The Heartbreaking Murder of Stephanie Isaacson | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace

[Music] Las Vegas Nevada June 1st 1989 14 year old Stephanie Isaacson walks to her

local school I was at work and I got a call that Stephanie hadn't gotten home from school

and nobody had seen her all day that same evening the family's worst fears come true

as you're walking through that desert area there's a lot of brush and from

walking through there that's when the officer discovered her body three decades later the horrific murder

of this teen girl still profoundly affects the Las Vegas community it's not often that you have a 14 year

old who is you know kidnapped raped and murdered on their way to school years past the case goes cold the

community still living in fear police wonder if this murder is the work of a serial killer initially people did fear

there was a serial killer on the loose that was targeting young children 30 long years later investigators

pinning their hopes on new forensic science to hopefully crack this teen girl's murder

I'm Nancy Grace this is bloodline detectives [Music] is [Music] Las Vegas Nevada a city in the desert

Bright Lights casinos nightlife and by reputation a place where anything goes I think a lot of people have a

misconception like people think anyone who lives in Las Vegas that they live in a casino and hotel room on the Strip

right and Vegas is like any other City when you get off of the Las Vegas Strip when you get away from all the lights

and the action in the casinos the the cities like any other City Stephanie's Father John works in the U.S

military he's transferred to Las Vegas from Lincoln Nebraska where he was once

stationed it's not a place that I ever wanted to go it was very busy not the kind of

Lifestyle I wanted to live but I had a great time while I was there our relationship

from my perspective was very very close and that was confirmed by all of her friends and they all told me that she

was very close to me and they all knew it very outgoing very happy and energetic

she she loved the choir she loved to sing her and her sister both aside from choir Stephanie's other great

love is is for her younger sister Joanne one day Stephanie was with two of her friends and I heard them talking

and Joanne was around they wanted to go to the mall and Stephanie said okay let me get Joanne ready and we'll just go to

the mall and her friend said no we can't take her and Stephanie said if Joanne

doesn't go I don't go they were pretty close the family's happy routine is shattered

on a jean morning 1989 14 year old Stephanie leaves the house and begins her usual walk to school it's just five

blocks away on June 1st 1989 Stephanie Isaacson woke up to the sound of her alarm clock

around 6 30 a.m her dad works the overnight shift at a local military base she got herself ready for school that

day left the house shortly after waking up at 6 30 and made the short walk to El

Dorado High School it was very common for students in that area to walk to school and this was

something that Stephanie did every single day I was at work and I got a call that

Stephanie hadn't gotten home from school I said well she probably stopped off

with some friends or they're playing or something and I said let me know when she gets home well I

got a call about an hour later that they had checked with all of her friends and

called the school and nobody had seen her all day and the school never called me

[Music] I didn't call the police at that time but as I was walking out I went by my

boss's office and I said my daughter is missing I'm gonna go look for her I

called my buddy and him and his wife and another friend of ours showed up and we

discussed what we were going to do so we got on Horseback and started looking as they're riding on the horse they

discovered her book bag and her books and you find her belongings in a desert area you know this is not a runaway type

situation that in itself escalates the type of call that it is and that is what prompted Metro Police

to bring out additional resources and there was a helicopter involved there was a canine surge

not long into the search an officer from the K-9 unit makes a horrific discovery

basically you have a lot of desert area even in that time in the late 80s in the

inner city of Las Vegas and as you're walking through that desert area there's

a lot of brush you know we'll call it tumble weeds and you know weeds that are

pretty much waist high and from walking through there that's when the officer

discovered her body that was laying in the field it was really difficult a lot of crying

I had my ex-wife the mother of Stephanie and four or five friends over and the first thing I did when we got back in

the apartments I called the radio station and uh had him play their favorite song was

Wind Beneath My Wings by uh Bette Midler I think it was police began sifting through the scene

collecting what evidence they can we investigated the scene and supervised a collection of evidence there really

wasn't any witnesses to anything so we had nothing like that to go on so the

the crime scene was the most important thing to process and so we spent most of the time doing

so when they found her there was orange carpet that had been discarded in the desert area and it was covering her body

and at that point that's when they stopped and they notified the homicide investigators who then came and took

over the investigation how it works is the homicide investigators will respond with our CSI investigators for the

initial response so once overall photographs are taken the scene is documented then homicide is going to

request the coroner investigator to come to the scene and that's what happened

here is the coroner eventually responds to the scene along with the mortuary and

they take control of the scene at that point Stephanie's family struggles to process

their huge loss they're comforted by friends colleagues and the military community in Vegas and that in Lincoln

Nebraska usually when that happens you get a humanitarian reassignment you have to

apply for it but the Air Force contacted me and said where do you want to go I organized a funeral for all of

Stephanie's friends and made sure that her mother knew about it I only had just one funeral but I had

two because I'm originally from Nebraska Lincoln area and I actually had Stephanie ship to Lincoln and we did

another memorial service there and then buried her at Lincoln Memorial Park in Lincoln Nebraska

[Music] isaacson's funeral her Father John makes a touching and unusual gesture to

Stephanie's grieving friends he lets them visit her bedroom so they can each

take away a Memento from his girls brief life my thing was I have the memories and the

pictures so I was okay with them taking whatever they wanted to for Memento for themselves

after Stephanie's brutal murder detective Ray Spencer a veteran homicide investigator who grew up in Vegas still

recalls every detail of Stephanie's murder case in 1989 I was at Gibson middle school when Stephanie was

murdered this was very big news that I even I remembered from being a little boy growing up here in Las Vegas it's

not often that you have a 14 year old who is you know kidnapped raped and murdered on their way to school here in

Las Vegas killer as we see next on bloodline detectives it will take years and remarkable science for that to happen

[Music] Las Vegas Nevada 1989 June 1 14 year old Stephanie Isaacson sets off on her way

to school she never makes it later that evening Stephanie's body discovered in

Brush on the edge of the city Stephanie has been sex assaulted and murdered when you're conducting a homicide

investigation you're looking for any and all evidence and it could be trace evidence from hairs fibers cigarette

butts clothing anything that's nearby and it's many different cases that we've

investigated that you pick up things that you're not even sure if it belongs

there but you pick it up because you want to make sure you don't miss anything

the discovery of the book and backpack before the discovery of Stephanie's body

was significant it told investigators that the location of the books and backpack was likely where the attack

first happened causing Stephanie to drop her books and then to have the assault and murder take place somewhere else

you could tell when the scene was being processed that the sneakers were found away and that she had been dragged to

her current location where they found her true Impressions was one of the main things we looked for because I don't

recall any vehicle motorcycle or bicycle or anything like that being suspected as

being part of it when you're processing the crime scene there's not much evidence at the time to

move forward with we obviously are going to take blood evidence we're going to

take fingerprints we're going to take anything that's near the crime scene but

the things at that point you start conducting what we call a grid search and we start working our way out from

the crime scene and we'll go out there the next day at about the same time because maybe there's a person who goes

jogging every morning at 7 A.M and will stop that person the next day and ask them did you see anything did you see

anybody the crime scene produces very few hard Clues investigators hope and pray

Stephanie's autopsy will reveal meaningful evidence the forensic pathologist ruled her death

a homicide and attributed her death to blunt force injuries and strangulation there's indications on Stephanie's body

that were uncovered at the autopsy that she put up a fight against her killer that she fought all the way to the end

they're all a little uncomfortable it's not your most pleasant experience I

attended maybe 400 autopsies in my career you know I had children that same age as Stephanie at the time so it was

particularly unnerving back in 1989 DNA technology is still in its infancy and forensic science was not

as developed as it is today so the team investigating Stephanie isaacson's murder relies on all school police

methods we're going to go to the school we're going to talk to her friends we're going

to talk to neighbors because you have to build a pattern of Life leading up to the actual homicide you can't rule out

any other potentials like what she's meeting somebody was there somebody that

she knew did she walk to school by herself the first people the police went out to

speak to were the neighbors the people that lived inside of Stephanie's father's apartment they wanted to find

out what these people knew and if they had seen something the morning that Stephanie was killed the police learned

that an unknown vehicle was parked in the area on the morning of Stephanie's

murder unfortunately when police spoke with these neighbors they were unable to provide them with the make the model any

identifying features of this car for the police to be able to pursue it further investigators reach out to other law

enforcement agencies for help we worked with the FBI as we often do so in a lot of cases when you when what you

have is the behavioral analysis unit with the FBI they offer assistance and they have a program that they're able to

give you a type of suspect that you're looking for and in this situation the

FBI did provide assistance but it was a very generic suspect profile that was given

I would say he's the epitome of evil somebody who's able to attack a 14 year

old girl and sexually assault her and strangle her and leave her in a desert is a vile human being to me

weeks turn into months and one by one potentially turn into dead ends the case remains officially open but in reality

it stalled we had a lot of leads but nothing that was viable we followed up on every lead that we had but all those

leads brought us to dead ends and you know people had Alibis or people were not in the area but there was nothing

that came in Stephanie's case that would lead us to any potential Suspects the case went cold within the first few

months of investigating as soon as the tips had dried up as soon as the FBI's

profile didn't generate any suspects the Las Vegas Police Department found themselves at square one they had not

made any arrests in the case they had not even identified a person as a suspect Stephanie isaacson's case stays cold for

many many years but then 2007 new forensic DNA science offers hope the Cold Case team is able to retrieve semen

from Stephanie's shirt we actually had a grant that allowed us to look through a lot of cold cases that

grant that we were working on during that time Stephanie's case was one of those cases and we did discover DNA on

her shirt during that their hope quickly turns to disappointment the DNA sample pulled from Stephanie's

t-shirt which came from a semen sample was run through CODIS the national DNA database when that sample was run and

compared to samples of any known individual the results came back with not a match it did not match anyone in

the database Cold Case detectives refused to give up 30 long years after Stephanie's murder

there are more advances in DNA investigative techniques that's next on bloodline detectives

[Music] Nevada June 1 1989 14 year old Stephanie Isaacson leaves home for her usual walk

to school she never makes it her dead body sex assaulted discovered in the desert nearby the murder

investigation goes cold but now 30 years later a new generation of Vegas detectives try to finally crack this

case when I took over in the homicide section in 2018 Stephanie's case is one of the

cold cases that was being worked and I brought on a new investigator who came to our Cold Case section and Stephanie's

case is one of the cases that I assigned to her to specifically work it's frustrating when you have DNA evidence

but you don't have a suspect that's the one thing that stands out when you have

that type of evidence and yet you have a case that you haven't solved when you

look at a case from 1989 where a 14 year old is raped and murdered and there are

no real viable leads and it's still unsolved it's still a very frustrating

case as an investigator for a long time I didn't hear from anybody so I made it the point to call

them and I would get updates Terry Miller I made the plan with her that I called her every six months for updates

for the past what three or four years and I would do that but prior to that I didn't get many calls from anybody

so we keep everything close to the chest I mean we talk with the family and we let them know that you know we're going

to look at some different potentials but you don't want to get the family's hopes

up too much and that's always you know a concern when you talk with a mom or you

talk with a dad you don't want to let their hopes get too high especially on

something on a case where you even had doubts originally the investigation gets a boost from a

newly formed non-profit organization the Vegas Justice League this amazing group

of concerned citizens provides funding to help police crack cold cases the biggest Justice League was created

by Justin Wu and it's this concept that kind of developed on its own of helping

out and facilitating Cold Case solves we're basically like-minded people who

want to help the community donate five thousand dollars which is the exact amount it takes to fund a case send it

to Autumn labs in Houston Texas and then author Labs reaches out to lvmpd for example and they ask for cold cases and

they say hey we have funding we can help out we know that you have a lot of cases

what can we do what can we do to lighten the load I saw on social media what othram had been doing with these DNA

cases around the United States and I reached out to them and I said you know we would be interested in funding a case

but the one condition would be that we'd want the cases to be in Las Vegas area

because this is where we live we get a huge break and that break a ridge really comes from Justin Wu who he

at the time was an anonymous donor that Anonymous donor had donated money to a laboratory that does genetic genealogy

othram is a lab that's purpose-built to identify victims and perpetrators from

forensic evidence found at crime scenes we look at evidence that is found at a crime scene and we analyze the DNA and

identify either the perpetrator or the victim that left that DNA at the crime scene

request is our system in which we communicate with law enforcement and we're able to track the process from the

time the evidence is received all the way to the conclusion of the case and so they entered the case and we looked at

it and that case is an extremely difficult case there's very little DNA left DNA is consumable every time you

run one of these reactions you actually destroy that part of the DNA and so when

you're working with such little amounts of DNA is what was left in the Stephanie

Isaacson case you know that you're going to consume most if not all the evidence

if your process doesn't lead to the identification of a perpetrator then you've taken away the last chance that

that person has for justice it was one of the hardest decisions that I've ever had to make as an

investigative Lieutenant because we had very very little DNA evidence and we knew that if we were going to trust this

lab to do the work that it would potentially consume the last piece of evidence in this case

we were able to do our QC process and it did pass and so we decided to proceed with the case there was only 0.12

nanograms of DNA that's the equivalent of about 15 human cells if I touch my

hand I've left hundreds of cells so 15 human cells from 32 years ago investigators decide to take a huge

gamble they process the last remaining DNA sample left behind by Stephanie's

killer it's a high risk strategy if it succeeds the Killer is identified if it

fails he will likely never face Justice it was pretty clear that this was going to be the last shot for solving

Stephanie's case that the little amount of DNA that was still remaining in this

case if this didn't work if they could not generate a profile from that sample

this was this was going to be the the end of the road do we take the risk to see if this

potential DNA can solve Stephanie's murder I knew that if we're not able to

get answers from othrum we're never going to get the answers tiny DNA sample passes a quality test

and is then sent for a process called genome sequencing genome sequencing is when you look at the letters in the DNA

sequence it's kind of like taking a picture of what is in the DNA and being able to understand more about what

comprises that DNA DNA sequencing this particularly cost effective high throughput is you can now measure

hundreds of thousands to millions of markers and so what we do at all terms we're measuring hundreds of thousands of

markers and in each of these markers help collect another little piece of information about a crime scene that in

kind of aggregate can be used to learn something about the person who contributed that DNA

we sequence through the DNA and look at hundreds and hundreds of thousands of markers build one of these profiles that

we call a high performing DNA profile I call it high performing because a lot of

the times profiles are built but a lot of it is noise and they're not really

something that you can upload to a genealogical database and actually get hits that will help you get an identity

so at all from we work really hard to build these high performing DNA profiles or very clean profiles we upload them to

genealogical databases that are allowed and consented for law enforcement use and then we perform forensic genetic

genealogy until we're able to get to an identity or maybe a set of identities

and then we call law enforcement with that investigative lead and law enforcement continues their

investigation on the case will advertise roughly 12 weeks from evidence hitting our doorstep to

building a profile and that profile consists of these DNA markers each one of which contribute to us understanding

something about the contributor to that DNA that process is about 12 weeks it involves DNA extraction involves a QC

step it might even involve some iterative repair and enrichment and filtering of the DNA to make sure that

we've got the best possible sample that DNA to proceed to DNA testing and then

it includes that testing process and the computer work necessary to build that map of markers then the second part in

which we use it in in some way to then infer identity that might be through a genealogical search it might be through

one-to-one comparisons if we have for example a familial reference DNA swab from someone that thinks it might be

related those kind of processes can take anywhere from hours to weeks some of the

harder projects can take months but we generally will return leads to the investigator within the same year that

we get the casework forensic genetic genealogy team Ram Labs Works overtime finally a

breakthrough when we took the case I think they were very hopeful that we would you know

yield some insight in the case but I don't think the expectations are very high and they were certainly surprised

to hear from us when we called them and told them that Not only was the profile creation successful but you know within

a few months of of genealogy it was performed in-house at all through we were able to narrow in on on a very

likely candidate someone that we wanted to exclude as we explained to them when we did call them and David was the

one that called them they were so excited to them it was unbelievable that there was an answer all of a sudden

after all these years of working this investigation it was very exciting and then when we gave them the name they

were able to look up that this person was actually accused of very similar crime three years before he was tried

for that crime and actually the charge was dismissed and so now they knew for sure that he was probably responsible

for both crimes the forensic scientists at arthram Labs can identify a prime suspect for

Stephanie isaacson's murder but can police ever track him down that's next

on bloodline Detectives foreign [Music] Las Vegas Nevada 2019 nearly 30 years after 14 year old Stephanie Isaacson

found sex assaulted and murdered finally a breakthrough in the case a non-profit

called the Vegas Justice League makes a generous donation to othram Labs that money pays for research using forensic

genetic genealogy the ultimate result that they get is that the profile came to two possible

matches they received two relatives that were related to that DNA sample from those two relatives they were able to

pinpoint their suspect Darren Merchant was a Las Vegas resident he was 23 years old at the time of

Stephanie's murder he was very close by to where Stephanie had lived and he was

someone that wasn't a stranger to the Las Vegas Police the Las Vegas Police knew the name of merchant

off from calls our office and talks to my detective and Terry runs into my office and she's like you know jump

basically jumping up and down and she's so excited that we have a solve in Stephanie's case

she comes in she gives me Darren marchant's name and I'm like well who is

he explain and so at that point we hadn't even really done much of a suspect work up on him at that point and

we started digging into his background we knew that he was in Las Vegas during the time that Stephanie was murdered and

we also knew that he had prior involvement in the criminal justice system too in 1976 he had been involved in a sexual

assault just outside Las Vegas at Lake Mead National Park and previously arrested and accused of

another murder just three years before Stephanie's in that particular case he

was accused of of killing a 24 year old woman who he had spent the night with he

was arrested and charged but was ultimately dismissed for a lack of evidence that was never brought to our attention

and I was a little upset about that because it was handled by another team in my unit no one ever brought that to

my attention she indicated that the circumstances were nowhere uh even close to the same as testing Iverson I asked

him if if he had done anything else and they told me about a case three years prior that they had arrested him for and

it was a court system said we don't have enough evidence to prosecute so they

turned him loose and then three years later he killed Stephanie and then after they confirmed that it was him for

Stephanie they confirmed that it was him that did the one three years prior also

I was the police officers there isn't much I can say to them they did their job and arrested him in the beginning

whatever happened on the prosecuting side which I don't have all those details that's some of the stuff that I

ask about but I couldn't get any of that information Lauren Martin becomes the prime suspect

for the 30 year old murder of teen girl Stephanie Isaacson investigators believe

they're close to making an arrest as we see next on bloodline detectives they

will face one more frustration foreign [Music] Vada 2019 after 30 long years bloodline

detectives identify a prime suspect in the murder of teen girl Stephanie Isaacson his name Darren Martin at first

investigators are Overjoyed then they get unexpected news unfortunately for the police as well as

unfortunately for Stephanie's family that he committed suicide in 1995 and by

the time of his identification he was dead that same morning is when we found out

that he was no longer alive and it's frustrating because you get so excited that you have a suspect but now you have

a suspect that you're not going to be able to bring any criminal prosecution

to Darren Martian suicide allows him to evade Justice without ever being questioned about Stephanie isaacson's

murder it's like I told a newspaper reporter that son who cheated me twice once when

he killed her and once when he hung himself I wanted to face him I didn't have anything planned

I'm one of those that I would rather look you in the eye and let you know who I am

for the family you want that person to be prosecuted and held accountable and you know in Stephanie's case we're never

going to be able to bring him to trial and he's never going to be held for those charges but the good part is we

know what happened and we know who did it it's absolutely heartbreaking and there's that sense that there is no

justice this family has spent years looking for a name looking for a person that they could hold responsible for

killing their daughter and once they find out who this person is they're no longer here they're no longer able to

have their day in court and they're no longer here to be able to answer for themselves

bloodline detectives are disappointed they'll never be able to bring Stephanie

isaacson's killer to Justice it's a moment for them they must maintain perspective

you're always doing this job for the families right like it's a very very

hard and difficult job as a homicide investigator but when you're able to give Justice to the families that's what

keeps homicide investigators going and working on their next case and it the sense of accomplishment and the sense of

Pride you'll never forget when you give Justice to a family that otherwise thought that they would never receive it

it's exciting you know when you're you're you're proud but you're also you

know you're still very sad because you have a family that has lost a loved one

there are other unsolved sexual assaults there are other unsolved murders Stephanie Isaacson is one of them and I

think it really speaks to the tenacity of the police department that even after three decades that they didn't give up

they didn't give up hope that one day they would find out Stephanie Isaacson

is anyone's 14 year old daughter walking to school that day so there's something

about her case that just really stood out to investigators that they had to solve this one

detective Ray Spencer and his team hold a press conference to announce to the Vegas Community they finally can close

the Stephanie Isaacson murder we have identified Darren Roy Merchant who has been positively identified as

the person who sexually assaulted and murdered Stephanie in 1989. the ovmpd would like to thank othram laboratory

for their hard work on this very difficult case but the biggest thank you goes to the

generous donor who is Justin Wu who made all of this possible not only Stephanie's family and friends but our

community finally has closure for this horrible crime the incredible advancements in forensic

science are breathtaking but they're only as good as the efforts of investigators at the crime scene

sometimes 30 40 even 50 years before the most important factor in those efforts is the very careful detection and

preservation of evidence I'm very proud of those original investigators because you know they did

a phenomenal job on this case and when you look through and you look at how they preserved evidence that at the time

they had no idea what DNA was and you have no idea that this is going to be the the thing that solves the case 30

plus years later and it's because of that type of work that we're able to

solve this case it's incredible what the first responding officers did back in 1989 our

ability to test and process forensic evidence including DNA evidence was nowhere near where it is today so for

the first responding officers in 1989 to have the insight into they might not be

able to test it now but to have the Insight that the technology is going to eventually catch up where they will be

able to retest evidence good this was a landmark achievement author and scientists set a record for the

least amount of DNA ever used to solve a case it's less than one nanogram that's

one billionth of a gram and unimaginably Tiny Speck of DNA author's work in this case is is huge

Stephanie's case would not be solved we would not know her Killer without the

work of othram having the tools to be able to test this level of DNA and then be able to generate a profile from it

the this is a case for the history books this was a Cold Case a homicide case decades into investigating that only had

the equivalent of 15 human cells to be able to identify a killer I can't say

enough things I'm truly a fan and a believer in the work they're doing and

they're proving it they have a website called dnasolves.com and in that site

you can see beyond Vegas that they've been solving cases all across the U.S and I just I think they're incredible

we never solved this case without forensic genealogy if we don't have the capabilities to do the work that

Hawthorne Labs does this case never gets solved it's so important because the

capabilities of solving so many future unsolved murders are endless with the use of genealogy work

the other partner in this cold case breakthrough is Justin Wu and the Vegas Justice League team

Justin's work is tremendous he's providing financial support to law enforcement agencies particularly within

the Las Vegas community and to use those resources to solve the coldest of cold cases

I think it's very tangible that we could theoretically eliminate all of the cold

cases with DNA in the Las Vegas Market I've heard that that number is around

100 and I think that that's something you know over the next couple years even

that we could potentially raise the funds for to you know eliminate all the book called cases for them

the team of investigators and scientists are naturally relieved to crack the case

meanwhile Stephanie isaacson's family is left with memories her smile and her personality

she was my girl people said that we we acted a lot alike and enjoyed the same thing so we're very much alike the

horseback riding that Mustang that I bought her she wouldn't get very far from the barn and that horse would throw

her and she'd come walking back and put him away but it happened every time that

she was out and she loved to be out like I did she would go down the swimming pool and meet her friends in the

apartment complex we moved in she'd be on the phone talking to her friends just lots of good stuff

in the future scientists at author M Labs believe more grieving families can be helped by this technological

breakthrough I truly feel a product that's going to change the way that law enforcement does

a lot of these investigations and hopefully allow us to live in a world with no more cold cases at all where

everyone has answers for what happened to their loved one and no one has to wait decades to find out what happened

to their loved one in the future a world where perpetrators are scared to commit a crime because they know that if

they've left DNA it's a matter of time before they're caught the murder of 14 year old girl Stephanie

Isaacson is tragic it did however bring together well-intentioned people willing to take

on her case and other cases like hers the cooperation of law enforcement with Scientists at othran and with the

incredible Vegas Justice League team should be an inspiration to all of us it is to me

I'm Nancy Grace thank you for being with us here at bloodline detectives [Music]

foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]