00:00:01
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE:
Willoughby, Ohio, 1980. Mark Madger comes home to
find his wife Nadine lying
00:00:18
in a pool of her own blood. Nadine has been
viciously stabbed dead. When I opened the door,
she'd be right in front
00:00:28
of me laying on the floor. Her head tilted down
with a big knife in her. I couldn't believe it.
00:00:35
The first thing-- I just
remember saying, no, Nadine, no. NANCY GRACE: Nadine Madger's
baby son Daniel found unharmed
00:00:43
next to his mother's body. I came to the conclusion that
the case would never be solved.
00:00:49
I pretty much gave up hoping it. I figured there's no
cameras back then, there's no witnesses,
there was no nothing.
00:00:56
I didn't dwell on it because
I didn't think dwelling on it would bring me any closure.
00:01:03
NANCY GRACE: But closure
is exactly what police want to give Nadine's infant
son and her husband Mark,
00:01:10
even if it takes decades. This is the story of a
groundbreaking new forensic science and how it might
solve the gruesome murder
00:01:22
of a beautiful young mother. I'm Nancy Grace. Welcome to "Bloodline
Detectives."
00:01:29
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1980,
Willoughby, Ohio, a small city along
the shore of Lake Erie
00:01:58
about 20 miles from Cleveland. Willoughby is an amazing city. We have a little
bit of everything.
00:02:05
We've got an
airport, a hospital, we're kind of tucked in between
Cleveland and Painesville.
00:02:10
It's a nice area to grow up. It's a great place to
work, live, and play at. NANCY GRACE: Nadine Madger
lives in Willoughby.
00:02:18
She's in her early 20s with
a good job and everything to live for. When I worked at
the one body shop.
00:02:27
On Friday, I'd go
and cash my check, and she was a new teller there. So I would always go to her,
and after about six weeks
00:02:35
or so, I got the
courage to ask her out. And the first date, I picked
her up and it was cold outside,
00:02:41
and I had a jacket
on and she didn't. So I took her out to
dinner and a movie, and on the way back, I
dropped her off obviously
00:02:49
and gave her a kiss. So that was the first date. NANCY GRACE: Mark and Nadine
are married less than four years
00:02:57
after that very
first date, and soon, they become a family of
three with the arrival
00:03:03
of baby boy Daniel. We actually went out to dinner
with this one friend of ours the night before
and her water broke.
00:03:11
So we had the meal ordered
and we told the waitress that it's not going to happen.
00:03:15
So we called the doctor,
we went to the hospital. He was great. He didn't make a lot of noise.
00:03:21
He didn't cry much. He was easy. He was beautiful. NANCY GRACE: Sadly,
this happy family
00:03:29
is about to be torn apart
by a brutal crime that will be remembered for decades.
00:03:37
January 11, 1980,
like every other day, Mark comes home from his
auto body shop for lunch.
00:03:45
I got home and I sat by her. She was holding Danny
in her lap, rocking him, and he was kind
of going to sleep.
00:03:55
So we talked a little
bit, I gave her a kiss, and I walked to the door. Waved to her and
closed the door,
00:04:02
and that's the last
time I saw her alive. NANCY GRACE: Back
at work, Mark calls home to check in on
Nadine and baby Daniel,
00:04:09
but there's no answer. I told the guys,
just get out of here, and I locked the shop
up and went home.
00:04:15
And I honestly don't know if
I put the key into the door or if I just opened the door.
00:04:19
I really don't remember. When I opened the door,
she'd be right in front of me laying on the floor
with her head tilted
00:04:26
down with a big knife in her. Couldn't believe it. The first thing-- I just
remember saying, no, Nadine,
00:04:34
no. I couldn't get
the phone to work. The phone was covered in blood. So I picked Danny
up out of the crib.
00:04:44
And I was yelling that
my wife has been stabbed. A lady upstairs
answered her door.
00:04:49
I don't even know who she was. I know she lived there, and
I just handed Danny to her.
00:04:54
I said, please, call the police. My wife has been stabbed. NANCY GRACE: Detective
Ken Eisele steps inside
00:05:02
and he, a veteran crime
fighter, is shocked by the savage crime scene. Through the doorway,
I could see the victim
00:05:11
laying in the corner
with a large knife protruding from her chest. I could see on the floor what
appeared to be footprints
00:05:18
in blood, but they
were dried up, along next to some other prints
that were a work shoe that
00:05:26
obviously left moisture having
come in from the outside a short time ago. When I look at those
pictures, it's really hard
00:05:34
to describe the violence and
viciousness that took place in that little dining room.
00:05:40
It looks like it was
from a horror movie, is the best way
I can explain it. NANCY GRACE: The murder
weapon, a kitchen knife.
00:05:47
The victim found
in her own home. It's SOP, standard
operating procedure, detectives will first look
at Nadine's husband Mark
00:05:58
as a prime suspect. They asked me the same
questions over and over and over again,
and I was starting
00:06:05
to get mad because
I thought, what the hell are you asking me for? Find the person who did this.
00:06:09
I couldn't understand why
they were asking me questions. NANCY GRACE: Willoughby police
question husband Mark Madger.
00:06:17
Meanwhile, news spreads quickly
about Nadine's brutal murder. Willoughby is a town
where violent crime
00:06:24
is very, very rare. The tight knit community
living now in fear. These things just don't
happen in Willoughby,
00:06:34
or at least that's what
we try to tell ourselves. NANCY GRACE: Mark is still
being questioned by police.
00:06:41
Many local residents want
to believe detectives already have their man. When you have a lack
of information out there,
00:06:49
that's a quick summary to go to. The community wanted us to
find out who was involved,
00:06:55
and when you only have
the one person involved, it's easy to rush
to that judgment.
00:07:02
NANCY GRACE: The
Willoughby community may be rushing to judgment
about husband Mark Madger,
00:07:06
but police are not. There's a savage
killer on the loose. Can detectives find him
before he strikes again?
00:07:14
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: January,
1980, the normally quiet
00:07:30
commuter town of Willoughby,
Ohio is rocked by murder. Mark Madger comes
home from work to find
00:07:38
the body of his beautiful,
young wife Nadine. Nadine, stabbed some 40 times,
their baby Daniel beside her,
00:07:49
yet unharmed. Police quickly bring husband
Mark in for questioning. The crime scene
reveals many clues.
00:07:59
Detectives carefully
preserve each item and begin piecing together just
how Nadine Madger was murdered.
00:08:07
They had taken
numerous items out of the apartment as evidence. One of the items was the
drawer where they had
00:08:13
this butcher block cutlery set. There was a knife missing
out of that block. They had taken the
phone that was found
00:08:20
at the scene with blood on it. They did a great job
collecting all of the items that they could find that
looked like they might
00:08:27
have had some involvement. Because who knows what that
might turn up years later?
00:08:32
She was wearing polyester pants. She was wearing a top, and
she had these blue shoes on.
00:08:38
All of those items were
collected as well too. Those items were later
sent to our crime lab
00:08:44
and they were analyzed. They were able to find
a drop of blood that was foreign to Nadine
that eventually they were
00:08:53
able to test and
determine that it came back to an unknown male. The original
Willoughby police team
00:08:59
is impeccable in
its investigation. DNA is not yet available at
that time as a forensic tool,
00:09:07
but they successfully isolate
the suspect's blood type. They also hope an autopsy
will reveal more clues.
00:09:17
In examining the
victim, we could see that she had been attacked
from the front at this point.
00:09:25
A number of slashes
across the face. There is no evidence that anyone
entered any of the other rooms.
00:09:31
Everything was fairly well
intact, as we could see it. The victim's purse
was found lying
00:09:38
on a couch in the living room
and all the papers were intact as well as her keys.
00:09:44
The checkbooks were
found in the bedroom and they were not disturbed. The medical examiner was
able to determine that Nadine
00:09:53
sustained a severed
jugular artery and also had a perforated lung. Nadine put up a heck of a fight.
00:10:00
You could tell by the defensive
wounds on her hands, the marks and blood all on the walls.
00:10:06
You could tell she was
fighting for a while. NANCY GRACE: Very
quickly detectives
00:10:10
establish how Nadine died. Now they've got to
find the killer. Could it be her
own husband Mark,
00:10:17
who is now in police custody? I told them, I said I'll
take a polygraph test. So Sunday morning,
they said will you
00:10:25
still take a polygraph test? I said, yes. At the polygraph test, the guy
asked me the same questions
00:10:31
over and over and over again. It seemed like it
lasted forever. I don't know, it was
two or three hours.
00:10:35
I don't even know. And then several months
after that, they asked me if I would take another one.
00:10:40
I said, yes, I would
and I took another one. They didn't have anybody else
at that moment so they wanted
00:10:47
to interview Mark and
learn everything they could about Mark's day
and about Nadine,
00:10:55
and the polygraphs were
instrumental in determining if what he's telling the
police was true or not.
00:11:03
In my mind, I could
tell what was going on, and I couldn't get
it out of my lips.
00:11:07
I felt I couldn't convince
them that I didn't do it. I thought I'm going to jail
for something I didn't do.
00:11:13
That's what I thought. But Mark Madger is
not going to jail. Polygraph tests and police
rule him out as a suspect,
00:11:23
at least for now. Some of Nadine's relatives
are not convinced. They still consider
Mark a suspect.
00:11:32
It was really awkward. The one sister thought for
sure I'd killed Nadine, and she kept on making
comments and stuff like that.
00:11:41
She wanted to hang
me by my neck. I know she did. It was horrible. We went to Mount Olive Cemetery,
which is in Solon, Ohio,
00:11:49
and I asked to get me
a dozen yellow roses. That was her favorite
colored rose. The rabbi took the
flowers from me
00:11:55
and he broke off
some of the petals and threw them on the casket,
and then laid the rest of them
00:12:00
on the casket. And after they said whatever
they said in Hebrew and so forth, they lowered the
casket down to his level,
00:12:08
and they start
throwing dirt on it. And I asked them to
stop, and they did. And I bent down and
I kissed the casket.
00:12:16
NANCY GRACE: Willoughby
police do everything they can to find
Nadine's killer, but their investigation stalls.
00:12:23
They were able
to talk to a woman who lived on the third floor
of Nadine and Mark's building.
00:12:30
She saw a canary yellow car
parked right by the back door. It was believed that this
was very possibly the vehicle
00:12:38
that the suspect arrived in. NANCY GRACE: For a short time,
the lead about a yellow car
00:12:43
looks hopeful. But for now, it
does not pan out. Detectives now take
a new approach.
00:12:52
In a savage knife
attack like this, the perpetrator
is also injured as well, usually along the hands.
00:13:01
Police begin to contact
local hospitals to find out has anyone been treated
for wounds that may
00:13:07
have been caused by a knife? As I recall, there were about
nine people, some of them,
00:13:12
the cuts were not
where they should have been for somebody
who was handling a knife
00:13:17
and had slipped. You know, it would be
like across the fingers. NANCY GRACE: Time
passes, the case seems
00:13:23
no closer to being solved. The local businesses in
Willoughby step forward. They offer a $5,000
reward for information
00:13:32
leading police to the killer. Some residents are still
convinced this vicious killer
00:13:38
is already known to detectives. There's a $5,000 reward
out with her picture on their reward card, and they
posted it in their stores.
00:13:49
There was no action,
so obviously, they took the posters down after a while. I know my mom was playing bridge
one time and there was a lady
00:13:55
and she was talking
about the story in that how the husband,
which is me, ran away
00:14:02
and they can't find him, and
they think he's in Buffalo. And my mom said, that's
really interesting
00:14:08
because he's living at my
townhouse that we're sharing and that's my son. And she couldn't say anything.
00:14:14
She looked like a fool. But how many other people
did she tell that to? How many other people told that
story similar that I did it?
00:14:23
NANCY GRACE: Mark Madger knows
he's got to put the murder of his wife Nadine behind him.
00:14:28
Not only for his sake, but
for their son baby Daniel. Three years later, he remarries.
00:14:36
It looks like a new start, but
it's very difficult for him to speak to his son Daniel
about his mother's death.
00:14:44
I didn't talk about it a lot. It's very difficult
to talk about. He may understand that.
00:14:48
He may not. I didn't find out what
happened until probably 12 or 13 years later.
00:14:54
He told me that
she was murdered. That was pretty much it. I mean, what do you tell a kid?
00:15:01
NANCY GRACE: Three years
go by and eventually, detectives run out of leads. After 1983, it started
really going cold.
00:15:11
They really worked
that case hard for the first couple of years. And over time, without any new
leads and any new advancements
00:15:20
in technology, it's
just there wasn't anything else left to go on. It picked up again in the '90s.
00:15:27
I believe it was in
1996 was actually when they were able to
identify that DNA profile.
00:15:33
And then Chief Straub had
started up the task force after that, and
they really pushed
00:15:38
hard with trying to
identify new people and compare them with
that profile that we had.
00:15:44
But again, it went cold
probably a couple of years later until we picked up
it again back in 2014.
00:15:54
When I was about 15 or
so, I came to the conclusion that the case would
never be solved.
00:15:59
I pretty much gave
up hope in it. I figured there's no
cameras back then, there's no witnesses.
00:16:04
There was no nothing. I don't want to say I put it
out of my head completely, but I didn't dwell on it because
I didn't think dwelling on it
00:16:13
would bring me any closure. NANCY GRACE: Baby Daniel
Madger now growing into a man,
00:16:21
believes he may
never find out what happened to his mother Nadine,
but police never give up.
00:16:28
The arrival of a remarkable
new forensic science known as investigative
genetic genealogy
00:16:36
is blowing seemingly
impossible cases wide open. Could it be the key
to this case as well?
00:16:44
We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1996,
Willoughby, Ohio,
00:16:58
brand new DNA technology
just might allow a blood sample found
on Nadine Madger's
00:17:05
body to reopen her murder case. 16 years earlier, the young mom,
found stabbed some 40 times.
00:17:16
For years, some in the community
blame her husband Mark. However, police clear him.
00:17:23
After the case
hit a brick wall, there wasn't a whole lot to
do besides anytime someone
00:17:28
called in a tip they
would pursue that, but nothing ever panned out. But in 1996, officers
resubmitted Nadine's clothing
00:17:35
to the Lake County crime lab and
this time for a DNA analysis. The crime lab was
able to develop
00:17:41
a single source DNA
profile from Nadine's shirt which was not her DNA. The officers working on it at
that time thought this is it.
00:17:50
We're going to solve it. It was just another dead end. Because this DNA of the
suspect was put into CODIS
00:17:57
and compared to all the
DNA profiles in CODIS, but we never got a hit. It's a database
of DNA profiles.
00:18:07
By submitting a new profile, it
essentially takes a look at it, compared to all
the other profiles
00:18:14
and determines if it's a match
with one of the other ones in the database. The national database
called CODIS is
00:18:23
made up of convicted criminals. A DNA sample from a crime scene
must match another existing
00:18:30
sample in the database. The sample from
Nadine Madger's shirt does not match anyone
in CODIS, but it
00:18:37
does rule out Mark Madger
once and for all as a suspect. I got involved in
this case in 2014,
00:18:46
about a year after I had gone
into our detective bureau. Read over the whole in
case, really took a look
00:18:52
at the statements that were
provided by Mark Madger to law enforcement at the time, looked
at a lot of what our crime
00:19:01
lab had done for the case,
started talking with our crime lab, our director at
the time, because she
00:19:07
was very passionate about
trying to solve this homicide. She was there that night
helping collect evidence
00:19:14
with our police
officers and detectives, so she was heavily
invested in this case,
00:19:18
and she wanted to
see it resolved. So we tried a lot of
different approaches. We're re-contacted
the Cleveland FBI
00:19:26
to get their behavioral science
group back involved in it. We talked with other local
agencies about similar cases
00:19:34
that they had to see if they
could be connected with it. What I discovered was
a lot of information
00:19:40
that one was similar to what
the investigators back in 1980 had discovered,
but it allowed me
00:19:47
to really get to know
Mark and get to know what was going on in his life. I can't imagine how
awful it was for him
00:19:58
and what he had been
going through when people think that you're the
suspect involved in this.
00:20:02
Your extended family
probably considers you the suspect involved
in this and the community.
00:20:08
His world was was completely
wrecked at that time. I knew that we had a killer
out there still on the loose,
00:20:15
that we still had a case
that we needed to solve. And and we owed it
to Mark and Danny
00:20:24
and the entire Cohen family
to resolve this for them. NANCY GRACE: 2018, Willoughby
detectives, now aware
00:20:33
of a remarkable new
investigative tool called DNA phenotyping. They contact Parabon NanoLabs,
a leader in the science,
00:20:43
for help. In February of
2018, our department contacted Parabon
NanoLabs and gave them
00:20:50
some of the evidence
from the crime scene, and they were able to find
the suspect's DNA profile.
00:20:56
And the first thing they
did for us was phenotyping. A snapshot phenotype is
where we predict somebody's
00:21:04
physical traits from their DNA. So in this case, we were able
to predict that the suspect was
00:21:14
Eastern European and
had blue or green eyes, blonde or
light brown hair, light skin with a few freckles.
00:21:22
So we knew we were looking for
a white man of European ancestry with light traits.
00:21:31
They told us that the
killer was a white male. They were not sure of
an age of the person.
00:21:41
They gave us one when the
suspect would be about 25 years old and one an age
progression, where he'd
00:21:48
have been about 65 years old. First thoughts
was that it sent a chill down my
spine looking at I
00:21:54
could possibly be looking
at the killer right now. Now that's just another tool
to add to this whole puzzle
00:22:02
to try and figure out. And now we needed to start
looking at DNA profiles to see if we can
identify the killer,
00:22:11
and then maybe put these
profiles with that. So once we receive that
information that we knew now
00:22:19
what our suspect
looked like, we were able to eliminate a lot of
people from our suspect list.
00:22:25
We could get rid of any
females on that suspect list. We could get rid of anybody
with brown eyes or brown hair
00:22:31
who were not white males. So it cut the work
down quite a bit. There's a lot of skepticism
amongst some of the detectives
00:22:38
here about how
accurate this could be. At that point, I thought
it was the best information
00:22:42
we had to go on,
so I believed in it and I wanted to work with it. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
keep Mark Madger
00:22:49
informed of developments. We told them that
we had contracted with Parabon NanoLabs and that
we had developed this profile.
00:22:57
We had shown Mark the
profile because one, we wanted to see if this
person looked familiar to him.
00:23:03
It did not look familiar to him. He did not have anybody in mind
that this might match up with,
00:23:10
but we wanted him to know
this direction we were going. We talked about maybe
doing a press conference
00:23:17
and putting this out
there to the public to see if we could maybe
develop some suspects that way.
00:23:23
He didn't want to get
involved in that regard, but he was very
supportive of this process
00:23:28
that we were moving forward. NANCY GRACE: The DNA phenotyping
fails to find a suspect.
00:23:35
Parabon NanoLabs has one
other possible approach that is solving
seemingly impossible
00:23:42
cases all over the world. So when I started
doing genetic genealogy almost 20 years ago,
investigative genetic genealogy
00:23:52
wasn't a thing. In fact, we were
focused on identifying long dead ancestors. That was really the exclusive
use of genetic genealogy
00:24:02
originally. But then I decided to try to
help adoptees and people who were looking for their
biological fathers,
00:24:10
and that meant
that the techniques needed to be adjusted. So instead of trying to
find long dead ancestors,
00:24:16
we were now trying
to find living or recently living individuals. That approach is what is now the
basis for investigative genetic
00:24:26
genealogy and trying
to use genetic genealogy to identify
violent criminals and Jane and John Doe's.
00:24:34
When the SNP file was uploaded
to GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA, we were
incredibly disappointed
00:24:42
because the matches
were extremely distant. There were no close
cousins whatsoever.
00:24:48
So typically, I would tell
the agency in a case like this that it's not viable
for genetic genealogy.
00:24:56
But one of my team members
named Stephanie really wanted to help Nadine's
family get justice
00:25:05
and answers in this case. And so she agreed to
work the case even with these incredibly
distant matches.
00:25:13
The first report
back to us from Parabon was that our case resulted in
zero promising leads of second
00:25:21
to third cousins and
zero promising leads of third to fourth cousins. So there was nobody in
these genealogy website
00:25:29
databases that was a close
relative of our suspect. At that point, I had never
worked with genetic genealogy
00:25:34
so I really didn't know
really what to make of it. I knew that we still
had a lot of work to do.
00:25:40
Sometimes when we perform
investigative genetic genealogy on a case like
Nadine's, we can come up
00:25:47
with the name of a
potential person of interest or a set of siblings
very quickly.
00:25:52
Sometimes in hours
or a couple of days. This case was very different. It took over two
years of collaboration
00:26:01
between our genetic genealogist
Stephanie and Detective Sleigh. Stephanie continued
to build family trees
00:26:09
and was able to
identify a family of interest that was living
in the area of the crime.
00:26:19
Once we got a list
of potential relatives of our suspect, which
were very distant,
00:26:24
like fifth and sixth degree
cousins, what we had to do is reach out to those
relatives and kind of track
00:26:32
down their family tree and then
contact their family members and try to get them
to give us their DNA.
00:26:38
This is a great example
of where it really took collaboration with
the genetic genealogist
00:26:43
and the detectives traditional
type investigation, where Stephanie would provide
information to Detective
00:26:51
Sleigh, and then he would
take that information and run with it. I made hundreds of phone calls
and wrote letters to people
00:26:59
just trying to convince them
to either give us their DNA, or if they have already
put their DNA in one
00:27:06
of these websites, to enter
it into GEDmatch, which would allow law enforcement
to see their results
00:27:12
and to see if they were
related to our suspect. NANCY GRACE: The odds of
finding Nadine's killer this way
00:27:18
are very long, but they're
shortening week by week. First, fifth cousins of
the suspect are revealed.
00:27:28
Then fourth cousins,
then third cousins. Gradually, the killer's
identity is falling into focus.
00:27:38
Stephanie built the family
trees of those distant matches and she actually did find
a common ancestral couple.
00:27:47
What that meant was she
located several individuals who shared DNA with our
suspect, but also
00:27:55
shared DNA with each other. We work this tree
back to the mid 1800s. We worked their family tree down
to finding living descendants.
00:28:03
I would go out and contact
these people and get their DNA or have them upload
into GEDmatch.
00:28:09
I stumbled across a death
record, which the last name matched the ancestral couple.
00:28:15
I gave that information
to the genealogist, and she was able to work
the family tree down
00:28:21
to a family that had
members that lived in the Willoughby area in 1980. When the genealogists
worked that family
00:28:28
tree down to present day, they
found the last name Simcak. Once the genealogists came up
with this family that lived
00:28:35
locally, the Simcak's,
she said there were three brothers that
were of the right age that
00:28:41
could possibly be the suspect. NANCY GRACE: Could one of
the three Simcak brothers
00:28:45
be Nadine Madger's killer? Will his own family's
DNA be used to identify him after over 30 years?
00:28:55
Finally, there's new hope
in the investigation. This was the first
time in the two years
00:29:02
that we were working on
the case that we actually had a local connection
to this family tree,
00:29:07
and I thought we were really
on to something at this point. I was like, oh my gosh, so
you're telling me that you're
00:29:14
closing in on this killer? And he's, yeah, we think
we've identified him. Investigators feel they're
on the verge of a breakthrough.
00:29:24
Can investigative genetic
genealogy crack this case? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:29:31
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 2018,
Willoughby, Ohio, over 40 years since
the day that changed
00:29:45
Mark Madger's life forever. In 1980, Mark comes
home from work and finds his wife Nadine lying
in a pool of her own blood
00:29:55
with multiple stab wounds. It's a near perfect crime
except for one drop of blood
00:30:02
left behind by the killer. Now, this drop of
blood is analyzed using investigative
genetic genealogy.
00:30:11
Investigators build a family
tree that points to three brothers all named Simcak.
00:30:19
Once the genealogists came
up with this family that lived locally, the Simcak's, our
prime suspect at that point
00:30:26
was Steven Simcak just
based on where he lived. He had died in June of 2018. We found out that Steven
Simcak had been cremated.
00:30:35
He was not buried, so
we weren't able to get a sample of his DNA. It was very
compelling when they
00:30:42
finally narrowed it down to a
potential person of interest. He fit into the family tree that
Stephanie had been building,
00:30:50
was related to these
distant matches. His traits were consistent
with the snapshot phenotype.
00:30:57
I started researching
and found out that he had a grandson who died in 2015. I reached out to
the Cuyahoga County
00:31:05
medical examiner, who did
the autopsy on the grandson. They did take a DNA
sample from the grandson,
00:31:11
and they gave me
a portion of it. I brought that to our
crime lab in Lake County
00:31:16
and had them compare
it to our suspect DNA. Once he had learned
of a possible name,
00:31:23
Detective Sleigh was not just
going to rest on his laurels with that. He wanted to know
everything else.
00:31:30
When I got the results
a few days later, they were able to tell
me that the suspect's DNA
00:31:37
and the grandson's
DNA shared Y-STR DNA, and this was able
to tell us that the suspect came
from the same male
00:31:46
family line as the grandson. It's the breakthrough
generations of Willoughby detectives have
been seeking for decades.
00:31:56
Now, this group of
investigators wants absolute proof Steven
Simcak is without any doubt
00:32:02
the killer of Nadine Madger. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
00:32:15
NANCY GRACE:
Willoughby, Ohio, 2022. Detectives are certain they're
closing in on the identity
00:32:22
of a man who savagely
murdered beautiful, young mom Nadine Madger back in 1980. We didn't know who
he was, so we started
00:32:32
looking into his background. One of the first places we
went is to Lincoln Electric,
00:32:37
where he worked for 38 years. He worked there from
1963 up into 2002, and asked for any work
records they had on him.
00:32:46
They still had all his work
records from the entire time he worked there,
and we found out
00:32:50
that the only day that he
called off sick in 1980 was January 11th, the
day of the murder.
00:32:59
To learn that
Steven had called off sick for a second shift at
Lincoln Electric that night
00:33:05
was very eerie. You put all these
things together to develop this picture
of what happened,
00:33:12
and all of these
different pieces that investigators had
collected over the years,
00:33:18
and to be able to
put them together like this is just incredible. We conducted
interviews of Steven
00:33:23
Joseph Simcak's children,
stepchildren, any close friends of his. What we were able to determine
through these interviews
00:33:31
is that in 1980, he drove
a canary yellow Dodge Dart with a white vinyl top,
which almost exactly matches
00:33:40
the vehicle that the woman
from Nadine's building saw during the
time of the murder.
00:33:45
We are also able to find
out that prior to 1980, Steven Simcak was a heavy
drinker, a very bad alcoholic.
00:33:54
And then for no reason,
according to everybody, he stopped drinking
right around 1980.
00:34:02
All these clues point to
Steven Simcak as the killer, but police must be
absolutely sure.
00:34:09
There's not a body to exhume. How will Bloodline
Detectives find a way to make a solid DNA match?
00:34:17
So once I found
out that our suspect in the grandson of Steve
Simcak had the same Y-STR DNA,
00:34:25
I was very happy. I thought, man, we're so close. Parabon was able to tell me
that the grandson of Steven
00:34:32
Simcak and our
suspect shared almost 2900 centimorgans of DNA. They said the
relationship possibilities
00:34:42
was siblings, which we
knew was impossible due to the grandson's age. He was born in 1990,
and it could have
00:34:49
been the grandson's father. We also knew that that was
not possible due to his age.
00:34:55
He was born in 1966. And the last
relationship possibility was grandchild grandfather.
00:35:02
At that point, we were now even
more confident that our suspect was Steven Joseph Simcak.
00:35:08
We weren't able to get
Steven Joseph Simcak's DNA. We knew he had a living son. I went and contacted the son and
asked for a sample of his DNA.
00:35:18
He provided this to us. This DNA was compared at
the Lake County crime lab and they said this is a
parent sibling relationship.
00:35:27
This sample was also sent to
Parabon, and they confirmed it, and they actually said
with 100% probability,
00:35:34
it was a father
child relationship. At that point, we knew
Steven Joseph Simcak was
00:35:40
the person who killed Nadine. NANCY GRACE: 40 years later,
every box is finally checked.
00:35:46
Nadine Madger's
killer is identified. Police in Willoughby,
Ohio, breathe a collective sigh of relief.
00:35:56
I don't remember how I acted. It was just kind of a rush
of emotions came across me.
00:36:01
I was so happy for
all of the people here that had been
involved in it, that they have this closure.
00:36:07
But I was also really
happy for Mark and Danny. Once we found out it
was Steven Joseph Simcak,
00:36:14
I called Dan and Mark to come
to the police department. I didn't tell them why. Just judging by the
sound of Mark's voice,
00:36:21
I think he knew I was going
to tell him something big, because he knew I was working
on the case pretty hard.
00:36:25
And the chief came
up and he met me. He said, are you Mr. Madger? I said, yes, I am.
00:36:30
And we were talking a little
bit waiting for Danny to come. He says, well, we found
the person who did it.
00:36:36
And I looked at him, and I
says, he's dead, isn't he? And he said, yes. I just felt it because
he didn't say we got him
00:36:42
or we were going to arrest him. So I just felt he
had to be dead. So we went in, we
looked at pictures
00:36:49
and so forth, and never knew
the name, never knew the person. If I ever saw him
maybe in passing,
00:36:56
if we walked down the sidewalk
or something, I don't know. But I mean, what of those people
are you going to remember?
00:37:02
Him dying before we could
bring him to justice, I believe was a big failure on our part.
00:37:08
I feel we did not serve Mark and
Danny Madger like we needed to. Like we owed it to
them, and I felt
00:37:16
like we failed because we-- I wish we would have
identified him earlier. I don't know if
that was possible,
00:37:23
but I'm glad that Detective
Sleigh was able to identify that and bring that
information to the family
00:37:32
to bring them closure. But it's, you know, justice
was never served unfortunately.
00:37:39
NANCY GRACE: Nadine Madger's
killer finally identified. For husband Mark,
it's not enough.
00:37:44
He still struggles
with what he saw that January day back in 1980. For the first year
after she was killed,
00:37:52
I had to look at a
photograph of her to remember what
she looked like. And it sounds stupid maybe,
but that's the way it was.
00:37:59
I had nightmares. I was afraid to go to sleep. It was horrible. I'm not asking you
to feel sorry for me.
00:38:07
I don't do that, but here's
what this person did. He should have been executed. I should have been the one
sticking the needle in his arm
00:38:12
and watching him die. He's a monster. I would have loved
to have been there because he'd be a dead monster.
00:38:25
NANCY GRACE: Mark's son
Daniel was in his crib when his mom Nadine is
so cruelly murdered.
00:38:32
Of course, he doesn't
remember the attack, but the memory of his
mother is still with him.
00:38:39
The way her headstone
is, it's low to the ground, it's on an angle. So a lot of times I
will lay down and use it
00:38:46
as like a pillow, so to speak. I've taken naps there
before on nice days. She's watching out for me.
00:38:52
You know, she's making
sure trouble steers clear. Most precious memory? It's going to sound stupid.
00:39:01
The first time I met her mother. She's walking up the steps and
she had a real pretty golden
00:39:07
dress on, and she turned
around and smiled at me and she said, come on. NANCY GRACE: A heartbreaking
end to a complex and painstaking
00:39:22
search for a brutal killer. It's a case that
in all likelihood would never have been solved
without the tenacity and
00:39:31
pioneering work of forensic
investigative genetic genealogists, scientists, who
believe there is no hiding
00:39:40
from your own family's DNA. It's very likely
that this case never would have been solved
without investigative
00:39:48
genetic genealogy. It was 40 years
old, and they had already exhausted all of the
avenues of investigation.
00:39:56
And because the suspect
had already died, there was no deathbed
confessions and probably
00:40:01
nobody left in the
world who knew who was responsible for killing Nadine. One of the biggest things
I take away from this case
00:40:08
is the fact that forensic
genetic genealogy is available to law
enforcement now.
00:40:13
And what's it going to be
like in five years from now? I definitely think we're
going to come to a point
00:40:16
where there's no such
thing as a cold case, that we're going to be
able to solve anything
00:40:20
where DNA was left behind. A single drop of blood
preserved by police long before forensic
science even existed.
00:40:30
A yellow car someone briefly
saw near the crime scene. These were the seemingly
small clues at the time
00:40:39
of Nadine Madger's murder. Thanks to incredible police
work, the passage of time,
00:40:46
and amazing forensic
science, those clues play a huge part in catching
a killer 40 years later.
00:40:56
Amazing. I'm Nancy Grace. Thanks for being with us here
on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:41:10
[THEME MUSIC]