00:00:00
[TENSE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: March 21, 1994. Borrego Springs,
San Diego County. A local woman in this
quiet desert town
00:00:20
discovers her elderly
neighbor savagely murdered in her own home. It could have been
somebody who she trusted,
00:00:29
somebody she
employed, a neighbor. Everybody was blaming people,
different people in town.
00:00:36
NANCY GRACE: The
murder investigation goes cold for nearly 30
years, until DNA advancements
00:00:43
crack the cold case wide open. These cold cases, they're
extraordinarily difficult.
00:00:50
They go cold for a reason. BRIAN PATTERSON: I've
been around since DNA started in this profession.
00:00:58
I mean, it's literally getting
better as we sit here and speak. NANCY GRACE: This is the
story of a 28-year-old murder,
00:01:07
and the decision to use
groundbreaking forensic science to try and solve it. I'm Nancy Grace.
00:01:14
This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] [GENTLE MUSIC] Borrego Springs, San
Diego County, California.
00:01:45
It's a small desert town
two hours from San Diego. It's actually located
in a state park.
00:01:54
JEFFREY VANDERSIP: Borrego
Springs is patrolled by our rural division. There are a few
crimes out there,
00:02:00
burglaries, thefts,
those kinds of things, but violent crime is very rare. NANCY GRACE: In 1994, a local
resident, Claire Holman,
00:02:10
lives by herself
in Borrego Springs. She's known by neighbors
as Kay, and she's very well-liked by all the
people in the small community.
00:02:19
Claire was 72 years old. She was a retired hairdresser. She had managed a shop
in Borrego Springs.
00:02:28
She lived on her own. Her husband Homer
had died in 1980, so she'd been widowed
for quite a while.
00:02:35
She actually taught at the
beauty school in Anchorage for some time. And she would go to
California for shows,
00:02:44
and she met a person
there who eventually hired her to manage a
beauty shop that he
00:02:52
was opening in Borrego Springs. I get this
impression from her-- especially someone who's
drawn to that lifestyle
00:02:58
in the desert-- that she was a bit of a free
spirit, but she liked people. You don't go into hairdressing
if you don't like people.
00:03:06
And especially in a
small town like that, she was well-situated
to hear everything
00:03:12
that was going on in the town. BRIAN PATTERSON: A lot
of people knew her. She was known to have money.
00:03:17
She would lend
money to the locals if they needed it, but did
expect to get it paid back.
00:03:24
She didn't have any family
also living out there. But she had hired housekeepers
and the like who helped her out.
00:03:32
RAE ELLEN HOLMAN: This
couple, the husband was a gardener and the wife,
she would check her mail
00:03:35
and she would bring her
packages or whatever. It's a very small and
close-knit community,
00:03:42
and Claire Holman has
many friends who help out their elderly neighbor. 9:00 PM, March 21, 1994.
00:03:51
One of those neighbors,
Maria, makes a routine visit to Claire Holman's home,
and what Maria finds
00:03:59
there is horrific. She lived alone in a small
house with a fence around it. Generally, she would
keep the gate closed.
00:04:11
When her friend came over to
check on her, the gate was open. She went in the back.
00:04:18
The front door was locked,
and went in the back, and found her deceased
in her bedroom.
00:04:23
JOAN RENNER: There was a
ligature around her neck, so she'd been strangled. It was just-- it was horrifying.
00:04:31
The bedroom she
was in was ransacked. The rest of the house was
pretty well put-together
00:04:37
and everything was in order,
but the bedroom she was actually in, yes, it was ransacked.
00:04:42
It looked like
jewelry was stolen. There was talk that she owned
a handgun and it wasn't found,
00:04:48
and drawers were turned open. NANCY GRACE: Investigators
arrive at the scene and begin asking the
community if they've
00:04:55
seen anything suspicious. RAE ELLEN HOLMAN:
They told us, I guess, when we got there, that the kids
had seen a white pickup truck,
00:05:06
and it was around noontime. You know, it had happened
in the middle of the day. And my first inclination was
she probably owed them money,
00:05:16
and she didn't have it, so
they were looking for it and possibly got in an
argument and strangled her.
00:05:23
I didn't at all feel
that it was premeditated. NANCY GRACE: Word
spreads quickly
00:05:30
through this small community,
and residents are afraid there's a killer amongst them.
00:05:37
BRIAN PATTERSON: It just
made everybody nervous. When you read the old reports,
some people literally moved away
00:05:42
and they started
locking their doors, because there's an elderly
kind of defenseless lady
00:05:48
that wasn't in
the best of health that gets strangled and stabbed
and murdered in her own house.
00:05:55
I think they were devastated,
devastated at the loss. A lot of people would
have felt that they
00:06:00
lost a friend, a confidante. You know this place,
you know these people, and something this
awful could happen.
00:06:09
NANCY GRACE: Police question
Claire Holman's gardener. He's quickly cleared. Some in the community,
however, still suspect him.
00:06:19
RAE ELLEN HOLMAN:
I hadn't met him but I had heard all about him,
and my husband had met him
00:06:24
several times because
he-- over the years, he had visited his mother. And we were just
dumbfounded that--
00:06:33
that they would even think that. They left town. They moved to another town
because people were obviously
00:06:40
being very unpleasant about it. Sometimes there
was a focus on people just because where they're
from or what they look like.
00:06:51
Maybe your biases
lead you there. You do that and you
don't necessarily look for the other
clues that may lead you
00:07:00
in a very different direction. And of course, with
this case, you know, it led us to a very
different person
00:07:06
than the people that
were initially evaluated. The San Diego
sheriff's department
00:07:12
launches an investigation. A killer is on the loose. Will he strike again? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:07:21
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] [DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1994, Borrego
Springs, California.
00:07:32
A local woman makes
a horrible discovery. She finds her neighbor,
72-year-old Claire Holman,
00:07:40
brutally murdered
in her own bedroom. Police quickly arrive
to clear Holman's home.
00:07:47
So they're going to
process the whole crime scene for any kind of physical
evidence, fingerprints, blood.
00:07:53
BRIAN PATTERSON: She would
use rubber gloves a lot when she worked around
the house, latex gloves,
00:07:59
so there was a fingertip
of a latex glove ripped off in the doorway. They collected that.
00:08:05
They collected hairs, rape kit. They documented foot
impressions, tire impressions.
00:08:12
Collected somewhere around
a hundred items of evidence. The real physical evidence
that they found was really some
00:08:18
hairs that were not Claire's. And they, of course, they
tag and bag those to keep
00:08:24
them aside, just in case. NANCY GRACE: Unfortunately,
scientists cannot test the hair
00:08:31
for nucleotide DNA
because the hairs have been separated from the root. Investigators hope autopsy
will reveal more clues
00:08:41
about Claire Holman's killer. Near the end, when we're done,
the medical examiner comes,
00:08:47
and that's when we process
the body at the scene. They collect the body, bring it
back to the medical examiner's
00:08:52
office. We'll collect more
evidence there, fingernail scrapings,
hair samples, swabs of the genital
areas, then the autopsy
00:08:59
will then find the physical
reasons for the murder. They found the manner
of death to be homicide.
00:09:05
What they discovered is
that she had been strangled to death, been beaten
some, and she'd
00:09:11
also been sexually assaulted. NANCY GRACE: Investigators
must now notify Claire Holman's family of her murder.
00:09:18
The first person on the list-- Claire's son, Ralph,
who lives out of state. Kay's niece's husband called
my husband in Alaska at about 7
00:09:31
o'clock in the morning
to say he had received a call from the detective in San
Diego, and Kay had been murdered
00:09:38
and he should call
the detective. Here's his number. [SOMBER MUSIC] He called the detective, and
he explained that she had been
00:09:47
murdered the day
before, so we went down and we spent the
night at a motel. And then the next day,
we went over to the house
00:09:55
and met the detectives. I don't know if he
told us right then, but she had been strangled.
00:10:00
NANCY GRACE: Claire Holman's
son and her daughter-in-law now have the painful task of
cleaning up Claire's home.
00:10:10
RAE ELLEN HOLMAN:
About two weeks later, my husband and I went first and
got rid of all the furniture,
00:10:18
had the house cleaned. Another week went by, and
then my son and I went down and finished everything up.
00:10:23
It wasn't as
difficult for us as it would have been for my husband. [TENSE MUSIC]
00:10:30
NANCY GRACE: Detectives
begin the search for a killer by interviewing those
who knew Claire Holman.
00:10:38
JOAN RENNER: Like they start
any investigation in a homicide, you just start with the
person who found the body.
00:10:43
What is your connection
to the victim? Who do you know? Who do you know that she knows?
00:10:47
Do you know of any problems
that she had with anyone? And they just start
to work their way out.
00:10:52
It just goes in a circle. BRIAN PATTERSON: They start
interviewing, obviously, Maria, who found her.
00:10:59
Uh, she had a gardener. She had a plumber that would
work on her house routinely.
00:11:05
Uh, other-- the gardener
had his brothers, would occasionally
work there, also. And they would have talked
to people she knew wherever she
00:11:13
shopped for
groceries, um, people maybe who had been her
clients at the hair salon.
00:11:19
Anybody, anybody she knew. Any time she interacted with
someone at all, anywhere in town
00:11:27
or out that they
knew about, they would question that
person or those people to see what they could find out.
00:11:33
They have to know the
victim in some ways before they can find the killer. So they just start
to build it out.
00:11:43
See if anything,
if anyone clicks, if anyone seems a little off. And they were just
having no luck at all.
00:11:50
NANCY GRACE: San
Diego sheriffs are relentless in pursuing
the investigation, but all leads go cold.
00:11:59
JEFFREY VANDERSIP:
None of those persons of interest really panned out. And like so many cases where
there's an extraordinary amount
00:12:07
of attention at the
beginning, as time goes on, and as the leads dry
up, it's hard to revive
00:12:14
these cases to the point
where we can solve them. They had those hairs. That's something they
did have, but there
00:12:20
really wasn't anything else. There was no one who had
seen her with anyone, or no suspicious activity.
00:12:28
There just was nothing,
and the case goes cold. The case, basically it's
archived because they've
00:12:35
interviewed everybody they can. They've eliminated all
their people of interest.
00:12:44
When people think
cold case, maybe they think that the detectives
have set it aside.
00:12:49
They've only really set it
aside to work on current cases. They never forget it.
00:12:54
They're always listening. They're always
hoping for a lead. They're always hoping
someone will talk.
00:12:59
Maybe someone will confess. People sometimes come forward. There's always that hope.
00:13:05
So with a cold case,
they never forget it. NANCY GRACE: Fast forward, 2003. The case file for Claire
Holman's murder is reopened.
00:13:16
It's routine practice
for San Diego sheriffs to review cold cases. Could it be a new beginning
to catching her killer?
00:13:26
TIM CHANTLER: I think
with Claire Holman, like a lot of our cold cases,
every few years someone
00:13:30
will reopen the case,
read through it, go back and re-interview
some neighbors, family,
00:13:34
friends, people that knew her. So even when we
don't have new evidence we review the cases
anyway, because there may
00:13:40
be new interviews we could do. And maybe with those
new interviews, people who were reluctant
to talk 30 years ago
00:13:46
might be willing to say
something important now. NANCY GRACE: As DNA
technology continues
00:13:52
to advance at an amazing
rate, a new focus is given to cases that have gone cold.
00:14:01
TIM CHANTLER: DNA in
the early 2000s, for us, really became more prominent. We started doing a
lot of DNA testing
00:14:05
of older cases at that time. At the time in 1994, DNA
was really not anywhere close to what it is today.
00:14:13
Even if they hadn't
had that knowledge, good detectives have always
been very diligent about keeping
00:14:19
evidence, anything that might
come and point to a killer later on. You just don't know.
00:14:24
But with DNA, then there's a
real opportunity to find out. NANCY GRACE: Police once again
analyze evidence from the crime
00:14:32
scene back in 1994. This time, they discover
a male DNA sample located inside a rubber glove.
00:14:42
This sample is uploaded into
the CODIS national databank to see if there's a match.
00:14:49
BRIAN PATTERSON: CODIS is
a database that they put offenders' DNA in, and then when
you get DNA from a crime scene,
00:14:55
you'll put that DNA in and
it'll cross-reference those DNAs and see if there's somebody in
the system that's been arrested
00:15:02
before and can be identified. They did get a small profile,
and then later on they tested it
00:15:09
again and got a better
profile, and they ultimately were able to put
that profile into CODIS.
00:15:17
However, they
never got any hits. TIM CHANTLER: It's frustrating,
but it's also not that uncommon.
00:15:24
We have several cases that
have been in CODIS for years and we've never gotten a hit.
00:15:29
They did collect DNA from
all their suspected people, or people of interest, and
were able to eliminate them
00:15:35
over the years. So it went cold,
but it had been evaluated and
reevaluated several times
00:15:43
over the intervening years. But in the end, they
weren't able to develop any new leads that could point
us in the direction of who
00:15:54
did this. NANCY GRACE: San
Diego sheriffs have their own high-tech
in-house crime lab,
00:16:01
and it allows the
department to routinely utilize innovative methods to
test evidence from cold cases.
00:16:10
TIM CHANTLER: Crime
lab has grown, and it's been
financed by the county and the sheriff's department.
00:16:16
It works for us. They supply us with all the
resources we need to do, and it's nice to
keep it in-house.
00:16:22
So we have a
pretty advanced lab. There's a lot of stuff
we can do that maybe smaller departments can't.
00:16:27
But even then,
there's some testing that is so new and
cutting-edge that we have
00:16:31
to send out to outside labs. NANCY GRACE: 2018. Investigators learn of a DNA
tool that's revolutionizing
00:16:39
the outcome of cold cases. What is it? Investigative genetic genealogy. Genetic genealogy
is the use of DNA
00:16:50
and other records to
try and identify people. Then investigative genetic
genealogy, of course,
00:16:57
is that-- when you're then
using it in a forensic case. Basically, using
genealogy to help
00:17:05
identify a suspect, an unknown
suspect, or an unidentified Jane or John Doe. JOAN RENNER:
Genealogy, a lot of it
00:17:16
is, again, like any
detective on any side, just relentless pursuit of-- of an answer.
00:17:24
The case that really brought
this science to the forefront was the Golden State Killer
case, another California case,
00:17:31
known also as the
Original Night Stalker. BARBARA RAE-VENTER:
100-plus burglaries,
00:17:37
50 rapes, 13 murders. This guy is a bad dude. It was April 24 when he
was actually arrested,
00:17:49
and we had identified him
about a week previously. Just worldwide, everybody
went absolutely crazy,
00:17:55
because it was-- it was
just such an important case to have solved. That was the case that
sort of put IGG on the radar
00:18:04
for everybody else, and we
were like, what is this? We had had a conversation
where we kind of said,
00:18:10
we're not solving
these cold cases. They're extraordinarily
difficult. They go cold for a reason.
00:18:16
So when we heard about the
techniques that they used, we're like, let's go there.
00:18:22
Let's see what we can do. TIM CHANTLER: And so
we had detectives back at that time in
our administration
00:18:28
who really took this as
a new investigative tool and dove in
completely, and started
00:18:34
to learn how to
build family trees and just went all-in
on this new process. JEFFREY VANDERSIP: We figured
this was just another tool
00:18:40
that we needed to learn in
order to get the answers that we were looking for. It's a really, really
dramatic leap forward,
00:18:49
I think, for science and
for solving cold cases. NANCY GRACE: San Diego
sheriffs ask Barbara Rae-Venter
00:18:58
to help them tackle the science
of investigative genetic genealogy. She's a noted genealogy expert.
00:19:06
One year earlier, she is
instrumental in helping track down the Golden State Killer.
00:19:13
Will the investigators now
catch the man who murdered Claire Holman back in 1994?
00:19:20
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [DRAMATIC MUSIC] [DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 2018, Borrego
Springs, California.
00:19:35
The San Diego sheriffs want to
use new forensic science to try and solve a number of cold
cases, including the 1994 murder
00:19:45
of 72-year-old Claire Holman. We couldn't be
doing any of this unless we had the support of
the administration to do it,
00:19:56
because they could
easily say it's not a good investment of
time, investment of money,
00:20:02
investment of personnel. But the captain at the time
said, well, try one case. So we went through
all the cold cases,
00:20:10
and in order for this
whole process to work, you have to have enough DNA. So the ones with no
DNA, we put aside.
00:20:19
NANCY GRACE: The sheriff's
department now prioritizes those cold cases
that could be solved
00:20:25
by investigative
genetic genealogy. JEFFREY VANDERSIP:
The big unknown for us was the
genealogy, and that's
00:20:33
the learning curve for us. It took us 16 months
to solve our first case and then it just kind
of went from there.
00:20:40
NANCY GRACE: After
solving five cold cases using investigative
genetic genealogy,
00:20:46
San Diego detectives focus
on the Claire Holman murder. JEFFREY VANDERSIP: Claire
Holman's case was just
00:20:53
one of many that we
evaluated and thought that we could use for this. So as we went on with
the cases, her case
00:21:01
eventually bubbled
up to the top, and she became the next one. And this was a case that
had DNA in CODIS, a profile.
00:21:09
So it was a good candidate
to try to use genealogy. [AMBIENT MUSIC] The problem was
extract from the glove
00:21:20
was all used up at the time. And there wasn't any other DNA. The analysis that's
done so that we
00:21:32
can do genealogy, a different
process of evaluating. BARBARA RAE-VENTER: The law
enforcement database, which is
00:21:38
the CODIS database, it's STRs. It's not SNPs. And the databases
that are the consumer
00:21:46
databases, those are
all SNP profiles, so they're totally
different DNA. The problem is the CODIS
database has to be an exact hit.
00:21:55
So all you know when you run the
autosomal STRs against the CODIS database is that
your person does not
00:22:03
match with the crime scene
DNA, because the crime scene DNA is in CODIS. With the STRs,
you're not learning
00:22:12
anything about the person. With the SNP profile, you
can tell from the amount of matching DNA how
closely they are then
00:22:20
related to the crime scene DNA. If your trees are right, then
you're probably pretty close.
00:22:25
You could be looking at a
sibling or maybe a cousin, so it gives you a lot more
information than the STRs do.
00:22:33
NANCY GRACE: Now detectives
face another challenge. Is there enough DNA recovered
from the crime scene
00:22:40
to run this more advanced
method of DNA testing? BRIAN PATTERSON: There was a
hair recovered from her back.
00:22:49
JEFFREY VANDERSIP: And
it was unrooted hair. Rooted hair is much
easier because you
00:22:55
have the root from the scalp. But unrooted hair, up until
a couple of years ago,
00:22:59
was difficult if not impossible. BARBARA RAE-VENTER:
But that DNA is really good DNA because it's
protected within the hair shaft.
00:23:06
When we started out,
you had to use about 20 to 200 nanograms of DNA. Now you can do it
with picograms of DNA.
00:23:17
So a nanogram is 10 to
the minus ninth gram, so you got nine
zeros in front of it.
00:23:22
And then a picogram is 12. It's probably about
six cells' worth. We're not sure
if the technology
00:23:31
is there to extract
the DNA we want from this piece of evidence. And some companies say
they think we can do it,
00:23:36
but we're going to use
all of that sample. So then we have to
make a decision-- if we want to do it now and
risk it, or save it for later.
00:23:46
BARBARA RAE-VENTER: Is it
worth it to take the risk, particularly when
you're down to the--
00:23:49
the dregs of what you
have, and you know you're going to be consuming it? Do you want to consume
it or do you want to wait
00:23:55
for the next best thing? Technology is progressing
so fast that at this point we have to weigh the factors.
00:24:01
In some of these cases, if
we don't have a lot of DNA or if it's degraded, do we wait?
00:24:08
Because in six months,
things might be better. If we have a case that's
20, 30, 40 years old,
00:24:15
maybe the last chance to catch
a suspect who's still alive. And so sometimes we
may take that risk.
00:24:20
In 2022, it's time for San
Diego sheriffs to roll the dice. They decide to test that
last piece of DNA evidence
00:24:30
from Claire Holman's
murder scene. The answer to a 28-year-old
cold case is at stake.
00:24:39
That hair was submitted to get
a SNP profile to work genealogy, and we got a profile
and we were able to work
00:24:46
the case from there. [TENSE MUSIC] JEFFREY VANDERSIP:
These cases often turn on the foresight of
the original detectives
00:24:56
and the original criminalists
to gather DNA and preserve it in a very careful way.
00:25:03
If we don't have
that, 40 years later, we don't have DNA to
use for our next moves
00:25:11
in these kinds of
investigations. NANCY GRACE: The SNP
profile is uploaded and cross-referenced
against commercial DNA
00:25:19
databases for a possible match. BARBARA RAE-VENTER: So the unit
of measurement that is used
00:25:26
is the centimorgan. It's-- it has to do with the
probability of recombination. So if you've got a very
short segment of DNA,
00:25:36
the likelihood of
recombination is very low, so that's then a
low centimorgan. Um, if you've got a
long stretch of DNA,
00:25:45
the possibility of it
actually then connecting to another strand from--
from the related chromosome
00:25:52
is fairly high, and then you
get a high centimorgan value. And so the more centimorgans
of matching DNA you
00:25:59
have, then the closer, generally
speaking, you're related. So this case
went fairly quickly
00:26:05
because we had a very
good centimorgan hit, and our analyst Jeff
starts researching
00:26:10
people related to this person. So in this particular
case, it was kind of unusual.
00:26:19
The suspect's
unknown and there was a 685-centimorgan relationship. It was this really
high match, and then
00:26:27
a lot of distant relatives. We didn't have other
matches to help guide us. We just had this one high match.
00:26:37
We just started
working the trees, and once we learned the
identity of the person who
00:26:44
was this high match,
we started with her. She was our ground zero. We needed to build
her tree because we
00:26:51
knew that somewhere in her
family system lived the suspect. [GENTLE MUSIC] When they started to
build the family tree out,
00:27:04
I think they had 118 people. They start to bring it
in and hone in on it. And usually what
will happen in cases
00:27:10
like this is that they'll narrow
it to just a few family members, because they look
at people related
00:27:16
by marriage, related by blood. JEFFREY VANDERSIP: It was a
little hard because the match
00:27:20
was also born out
of wedlock, so you can't assume that what we
think is her father really
00:27:28
is her father. And we're interested in
blood relationships, not family relationships.
00:27:36
So it took us a little
time to get past that, but once we were, then it
really kind of resolved itself.
00:27:41
JOAN RENNER: When I look
at some of the charts I've seen for this genealogy
stuff, it's amazing to me
00:27:47
that anyone has the
patience to go through so many people and so many steps. But they do it because they
feel passionately about--
00:27:55
I think about getting
justice for people, and it's just an amazing thing
to put these things together.
00:28:01
I just can't imagine
the people that do-- actually do that research. It's just amazing.
00:28:07
It took us a little bit of
time because with just one, you don't know which
side of the family
00:28:14
you're going to
find this person. So you have to work
the maternal line, you have to work
the paternal line.
00:28:18
That's why you have to
know the case intimately, because geography
and age and time
00:28:25
frame all play into your
evaluation of these matches. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
finally have a solid match,
00:28:33
and they begin to build a family
tree in search of a killer. If you think that the suspect
was most likely a certain age,
00:28:42
and you know this crime happened
30 years ago, well, then when you actually are looking
at these real people,
00:28:49
and their ages, it helps
you sort of place them. BRIAN PATTERSON: So
you get a relative
00:28:56
and we start
researching that person, seeing if they have any
connection to Borrego Springs.
00:29:04
We get a connection to
Borrego Springs on a relative and then we start
investigating that way.
00:29:11
NANCY GRACE: Now
investigators are able to identify two potential
suspects, a grandfather
00:29:17
and his son, who both
lived in Borrego Springs at the time of the murder. We weren't sure if the son was
our suspect, or the grandfather.
00:29:30
We had to surreptitiously
go about collecting samples from those people. We will sometimes
pick up people's trash
00:29:39
and try and get a
sample off a discarded soda bottle, cigarette butts. Or other times, we will have
undercover officers and deputies
00:29:48
follow that person around and
collect a sample as they maybe go to a restaurant or
walk down the street,
00:29:53
and then test that
against the sample we had to see if
that was going to be a parent or a direct match.
00:30:02
So when we're trying
to get samples from the son and the grandson,
we got the son's first,
00:30:07
and we matched
that to our sample that we had for our suspect. The genetic match
was father to son,
00:30:14
so we knew that the
grandfather was our suspect. Now they have a guy. [TENSE MUSIC]
00:30:23
JEFFREY VANDERSIP: Jerry Robison
ended up being our suspect. NANCY GRACE: A
grandfather is now
00:30:30
the prime suspect
in the brutal murder of 72-year-old Claire Holman. His name, Jerry Robison.
00:30:40
Now police have to find him. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [DRAMATIC MUSIC]
00:30:49
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 2022, Borrego
Springs, California. San Diego sheriffs utilizing
investigative genetic genealogy
00:31:03
to track down the brutal
killer of a 72-year-old woman, Claire Holman, all
the way back in 1994.
00:31:14
The forensic
technique allows them to narrow their
suspect list down to one man named Jerry Robison.
00:31:23
And we're able
to then, you know, definitively state that the
owner of the DNA in this hair
00:31:32
found at the crime scene,
and matching other elements, was indeed Jerry Robison.
00:31:40
A eureka moment. It's-- it's such a roller
coaster on these investigations, sometimes.
00:31:45
Constant up and down on where-- until you finally do
identify the person. NANCY GRACE: Since there was no
sign of forced entry at the 1994
00:31:55
crime scene, detectives
look into the background of Jerry Robison. Did he know Claire Holman?
00:32:04
BRIAN PATTERSON: He
lived in Borrego Springs. He was a plumber by trade. And she was having plumbing
issues on a regular basis
00:32:11
at her house, so
one of the plumbers there would come
and fix her house. So we believe that he might have
been there before and actually
00:32:19
done work on her house. And that's how he knew of her. He knew where she lived. He knew maybe a little
bit about her routine.
00:32:26
He wasn't next door,
but he lived very close. I believe that there were
some sections of her property
00:32:35
where you can see the house that
he was living in at the time that this crime was committed.
00:32:42
He was on the
original suspect list. [OMINOUS MUSIC] It's a tiny town. And again, they were looking
at anyone she interacted with.
00:32:53
So the fact that
there wasn't a break-in, given what we now know about
him, wasn't a surprise at all.
00:33:04
We started digging into
his life intensively. JEFFREY VANDERSIP: He, um,
had a drinking problem.
00:33:11
He was kind of a quiet guy. He did have a violent history. When he was married to his son's
mother, he was very violent.
00:33:21
And then they separated
and she took the kids, and then he lived
in Borrego Springs.
00:33:27
When he was younger, in his
20s, he lived in Ventura County. And he was arrested there
for an attempted burglary.
00:33:34
JEFFREY VANDERSIP: He did
have a criminal history but it was fairly minor. Um, you have to remember that
if it had been fairly major,
00:33:41
we probably would have
had his DNA on file and would have been able
to match it to the DNA
00:33:45
from the crime scene. Once we focused on his life,
and we focused on his life from the beginning, we realized
that he had a violent history
00:33:54
within his family and that
even though it hadn't perhaps gotten to the level where law
enforcement were aware of that,
00:34:01
that didn't make it any
less real for the people who were impacted by that. So learning that definitely
helped in putting together
00:34:11
a proper profile of Jerry. JOAN RENNER: He's
a hard person to-- to find in records, so
it's hard to say what--
00:34:22
where this came
from, where this-- where this murder came from. Because we're trying to
develop probable cause.
00:34:31
It's up to the courts to
decide that they're ultimately responsible or not, but
do we have probable cause
00:34:36
to make an arrest? And we had enough
evidence, we thought. And then we look,
well, where is he?
00:34:45
[AMBIENT MUSIC] This case was resolved in 2022. He had died 15 years before. JOAN RENNER: In the time
in between, in 2007,
00:34:59
he died of cancer. So once we determined
it was him, obviously, we can't prosecute
a deceased person.
00:35:08
So we still do our due diligence
and collect as much evidence and build the case to a point
where we're comfortable that we
00:35:18
have identified the suspect. A lot of the individuals
that we've identified have,
00:35:22
you know, sort of died
themselves in-- in violent ways. But this individual
actually lived, you know,
00:35:29
a number of years after
Claire was killed. And as I remember, I think
died in the community
00:35:38
in which this crime occurred. NANCY GRACE: San Diego
sheriffs identify a killer.
00:35:45
His death, however, still
leaves so many questions about Claire Holman's murder.
00:35:53
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [DRAMATIC MUSIC] [DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 2022.
00:36:06
The San Diego
sheriffs now identify the killer of 72-year-old
Claire Holman in 1994.
00:36:15
His name, Jerry Robison. Detectives must now tell
Claire's family they finally know who took her life.
00:36:27
BRIAN PATTERSON:
It's very rewarding to be able to sit down
and tell them, hey, we've been working on this case.
00:36:32
Uh, we believe this
person is the person that killed your loved one,
and give them as much detail
00:36:39
as we can. Obviously, we can't talk to
the person if they're deceased and find out what
happened, but we can--
00:36:46
we get a pretty good timeline. And through interviews of
friends, family, neighbors,
00:36:53
I'll interview
whoever I can to try to get a history on this
person and understand
00:36:59
what happened that day. Brian Patterson called
and told me who it was, and that he was a
plumber, and probably he
00:37:09
had done work for her. And he also said
that he had died, but that his son told
the detective that he
00:37:17
wasn't a very nice person. My husband died in 2020. There's a part of
you that, especially
00:37:30
him, that would always wonder. Yeah, he-- he would have
liked to have known. [CHUCKLES] But.
00:37:42
[SOMBER MUSIC] To her extended family, I'm
certainly sorry for their loss. And I'm pleased that we were
able to close this case,
00:37:56
that it's not a big
question mark hanging over the heads of the community,
the heads of the family members,
00:38:03
and over the heads of
the men and women who work in the homicide unit. NANCY GRACE: The cold case
team, very disappointed.
00:38:12
Jerry Robison will never
face justice for his crime. Nevertheless, they reflect on
the incredible advancements
00:38:22
in forensic technology,
advancements that allow them to finally close Claire's case.
00:38:30
BRIAN PATTERSON: I've
been around since DNA started in this
profession, and then it's
00:38:35
progressed to the
point where, I mean, it's literally getting better
as we sit here and speak.
00:38:41
Now if we get
really good matches, we can solve a case
in, oh, 24 hours. JEFFREY VANDERSIP:
The DNA doesn't lie.
00:38:50
If we didn't have the DNA,
barring some smoking gun that probably didn't exist, this
case probably would never
00:38:59
have been solved and we
would have spent our careers not knowing who did this. Her family would have spent
the entirety of their lives
00:39:08
not knowing who was
responsible for that. IGG was the last
resort, in a way. And I'm hoping, and we see this
more and more, that IGG isn't
00:39:18
just used for the cold cases. We don't have to wait 30 years
to say, well, let's use IGG now.
00:39:25
It's going to
be more difficult. I mean, you basically have
to wear a hazmat suit,
00:39:29
if you're going
to commit a crime and not leave any DNA
behind, because you're shedding hair all the
time, you're shedding
00:39:34
skin cells all the time. Um, and so as the techniques
become more and more sensitive,
00:39:39
yeah, it's going to
become more and more difficult to actually
be a criminal committing
00:39:43
these kinds of crimes. [SOMBER MUSIC] JOAN RENNER: I think what I'd
tell a perpetrator who hasn't
00:39:51
been caught yet and thinks they
haven't left any DNA behind, first of all, you're wrong.
00:39:56
You did. And secondly, I think,
um, never sleep well. You'll never sleep well
a night in your life,
00:40:05
because you only
had one opportunity to commit this crime. Detectives have, literally now,
decades in which to solve it.
00:40:13
So you'll never sleep well,
and I think that's fine. NANCY GRACE: The murder of
anyone, no matter their age,
00:40:22
is always tragic. 72-year-old Claire Holman
was so loved by her family and her neighbors.
00:40:30
Out of this tragedy,
however, some good did come. Claire's case proves the
power of groundbreaking
00:40:40
forensic science. It's a science in which a
killer's own family tree brings him to justice, a
science that can solve
00:40:51
even the most difficult criminal
cases in days instead of years. I'm Nancy Grace.
00:40:59
Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives." [DRAMATIC MUSIC] [DRAMATIC MUSIC]
00:41:11
[THEME MUSIC]