00:00:00
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: San Diego,
California, 1980, police respond to
an emergency call
00:00:17
from an apartment in
the suburb of Santee. The frightened caller says
her roommate Michelle Wyatt
00:00:25
is dead in the living room. It was pretty gruesome because
there was a telephone cord
00:00:31
around her neck,
her gown was open, the living room was
in disarray, and somebody had dumped the contents
of her purse into the toilet.
00:00:40
NANCY GRACE: Michelle is
a beautiful and popular young woman with a
large group of friends.
00:00:46
Everybody loved Michelle. Men wanted to date her and
women wanted to be like her.
00:00:52
So in my mind, it could
have been anybody. The initial investigation
fails to find her killer.
00:01:01
40 years later, new
forensic science could be able to
identify the man who sex-attacked and murdered this
beautiful, young woman Michelle
00:01:13
Wyatt. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
00:01:41
[SOFT MUSIC] It's 1980, Michelle
Wyatt is a student at Grossmont College, about
20 minutes outside San Diego.
00:01:52
So Michelle Wyatt
was a 20-year-old young lady who had a lot of
different interests in life.
00:01:59
She was known to be very active. She enjoyed things
like scuba diving. She liked running.
00:02:07
She was a big reader. She was very beautiful. She had blonde hair, great
smile, very bubbly personality,
00:02:18
just the type of girl that
others might be jealous of. Well, I met Michelle
when both of our families
00:02:26
moved into our neighborhood. And we just lived a couple of
houses away from each other
00:02:31
and just became fast friends. Michelle was a very
outgoing person. She was very kind,
very friendly, made
00:02:39
friends very easily. She really made a friend
with whoever she ran into. She had aspirations.
00:02:48
She wanted to go
into something that included her love for drawing. She was an artist.
00:02:54
She was really
good at everything she did, and loved doing it. She was really
living her best life.
00:03:07
NANCY GRACE: October
8, Michelle makes plans to hang out that
evening with her boyfriend.
00:03:13
COURTNEY FRETWELL:
Michelle and Pat had worked together
at the Safeway store, and Michelle caught
Pat's attention.
00:03:21
She's this beautiful,
young lady. She's got this beautiful
hair, big, bright smile.
00:03:28
And Michelle and Pat seemed
to really hit it off. It was almost love at
first sight for them.
00:03:36
THOMAS ARNOLD: I remember Mrs.
Wyatt telling me that Michelle really liked Patrick.
00:03:40
And her mom even teased
her, "you're going to get married sometime soon?"
00:03:44
And Michelle goes,
"Oh, come on mom. But, uh, I think he's the one."
00:03:51
Around 9 o'clock
PM, Michelle and Pat went back into Michelle's
condo where the two of them
00:03:59
watched TV, spent
some time together. And then around 12:45
AM, Pat decided to leave.
00:04:08
He wasn't going to stay
the night at Michelle's. He had an early day at work
the next day on October 9.
00:04:15
So around 12:45, Pat kisses
his girlfriend goodbye. NANCY GRACE: The very next day,
Michelle Wyatt's roommate Rita
00:04:25
returns home in the afternoon. The roommate opened the door
and immediately saw Michelle.
00:04:33
Michelle was right there
in the living room, just past the door, and
she was clearly dead.
00:04:39
BRIAN PATTERSON: When
the detectives arrived, they processed the crime scene. They discovered a telephone
had been kind of pulled out
00:04:46
of the wall and the cord was
wrapped around Michelle's neck along with a part of a towel.
00:04:53
That towel matched another
towel in the kitchen. Her purse had been
dumped out on the floor.
00:05:00
And the purse was actually
thrown into the toilet in the downstairs bathroom. JEFFREY VANDERSIP: It was
clear that this was not
00:05:10
a planned event
because the things that he used to kill her
were from the apartment.
00:05:18
He did not bring anything
into the apartment. It's not clear that
he left with anything.
00:05:24
He used what he could find from
the apartment to strangle her. It was a brutal murder for sure.
00:05:32
In the meantime,
Michelle's mother had been notified, Louise,
who was just a lovely woman.
00:05:37
Police wouldn't let
anybody inside the condo. She wanted to know
what was going on.
00:05:41
And the police just said,
"look, we're not going to tell you anything right now.
00:05:44
Just, we're investigating
what's going on." She goes, "well, I want
to see my daughter."
00:05:48
And they said, "you've
got to stay outside, and we'll tell you."
00:05:51
And I believe at some
point, they did tell her that her daughter was dead,
but she wasn't allowed
00:05:55
to go into the room
because they were intent on preserving evidence. That was their
number one priority.
00:06:02
It's a terrible way to find out. About a quarter to 11, and my
mom called me into the living
00:06:07
room and said that she had seen
a blurb for the 11:00 news, that a 20-year-old girl
was murdered in Santee.
00:06:19
And I did not even think of her. So we all gathered
in the living room, and they confirmed
that it was her.
00:06:29
And I just remember
looking at the TV, thinking as they showed
video of her condo,
00:06:35
and thinking, if
it's not her condo, then they have the wrong person. And unfortunately, I
recognized the condo.
00:06:46
I remember my family
sitting in the living room and I remember looking around
the room at everybody's face.
00:06:54
And I remember specifically
my brother's face because they were all looking at me.
00:07:01
And the shock and fear-- I mean, I still
remember their faces. So we went down, walked
down to the Wyatt's.
00:07:13
And all I could do is
tell them how sorry I was. I didn't know in that moment--
00:07:20
broke me for a long time. There was a lot of
shock and anger. And my brain just couldn't wrap
around it, and it never could.
00:07:38
I ended up turning
to drugs and alcohol to try to deal with the anguish. And then it went at a point that
very shortly before my daughter
00:07:57
was born, that that had to stop,
that it had to stop, that I had to live my life,
that that's what
00:08:03
she would have wanted for me. NANCY GRACE: While Michelle
Wyatt's family and friends
00:08:09
cope with a devastating
loss, Michelle's body taken for autopsy. They did a sexual
assault exam.
00:08:19
They collected semen,
saliva, and biological fluids that were on her. It's clear from the
evidence, from what
00:08:30
was found at the
scene that she fought this attack based on some
of the defensive wounds that
00:08:36
were found. The autopsy also
revealed that, in addition to being strangled,
Michelle had also
00:08:43
suffered blunt force
trauma, particularly to the left side of her head. She had significant bleeding
and bruising to the left
00:08:52
side as well as a
swollen left eye. Based on the evidence
collected at the autopsy,
00:08:59
the medical examiner
theorized that Michelle had been murdered sometime
between 1 o'clock AM
00:09:05
and 2 o'clock AM on October 9. JEFFREY VANDERSIP:
She was murdered in a condominium
complex that had
00:09:13
a lot of people living in it. So very quickly,
they fanned out to the complex to talk to the
residents to see if they saw
00:09:20
something. Did they hear something? Did they know who lived there? Do they have some
relationship with Michelle
00:09:27
Wyatt and her roommate? And then you get
bits of information and then that takes
you somewhere else
00:09:34
potentially to figure
out who may have been responsible for doing that. The autopsy is complete.
00:09:41
Michelle Wyatt
was brutally raped before she was strangled dead. Now detectives from San
Diego Sheriff's Office
00:09:50
try to piece together
Michelle's last movements. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:09:57
[THEME MUSIC] [THEME MUSIC] [MUSIC PLAYING] 1980, Santee, California,
a suburb of San Diego,
00:10:11
the body of 20-year-old
college student Michelle Wyatt discovered
by her female roommate.
00:10:18
Michelle, the victim of a
brutal sex attack and murder. According to two different
neighbors of Michelle's, they
00:10:26
heard two of her
dog's barking as well as some screaming coming
from the direction
00:10:33
of Michelle's condo. But neither one of the
neighbors seemed to-- it didn't seem to raise that
much alarm in the neighbors'
00:10:42
minds that something was wrong. And neither neighbor
decided to pick up the phone
00:10:48
and call the investigators. They heard the dog's barking and
thought that nothing was wrong,
00:10:55
they maybe didn't
want to get involved. And the neighbors went
went to sleep that night.
00:11:02
NANCY GRACE: Police
canvassed the area. In doing so, they find
and interview a neighbor
00:11:08
who can place Michelle
Wyatt's boyfriend at Michelle's apartment. Teddy was a
neighbor of Michelle
00:11:15
and Rita's who lived across
the street from their condo. And when police sat down
and spoke with Teddy,
00:11:24
he provided some
interesting information. Teddy told investigators
that he had seen Michelle's boyfriend's
car parked outside the condo
00:11:36
that night. And when the police asked
him for any more details, he really didn't provide
much more information.
00:11:44
He just said that Michelle's
boyfriend was there. He saw the car parked out front.
00:11:50
And when he went
to bed that night, Pat's car was still there. I don't think anybody saw the
boyfriend's car leave, which
00:11:58
of course, made him appear even
more suspicious to everybody, especially since the murder
happened so close to the time
00:12:05
that he did leave. But he was pretty soon crossed
off the list as the number one
00:12:10
suspect based on his
reaction to Michelle's murder and based on his
cooperation with the police.
00:12:17
He was an open book. He was very, very open. And veteran detectives always
have a bit of a feeling.
00:12:25
They can tell sometimes
if somebody is guilty or if somebody is not. And they're not always
right, but in this case,
00:12:33
everybody who interviewed
him and everybody in the Sheriff's
Department had the feeling
00:12:38
that this is not our guy. I never thought that
Michel's boyfriend had anything to do with it.
00:12:44
And I know that they
did look at him, but I don't think they
looked at him for very long.
00:12:49
And she was so
comfortable around him and really thought that this
was going to be the one.
00:12:56
And there was never any anger. She never talked about any-- there wasn't a reason.
00:13:04
There was no reason that
he would have done it. [DRAMATIC MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Detectives
focus attention
00:13:12
on one of Michelle Wyatt's
coworkers there at the Safeway where Michelle has
a part-time job.
00:13:19
COURTNEY FRETWELL: The
reason why this colleague of Michelle's became a suspect
was because Michelle had shared
00:13:26
with several people that
this co-worker of hers kind of gave her the creeps. She was kind of freaked
out by this guy.
00:13:36
So when investigators
found this out, they thought that he
might have had something
00:13:42
to do with her murder. He really liked Michelle
and was trying to date her, and she wasn't interested.
00:13:48
And during the investigation,
they discovered he had driven by her
house a few times,
00:13:54
"just checking to see if
she was home," he said. And so they kind
of focused on him.
00:14:02
COURTNEY FRETWELL: When
investigators asked him about his alibi or where
he was on the night
00:14:07
of Michelle's murder,
he sort of came up with two different stories. Originally, Michelle's coworker
said that he was at home
00:14:15
with his dad that night. But then his story seemed
to change a little bit, and he wasn't at
home with his dad.
00:14:23
He then said that he was on
a date with another woman. So investigators were a little
bit suspicious of Michelle's
00:14:31
coworker, but they really
didn't have any solid evidence linking him to any crime.
00:14:38
A case like this is
very difficult because you can kind of get tunnel vision. You can sort of go down
a path because you're
00:14:46
convinced yourself that it
had to have been this person. And so you end up spending a
lot of investigative time going
00:14:52
down certain rabbit
holes because, you know, you've kind of convinced
yourself or others
00:14:58
have convinced you
that this person had to have been responsible. And at some point,
he was excluded.
00:15:04
Everybody loved Michele. Men wanted to date her and
women wanted to be like her.
00:15:10
I mean, it just was. And so everybody was
kind of a suspect. So I gave them as much
information as I could.
00:15:20
I had my fingerprints
done just to exclude me and her from fingerprints in
the condominium, you know,
00:15:29
talked about who I
had seen over there and who she was the closest to. I probably bothered them
quite a bit because somebody
00:15:40
somewhere knew something. And we know, for
instance, in most homicides, the victim and
the suspect know each other.
00:15:50
She was very popular. And there were young
men at that time who were interested in her,
interested in dating her,
00:15:59
people who didn't date her
but may have wanted to. So all those people
were investigated.
00:16:05
Perhaps it was somebody who
was spurned by Michelle. So all those things were
looked into in the early part
00:16:14
of the investigation. But even as that
investigation got turned over to other detectives, there was
still a look into excluding,
00:16:23
to the extent that we
could, all the individuals that were connected
possibly with this case.
00:16:30
The family took things
into their own hands, and Louise Wyatt had
flyers printed up,
00:16:37
thousands of flyers-- "who killed my daughter?"--
with Michelle's picture.
00:16:41
And they were plastered
all over Santee and all over the surrounding
neighborhoods.
00:16:45
They hired a private
investigator. Louise was very frustrated
with the lack of progress
00:16:50
that the police were making. She and her husband
both felt that it should be a number one priority.
00:16:57
But in all fairness,
the police, they didn't have any more information. COURTNEY FRETWELL:
In Michelle's case,
00:17:04
she had, originally,
five detectives solely assigned to her case. But as the weeks
and months went by,
00:17:15
several of these
full-time investigators were moved off of
Michelle's case. Unfortunately, there were
other crimes happening,
00:17:25
there were other murders
happening in Santee and the surrounding areas. And as these newer cases came
in, several of these detectives
00:17:34
were unfortunately moved
off Michelle's case and they were assigned new ones.
00:17:41
NANCY GRACE: The
investigation is also limited by the lack of
forensic science techniques
00:17:46
available at the time. At the time of
Michelle's murder in 1980, DNA testing and
forensic testing was
00:17:56
nowhere near where it is today. But luckily, investigators
in Michelle's case,
00:18:02
they had the idea in their head
that DNA and forensic testing was evolving. And even if they might not
be able to test the evidence
00:18:12
today, they had the knowledge
to at least collect the evidence and store it so
that future testing
00:18:21
could be done when DNA testing
was growing and was advancing. So the original
investigators in 1980
00:18:30
collected valuable forensic
evidence from Michelle's body, particularly from
her rape kit, where
00:18:38
investigators were
able to pull semen DNA evidence from Michelle's body. And in 1996, when Michelle's
case was reopened,
00:18:50
investigators sent the semen
evidence to a lab to be tested. And from that
sample, investigators
00:19:00
generated a DNA profile. They entered the
DNA into CODIS, which is a national database,
and they got no match.
00:19:11
That doesn't mean that the
person who did it had never done anything, but it did
mean that the person who
00:19:22
killed Michelle had
no criminal record. So they were looking
at somebody who had
00:19:28
never been caught for anything. Michele Wyatt's
rapist and killer continues to evade justice.
00:19:37
His trail goes cold. Next on "Bloodline
Detectives," a new decade, new forensic science,
and new investigators
00:19:46
bring hope Michelle's
case could be solved. [THEME MUSIC] [THEME MUSIC] [DRAMATIC MUSIC]
00:19:59
1996, San Diego suburbs,
Santee, California, cold case detectives
investigating the 1980 rape and murder
of a 20-year-old student,
00:20:12
Michelle Wyatt. Now they're pinning
their hopes on DNA technology which is
emerging as a very
00:20:19
powerful investigative tool. After they search
through the CODIS database turned up empty in
1996, the investigation
00:20:30
once again turned cold. And the case didn't really pick
up again until four years later
00:20:37
in 2000. They conducted a more advanced
DNA test on the semen sample and as well as Michelle's
sexual assault kit.
00:20:50
And when they
tested the results, investigators
discovered that there were two male profiles within
Michelle's sexual assault kit.
00:21:02
One of the male DNA
profiles belonged to Michelle's boyfriend Pat. And this was key information
in the investigation
00:21:13
because this officially
ruled out Michelle's boyfriend in the murder. What was also interesting
was that investigators found
00:21:21
a second male DNA profile. And this profile didn't
belong to Michelle's boyfriend
00:21:29
and it didn't belong
to anyone else that the police had considered
in the investigation.
00:21:35
This testing in 2000 also
was able to officially rule out Michelle's coworker.
00:21:42
He was officially excluded
as the contributor of the unknown male DNA in 2000. So this testing seemed to
really eliminate everyone
00:21:55
and left one unknown
male DNA profile that still needed to be identified. Detectives are getting
closer and closer
00:22:05
to identifying a killer,
but they still need to break through to crack this case.
00:22:11
Their hopes are
raised when they learn of a revolutionary
new technique-- forensic genetic genealogy.
00:22:19
We started hearing
a lot of buzz that departments in the FBI were
using genealogy to solve cases
00:22:26
where there was DNA
evidence but no clear link to any individual. A lot of us in the unit kind
of said, well, we can do that.
00:22:36
We realized that when you're-- in trying to discover the
mysteries of your family,
00:22:43
really not much different
than trying to discover the mysteries of a homicide. And so we decided early on to
do the genealogy part in-house.
00:22:54
Most of the departments
that solve these cases farm out through genealogy to
professional genealogists who
00:23:02
are tremendous at their jobs. And we thought, who better
than the people who are
00:23:07
actually closest to the case? And it got the attention
of the command staff. And so they decided to fund us
a bit so that the money that we
00:23:17
would need to have DNA
profiles created the tools that we would need
to do the genealogy,
00:23:24
they were willing to fund it. And it was on that, it
was subsequent to that that we took a look at
Michelle Wyatt's case.
00:23:31
And this case was assigned
to Detective Brian Patterson. And Detective Patterson
is from Santee.
00:23:38
He's always taken a great
interest, a personal interest in this case. And this was his
first investigative
00:23:45
genetic genealogy case. When genetic
genealogy came about, our unit started reviewing
cases and trying to find cases
00:23:53
that were suitable for that. One, you have to have DNA left. You can't use the old profiles.
00:24:00
It's an entirely
different system or way of obtaining a profile. And Michelle Wyatt's
case was one of those
00:24:07
where there was still DNA. And we were able
to get enough DNA and send it off to a
company called Gene By Gene,
00:24:15
who gives us the snippet to
put into genetic genealogy. And then we use GEDmatch to
kind of start our investigation.
00:24:25
The results they
received back from GEDmatch generated over 1,000
potential relatives
00:24:32
related to Michelle's killer. They got a lot of
hits from GEDmatch on who their suspect might be.
00:24:41
As soon as investigators got
the list of potential matches, they got to work on
creating family trees.
00:24:50
They wanted to identify
as many people as possible who could be Michelle's killer.
00:24:56
And from these family
trees, investigators were able to identify a female
relative of Michelle's killer
00:25:06
that, through genetic
genealogy, investigators discovered was most
likely a first cousin
00:25:14
of Michelle's killer. They find three brothers. One of them kind of raised
their suspicions a little bit.
00:25:21
His name was Rusty. His DNA is so close,
he's got to be the father or the uncle of the killer.
00:25:29
How do we find out
what happened here? And they go back
and they interview, you know, the cousin
who had led them
00:25:37
through DNA to this person. She goes, "yeah, I
remember him, but I don't think he had any kids."
00:25:42
None of them have a male
offspring, at least, that they know about
who's traceable.
00:25:48
NANCY GRACE: Forensic
genetic genealogy is built around identifying
DNA found at a crime scene
00:25:55
and then linking that
DNA to a suspect. Once they find that match,
"Bloodline Detectives"
00:26:02
must then go through
the tedious task of eliminating innocent family
members to find the guilty one.
00:26:13
And that's what happens here. Rusty Howard and
his male relatives become people of interest
in a murder case.
00:26:22
Now the challenge is to
remove the innocent relatives and identify one single suspect.
00:26:32
He's a genealogist nightmare
because he was a drifter. He had a number of marriages.
00:26:39
But you know, being a
drifter, he just didn't have a lot of solid information.
00:26:43
Other than the fact that we
learned a lot about his wives, but we didn't think that he
had ever had any children
00:26:49
with any of his wives. And we discovered an individual
that was related to Rusty.
00:26:57
We called this individual
up, and he was a retired law enforcement officer from Texas.
00:27:03
And I'll never forget
when we were talking to him about his family-- and he always knew that his
father that he was raised with
00:27:11
was not his his birth father,
but he didn't know anything about his birth father.
00:27:15
But I remember one
thing he said to me, he said, well,
every cotton patch has at least one boll weevil.
00:27:22
But we discovered who his father
was, who his birth father was, and his birth father was Rusty.
00:27:28
So because we now had
this individual identified as had fathered this one person,
well, we knew that this person
00:27:36
was not our suspect. But as we discovered he
was related to our suspect through Rusty, we realized Rusty
is the father of our suspect,
00:27:49
who is the mother. NANCY GRACE:
Investigators dig deeper into the family's background.
00:27:54
They discover the suspect's
mother turns out to be a woman named Betty White.
00:28:01
We were able to put together
how Betty and Rusty most likely got together. Rusty was a carpenter.
00:28:07
We discovered through
interviews with people who knew him that he had
worked on some Hollywood sets.
00:28:14
We know that he was in Arizona
in the early '60s, that he worked on the set
of the movie "How
00:28:21
the West Was Won," which
was a big movie back in the early '60s, a Western.
00:28:25
And then we also discovered,
as we sort of learned more about the maternal
side of the family,
00:28:30
that the suspect's mother was
on the set at that time also, either as an extra, or one
of her kids at the time
00:28:40
was an extra in the movie. Since both of those
individuals are deceased, we can't go to them
for confirmation.
00:28:46
But that seemed a
likely place for them to have potentially met up. But Rusty being the
drifter was, to the extent
00:28:56
that we could tell, never
involved in the suspect's life. And in fact, the
suspect was raised
00:29:01
with a different last name
than Rusty's, and was raised as the child of this other man.
00:29:08
Whether that other man
knew that his son was not his biologically, we don't know.
00:29:15
But he was raised as
the son of this man. We discovered very
quickly that she had
00:29:22
a son named John Patrick Hogan. As soon as we
learned his identity, that was the individual
that we focused on.
00:29:34
You focus on until
there is a reason not to focus on the individual. And as we dove deeper into
John Patrick Hogan's life,
00:29:44
every element or almost
every element of his life lined up with Michelle
Wyatt's murder.
00:29:53
Thousands of relatives
have been eliminated. Now narrowing down the
search to one prime suspect.
00:30:02
His name, John Patrick Hogan. Next on "Bloodline
Detectives," police now
00:30:09
need solid evidence to
secure a conviction. [THEME MUSIC] [THEME MUSIC] [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:30:23
40 years after the 1980
sex attack and murder of a young college
student, Michelle Wyatt,
00:30:31
San Diego detectives are so
close to cracking the case. They identify a single suspect--
00:30:38
John Patrick Hogan-- by use
of forensic genetic genealogy. But now, they've
got to find him.
00:30:48
We learned a
lot about his life from about age 15 to age 20. We also discovered at the time
that he was in high school,
00:31:00
he lived in the same
condominium complex that Michelle lived in
when she was murdered.
00:31:07
THOMAS ARNOLD:
Teddy was a neighbor who they had interviewed
early on in the first stage
00:31:11
of the investigation in 1980. And when they talked to
him again 20 years later and they mentioned John Patrick
Hogan, Teddy said, "Yeah,
00:31:19
I knew him. In fact, he came over. He was over. He lived around here. We were friends.
00:31:24
We pal'd around." So the theory is that he
must have seen Michelle. He might even have played
pool with her and her
00:31:31
boyfriend at some point. But whatever happened, he
got Michelle in his head. At the time that
Michelle was murdered,
00:31:40
he was an active
member of the US Air Force, active duty
member of the Air Force,
00:31:46
and was stationed in New Mexico. That gave us a bit of a red
flag because we're like, well,
00:31:55
how can we account for him
potentially doing this if he was active duty in New Mexico?
00:32:02
But we were able to get
his service records. And the service records gave
us an extraordinary amount
00:32:07
of detail regarding
his military life. And one of the things that
we learned about Hogan
00:32:14
is that he was on leave the
week that Michelle was murdered. NANCY GRACE:
Investigators believe
00:32:22
they are so close to
catching a killer, Michelle Wyatt's killer. As police zero in on the
whereabouts of John Patrick
00:32:32
Hogan, they make a discovery,
a discovery that threatens to blow up the investigation.
00:32:39
Tracking John
Patrick Hogan down was going to be difficult
for investigators because they quickly learned
that, at the time they
00:32:47
discovered his name, he
was already deceased. He was no longer living. So investigators couldn't
reach out and speak with Hogan
00:32:55
directly to see
if he had anything to do with Michelle's murder. What was chilling about
learning about his death
00:33:06
was that he died
on the exact day that he had killed Michelle
Wyatt 24 years earlier.
00:33:16
And you know, when we sort
of realized that, it gave all of us serious goose bumps
because we realized,
00:33:24
OK, there are 365 potential
days in which you could die. And for you to happen to
die on the death anniversary
00:33:35
of your victim was just-- it just stunned us. We are fortunate though. He had died either of a meth
overdose or a heart attack that
00:33:50
came as a result of Meth use. An autopsy was done in Phoenix. And the medical examiner's
office in Phoenix
00:33:58
still had the blood card
from John Patrick Hogan. This was incredibly
significant because we didn't
00:34:05
have access to his remains. I think he was
cremated, so we were not able to to exhume
his body to make
00:34:12
a one-to-one comparison. But the blood card would
tell us definitively if the DNA from the
scene matched the DNA
00:34:22
from John Patrick Hogan
that was collected at the scene of his death. And it was a 100% match.
00:34:30
Even a dead suspect
may not be able to escape "Bloodline" detectives and
their forensic weapons.
00:34:37
That's next. [THEME MUSIC] [THEME MUSIC] It's been 40 years
since the brutal sex
00:34:50
assault and murder of
a beautiful college coed, Michelle Wyatt. "Bloodline" detectives using
forensic genetic genealogy
00:35:00
to give a name to her
killer John Patrick Hogan. As they close in
on finding Hogan,
00:35:09
the investigation falls
flat, deflated when police discover the suspect is dead.
00:35:19
So once we find out that
John Hogan was deceased, it's kind of a letdown. I mean, you really want to
make this person pay for what
00:35:28
they did, and knowing
they had gotten away with it all these years. But it's also nice
to know that we
00:35:34
finally give the family some
closure and give them answers. They've gone years and years
without knowing what happened.
00:35:42
We never really get to
know exactly what happened. The only way that
would have been done,
00:35:48
have been able to be found
out is if he was alive and he told us. Fortunately, they don't
generally tell us everything,
00:35:55
suspects, they kind of lie. But we can put it together,
the pieces as best as we can, and then at
least explain to the family
00:36:04
that we found who
killed your daughter. I called her mom, I
called her best friend
00:36:10
and I said, "OK, we need
to meet at your house." And they brought
relatives and friends.
00:36:16
"And I have some
news to tell you." And we just sat down
in the living room
00:36:19
and told them what
we had discovered. Again, they really wanted to
face the person that killed
00:36:28
their daughter, but that
wasn't going to happen, unfortunately, for them. And we just tell them,
and they're happy.
00:36:34
But come to find out
it doesn't give you the closure you're really
hoping for because, again, we
00:36:41
can't explain to them
exactly what happened. I can tell you what
the evidence says.
00:36:46
I can show you why we
determined it was Hogan, and that's all I can do because
I don't have the ability
00:36:55
to talk to him, obviously. For a very long time,
John Patrick Hogan might have thought
that he had gotten
00:37:05
away with the perfect murder. This was back in 1980 Hogan
was only 18 years old,
00:37:13
and for many years, for decades,
he might have thought that he was going to get away
with sexually assaulting
00:37:20
and murdering Michelle. And for many years,
he was right. He was able to evade law
enforcement for decades
00:37:31
until advancements
in DNA testing and the use of
genetic genealogy was used to ultimately catch him.
00:37:40
And I think without
genetic genealogy, he might have
gotten away with it. Without the advancements
in DNA testing,
00:37:49
we might not ever
know the name John Patrick Hogan in connection
with Michelle's murder.
00:37:56
So it's really all thanks
to genetic genealogy and the advancements that
we have that can ultimately
00:38:05
solve these
decades-old cold cases and eventually bring these
perpetrators to justice.
00:38:14
Especially the larger
police departments, may be in a position to
do this work themselves.
00:38:19
And even though our unit
is at least a little unique in that we do all
of this IGG work in-house,
00:38:27
our hope is that other
police departments might be able to do the same thing. We are not interested
in you per se,
00:38:35
only interested in learning
the identity of suspects. And the more people
that are willing to do
00:38:42
that, the more cases that we're
going to be able to close. For people who have committed
terrible crimes and nobody has
00:38:49
paid any attention to
them, my message to them is your time is coming
and your time may be up.
00:38:56
I think that the use
of genetic genealogy was our only hope
in having Michelle's
00:39:03
murder solved because he
was not on anybody's radar. Nobody would have ever known.
00:39:11
And I think it brings
hope to all the families out there who still don't know.
00:39:20
I feel like I have a purpose
to keep her memory alive. I love to talk about her.
00:39:24
I love to share stories of times
that her and I spent together. I've named my
daughter after her.
00:39:31
I like to come down to the beach
on anniversaries and stuff, and just sit and look
out at the ocean.
00:39:38
It was one of her favorite
places, so I feel close to her there. I know that Michelle had a
tradition of giving her mom
00:39:45
flowers every Mother's Day,
and I have kept that tradition alive over the years.
00:39:50
And I have also become an
advocate for our local rape crisis center. And one of the first
things I tell the victims
00:39:59
when they come in is if
they're doubting what they-- their part-- I should have screamed--
00:40:07
I say, you know what? You're here and you're alive,
so you did everything right.
00:40:14
In a bizarre twist,
John Patrick Hogan dies of a drug overdose exactly
24 years to the day he
00:40:25
raped and murdered
Michelle Wyatt. His identity as
her killer proves that today, not
even dead suspects
00:40:33
can escape their crimes. That's because of
incredible work of investigators
and scientists who
00:40:42
are the "Bloodline" detectives. Their incredible
achievements are redefining
00:40:49
the phrase "justice is served." I'm Nancy Grace. Thanks for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:41:03
[THEME MUSIC]