:05:50
Again, from a foreign
individual, from somebody else. They weren't able to identify
who that was but they
00:05:55
knew it came from somewhere. In addition to that, they did
find the Kmart bag that showed
00:06:00
that she had gone shopping. So they knew she
had gone to Kmart, and she was still
alive at the time.
00:06:05
They also found
tire tracks nearby. They found over $116 and some
change that was her money.
00:06:17
They found that. It wasn't stolen
from her, which, for police, says something. Obviously, if it was a
crime of opportunity,
00:06:26
perhaps they would
have stolen the money. That didn't happen in this case. There was a receipt
found with no name on it,
00:06:35
a container of Chinese food
was laying in relatively close proximity to the body.
00:06:41
And they collect everything
they possibly can and package it so that
when it's available,
00:06:47
when a new technology
comes up, it's there. All she had on
was her panties. Her bra was found just
slightly down the road,
00:06:55
and in my theory, he dumped
the body there and then realized there were still--
a bra was in the car,
00:07:01
and he threw that out the
window and that's how that ended up where it ended up.
00:07:06
It was a very sad scene. I think when law
enforcement came upon that, and it looked to be a
brutal murder situation.
00:07:17
NANCY GRACE: Back at Pamela
Cahanes' home in Minnesota, Navy personnel break the
horrible news to the family.
00:07:25
My brother, as
soon as he saw them, said something's
happened to Pam. And they said, well,
we can't tell you.
00:07:32
We need to speak to
your mother and dad. And he said, you
tell me, and I will get you to my mother and dad.
00:07:39
And my brother called-- we were in the kitchen finishing
up dishes or something,
00:07:44
and I think we pretty much all
just about dropped to the floor when we heard that.
00:07:51
And my dad, the
first thing he said when he heard of her
passing, he said, I wasn't there to help her.
00:08:01
He felt helpless. You know, he said, why not me? My life is about over. She had so much life to live.
00:08:08
And my mother had
a hard time just navigating day after day
with the thought of Pam
00:08:14
not being here. I felt pain, and I felt
my mother and dad's pain. She was a sister that
we will never forget.
00:08:25
I will never forget. My sons will never forget,
and a part of our family, and now she's not there.
00:08:35
A beautiful,
young, Naval recruit endures a savage sex attack,
and then she's murdered.
00:08:43
So far, very few clues. Can detectives catch
a brutal killer? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:08:53
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Sanford,
Florida, August 5, 1984. The brutally beaten,
partially naked body
00:09:09
of 25-year-old Navy
recruit Pamela Cahanes is found in an abandoned lot. Police immediately canvas the
area to establish any leads.
00:09:23
One of the jobs would have
been to go interview all her bunk mates, her classmates.
00:09:29
See if she has any existing
issues that you're aware of, try to get inside what she
was thinking at the time, what
00:09:36
her home life was like. What interaction she had with
other personnel on the base,
00:09:42
if any. All of this is very
labor intensive. NANCY GRACE: Detectives can
place Pamela Cahanes the night
00:09:52
before her murder at
the Mariners Club, where recruits are celebrating
the end of basic training.
00:10:01
The Mariner Club is
basically a social club. It's a bar, dance club. It's a place where people in the
armed forces hang out together.
00:10:10
Pamela was very excited
about this night, and so she was
there, and there are many eyewitnesses
that place her there
00:10:17
the night before the murder. And she had
conversations with folks and she was dancing
with a guy at one point.
00:10:25
They did identify the
gentleman she was dancing with at the Mariners Club. They pursued him as a
suspect for a lengthy time,
00:10:34
and it just proved negative. He was not involved. It was also established
in the police investigation,
00:10:40
they had a number of interviews
with people who were there that night, that she was
also going to go shopping,
00:10:45
and she had a whole
laundry list of things that she was going to get. She went to numerous stores.
00:10:52
There was receipts that
shows that earlier in the day had been in the fashion-- it was called the
Fashion Square Mall.
00:10:57
There was a big
Sears store there, and she had purchased some items
from Sears, which all of this
00:11:03
would have been very close
to the Naval Training Center. It's probably within
a mile from there.
00:11:09
There was also a Kmart
that was across the street from the mall, and she
purchased some personal items
00:11:14
there earlier that day as well. But the biggest thing that
stood in law enforcement's
00:11:20
way, the DNA that they had, the
material under the fingernails, any sort of prints or
anything else, they
00:11:27
couldn't do anything with it. DNA technology was just not
far enough along at the time
00:11:32
where they could,
in any reliable way, find suspects or
cross-reference them. There are plenty
of witnesses who
00:11:41
place Pamela Cahanes
at the Mariners Club and plenty of receipts
that can track her whereabouts before that.
00:11:49
But then, her trail goes cold. Detectives unable to establish
where Pamela goes after leaving
00:11:58
the Mariners Club and with who? My belief was that she
was murdered somewhere else
00:12:05
and her killer saw this
location in Sanford, because it wasn't very well populated.
00:12:12
It was a vacant home,
nobody lived there. It was for sale. The grass was overgrown.
00:12:17
And probably put in
the trunk of a car, threw her out like
a piece of trash, and threw through
her belongings out
00:12:25
and strewn them around the yard. The murder was
a shocking event for the people of
Central Florida,
00:12:33
for Sanford, and then also
for the Naval community. It was devastating and it
certainly penetrated a sense
00:12:40
of security amongst
many young people, who are in the armed forces. One of the witnesses
that we spoke to,
00:12:50
one of her cadet mates, she told
us about how they all found out about Pamela's death,
and they realized Pamela
00:12:59
hadn't come home that night. And they were all
lined up outside, and they were told
what happened.
00:13:03
And certainly, I think that
there was a fear that if-- how does this happen and
could this happen to me?
00:13:12
I know early on
there was a lot of effort that was expended into
trying to develop a suspect.
00:13:20
So I think probably
within a couple of years after the crime committed,
there wasn't as much activity.
00:13:26
Let's put it that way. I think somebody was always
looking at this case. You know, you get a phone
call, you get a tip,
00:13:32
something like that. But certainly within
the first year or two, the amount of information
coming in would have diminished,
00:13:39
and I would say
within a year or two, the case probably got cold. Months drag into years.
00:13:48
The investigation into
Pamela Cahanes' murder hits a dead end. Then, a new generation of
investigators with new DNA
00:13:58
technology take over the case. They discover a crucial
piece of evidence from the original crime scene.
00:14:07
The case remained ice
cold until the mid 1990s. And what they found was semen
on an article of her clothing.
00:14:18
By this time, DNA technology
had evolved to such a point that they could start
to look at it again.
00:14:24
And the case was
back in the news, and it was back in
public discourse, and hope came on the horizon
that maybe one day the killer
00:14:32
would be brought to justice. When they first
started doing DNA, I believe that they were
using this DNA called RFLP.
00:14:42
You needed a lot of
biological material in order to get a
partial profile. They were able to make a
determination that the DNA
00:14:51
profile that was obtained from
the semen on the underpants matched one of the
DNA profiles that
00:14:58
was found under the
fingernails of Pamela Cahanes. So what that means is that the
same person that put the semen
00:15:09
on the underpants was the
same person that killed Pamela Cahanes because his DNA
was under her fingernails,
00:15:17
and we know that Pamela
was fighting for her life pulling the hands of her
killer off of her neck.
00:15:26
We immediately tried comparing
that to known databases with negative results. You need a certain
amount of indicators
00:15:36
to load it into the database. We had enough for
local databases, but not the national database.
00:15:44
Everybody did the
best they could with what they had available
to them at the time.
00:15:51
NANCY GRACE: DNA
forensic technology improves in the 2000s
and investigators become cautiously hopeful Pamela
Cahanes' killer will be caught.
00:16:05
Another reason why law
enforcement continued to follow this case is because Pamela's
family would not let it go,
00:16:14
and so many of us
can understand why. And I'm sure that if we
were in the same position,
00:16:20
many would do the same thing. Her sister Eileen was a
driving force in this. She kept up with
the latest news,
00:16:28
she studied the latest law
enforcement techniques. In a lot of ways, she became
an expert on the subject.
00:16:34
And towards the
end of the 2010s, there was a huge breakthrough
in this technology.
00:16:40
And it came in the Golden
State Killer murder case, where that technology
was used to conclusively
00:16:48
identify the killer. Eileen saw this in
the news, and she told law enforcement about it.
00:16:55
She said, well, why don't we
try to use those same means in this investigation? NCIS, they were keeping
tabs on this case.
00:17:03
They were investigating it. They were doing things. They were having regular
meetings and regular reports
00:17:08
with regard to any updates. I think the big break,
other than the DNA being able to develop a profile,
came when the decision was made
00:17:18
to start looking at some
of these genetic testing organizations out there. They were presenting at
some conference with one
00:17:25
of the investigators from
the Sheriff's Office, and they started
thinking, what is this?
00:17:31
What can it do? And then investigators heard
about it at another homicide that was solved because
of it, and then started
00:17:38
that ball rolling and seeing
what we could do with what was available out there.
00:17:43
Finally, investigators believe
they've got the crime scene evidence that will
catch a killer,
00:17:50
but now, they need to use
a new forensic science to unlock the secrets
that evidence hides.
00:17:57
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." NANCY GRACE: Sanford,
Florida, August 1984.
00:18:12
Gorgeous, 25-year-old Naval
recruit Pamela Cahanes found raped and murdered. For years, her case goes cold.
00:18:21
But 10 years later,
investigators discover they do have DNA from the crime scene.
00:18:28
But with the tools
available at that time, they still can't get a match. In 2018, detectives contact
Parabon Nanolabs, specialists
00:18:41
in forensic genetic
genealogy hoping that Parabon can help crack
this case once and for all.
00:18:50
This cold case that
had been cold for so long was now incredibly hot. One company, Parabon
Nanolabs, was
00:18:58
able to take it a step further
to find this perpetrator. In mid 2018, I decided to join
forces with Parabon Nanolabs.
00:19:08
They are a genetic technology
company that specializes in SNP genotyping crime scene
DNA, and so Pamela's case
00:19:17
came to me through Parabon. Parabon has long
existing relationships with a lot of law
enforcement agencies,
00:19:24
with FDLE, which is the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement. They are innovative
and groundbreaking.
00:19:31
They were the first
state in the country to have their own investigative
genetic genealogy team
00:19:36
in-house. In this case, there
were a few sources of DNA. One came from underneath
Pamela's fingernails.
00:19:45
The second source was the semen
that was found on her clothes. Effectively, investigators
were able to combine
00:19:54
those two sources of
DNA to create a profile. That profile is then used
through government databases
00:20:01
to find criminals. I knew that Pamela was
serving our country when she was murdered and
that she had just
00:20:09
graduated from her training. She was found strangled,
raped, and thrown in a ditch.
00:20:16
She was still really young and
somebody decided that they had the right to snuff
out her life when
00:20:23
she had a lot to contribute. And so this was a case
that was sent to Parabon, and a lot of things happen to
it before it lands on my desk.
00:20:32
It has to go through
the lab process and have the DNA analyzed,
looking at hundreds
00:20:37
of thousands of
genetic markers called SNPs through a microarray
genotyping process.
00:20:44
Snapshot DNA phenotyping
is using someone's DNA to predict their
physical traits,
00:20:50
and so this is something
that is relatively new and groundbreaking. Not only can you retroactively
find people using their DNA,
00:21:00
but you can proactively
find them and actually get a picture of who they look
like, a profile who they look
00:21:06
like, by their DNA,
from their DNA. They were able to determine
that the perpetrator was
00:21:13
most likely African-American. Because many of the
African-Americans living in the United States today
are descended from enslaved
00:21:22
individuals, many
of their family trees hit this genealogical
brick wall at the Civil War.
00:21:28
So the 1870 census
is the first time that formerly enslaved
individuals are mentioned
00:21:34
by name in a US
Census, and so that makes it exceedingly difficult
to get far enough back.
00:21:41
Very often, you can't identify
those common ancestors, and even if you can,
you can't identify
00:21:47
all of their descendants. Because, as we know,
families were torn apart, families took
different surnames.
00:21:53
They were owned by
different individuals and often took those surnames. Many of them couldn't find
each other after the Civil War
00:22:00
and after slavery ended, and
so it can really make a case like this very complicated.
00:22:06
Because we actually had two
pretty strong matches, maybe around second cousin, second
cousin once removed level,
00:22:12
but the problem was we
didn't have hardly anything for supporting matches. Because after those
first two strong matches,
00:22:19
they dropped way down to
extremely distant matches. But what was fortunate is the
top two matches not sharing DNA
00:22:27
with each other meant
that they represented two different branches of
the suspect's family tree.
00:22:32
and it turned out that one
was on his mother's side and one was on
his father's side.
00:22:37
So we had to build forward
from all of these matches, great grandparents and
great, great grandparents
00:22:43
trying to find
that intersection. That intersection was found
where that person from match
00:22:48
number one's family tree marries
that descendant from match number two's family
tree, and so that pointed
00:22:55
right at one immediate family. My partner was kind enough
to call me at my house
00:23:02
and tell me that they
had a name of a suspect and where he was located. My partner had done
the investigative work
00:23:10
on his background
along with NCIS, the records they
obtained, and all the information seemed to fit.
00:23:19
He was at the Navy base at the
time, he was a dental tech, he was currently up in
Jacksonville, Florida.
00:23:26
He had a minor history at the
time with violence and women, so it was perfect. It was a perfect match.
00:23:36
The last name that the police
get, the surname is Garner, so they go through the records.
00:23:42
They go through all their
suspects and people of interest and they hone in on two
people in particular.
00:23:48
They're brothers, both
of the last name Garner, who live in the
state of Florida.
00:23:54
They decide to hone in
on one in particular. They have to collect
surreptitious DNA in order
00:24:02
to vet the lead that is provided
through investigative genetic genealogy. So they weren't able to arrest
him until they could confirm
00:24:11
or refute whether Thomas
Garner, who had been developed through investigative
genetic genealogy,
00:24:17
was actually Pamela's killer. And so in order to do
that, law enforcement often has to follow
someone, or they
00:24:23
have to go through their trash. And so in this case,
they had to follow Thomas Garner until he
disposed of something
00:24:30
that would have his DNA on it. And they actually
pulled multiple bags and were able to
narrow down the bag
00:24:40
that was his by a receipt that
had his name inside that bag. After going through
all of these--
00:24:47
if you can imagine, going
through 10 bags of garbage, and then coming upon
one that had a receipt
00:24:54
that had his name on it. They collected used dental
floss, a cigarette butt, and I think a cotton swab.
00:25:03
And so once they collected that
DNA surreptitiously from him, he had no idea he was about
to have his life changed.
00:25:11
They took that to their crime
lab and they processed that DNA and compared it
against their STR
00:25:18
profile that had been developed
many, many years prior. That profile is the one that
never got a match in the law
00:25:24
enforcement databases. And this time, they
got their match. One of the incredible benefits
of unlocking forensic DNA
00:25:34
is not only that it leads
investigators to the suspect they're pursuing, but sometimes,
it can lead to other murders
00:25:43
as well, and that's
exactly what happens here. Thomas Garner's DNA
connects him not just
00:25:51
to the killing of
Pamela Cahanes in 1984, but also to another
unsolved murder in Hawaii two years earlier.
00:26:03
Once Garner's DNA profile
goes into CODIS, you know, there are cold cases
all around the country,
00:26:11
and Hawaii was able to get a
hit from CODIS on a profile that they had on the
murder of Cathy Hicks,
00:26:20
and it matched Thomas Garner's. And then we were able to
discover that it was a very
00:26:26
similar situation,
where Cathy Hicks was in Hawaii as part of a softball
tournament with Delta Airlines.
00:26:36
We learned that
she was in a hotel, people had seen her leave with
somebody by the name of Tommy
00:26:42
or Thomas and go somewhere with
him, and her body was found-- apparently looks just
like this one did,
00:26:49
dumped on the side of the
road, just like Pamela was and strangulation as well. So very similar facts that
what we had in Pamela's death.
00:27:01
I think there's a lot that we
still don't know about Thomas Garner, and the state
of Hawaii has a lot
00:27:06
of questions about him as well. There is a pending criminal
action against him. There was an indictment that
has been issued against him,
00:27:16
and the state of
Hawaii is trying to get him extradited
out of Florida to face a murder charge.
00:27:22
It's very possible he
might be a serial killer. NANCY GRACE: The net is
closing in on Thomas Garner.
00:27:29
Detectives prepare
to question him. We want to try to talk to him
actually before he's arrested.
00:27:36
We want to see what
he's going to say. Unfortunately, for
him, he ran into two very skilled investigators
that questioned
00:27:44
him in his apartment. And they went to
him, and they just started asking him questions and
trying to get a feel from him
00:27:51
of what, if anything, he
knew, and what he was going to say about the situation.
00:27:59
Investigators have a
suspect and they've got a DNA link to the crime scene. Next, on "Bloodline
Detectives," will
00:28:06
Pamela Cahanes'
family finally see her killer brought to justice? [THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Seminole
County, Florida, 2021.
00:28:26
35 years have passed since the
body of a beautiful, young Navy recruit, Pamela Cahanes, found
sex assaulted and murdered.
00:28:37
Now, detectives use
genetic genealogy to identify a prime suspect. His name, Thomas Garner.
00:28:47
After the garbage
bag is found, the police are hot on his tail,
and they want to talk to him.
00:28:54
So, investigators go
right to his apartment. They knock on the door
and Thomas lets them in.
00:29:01
They sit down and they
talk to him at length. He's not making eye contact,
he's changing the subject.
00:29:07
And in this police
officer's opinion, that's not a good sign. We want to make sure we
got the right gentleman.
00:29:11
Were you in the Navy
back in the '80s? The reaction was just
total indifference.
00:29:17
I mean, I would think that
somebody seeing a photograph of somebody who's been murdered
would at least show some type
00:29:24
of sympathy for the
victim, of course, and for her family members. He was just ice cold.
00:29:32
Had no reaction. Was totally indifferent. He had indicated that he was
in a relationship, a long term
00:30:24
relationship, and
he would not have been in a sexual relationship
with any other individual
00:30:32
than his girlfriend at the time. And that he also
would not have-- was not in a position
and would not have dated
00:30:41
or had sex with a
white woman back when this crime was committed. NANCY GRACE: Thomas
Garner's story does
00:30:49
not stack up for detectives. They decide to make an arrest. I went with them. I sat in the van and watched
as they arrested him,
00:30:59
my partner and NCIS jointly. And they transported him
back to the NCIS center in Jacksonville for interviews.
00:31:11
He refused to give it up. That was what helped us the
most as far as strategically
00:31:18
knowing that we had our guy and
now locking him into a story, because that's the whole thing.
00:31:22
Is we wanted to lock
him into a story, and we were thrilled that
that was the story that he
00:31:28
wanted to tell that day. Because there's no way for him
to explain how his semen gets
00:31:33
on her panties, and how his
DNA gets under her fingernails, and how his hair gets
on her bare shoulder
00:31:41
that is sitting in a
field in Sanford, Florida, if he had no contact with her. Thomas Garner
may very well tell
00:32:39
police what they're
accusing him of is bizarre, but the cops know the truth. The DNA evidence and forensic
genealogy do not lie.
00:32:49
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Seminole
County, Florida, 2021.
00:33:03
Detectives arrest a
suspect in the 1984 rape and murder of Navy
recruit Pamela Cahanes.
00:33:12
His name, Thomas Garner. His DNA left at the crime
scene nearly 40 years before,
00:33:20
and it proves he's the killer. But the main things
that he says in that interview is the
same thing, completely
00:33:28
denies having any knowledge. I have no idea what
you're talking about. He continues to deny that.
00:33:36
You know, they
show him a picture of the neck of Pamela
Cahanes and the bruising
00:33:41
and the brutality that
that photograph showed. And he does like, hm. He never asked.
00:34:28
He never not once
asked how did she die? He never not once said, I feel
bad for the family of her,
00:34:38
but I have no idea-- I had nothing to do with this. He never said any
of those things.
00:34:46
His words were,
who is going to take me home after this arrest? And just not feeling
the, I guess, the anguish
00:34:53
that we felt, that now
you're finally caught and you're going to be behind
bars for a long period of time.
00:34:59
He thought it was
going to be an hour and he's going to be back home. And that was kind
of appalling to us,
00:35:06
that there was no remorse. None whatsoever. NANCY GRACE: May 2021, the
trial of Thomas Garner begins.
00:35:17
The now 61-year-old
dental hygienist facing a first degree murder charge. And my goal was
to take his words
00:35:29
and show that he's a liar. And certainly he made it easy
because he totally changed
00:35:35
his story when he was
testifying compared to both the statements
that he had given
00:35:41
previously to law enforcement. He basically said he was
very promiscuous, that he
00:35:46
had sex with so many people. He just said sex
was just something he did all of the time.
00:35:55
He definitely seemed to talk
about women sort of in a very dispassionate way,
sort of as a conquest,
00:36:01
as a number, not really
as individuals, not really as people. And he openly talks about that.
00:36:08
He would openly talk
about past relationships that he had, very casual
relationships that he had,
00:36:14
and he didn't think
anything of it. And Anna is doing
the cross-examination and he's contradicting himself
with what he was telling
00:36:22
the law enforcement officers. And so one of the questions that
Anna asked him is, well, look,
00:36:27
that's not what you
just said in this video that we just watched. Didn't you watch the video?
00:36:32
And his response was, I don't
like looking at that video. I didn't like looking
at that video.
00:36:38
It made me look fat. This guy is being
tried for murder. He could go to prison
for the rest of his life,
00:36:45
and that's what comes
out of his mouth. He didn't like
looking at the video because he thinks he's fat.
00:36:50
What a jerk. The prosecutors weaved
a very compelling story, and it was one of time.
00:36:59
It was one of the
impact of time. They asked the jurors, they
asked everyone in the room,
00:37:05
to be quiet for 90 seconds. They believe that that
was the amount of time that it took for Pamela
to be strangled to death.
00:37:13
And they made
everyone in that room sit in silence,
the judge included, sit in silence for 90
seconds and just soak
00:37:23
in the awful grim
reality of what those 90 seconds really meant. The state rested their case,
the defense rested their case,
00:37:34
the jury was given jury
instructions from the judge, but within two hours,
the jury came back
00:37:41
with a conclusive
result. He was guilty, a unanimous decision,
of first degree murder.
00:37:48
I was happy that
he's put away, and he can think about
this every day of his life
00:37:57
why he is where he is. I hope that he's suffering. I hope that he says
her name every day
00:38:04
and knows exactly
why he's there. There is justice. It came. It took a long time,
but, yes, that's justice.
00:38:15
This case is a perfect
example of teamwork. It took a lot of people to
pull this case together.
00:38:23
When you do a cold case, it
is unique because of that. There's so many people
involved and to see a life lost
00:38:32
like that, it's difficult.
This is what we do, and it's what we get the reward
from is being involved in cases
00:38:41
like this and helping
bring some sense of justice to the families. The preservation of evidence,
exemplary because it was kept
00:38:50
in such a way that as the
technology progressed, the items of evidence
could be further analyzed,
00:38:56
and then that DNA could
be extracted from it. Had it not been
preserved in the way
00:39:02
that it was 10,
15, 20 years later, we would not have been able to
look at those items of evidence
00:39:08
and test them for DNA. I think the one thing that
really stands out to me, Pamela's family's
commitment to this case
00:39:18
and not to ever let it die. They always wanted to stay
involved and keep up with it.
00:39:24
And the fact that 30
plus years went by, and they were just
as interested in it,
00:39:31
30 plus years after the
crime was committed. Every time I pray for her,
it'd give me this courage never
00:39:39
to forget, never to let it go. Continue no matter how much
it hurts, and it hurts.
00:39:46
It still hurts to
not have her here. And sometimes, to
think about the things I would still have
with her, that hurts.
00:39:58
I still miss her. I still miss her. It's very hard to imagine
a more tragic story than that
00:40:08
of Pamela Cahanes, a
beautiful, young, Navy recruit with her whole life before her.
00:40:16
Her devotion to her country,
to her family and friends, and then her murder leaving
a deep emotional scar
00:40:25
on every single person
who helped solve her case. Pamela's family and the
"Bloodline Detectives"
00:40:33
understand Pamela's sense
of duty, that sense of duty drove them to find
justice for Pamela.
00:40:43
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us
here on "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]