00:00:00
[DRAMATIC SOUNDS] NANCY GRACE: 1968,
Rapid City South Dakota. A 60-year-old woman
brutally raped and murdered
00:00:21
inside her own home. [DRAMATIC SOUNDS] BRIAN OXMAN: The cause of
death was strangulation.
00:00:28
The manner was a homicide. This was a brutal
vicious murder. NANCY GRACE: The
investigation hits
00:00:35
one dead end after the next. The case goes cold. WAYNE KEEFE: 1972 Rapid City
experience a devastating flood.
00:00:45
The basement of the
police department was effectively filled in
with silt, which thereby
00:00:52
destroyed all of the records. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: So
literally, you're starting back at the beginning again.
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[DRAMATIC SOUNDS] NANCY GRACE: Any
hope of finding Gwen Miller's killer seems gone.
00:01:06
Until one detective
taps into a new form of investigative science. [DRAMATIC SOUNDS]
00:01:13
WAYNE KEEFE: If I were able to
match the suspect's DNA to one of these databases, there
was no doubt in my mind
00:01:21
I could at least come up with
who his family members were. NANCY GRACE: This is the story
of the brutal rape and murder
00:01:28
of Gwen Miller and how
thanks to forensic genealogy, her cold case is
finally cracked.
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I'm Nancy Grace, and this
is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] [OMINOUS MUSIC]
00:02:06
Rapid City is a rural
and peaceful community. It's the second biggest
town in South Dakota,
00:02:12
and one of America's biggest
tourist destinations. [OMINOUS MUSIC] WAYNE KEEFE: Rapid City is just
a good quality Midwestern town.
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Its city is in its name and
it's gotten considerably larger over the past few decades.
00:02:30
Generally speaking, the
people here, most of them are middle class
hardworking families
00:02:35
that just want to go on about
their day in peace, and quiet, and calm. NANCY GRACE: One day
in 1968, the peace
00:02:47
and tranquility of this
historic place is shattered. On February 29,
60-year-old Gwen Miller
00:02:55
fails to show up for work. WAYNE KEEFE: Gwen
Miller was a pharmacist and she worked at
Bennett-Clarkson Hospital
00:03:04
which was one of the
two main hospitals in Rapid City at that time. And she was known
to the people there.
00:03:13
The nurses, the doctors, just
the general hospital staff. She was known to be a diabetic.
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And she had over time had
some diabetic seizures. She had passed out a few
times, things like that.
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So they were-- the
staff there were aware of that it
wasn't a huge problem but they knew that about her.
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A couple of the nurses
that were on staff there were very concerned
about her because
00:03:38
of her known diabetic
status, and the two of them went together to her house on
Hall Street to check on her,
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to find out what happened. Why is she not here? M. WILLIAM PHELPS:
What do they find?
00:03:54
Broken glass, the door open. So they go in. And they look around. And they see Gwen in bed.
00:04:03
And they don't think
much of it, they think maybe, huh, maybe she
is in a diabetic shock, coma.
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But then they look closer
and they see, no, she's dead. [MUSIC PLAYING] BRIAN OXMAN: Her co-workers
immediately called the police,
00:04:20
Rapid City Police Department. And when the police
arrived, they did a crime scene investigation.
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They started
collecting evidence, they collected
Gwen's pajamas, they collected the sheets
which were on the bed,
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they collected her purse. And they collected her
checkbook which was really a strange thing because Gwen
kept meticulous notes of all
00:04:45
the places that she would go,
and even the amounts of money that she would spend.
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If she spent $2.50 on
a taxicab, she would note that in her checkbook. And all the expenditures
of her life were there.
00:05:01
[DRAMATIC SOUND] WAYNE KEEFE: There wasn't
blood that they could find. It wasn't a bloody
gruesome type of scene.
00:05:09
They did notice a little
bit more about her neck and there being contusions
and kind of marks around it
00:05:16
that might be consistent
with her being strangled. [MUSIC PLAYING] M. WILLIAM PHELPS: So the
coroner arrives on scene
00:05:22
to oversee the body being taken
to the pathology department for further forensic examination.
00:05:30
But right away on
scene, I mean, they can tell that Gwen
Miller has been raped, and likely
strangled because there's
00:05:40
bruises on her neck. When they look deeper at this,
they find out not only has she
00:05:46
been strangled, but
she's been strangled very violently by a strong person. Her ribs are even broken.
00:05:53
So what does that tell me? That tells me the person
kneeled on her chest while he strangled her to death.
00:06:01
And she likely fought
after he raped her. NANCY GRACE: Gwen Miller's
home is now a crime scene.
00:06:11
Investigators look for
clues and possibly a motive. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: You go
to the handles on the doors,
00:06:20
you check for fingerprints. Then you go to the body and
you begin to look at the body.
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And the body speaks even
though the body is dead. NANCY GRACE: The
homicide takes local law
00:06:33
enforcement by surprise. BRIAN OXMAN: Rapid City
was not a high crime area for a number of rapes.
00:06:41
And this was a time when
fingerprints and blood typing were the main stays of a
criminal investigation.
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They found several latent
fingerprints in Gwen's house. However, they were able
to determine most of them
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except one. They were not able
to determine who that one mysterious
fingerprint belonged to.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Police want to
know, who was Gwen Miller? M. WILLIAM PHELPS: Gwen
Miller was born in 1908.
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And she was a child of that era. And she grew into a student who
was interested in pharmacology.
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So she followed that path
during a time really when it was mostly male dominated.
00:07:35
So you could say that
Gwen Miller really did what she wanted to do in life. Independent woman.
00:07:41
JIM LINDGREN: She was
one of the sweetest women you'd ever want to meet. She is always happy
to see you come,
00:07:49
was pleasant to be around,
just a wonderful person. KAY MILLER-TEMPLE:
Still remember just how
00:07:58
happy Aunt Gwen was to see us. She was so happy to
see her family members. And I think that's what I
remember about Aunt Gwen.
00:08:07
Is she just always was
happy to be with her family. NANCY GRACE: Gwen
Miller is known
00:08:15
and loved in her community. Her work brings her in
touch with so many neighbors and now, she's starting to wind
down a career that she loves.
00:08:24
JIM LINDGREN: I got a
phone call and they told-- her family just told me
that Gwen had passed away.
00:08:30
And that's all they ever said. KAY MILLER-TEMPLE:
I just thought that she had died from diabetes,
nobody had talked any other.
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This was the first funeral
that I was allowed to attend and I was a fifth grader.
00:08:44
And then when I turned 28 and
found out how Aunt Gwen died, after I got done
being mad at my mother
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for never having told us that,
I thought, oh, now I understand. I totally understand why
that church was so quiet.
00:09:02
M. WILLIAM PHELPS:
And unassuming person who never bothered
anybody, kept to herself.
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This is a home invasion,
a murder, and a rape. It's rare, but it's scary. NANCY GRACE: A close-knit
community is outraged.
00:09:21
Police at a loss, who would want
to rape and murder Gwen Miller? As we see next on
"Bloodline Detectives,"
00:09:29
police are afraid her
killer could strike again. [DRAMATIC SOUNDS] [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:09:42
February 1968, Rapid
City South Dakota Police beginning to
investigate the murder
00:09:47
and rape of a 60-year-old
woman, Gwen Miller. Her body discovered
in her own home
00:09:53
when Gwen doesn't
show up for work. So far, a team of investigators
has very little to go on.
00:10:03
M. WILLIAM PHELPS:
This investigation turns into three different
agencies being involved.
00:10:07
The Sheriff's Department, the
local police, and the FBI. The local police
detectives were the ones
00:10:13
doing the gumshoe work. NANCY GRACE: In 1968,
investigative police work is about the basics.
00:10:20
Searching a crime
scene for evidence that could yield a clue. WAYNE KEEFE: Some of the
main pieces of evidence
00:10:28
that were collected were
they dusted the house for fingerprints, which was one
of the main investigative tools
00:10:37
at their disposal at that time. They took many
different fingerprints from different
locations on the scene.
00:10:45
They gathered up
things like her purse, canceled check stubs, they
gathered up the sheets
00:10:51
from the bed, they took
of course the night clothes that she had on. Those were taken at autopsy.
00:10:58
They took the rug and so
forth that had glass fragments and the pieces of
the brick that was
00:11:03
used to break the back window. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: They're
able to identify all of the fingerprints as
Gwen's, her friends, family,
00:11:12
except one set of prints. And that one set of
prints if I'm a detective, I'm saying that's my killer.
00:11:22
NANCY GRACE: Rapid City
Police also reached out to that close-knit community
for any information
00:11:27
that could help. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: The
first thing they start doing is canvassing the neighborhood.
00:11:33
Knocking on doors,
talking to people, what have you seen tonight? They might be making
calls to other departments
00:11:40
to find out if there's any
similar crimes in the area. But their main tool
of investigation
00:11:48
is talking to people. Then they're going
to go to Gwen's work. They're going to talk there.
00:11:55
BRIAN OXMAN: The police
did their best to find out what happened to Gwen. How this murder took place.
00:12:02
And there was a report that
a taxicab arrived at 10:30 PM that night, and that this
was a female or maybe a male,
00:12:15
they couldn't tell. The next door neighbor
who made this report couldn't tell who got
out of the taxicab,
00:12:22
and then the taxi
cab drove away. It remained a mystery,
the police investigated
00:12:28
the best they could. They questioned every single
taxi driver they could find. They gave them lie detector
tests, the polygraph.
00:12:37
And yet, they could
not find any indication that Gwen had taken a taxi cab. [OMINOUS MUSIC]
00:12:46
WAYNE KEEFE: One
of the neighbors told the police at that time
that she had just finished
00:12:51
watching the evening news, which
would have started at 10:00 and ended at 10:30.
00:12:56
When she believed a taxi
pulled up into Gwen's driveway, a subject that she could
not describe male or female
00:13:06
got out, and the taxi
backed out and left. Based on the fact that
Gwen didn't drive,
00:13:12
that she took a taxi
on a regular basis, the lady didn't
think much of it. But that information
in and of itself
00:13:18
started a particular line
of this investigation at that time. NANCY GRACE: A late night
taxi, the image of a man.
00:13:27
And soon, investigators
have a name and a suspect. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:13:34
[DRAMATIC SOUNDS] [OMINOUS MUSIC] Rapid City South
Dakota 1968, police think they may have
a prime suspect
00:13:50
in the rape and murder of a
60-year-old woman Gwen Miller. [MUSIC PLAYING] WAYNE KEEFE: Neighbors
throughout that area
00:13:59
were quick to point
out a gentleman that lived in Rapid City,
his name was Michael Beckers.
00:14:07
Michael Beckers was a pharmacist
himself and he owned Becker's Drugstore which was
downtown in the 600 block
00:14:14
of Main Street in Rapid City. [MUSIC PLAYING] M. WILLIAM PHELPS: Michael
Beckers had his own pharmacy
00:14:20
and Gwen Miller worked
part time for him. So as they begin to look
at this guy, they find out,
00:14:26
h-m, he's kind of a womanizer. This guy, you know,
he had his faults. But there was no
indication that Gwen
00:14:37
and him had any type of
romance or anything going on. And there were no reports
that maybe he had an obsession
00:14:46
with her or anything like that. So as he begins to look
like a good suspect, now you're starting
to exclude him.
00:14:54
One report particularly
begins to interest detectives about this guy. And that's that neighbors report
he was out there one night.
00:15:02
It was dark, he was loud,
he was making a scene in front of Gwen's house. However, the guy
liked drinking, so he
00:15:15
was possibly drunk at the time. Now if he's drunk and
he's making a scene, that's one thing.
00:15:20
If he's sober and
he's making a scene, that's quite another thing. NANCY GRACE: Lots of
people in Rapid City
00:15:27
have opinions about
Michael Beckers and none of those
opinions are good. WAYNE KEEFE: Michael Beckers was
known throughout our community
00:15:37
to be a heavy drinker. He was a womanizer. He was separated from his wife
and living with another woman.
00:15:46
And he was reported to
have gone to Gwen's house the summer prior to this murder.
00:15:54
He showed up at night in a taxi. Because of his drinking, he also
took taxis everywhere he went.
00:16:01
He showed up at Gwen's house
and was at her back door beating and pounding on the door
demanding that she let him in.
00:16:08
Making so much noise that the
neighbors called the police at that point in time.
00:16:13
And the police
responded and took him away from the property. So that of course, made
Michael Beckers a fairly decent
00:16:20
suspect at that point in time. NANCY GRACE: Police
ask Michael Beckers to take a polygraph test.
00:16:28
BRIAN OXMAN: The polygraph test
is such an interesting police technique. The police love it,
they want to use it,
00:16:35
they will tell you
how effective it is. The scientists will tell you
that it is totally ineffective.
00:16:42
But what real
criminologists will tell you is that it is when
the suspect refuses
00:16:49
to take the polygraph that they
are now fingered as someone who is involved in the crime.
00:16:57
Beckers refused to take the
polygraph, he got scared. He didn't want to take it.
00:17:03
WAYNE KEEFE: Many of the
people in our community at that point in time believed
Michael Beckers was the person
00:17:09
that killed Gwen Miller. One of those people
that came forth was the girlfriend
that Michael Beckers
00:17:18
was currently living with in
an apartment near his pharmacy. One of her best
friends, another female,
00:17:28
was actually acquainted
with one of the detectives that was working on this case.
00:17:33
So Michael Beckers'
girlfriend says to her friend, there is no doubt in my
mind Michael Beckers is
00:17:40
the one that killed that lady. That detective and
another detective tried to make contact with
Michael Beckers' girlfriend
00:17:48
to verify the statement. They met her at the apartment
near the pharmacy, started
00:17:54
to conduct an interview with her
or just basically telling them who they were and why we're here
and getting some of the basics
00:18:01
down when Michael Beckers
burst into the apartment. And basically, threw
the detectives out.
00:18:08
Demanded that they leave. You may not talk to her
those type of things. Rather than cause a
scene, those detectives
00:18:15
just backed away
calmly and so forth, and went on about their day. Of course, noting the
fact that Michael Beckers
00:18:21
really didn't want
us to talk to her. They assumed that at
some point in time, they could talk to her in
the near future at a place
00:18:29
where he may not interrupt. The unfortunate part
to this whole thing is approximately a
week later, that female
00:18:37
died of what was put on
her death certificate as a drug overdose. So they were never able to
conduct the interview with her.
00:18:46
NANCY GRACE: A key
witness is suddenly dead. Then completely out of the
blue, something else happens.
00:18:54
A stroke of bad luck
that literally pours water on the investigation. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:19:01
M. WILLIAM PHELPS:
There's boxes upon boxes of files, interviews, lie
detector test results,
00:19:09
analysis. And what happens is devastating
to the investigation. In 1972, there's a
flood in the office
00:19:19
where the records are kept
and the records are destroyed. So literally, you're starting
back at the beginning again.
00:19:29
And this is before
digital and all of that, so now you're banking on memory. Because in any investigation
you interview somebody
00:19:39
and you want to go backwards
and look at the case record, and maybe there's some
information that lines up.
00:19:45
They can't do that anymore. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: The investigation
hits another brick wall.
00:19:51
Michael Beckers dies. BRIAN OXMAN: Michael
Beckers died in 1973. This was one of the
strange developments
00:20:03
in the case of Gwen Miller
where the prime suspect was no longer alive. The police went on to look
at this as a cold case.
00:20:14
They didn't have a suspect,
they didn't have anyone who they could
pin this crime on,
00:20:20
and they were at a total loss. This case was going to go
unsolved except for the fact
00:20:28
that there was the
development of DNA technology over the years, and
except for the fact
00:20:35
of one lone detective
who decided, I ain't going to
let this thing go. NANCY GRACE: The
prime suspect is dead.
00:20:44
Crucial evidence, destroyed. Five years after the rape
and murder of a Gwen Miller,
00:20:51
the case goes cold. Until new science and the
"Bloodline Detectives" take over. That's next.
00:20:59
[DRAMATIC SOUNDS] 2005, Rapid City
South Dakota, 37 years have passed since the brutal
murder of a Gwen Miller killed
00:21:17
and raped in her own home. The case is cold,
but now detectives think a new forensic science
could bring it back to life.
00:21:25
[OMINOUS MUSIC] WAYNE KEEFE: In 2005, the
State Division of Criminal Investigation
received a grant, I
00:21:32
believe from the
federal government to look into and process
some unsolved cases using
00:21:41
new DNA technology
that was coming about. One of the cases that they
worked on at that point in time
00:21:48
was Gwen Miller's case. The evidence was sent
to the state crime lab. Semen samples from her
pajamas were processed
00:21:57
and DNA extracted. [MUSIC PLAYING] M. WILLIAM PHELPS: So
they submit that DNA into CODIS and all
of the databases,
00:22:05
and they don't get a hit. Now, is it disappointing? Yes. Is it expected? Yes. Because those databases are
only good if an offender has
00:22:15
committed another crime, and
his or her information, his DNA, is put into that base.
00:22:23
So what you have is you
have an offender's profile but that offender is
not in the system.
00:22:32
NANCY GRACE: Rapid
City investigators won't give up on the scientific
weapon they now have.
00:22:38
They look for another way
to find a sample that might match DNA on Gwen's pajamas.
00:22:46
WAYNE KEEFE: In
2010, the Division of Criminal Investigation again
took another look at this case.
00:22:54
Based on improvements in
the DNA and their abilities to obtain a better profile,
they looked at this case again.
00:23:03
NANCY GRACE: Police exhume
the body of Michael Beckers, their prime suspect in
the original investigation
00:23:09
hoping and praying for a match. WAYNE KEEFE: They were able to
reprocess some of the evidence
00:23:16
and obtain a complete DNA
profile of the suspect at that point in
time, including all
00:23:23
of the Y-chromosome markers. They needed to be able to
compare Michael Beckers' DNA with this full
profile to determine
00:23:35
if he was the suspect. NANCY GRACE: The process
to legally exhume a body is very complicated.
00:23:41
[DRAMATIC SOUND] M. WILLIAM PHELPS:
They exhume his body, they tested DNA which
is a sperm sample found
00:23:48
on Gwen Miller's pajamas
against Michael Beckers' DNA, and it's not a match. He did not rape her.
00:23:58
NANCY GRACE: The
case is cold again. So Rapid City Police
bring in two new weapons
00:24:03
to help solve Gwen's murder. The first, a veteran
detective named Wayne Keefe. The second, forensic science
called genetic genealogy
00:24:14
that Wayne Keefe
knows how to use. [MUSIC PLAYING] WAYNE KEEFE: I got a message
from the chief one day
00:24:21
and asked me to
come to his office. And I didn't know what he
wanted, but I went up there.
00:24:29
Went to his office
and sat down and he wanted to know what I had
planned for after retirement.
00:24:35
And I told him at
that point I had two or three things that
were kind of kicking
00:24:41
around but nothing solid. And he asked if I would
consider working on cold cases
00:24:46
for the department. I jumped at that opportunity. Told him, absolutely, I
would like to do that.
00:24:52
It was during that time when
I reviewed Gwen Miller's case and formed several
opinions about what
00:25:01
could be done with that case. BRIAN OXMAN: This is
a cold, cold case. He started interviewing
people just out of the desire
00:25:12
to not let it go. He would interview people
who were in the records as having known Gwen Miller.
00:25:21
Her employee
friends, co-workers, people at the hospital,
people on the street, and where she lived.
00:25:29
He would just try
to find something that would give him a clue,
that would give him a break.
00:25:37
NANCY GRACE: Detective
Wayne Keefe reaches out to Gwen Miller's relatives. [OMINOUS MUSIC]
00:25:43
KAY MILLER-TEMPLE:
So I'd arranged to meet Wayne in
November of 2015, and that's when more
information became available.
00:25:53
And Wayne had-- there were 10
cold cases in South Dakota. Aunt Gwen's was the
oldest at that time.
00:26:01
Wayne was well into
doing a lot of work. And I think one of
the first things that he shared with us was
just for that day and age,
00:26:10
that he was so proud
of how they had handled those initial days,
months and the first year
00:26:17
of Aunt Gwen's passing. Because they had worked
on a regular basis. They had done a lot of work.
00:26:24
He was amazed at how much. And I tell you what,
when I discovered that, it just-- it made--
00:26:30
it was heartwarming to
know that there were people in that community that had
worked that hard to try
00:26:38
to find the right answer. During that same visit, we met
with a couple of the detectives
00:26:43
and talked to them about it and
answered a lot of questions. And they told us how many hours
and hours and how many people
00:26:51
had worked on this
case already and still hadn't been able to solve it. So they were really
hopeful that they'd
00:26:58
be able to find a
person that did it and bring it to a conclusion. NANCY GRACE: Some of the
original detectives still don't
00:27:07
believe that Michael Beckers
was the prime suspect is really innocent. Detective Keefe makes
it a priority to clear
00:27:15
Beckers once and for all. WAYNE KEEFE: I
realized how beneficial it is to be able to know in
Michael Beckers' case, who
00:27:25
all his family members are. Were there any family
members close in this area that I could obtain a familial
DNA sample from a DNA sample
00:27:35
from a family member that
can be compared to the DNA from the grave marked
as Michael Beckers?
00:27:44
I was able to find three
different family members fairly close to his
grave and I traveled
00:27:52
there two different times. Visited with family
members, explained who I was and why I was looking
into this case.
00:28:00
And just frankly, I
asked them, would you be willing to volunteer
a DNA sample for me?
00:28:07
And all three of them did that. NANCY GRACE:
Detective Keefe uses familial DNA technology
to clear Michael
00:28:16
Beckers for the second time. WAYNE KEEFE: I was effectively
able to determine that Michael
00:28:21
Beckers was cleared
in this case as being a suspect using DNA as the
means to do that clearance.
00:28:31
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: So
now we have confirmation that he's not the guy. So we don't have to
focus on him anymore.
00:28:37
We move on to the next guy. And if he's not the
guy, the next guy. And this is how it goes.
00:28:45
You have the DNA sample, all
you got to do is find the donor. NANCY GRACE: Detective Keefe
turns to forensic genealogy
00:28:53
to identify a possible suspect. WAYNE KEEFE: During the time of
trying to determine all of who
00:29:01
could be a suspect,
it occurred to me that through doing
my own genealogy work and submitting my own
DNA to a major genealogy
00:29:12
company in the field, that
if I were able to match the suspect's DNA to
one of these databases,
00:29:23
there was no doubt in my mind I
could at least come up with who his family members were.
00:29:29
NANCY GRACE: The Rapid City Cold
Case Unit now has a strategy. They've got a DNA profile.
00:29:35
All they need is a match. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [DRAMATIC SOUNDS]
00:29:47
[OMINOUS MUSIC] Rapid City South Dakota, 2018, a
Cold Case Unit led by Detective
00:29:54
Wayne Keefe continues
their investigation on the rape and murder of
Gwen Miller, February 1968.
00:30:05
They are using
genetic genealogy, a branch of forensic
science that links DNA and family relationships.
00:30:14
[OMINOUS MUSIC] DON HEDRICK: I did not know what
it was but Detective Keefe did.
00:30:19
And it was clear he
had done his research, so he was able to
explain it very carefully
00:30:25
and explain how or
why this could lead to the resolution of this case. BRIAN OXMAN: Would that
possibly be a way of determining
00:30:35
who this perpetrator was? They had the DNA, it
had been preserved through floods, through
all kinds of lost records,
00:30:43
they had it. Couldn't they use it? NANCY GRACE: Wayne
Keefe needs help, so he decides to track down
one of the foremost experts
00:30:52
in this new forensic science. WAYNE KEEFE: I
came across a lady by the name of
Colleen Fitzpatrick.
00:31:01
She was a PhD that ran a
company called Identifinders. I did a small amount
of work on that
00:31:09
and saw that she had already
had some success with her method of searching these databases and
coming up with a potential name
00:31:19
for either a John Doe
that somebody was trying to figure out who they were. Or in my case, to figure
out a name for matching
00:31:29
the profile for my killer. COLLEEN FITZPATRICK: He sent
me the string of numbers which
00:31:34
represents that, and
my job was to compare that profile to the
genetic genealogy,
00:31:41
Y-STR public online databases. And that's quite a job. You can't do it by
hand because there's
00:31:48
probably 250,000 profiles
scattered all over the internet on various websites. Well, we have software
that can do that.
00:31:57
Can do that comparison and
mine that data for matches. So they gave me the Y-profile,
I put it into my software
00:32:06
and I came up with the
name, Field or Fields. And I handed that to Wayne. With that information,
although not a match,
00:32:16
it was the best
direction that I had. I went through and
reviewed all of the reports
00:32:22
again to see if I could
come up with that last name. Nowhere in any of the
reports that I had access
00:32:30
to which was basically the
Sheriff's Office nor any of the interviews
that I had conducted
00:32:35
was that name mentioned at all. So I went back to the Rapid
City library, consulted
00:32:41
all of the Pope directories
that they have present and I created a spreadsheet
of each and every name
00:32:50
from 1947 up through
1975, I believe it was, that had the name of Field. One of the things I was
particularly focused on
00:33:04
was any of the addresses
that were on there that would have been close to Gwen,
close to Gwen's address
00:33:11
on Hall Street. I wasn't able to come up with
any that were right next door at that point in time.
00:33:18
However, the closest
address I could come up with was on the West Rapid
Street and belonged to a man
00:33:24
by the name of Eugene Field. NANCY GRACE: The complex
work of Colleen Fitzpatrick
00:33:31
and Detective Wayne
Keefe pays off with a name of a prime suspect. Just who is Eugene Field?
00:33:40
And does he have any
connection to Gwen Miller? [OMINOUS MUSIC] WAYNE KEEFE: So over
the next several months,
00:33:49
I spent trying to figure out
how or where Eugene Field could be connected to Gwen Miller.
00:33:59
BRIAN OXMAN: Detective Keefe
was relentless in trying to find out the background here.
00:34:05
He interviewed a 100 people
and tracked down Field that he worked at the
airport as a ticketing
00:34:13
agency in Rapid City. He figured that when Gwen
who traveled all the time would go to the airport, she
was bound to have run into him.
00:34:25
There was a small
Rapid City Airport, she would have seen him
up close and personal.
00:34:32
They would have met,
they would have talked, he may have made
advances to her. And he said, maybe
it was that he
00:34:39
wanted to have a relationship
with her and she rejected him. And he thought, aha, aha.
00:34:46
There is a potential motive. That is the likely
motive that this was a situation where he was angry.
00:34:54
He had been rejected, and this
was the motive for murder. WAYNE KEEFE: But I still
wanted to figure out how
00:35:02
to put him in the neighborhood. I was able to determine that a
few years prior to the murder,
00:35:10
four years or five years
prior to the murder, Eugene rented a room and lived in
the basement of the house
00:35:19
right next door to Gwen. Right next to the bedroom
where Gwen was killed. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: So
they start to really
00:35:28
dissect Eugene Field's life. He was married twice. They talked to both
of his ex-wives.
00:35:35
And guess what, he
was abusive, violent. Well, now we're
building the profile of somebody who could have
raped and murdered Gwen Miller.
00:35:46
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Wayne Keefe
discovers something else about Eugene Field.
00:35:51
A detail critical to
this investigation. [MUSIC PLAYING] M. WILLIAM PHELPS: Eugene
Field for his occupation
00:35:59
drove a taxi. NANCY GRACE: The team now runs
into a major stumbling block. WAYNE KEEFE: So in
order to find out
00:36:07
if Eugene Field
was my suspect, I was going to need DNA from him. That was compounded by the
fact that he died in 2009.
00:36:19
So I investigated pretty
much every possibility I could for where I
could obtain DNA from him
00:36:28
except for having to
exhume a grave as was done with Michael Beckers. NANCY GRACE: Eugene
Field may be dead,
00:36:36
but investigators can still
collect DNA from his brother to see if there's a match.
00:36:43
WAYNE KEEFE: I did a great
deal of investigation of the whereabouts
of Eugene's brother.
00:36:48
And I located him in
an area in Colorado, and ultimately it
came to the point where I just needed to ask him
voluntarily for a DNA sample.
00:36:57
A buccal swab, a
swab of the inside of his mouth to see if I could
either confirm or ultimately
00:37:06
deny that Eugene was the person
that had raped and murdered Gwen Miller. And he willingly and
gladly gave me that sample.
00:37:15
BRIAN OXMAN: They
tried to see if that was a match to the DNA that had
been left at the crime scene.
00:37:22
It wasn't, so the brother
was not the perpetrator. But we found that the genealogy
was an absolute correct match
00:37:34
where it narrowed down
the likelihood of Field being the actual perpetrator
to 99.23% likelihood
00:37:46
of him being the perpetrator. That's the kind
of match they had. The detective got his man.
00:37:54
WAYNE KEEFE: It
was almost surreal in a lot of different ways. And just unbelievable that I
was able to come up with that
00:38:08
because it took so long to do. I was so happy to be able
to call Gwen's family and tell them what had happened.
00:38:23
KAY MILLER-TEMPLE: I
was sitting at my desk and I work in an open
area, so I had a cubicle
00:38:28
and I was working away. And my phone was
ringing, and I just, oh, nobody ever
calls me at work.
00:38:33
Wait a second, this is Wayne. If he's calling, I'm
taking this call. And I won't forget
the tone of his voice.
00:38:41
And it's hard to describe
that tone of voice. It was a little tremulous. I think it was a little teary.
00:38:50
And he said, we've got a match. NANCY GRACE: The
Rapid City Cold Case Unit goes public with details
of this groundbreaking
00:39:03
investigation. JIM LINDGREN: Very
emotional to have all of the officials from the
city and the Rapid City Police
00:39:10
Department, the Sheriff's
Department, some of the older detectives being there. It was very emotional.
00:39:17
KAY MILLER-TEMPLE:
I'm trying to think if I felt relieved or elated,
or maybe a combination of both.
00:39:22
It was just-- it was just
so nice to finally know who. And I've always said,
it'd be great to know why.
00:39:35
NANCY GRACE: Everyone at the
Rapid City Police department credits the important
role forensic genealogy
00:39:41
played in cracking this case. WAYNE KEEFE: Without genetic
genealogy, just looking back
00:39:51
at this case and I know I've
talked to Colleen Fitzpatrick many times, she is such
a wonderful person.
00:40:01
She minimizes her
role in this case. But the simple
fact of the matter is without her
role in this case,
00:40:09
it would not have been solved. COLLEEN FITZPATRICK: You
know, knowing the family
00:40:13
and knowing on this
side of the story how much they
appreciated it and how much that brought release to
them, now they know the answer.
00:40:22
Now they know what happened. Now they can go on and take
all that energy they were
00:40:27
concentrating on,
wondering what happened, they can take that
and let it go. They can take a deep breath
and go on with their lives.
00:40:36
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Detective Wayne
Keefe and his Cold Case team will never know why Eugene Field
raped and murdered Gwen Miller.
00:40:46
But their incredible work
and the spectacular science of forensic genealogy achieves
answers for her family
00:40:55
and for hard working detectives
who 50 years earlier did their best to find her killer.
00:41:03
I'm Nancy Grace, thanks
for being with us here at "Bloodline Detectives." [DRAMATIC SOUNDS]
00:41:16
[THEME MUSIC]