00:00:00
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Pensacola, Florida,
New Year's Day 1985, the body of a young woman found lying
on the side of a busy street
00:00:20
partially naked. She has been sex assaulted. He strangled her
and then dumped her
00:00:29
on the side of the road
like a piece of trash. NANCY GRACE: Investigators
struggle to find the killer.
00:00:36
As the time passes, then the
chances of solving that case becomes percentage-wise less
and less, and after three days,
00:00:47
then it seems like
the percentage goes down very dramatically. And then it becomes a cold case.
00:00:54
NANCY GRACE: Decades later,
the case is reopened, and a brand new team of
detectives takes over.
00:01:02
There's always something
that's left behind anytime that there's a homicide. It's just a matter
of finding it.
00:01:08
NANCY GRACE: This is the story
of how a cold-blooded killer faces a powerful opponent, an
opponent that does not exist
00:01:17
when he commits his crime. I'm Nancy Grace, and this
is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01:49
Pensacola, Florida, 1985, a
small picturesque coastal city situated on the Gulf of Mexico.
00:01:58
TONY ADAME: Back in the
'80s, it was a place that was like everywhere else in
America, struggling, you know,
00:02:03
economically to find its
place and looking for what was going to be the
next thing to kind of
00:02:08
bring it into the 21st century. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Peace in this
normally sleepy part of town
00:02:16
is shattered New
Year's Day 1985. MIKE MANEY: A lady that lived
on Peacock Drive, she and two
00:02:25
friends at 2:00 in the
morning were taking their dog to an overnight vet. When she was returning home
at 5:15 in the morning,
00:02:35
that was when they noticed
a body alongside the road. That was pre-cell
phone days, so they
00:02:41
had to go back to the house
to make the phone call. NANCY GRACE: Police
respond to the 911 call
00:02:48
and rush to the scene. MIKE MANEY: I arrived
at the crime scene somewhere around
6:00 AM and contacted
00:02:57
our crime scene supervisor Bob
Grant who was on scene already. ROBERT T. GRANT: There
were some homes there.
00:03:05
This was like a
small subdivision, but there were some lots, like
a wooded lot that had not had
00:03:11
a home built on it at the time. And we observed a
body of a white female lying on the side of the road.
00:03:22
We saw a towel by her body. She was in what I would
call, like, evening clothes or party clothes so to speak.
00:03:33
Her clothes were in
disarray and pulled up, and there was some blood. There appeared to be
blood around her head, not
00:03:43
a great deal, but there were
some scrape marks and abrasions and that type of thing.
00:03:50
RICH ROBINSON: There was a
5-centimeter wide laceration on her forehead. There was some blood
in her hair but not
00:03:57
a lot of blood on her body,
and it's clear that there had been a very violent struggle.
00:04:04
MIKE MANEY: We assumed
right off the bat that it was a sexual
battery, and that was based on the condition
of her clothing and the fact
00:04:12
that the crime occurred
somewhere else. Being so close to the road,
that wouldn't have been
00:04:20
where the assault took place. It was at a corner lot at
the corner of two streets,
00:04:25
and if she had been
assaulted there, it would have been
away from the highway. The only evidence
that was obvious to me
00:04:35
besides the victim was the
clothing that she had on and the blue towel that
we found next to her head.
00:04:46
NICOLE HEINTZELMAN: There's
a principle in crime scene investigation called
Locard principle,
00:04:52
and Locard's principle is
that there is always something left at the scene and taken
from a scene that will
00:04:58
lead you back to your suspect. NANCY GRACE: One early
clue was the discovery of the victim shoes two miles
from where her body is found.
00:05:10
MIKE MANEY: They were
both on Spanish trail, and they were separated
by about 400 feet.
00:05:17
So we surmised from that that
whoever dumped the body had traveled that way either coming
or going to the crime scene
00:05:25
and was throwing
items out of the car. NANCY GRACE: The priority
for investigators
00:05:30
is to identify the victim. MIKE MANEY: Bob Grant, the
crime scene supervisor, took fingerprints from the
body, and it was the sheriff's
00:05:41
department that identified
the prints as belonging to Tonya Etheridge McKinley. TONY ADAME: Tonya Etheridge
McKinley was born on January
00:05:51
25, 1961, in Milton, Florida. She was a lot of fun, you
know, loved to go to parties,
00:05:58
loved to make friends. Got married at a
pretty young age and divorced at a
pretty young age
00:06:03
and then eventually
she moved to Pensacola and met a guy named Tim
Davidson and they had a son, Tim
00:06:11
Davidson, Jr. A lot of
the things she was doing in her life around
the time she got
00:06:16
murdered was to make a better
life for herself and her son. She dropped out of
high school but she
00:06:21
was going back to get
a technical degree from a place in Pensacola. NANCY GRACE:
Investigators now focus
00:06:28
on Tonya McKinley's recent
partner named Tim Davidson. He's the father of
her toddler boy,
00:06:37
a child now left
without a mother. MIKE MANEY: He was
very cooperative. He gave us enough
information for us
00:06:49
to know where she was the night
before and who she was with. He told us what his activities
were the night before
00:06:58
and names of people with
it that could verify that. We did ask him if he would
take a polygraph, which
00:07:05
he agreed to, and
that was scheduled for about two days later. NANCY GRACE: A young
mother trying desperately
00:07:14
to build a better life for
herself and her little boy, that life cut short. But can her partner shed
light on her murder,
00:07:26
a murder that takes place that
fateful New Year's Eve 1985. I'm Nancy Grace, and that's
next on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:07:36
[MUSIC PLAYING] Pensacola, Florida, New Year's
Day, 1985, the semi-nude body of a beautiful young
woman, Tonya McKinley,
00:07:55
found dumped on the
side of a city street. Within 24 hours, police
questioned her former partner
00:08:02
Tim Davidson. MIKE MANEY: The victim's
last known movements are extremely important.
00:08:08
We didn't have the
luxury of having that until the following
morning when Tim Davidson
00:08:14
came down to speak to us. He was the first one that told
us that what her activities had
00:08:20
been the previous night, and
he had gotten that information from her cousin. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:08:26
TONY ADAME: Tonya Etheridge
McKinley was hanging out with her cousin Vinita
and her husband Larry
00:08:31
and they were going
out for the night and they just got child care
until, you know, 1:00 or 2:00
00:08:36
in the morning. NANCY GRACE: It becomes very
clear that Tim Davidson played no part in Tonya's death.
00:08:43
It's also clear that Tonya
McKinley spends New Year's Eve at a highly popular
local restaurant,
00:08:50
Darryl's Bar and Grill. Darryl's was a bar and
grill that was located in the north end of town.
00:08:59
And her cousin
left to go pick up Tonya's son from the
babysitter and that left Tanya there at the bar.
00:09:08
Her cousin Vinita
assumed that she would get a ride home with friends. MIKE MANEY: After
about 1:30, nobody
00:09:16
knows anything about Tanya. They don't know when she left. They don't know
if she left alone.
00:09:22
We had very little
information to go on at all. NANCY GRACE: Pensacola police
visit Darryl's Bar And Grill.
00:09:31
The bartender Kurt
Liske actually knows Tanya McKinley personally. He also becomes a
person of interest.
00:09:41
They dated a couple of times. So they knew each other, and he
had spent a little bit of time
00:09:46
with her talking. So we asked him to come
down to the police station to give us a further
in-depth interview,
00:09:54
which he did, and during that
interview, he remained nervous. The investigators
asked him if he would
00:10:06
be willing to take a polygraph. He agreed to it. He was given a
polygraph right away.
00:10:12
The polygraph examiner
reviewed the results, and it was his
determination at the time
00:10:20
that Kurt passed the polygraph,
that his version of what he did that night was accurate.
00:10:29
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Police rule
out two men who dated Tanya McKinley as suspects.
00:10:36
Detectives now hope her autopsy
will provide solid leads. NICOLE HEINTZELMAN:
Initial pathology report
00:10:44
showed that she
had that laceration to the back of her head and
that she had been strangled.
00:10:50
And it also showed that
there was a faint line that was 2 centimeters
in width that went
00:10:57
across the front of her neck. RICH ROBINSON: There was a
brown hair that was determined
00:11:03
to come from a Caucasian,
and there was also a brown pubic hair
that was determined
00:11:08
to come from a Caucasian. And investigators knew that
these were not Tonya's hairs
00:11:13
and assuming came from the
perpetrator of this crime. NANCY GRACE: Investigators now
beg for help outside Pensacola.
00:11:23
They approached the FBI's
emerging behavioral science unit in Quantico, Virginia.
00:11:29
MIKE MANEY: According to
the information they had, they felt like Tanya
was a risk taker.
00:11:36
She would be somebody
that would hitchhike, accept a ride from a stranger. They felt that the crime
itself was a one on one,
00:11:47
a stranger on stranger crime. TONY ADAME: They called m it an
opportunity killer, someone who
00:11:53
saw an opening and took it,
someone that had it, you know, in them to do
something like that
00:11:58
but took advantage of
the opportunity of, hey, here's a vulnerable person. MIKE MANEY: The psychological
profile on the suspect
00:12:08
was based on the fact that there
was no indication that any type of a weapon was used.
00:12:14
It was more the
injuries she sustained were more from a struggle. They did say that they felt
like it could have been the fact
00:12:21
that he made sexual advances
towards her which she refused, and when he pursued
it based on the fact
00:12:33
that she was a fighter
that physical confrontation resulted. And then from that,
she was strangled.
00:12:44
NANCY GRACE: Her brutal rape
and murder of Tonya McKinley is all over local news.
00:12:49
Fear spreads
throughout Pensacola. TONY ADAME: It was front
page news for that week,
00:12:55
and it was one of
the things, you know, it bothered a lot of people that
reported to the crime scene.
00:13:01
The law enforcement that
showed up, I've talked to them. It's something you don't shake.
00:13:05
And people would like
to think that you're safe in your community. If you're gonna go out and be
a reveler on New Year's Eve,
00:13:13
they like to think
that they're safe. So I imagine for some people,
it was a reality check.
00:13:18
Are they doing things in
their own life that could lead to something tragic happening?
00:13:23
NANCY GRACE:
Investigators use all the tools available
in 1985, but Tonya McKinley's murder goes cold.
00:13:32
MIKE MANEY: The
investigation itself was a year long investigation. We had no witnesses
that saw her leave,
00:13:39
so we didn't know
if she left alone, if she left with somebody. Any persons of interest that
we had in those first couple
00:13:46
of days, they all
passed polygraphs their alibis all panned out. There's not a moment
when a case officially
00:13:56
becomes cold necessarily. It just happens because over
time new leads stop coming in.
00:14:03
There is no new evidence. There's no one else to talk
to, and they hit a wall. In this case, that
pretty much happened,
00:14:13
and they just weren't finding
what they needed to bring forth a criminal prosecution.
00:14:19
They did not have the
evidence to do so. NANCY GRACE: Tonya McKinley's
murder investigation goes cold,
00:14:27
but detectives have one valuable
piece of evidence, semen left behind at the crime scene.
00:14:34
Can they find a way to
link it to her killer? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:14:42
[MUSIC PLAYING] New Year's Day, 1985,
Pensacola, Florida, the semi-nude body of
23-year-old Tonya McKinley
00:14:59
found dumped on a city street. After a full year of dead
ends, the case goes cold,
00:15:07
but 15 years later, a brand
new team of investigators takes over. NICOLE HEINTZELMAN: There was
semen on the vaginal swab,
00:15:15
and there was semen on
the blue towel in addition to having the blood of Tonya
McKinley on that towel.
00:15:25
So having that amount
of biological material was a plus for
solving this case. MIKE MANEY: You always
think about the cases
00:15:35
that you've never cleared,
and we'd put so much time and effort into this one. You know, we had interviewed
in excess of 70 people.
00:15:45
We had conducted
three search warrants. We had conducted six
polygraphs, submitted
00:15:50
samples for DNA testing. So, I mean, we had a lot
invested in the case, and you don't forget that.
00:15:58
DANIEL HARNETT: When I
first became a detective, there were senior detectives
and senior officers
00:16:05
in the department who had
worked on the initial case. And so there was
always an interest in
00:16:11
whether or not somebody
could pick up the case and do something with it. And periodically we would.
00:16:17
It was an unsolved
case which meant it was a priority if someone
could figure out something
00:16:22
to do with it that
hadn't already been done or to see if a new technology
had arisen that would allow us
00:16:28
to do something with the case. And in my career, two
things have occurred. It was the advent of DNA being
more prevalent in case work,
00:16:38
and so there was a need to
resubmit it for DNA evidence. And that came back
with no matches,
00:16:43
and so it kind of
languished there until something new
happened and that's what led to this particular
case being reopened in 2018.
00:16:53
NANCY GRACE: In
2018, a very powerful new forensic science becomes
available to investigators.
00:17:02
It's called genetic genealogy. It links a DNA code found
in evidence like semen to a wider group of people
than just the perpetrator.
00:17:13
Genetic genealogy
may show a match to the killer's family member. NICOLE HEINTZELMAN: I was
approached by a detective who
00:17:23
was working a
missing persons case, and he had heard about
genetic genealogy and wanted to try
it with his case.
00:17:33
So I set up a
meeting with Parabon and had that detective plus
several other detectives
00:17:39
in the investigation
unit, and we received a presentation by Parabon. And we soon found out
that unfortunately
00:17:49
that missing person case did not
qualify for genetic genealogy. But then I thought
immediately that the Tonya
00:17:56
McKinley case did qualify. So I approached the captain
at the time, Kristen Brown,
00:18:02
and took it to her, and she took
it to the chief at the time. And he approved going
forward with pursuing
00:18:09
genetic genealogy. And so we got that ball rolling. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
understand very well submitting
00:18:19
the DNA sample to the
genetic genealogy specialists at Parabon NanoLabs comes with
its own set of complications.
00:18:28
NICOLE HEINTZELMAN: We had to
send our DNA sample to a lab in Oklahoma to be reworked.
00:18:36
The way a DNA sample goes
into the CODIS system is different than
the way a DNA sample
00:18:44
goes into these genetic
genealogy websites. So the DNA had to be reworked,
so that was the first step.
00:18:51
And we took that step
in January of 2019. [MUSIC PLAYING] CECE MOORE: From
the crime scene,
00:19:03
they were able to
find foreign DNA, and that DNA was from a
male that they believed
00:19:11
was responsible for her murder. So that's the DNA that was
submitted to Parabon for us
00:19:17
to develop a snap
profile and then perform investigative
genetic genealogy on. What's so incredible
about this technology--
00:19:27
and this is where it really
gets into science fiction-- investigators and
researchers are
00:19:32
able to cross-reference DNA
with public accessible databases of DNA. So these are the type of
things that you and I do
00:19:40
when we try to find
out what country are our relatives are from. All that is put in a
big pool, and so they
00:19:45
can look at that information
and try to find out victims and perpetrators of crimes.
00:19:50
And in this case, that's
exactly what they did. CECE MOORE: From the DNA,
we knew that he was male,
00:19:56
and so I was looking for
a male of the right age. Didn't know if he was
young or old but of an age
00:20:02
where he wasn't too young or
too old to be able to perpetrate this crime, and I knew
it was somebody that
00:20:08
had to be in the area where
she was found around the time that she was discovered.
00:20:14
Working with the
DNA of the unknown suspect as I do on all my cases,
I create genetic networks.
00:20:22
I compare those top
matches to some of the more distant matches and try to find
clusters of matches that are
00:20:29
sharing DNA with each other. Then I build their trees,
and I try to identify their common ancestors.
00:20:35
If I'm successful in
doing that, then I can piece his family
tree back together piece by piece by piece.
00:20:42
It's like a puzzle. I have to find that
one person or that set of siblings that is related
to all of those top or key
00:20:50
matches. And so in this case,
even though I didn't have a lot of strong
matches, I was
00:20:56
able to develop four
separate genetic networks, so those four genetic
networks represent
00:21:03
one branch of his family tree. When you have four separate
genetic networks, that usually
00:21:08
ensures that you're
going to have some DNA matches connecting to the
mother's side of the tree
00:21:13
and some to the father's side. And so if we have matches
that share X DNA in addition
00:21:20
to the autosomal
DNA, we know those matches are going to connect
to that male's mother's side.
00:21:26
And so in this
case, I had a couple of matches that had significant
amounts of shared X DNA.
00:21:32
Those matches connected with
some of my other matches, and so I knew that those
genetic networks that included
00:21:40
the matches with X DNA had to
represent our unknown killer's mother's side of the tree.
00:21:46
So in this case, I was able
to find that union between two of the genetic networks.
00:21:52
So that is very exciting. When those pieces
start falling in place, it's a very exciting
moment in my job
00:21:59
because I know I'm heading
in the right direction. NANCY GRACE: The key to
forensic genetic genealogy
00:22:06
is building an entire family
tree from a single DNA source. Scientists who do
this rarely come up
00:22:14
with an immediate suspect. Instead, their work creates
a big family tree made up of many, many generations.
00:22:22
Investigators painstakingly
narrow that family tree down until it points
directly to the person
00:22:30
linked to the DNA sample. [MUSIC PLAYING] TONY ADAME: Chuck Mallett
had big white boards put in,
00:22:37
and he became somebody,
like, that essentially worked like the people from Parabon.
00:22:42
And these white
boards became filled with hundreds and
hundreds of names, and there were names on
the board dating back to,
00:22:49
you know, the late
1700s in Pensacola trying to put
together family trees. NICOLE HEINTZELMAN:
And so we got
00:22:56
a lot of investigative leads. We got targets, people that we
needed to either get their DNA
00:23:03
or have them upload their
profile into GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA. Captain Mallett would
identify those targets,
00:23:14
and then he would contact them
and try to get them either to do an Ancestry
DNA kit or if they
00:23:22
had a kit to upload their
profile into these databases. So it was a very arduous
process to get these targets.
00:23:32
And we would have a meeting
and we'd identify the targets and then they would-- we
would get the results.
00:23:38
And then we would kind
of narrow it down, and we just kept narrowing
it down and narrowing it down
00:23:44
and FDLE did an
amazing job with that. They did a lot of the
genetic genealogy research,
00:23:51
and then finally they narrowed
it down to Daniel Wells. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Daniel Wells
is now the prime suspect
00:24:03
in Tonya McKinley's murder. Detectives now must link
him to the crime scene. DANIEL HARNETT: Captain Mallett
began pulling the assets
00:24:12
and the team together. Our intel people, our
crime, scene folks and then myself with the specific purpose
and intent of that we would
00:24:20
have to obtain a
DNA sample from them and then eventually would
lead to a conversation
00:24:26
or an interrogation. So my use was in helping
to recover evidence from a target and then
the eventual interrogation
00:24:35
of that subject. And when we learned
the name, we learned where he lived, where he worked,
and then did historical check
00:24:47
for his history. And we found that he had some
sexual deviant related charges and history in the past.
00:24:56
Prostitution, exposure of sexual
organs, so those sort of crimes seem to sort of fit with the
type of person who would do
00:25:04
a sexually motivated homicide. So that was a flag that,
hey, this could actually
00:25:10
be a potential
suspect in this case beyond simply having genetic
markers or family members that
00:25:16
were associated with
the unknown suspect DNA, so he became of
interest at that point.
00:25:23
NANCY GRACE: Cold case
investigators finally name a prime suspect, Daniel Wells.
00:25:30
Next on "Bloodline Detectives,"
they've gotta track him down. [MUSIC PLAYING] February 2020,
Pensacola, Florida,
00:25:46
35 years after the brutal
rape and savage murder of 23-year-old Tonya McKinley,
thanks to genetic genealogy,
00:25:55
investigators finally have the
name of a suspect, Daniel Wells but now police have to find him.
00:26:04
NICOLE HEINTZELMAN:
Genetic genealogy is most definitely a game
changer for law enforcement.
00:26:09
It has opened up not
just to offenders who are subject to putting
their DNA into CODIS,
00:26:18
but it is all their family
members who may not even realize that they are related
to people who are out there
00:26:27
committing murders or rapes. NANCY GRACE: One
priority for detectives is to establish Daniel
Wells' whereabouts
00:26:36
on New Year's Day 1985, the
day Tonya McKinley is murdered. CAROLYN CONNORS: The
homicide was in 1985,
00:26:45
and I needed to go back as far
as I could to try to figure out where he's been since then.
00:26:51
I wanted to see was he even
in the area at that time. I came across a traffic
ticket from South
00:27:00
Florida that had an
address in Pensacola from March 30th of 1985. TONY ADAME: He was a
son of a pharmacist
00:27:10
there in town so
came from a family that had a little bit of money. You know, he had--
00:27:15
he was the only son. He had a lot of sisters. He seemed like he had a pretty-- I mean, other than his
parents splitting up,
00:27:22
it seemed like he had a
pretty normal background. CAROLYN CONNORS: Going back to
the traffic citation in 1985,
00:27:29
it listed on there that
he was a carpenter. I saw that he had
moved to Missouri,
00:27:35
and when I was doing
research, I saw that in Missouri, he was also
doing some type of woodwork.
00:27:43
He got married in 1993, and then
he was remarried again in 2003. And then he was back here
in Pensacola around 2009.
00:27:56
He had a son in that time frame. It appeared that he
laid kind of low. I remember doing some
research on social media
00:28:06
at his place of
employment and realized he was in none of their photos. They had Christmas parties,
different gatherings.
00:28:12
They would show
people doing woodwork, and he was in none
of the photos. And it just seemed like
he kept to himself.
00:28:21
NANCY GRACE: Daniel
Wells's criminal past, including sex crimes,
is critical information
00:28:27
for investigators. They still need to
link him directly to Tonya McKinley's murder.
00:28:34
Detectives decide to conduct
surveillance on Wells. KYLAN OSLEY: I was advised
of the circumstances
00:28:45
of the genealogy and the
work that Sergeant Harnett and Captain Mallett
had done on this case,
00:28:50
and they needed assistance
with surveillance of a possible suspect. KELLY EIERHART: We went over
who Daniel Wells was, where he
00:28:58
worked, where he lived,
and then, you know, we kind of worked
together and made up
00:29:02
a sheet of different
dates and times that surveillance was needed. I don't remember how many
days, but it was several days
00:29:09
and just watching
his movements kind of did he leave for work at the
same time, did he return home,
00:29:14
did he go to lunch
regularly, you know, just try to put
together a pattern. KYLAN OSLEY: We went to several
places, several locations
00:29:22
where Mr. Wells went to as well. A lot of places that he
went, we were also present.
00:29:28
I was able to get
fairly close to him. I spoke to him actually
during a lunch break.
00:29:34
We were in the same restaurant. It was a random
conversation about the food at the restaurant and just
about our day, just very brief.
00:29:43
DANIEL HARNETT: Over the
course of a couple of days, we noticed that he was a smoker.
00:29:47
So the idea was
that we would have to try and obtain
a sample of his DNA through surreptitious means.
00:29:53
Because he was a smoker,
the hope was that he would discard a cigarette. So we began following
him with the intention
00:30:00
of seeing if he would. So the police
follow him, and this is where it becomes basically
a scene right out of a film.
00:30:11
The police trail him in his car. Myself and two special agents
with the Florida Department
00:30:17
of Law Enforcement were
following Mr. Wells when one of the special agents
noticed that he was
00:30:22
smoking saw him
throw the discarded cigarette butt out the window. And so because we were in
a few vehicles behind him,
00:30:29
we made it stopped,
blocked traffic. Myself and that special agent
went out, found the cigarette
00:30:35
butt, recovered it, turned
it in, and then brought it straight to the crime lab.
00:30:40
The following day,
they were able to tell us that there was a match and
that it matched Daniel Wells.
00:30:45
[MUSIC PLAYING] NICOLE HEINTZELMAN:
It was very exciting. We-- there were a lot of
high fives and cheers,
00:30:55
and it was a very
exciting moment. The day we found out was
kind of a very somber day
00:31:02
for the police department. We had just lost a officer, and
so that was kind of a high note
00:31:09
that we ended that
day on, that yes. Finally, after 35 years, we
know who killed Tonya McKinley.
00:31:19
NANCY GRACE: After 35 long years
and thousands of man hours, investigators
finally have the DNA
00:31:26
match linking Daniel
Wells directly to Tonya McKinley's murder. Now detectives move
in for an arrest.
00:31:34
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING] Pensacola, Florida,
March 2020, 35 years
00:31:51
after 23-year-old Tonya
McKinley was raped and murdered, detectives are finally
ready to confront
00:31:59
and arrest the prime suspect,
now 57-year-old Daniel Wells. DANIEL HARNETT: We didn't
know what his mindset was
00:32:08
or if he was expecting
this to eventually happen, but we knew that he
was a bad driver.
00:32:13
And so we knew that
we could pull him over at some point
because of the fact that he had a
propensity for speeding.
00:32:19
So we decided that that would
probably be the safest route to conduct a traffic stop.
00:32:24
KELLY EIERHART: In
this particular case, what they decided
to do was a traffic stop, which is where myself and
Detective Osley came into play.
00:32:32
KYLAN OSLEY: Detective
Eierhart and I got into a marked vehicle, and we-- when Mr. Wells got
mobile in his vehicle,
00:32:39
we conducted a
traffic stop on him. KELLY EIERHART:
It was March 17th, and the very next
day is when Pensacola
00:32:47
kind of shut down for COVID. So a lot was going on, and
people were very concerned.
00:32:50
So I asked him due to kind of
everything that was going on, would he mind stepping outside
of the car to speak with me so
00:32:57
that we could have that
open air environment, and he complied
with no question. [BLEEP]
00:33:18
DANIEL HARNETT: He was
taken into custody, brought to the police station
by those two detectives,
00:33:23
and then eventually we sat
down in a room with them here at the police department
and had that conversation.
00:34:16
NANCY GRACE: After
an hour of denying he was present at Tonya
McKinley's murder,
00:34:21
Daniel Wells runs out of lies. NICOLE HEINTZELMAN: It was a
awesome moment when, you know,
00:34:29
he's confronted with can
say you weren't there but we have undeniable
evidence that you were there.
00:34:38
He finally admitted
that first it was just small admissions
that, oh, you know, I just had consensual
sex with her.
00:34:48
But, you know, he was being
presented with we know you just didn't have consensual sex.
00:34:54
DANIEL HARNETT:
And so we offered two different scenarios. The two scenarios were
either you're a monster who's
00:35:01
going out hunting women and we
utilize his criminal history to kind of purport that, and
we're able to kind of link that
00:35:09
to a behavior sort of
like Ted Bundy, someone who would lure women to
him to prey upon them.
00:35:15
And that paints a picture of
him being a complete monster, so he's not gonna like that.
00:35:21
And the other option was that
you had an encounter with her, things got out of hand,
and eventually led to you
00:35:28
having to kill her or
something took place to where that was what you did. And so with those two choices,
he chose the lesser evil
00:35:37
of the two choices in
that, and then he shared with us what actually happened. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:36:31
NANCY GRACE: Captain
Chuck Mallett can now tell Tonya's
son, Tim Davidson, Jr., his mother's case
is finally solved.
00:36:42
NICOLE HEINTZELMAN: I heard
that phone call on a recording, and it was extremely emotional.
00:36:48
It was, you know, here
Tim, who didn't even learn that his mother had
been murdered until he was
00:36:59
14 years old, and to
know that, you know, we finally caught
his killer, it was very emotional for both Captain
Mallett and for Tim Davidson.
00:37:13
NANCY GRACE: Daniel Wells
taken into custody pending trial then on April
20, 2020, justice
00:37:21
takes an unexpected turn. TONY ADAME: I was at
home around 6:00 AM, and I got a call
from Chuck Mallett.
00:37:29
He told me that Daniel Wells had
committed suicide in his cell at Escambia County Jail.
00:37:36
When you try to
get in the mind of somebody that
commits suicide, that is entirely different.
00:37:43
You never know what real
reason that they committed it-- a guilty conscience. They didn't want their
family to suffer what he
00:37:52
was gonna have to go through. NICOLE HEINTZELMAN:
I was disappointed. I was very much looking forward
to facing him at a trial.
00:38:01
So I was disappointed that he
had taken this coward's way out, that he could not even
survive two weeks in jail
00:38:10
after he deprived this woman
of her life 35 years ago and had been living
free for 35 years.
00:38:16
I can see where any family
might feel cheated by that. They didn't get a
chance to confront him,
00:38:22
and so sometimes
that's something that's highly desirable to the family. And I know that they
felt cheated for not
00:38:29
having that opportunity. NANCY GRACE: It takes
35 years for detectives to finally nail Tonya
McKinley's killer.
00:38:39
It would never
have been possible without the precise work of
crime scene investigators
00:38:45
back in 1985. They secured and
preserved evidence which years later proved essential.
00:38:53
[MUSIC PLAYING] MIKE MANEY: It gives
you a feeling of pride to know that not only
you but the other people
00:39:01
that you work with do the best
they can and do whatever is needed to try and solve a case.
00:39:09
I was just really
happy to be able to help and play a part in this. There were a lot of different
components in this as far
00:39:15
as the work from the
original detectives all the way through to
Parabon and FDLE
00:39:23
and Captain Mallett,
our crime scene people. So even just having a small
corner of the investigation,
00:39:29
it was rewarding. There's a sense
of accomplishment. It was nice to be able to
give closure to a case that's
00:39:34
been lingering. There was a lot of interest
in this case from the older detectives when I first
became one in solving it,
00:39:41
and there was always
the hope that eventually someone would be able to do so. So it was nice to be
able to give them that
00:39:49
and to play a part in it. NANCY GRACE: The role of
forensic genetic genealogy is the other
essential ingredient
00:39:57
in cracking Tonya McKinley's
brutal rape and savage murder. NICOLE HEINTZELMAN:
I don't believe
00:40:06
it would have been solved
without genetic genealogy-- Wells, unless he had
committed a crime
00:40:11
to have his DNA put
into CODIS, he would have remained undetectable. So this case has been solved
because of genetic genealogy.
00:40:22
NANCY GRACE: Tanya
McKinley's son Tim was just 18 months
old when his mother was savagely murdered.
00:40:29
Some say he never
really knew his mother, but that bond between
mother and child
00:40:36
is so deep and so eternal,
it will always exist. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us
here at "Bloodline Detectives."
00:41:12
[END THEME PLAYING]