00:00:00
[TENSE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Wichita,
Kansas, 1989. A beautiful, young
20-year-old woman,
00:00:17
Krista Martin, is out for drinks
with friends at a local bar. ADAM VAN DER MOLEN: She just
liked to go out, and hang
00:00:24
out, and be with her friends. You know, she was 20 years old. She was young and starting
to experience life.
00:00:29
NANCY GRACE: After Krista
Martin returns to her home, she meets a horrific end. RODERICK MILLER: An individual
known to Krista Martin
00:00:39
went over to check on her. DAN HARTY: He arrived,
found the door was unlocked. He went inside the
residence and he found
00:00:45
Krista lying on the couch. And she was deceased. NANCY GRACE: Investigators
begin their hunt
00:00:52
for a rapist and a killer. DAN HARTY: They would
have been looking for fingerprints, any
type of trace evidence
00:01:00
that they could find. NANCY GRACE: Wichita
Police tracked down every possible clue,
but the case goes cold.
00:01:08
MARC BENNETT: It was bad
enough for the people who knew and loved her that she died.
00:01:11
But I think that loss was
compounded by the fact that over the last,
better part of 30 years,
00:01:17
her case went unsolved. NANCY GRACE: Decades
later, cold case detectives turned
to groundbreaking
00:01:23
forensic technology. ADAM VAN DER MOLEN: Nobody
ever expected this person to be the guy that would
be accused of a brutal rape
00:01:29
and murder of Krista. NANCY GRACE: This is the
story of a 30-year-long hunt for a brutal rapist, a killer.
00:01:40
I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives". [THEME MUSIC] [TENSE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1989,
Sedgwick County, Kansas--
00:02:13
it's home to the City of Wichita
and McConnell Air Force Base. The area is dotted
with companies
00:02:19
that cater to the military. MARC BENNETT: Sedgwick County
is on the south-central part
00:02:25
of Kansas. Wichita is the biggest
city in Sedgwick County. Aircraft has been,
for a long time,
00:02:33
our primary business since the
'40s and '50s in this community. So it's very much a
blue-collar community
00:02:42
with folks who work
in these companies for a long time over the
last several generations.
00:02:46
ADAM VAN DER MOLEN: I
think of it as a small town that's trying to be a big city.
00:02:50
We've got about a half a million
people in our metro area. We have a downtown that's
trying to revitalize idolize
00:02:55
itself, that's trying to
become a thriving metropolis, if you will. We do pull a lot of people from
the outer areas into Wichita.
00:03:02
MARC BENNETT: It's a good place
to raise a family, good cost of living, that sort of thing.
00:03:06
So these are things that
draw people to Wichita. MICHAEL HENNESSY: Back in
1989, Wichita, so much smaller.
00:03:11
It was not as sprawled
out as it is now. We definitely did
have some issues. And just like any city does
when it comes to crime and such.
00:03:22
NANCY GRACE: 20-year-old
Krista Martin lives in her apartment there in Wichita. She's got an active social life.
00:03:28
And she's often seen at multiple
restaurants and nightspots. [SENTIMENTAL MUSIC]
00:03:35
She was one year
older than me. Krista was a very
shy, quiet person until you got to
know her, and then
00:03:44
her real personality came out. It was her and I. We hung
out as much as we could,
00:03:50
especially during the summers. Krista and I were the two
tomboys of the family. Her and I were peas in a pod.
00:03:56
We just had so
much fun together. NANCY GRACE: Krista Martin
loves to go out with friends,
00:04:01
but her father's worried
and he pays her a visit. RODERICK MILLER: Her father
had been over to her apartment
00:04:08
September 30. And there was an argument
about her lifestyle. She liked the bar lifestyle.
00:04:17
She was a people person. She wasn't afraid to have
a conversation with people. I don't think her
father really agreed
00:04:27
with the way she was living. And there was mentioning that
Krista's father was going
00:04:31
to help her move out
of that apartment, because she was having a
hard time paying for rent.
00:04:36
She was working at a place
called Kansas Blueprint in town, where it was a place that
had been around for years.
00:04:40
And she had worked there
for a period of time but had been laid off. She didn't have a new job,
from what I understood.
00:04:45
She just liked to
go out, and hang out, and be with her friends. You know, she was--
she was 20-years-old.
00:04:49
She was young. She was just experiencing and
starting to experience life when this tragedy struck her.
00:04:58
NANCY GRACE: One of Krista
Martin's male friends gets worried. He decides to check in
on her at her apartment
00:05:04
just after midnight. Dispatch received
a call about 1:00 in the morning on
October 2, 1989,
00:05:12
from a friend of our victim. He had gone to the residence
just to check on her, basically.
00:05:19
The residence was a
converted family residence, a two-story family residence
that was converted into three
00:05:26
apartments back in 1989. DAN HARTY: He arrived,
found the door was unlocked. He went inside the
residence and he found
00:05:34
Krista lying on the couch. And she was deceased. MICHAEL HENNESSY: He
exited the apartment,
00:05:47
and then went to a
nearby store to call 911. Detectives, on duty at the
time, responded to the scene.
00:05:54
MARC BENNETT: Brass
would have shown up. So we're talking a captain, a
lieutenant, somebody like that,
00:05:58
who would have set up the crime
scene and secured the scene. They noted that there was no
forced entry on the residence.
00:06:06
The door was open. The windows were intact. MICHAEL HENNESSY: I got there
approximately an hour later.
00:06:12
I was called from home. I reported it to our
station, then drove immediately to the crime scene.
00:06:21
Parked out in the street. Walked inside, puts me
straight into the living room, and I observed a white
female lying on the couch.
00:06:33
MARC BENNETT: What
stood out to me? First of all, the
positioning of her body, the fact that she was in a
state of undress, and the fact
00:06:40
that it appeared that the fatal
attack, the blow that had killed her, had taken place
in a time before she'd
00:06:46
had a chance to collect herself,
cover herself, et cetera. Having handled, sadly, many
sexual homicides over the course
00:06:57
of my career, it looked like
she was either struck preceding or simultaneous to
the sexual attack
00:07:03
or maybe at the conclusion
of the sexual attack. But the point is, she was unable
to retreat, cover herself, seek
00:07:10
help, or anything like that. She died where the
attack took place, is what it looked like to me.
00:07:15
DAN HARTY: They didn't really
see a big sign of a struggle, except for in the immediate
area near the couch.
00:07:21
At that location, they found
a plate that was overturned. There was a steak
knife on the ground.
00:07:26
And it appeared
that she had been maybe interrupted from
eating a meal of some sort.
00:07:32
ADAM VAN DER MOLEN:
Obviously, her clothing was collected to be processed. The sleeping bag was
collected as well.
00:07:40
DAN HARTY: Eventually, after
the scene had been documented, Krista's body was taken
in for an autopsy.
00:07:45
And during that a doctor
was examining her. But while that was going on,
law enforcement was present.
00:07:52
A sexual assault kit was taken. And at that point,
they're looking for signs of semen, seminal
fluids, things like that.
00:08:01
They were also documenting
the various types of injuries on her. There were notated
striations on what would
00:08:08
be her left side of her neck. And they actually took the
steak knife from the scene
00:08:13
to the autopsy and
had a comparison done. And they determined
that that steak knife was likely the
item that had made
00:08:20
the striations on her neck. The doctors were
able to, you know, do their more thorough,
intrusive examination
00:08:30
where they determined that
she died of blunt force trauma to the head. Even today, we don't
know what it was.
00:08:37
We just know that it was
some object that impacted the side of her head in
such a strong manner,
00:08:44
that it caused her
brain to shake or go against the other
side of her head. But no actual item
was ever found.
00:08:51
NANCY GRACE: Once Krista
Martin is identified, police must now tell her loved
ones about Krista's brutal end.
00:08:59
[SOMBER MUSIC] MICHAEL HENNESSY: The
family we contacted would have been Krista's parents.
00:09:05
And she only being
20-years-old, as a parent, that's got to be the
toughest thing in the world
00:09:10
for anybody can do. And I know it was
extremely hard for them. I was a sophomore in college.
00:09:18
And I had just gotten
back to my dorm room. And I got told by my RA
that I needed to call
00:09:26
my Grandma Martin's house. And they asked if somebody
was ill in the family. And I said, well, my
grandmother has been.
00:09:36
And so I called, and my
cousin answered the phone. And I asked, what's going on?
00:09:42
Is it Grandma? And he goes, no, it's Krista. And I go, what about her? And he goes, she's dead.
00:09:48
And I blacked out, and fainted,
and passed out on the floor. I said, her and I
were peas in a pod.
00:10:00
And she was more like a
sister to me than a cousin. Any time I'm in town, I
drive down Kellogg Street
00:10:07
and I pass Osage,
I always say hi to her because I still feel her
spirit when I drive by there.
00:10:17
It changed my entire life. I could not digest it at all. [SIGHS] I didn't want to live.
00:10:26
I wanted to be with her. And so I quit going to school. I changed the way I did things.
00:10:38
I just didn't want to be around. I, a couple times, tried
to wreck my car just to be-- end it all,
just to be with her,
00:10:47
because I just didn't know how
I was gonna do it without her. [OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Wichita
Police immediately
00:10:55
launched a hunt for a killer. But will they find
the brutal murderer who ends Krista Martin's life?
00:11:05
We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives". [THEME TONES] [SINISTER MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Wichita,
Kansas, October 2, 1989,
00:11:21
the body of 20-year-old Krista
Martin discovered shortly after midnight in her own apartment.
00:11:27
Krista, the victim of a
brutal homicide and rape. Investigators began to piece
together the final hour
00:11:36
of Krista's life. I always felt like it
was someone that she was at least aware of, an
acquaintance or a friend,
00:11:44
or something to that effect. Due to the fact that there
was no force on the door.
00:11:49
The door was kind of beat up,
but there was no fresh breakage to suggest someone broke in.
00:11:55
I learned early on that she
was somewhat of a night owl. And so her being up at that
time of day or at night,
00:12:02
whatever, was not
unusual for her. She could have had
a friend come over. DAN HARTY: One thing
we do know about Krista
00:12:08
is she was very
trusting of people. She was often known to get
rides home from various bars
00:12:13
or other locations she was at. And she would allow strangers
to come not only to her house,
00:12:18
but inside the house as well. [OMINOUS MUSIC] MICHAEL HENNESSY: When he,
the suspect, made advances,
00:12:26
Krista fought him off. She did not want
to have anything to do what he had on his mind.
00:12:31
And when Krista
fought back, that's when the attacker hurt her. As far as defensive wounds, like
on her hands or any other part
00:12:42
of her body, and--
you can fight somebody off and not get any wounds. But it's just-- the fact
that she was on the couch
00:12:48
and the attacker
was on top of her, it would be
difficult to fend off your attacker in that position.
00:12:55
A sexual assault occurred. And during the assault,
Krista fought back. The attacker overpowered
her and killed her.
00:13:02
And the fact that
she was covered suggests that maybe
it was unintentional. Of course, it doesn't
make any difference.
00:13:10
But, well, he just had remorse
by covering up the body, because when you see that a
crime scene there, someone's
00:13:17
there and they're still
there after the incident and they cover the body,
then that just tells you
00:13:22
they knew her or that
there's some remorse, something to that effect. MARC BENNETT: As
a rule of thumb,
00:13:28
we're gonna want
to eliminate all-- as a suspect, we're
gonna eliminate anybody who was close to her.
00:13:32
Family members,
obviously, love interests. The sad truth is, roughly 80% of
women who die a violent death,
00:13:40
it's at the hands of someone
they were in a relationship with. Assault stranger deaths
are actually fairly rare.
00:13:47
And so if I'm the lieutenant
on scene that night, I'm gonna want to
know the whereabouts
00:13:52
of her last boyfriend. I want to talk to her parents. I want to know who
she associated with.
00:13:56
I'm gonna start small
before I work my way out. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
search Krista Martin's
00:14:02
home looking for
any evidence that could point them to a suspect. MARC BENNETT: In those days,
fingerprints would have
00:14:11
been cutting-edge technology. And so the scene would have
been dusted for prints.
00:14:17
And lifts from
those fingerprints would have been taken. DNA is something that
is utilized often in law
00:14:25
enforcement investigations. With a single
source contributor-- so we're talking about
one person who left semen,
00:14:30
blood, saliva at or
near a crime scene-- the ability for law enforcement
then to go find a suspect
00:14:36
and match them to
that individual DNA through DNA analysis has
been very advantageous
00:14:42
for law enforcement. It helps us eliminate suspects. It helps us identify defendants.
00:14:47
And obviously, it's
been a major tool in the criminal justice system
for the last 30 years or so.
00:14:52
But in those days,
it was just serology. And so they would have
collected any samples.
00:14:56
They would have at least known
to do that, which has been very advantageous in
solving old cases,
00:15:01
because old rape kits, old
blood, semen, or saliva that was collected at scenes
was maintained in property
00:15:07
and evidence sections in
law enforcement agencies around the country. [TENSE MUSIC]
00:15:12
NANCY GRACE: Once again,
Wichita detectives interview Krista's
friend who found her the night of the murder.
00:15:20
ADAM VAN DER MOLEN: The
person that comes over there and finds her, you
know, is obviously
00:15:24
gonna be a person of
interest that we're gonna want to-- that we're
gonna talk to immediately.
00:15:27
And they did that
with that gentleman. I mean, they brought him up
for an interview immediately.
00:15:31
His whereabouts,
what he was doing, why he came over there, you
know, how he knew Krista,
00:15:35
his relationship with Krista,
those things, obviously, were asked and answered. And he was a suspect, obviously.
00:15:41
But through the course of the
investigation, he was ruled out. He was never considered
to be under arrest.
00:15:46
We just want to get his
story and to find out what his relationship with the
victim was, and what he did,
00:15:51
and why he was there
that particular night and that type of stuff. Everything that he told the
detectives about where he was
00:15:57
or who he had been with, had
checked out pretty quickly. Within a day or so,
you know, those answers
00:16:02
were corroborated and backed
up with the interviews they had done after the fact.
00:16:07
NANCY GRACE: Now that murder
victim Krista Martin's friend is ruled out as a suspect,
detectives commence canvassing
00:16:14
the entire local area. DAN HARTY: Detectives would
start combing the neighborhood
00:16:21
in a canvas, knocking on
doors, asking for information about what someone might
have seen at the house,
00:16:27
or getting other background
information as to what normally occurs at Krista's residence.
00:16:34
ADAM VAN DER MOLEN: When
you have a major incident in a neighborhood, in a downtown
area, or wherever it may be,
00:16:38
boots on the ground,
knocking on people's doors, going door to door to door,
searching areas, searching
00:16:44
streets, searching residences,
I mean, all of that is a tried and
true method, which
00:16:49
is why we still use it today. DAN HARTY: They mainly worked on
finding a timeline for Krista's
00:16:56
last activities, knowing when
she returned to the house, what she was doing that day.
00:17:02
They were able to
backtrack people that she had been in contact
with in the previous 48 hours.
00:17:07
And really, you
know, at the time, there's not the
surveillance video that we have now on today's cases.
00:17:13
So they basically had to
find this information out just from talking to people
and doing interviews.
00:17:21
ADAM VAN DER MOLEN: She
was found on October 2, early in the morning,
which is a Monday.
00:17:24
Her family last saw her
on the 1st of October. She had gone over to her
mom's house to pick something
00:17:29
up on the east side of Wichita. Her dad saw her that morning. He thought he was gonna help
her move out of the apartment,
00:17:34
'cause she was trying to find
a new place 'cause she wasn't getting along there any longer.
00:17:38
You know, so she had been seen,
you know, within 24 hours or so of being found. I know that she had been seen
at the gas station over there
00:17:46
at Maple and Seneca. The clerk had been interviewed
and said that they had seen her somewhere between,
I think, 2 o'clock
00:17:52
and 3 o'clock that
afternoon, where she had come into the store to buy the steak,
and the potatoes, and the corn,
00:17:57
and the things that she had
eaten as one of her last things that she had eaten. They tracked down
multiple people
00:18:03
that were friends and
acquaintances of Krista, people that she would have hung out
with at this club or that club,
00:18:10
you know, people that they knew
she had gotten into a fight with prior to the
murder happening.
00:18:14
They had talked to
a female that she had gone into a fight
with that was dating or married to another man.
00:18:19
Those two people were thought
to be suspects potentially. So they focused a lot of
their time and attention
00:18:24
on those two individuals, and
tracking down their movements and getting their
interviews done,
00:18:28
and just corroborating
their stories. MICHAEL HENNESSY: Our best
tool was our DNA matches.
00:18:34
So everybody we talked with, all
the people, the acquaintances, the friends agreed and submitted
DNA to be tested against a DNA
00:18:43
profile from the crime scene. NANCY GRACE: Between
1990 and 1992, Wichita Police send DNA
samples from the crime scene
00:18:53
to the FBI for testing. Investigators hoping against
hope the FBI can match those samples to a suspect.
00:19:03
But unfortunately,
they come up empty. MICHAEL HENNESSY: I always hoped
that this case would be solved.
00:19:10
We did so many profiles and
eliminated so many people. At one point, I
thought, well, maybe
00:19:17
this is a stranger or someone
we're just not aware of. Through all of the
interviews they did,
00:19:24
they looked at
different people, they looked at different
suspects, but everybody
00:19:27
kept getting ruled out. When a case is not
solved within a few weeks, there's an element
of it that's cold.
00:19:32
Meaning, you're gonna have
to go out and find evidence to breathe new life into it.
00:19:37
So I would say certainly within
that first year, the failure to identify or
inability to identify
00:19:42
a viable suspect rendered
the case, by many definition, cold at that point. NANCY GRACE: The case of
Krista Martin's homicide
00:19:51
goes cold for years, but
Wichita Police don't give up. They keep the
investigation going
00:19:58
when they believe
they get new clues or discover new
ways to solve it. MICHAEL HENNESSY: When
the case goes cold,
00:20:07
people have the perception
that it gets shelved. This particular case,
it was not shelved.
00:20:13
We do what we can for
the first few months, and the personnel
are scaled off. And I, myself, will
pick up other cases,
00:20:21
but it always stays with me,
because we continue to interview people, we continue to
get the DNA samples,
00:20:28
and we continue to send
samples to the FBI lab in Quantico to
make a comparison.
00:20:35
[SOMBER MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: For now, the hunt
for Krista Martin's killer remains cold.
00:20:42
But revolutionary forensic
science is just on the horizon. Can that science finally
provide the break Wichita
00:20:52
Police have been waiting on? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives". [THEME TONES]
00:21:04
[PENSIVE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Wichita,
Kansas, 2009, a new cold case team from
the Wichita Police Department
00:21:12
is briefed about the 1989
murder of Krista Martin. The 20-year-old woman,
the victim of a violent,
00:21:21
a brutal rape and murder. Investigators, amazingly, have
recovered DNA from the crime
00:21:28
scene, but still no match. DAN HARTY: There
was a lot there. The original detectives had
done a tremendous amount of work
00:21:38
in knocking on doors
and talking to people. They also got a lot of blood
samples from individuals.
00:21:44
And that's kind of where
I started, because I saw that the sexual assault
kit had been taken
00:21:50
at the time of her death,
and that there was semen present on that actual sample.
00:21:57
However, in reviewing it,
I saw that the case had not been submitted to CODIS. So I decided that
probably the best option
00:22:05
would be to try to get a
profile identified and placed into the CODIS system. CODIS is basically a
national DNA database.
00:22:14
It has a couple
different aspects of it. One would be unknown or unsolved
crimes, like for example,
00:22:21
in this case, the profile
of the unknown offender was put into CODIS. But it also then has
the known standards
00:22:29
of individuals who have been
convicted of felony crimes. So basically, this
database was my hope
00:22:37
of putting that profile of
Krista's killer into the system, and that we would then have a
name to go on and follow-up.
00:22:49
Our DNA analysts, they
worked with the sample. They were able to
generate a profile.
00:22:54
They placed it into CODIS,
and we received no hits. And honestly, that was
pretty disappointing.
00:23:02
And I was actually surprised,
because I figured that someone who had done such a heinous
and cruel crime to Krista
00:23:10
had probably offended
at another time. And so I thought either they
would have been captured
00:23:15
or we might have
another unsolved crime that they were involved in. But we received no hits at all.
00:23:22
NANCY GRACE: Krista Martin's
case goes cold again, this time for over a decade. But then 2020, there's
a glimmer of hope.
00:23:32
The forensic science of
investigative genetic genealogy is now solving hundreds of cold
cases all across the country.
00:23:42
JONATHAN DAVIS: We were
speaking with the Wichita Police Department about a
new investigative tool
00:23:47
that we have at the FBI,
known as investigative genetic genealogy. And kind of just discussing
some of the cases they had that
00:23:56
may be able to fit
the criteria we have, where we can assist
state and local law
00:24:00
enforcement in utilizing that
tool to help them in cases. COLBY LASOYNE: Genetic
genealogy allows
00:24:09
you to look at a DNA
profile and understand a family tree for an individual
that you're trying to identify.
00:24:18
Folks who have taken
a genealogy test can have uploaded their profile. CARLA DAVIS: What we do,
once the profile comes to us,
00:24:26
is we separate those
matches into groups. So what is a group? A group is an individual who
matches the profile and shares
00:24:34
matches with that profile. So once we have
identified those groups, we work to identify the common
ancestor among those matches.
00:24:46
And so forensic
genetic genealogy allows you to start looking
at all of these data points
00:24:51
and all of these potential
relatives for an individual that helps you build out a family
tree, and ultimately provides
00:24:58
leads that could lead to the
possible identity of a person. RODERICK MILLER:
In early 2020, I
00:25:09
believe, Sergeant
Jason Bartell, he was with the DB Sex Crimes Unit. He was looking at homicides
that involved sexual assault,
00:25:21
and he came across
Krista Martin. He knew that in
2009, there was DNA submitted to CODIS with no hit.
00:25:30
And he believed this
was the perfect case to do genetic genealogy on. The Wichita Police
Department had
00:25:42
some DNA left over from the
initial crime scene processing. And that DNA, Wichita
Police Department
00:25:52
sent to a private lab. They conducted an analysis
of that DNA, which we then were able to get a
copy of and submit
00:26:00
to consumer genomic sites. And from that point, we
can find potential matches, family matches, to
the unknown subject
00:26:11
and then begin building a family
tree of that unknown subject to try to identify
who he or she is.
00:26:20
NANCY GRACE: Wichita, Kansas
investigators now believe new forensic science could
help them identify the man
00:26:27
who savagely raped and
murdered a 20-year-old girl, Krista Martin. At the same time,
Krista's family
00:26:36
is reaching out to police. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives". [THEME TONES] [TENSE MUSIC]
00:26:52
NANCY GRACE: Wichita,
Kansas, 2020, investigators using the forensic
science of genetic genealogy
00:26:58
to try to ID a man who
murdered 20-year-old Krista Martin back in 1989. At the very same time, Krista's
niece calls out to Wichita
00:27:11
Police to offer her support. EMBER MOORE: I decided to
reach out to the police because I had outlived her.
00:27:20
I was 21, and she was 20
when she was murdered. That's just what kind of made
me want to reach out to them.
00:27:30
Ember's been the driving
force for justice for Krista. Ember has been the
one that has poked,
00:27:36
and prodded, and asked a lot
of questions over the years. She kind of had this burning
desire to get justice
00:27:42
or answers for her aunt. And so I think that's
what led her to, kind of, ask more questions
of the investigators.
00:27:50
We were working on
this case in 2020. But I think she reached out
in 2021 with more questions
00:27:55
and asking for more information. I met with detectives
several times. And we collected names from some
of her friends and, you know,
00:28:07
went and got DNA samples
from those people. All the ones that we
collected were ruled out.
00:28:14
Her and I would communicate
through email from time to time. And, you know, we would keep her
up to date as much as we could.
00:28:21
My fear was, I don't
want to get you excited until we know
something for sure. I don't want you to get excited
just to be let back down again.
00:28:30
NANCY GRACE: Some progress is
made, but investigators still cannot make a solid match.
00:28:37
RODERICK MILLER: Through the
entire investigative process, Adam and Agent Davis, you know,
they went to numerous states,
00:28:46
interviewing numerous
people, you know, taking voluntary DNA samples,
uploading those samples,
00:28:52
just to see how close they are
getting within this family tree. DAN HARTY: I did bug
Adam quite a bit,
00:29:00
because this case was
very important to me and I was hoping to get answers. So anytime I ran
into him, I would ask
00:29:06
him for an update on the case. And he would tell me,
it's just-- everything was moving kind of
slowly, but they
00:29:13
were working,
building family trees, and they would keep
plugging along. After a year or two, I
started thinking, man, I don't
00:29:21
know if we're gonna get it yet. But eventually, he told me that
they were getting very close.
00:29:26
And at that point, I started
bugging him a little bit more, because I was excited about the
direction the case was going.
00:29:32
[INTRIGUING MUSIC] ADAM VAN DER MOLEN: We were told
that Othram was the go-to lab,
00:29:38
that they were one of the labs
that was premier in this field of genetic genealogy.
00:29:43
We were told that
they do fantastic work with limited amounts of DNA. COLBY LASOYNE: When an evidence
item, such as skeletal material,
00:29:51
or maybe a blood card, or
whatever the case may be is provided, we
work to extract DNA.
00:29:57
And we have a process known
as a suitability analysis. And that allows us to look at
the DNA that has been extracted,
00:30:03
and really understand
the characteristics that will help to inform
our downstream process.
00:30:09
And that downstream process is
the DNA profile development. Forensic-grade genome
sequencing is a set
00:30:16
of processes in
the lab that allow us to work on every
imaginable type of DNA. Once forensic-grade genome
sequencing was completed
00:30:27
to develop a DNA
profile, that DNA profile was transferred to the FBI's
forensic genetic genealogy team.
00:30:34
The FBI's team did their
work and their research to determine a name
or a possible name
00:30:41
for the individual. And it was in April of 2023,
when they reached out and said,
00:30:47
hey, we've been doing some
looking into this Hart family. And they're not
really from Wichita.
00:30:54
They're from Arkansas,
but there is a guy that sticks out in our tree. His name is Paul Hart.
00:31:00
And he lived in Wichita in 1989. [SINISTER MUSIC] I wish I remembered where
I was or what I was doing.
00:31:07
But when I heard that, I
was like, this is our guy, 'cause what I have
learned through genealogy
00:31:12
is it's all about location,
location, location. And when you find
that person who
00:31:19
is in the location at
the time of your murder, that is who you
need to look into.
00:31:23
And so when I heard that
Paul lived six houses around the corner from Krista
at the time of her murder,
00:31:30
I knew that we were
on to something. We needed to explore
this option, for sure.
00:31:34
It was the break that
we had been looking for. NANCY GRACE: Detectives believe
they have identified a prime
00:31:41
suspect in the brutal murder of
a 20-year-old girl, a beautiful, young girl, Krista Martin.
00:31:49
Is this another dead end? Or have investigators
finally caught up with a ruthless killer?
00:31:56
We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives". [THEME MUSIC] [TENSE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Wichita,
Kansas, 2023,
00:32:12
Wichita Police believe they
have identified the savage killer of a 20-year-old girl,
Krista Martin, murdered in 1989.
00:32:23
The perp's name, Paul Hart. Detectives have a DNA sample
from the original crime scene.
00:32:31
They now use the science of
investigative genetic genealogy to create a family tree.
00:32:39
They want to see if that
tree leads to Paul Hart. When doing forensic genetic
genealogy, a lead is developed.
00:32:50
And there needs to be
confirmation testing throughout the process to
really hone in on the person,
00:32:56
the identity of the individual. So in this particular
case, investigators were able to collect samples
from relatives of Paul Hart
00:33:04
to help to confirm his
identity as the person responsible for Krista's murder. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
trying their best
00:33:12
to track down Paul Hart. As they dig deeper, they
get devastating news. JONATHAN DAVIS: Paul's
name had come up as one
00:33:23
that would fit, potentially. And while we were doing
the background of it, that's when Detective Van Der
Molen notified me that he had
00:33:32
died in a car accident in 1999. MICHAEL HENNESSY: When I found
out the identified suspect
00:33:37
in this case actually died
some years ago, it kind of made my heart sunk, you know?
00:33:42
I wanted to know why, you
know, how they knew each other, how they met, and why
did you have to do this?
00:33:47
And, you know, it was
a burning question that most anybody would have,
especially for the family.
00:33:52
But it was unfortunate, he
got away with something. But he made his demise
a little too early.
00:33:58
The suspect was
never known to us. He was never on our radar, which
kind of explains, you know,
00:34:02
why we couldn't find Krista's
killer among her circle of acquaintances. ADAM VAN DER MOLEN:
June 13, 2023,
00:34:12
we get the go-ahead to go to
Arkansas to meet with the Hart family, to try to track down
anybody that's still alive
00:34:18
that would know who Paul was. And so, as you can imagine,
for the entire trip down there,
00:34:24
I'm trying to wrap
my head around, how can I break this news
to this family, right?
00:34:28
Because we've already got one
distraught family in Wichita, being Krista Martin's
family, and now I'm
00:34:34
getting ready to go break the
news to this other family who's getting ready to
become completely
00:34:39
blindsided by this information. [OMINOUS MUSIC] His daughter agreed
to meet with us.
00:34:48
And when I laid everything
out on the table for her, she explained her
family history for us.
00:34:54
She explained who her dad
was, what her dad did. She was over-the-top
cooperative.
00:35:04
Paul's wife wasn't a part
of the original interviews that we had done. She wasn't there
with her daughter.
00:35:09
And so I gave her
my phone number. I said, hey. I said, here's my number. I said, if you talk to
your mom and you come up
00:35:15
with any new
information or anything that would be beneficial, shoot
me a text or give me a call.
00:35:19
And so we're still in Arkansas,
doing some more interviews, and my phone is blowing up.
00:35:24
And it's Paul's daughter calling
me and texting me, saying, hey, I've talked to my mom.
00:35:29
And it turns out, my
dad was a truck driver. He was working for this
trucking company in Arkansas
00:35:35
and ran away to Kansas with
his boss's wife at the time. Paul's wife provided me
with a couple postcards
00:35:46
that Paul and this woman
had sent back to his family, with an address here in
Kansas, that said that this is
00:35:51
where they had settled down to. And I said, well, they
ran to Kansas for what? She said, this lady got a job
working on a pig farm in Kansas.
00:36:00
That's how they
ended up in Kansas. And so what turns
out to be a job that she takes here in
Kansas leads them to Wichita.
00:36:09
It was a confirmation that we
were looking for, that we knew it no longer was it just,
you know, speculation
00:36:15
or a record on a computer
that said he was here. It was real-life proof
that he was in Kansas
00:36:22
and had some sort of
tie to this state, which was the only tie out of all
of the thousands of people
00:36:28
that we had looked at, it was
the only person that had a tie to Kansas in that time period.
00:36:33
We had gotten a DNA
swab from the daughter to put into a consumer
genomics website.
00:36:39
We got those results that
showed that she was the daughter of our murder suspect.
00:36:46
And so we went back in August of
2023, to this town in Arkansas, to get an actual a buccal
swab from the daughter,
00:36:56
from the mother,
that we could then compare to do a paternity test
in order to confirm that we
00:37:04
have the correct person. And we're able to
triangulate those results to show, within 99%
certainty, that he
00:37:12
is the father of this female. MICHAEL HENNESSY: We knew enough
about the evolution of DNA
00:37:19
back then to know that
it's gonna evolve, it's gonna get better. But I had no idea it was
gonna get to the point
00:37:25
where it's about a
microscopic piece of DNA can identify people
just right off the bat.
00:37:31
But I knew that sometime
it would come in handy. Years later, it
certainly paid off.
00:37:40
RODERICK MILLER: Once we
found out that Paul Hart was our suspect, we notified Marc
Bennett with the Sedgwick County
00:37:46
District Attorney's Office. And we met with him, told
him the facts of the case,
00:37:51
and he concurred that if
Mr. Hart was alive today, that he would accept
murder charges
00:37:58
and he would file murder
charges against Mr. Hart. MARC BENNETT: There's no
connection to the two of them
00:38:04
that we could account for. It may have been a
crime of opportunity. Perhaps he saw her
outside, got her attention.
00:38:11
Maybe he followed her in. But when someone takes the time
to sexually assault somebody
00:38:19
and use a blunt instrument of
some kind to end their life, there is an element of
premeditation to that certainly.
00:38:24
And it certainly would have been
something we could have alleged. We would have either charged
it as a premeditated murder
00:38:30
or at the very least, what we
call a felony murder, which is a homicide, an
intentional killing that
00:38:34
takes place during the
course of a sexual assault. We met with our
city law department,
00:38:40
just to let them know
what we've learned during the investigation. We have identified a suspect.
00:38:47
We've met with Mr. Bennett,
and we're going to the public and announcing this. And we got the green light
from our law department
00:38:56
to proceed with that. And October 2nd of 2023,
which is the anniversary, we announced that we had
solved the cold case.
00:39:05
[SOMBER MUSIC] JONATHAN DAVIS:
You know, a family, not having answers for so long.
00:39:10
At some point, if you feel
confident in what happened and knowing what
happened, then I
00:39:15
think that can bring
some sort of closure to a wound that has been
present for 30 years.
00:39:25
EMBER MOORE: I was in shock for
a couple of days after that. But yes, I do have--
00:39:30
I do have closure from that. A lot of her friends
were given closure and they were happy
that it was over.
00:39:40
LEANNA FRAHM: Mentally,
it took a toll on me, because like I said, it
changed how I perceived people.
00:39:50
I'm always worried
something's gonna happen to somebody else in our family. I'm protective of everybody.
00:40:02
And I just want to make
sure that nothing like this ever happens again to
anybody that I know.
00:40:09
I just think to myself
that I'm in the same area that she was at one point,
and that makes me smile.
00:40:21
NANCY GRACE: For Ember
Moore, the long search for her aunt's killer is finally
over, 34 years after it began.
00:40:31
Ember and the
Wichita investigators finally know, 100%
sure, Paul Hart murdered Krista Martin back in 1989.
00:40:43
Hart is now dead, but a sort
of justice is still served. Science and a relentless
team of investigators
00:40:53
finally crack a case that
may never have been solved. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives".
00:41:05
[THEME TONES] [THEME MUSIC]