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NARRATOR: In February 1993, detectives in Hillsboro, Oregon were unaware that a serial killer had
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been active across the city. The murders of four women were being treated as separate cases
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until a prisoner in a local jail house began bragging to his fellow inmates. He would take combs and little miniature bars of soap
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and he would place them on the floor to show the respective location of Martha Ryan's Volkswagen
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with his Chevrolet. And he would imitate the sound of Martha Bryant's effort to draw breath.
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NARRATOR: The loose lipped convict was 32-year-old Cesar Barone, who'd been sexually assaulting
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and murdering women across Hillsboro for the previous two years. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Margaret was found naked
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and spread eagled on her bed. He didn't just want to kill her, he wanted to degrade her, and demean her, and humiliate her.
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NARRATOR: As detectives began to learn the awful truth behind Cesar Barone's crimes, they
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discovered he'd begun attacking women in Florida when he was just 15 years old.
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ERIC APALATEGUI: He is that type of person who has on the outside almost multiple personalities.
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I think on the inside he was just all evil. NARRATOR: Cesar Barone had revealed himself
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as one of the world's most evil killers. [MUSIC PLAYING] In January 1995, 35-year-old Cesar Barone
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was sentenced to death for taking the life of four women in and around Hillsboro, Oregon
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ranging in age from 23 to 61. Barone's M.O. would often change from rapist to robber,
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and strangler to shooter, making him highly elusive to detectives who couldn't link the crimes.
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Journalist Eric Apalategui met with Barone while he was on death row in 1997. ERIC APALATEGUI: We were standing up to go,
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and he stuck his hand through that hole to shake my hand. It totally caught me by surprise.
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And I remember thinking, do I shake it because I know that he has strangled people with those hands, right?
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NARRATOR: It took the skills of dedicated lawyers and detectives to build a compelling case against Barone
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in the lead up to his 1994 trials. This case was really the most memorable case that I ever
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dealt with, and it was because of its complexity, the number of victims, the lives it impacted,
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the trauma that it created for so many people. MICHAEL O'CONNELL: Part of what made him so dangerous
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was the fact that he broke all the rules that a profiler would use in analyzing a certain violent crime.
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He killed people he knew, he killed strangers. And that's one of the reasons he got away
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with his despicable behavior for so long. NARRATOR: This killer's story begins in December 1960.
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Cesar Barone was born Adolph James Rode in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Known as Jimmy to friends and family,
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his young life got off to a far from perfect start. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: At the age of four,
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his mother leaves and sets up a new life somewhere else. And I think this is at the root of a lot of Rode's issues.
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I think there is an unresolved conflict that happens at that point, and it continues for him for many years
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because I think as a four-year-old, you can't really make sense of why your mother's left.
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You probably have a tendency to blame yourself for it, was it something that I did?
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NARRATOR: In March 1967, Rode's father got married for a second time. It was a happier, more affluent household to grow up in.
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MICHAEL O'CONNELL: He led a pretty normal childhood. His grandparents had a nice home with land
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outside of Fort Lauderdale. They had a pony that they bought mostly for Cesar and his brother and sister.
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He started approaching his teens, he really started going downhill in terms of his behavior.
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ELIZABETH YARDLEY: As an adolescent, Rode really was a hell raiser. He broke rules left, right, and center.
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He didn't think the rules applied to him. He was mean to other children. He didn't really have decent relationships with his peers.
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And he caused such havoc that his stepmother actually ended up leaving the family home.
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So that is the level of disruption that this young man was causing. This is very serious behavior indeed.
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NARRATOR: Rode's conduct spiraled out of control. And he had a bad reputation with the local authorities.
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ERIC APALATEGUI: He was known to police around there as this kid who was just a bad kid,
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who would just steal anything. He was an opportunist who graduated into assaulting people.
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And I think he found out that he liked that, honestly. NARRATOR: By 1976, 15-year-old Jimmy Rode
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had developed an unhealthy sexual appetite for much older women. And he focused his newfound perversity
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on his neighbor, Alice Stock. Alice was a 70-year-old ex teacher. She was a very patient, very calm,
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very understanding person. She'd worked with children with special needs, and she was somebody that Rode knew.
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And he breaks into her house. He threatens her with a knife, and he asks her to remove some of her clothing.
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And she says, I know who you are, you're Jimmy Rode, you live right down the street.
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Now get the hell out of my house. And he did. Of course she instantly called the police.
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NARRATOR: Jimmy Rode, spends 10 weeks in a youth detention center as punishment for the attempted attack.
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The prolific criminal remained in and out of prison over the next three years. All the while, his assault on Alice Stock
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remained fresh in his memory. BOB HERMANN: In 1979, he was released. 15 days later, someone entered her home
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by cutting the screen to her window, entering through the window, strangled Alice Stock,
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left her displayed on the bed. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Clearly he is the prime suspect
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because this lady and what she experienced and what she reported to the police were what led to him first going to prison.
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So he harbored a grudge, he harbored resentment. And the fact that he sat on this resentment
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for a good couple of years, shows me the kind of person he is. He is a grievance collector.
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And if somebody wrongs him, he's going to get his own back, whether that's next week or next year.
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NARRATOR: All the evidence in the case was circumstantial, and it wasn't enough to charge Rode with Alice's murder.
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It's alleged that in January 1980, 18-year-old Rode raped his stepmother. And just months later in April, he
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was arrested and charged with attacking his own grandmother. BOB HERMANN: She was beaten severely so Jimmy Rode was
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charged with attempted murder. It went to trial and he was acquitted. And those involved in the case said
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that the grandmother had trouble testifying, she didn't want to testify. And the defense basically was she's mistaken,
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Jimmy had been there but it was somebody-- and it was somebody else. He was acquitted.
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NARRATOR: It seemed that murder just wouldn't stick. Nevertheless, Jimmy Rode was back in prison by August 1980
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sentenced to five years for the comparatively minor offense of burglary. And after assaulting a 59-year-old female prison
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officer, three more years were added to his sentence in which time he began to completely
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change his identity. He moves to a new prison and he basically starts to rewrite the story of his life
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in the information he gives to the officers in that prison. He claims that he has a degree from an Italian University.
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He claims that he's a widower. That he's going to go back to Italy after his sentence.
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So he's embellishing, he's exaggerating, he's making himself more interesting.
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And when people do this, when they engage in this kind of narcissistic behavior,
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it's essentially because they are fundamentally ashamed of who they really are.
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They don't want to be themselves so they invent somebody else to be. Somebody who can lord it over other people
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because they're special and they're interesting. NARRATOR: Rode was still the prime suspect
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for the murder of Alice Stock. And when he was released in 1987, he was determined to put distance between himself
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and the allegations. He'd met a woman via newspaper lonelyhearts service, and headed 2 and 1/2 1,000 miles across the US
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to Seattle to be with her. And he adopted a new name, Cesar Barone. The couple married and settled in Hillsboro, Oregon,
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but Barone didn't hang around for long. In January 1989, the 28-year-old career
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criminal enlisted in the Army. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He signs up but because he's somebody who's
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not very good at following rules, he doesn't have a particularly smooth time in the army.
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And he is eventually dismissed from the army when he goes and harasses an elderly woman in her home,
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and also when the army discover that he's in possession of a firearm, and that he's a convicted felon.
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So all of this unravels, and his dream of what the army could potentially have been for him
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comes to an end. NARRATOR: By early 1991, Cesar Barone was back living in Hillsboro with his wife and baby son.
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On April the 19th, not too far from the Barone family home, a crime stunned the community.
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BOB HERMANN: Margaret Schmidt was a woman in her early 60s. She lived in downtown area of Hillsboro in a small house.
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Margaret had broken her leg. And because of the leg injury and some of her health issues,
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she used a Walker to get around. ERIC APALATEGUI: Somebody broke into her house.
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She was sexually assaulted and strangled. And it was one of those cases as a reporter that--
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I remember she was one of those types of people that everybody would say, well, why would
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you kill Margaret Schmidt? NARRATOR: The case landed on the desk of homicide detective, Michael O'Connell.
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She would sit out on her porch and talk to the kids from the grade school right next to her house.
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And that's probably how he spotted her, driving by and probably saw her out on her porch.
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NARRATOR: Margaret's carer had arrived to check in on the 61-year-old but instead stumbled
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upon a horrific crime scene. Margaret was found naked and spread eagled on her bed.
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MICHAEL O'CONNELL: She'd been strangled, and also it appeared she'd been smothered with a pillow.
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The pillow was still laying on her face when we got there. There was either a sexual assault or an attempt
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at a sexual assault. The suspect had knocked over a bottle of talcum powder in the bathroom
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and left some of the best shoe prints that I've ever seen at any crime scene.
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You could actually read the word Reebok. BOB HERMANN: Maybe you see that a lot on TV
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but in a lot of murder scenes that I've seen, you don't typically see foot prints in a residence.
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And that led to a significant lead. And really quite frankly, was the only lead after the initial investigation that the police
00:13:18
had that they thought they may somehow be able to follow up on. NARRATOR: There seemed to be an obvious way to solve the case,
00:13:27
find the distinctive shoes, catch the killer. MICHAEL O'CONNELL: I became somewhat obsessed with them,
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and for the next couple of years, I was always looking for them to see if I could see someone wearing them.
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I only saw two people wearing them. One was a kindergarten teacher who I knew. I knew she wasn't a suspect, and the other one was a fellow
00:13:51
at the Spokane airport. NARRATOR: But in fact the owner of the shoes lived just two miles away
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from Margaret Schmidt's house. Cesar Barone's lust for older women had driven him to murder.
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In the following months, the 30-year-old separated from his wife and moved out of the family home
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before beginning an ominous new career, working in an elderly care home. GEOFFERY WANSELL: What could be more frightening than having
00:14:22
someone who's already killed a 61-year-old to get a job as a care home assistant?
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Well, criminal records checks were not what they are today. He was plausible enough.
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And on the surface, he presents as unfrightening. He's quite amenable. And I can only imagine that he must have been literally
00:14:46
like the fox in the hen house. NARRATOR: On the 9th of October 1992, Oregon awoke to the news of another murder.
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41-year-old midwife, Martha Bryant had been targeted by a gunman in the early hours of the morning
00:15:03
while driving along Cornell Road in Hillsboro. BOB HERMANN: I learned about it early when I
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got up on, "The Morning News." It was front and center. They actually had footage of the Volkswagen
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that Martha had been driving because it remained alongside where she had been forced off the road.
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That's told the story that this is an enormous happening that someone would be shot, and you
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could see the bullet holes, the many bullet holes in the vehicle. I believe she was probably working her way to turn up
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to Highway 26, we call it Sunset Highway, and then on into Portland where she lived.
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But at some point on Cornell Road, somebody started shooting at her car where one of those bullets
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passed through the door and struck her inside. And that caused her to stop the car
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and suddenly not really in full control. NARRATOR: One of the high caliber bullets
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had ripped right through the car and pierced Martha's left lung. MICHAEL O'CONNELL: Several people heard the gunfire
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and called 911 because you shouldn't have gunfire along Cornell Road at 3:00 AM.
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In that neighborhood, you shouldn't have gunfire any time. One of the callers actually looked out her bathroom window
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and saw Martha Bryant's Volkswagen, and she heard yelling. And she thought it was two males but you have to remember,
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Martha Bryant had suffered a sucking chest wound. NARRATOR: The assailant abducted the gravely
00:16:42
injured Martha from her abandoned vehicle and drove her to a quieter location. MICHAEL O'CONNELL: When she couldn't do what he wanted,
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he dragged her out of the car, put a 22 caliber revolver to her temple and executed her.
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Left her in the middle of the road with her pants down at her ankles. Martha Bryant was found a short time later about 3/4
00:17:11
of a mile away laying in the middle of a side street, and she'd been sexually assaulted.
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GEOFFERY WANSELL: It is premeditated. It is excessive cruelty once again, and a complete disregard for human life,
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of how anyone else might feel. It is psychopathic behavior of the most clear cut.
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NARRATOR: The seemingly random killing of a local midwife left the city in shock.
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MICHAEL O'CONNELL: It captured the attention of the community in a very powerful way.
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You just don't have that kind of crime out here in Hillsboro. You really don't have that kind of crime very often anywhere.
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ERIC APALATEGUI: We knew very quickly that Martha Bryant was a nurse midwife, that she had just helped deliver a baby
00:18:07
at Tuality Community Hospital. That fact alone that she had just helped bring a new life
00:18:15
into the world, and then her life was so suddenly and violently taken, the way those two things came together,
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I think just grabbed everybody. It was just one of those things where you just see the best and the worst of life,
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and just minutes apart. NARRATOR: Cornell Road residents had seen Martha's killer abduct
00:18:40
her but because it was so dark, detectives were left with little to go on. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Police started to put together
00:18:48
a picture of what happened from the evidence that the witnesses gave them. So they'd seen a white muscle car, a souped up vehicle.
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They'd seen a man, he was around about 6 foot tall with dark brown hair going away from the scene.
00:19:03
So they have little pieces of the puzzle to put together. NARRATOR: What the police didn't know
00:19:10
was that Martha's killer was Cesar Barone. In a complete change of his regular M.O.,
00:19:16
the 30-year-old had struck for a second time. And just two months later, he would claim a third victim.
00:19:24
On the 30th of December 1992, Detective Scott Ryon was alerted to the discovery of a body along US Highway 26
00:19:35
near Vernonia, Oregon. SCOTT RYON: We got up there and the body had been there for some time.
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We weren't sure if this was somebody that was struck by a vehicle or dumped body
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or what immediately. But after a period of time, I located a gunshot to the underside of her chin.
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And at that point, it was beyond suspect that this was a homicide. NARRATOR: It would take some expert detective
00:20:05
work just to identify the victim let alone solve the crime. SCOTT RYON: When we first went through the victim's pockets,
00:20:14
we had very little information as far as who she was. After doing some legwork on her phone number and address,
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we were able to track down a house in Southeast Portland, I believe it was, and found out she was a roommate
00:20:31
and had taken a room in a house there. And we were able to locate information in that room
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as to her actual identity. NARRATOR: 23-year-old Chantee Woodman had last been seen the previous night looking
00:20:47
for a ride home outside a nightclub in Portland. Chantee was probably what one would refer to as a traveler.
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She had followed the music scene throughout California in the Northwest. And I believe this was probably one of her visit--
00:21:05
first visits into the Portland area. NARRATOR: Once again, detectives had few leads to follow.
00:21:13
They had no idea that Chantee Woodman had become the third victim of Cesar Barone.
00:21:19
But this time, he had an accomplice. Leonard Darcell known by his nickname Germ,
00:21:26
worked with Barone in a nursing home, and was seven years younger than the 31-year-old killer.
00:21:32
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think he was somebody who was seen as a bit of an outcast. So I think Barone thought that here's somebody that I can
00:21:39
manipulate, here's somebody who's going to be really impressed by me. ERIC APALATEGUI: He was the type of guy who would look up
00:21:46
to someone like Cesar Barone, who would admire someone like Cesar Barone. And I think Cesar Barone liked to have someone like that
00:21:55
around. I think he got a kick out of that. I don't think that Leonard Darcell necessarily
00:22:01
signed up to be a wing man in a murder, but he was no boy scout. NARRATOR: Barone and Darcell had picked up
00:22:09
Chantee Woodman outside a nightclub in Portland. And just hours later, Barone executed her in front
00:22:18
of his younger colleague. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She begs for her life. She's absolutely terrified at this point in time.
00:22:25
But Barone, this is not a barrier for him. This is now a performance because Leonard Darcell is
00:22:31
there watching this unfold, and he wants this to be as performative, as dramatic as possible.
00:22:39
GEOFFERY WANSELL: And then finally in an act of such barbarism, it almost takes your breath away,
00:22:45
Barone puts the gun not to a temple but underneath the chin and blows her head off, effectively
00:22:52
killing her in an instant. NARRATOR: Cesar Barone was out of control. He'd now killed three women in completely
00:23:04
unrelated circumstances. The police had a serial killer in their midst but they had no idea.
00:23:12
The differing M.O's and varying ages of the victims appeared too random to be linked by detectives.
00:23:20
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: We didn't think that the Woodman murder, the Bryant murder, or the Schmidt
00:23:24
murder were connected. They were all very different. You have an elderly woman killed in her home,
00:23:29
you have a 23-year-old left along the side of the highway in a rural part of the County, and then
00:23:35
you have the nurse midwife shot in her car, and then kidnapped and ultimately executed.
00:23:42
We didn't think they were connected. NARRATOR: The killer of all three women was Cesar Barone.
00:23:49
Despite his violent and sometimes public attacks, the 32-year-old care home worker had
00:23:56
managed to fly under the radar. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is a really mixed kind of victimology.
00:24:02
But we've got to remember all of these victims are women. It's all being driven by a misogynistic ideology
00:24:09
and a value set. So I think the police would have struggled in the early days because of that disparity of the victims
00:24:16
but the nature of the murders was quite similar. So there were pieces of the puzzle that
00:24:22
would eventually come together. NARRATOR: In January 1993, Barone attended a small party hosted by 51-year-old waitress, Betty
00:24:33
Williams who lived in the same apartment block as Barone's girlfriend in Cornelius.
00:24:39
The following morning, Betty was found dead. BOB HERMANN: She was discovered by one of her sons
00:24:46
who came over to her house, found the front door unlocked, which again was unusual.
00:24:52
Came in looking for his mom, and found her in the bathtub with a couple of inches of water in it.
00:24:59
And she was laying half in and half out of the bathtub. Her clothing was down to her ankles,
00:25:04
and she was clearly dead. NARRATOR: There was nothing at the crime scene that would immediately suggest foul play.
00:25:13
BOB HERMANN: They thought that she had been sitting on the toilet and had a heart attack,
00:25:17
and then in her movement had fallen into the bathtub. NARRATOR: Two items found in Betty's apartment
00:25:26
meant detectives would keep an open mind about her death. MICHAEL O'CONNELL: There was a broken jar of change found,
00:25:34
there was a gun there. We thought it was her gun. And when we asked her sons, they said, yeah, it might be.
00:25:41
But then her autopsy determined it was a heart attack. And then as things progressed, it turned out that she
00:25:49
did die of a heart attack. But she died of a heart attack because he was threatening her with a knife and that gun, that 22 magnum.
00:25:59
So in effect this is an oversimplification but it's basically what happened was he scared her to death.
00:26:07
NARRATOR: It was impossible for the police to link the cases but Betty Williams had in fact become the fourth victim
00:26:15
of Cesar Barone. The following month in February 1993, Barone's ex mother-in-law was found dead in her home.
00:26:25
It was a death that would inadvertently lead to the killer's downfall. At the time, the death was considered natural causes.
00:26:35
I believe they thought it likely was a heart attack. It would come to light that Cesar Barone was using
00:26:42
her ATM card after the death. NARRATOR: The family filed a complaint that Barone was
00:26:50
responsible for the theft of $3,000, and a police investigation began. While looking into Barone's past,
00:26:58
detectives discovered a colorful criminal history, including attacks on 70-year-old Alice
00:27:05
Stock and his own grandmother. SCOTT RYON: There were some issues coming up that just didn't make sense.
00:27:12
Cesar Barone appeared to come out of nowhere. And in further checking, we found there had been a name change.
00:27:20
Cesar Barone was actually a fictitious name, an assumed name later on. That Barone's real name was Jimmy Rode.
00:27:29
NARRATOR: As the investigation into the stolen money continued, Barone remained a free man.
00:27:35
He'd killed four women without any repercussions. And the rate of his assaults began to escalate.
00:27:44
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: There are a couple of sexual attacks that he carries out on to older women.
00:27:50
He goes to their houses, he asks them if he can use their phone because he's
00:27:54
having some car problems. In one of these incidences, he goes in and demands that the woman gives him oral sex and she refuses
00:28:02
and he fleece. In another one of these incidences, the victim sets off her personal alarm which really
00:28:10
spooks him so he flees again. And I think at this point in time he's feeling really frustrated because he has a right
00:28:16
to demand these things that he's asking for, and he's not getting them. NARRATOR: One of the victims, a neighbor of Barone
00:28:24
identified the 32-year-old and reported him to the police. Investigators didn't know it but they were about to capture
00:28:32
a serial killer. Barone was promptly put behind bars. It was only then that the truth about his career of murder
00:28:42
came to the fore. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: In prison, Barone is still very much the narcissist
00:28:47
that he was on the outside. He wants attention, he wants recognition, he wants validation.
00:28:53
So he starts showing off. He starts bragging to his fellow prisoners about the crimes
00:28:58
that he's committed, about the murders of elderly women, about the assaults on women.
00:29:04
And they are horrified at what they've heard. And they basically want to share that information.
00:29:12
NARRATOR: Barone bragged about the killing of 41-year-old midwife, Martha Bryant.
00:29:18
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: When he would describe what he did to these other inmates, he would take combs and little
00:29:24
miniature bars of soap that they were issued in the jail, and he would place them on the floor
00:29:29
to show the respective location of Martha Ryan's Volkswagen with his Chevrolet.
00:29:35
And he would imitate the sound of Martha Bryant's effort to draw breath. NARRATOR: Barone had sold his two-door Chevrolet soon
00:29:46
after Martha's murder but detectives managed to track it down. MICHAEL O'CONNELL: I remember Susan [INAUDIBLE]
00:29:53
one of the criminalists from the State Police Crime Lab coming out to our evidence facility.
00:30:00
And she looks at the car, she points to a spot in the back seat. She says someone has scrubbed that spot harder
00:30:08
than the rest of the car. And we're going, OK, if you say so. She slices open the seat, the cushion
00:30:16
is soaked with dried blood which was Martha Bryant's. That blood evidence was from when he had placed
00:30:25
her in the back of his car. NARRATOR: Another murder that Barone talked about while in jail was that of a 23-year-old Chantee
00:30:34
Woodman. We had information from the inmates in the jail that Barone had described
00:30:41
Woodman's attack and murder. And he stated that during that incident, he had a subject by the name of Germ accompanying him.
00:30:51
We had no further information to go on, and we started calling in on different police resources.
00:30:56
And located an a.k.a. of Germ as being Leonard Darcell who surprisingly was a Cornelius resident, and lived not far
00:31:05
from where Cesar Barone had lived. NARRATOR: Detectives paid a visit to Leonard Darcell
00:31:11
to hear his side of the story. SCOTT RYON: We told Leonard that we had some information that we
00:31:18
needed to share with him, and that information regarded Cesar Barone. At the point of hearing Cesar Barone's name,
00:31:29
there was a huge transformation, Leonard Darcell's face turned white as a sheet.
00:31:36
He tried about three times to speak, he couldn't. As he had finally started to speak, he looked at us
00:31:43
and said, what I'm about to tell you is probably going to change the rest of my life.
00:31:50
NARRATOR: Darcell began to confess about what had happened on the 30th of December 1992.
00:31:57
He told detectives that he and Barone had picked up Chantee and took her to an apartment in Cornelius.
00:32:04
He said he had consensual sex with the 23-year-old but when she rejected Barone's advances,
00:32:11
he forced her to get into his car and pointed a gun at her. Darcell went along for the ride.
00:32:19
SCOTT RYON: Ultimately, she ended up out on Highway 26. And he told us it was Barone that had got her out of the car
00:32:27
and taunted her and tormented her while she was standing there on the shoulder of the road.
00:32:33
He said she was crying, she was sobbing. And he stroked her hair and told her everything
00:32:40
was going to be OK. Everything was going to be fine, don't worry. And at that point, he moved the gun
00:32:46
from where he had been popping it into the bottom of her chin. Then turned it and came underneath, and said
00:32:55
everything's going to be OK, and the gun fired. And she collapsed NARRATOR: Darcell could not believe what he had witnessed.
00:33:06
SCOTT RYON: He said that was at the point that Cesar Barone grabbed her by the legs
00:33:09
and spun her around, and threw her off into the shoulder. And they then got into the car and left the scene.
00:33:17
And it was at that point that Cesar Barone wanted to hi five him. He was pounding the wheel, he was euphoric.
00:33:24
He was just totally excited about how good that felt. Leonard stated it nearly made him sick at that point.
00:33:33
And he knew that he didn't want anything more to do with this individual. NARRATOR: In March 1994, for his role in Chantee
00:33:43
Woodman's murder, Leonard Darcell was sentenced to 20 years in prison. During his jailhouse confessions,
00:33:53
Barone had spoken to fellow inmates about how in January 1993 he'd scared Betty Williams so much she suffered a heart attack.
00:34:03
The gun that had been found at her apartment was the same one that had fired the shot
00:34:08
that killed Chantee Woodman, a direct link between both deaths. Searches of Barone's home uncovered
00:34:16
even more evidence against him. SCOTT RYON: There was another gun found in the search warrant
00:34:21
at Cesar Barone's house. It was a Browning Hi-Power. When that gun was matched with forensics,
00:34:30
that tied back into the Martha Bryant case. The shell casings found on Cornell Road
00:34:36
were consistent with the striker marks that this Browning Hi-Power made. NARRATOR: And the search of one of Barone's former residences
00:34:45
led Detective Michael O'Connell to discover something he'd been searching for for almost two years.
00:34:53
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: During the service of that search warrant, what do we find in Cesar's property?
00:34:59
A pair of size 8 and 1/2 or 9 Reebok IRS tennis shoes. Ultimately, the shoes were matched to the shoe prints
00:35:08
in Margaret Schmidt's bathroom including the little nicks, the little artifacts.
00:35:14
You could look at the bottom of the shoe and see it, and you could look at the picture of the shoe print
00:35:19
and see it. NARRATOR: As well as evidence linking Barone to four deaths, detectives had uncovered a series of other crimes
00:35:30
he'd committed including rape, sexual abuse, and theft. In February 1994, he faced trial for crimes
00:35:38
against the surviving victims and was sentenced to 44 years in prison. The career criminal was behind bars
00:35:48
but detectives weren't going to rest on their laurels. Cesar Barone was about to get his comeuppance for the lives
00:35:55
he'd cruelly taken. In November, the 34-year-old was back in court, this time
00:36:03
charged with the high profile murder of an innocent midwife. ERIC APALATEGUI: The Martha Bryant murder
00:36:12
was such a big deal because people really cared about that case, and they really wanted
00:36:17
to see Cesar Barone put away. And it was a capital murder case so he was facing a potential death penalty.
00:36:27
NARRATOR: Barone was prosecuted by Chief deputy DA, Bob Hermann. BOB HERMANN: I told the jury that this was clearly
00:36:35
an execution both by the nature of the gunshot wound to the temple, and he clearly displayed the body
00:36:42
by dumping her in the middle of the road in the manner that he did. It was obvious that his conduct was deliberate,
00:36:49
which under our law in Oregon is significant when it comes to a death penalty imposition.
00:36:54
The homicide need not be just intentional, it has to be deliberate as well. And that was about as deliberative
00:37:01
as you could possibly imagine. NARRATOR: Barone denied all the charges against him pleading not guilty and refusing to testify.
00:37:12
But the evidence against him was undeniable. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: In terms of Martha Bryant's murder trial,
00:37:18
there really wasn't any doubts that Barone had killed her. He'd bragged about it.
00:37:23
He'd actually shared details of the crime with others. There was a blood stain in the back of the muscle car
00:37:31
that matched up to her DNA. And also the 9 millimeter pistol that he'd used in this case
00:37:37
was found in his own residence. So all paths led to Barone, there was very little doubt
00:37:43
he was responsible for this. ERIC APALATEGUI: I think the evidence that maybe is more
00:37:49
emotional is the stuff that kind of gets me now is just the descriptions of how he basically
00:37:54
hunted her down and killed her. Those were the things that anybody could understand,
00:38:02
we've all seen movies and everything but here it was real life and close to home and all of that.
00:38:10
So that's the kind of stuff that probably sticks with me more. NARRATOR: In December 1994, Cesar Barone
00:38:20
was found guilty of the murder of Martha Bryant and sentenced to death. He received two more death sentences
00:38:28
for the murders of Margaret Schmidt and Chantee Woodman. Barone was also convicted of causing
00:38:34
Betty Williams death known in Oregon as felony murder. For this he received an 89 year sentence.
00:38:44
The state of Florida were also keen to speak to the man they knew as Jimmy Rode.
00:38:50
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: They eventually indicted him for the murder of Alice Stock.
00:38:54
After his appeals were all denied on the Martha Bryant case, they ended up dismissing their case under the belief
00:39:02
that, OK, the very least he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison in Oregon
00:39:08
and possibly even be executed. They decided to drop their case. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: There is no such thing as coincidence when
00:39:17
it comes to serial killers. And I think it's safe to say that is anybody else
00:39:24
responsible for Alice's murder? I'd say probably not. NARRATOR: In 1997, journalist Eric Apalategui
00:39:34
was given the opportunity to sit down with Cesar Barone to try and find out his side of the story.
00:39:42
I had never interviewed someone on death row. So that day when I went down to Salem,
00:39:49
Oregon State Penitentiary, I was admittedly anxious. I didn't know what it would be like.
00:39:55
And then they brought me into a little interview room, and there was a chair and a little desk in front of me.
00:40:07
And then there was this big thick plate glass with a hole right here that we were going to talk through.
00:40:14
The guard brought Cesar Barone in to the other side of this, sat him down, and they gave us space to talk.
00:40:24
And he was very amiable like happy to see me, how are you doing kind of thing. NARRATOR: But Barone's mood would soon change when
00:40:37
Eric brought up the murders. ERIC APALATEGUI: Whenever I asked a question that didn't
00:41:05
fit with his explanation of things, what about the DNA evidence? What about this, what about that?
00:41:13
If he couldn't come up with a good answer, then his answer was that it was planted
00:41:17
so that he could be convicted of all of these crimes. They could clear the books of these crimes,
00:41:22
they could get all the glory. That was his-- that was his argument. NARRATOR: Cesar Barone died of cancer on Christmas Eve 2009.
00:41:36
He was 49 years old. On discovering the killer was terminally ill, Detective Michael O'Connell visited him
00:41:45
in prison for one last attempt at finding out the truth behind his crimes. MICHAEL O'CONNELL: I said, I'm not
00:41:52
going to read you your rights. Basically I was trying to assure him that I couldn't use anything he going to tell me against him.
00:42:01
Still didn't matter, he just, no, no. I said, is it possible to tell us that maybe one
00:42:08
of your victims didn't suffer? I said, something that maybe could put a mother or a husband
00:42:16
at ease? Give them some peace of mind? Wouldn't touch it, wouldn't even come close.
00:42:25
SCOTT RYON: As far as Cesar Barone having any remorse for his crimes, absolutely not.
00:42:32
It was my impression that he loved revisiting those mentally and recommitting the crime again.
00:42:40
Truly a sick evil individual. NARRATOR: In total, Cesar Barone was responsible for the deaths of at least four women
00:42:50
and the assault of many others. He has taken the reasons why to the grave. When we look back on the victims of Barone's crimes,
00:43:01
these were women just going about their daily life, and this predator comes along and decides that he
00:43:07
has a right to kill them. He has the right to violate and abuse them. And I think what we need to take from this case is their memory
00:43:15
because very often the victims in cases of serial murder symbolize everything that the perpetrators are not.
00:43:22
They are independent, they are loved, they are hopeful, they're people who have bright futures ahead of them.
00:43:28
So I think we need to honor the victims and just forget about Barone because he was a nobody,
00:43:33
and he always will be a nobody. NARRATOR: Barone was a twisted individual who seemed
00:43:39
to enjoy causing pain to women. He was driven by an unhealthy sexual appetite that would stop at nothing.
00:43:48
By attacking women in their homes, their cars, or even on the street, he always preyed
00:43:54
upon their vulnerabilities, which makes Cesar Barone one of the world's most evil killers.
00:44:02
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