00:00:00
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: New Year's Eve,
1983, Las Vegas, 22-year-old Diana Hanson's reported
missing when she fails
00:00:20
to return home to her family. Her family called the
police, and they were concerned
00:00:25
because they knew she
had went out jogging and that she did not
return from that jog.
00:00:30
NANCY GRACE: Police are
called to a brutal murder scene in the Nevada desert near
Spring Mountain and Buffalo.
00:00:39
It doesn't get
any worse than that. It really doesn't. Getting sexually
assaulted and murdered
00:00:46
is probably the worst thing
you can do to somebody, and to do it repeatedly,
I don't get that.
00:00:53
NANCY GRACE: This is the
story of Diana Hanson and how years after her
murder and brutal sex
00:01:00
assault, new
forensic genealogy is used to track down her killer. I'm Nancy Grace.
00:01:07
This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC PLAYING] Vegas, Nevada, 1983,
22-year-old Diana
00:01:38
Hanson is reported missing. She never comes home
from her daily run. She went out jogging
around her home.
00:01:48
She would wear a
Sony Walkman, which was another rage of
the 1980s and you could put the
headset on and listen
00:01:58
and be in your own world. KEVIN HANSON: I got the idea
to give her the headphones,
00:02:04
the Walkman, 'cause a lot of
people were jogging with those back then so they
could listen to music.
00:02:08
As I recall, she was
a pretty avid jogger. She jogged quite often but
nothing that stands out
00:02:15
that indicated
she had bad habits or hung out with bad people
or anything along those lines.
00:02:20
She was a successful college
student as far as I know. Diana was a creative young
lady, a journalism major.
00:02:30
She liked to have interior
design as part of her life. She created gifts that
she would give to people.
00:02:39
We didn't know each
other in our childhood. We just were in the
same dorm at North--
00:02:43
University of North Texas in
Denton, and we met in late '81 and dated off and on through '82
and then pretty solidly in '83.
00:02:59
We just hung out,
and we jogged a lot. We'd go to the pool. I was a lifeguard
at the pool there,
00:03:06
and she was a
wonderful young lady. She was-- she was a
year younger than me. We grew up in an
Air Force family,
00:03:16
so we moved around a lot. But she was my little
tattletale, always getting me in trouble, but when we
started getting older
00:03:26
and I started
getting to know her, I think she was a
genuinely kind person. RICH EMBERLIN: You
won't find anybody
00:03:34
that disliked her, not one. If you went and
found everybody that was in that college at the
time, not one person would
00:03:41
say I can't stand her, not one. I think we were
on our way to having that adult sibling relationship
where we would have
00:03:53
probably been best friends. RICH EMBERLIN: We talked on
the phone probably that day.
00:04:01
We tried to-- I tried to sneak
a phone call in every day, but it's long distance
back in the day and my dad
00:04:06
would stay on me,
give me five minutes. But I didn't know she was
going to go running that day,
00:04:13
but she did around 4:00 in the
afternoon and never came home. That was the one
day she decided
00:04:20
to jog without her friends so-- NANCY GRACE: When Diana
Hanson doesn't come home,
00:04:26
her parents rightfully
are concerned. They know inside
something is wrong. The worst nightmare
that a parent could have
00:04:37
is that the child goes missing,
but then within 24 hours, there was a report of
a dead body at Spring
00:04:47
Mountain Road and Charleston. That area at the time
in 1983 was very remote, and it was very--
00:04:57
very few people that would
be going into that area. And it was basically used
by a construction company
00:05:04
as a gravel pit where
they recovered and looked for rocks in the area. BRIAN OXMAN: It was
a desolate area.
00:05:13
It was wide open desert land,
and the police found a body. It turned out that it
was this young lady.
00:05:24
NANCY GRACE: When police
find Diana Hanson, they are met with a gruesome
scene, her murder obviously
00:05:34
very violent, her clothes gone. This is the work of a violent
sex predator front and center.
00:05:45
BRIAN OXMAN: She was
found completely naked, and she had been
stabbed multiple times.
00:05:52
RAY SPENCER: It was a
good mile and a half away from where she
was last seen jogging,
00:05:57
and her clothing was never
found at the crime scene. RICH EMBERLIN: People
that sexually assault take
00:06:02
every bit of clothes
off of people, but I believe she
only had a sock on. So she was fighting like--
00:06:10
she was fighting for her life. And that's what makes me
sad about this whole thing.
00:06:15
The last 15 minutes
of her life were hell. BRIAN OXMAN: She died
from the loss of blood.
00:06:23
The fact that a human
being loses so much blood, it is a horrific
scene, and the police
00:06:32
found her having bled to death
from multiple stab wounds. RAY SPENCER: It's a very
horrible situation when you
00:06:40
have to bring such bad news
to a family because, you know, there's no good way
or there's nothing
00:06:46
you can say that's gonna make
it any easier for them to cope. BRIAN OXMAN: To have to go
and identify your child,
00:06:56
I can't think of a
more tragic, a worse scenario, a life
experience that nobody should have to go through.
00:07:07
KEVIN HANSON: I don't
remember much about it. I just remember being in shock. They just told me
that it was her.
00:07:15
After some of the shock
wore off, you kind of-- I was trying to picture I
guess in my head what happened,
00:07:21
and I remember
thinking that she was probably calling out for me. You know, she's calling
for help, right,
00:07:30
and I'm her big brother and
I wasn't there to help her. NANCY GRACE: Vegas detectives
sift through what evidence is
00:07:36
left behind at the crime
scene, and they make a very surprising discovery. In this case, we
were trying to find
00:07:44
some forensic evidence
whether it be blood, semen, or things of that nature. So we got the search and
rescue team together,
00:07:53
and we just put
everybody in a line from where the body
was found and did what's called a wheel search.
00:07:59
They just go 360 around
where the body was found, and one of the guys
flipped over some palm--
00:08:07
discarded palm branches
and there the clothes was, folded rather neatly,
too, as I recall.
00:08:14
And that was always
something that stuck in the back of my
mind about the personality
00:08:18
of the individual. The police thought that was
very significant because it's sort of the mark of a killer.
00:08:25
Killers have an MO, a modus
operandi, where they tend to do things the same on each death.
00:08:35
The police thought this
was so strange that they then went and they teletyped-- teletyped.
00:08:43
I mean, we had fax machines. We had teletype machines. There was no internet. There was no email.
00:08:50
There was no instant
communication all around the world. You had to do a teletype,
a telex, to all the police
00:08:58
stations, hey, do you have any
cases which involve a killing where the clothes have
been neatly folded
00:09:07
up into a little pile and
placed under some debris near the body. Do you have anything like that?
00:09:14
They were hoping to
get leads in that way. Didn't happen. The key piece of evidence when
we found the clothes I think
00:09:21
it was one or two days later
and we found a bloodstain, and through examination,
we were told from the lab
00:09:33
that it was a mixture of
two different blood types. So we suspected that
at some point in time,
00:09:40
he either injured himself or she
injured him in the altercation. And-- but in 1983,
that wasn't much.
00:09:51
NANCY GRACE: Police began
by interviewing those people closest to Diana
Hanson including
00:09:58
her boyfriend Rich Emberlin. RICH EMBERLIN: My dad
said some detective wants to talk to you from Las
Vegas, and he got on the phone.
00:10:07
He said I'm sorry to tell you
Diana Hanson's been murdered. And I said, what
happened, and he wouldn't
00:10:12
give me any details obviously. It was so unbelievable, I wanted
to call him back to make sure,
00:10:19
and my dad said don't do that. It's true. It was just I'd never
been touched by death.
00:10:29
NANCY GRACE: A
22-year-old young woman, the victim of a violent
sex attack and murder.
00:10:36
A tiny spot of blood
not belonging to her is the single best
clue police have. The first stop for detectives,
the victim's boyfriend.
00:10:48
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING] New Year's Eve,
1983, Vegas police
00:11:04
discover the nude body of
22-year-old jogger Diana Hanson out in the desert. Diana Hanson, clearly the victim
of a violent and brutal sex
00:11:17
attack and murder
discovered when she never came home from her jog. Now police begin
their investigation
00:11:26
by interviewing those the
very closest to Diana Hanson. RICH EMBERLIN: The
boyfriend's always a suspect,
00:11:34
and they were probably
just trying to make sure I was where I was at. I think I was probably a
suspect for about an hour,
00:11:40
but I think they polygraphed
a previous boyfriend previous to me. And that's pretty serious to
get drug down and polygraphed.
00:11:48
They never did anything
like that to me. No follow up calls, no nothing. So the previous boyfriend
as part of the investigation
00:11:57
cooperated with
investigators, and he even passed a polygraph
examination so he could be
00:12:03
ruled out for his involvement. NANCY GRACE: Detectives very
quickly rule out Diana Hanson's
00:12:09
boyfriend as a suspect, and
there are not very many more obvious suspects in sight.
00:12:16
For Vegas police, it's time
to return to the crime scene, establish a timeline for
Diana's gruesome murder.
00:12:26
KEVIN HANSON: It
looked like at the time somebody was waiting for her. I think they found tracks
or something that there was
00:12:32
a vehicle waiting, and
then when she jogged by, I think he popped
out and grabbed her
00:12:38
and threw her in the car. BRIAN OXMAN: Tire tracks
are a notorious way of finding a killer
because what we can do
00:12:48
is we can find the
manufacturer of that tire based on the tread. And sometimes it's brand new
tread, which will tell us,
00:12:59
aha, check the new car dealers. Check the service stations and
the tire shops around town.
00:13:07
Who got this kind of tire
within the last 30 days or so if it's a brand new tire.
00:13:14
However, if it's
an old worn tire, our ability to find a lead based
on that becomes less and less.
00:13:26
TOM DILLARD: Did a lot
of research calling different manufacturers. We went to some
local places in town
00:13:30
with the photographs
see if we could determine the exact brand. I believe that we did.
00:13:35
They were pretty common
tires, so there was nothing really unusual about it. But we were trying to figure out
what type of vehicle it was on,
00:13:43
and we came to the
consensus that it was likely a van or a light truck. So then with that
information, then we tried
00:13:50
to find witnesses in the area. Nothing ever came
to fruition that got us pointed in any direction.
00:13:58
NANCY GRACE: Often the single
hardest time for investigators is when at some point
all their hard work
00:14:05
and efforts don't pay off. The community is
beginning to panic, and a crime victim
is laid to rest.
00:14:13
[MUSIC PLAYING] BRIAN OXMAN: In this case,
there were two funerals. There was one in Texas
University for all
00:14:21
of her friends
and the relatives, and then there was a
funeral in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, they
had an open casket.
00:14:30
RICH EMBERLIN: I'd never
seen that many students gathered around. And I remember that casket,
and I just remember thinking
00:14:41
my girlfriend's in a box. And I saw her family crushed. I was more or less in shock.
00:14:54
It came later, the
crushing, but I just looked at her family
and thought, golly,
00:15:00
these people are destroyed. You know, the injuries were
noticeable to the family that
00:15:12
took place during the murder. And you know that's just a
horrible thing for the family
00:15:18
to have to deal with, especially
during such a time of grief. KEVIN HANSON: You can't
believe you're there.
00:15:24
You can't believe
it's happening to you, and then you're just--
you're trying to figure
00:15:27
out what am I going to do next. I mean, how are we going
to go on without her? I think for me,
though, it was my mom
00:15:34
that I was worried about the
most because to lose a child is hard. But for I think to
mother to lose a daughter
00:15:40
might be probably
one of the hardest. RICH EMBERLIN: I don't
want to call it a luxury.
00:15:46
I get to go see her
every once in a while and clean up her tombstone
and make sure it's OK.
00:15:52
BRIAN OXMAN: The reaction of
a community to a young girl being stabbed to death, being
raped, and literally being
00:16:02
mutilated in the process is
so horrific that the community can't comprehend it. It doesn't make sense.
00:16:11
People shake their head,
and they wonder what is it that our society has become.
00:16:18
Why are we this way? Well, it was that way 50 years
ago, and it is that way today.
00:16:26
I guess this is just
the way life is, but I don't think I'll
ever get used to it.
00:16:32
And nobody ever get used
to it, and the Las Vegas community, they were shocked. I just thought that she was
out jogging and got murdered.
00:16:43
I didn't know about
sexual assault. I didn't know the
manner she was stabbed. I didn't know the manner
in which she got killed.
00:16:52
I didn't know any of that
until I came to Vegas in '89 with a bunch of cops for
the first time in one
00:17:00
of those inexpensive trips. And we stayed at the Four
Queens Hotel downtown, and the first morning I
woke up, this is-- we didn't
00:17:08
have the internet, you know. You couldn't-- I would call
the detectives, and they'd say
00:17:11
there's no changes. There's no changes. And I open up my window,
and there was the Las Vegas
00:17:16
Metropolitan Police Department,
like, right down the road and I went I'm going to go
over there and talk to them.
00:17:21
And I went over there
and I walked in, and the lady was real nice. And what I did not know is
they had just done a crime
00:17:29
re-enactment of her killing. They called it the JK
Killer, the Jogger Killer. And I didn't think this lady
would know anything about it,
00:17:37
and I said I want to talk to
somebody about a homicide which is probably not the
smartest thing to say
00:17:41
to a secretary in homicide. She goes which one. I go, well, it
happened six years ago.
00:17:48
Her name was Diana Hanson,
and she went hang on a second. He became a policeman himself.
00:17:54
It was Diana's death which made
him feel that he needed to do something to be
able to contribute
00:18:03
his skills, his knowledge, his
motivations of solving crimes. And they go you wanna talk
about the Hanson murder.
00:18:10
I said hold on guys. I pulled out my badge. I go I'm a police officer. Detective Dillard was there,
and he remembered my name.
00:18:19
And he says come on upstairs. We'll show you the case
file, which is shocking to me
00:18:24
that they would let me do that. They forgot to take the
pictures out of the crime scene,
00:18:29
but I think they wanted
me to see how hard they had worked on the case. That case file was that thick.
00:18:36
There was another
smaller one next to it, and they said here's
the case file. And they slammed it
down in front of me.
00:18:41
They were real nice. They just wanted me to
see how hard they worked. And I went through
it page by page,
00:18:47
and they were really meticulous
all the way down to that Sony Walkman she had on.
00:18:52
They found the manufacturer
and who bought it, and I knew I wasn't
going to solve her case
00:18:56
and I didn't solve her case. I just called a
lot, but I didn't want there to be Diana
Hansons in my town
00:19:05
'cause it just hit
me really so hard. You read it in the newspaper
and it doesn't mean anything,
00:19:11
but when it happens to
you, that's when you go I gotta do something about this. TOM DILLARD: At
some point in time,
00:19:21
there's another one on your desk
and another one on your desk, and you have to move on.
00:19:26
We did everything we could do
with what we had to work with. We just weren't successful.
00:19:30
Investigators received a
lot of tips in this case, and none of the tips
though were anything
00:19:38
viable that were leading us
to any potential suspects. I don't remember at what
point it became a cold case,
00:19:45
but I do know that
the Las Vegas Police Department kept in
touch with my dad because my mom didn't wanna--
00:19:51
I guess I was-- my mom and
I were kind of the same. We kind of just buried it to a
degree, so they worked with him
00:19:59
and they kept in touch with him. I'd say at least every couple
of years, they updated him.
00:20:04
NANCY GRACE: Believe
it or not, it will take 40 years, a whole
new generation of detectives,
00:20:10
and brand new cutting-edge
forensic science to solve the violent
sex assault and murder
00:20:18
of 22-year-old
jogger Diana Hanson, as a matter of fact, the same
forensic science detectives
00:20:25
used to link Diana's case
to another brutal sex assault and murder. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:20:36
[MUSIC PLAYING] 2021, in Las Vegas,
Nevada, more than 40 years since two young women,
22-year-old jogger Diana
00:20:55
Hanson and 16-year-old
Kim Bryant, were murdered and sex attacked. Investigators, armed with
new forensic science,
00:21:05
genetic genealogy, link a
suspect to Kim Bryant's murder. But now they believe the
two cases are connected.
00:21:16
RAY SPENCER: I was involved
in the Diana Hanson case last year when we were actively
investigating Kim Bryant.
00:21:25
Kim Bryant was a
16-year-old girl who had been
murdered after she'd been kidnapped from a local
Dairy Queen here in Las Vegas.
00:21:34
We had solved that case as a
result of genetic genealogy. You will probably be surprised
to know that more times
00:21:42
than not when we identify
a perpetrator, especially from a sexual assault
homicide, they end up being
00:21:48
linked to other crimes as well. RAY SPENCER: So in the
Kim Bryant investigation,
00:21:54
we had used Othram Labs because
we had done that investigation with no leads, and Othram
believed that they would
00:22:03
potentially be able to make
us solve based upon genealogy and genetic genealogy work.
00:22:08
Their work on that
case led to us identifying Johnny
Peterson as the suspect in the murder of Kim Bryant.
00:22:15
Once we discovered the
perpetrator for Kim Bryant, that made news, and someone
called law enforcement.
00:22:23
[MUSIC PLAYING] So we received a phone call
from the ex-wife of Johnny Peterson who had watched my
press conference and gave that
00:22:32
information believing
that Johnny Peterson could be involved in another murder. Now the ex-wife did
not know the specifics,
00:22:41
but she did know that
there was a woman who had went missing at that time. After watching me give
the press conference,
00:22:48
she remembered that
back in 1983, she had found a Walkman radio
and a pair of panties
00:22:56
inside of his vehicle. And when confronted
about it, he basically said that his brothers
were playing tricks on him,
00:23:05
and she basically
dismissed it at that time because of the story that
he was able to provide.
00:23:10
And she was very young
and didn't know anything about the previous homicide. You know, I give a lot of
press conferences and news
00:23:19
interviews, and I intentionally
withhold information because I want to be able to
vet information as tips come in.
00:23:25
When a person calls and they
have information that is not publicly released and
those type of details,
00:23:32
those are things that we use
to make sure that the tip is, in fact, accurate. So when she gave
information that, one,
00:23:41
she was the ex-wife of
Johnny Peterson and the fact that she had found
a Walkman and a pair
00:23:48
of panties that she thought
were potentially related was very concerning. And with the information
that she provided,
00:23:56
that made us think that
there's a potential link, and we had DNA evidence
that was stored that we then
00:24:04
did a comparison between
Johnny Blake Peterson's DNA and the DNA that was found at
the murder of Diana Hanson.
00:24:13
NANCY GRACE: There is not
a single police department with unlimited funds to pay
for the expense of science
00:24:20
a private company can offer. In Las Vegas, a group
of concerned citizens decide to help.
00:24:28
They call themselves the
Vegas Justice League, and their donations
to private labs
00:24:35
make a dramatic
impact in bringing cold cases back to life. LYDIA ANSEL: Vegas Justice
League is a group of people who
00:24:45
have philanthropic
hearts and souls and who want to help
the community often in many ways, not just through
the Vegas Justice League,
00:24:54
and what the Vegas
Justice League does is give a $5,000 donation
that goes directly to Othram.
00:25:00
And then Othram will
go to the local PD and ask for cases, cold cases,
that they say are now fully
00:25:07
funded, and they say, you
know give us your cases, whatever you want. You choose for us.
00:25:11
We don't know as the
Vegas Justice League. And hopefully they solve them. So we're very new.
00:25:17
We just got started, and already
we've had a couple of solves. We help southern Nevada
law enforcement agencies
00:25:24
work and solve cold
cases that have DNA evidence that's available
for genealogical DNA
00:25:32
testing and research. I really saw the closure that
was brought to the family, and I wanted to bring
that to more families.
00:25:40
KRISTEN MITTELMAN: Othram
is the only forensic DNA lab in the world that is purpose
built to identify victims
00:25:49
and perpetrators from
crime scene evidence, and we do everything
from the very beginning
00:25:55
from all the way from evidence
to the courtroom in-house. We're trusted with what very
little remaining evidence
00:26:02
is left to bring
answers to families, to bring people's stories. DAVID MITTELMAN: I did spend
some time running a research
00:26:10
facility at Virginia Tech,
and it was for the first time then that I was exposed to other
kinds of applications of DNA
00:26:18
testing biomedical science
that helped me develop and hone techniques that could be
used outside of traditional
00:26:25
biomedicine. And it was there that I
became aware of problems that involved, for example,
folks, that have never
00:26:31
been identified, crime scenes
that have rich information but that information hasn't
been uncovered or measured,
00:26:39
and these crimes go
unsolved for years. So I began to get an
appreciation of some
00:26:43
of these other problems that
could benefit from technology we'd built in
medicine but had never
00:26:47
been applied to forensics. This is a flow
cell, and so the way this works is that there's
this glass surface.
00:26:55
DNA is fragmented into
little pieces and then randomly positioned
kind of on an XY
00:27:01
grid on this glass surface. And so you synthesize the
complement to that DNA, and as you synthesize it,
you're using chemically modified
00:27:10
DNA letters that emit a color. If you take a bunch of
photos in every step of that,
00:27:15
you can essentially reverse
engineer the sequence of DNA that was originally any
XY position on this slide
00:27:23
and in parallel
measure all of them and reconstruct
it into something that represents a human genome.
00:27:29
And that represents the second
part of the challenge, which is the computational effort
to use computer software
00:27:35
and algorithms to look at
these little tiny pieces of DNA and then try to figure out
where each of these pieces
00:27:41
go, and those
positions that you're measuring where there
are differences, those are your DNA markers.
00:27:46
If you take about a couple
of 100,000 of those, those differences,
and you measure them,
00:27:50
then you can use that
to essentially infer how one person might be
related to another whether one
00:27:55
person was or was
not at a crime scene, and it just presents a more
powerful and complete view
00:28:01
of identity over, for
example, using 20 markers. CODIS DNA looks at
20 markers in the DNA,
00:28:08
and they're doing a one
to one comparison to known profiles in a database. We can't do a one
to one comparison
00:28:15
because we don't have known
profiles for these victims. We don't have known profiles
for these perpetrators.
00:28:21
They've already been run through
CODIS, and there is no hit. That when we build one
of these DNA profiles
00:28:26
and upload them to a
genealogical database, we'll be able to get enough
matches from everyone else that
00:28:33
is in the database to be able
to sort of tell you where that piece fits on
a genealogical tree
00:28:39
so that you can hone in to
the identity of that person. So what we're doing is trying
to figure out who someone is.
00:28:46
That's very different from
trying to figure out if someone is in a known
perpetrator database,
00:28:52
and so therefore we need
to look at a lot more markers in the human genome. DAVID MITTELMAN: Forensic
genetic genealogy
00:29:00
plays an important
role in helping identify people when
there's essentially an exhaustion of all the leads.
00:29:05
There's no one to exclude. There's no suspects. It's just an open ended
crime of which the suspect
00:29:12
is generally a random stranger. And sometimes it's
very, very critical. For example, in
Kim Bryant's case,
00:29:20
we were able to identify someone
that was never under suspicion. But then once that
person's identified,
00:29:25
they can be connected through
traditional forensic testing such as STR testing and
CODIS testing, and then
00:29:30
that same person was
connected without the use of forensic genetic genealogy
to Diana Hanson's crime.
00:29:36
You feel relieved
when you have so many potential
other suspects and now because of genetic genealogy,
we know for a fact.
00:29:46
who committed Diana's murder. And even I had to have, you
know-- step back for a second
00:29:51
and go through and spend an
hour walking through the case just so I could be informed
exactly how we got to Johnny
00:30:01
Peterson from all
the other suspects because just because
you have a name, you still have to make that
link with additional evidence
00:30:09
and make sure that the
person is responsible. You build a timeline,
and you look
00:30:14
and make sure that the person
were they here at the time, you know. Was there additional
information?
00:30:20
Was there any
potential witnesses? And the fact that his ex-wife
is able to put him at the scene
00:30:26
or put him in the city and the
headphones and the underwear, those type of details
corroborate the forensic
00:30:33
details that we already knew. RICH EMBERLIN: I called
in November 2021, and I just asked for
the cold case group.
00:30:42
And I left a message,
and this very nice detective called me back. And she said I think I
know about this case.
00:30:51
And I-- and she didn't tell
me they were working on it. They'd had some new developments
like real recent to my--
00:30:57
it was just coincidence. And she wrote me
a very nice email where she thanked
me for my diligence,
00:31:05
but all I did was
call all the time. And it was an email
that said Jonathan Blake Peterson is the suspect.
00:31:13
There's no doubt. And I just-- I
stared at it, cried. NANCY GRACE: The
bloodline detectives now
00:31:20
have a prime suspect
in the brutal murders of two beautiful young
women in 1979 and 1983.
00:31:29
The perp's name,
Johnny Blake Peterson, but now they've
got to track down the predator, a
predator who has evaded
00:31:38
police for over 40 years. [MUSIC PLAYING] It is 2021 and Vegas
detectives have solved
00:31:56
almost identical murders and
sex attacks of 22-year-old Diana Hanson and
16-year-old Kim Bryant
00:32:03
more than 40 years earlier. Their main weapon, a
private research company named Othram Labs,
Othram pioneering
00:32:14
the use of genetic genealogy
to match the DNA of victims to their predators. KRISTEN MITTELMAN:
The fact that he's
00:32:23
deceased means that he would
have never been arrested and his DNA would
have never made
00:32:29
it into CODIS as a perpetrator. So therefore traditional
testing, CODIS testing,
00:32:35
would have never
worked to identify him. But because we were able to
use the advanced DNA testing
00:32:41
that we do at Othram
to identify Kim Bryant, we were able to enter
his DNA into CODIS,
00:32:48
and now there's another match. BRIAN OXMAN: Forensic genealogy
was absolutely critical here
00:32:54
because it narrowed down the
number of possible suspects and then gave us a DNA
match with Peterson
00:33:04
as being the perpetrator
of both crimes. We knew that he had ended up
dying of a drug overdose years
00:33:14
later, but we also knew that he
was responsible for killing Kim Bryant in 1979 and he also
had a prior case involving
00:33:24
a sexual assault prior to that. And it's just-- it's a horrific
case of a guy who is a monster
00:33:33
and he had killed one girl and
then he killed Diana Hanson. And there's potentially more
victims that we just have
00:33:40
not been able to identify yet. I'm certain he's gonna
be linked to other cases. It's just a matter of how many.
00:33:48
It's-- you know, once we're able
to identify and conduct genetic genealogy on additional
cases, we're gonna
00:33:57
link him to other cases. Criminologists tell us that
sexual crimes are not crimes
00:34:05
involving a sexual desire, but
they are crimes of violence where sex is used as a weapon.
00:34:16
What we can tell about Peterson
is that he was a predator, he was violent, and he
liked using sex as a weapon.
00:34:25
We still to this
day have not been able to make a link between
Diana and Johnny Peterson
00:34:31
as far as if they
knew each other, but, you know, knowing his
past violent background
00:34:38
and his sexual
deviancy, I do believe that he was out looking to
abduct and rape another victim.
00:34:47
As a homicide investigator,
you know, you're never gonna see such a huge
change in technology
00:34:55
in such a short amount of
time, and you look back at some of the cases
that we're solving
00:35:01
because of genetic genealogy,
you know, it's fulfilling. And the fact that you're
able to close these cases
00:35:09
and give families justice
is just a great feeling to be able to have. NANCY GRACE: Next on "Bloodline
Detectives," finding justice
00:35:17
after more than 40 long years. [MUSIC PLAYING] Las Vegas, 2021, after
more than 40 years,
00:35:35
two almost identical
sex attacks and murders solved by a combination
of ground-breaking science
00:35:44
and good old-fashioned detective
work plus a community that not only cares but takes action.
00:35:54
JUSTIN WOO: It definitely
has opened my eyes to more of these families
and some of the pain
00:35:59
that they've gone through, and
that's, you know, something that in the future that
I'd like to see, you know,
00:36:04
being able to help
them out any way that we can to help
them have a little bit of closure in their lives.
00:36:09
We're just glad
that we could help, you know, to solve
another case and to bring
00:36:12
closure to the family for that. Just by the goodwill
of Justin Woo and him having created the
Vegas Justice League
00:36:23
and funding the cases from the
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the
willingness of Lt. Spencer
00:36:30
to use new technology and
unconventional funding to still pursue justice in his cases
and the ability of Othram
00:36:42
to sort of connect all
those pieces together and to perform this
advanced testing
00:36:47
in a predictable
and reliable manner allows us to bring closure to so
many people in this community.
00:36:54
And so many families now
have answers that they would have otherwise never had. DNA Solves is our
advocacy site, and it's
00:37:07
where we talk about the
stories for the people that we were able to identify
the perpetrators that we were
00:37:15
able to identify
from crimes that were committed against others. You can add your DNA to
our DNA Solves database
00:37:22
to help solve some
of these crimes. You can help fund one of
these cases that are unfunded.
00:37:28
Even as little as $1 would
help fund these cases. Also you can help
share these stories.
00:37:35
Sharing these stories
and bringing awareness to this method, bringing
awareness to the need
00:37:41
that there is for this
type of technology, and funding for this
technology in order
00:37:46
to be able to solve
entire backlogs is key to the success of
this type of technology.
00:37:55
NANCY GRACE: For Diana Hanson's
boyfriend, Rich Emberlin, the pain may ease, but it
will never completely go away.
00:38:05
RICH EMBERLIN: It's a
happy, sad conclusion. We know who did it. I don't come to Vegas and
look around at every guy
00:38:14
and go I wonder if-- you know. That I really did, but I know
where that guy is buried.
00:38:22
And that's a good thing. And I accept closure now. Diana's the victim,
but I'm not the only
00:38:33
wounded person from it. It's her family truly. They were crushed. And now having a
daughter, I can see why.
00:38:46
My mom hated God
for a few years, but she actually came
back to the church and in her way forgave--
00:38:54
well, we didn't know who it
was-- but forgave the killer. I don't think-- I don't know if I could
ever forgive like she
00:39:03
did, but for me, it was-- I think I changed and instead
of letting memories of her
00:39:11
make me feel sad, I figured out
a way to make memories of her make me happy or
make me feel comfort.
00:39:17
As I kind of realized that
it was more about her and not about how she died
or who killed her,
00:39:26
she started becoming
more of a comfort to me, just knowing
that she was there, and sometimes I would
do something stupid
00:39:32
or I'd do something,
I'd always-- I'd wonder how she
would react to it. I can imagine I would give her
a phone call and say, hey--
00:39:39
I think there was things I could
probably tell her later in life that I probably would have a
hard time telling other people.
00:39:46
So I think if I miss anything
that's probably what I miss is that opportunity. NANCY GRACE: One of the many
tragedies about the murders
00:39:57
of Diana Hanson
and Kim Bryant is that they were beautiful,
young, vibrant women struck down
00:40:06
by a vicious predator with the
very best years of their lives still ahead of them.
00:40:13
The bloodline detectives can
never bring them back to us, but after 40 long years,
bloodline detectives
00:40:22
have eased the pain
for the victims' families and their loved ones. At the very least, they can
also keep Diana Hanson's
00:40:32
and Kim Bryant's spirits alive. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:41:00
[MUSIC PLAYING] [END THEME PLAYING]