00:00:00
[TENSE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: South Salt Lake
City, Utah, November 2010-- Earl Black returns to
his wife's bookstore
00:00:18
to find her brutally murdered. It's hard to imagine for
a stranger coming upon such
00:00:25
a scene, but imagine if this
were your wife, your husband, your loved one,
lying on the floor,
00:00:31
having been stabbed
more than a dozen times. NANCY GRACE: It's
a horrible scene.
00:00:37
Earl's wife, 64-year-old
Sherry Black, has been beaten and stabbed to death. I know he never spent
another night in that home.
00:00:45
And I can't imagine what
he's had to live with, having that image of her in his mind.
00:00:54
NANCY GRACE: The local
community fears there could be a killer amongst them. Detectives rush to track
down the unknown assailant.
00:01:04
BEN PENDER: Is this something
that was just personal? Or was this just a robbery
that maybe went bad?
00:01:08
Or is this somebody
that's in the community that's going to do this again? NANCY GRACE: This is a story
of how a relentless detective
00:01:19
and brand new forensic
science combined to solve the tragic murder
of a beloved grandma
00:01:27
after 10 long years. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
00:01:57
[GRIM MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Salt
Lake City, Utah, a city with a history steeped
in theology and spirituality.
00:02:06
Thursday, November 30, 2010,
1:30 PM in the afternoon, police get a disturbing phone
call from a local resident.
00:02:39
Earl Black came
home that afternoon. He left for work that morning,
said goodbye to his wife, who
00:02:46
was still in her
pajamas, and got back and, like any
husband coming home, would probably be calling
out, hey, I'm back.
00:02:54
I'm home. Started looking for her in
the house, could not find her. Went into the book shop
adjacent to the house
00:03:01
and worked his way back
from the front door through this warren
of little areas where books were stacked and
shelved, to the storeroom where
00:03:10
his wife kept her work area
and her most valuable books, and found her dead, murdered,
slaughtered on the floor.
00:03:19
BEN PENDER: You can hear the
frustration in his voice. He is extremely upset,
which is understandable.
00:03:26
He indicated that his
wife has been murdered. He indicated that he had removed
a pair of shearing scissors
00:03:34
that were embedded in her chest. PATT MORRISON: He kept saying,
my wife has been killed.
00:03:39
My wife has been killed. And you heard the operator
say, is she breathing? He kept repeating
in frustration,
00:03:46
my wife has been killed. And so, South Salt Lake City
Police, of course, showed up,
00:04:03
and then detectives showed up. This was a grotesque murder,
and obviously, from the get-go,
00:04:09
a complicated one. BEN PENDER: At that
point, the officers would have gone into the
scene to determine if there's
00:04:15
any other suspects, the
condition of Sherry, and then to back
out of the scene, once the medical had arrived
and sent somebody in to verify
00:04:24
that she was actually deceased. Everybody would have
backed out and locked that residence and
bookstore down to preserve
00:04:31
the evidence at the scene. NANCY GRACE: South Salt Lake
City Police ask for help
00:04:38
from the Utah Bureau of
Forensic Services, who arrive quickly on the scene. BEN PENDER: They identified some
blood on a map, a rolled up map.
00:04:49
They were also able to
identify a belt that was just outside of that
west back room that didn't
00:04:57
quite fit into the scene. It was just laying on the floor. It was a knockoff Armani
Exchange brown belt,
00:05:04
36 to 38 waist size. ROSIE RIVERA: That belt had been
one of the topics of evidence
00:05:11
on all the news stories. It had been put out there, this
belt was left at the scene.
00:05:16
And then there was a
number of other things, such as books that
were collected, blood swabs that were
collected, partial fingerprints
00:05:23
collected, a palm print
that was identified by them and collected. So they did an outstanding
job in processing
00:05:29
that scene for South Salt Lake. REBEKAH KAY: All of the
evidence, as far as the stains
00:05:34
and the swabs that
were collected, were sent through
our typical pathway through the laboratory, where
we're able to break open
00:05:41
any cells that are within the
biological evidence that's collected in order to
develop a DNA profile.
00:05:49
And we did get what we call
a single-source DNA profile from the perpetrator,
meaning a DNA profile
00:05:57
just of that individual. With no other individuals
in that particular sample, that can kind of make it a
little harder to deal with.
00:06:07
NANCY GRACE: Detectives may
have their first real clues from blood spatters left
behind at the crime scene.
00:06:14
But will that be enough
to catch a vicious killer? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:06:22
[AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [TENSE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: South Salt
Lake City, Utah, 2010--
00:06:33
Earl Black returns
home to find his wife, Sherry, brutally
murdered in the bookstore
00:06:39
she runs from her home. Sherry Black specializes in rare
books about the Mormon faith.
00:06:47
A beloved 64-year-old
grandma, Sherry's was found beaten and stabbed
dead with kitchen shears.
00:06:56
After calling 911, husband Earl
Black tells the devastating news to the rest of the family.
00:07:05
PATT MORRISON: Heidi
had already been concerned because she had tried
to call her mother that day.
00:07:11
She called her at home-- no answer. She called her at the
bookshop-- no answer. I just remember having a weird
feeling, and that wasn't normal.
00:07:20
I mean, I-- I'm sure there were many times
that I would call my parents and not get somebody.
00:07:26
But usually, she would
answer her cell phone. My dad called me and just said,
someone's killed your mom.
00:07:37
Get here quick. And I just-- what? Are you kidding?
What? And I just did not-- was she hit by a car?
00:07:47
Was she-- I didn't really
comprehend what he was saying. So my daughter was there.
00:07:54
My daughter, Alyssa, was there. And she drove us down
to my parents' house. And I just remember thinking,
if I get there fast enough,
00:08:03
maybe I can save her. Maybe-- maybe she's not gone. And that's-- that's
how I learned.
00:08:12
I found out my grandma
had been killed when my younger sister called me. She was hysterical
on the phone and told
00:08:19
me Grandma had been killed. I didn't get a lot of details. I just got that very
basic information
00:08:27
and loaded up the car and
went straight to her house. The street was lined
with ambulances and cop
00:08:36
cars and crime scene tape. And as I rounded the corner
onto that busy street, that's when it started to
sink in for me that this was--
00:08:45
the gravity of the situation. I just remember the-- the looks on the officers'
faces at the time.
00:08:59
You knew it impacted them. It had a big impression on them. And they all had moms.
00:09:07
And I knew it was
important for them to find the person
that did this. NANCY GRACE:
Detectives immediately
00:09:17
canvass the area in search
for a merciless killer. ROSIE RIVERA: Right after
the crime was committed,
00:09:24
police went out to
the neighborhood. They collected whatever
video footage they could
00:09:32
that was available from
businesses or home footage, and also talked to people
in the neighborhoods.
00:09:40
And then they also
talked with the media and had the media put out
information on the case
00:09:46
and that we were
looking for a suspect. NANCY GRACE: Sherry's
body taken to the morgue.
00:09:52
Detectives hope an
autopsy will reveal vital clues about
the final moments leading up to Sherry's death.
00:10:02
It's curious about an autopsy. People think of victims
as dead, and they are. But an autopsy is where
the victim speaks.
00:10:10
The victim's body tells
the investigators, tells the coroner clues
and things that happened,
00:10:17
tells those stories mutely with
what happened to the body-- the evidence of the wounds,
the nature of the wounds,
00:10:24
the defensive wounds. NANCY GRACE: The true extent
of Sherry Black's injuries is revealed.
00:10:32
BEN PENDER: She had a
number of stab wounds in the back of her head, and
she had a number of stab wounds
00:10:37
to her face. There were a few
throughout the body, obviously, the scissors that
were embedded in her chest.
00:10:43
Her carotid artery
was cut on her throat. She sustained multiple
bruising, blunt force trauma.
00:10:52
She sustained some
injuries to her hands, to the inside and outside
of her hand, which was
00:10:58
described as defensive wounds. PATT MORRISON: Even
though she was initially struck in the back, something
happened where she fought back.
00:11:06
And all of her
grandchildren, who were talked to by investigators,
said she was feisty.
00:11:12
One friend called her
a tough old broad. And the fact that she
would have fought back
00:11:16
would not have come
as a surprise to them. [SOMBER MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Sherry Black's
grieving family and friends come
00:11:23
together to say
their final goodbyes before she is laid to rest. To be honest, that whole
week after losing her
00:11:32
is a bit of a blur. We were all still in shock
and trying to wrap our heads around what had happened.
00:11:38
And I don't remember
a lot of the details. I just remember how-- how heartbroken and shocked and
just what an awful time it was.
00:11:51
HEIDI MILLER: The first days
are just kind of a blur. Luckily, I had a lot
of support and people
00:11:57
that helped and did a
lot of the heavy lifting because you're just
trying to survive.
00:12:06
The community was
very supportive. We felt a lot of love and a lot
of support from the community,
00:12:13
not just at that time,
but for a long time after. People were very caring
and concerned and--
00:12:19
and that meant a lot. The shock and grief from
Sherry Black's horrible murder now gives way to
dedicated police work.
00:12:30
First objective-- a closer look
at Sherry Black's personal life. HEIDI MILLER: I don't
ever remember hearing
00:12:39
her talk bad about anybody. She was just-- just
a good, kind person. She loved her family
passionately, loved being a mom,
00:12:50
and loved being a grandma. My grandma was just--
she was a lot of fun. I felt like she was my friend.
00:12:56
We had a really close bond
and a close connection. And I just loved being with
her and hanging out with her.
00:13:02
And I remember her taking an
interest in the music I liked and dancing with me in the car.
00:13:08
And she just was
always up for anything, and she was just a
great, great time. From as early as I can remember,
we would have sleepovers.
00:13:20
We'd go rent a movie
and get treats. And she'd make dinner,
or we'd have pizza. And we just really enjoyed
that time together.
00:13:30
It was just a really,
really special time. HEIDI MILLER: We didn't
have a lot of money,
00:13:36
but we always had
what we needed. And we took fun vacations. We had dirt bikes, and so we
had our annual dirt bike trips.
00:13:45
And we'd go to the desert,
and we went camping a lot. We went on river trips. My parents loved to run rivers,
just a lot of outdoor stuff.
00:13:55
NANCY GRACE: Sherry
Black's gruesome murder rocks the tight-knit community
of South Salt Lake City.
00:14:02
PATT MORRISON: Why this woman? Why this place? What reason could it have been? And I think people wanted to
find a motive, wanted to find
00:14:10
a reason, just to get a
sense of closure for, well, could it be me next? If things this random can
happen to someone this good,
00:14:20
who is safe? There was a lot of fear
because of the unknown. Nobody knew who did this crime.
00:14:28
They knew it was horrific. There was a lot
of news coverage, and it really did
rock the community.
00:14:35
NANCY GRACE: Salt Lake
City investigators re-examine the crime scene. PATT MORRISON: There were
no signs of forced entry.
00:14:44
This was a book shop that
did not keep the door locked once it was open for business.
00:14:49
Nobody had broken
down a door to get in. Nobody had picked a lock to get
in, which I think helped them
00:14:55
to fix the frame of the time of
death, the time of the attack, that the door was not locked.
00:15:01
NANCY GRACE: Very quickly,
it emerges a male customer was at the store that morning.
00:15:08
BEN PENDER: Based on the
information from the telephone call to the customer,
customer that
00:15:13
had called Sherry at 9:53 AM-- and then when the
customer arrived, he indicated that he
arrived approximately
00:15:21
at 1:30 PM as well. So we really have
a very short window when this would have occurred.
00:15:29
So it would have
had to have been after 9:53 and prior to 10:30. So we have less than an hour
that everything occurred,
00:15:38
and this person was gone. NANCY GRACE:
Detectives now believe Sherry's husband, Earl Black,
may himself be a suspect.
00:15:48
PATT MORRISON: Earl Black
was questioned by police and eliminated on several
counts, one of them
00:15:55
the fact that he had an alibi,
another the really pretty clear-cut evidence from
the surveillance cameras
00:16:00
at the bookstore when he had
left the house in the morning and when he came back several
hours later into the bookstore
00:16:08
to find his wife dead. We're gonna look at
friends and family. We're gonna start looking at
business associates, customers.
00:16:16
We're looking at
everything at this point. She was stabbed
12, 15, 17 times, which, to an investigator,
might suggest,
00:16:26
this was somebody who knew you
and was very angry with you. And that's one of the
reasons that police also
00:16:32
looked at the
circle of people she worked with, the booksellers,
anybody she may have encountered
00:16:37
in her volunteer work, somebody
who might have had some reason to dislike her, to distrust
her, to be angry with her,
00:16:45
and to attack her. There was a couple
of other cases that initially thought that
there were similarities
00:16:51
in other states, but
ultimately came back, and it was not a match
either in those cases.
00:16:57
But yeah, I mean, I think you're
looking everywhere and anywhere for anything that potentially
could help in these types
00:17:02
of investigations. And it's just important that
you try to cover all your bases in order to get the
story and hopefully
00:17:10
lead us to the perpetrator. Investigators don't
have a possible motive and few important clues for
Sherry Black's brutal murder.
00:17:20
Can new forensic science help
to identify this vicious killer? We'll find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:17:29
[AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: South Salt
Lake City, Utah, 2010--
00:17:40
investigators led by Detective
Ben Pender are looking for new tactics to solve the murder
of a 64-year-old grandma,
00:17:49
Sherry Black. Sherry is found
beaten and stabbed dead with kitchen shears. Her family struggles to come
to terms with their loss.
00:18:02
When you're
listening to the family say how much hurt they had
because what they suffered
00:18:07
by losing their mother,
their grandmother, but also because the individual
had not been apprehended,
00:18:14
it created a fear in the family
and more heartache because they just wanted some justice.
00:18:21
BEN PENDER: They kept it in the
media, billboards, reward money, trying to solicit tips or any
type of leads in the case.
00:18:30
They really did everything
that they could possibly do to get the information out
there and keep the information
00:18:36
out there, hoping that
leads would come forward, or people eventually would
maybe speak up and say
00:18:41
something to where it
might lead investigators to the perpetrator. Even though the police
were very frustrated,
00:18:48
they were aided in keeping the
case in front of the public by Sherry's family. They would annually hold
vigils on the anniversary
00:18:56
to remind people that
this was still unsolved. They had that immense reward
out there of at least $100,000.
00:19:04
They were very much
front and center in the public eye
for years to make sure that Sherry's killer was
found and brought to justice.
00:19:11
We had, I think, 86
different individuals or persons of interest's DNA
samples over the next decade.
00:19:21
NANCY GRACE: Investigators
decide to input the killer's DNA sample into CODIS. CODIS stands for the
Combined DNA Index System,
00:19:31
and it is a nationwide
database of convicted offenders and arrestee samples. It allows us to enter profiles
that are developed off
00:19:40
of evidence from putative
perpetrators in order to potentially identify
the individual.
00:19:46
HEIDI MILLER: When
he was attacking her, he had cut himself. And when he was leaving, he
shut the door to the back room
00:19:54
where she was and left a
partial palm print in his blood on the door. So we had his DNA.
00:20:02
And of course, it's a
natural that detectives and investigators would
turn to this system
00:20:07
to put the DNA into it to see
what kind of hits, what kind of reaction it would get,
and perhaps find the name,
00:20:14
the identity of the killer. All of those
individuals' DNA profiles were compared back to
that unknown male DNA
00:20:21
profile on the evidence from the
crime scene, and none of them matched. BEN PENDER: They retrieved DNA.
00:20:28
There was some blood
on a rolled up map that was leaning
against the wall directly next to the doorway
leading into the back west room
00:20:36
and was uploaded into CODIS,
but unfortunately, that did not come back to anybody either.
00:20:46
I mean, is it
somebody that's young? Could that be the case,
because they're not in CODIS?
00:20:50
Could it be somebody
that's never been caught? Is it somebody that has been
caught for other crimes,
00:20:55
but didn't lead up to that? Or is it somebody that has
been caught for a violent crime
00:20:59
that, for whatever
reason, it was overlooked, and their DNA wasn't collected? Years pass.
00:21:07
Little progress, if any,
is made on Sherry's case. Detective Ben Pender
refuses to give up.
00:21:14
He remains in close contact
with Sherry Black's family. I think the fact that
they knew that Sherry wasn't
00:21:22
forgotten, that things
were happening on the case, and recognizing that
sometimes things do take time.
00:21:29
At this time, this
case, in March of 2018, had been transferred over to
the unified police department,
00:21:38
and I was assigned this case
as the lead investigator. That's when I feel
like it really--
00:21:44
I knew he was working on it. We would meet with
him every few months, and he would just go
through his notebook
00:21:53
and just have pages and pages of
things that he was looking into. REBEKAH KAY:
Detective Pender had
00:21:59
heard about forensic
genetic genealogy and had wondered if that was
something that could be pursued
00:22:05
in this case, since we
still had not identified who the perpetrator was. I told him that we did have very
good evidence from the crime
00:22:15
scene, there was plenty
of DNA left over, and that I thought
it was a good idea for him to pursue that testing.
00:22:23
2015, Detective Ben
Pender and his team hear about Parabon NanoLabs. Parabon's a company that
specializes in DNA phenotyping,
00:22:36
a forensic science that
allows scientists to predict physical characteristics
of a person
00:22:42
simply by looking at their DNA. CECE MOORE: The more
details that we can have about a crime, the better.
00:22:50
But we don't necessarily need
to have that because the DNA is going to tell a story.
00:22:55
If we are given the information
of where and when that crime occurred, that
can really help us
00:23:01
narrow down the potential
persons of interest. We're looking for
someone who has
00:23:07
to be a certain age range in
order to have been that suspect. And if we can find
branches of the family tree
00:23:15
that are closer to
that crime scene, then those are going to
be of higher interest,
00:23:19
typically, than people who
live much further away. BEN PENDER: The way
Parabon reviewed
00:23:25
this case is they would actually
give it a numbering system. And what I mean by that is they
had a number range from 1 to 5.
00:23:34
So 1 would be, we can
probably solve this overnight, and 5 would be, it's probably
not worth you even spending
00:23:43
any money on this
case because we probably-- there's
no chance we're going to be able to solve this case.
00:23:48
So as they reviewed Sherry's
case, they came back to me, before we decided
to go this route,
00:23:53
they came back to
me and said, we have given this case a 4-minus. So it definitely
caused a little pause,
00:24:01
but we have to do
whatever we can in any of these types of cases
and think outside the box.
00:24:05
It was a 4-minus,
but it wasn't a 5, so that gave me some
hope that we might be able to do something with this.
00:24:12
So my agency and
the sheriff agreed to pay for us to start working
on this genetic genealogy
00:24:19
with Parabon. We need hundreds of
thousands of genetic markers that are called SNPs.
00:24:25
So Parabon analyzed that DNA
using a more advanced technology than had been used previously.
00:24:33
That revealed
additional information about this individual. It showed us that he
was African-American,
00:24:39
and he had some Puerto
Rican ancestry as well. PATT MORRISON: Once
the police put together
00:24:46
this DNA composite image of
the person they were looking for as Sherry's killer, they
put it out into the world,
00:24:53
and they got 60 different leads. 60 people called and said,
I think I know who that is.
00:24:59
The police did DNA testing
on each of those people, and each one of them was
excluded as the killer.
00:25:06
NANCY GRACE: It's a devastating
blow to the investigation-- over 60 leads from
the phenotype snapshot
00:25:14
and not a single DNA hit. Parabon NanoLabs is also
utilizing another new technique
00:25:21
to solve cold cases. It's called investigative
genetic genealogy. Can this forensic tool finally
identify a grandmother,
00:25:33
Sherry Black's killer? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO]
00:25:46
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: South Salt
Lake City, Utah, 2018-- detectives investigating the
2010 murder of a 64-year-old
00:25:57
grandma, Sherry Black,
Sherry brutally stabbed dead in her own bookstore. The case goes cold
for eight years,
00:26:07
even though police
have valuable DNA samples from the crime scene. Investigators enlist Parabon
NanoLabs to utilize the science
00:26:17
of investigative genetic
genealogy in their bid to ID Sherry Black's killer. CECE MOORE: This case took
a lot of collaborative work
00:26:29
between the genetic genealogists
and Detective Ben Pender. This meant that it took about
two years for us to finally
00:26:38
zero in on the right family. So in 2020, the case
finally really started moving forward at a fast pace.
00:26:47
And we advised Detective
Pender to go out to Sacramento to talk to a family that
we thought might be closely
00:26:53
related to the perpetrator. BEN PENDER: One
of the individuals that was already on the list
that she had asked me to go
00:27:00
talk to had, all of
a sudden, kind of rose to the top of the list. Another distant relative
had put their information
00:27:06
into GEDmatch, which
actually brought us a lot closer to this individual. And I was informed this person
was residing in the Sacramento,
00:27:15
California area, and was asked
to travel there and meet and try to obtain ancestry information.
00:27:22
Also, I was aware that
there was an adult son, and, again, I was
asked to speak with him
00:27:28
and obtain his
information and see if I couldn't obtain
a reference sample from both him and his mother.
00:27:37
NANCY GRACE: Lead Detective
Ben Pender decides to speak to the mother first. CECE MOORE: When she was asked
about a potential family member
00:27:48
who may have lived in
the Salt Lake City area, she revealed that there was
someone from their family
00:27:54
that had been
placed for adoption. When this woman's son gave
the name of the woman he had
00:28:02
the relationship with that had
placed the son for adoption, we jumped into action,
and we ended up
00:28:10
finding the obituary for
the maternal grandmother of this adopted son. And in that
obituary, it actually
00:28:20
says his first and last name. It said Antonio Spencer. I was looking in our
databases, and I just could not
00:28:28
find anywhere where there was an
individual that would match up in the potential age frame
of somebody who could
00:28:36
have committed this crime. So as we kept looking,
I came across something with a first name of Adam
Antonio Spencer Durborow.
00:28:46
And we were able to determine
that he was actually removed, at some point
when he was young,
00:28:52
from his mother's custody. He was taken into state custody,
had been in foster care,
00:28:58
ultimately was
adopted by somebody by the last name of Durborow. And I was able to
identify who he was.
00:29:05
It appeared that he was
still living in Utah. He was actually residing south
of Salt Lake County, about 25
00:29:12
miles or 25 minutes away
from where Earl and Sherry's bookstore was located. PATT MORRISON: They had
a name, Adam Durborow.
00:29:23
This was going to be their man. But they had to get the evidence
to pull it all together.
00:29:29
And what they did was to go
after his genetic evidence, his DNA, without him
knowing about it.
00:29:37
They knew where he worked. They followed him. They saw him order fast
food and go back to work.
00:29:44
He worked at a Walmart. And they went to his car,
photographed the contents of his car, which was a lot of
junk food containers, fast food
00:29:51
containers, and then
were able to get those containers out of his car
and take them in for testing.
00:29:59
And things like a soda straw
showed that exactly what they had predicted was going to be
through the testing was true,
00:30:07
that Adam Durborow
was their man. The Bloodline Detectives have
finally ID'd a prime suspect.
00:30:15
His name.? Adam Durborow. Now they've got to catch him. BEN PENDER: As Adam was
walking into the Walmart,
00:30:25
there were six or seven
plainclothes detectives. We had identifiers
on jackets and things
00:30:30
such as that indicating
we were the police. Approached Adam. He immediately put his
hands behind his back.
00:30:36
He said, I know
what this is about. He indicated that he knew this
was about the Sherry Black case.
00:30:42
And I get him in
my vehicle and let him know that he is under
arrest for this homicide
00:30:48
and that we are going to
be transporting him back to our office to speak with him.
00:31:37
PATT MORRISON: This was
almost exactly 10 years after Sherry's murder. And Adam Durborow
was in a solemn frame
00:31:46
of mind, as you
would expect, being taken into custody
for a murder that had been committed 10 years ago.
00:31:54
And he was informed
of his Miranda rights, but gradually, he started to
talk to police about himself,
00:32:01
about his family, about his
circumstances growing up, and eventually got around
to the crime itself.
00:32:08
BEN PENDER: He indicated
that he had a therapy appointment around
11:00 or 11:30 that
00:32:13
day in that general location. And as he was walking by,
he said he just happened
00:32:18
to notice that bookstore there. He indicated that he had never
been in that bookstore before.
00:32:23
He loves books. So he decided to go in and take
a look at what kind of books were in that store.
00:33:03
[SOMBER MUSIC] COURTNEY HAWKES: By his own
admission, she was kind to him, and that's what set him off.
00:33:10
I also wonder if her Spidey
senses, her intuition was kind of telling her
that something was off,
00:33:17
and that provoked him or-- I-- I don't know. I don't know. It's-- I don't know. HEIDI MILLER: On
October 10, 2020,
00:33:33
they brought us in and told
us that they had arrested a person named Adam
Durborow in Utah County,
00:33:41
and that he was in custody, and
that he had confessed on his way there. COURTNEY HAWKES: My sister and
I went to the police station,
00:33:52
and I remember waiting on
the lawn for my parents to finish the meeting and my
parents coming out and saying,
00:34:03
they got him. They have him. And it was just a huge amount
of relief that washed over me,
00:34:14
knowing that the person
who had done this to her had been caught. It was a great moment.
00:34:21
For 10 years, you wonder
what it's going to be like and how you'll feel when
you get that answer.
00:34:26
And you just can't describe it. It was-- it's just-- I still-- I don't
have the words for it.
00:34:36
It was just such a relief. So who is Adam Durborow? Investigators dig
deep into his past
00:34:46
and get a better sense of
who is the alleged killer. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:34:55
[AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: South Salt
Lake City, Utah, 2021,
00:35:07
11 years after the murder
of a beloved grandmother, Sherry Black, her
killer now in custody.
00:35:16
His name? Adam Durborow. Now, investigators try their
best to understand what turned
00:35:24
Durborow into a vicious killer. He had a fairly extensive
juvenile criminal history
00:35:32
of some violent crimes
and other crimes. His adult history, however,
there was only two arrests
00:35:40
that he had, and those were both
misdemeanor arrests for theft. So that's all he had as
far as his criminal history
00:35:47
goes as him being an adult. HEIDI MILLER: His
attorney said that he would plead guilty if
we would take the death
00:35:55
penalty off the table. And that was an easy one
for us, because if he would plead guilty, then we
wouldn't have to do a trial.
00:36:07
And the trial was a thing that
I think I was most afraid of, my dad having to testify
to finding my mom
00:36:14
and just be up on that stand. And, you know, you never know
if there's one jury member
00:36:19
that finds him not guilty. So for me, it was-- I think for our family,
it was an easy--
00:36:25
yeah, if he can spend
life without parole, happy to take the
death penalty off. I feel like it brought
closure for our family.
00:36:37
I feel like, yeah, we'll
never have my mom back. My dad will never
have his wife back.
00:36:42
And that hurts. And that's-- it's
really painful. But the 10 years of wanting
answers and not getting
00:36:52
answers and always, you know,
looking over your shoulder, wondering, is it them?
00:36:56
Is that the person? Are we ever going
to find the person? And just the anniversary
comes around,
00:37:01
and it opens up the wounds. And so finally having
answers has helped us heal and brought us closure.
00:37:09
And I think that day, the
sentencing, for my dad, was a day that he could
start to really move forward.
00:37:21
This will be something that
I will remember my entire life. But the positive, if there is
a positive to come out of this,
00:37:31
is the family actually began
starting to help others in law enforcement, started
a foundation,
00:37:38
and are actually
out helping others in these types of cases try to
resolve their cases as well.
00:37:44
With all we have learned and
all the people that we had met and the resources that
we had, my husband and I
00:37:50
felt like we needed
to give back and help other families that
are experiencing what we experienced.
00:37:58
And so we created the
Sherry Black Foundation so that we could help
bridge those gaps
00:38:04
and bring law enforcement
together and promote collaboration and
learning and help families
00:38:11
get their cases solved. My heart always hurt for
families who have loved ones that pass away, that get
killed, that don't know how
00:38:25
to advocate for themselves
or how to get answers or how to get help. And they have to live with what
we lived with for 10 years.
00:38:32
And it breaks my heart
because it's so painful. It's hard to move forward when
you don't have those answers.
00:38:41
So we just always felt like,
where we can make a difference and where we can do some
good, it's our responsibility.
00:38:49
On May 17 of 2023, the Sherry
Black Law was passed in Utah, and it set some parameters
in place for law enforcement
00:38:59
to follow, so that there are
some rules and guidelines, but it keeps investigative
genetic genealogy a useful tool
00:39:07
in Utah to help solve crimes. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
reflect on the importance of investigative
genetic genealogy
00:39:16
in finally delivering
answers to Sherry's family. PATT MORRISON: Could this case
have been solved without that?
00:39:24
I don't think so. None of the standard
connections and questions-- family, grudges, motives--
00:39:30
none of that happened. It all came up dry. It was just by happenstance
that this DNA program, this DNA
00:39:37
technology, could put this
together, like solving a puzzle, and come up with
Adam Durborow's name.
00:39:46
HEIDI MILLER: I miss
everything about her. And it just kind of
depends on the time.
00:39:52
I miss just being able to call
her and share things with her. I miss sharing-- I have 15 grandchildren now.
00:40:00
And she loved being a
grandma, and I wish I could share those grandkids with her.
00:40:05
She would love being a
great-grandma to them, and she would love
watching me be a grandma.
00:40:11
And I miss being able to
share that with her and just conversations. Just-- it was just
easy with her.
00:40:18
And I just miss her. NANCY GRACE: There are
very few crime victims who are loved so much by so many
family members as Sherry Black.
00:40:34
The sudden and horrible death
of the 64-year-old grandmother will forever haunt them.
00:40:42
That family pain drove
the "Bloodline Detectives" to try every available
forensic weapon
00:40:49
until one of those
scientific weapons finally catches a killer. I'm Nancy Grace.
00:40:57
Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO]
00:41:10
[THEME MUSIC]