00:00:12
Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. Tonight, an extraordinary story, a scientific breakthrough
00:00:18
that solves a brutal sex assault and the courage of a victim who inspires everyone
00:00:25
around her, even her attacker. April, 2018, St. George, Utah, an elderly woman reports a home invasion rape.
00:00:40
She told them that somebody had come into her home. There had been a sexual assault and actually
00:00:45
a rape, which is very surprising for a community like this. I was a bit shocked when I heard that
00:00:51
there was a 79-year-old woman. I fought like a tiger, but I didn't win. NANCY GRACE: The nature of the crime
00:01:12
deeply disturbs investigators and the entire community. I think all of us looked at her as if she
00:01:21
were one of our family members. How would we feel if that was my mother or my grandmother?
00:01:29
That was in that position. NANCY GRACE: Forensic evidence is recovered. But the attacker remains unidentified.
00:01:37
And officers hit a dead end. We were at a point in time where we were still trying to build some leads in the case.
00:01:49
We were getting to the point where we were running into block walls. NANCY GRACE: This is the story of Carla Brooks
00:01:58
and her terrible ordeal, also how forensic genetic genealogy gives investigators the break
00:02:07
they need to bust the rapist. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] April 17, 2018, St. George, Utah, police
00:02:43
are called to the home of a 79-year-old woman. She calls police to report a home invasion robbery.
00:02:54
Carla Brooks reported that someone broke into her house and attempted to rape her.
00:03:01
KYLE WHITEHEAD: Our officers immediately responded because, even for a home invasion type of a call,
00:03:07
in our community that's very, very rare. And so it's all hands on deck when we get that type of a call.
00:03:13
We send our resources and try and get there immediately to make sure that the victim or victims are safe
00:03:20
and to try and apprehend the suspect. NANCY GRACE: Carla Brooks tells officers the intruder surprised
00:03:26
her while she was sleeping. She then describes a brutal rape. JOHN WILSON: She's very disturbed.
00:03:34
She was in her nightgown, and you could tell that she was definitely out of her element.
00:03:41
But she was very articulate in her speaking with describing the events that took place.
00:03:49
Carla reported that she was in bed in her home. She lives alone. Her husband has passed away.
00:03:57
Her children are all adults and have moved out. So she lives in her home alone. And on April 17, she had gone to bed.
00:04:08
The TV was on. And she had gone to sleep. She reported that she awoke to someone brushing,
00:04:19
kind of brushing her face. And initially, in her sleepy state, she said that she initially thought
00:04:28
that it might be her husband, her deceased husband. And he rubbed my shoulder. And I looked up, and then he just took me.
00:04:39
RYAN SHAUM: She was saying things like, can we please just talk? Can we please just talk?
00:04:44
You know, you can be nice. You don't have to be mean. She was trying to calm him down.
00:04:49
And he wasn't listening. I fought like a tiger, but I didn't win. He won. RICH TRIPLETT: While she was waking up,
00:05:03
this intruder had shoved a cloth in her mouth. He disrobed her, took her clothes off, and he raped her.
00:05:16
Her head was banging between the headboard and the side table. And then he left.
00:05:28
NANCY GRACE: Now, police realized this crime is far more than just a home invasion.
00:05:33
Investigators arrive on the scene. At the time, I was the division commander over the control division.
00:05:40
And so our officers were some of the initial responding officers that took on the case.
00:05:48
Of course, when they arrive on scene and see what is alleged, usually the protocol is to call out the detectives
00:05:56
to come out and really process and start looking into what happened, where they need to go,
00:06:02
where the case takes them. When I got inside, the Patrol Lieutenant informed me real quick that we had a sexual assault that
00:06:13
had occurred. And that the victim was sitting on the couch in the living room. NANCY GRACE: Detective Wilson asked Karla Brooks if she
00:06:24
can describe her attacker. One thing, to me, when I walked into that front room where she was sitting, I looked around,
00:06:35
and I saw pictures on the wall. And a lot of these pictures were pictures that my own grandma
00:06:43
had in her house. So I'm thinking, it's bringing me back to my own grandma. And that's what I was thinking in meeting with her,
00:06:55
was that I'm speaking with my own grandma, who is telling me of a horrific event that happened, which, it was pretty
00:07:05
difficult. And to be able to ask very detailed questions to her, she did an outstanding job in that first initial interview.
00:07:19
RICH TRIPLETT: She was able to give us a vague description of vague hair color and hairstyle description.
00:07:27
KYLE WHITEHEAD: So there wasn't a lot of detail. And unfortunately, these cases, oftentimes, I
00:07:33
can't imagine what it would be like to be assaulted in this way. There's so much shock and horror.
00:07:40
I can't imagine what a person would be experiencing. NANCY GRACE: For 79-year-old Carla, the nightmare goes on.
00:07:48
She's asked to go to the hospital for a forensic pelvic examination. CARLA BROOKS: They wanted to test me
00:07:58
and find out if anything had happened inside of me and so forth. And so I went through that.
00:08:11
JOHN WILSON: She was by herself. The patrolman dropped her off. And the nursing staff and the same nurses
00:08:17
were there with her. And then when they were finished with that procedure, a patrolman picked her up and brought her home.
00:08:29
KYLE WHITEHEAD: You know, I would imagine it would be a very invasive, almost feel like they're being
00:08:34
revictimized, know the fact that they have to go in and the medical staff have to prod and examine.
00:08:41
NANCY GRACE: Crime scene investigators arrive at Carla's home and start collecting evidence.
00:08:46
KYLE WHITEHEAD: There are a lot of different investigative techniques, as far as fingerprinting, looking
00:08:55
at the bed, at the floor, trying to collect any hair follicles or other things. There's a lot of things where they would come
00:09:03
into the home, where this is the suspected entry point would be. And so there are a lot of shoe prints
00:09:12
is another way that they try to develop suspects through shoe prints. And so there's just a lot of different methods.
00:09:20
JOHN WILSON: I started out with photographing the residence from the outside and then worked my way in.
00:09:28
I took photographs of the bedroom and the living room and then took photographs of the bedding and the stain
00:09:39
that was left on the bed using some lenses on my camera that helped magnify the black light.
00:09:48
And after those photographs were taken, we bagged up the evidence in paper sacks
00:09:54
and took those to the office. The rape of an elderly woman statistically is very rare.
00:10:03
In this case, investigators wonder, what kind of person is driven to commit such a heinous crime?
00:10:13
RICH TRIPLETT: Obviously, this case was very difficult in the fact that Carla was an elderly female that I think all of us
00:10:25
looked at her as if she were one of our family members, and how would we feel if that was my mother or my grandmother
00:10:36
that was in that position. I was pretty confident with the evidence that we had, were going to find someone quickly.
00:10:56
NANCY GRACE: It's April, 2018. Detectives in St. George, Utah start an investigation
00:11:02
into the brutal rape of a 79-year-old woman, Carla Brooks, in her own home. RYAN SHAUM: I was a bit shocked when I heard that there was
00:11:13
a 79-year-old woman, Carla Brooks, whose name immediately was recognizable. I knew that her husband, Carl Brooks,
00:11:23
had been mayor here in St. George. This was somebody who was well known in the community.
00:11:30
NANCY GRACE: Since so many sex attackers are known to their victims, investigators asked
00:11:35
Carla Brooks about her life and daily routine. CARLA BROOKS: I met Carl when I came to St. George.
00:11:43
And I took his place at the school that he was teaching. I was living over in a house right across the street.
00:11:54
And I didn't know that he lived right next door. But I always saw his car there, so I thought
00:11:59
he had a girlfriend there. So I didn't think much about it for a while. And then finally I realized that he lived there.
00:12:09
And then he came in when one evening and said, would you marry me, and I said, yes, I will.
00:12:20
And so that's how that worked. I was married 51 years to him. And I had three children.
00:12:28
And they're all just wonderful kids. My life as a teacher was going home at night
00:12:36
to be with my children in the afternoon, so I could be with my children and then go
00:12:45
teach school in the mornings. And I guess I became a teacher because of my mom. She said she loved teaching.
00:12:55
And so she taught English and just helping kids learn how to write and do and all those things,
00:13:04
and I just enjoyed it. I just enjoyed it. NANCY GRACE: Miss Brooks is well known in the community.
00:13:10
She's got so many friends CARLA BROOKS: Well, I think we have a lot of different people
00:13:15
in St. George, especially now. The older ones, like I am, they've just always just stayed here.
00:13:28
And so we have so many people who have just made their life here. And so I know many, many people here.
00:13:38
I just like to be with people and just see people, you know. And I've got good friends.
00:13:47
And I haven't got any friends that have left me. They're still very, very close, a lot of friends in St. George.
00:13:57
NANCY GRACE: The morning after the attack, investigators go to work using all their resources.
00:14:04
The suspect had left DNA evidence in the form of a seminal stain on Carla's sheets.
00:14:12
That was our biggest piece of evidence because our hope was that we would be able to send that
00:14:18
to the Utah State Crime Lab and that they would be able to enter that into the CODIS database
00:14:25
and receive a hit or an identification of the individual who left this DNA behind.
00:14:32
So our focus was on that right from the get go. Additionally, we canvassed the area
00:14:41
extensively for any possible video surveillance, any possible doorbell surveillance.
00:14:49
We talked to neighbors. We talked to everyone in the area that may have seen anything.
00:14:56
We talked to everyone in the area of any suspicious activity, anybody they may have suspected that could
00:15:03
have done something like this. We concentrated heavily upon the sex offender registry
00:15:11
in the area because we believed that someone capable of such a heinous and violent sexual assault
00:15:20
was likely a previous sex offender. And so we looked heavily into that, anyone that
00:15:27
may live in the area that would fit the demographic of the assailant. We did anything and everything that we
00:15:34
could possibly think of to track down who could have done this. NANCY GRACE: When local news reports the sex attack,
00:15:43
the community is shaken. Not just elderly, even young families, you consider that people have their children in bed
00:15:52
asleep at night and that fear of, am I going to wake up to someone either assaulting me or
00:16:01
assaulting one of my children? Will I wake up as a parent? Or will I just sleep through it?
00:16:06
It did have some effect on the neighborhood. I think they were frightened at what was going on.
00:16:13
NANCY GRACE: Investigators sent forensic evidence to the Utah State crime lab for analysis.
00:16:19
The Utah crime lab develops a DNA profile from semen on Carla's bed sheets. And they upload it to CODIS, the National DNA databank.
00:16:33
RICH TRIPLETT: Unfortunately, we did get the results back. And the results were that the individual
00:16:39
who left the seminal stain was not in the CODIS system. So they were not able to identify
00:16:45
who this might have been. We had exhausted pretty much anything that we could have possibly done.
00:16:56
We had canvassed the area. We had put undercover officers in the area. We had put up cameras.
00:17:03
We had talked to anyone and everyone that we could possibly think of. We had come up with some names of people
00:17:10
that we looked into that ultimately didn't pan out and proved to not be our suspects.
00:17:18
We were getting to the point where we were running into block walls. But I did see at the time the Golden
00:17:31
State Killer was in the news. And I saw how they were able to obtain his identity
00:17:37
through a DNA profile. At that point, he was finally going to court. And I looked into that a little bit further.
00:17:45
And if they're doing it in California, why can't we do it here? And then that's when CeCe Moore came in.
00:17:53
With all leads exhausted, the investigation slams to a dead end. But as we see next, "Bloodline Detectives"
00:18:02
learned of a new groundbreaking science that could crack the case. May, 2018, detectives working the vicious rape
00:18:22
of a 79-year-old woman asleep in her own home there in St George, Utah. The case has gone cold.
00:18:32
But now detectives look for a new forensic weapon to solve the crime. It's called genetic genealogy, a science being utilized
00:18:41
by Parabon Nano Laboratories. Detectives contact CeCe Moore at Parabon to find out just how it all works.
00:18:52
RICH TRIPLETT: I knew what it was in the fact that it was in the news recently, that the Golden State Killer had been identified
00:19:00
through genetic genealogy. And Detective Wilson had talked to me about the fact that he wanted to try and go down that road
00:19:11
and see if that was even a possibility. It was something that we had never used before,
00:19:17
so it was very unfamiliar to us. It's not like a CODIS database, where you have to actually have someone in the database.
00:19:26
But now because of this genealogy, you're able to go back and identify families and groups.
00:19:32
And maybe it doesn't identify the actual suspect, but people in that family line where we can go back and start
00:19:41
interviewing and finding out where people were on certain days and times, who's in their family,
00:19:47
and really help identify a very particular suspect. NANCY GRACE: CeCe Moore agrees to take the case.
00:19:56
And Parabon goes to work. Here is how genetic genealogy works. In the case of Carla Brooks, investigators
00:20:05
have plenty of the attacker's DNA, but none of it matches any of the suspects they have.
00:20:12
Genetic genealogy searches public genealogy databases, looking for matches, any match, to DNA
00:20:21
found at the crime scene. Matches with the highest DNA similarities will likely come from a relative of the rapist.
00:20:32
And then comes the systematic elimination of one family member after the next by way of circumstantial evidence,
00:20:43
like alibis, to pinpoint the culprit. She forwarded me to Parabon Labs. And I met with them, and they provided me
00:20:55
with the instructions that they needed. So I traveled to Salt Lake and gathered the evidence information that we sent them with the DNA.
00:21:04
And I overnighted that evidence to Parabon Labs. NANCY GRACE: Carla's courage, positive outlook,
00:21:14
and determination to help other survivors inspires police and her community. I just have to keep going.
00:21:23
If I let it really bother me and get down, then I can't do that, because I have to be on top,
00:21:33
to just keep going. That's what my husband would want me to do. That's what anybody wants me to do, is to not give up.
00:21:43
We raised $33,000. And I gave some to our policemen. To one place, I gave them some money
00:21:56
so that they could find and do the same things that Josh had found out for me, that they would keep going with it
00:22:07
so that they had some money to just say, don't drop the case. Keep the case going.
00:22:14
I was so surprised how many rape kits had not been solved. So I gave the money to do their rape kits.
00:22:24
KYLE WHITEHEAD: Very concerned about people, very compassionate, very service oriented,
00:22:30
just an all around good person. You think of the ideal grandparent, I think that's how I would sum her up,
00:22:38
just somebody that you could talk to, somebody that is very interested in other people
00:22:46
and always looking for ways to help. I think though because Carla did fight back, she was very brave.
00:22:57
And then to continue to go on with her life, I think that's very commendable. I couldn't imagine having this type of a crime,
00:23:07
being a victim of this type of a crime and knowing that the person was still out there for months
00:23:13
after this had happened. NANCY GRACE: In July 2018, CeCe Moore contacts investigators with good news.
00:23:22
RICH TRIPLETT: I wouldn't have been completely surprised if she were to come back and not really had much for us
00:23:28
other than your suspect has brown hair and brown eyes. But she didn't. She came back and was able to narrow
00:23:38
it down to four brothers. And it was amazing. It was magical. And I'll never forget that phone call.
00:23:50
RYAN SHAUM: When I heard that they were four brothers that lived in the local community just outside of St.
00:23:56
George in Washington, Utah, at least that that's where they were initially from, from my perspective,
00:24:03
I thought we've got it. He's there. He's got to be one of them. KYLE WHITEHEAD: We were able to determine
00:24:10
through our investigation and through social media some of those avenues that the majority of these brothers
00:24:18
didn't live within St. George. And only one of the brothers actually still lived in St. George.
00:24:25
And so that's the brother that we focused on initially because he was the only one in town.
00:24:31
The initial brother that we thought that it could have been was actually a juvenile.
00:24:38
And we were able to determine that he was not our suspect. After speaking with him, we were able to determine
00:24:46
that his older brother, Spencer Monnett, was in town during the time period of the assault
00:24:54
and that he was staying here in town in St. George. And then we were able to determine that he had
00:25:03
since fled to Phoenix, Arizona, where he was currently residing. So we investigated Spencer heavily.
00:25:15
We looked into social media accounts. We looked in any law enforcement databases that we had.
00:25:20
We turned over every rock we could to find any information about him that was possible.
00:25:27
And Josh was able to determine that Spencer, in fact, had a small traffic warrant out of our jurisdiction
00:25:38
that was active. NANCY GRACE: The traffic violation gives St. George police a perfect reason
00:25:44
to arrest Spencer Monnett. And they start tracking him down. I called the number that was listed for him,
00:25:53
and his sister answers. And I explained to her that Spencer had a warrant for his arrest for a small traffic ticket
00:26:03
and I needed to talk to him about that. And she says, I'll have him call you. And 10 minutes later, there he is calling me.
00:26:26
NANCY GRACE: It's July, 2018, and Detective Wilson in St. George, Utah speaks with Spencer Monnett
00:26:32
about an outstanding traffic violation. Monnett has just been identified through genetic genealogy
00:26:41
as the likely home invasion rapist three months earlier of an almost 80-year-old lady, Carla Brooks.
00:26:51
Officers arrest Spencer Monnett, taking him in for questioning. He was able to call Spencer on the phone
00:27:00
and convinced him that he needed to come back to St. George to rectify his traffic warrant.
00:27:11
NANCY GRACE: I say, hey you, you forgot to go to court. And there is a warrant for your arrest.
00:27:19
And I need you to come in, and we can talk about it. It's not that big of a deal, but we can get it worked out
00:27:27
if you can come meet with me. And we set up a day. He said he would be coming back up to Utah at a certain time
00:27:39
and he can meet with me then. Through our investigation, we were able to develop probable cause that his DNA was
00:27:51
necessary to further the investigation. So when he arrived in town, we had a search
00:27:58
warrant for his DNA in hand. NANCY GRACE: Spencer Monnett's DNA is a perfect match
00:28:09
to DNA for the crime scene. Officers confront him with the evidence, and he breaks down.
00:28:18
RICH TRIPLETT: I raced here and got here in time to see Spencer and be there for the interview.
00:28:25
And Spencer, his hair was similar to what Carla had described. It was longer. It was kind of shaggy.
00:28:35
But other than that, he looked like a fairly clean-cut individual. JOHN WILSON: We explained to him that we had been working
00:28:45
on a case involving Carla Brooks and he was the main suspect in this case with all of the information
00:28:56
that we have been able to gather. And at that time, he kind of-- I feel like he wanted to get something off his chest.
00:29:08
So after all the Miranda was done, we went through and we asked him to tell us what happened that night.
00:29:51
He told us he was having a bad night. He was frustrated with a girlfriend that decided to date other people.
00:30:07
And he was frustrated sexually. And he had been drinking a little bit that night.
00:30:14
And he went out walking around the neighborhood he was at. He saw Carla's house, and he saw that there
00:30:23
was the mature vegetation around the windows, making it possible for him to look into her house
00:30:31
without being seen. And he also discovered that the back sliding glass door was unlocked.
00:30:39
And at that time when he was opening the door, he knew that he was going to encounter or rape the person
00:30:50
that is in that house. He didn't know Carla. But he knew by going in there what he was planning on doing.
00:31:55
He said he was addicted to pornography. And he continued on escalating his addiction
00:32:04
to pornography to something that was called sleep rape pornography. And he talked about how he had watched these movies
00:32:17
about coming into somebody's bedroom who was sleeping and engaging in sexual activity and having them wake up
00:32:26
and be enjoying the situation. And that's what he said about Carla. He knew that she was a little bit older,
00:32:38
that there was maybe a possibility that she wouldn't even wake up. And so he went into her room, saw her sleeping there,
00:32:47
and did exactly what Carla said, brushed her hair with his hand. And at that time, she did wake up.
00:32:56
And he put that cloth in her mouth and was able to control her with his one hand
00:33:04
while he sexually assaulted her. And when he was finished, he got up and got dressed and went out
00:33:13
the same way that he came in. KYLE WHITEHEAD: I think we were in the-- several of us up in the command staff
00:33:22
were notified that he had confessed to this crime. And, man, what a great thing, a great thing that Detective
00:33:30
Wilson did and able to get this horrible individual that was out victimizing our community,
00:33:39
we were able to get him into custody, get him booked in jail. JOHN WILSON: You could feel the guilt,
00:33:47
or you could see it on his face. And at that time, I asked him if he was willing to write
00:33:52
an apology letter to Carla. And he said, yeah, I will. RYAN SHAUM: Much of his apology letter
00:34:01
was a detailed description of what he did and why he did it. And he walked through the events of that night and the bad state
00:34:12
that he was in and how frustrated he was. He seemed sincere. The fact that he would lay out in fairly good detail what he
00:34:25
had done to Carla Brooks meant to me that this was an individual who was trying to come clean with his crimes.
00:34:37
NANCY GRACE: Spencer Monnett now formally charged, and he accepts a plea deal just before trial.
00:34:45
JOHN WILSON: I stayed in good contact with the prosecutors. And they let me know what was going on
00:34:52
and that Spencer had pled to six years in prison. RYAN SHAUM: If someone enters into a plea deal,
00:35:05
they give up a lot of rights, potentially, that they would have otherwise to go to trial
00:35:13
and to contest various things at trial and then to appeal what happens during the trial.
00:35:20
In this case, if we were to resolve the case prior to trial, the only thing that he could really appeal
00:35:29
would be his sentence in the case. The science of genetic genealogy is a stunning breakthrough.
00:35:37
But there's nothing more inspiring than the human factor, in this case, the courage of a 79-year-old lady,
00:35:48
the rape victim, Carla Brooks. As we see next on "Bloodline Detectives," her courage is tested when Carla Brooks gets
00:35:57
to confront her own attacker. It's February, 2019. Spencer Monnett's sentencing goes down, St. George, Utah,
00:36:18
and the violent home invasion rape of a 79-year-old lady, Carla Brooks, the previous year.
00:36:28
RYAN SHAUM: That was quite a surreal experience there. It was an emotional hearing.
00:36:32
There were individuals from both families that got up and spoke. Carla finally faces her attacker in court.
00:36:44
And once again, she displays incredible courage and remarkable strength. I looked at him, and he looked at me.
00:36:55
And I didn't know what to say. I didn't really know what to do. And he was sitting there at the court.
00:37:09
And I just looked over at him. And when I was in there, I was just-- I don't know.
00:37:20
I was overwhelmed with all of it. And I just go and I said, Spencer, I forgive you,
00:37:29
because I need to do that to progress for my Heavenly Father, because, you know.
00:37:37
And I said, and you need to progress. And that's when everybody could not believe it.
00:37:43
I mean I even saw that the guy that was over the court had tears in his eyes to think that I would do that.
00:37:55
JOHN WILSON: Very, very emotional. But it was centered on forgiveness. She forgave Spencer and encouraged him to do better.
00:38:12
That's what her main focus was. RICH TRIPLETT: Carla proved at sentencing how brave and courageous of a woman she is.
00:38:23
Just the fact that she was able to be there and to speak in that setting was incredible.
00:38:36
And then the fact that she was able to tell Spencer how he had changed her life and how this had affected her,
00:38:48
and then ultimately for her to tell him that she forgave him was powerful. RYAN SHAUM: She is quite a put together person,
00:39:00
who was very thoughtful. And despite the physical and psychological damage that Spencer had caused to her, for her to sit there and say,
00:39:13
I forgive you and I want the best for you, is just something you don't see very often at all.
00:39:24
NANCY GRACE: Investigators relieved the perp is finally behind bars where he belongs, thanks to the power
00:39:31
of genetic genealogy. I think it's another feather in our cap. It was a great case to be able to go through.
00:39:42
It was frustrating at times. But it ended with success. And you can't go wrong with having a good case like that.
00:39:54
To solve a rape case where we have no suspect identified and then to go from no identity to having a person in custody
00:40:04
within four months is unheard of. RICH TRIPLETT: It very much emphasized the importance
00:40:11
of thinking outside the box. It emphasized the importance of asking questions that maybe
00:40:23
haven't been asked before and doing things that haven't been done before. NANCY GRACE: What's most extraordinary in this case
00:40:31
is Carla Brooks herself. She's a victim turned advocate, a victim turned healer.
00:40:39
In an unbelievable act of generosity, Carla is helping her rapist's mother to cope.
00:40:48
And most astounding of all, she's helping her own rapist to heal. Now that's inspiration.
00:40:59
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us tonight on "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]