00:00:00
[OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: The
Florida Keys, 1991. A young woman last seen alive
hitchhiking on Valentine's Day.
00:00:20
Her body discovered the
next day on a deserted road. This was a perfect place
where she had no place to go.
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She could yellow she want,
nobody would hear her, and she never had a chance. No ID is found at
the crime scene.
00:00:37
Police give the
unidentified young woman a name, "Valentine Jane Doe." Here, it happened
on Valentine's Day
00:00:48
to a young girl, and she'd
been sexually assaulted and had been strangled with
the strings of her bikini top.
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This is the story
of how revolutionary forensic science
finally identifies both the female victim and
her killer after years
00:01:08
of frustrating police work. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
00:01:39
February 15, 1991, the Monroe
County Sheriff's Office gets an emergency
call, a woman's body
00:01:47
discovered in the Florida Keys. VINCE WEINER: The individual
that located her body, he,
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at first, believed it
might have been a male because she was face down. It was fairly fresh.
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There was not any decomposition
or anything like that that normally goes on. He went back and got another
windsurfer to, I guess,
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validate what he thought he saw. Back then, we didn't
have cell phones. They had to run
across the street
00:02:11
to actually call authorities
to report the crime. RICK RAMSEY: You find a
deceased woman, a young lady,
00:02:17
clearly had been attacked. So I'm sure for anybody, I don't
care what your background is
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that's shocking,
and overwhelming, and scary, and probably,
10 different things going through your mind.
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VINCE WEINER: Once major crimes
enter detectives and crime scene, and the medical examiner,
and those that are involved
00:02:32
in these kind of cases arrive,
we systematically start to work the case. So that would
involve, first of all,
00:02:38
trying to identify
her is one, but also looking at what injuries
she may have sustained.
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What does the body look like? Is there any other objects
or other pieces of evidence
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within proximity to her body? We look for tire tracks,
we look for shoe imprints.
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The first thing they notice
when they come on the scene before they see the
body is they immediately
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identify the telltale signs
of a dragging of a body. They see drag marks,
leading from the road
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out into this cove area. They take note of
this, and they write it down in their later reports.
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When they discover the body,
it's naked, it's face down, it has been clearly
in a struggle.
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There are telltale
signs of a struggle, of a physical assault. VINCE WEINER: She did have an
injury, a significant injury,
00:03:25
sustained to her head. There was some abrasions
throughout her body. It appeared as though from
the initial observations
00:03:31
that she had some kind of a
ligature mark with a piece of clothing around her neck.
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There was no bra
found at the scene, so we believe she was
wearing a bikini top,
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and that was used as a
ligature to asphyxiate her. She was somewhat in some
form of a tidal pool that
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was on the side of
one of our trails that leads to this horseshoe. RICH ROBINSON: Her clothes are
found very close to the body,
00:03:57
and she has a red and
blue striped sweater. She has these very
striking brown moccasins
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that are not something that
people in the Florida Keys usually wear. Typically, you're wearing
either sneakers or sandals.
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And then she was also wearing
cutoff jean shorts as well. In a place like
the Florida Keys,
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where there's so little land,
it's such a narrow expanse, it's very hard to hide a body.
00:04:23
And the perpetrator
didn't try to hide it, he just discarded it
so he could get away.
00:04:29
And he did. The victim got her name
because police had theorized that she had been murdered on
Valentine's Day, February 14th,
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and her body was discovered the
following day, on February 15. We believe her death occurred,
perhaps, in the evening hours
00:04:46
or late hours of the 14th. So with her being
unknown, it was a way to just use the holiday
as a way to recognize
00:04:52
her or identify her. When it comes to clues
about what happened, the Monroe County sheriffs
are almost at ground zero.
00:05:01
Investigators know very little
about the young murder victim. Who was she? How did she end up in
this remote location?
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How did she die? Was she strangled by
the piece of clothing found around her neck?
00:05:16
Was she strangled
there or dumped there? Detectives hope the autopsy
will provide answers.
00:05:25
That's when they were really
able to get a really good look at the victim and identify
key physical descriptions
00:05:32
about her. They had determined that
it was a white female. She had brown to green
eyes, brown hair.
00:05:40
And what was also noticeable
during the autopsy was that it appeared that she
had stretch marks, which also
00:05:47
indicated that at some point
she may have been pregnant and had carried a
baby to full term.
00:05:54
They had discovered that
she had two tattoos. One tattoo was of a cross. She also had a second
tattoo with the word
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"Love" and a heart on the
back of her left shoulder. She didn't have any tan lines.
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This was something that
struck investigators because we're talking
about Key West, Florida.
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People in Key West, Florida
are spending their days out in the sun, laying
out at the beach,
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so it was very unusual to
find this female victim where she didn't have any tan lines.
00:06:21
There was no indication that she
had spent much time in the sun. Investigators follow
their suspicions
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a victim in Key West
without a tan line suggests she's not
from around there, but guesses alone will
not solve this case.
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Detectives dig deeper. They focus on whether the
victim was sex attacked and whether they can retrieve
DNA that will identify her.
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RICK RAMSEY: We'll be taking
DNA samples from the victim. We'll be doing fingerprints,
clippings from fingernails,
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trying to get scrapings
under nails, scarring, tattoos, to identify the
height, weight, hair, eyes.
00:07:05
We'd be looking at samples
from a vaginal-- for this case, we thought the victim was
sexually assault. We'd
00:07:10
be taking a rape kit,
trying to have a DNA sample from inside the victim. Her fingerprints were
submitted through our AFIS
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system or another
database, which helps to identify
those that have been fingerprinted in the past.
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Those were inconclusive
because, well, it's likely she
was never arrested anywhere in the nation.
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Her information was not
populated into the system, so she did not have a
fingerprint record on file.
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It is very rare
for investigators not to be able to determine
the identity of a victim.
00:07:40
Usually, if it's not immediately
found because of readily identifiable information
on their person, a wallet,
00:07:48
an ID, then it can be determined
through their fingerprints, or through their dental records,
or through their DNA nowadays.
00:07:57
And if that doesn't work,
then almost always there are family members or friends
who are trying to find
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where their loved one went. They weren't able to identify
this person through any means
00:08:11
that they had at the time. And make it worse,
it didn't seem like anyone who really
loved her or knew
00:08:18
her was trying to find her. We don't know who she is. We don't know who to notify.
00:08:27
We don't know who did this. There were just so many
unanswered questions surrounding this that
the whole community
00:08:33
was just in a state of shock. Valentine Jane Doe could not
be more alone in this world.
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Sheriffs cannot identify her. No one seems to be
looking for her. Is there a single witness
that can give a tip and jump
00:08:49
start this investigation? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." February 15, 1991, one
day after Valentine's Day,
00:09:09
the naked body of
a young woman found murdered in the Florida Keys. Investigators have
tried everything
00:09:17
they know to identify her. They know from the
autopsy, she was strangled with her own bikini top.
00:09:26
They've run her fingerprints
through a national database, but come up empty. For now, police give her
the name Valentine Jane Doe.
00:09:38
Investigators then release
the information to the public, hoping and praying for a lead.
00:09:49
We use Crime Stoppers. We have our own lead system. A lot of these calls come in.
00:09:52
They all have to be
investigated or vetted somehow. And so there was, yes,
hundreds of leads that
00:09:58
were starting to come in,
and each one had to be individually investigated. When police appeal
to the public for help,
00:10:05
it can often be more
of a burden than help. Hundreds of tips may
pour in from very
00:10:12
well-intentioned
people, but statistics show these tips seldom pay
off, yet investigators still
00:10:21
search for that one good
tip, while at the same time, all these tips eat up
the investigators energy.
00:10:30
That's the way the public
outreach in this case was going, until
that one tip catches
00:10:38
the attention of investigators. A witness had
approached the police and had shared
with investigators
00:10:46
that they saw a young woman
along US Highway 1 hitchhiking the night before, about 18 miles
away from where the victim's
00:10:56
body was discovered. RICH ROBINSON: The Florida Keys
are a linear strip of islands
00:11:04
that stretch from the Florida
mainland down to Key West, and there is literally one
road that connects all of that.
00:11:10
So when you talk
about the Florida Keys in terms of where you are,
in terms of geography,
00:11:15
the locals use something
called a mile marker. That's how they
determine where they are.
00:11:20
So the victim is seen
alive on Valentine's Day in Key West itself, and
she's observed to be
00:11:26
hitchhiking north. Investigators come
across this information because they interview
a ton of people.
00:11:32
I mean, they interview
dozens and dozens of people who see
her or may think that they saw, her at least.
00:11:40
She's seen alive later on in
the day, at 6:30 at night, at Mile Marker 17,
meaning that she
00:11:46
is 17 miles north of Key West
itself, the southernmost point. So she's heading north, and
she's successful in doing so.
00:11:54
That's the last time
she's seen alive, and her body is found 20
miles away, the next day.
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What happened between
6:30 on Valentine's Day and 8:15 on February
15th, we don't know.
00:12:07
So with her being originally
identified as hitchhiking at the 15 and the
17 mile marker,
00:12:13
they set up road checks
there to try to solicit those that are common to the area.
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For instance, if you
lived in that area, you would traverse in and
out of that area quite a bit,
00:12:21
and perhaps, maybe they would
get additional witnesses that may have saw her. So they were trying to
get additional witnesses,
00:12:26
or identify additional
witnesses that may have saw or, perhaps, even may have
had conversation with her.
00:12:32
At the time of course, that led,
that was unsuccessful as well. NANCY GRACE: Investigators
believe this may
00:12:38
be a major break in the case. They hope for more
witnesses and more clues, and they focus on a suspicious
vehicle seen in the area.
00:12:50
Witnesses had informed
police that an older model, white pickup truck with a camper
had been seen in the area,
00:12:58
driving along US Highway 1
around February 14 and 15. But when the police
investigated this tip
00:13:06
about the pickup truck,
nothing really came about. People thought that
maybe, you know, this was
00:13:12
some transient that did this. They found out that the
girl was hitchhiking. She was obviously a
transient as well.
00:13:21
People didn't know. I mean, that was the uncertainty
that really kept people very
00:13:26
much unsettled about this case. We just didn't know who this
was, who the victim was,
00:13:32
and who the murderer was. We just didn't know. NANCY GRACE: What do Monroe
County sheriffs really
00:13:40
know about Valentine Jane Doe? Well, they know she's been sex
assaulted and strangled dead.
00:13:48
They know she was
last seen 18 miles from where her body is found. They also know no one
is looking for her.
00:13:58
She's been traveling
alone, so investigators reach out to the National
Center for Missing
00:14:04
and Exploited Children. The victim's face
was so badly bludgeoned that it was not something that
the police wanted to release.
00:14:14
They released for
many, many years no photos of the
victim because of that. So they needed to
rely on experts
00:14:22
in the field of facial
reconstruction and animation, really, to come up with a way to
release an image of the victim.
00:14:29
So they worked with the
team at the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children,
00:14:33
and they were able to piece
together what they thought, a rendering of what they
thought the victim looked like.
00:14:40
And when the forensic sketch
artist generated this sketch, it was immediately
circulated in the media
00:14:46
to try and see if anyone, anyone
out there recognized this woman and might know who she
was based on this sketch.
00:14:54
But after the
sketch was released, the police didn't
really receive much. They still weren't any closer to
finding out who this woman was.
00:15:04
RICK RAMSEY: This is
frustrating for them. They want to solve this crime. They want to hold
someone accountable.
00:15:08
They want to stop
potential future attacks by this person so free. They want to give
closure to the family,
00:15:13
the family know
where this person is. And when you can't solve a case
like this, it wears on you.
00:15:18
You drag it with you each and
every day, but emotionally, to see the traumatic
stuff that we have to see,
00:15:24
to see something so heinous,
know what this person went through, was brutally
attacked, and assaulted,
00:15:28
and sexually assaulted, and
murdered, you know, it's-- man, I tell you, it's
hard, it's a hard day.
00:15:37
I know they got dozens,
perhaps hundreds, of leads, and none of them panned out,
but that was the only way
00:15:45
to find out any
information back then, was to try to get
the information out, see if anybody knew this person
or was reported them missing.
00:15:56
And I know the Sheriff's
Office was tireless in this because they felt the same
way the community did.
00:16:02
They wanted to solve this. They wanted to make sure
that people felt secure in their homes, that they
didn't have a murderer
00:16:10
on the loose out there. It was just a lot of dead ends
for the police department,
00:16:15
the sheriff's office. NANCY GRACE: The
Monroe County sheriffs use every investigative
technique available in 1991.
00:16:25
But nevertheless, the case of
Valentine Jane Doe goes cold, and it will take years and
brand new forensic technology
00:16:37
to bring this case back to life. RICH ROBINSON: For 29 years, the
victim, who would become well
00:16:45
known in popular media as
Valentine Jane Doe, would be unknown, would remain
unknown, and it absolutely
00:16:55
nod on the Monroe Sheriff's
Department, and the community in the Keys, and missing
and exploited children
00:17:03
advocates all
across the country. This was a case that
really bothered them. This was an incredibly sad
situation, because normally,
00:17:10
when you're dealing
with a homicide victim, you've got a family
to send that victim
00:17:15
to where they can
conduct a proper funeral and a proper burial. But when it comes
to this individual,
00:17:21
the police didn't
know who she was. So instead of sending
her body to the family,
00:17:27
they kept it in a
vault at the morgue, until she could be
identified and have her remain sent to her family.
00:17:34
BILL BECKER: The case had
gone very cold, obviously, for decades, but it was always
there for the Sheriff's Office.
00:17:41
They always were looking
for something here. I know it bothered
a lot of them. They don't like to have
unsolved cases out there,
00:17:52
and this was one that
bothered many of them for many, many years. But it just grew cold,
until the detectives said,
00:18:02
hey, let's try DNA on this. That was a really up and coming
technique for law enforcement,
00:18:10
to go with DNA and eventually,
try to come to some conclusion as to who this was.
00:18:16
This was a new technique,
and certainly, something that they really went for. RICH ROBINSON: And
it wasn't until 2020
00:18:26
when advances in
forensics technology gave new hope that this
case could be solved.
00:18:32
So law enforcement agencies,
including the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
and Monroe County,
00:18:37
work together with
a private company in seeing if new advances
in genetic technology
00:18:43
could bring this victim and
the perpetrator to light. Next on "Bloodline
Detectives,"
00:18:49
law enforcement joins forces
with private companies to solve the case of
murdered Valentine Jane Doe.
00:19:08
2020, Florida Department
of Law Enforcement, along with Monroe
County sheriffs, struggle to identify
a young woman
00:19:16
found sex attacked
and murdered, 1991. The scene of the crime, a
remote area of Key West.
00:19:25
Investigators know the victim
was last seen alive one day after Valentine's Day.
00:19:32
Now, 29 years later,
detectives take one last shot to identify her with a brand
new forensic technique--
00:19:41
genetic genealogy. When you don't have any
new fresh leads coming in, you're often faced with
a roadblock where you've
00:19:52
got to come up with
a different strategy to try to solve the case. And in this case,
that's when the use
00:19:57
of forensic genetic
genealogy came into play. RICK RAMSEY: We talked about
doing some new submissions.
00:20:05
We talked about new technology. The director needed
me to approve it and signed it, to send it out
to FDLE, and to get this done
00:20:12
and approve the
cost, and to do it. And I was all about it
because, obviously, we have
00:20:17
to keep up with new technology. We have to do every effort
we can to solve these crimes,
00:20:21
identify these victims,
identify suspects. The chances were
lesser than good. They were less likely
to be something
00:20:28
coming back than they were to
come back with a positive hit. But hopeful, we
have to be hopeful.
00:20:33
Each and every day,
and every event we do, and every effort we make, we
have to hope that something
00:20:36
good comes out of it. When forensic
genealogy came about, they used FDLE as their
conduit, to, you know--
00:20:45
you have a private
entity trying to offer law enforcement opportunity
to use their product.
00:20:50
So FDLE partnered with
Parabon in this case, and with our approval, we're
able to come up with the funds
00:21:01
and employ Parabon to do both
suspect and victim analysis. From the crime scene, they
were able to find foreign DNA,
00:21:12
and that DNA was from a
male that they believed was responsible for her
murder, so that's the DNA that
00:21:19
was submitted to Parabon for
us to develop a SNP profile and then perform investigative
genetic genealogy on.
00:21:29
Lori Napolitano
was the former lead of the investigative genetic
genealogy unit at the Florida
00:21:37
Department of Law
Enforcement, and we work together on many cases. On this case, because it was a
two-pronged approach with two
00:21:45
separate investigative
genetic genealogy cases, she took the case and
the work of trying
00:21:52
to identify the victim,
while I focused on trying to identify her killer. This case was unique
because we didn't know
00:22:00
the identity of the victim. So that's very unusual,
to be trying to help bring justice to somebody who--
00:22:09
I don't even know who they are. I don't know who their
family members are. I don't know who I'm
trying to find answers for.
00:22:17
So it doesn't make it
any less compelling. In fact, in some ways, it
almost makes it more compelling
00:22:24
because we have
multiple mysteries. I'm exclusively focused
on trying to bring answers
00:22:32
and justice for that victim. I don't know her name, but I
know she's Valentine Jane Doe,
00:22:37
and that's enough for
me to really drive me to try to identify her killer. Now what's so incredible
about this technology--
00:22:46
and this is where it really gets
into science fiction, at least from my untrained eye--
00:22:51
investigators and
researchers are able to cross-reference DNA
with public accessible databases
00:22:58
of DNA. So these are the type of
things that you and I do when we try to find
out what country
00:23:03
are our relatives are from. All that is put in a
big pool, and so they can look at that information
and try to find out victims
00:23:10
and perpetrators of crimes. And in this case, that's
exactly what they did. I was aware of where Valentine
Jane Doe was found and when,
00:23:19
and so I knew that
her killer had to be in that area at that
time and of the right age
00:23:28
to have perpetrated this crime. From the DNA, we knew
that he was male. And so I was looking for
a male of the right age.
00:23:36
Didn't know if he was young
or old, but of an age where he wasn't too young
or too old to be
00:23:41
able to perpetrate this crime. And I knew it was somebody
that had to be in the area
00:23:46
where she was found around the
time that she was discovered. Working with the DNA
of the unknown suspect,
00:23:56
as I do on all my cases,
I create genetic networks. I compare those top
matches to some of the more
00:24:02
distant matches and try to find
clusters of matches that are sharing DNA with each other.
00:24:07
Then I build their trees,
and I try to identify their common ancestors. If I'm successful in
doing that, then I
00:24:14
can piece his family
tree back together, piece by piece by piece. It's like a puzzle.
00:24:21
I have to find that
one person or that set of siblings that is related
to all of those top, or key,
00:24:27
matches. And so if we have matches
that share X DNA in addition to the autosomal DNA,
we know those matches
00:24:37
are going to connect to
that male's mother's side, and so that helped me. Because typically, you don't
know which side is mom's side
00:24:44
and which side is dad's
side, and you're just moving the pieces around
until they all fit,
00:24:49
you try to find
all the descendants of a set of common ancestors. So in this case,
I was able to find
00:24:57
that union couple between
two of the genetic networks. So that is very exciting.
00:25:02
When those pieces
start falling in place, it's a very exciting
moment in my job because I know I'm heading
in the right direction.
00:25:12
Parabon was able to
identify one name as the lead suspect in this case. That was Robert Lynn Bradley.
00:25:20
That information was
cross-referenced from DNA found at the scene,
semen and other DNA
00:25:27
that was held by the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement. Interestingly
enough about Robert
00:25:31
Lynn Bradley was
that he was dead, and in fact, he had been shot
dead, murdered, about a year
00:25:38
after this killing. We do know, when we are able
to identify him from Texas, at the time of his death, he
had a piece of paper on him,
00:25:50
and that piece of paper was
a receipt of where he stayed in Miami at a homeless shelter.
00:25:55
That document, or that receipt,
is dated in November of 1990, which is about four months or so
or less leading up to her case.
00:26:05
So we know that he is
at least in Miami months prior to this case, whether he
traveled up and down the Keys
00:26:10
or not, or he actually was
in the Keys, working or not. What he was doing down here?
00:26:14
I have no idea. When he saw the
opportunity with this case, he obviously took it.
00:26:19
This may have been
his first one, but it also might not have been. Usually, in these
kind of cases, where
00:26:25
these are crimes of
opportunity, and deviancy, and sexual assault, this
is something that may have
00:26:31
happened prior to and likely,
possibly, unfortunately, may have happened thereafter.
00:26:36
I read the case and
what he allegedly did in 1988 to this
lady in California, and it had a lot of the same
characteristics that were shown
00:26:46
in our case as well--
the strangulation, the abuse from a male to
female, that kind of thing.
00:26:52
So very, very highly possible
that he may have committed this crime like this,
or would have continued
00:26:57
to commit crimes like this. This was a violent selfish
act to just randomly just
00:27:04
rape this woman and
not care about her. And the end of day was make
sure that he either didn't get
00:27:10
caught or during the course
of a struggle to subdue her, but this is a person that had no
caring for this woman whatever.
00:27:16
She was nothing she
was a piece of trash to him that he just used
and discarded like garbage.
00:27:21
Here's a person who
has a caring for nobody but himself, a person who had
nothing going good for himself
00:27:28
in life. He bobbed around
different areas, moving from here to there. And his bound history
here prior and after,
00:27:35
being shot down,
murdered and killed, tells you this was
just a terrible person,
00:27:39
would do nothing for
anybody, that he's just a low-life piece of garbage
that is where he needs to be.
00:27:48
Now that the lab has
identified a promising suspect, the first thing that
investigators need to do
00:27:54
is to make sure that
this is their guy. They need to be able to compare
his DNA profile to the DNA
00:28:01
collected at the crime scene. That's when they realized that
because he had died in 1992,
00:28:08
they were able to reach out
to the morgue, the coroners, to obtain a sample of
his DNA from his autopsy.
00:28:16
Luckily, they still
maintain a blood stained card that was submitted
by the medical examiner.
00:28:22
We were able to take that
blood stained card that they sent to us and have that
compared to the DNA sample
00:28:29
that we had. So FDLE crime lab went ahead
and compared both samples from the DNA swab
with that of the blood
00:28:36
card, bloodstained card
that was submitted by Texas. They were able to
match the DNA collected
00:28:42
at the crime scene
to the DNA that was collected at his autopsy. And when the two
samples were compared,
00:28:48
they came back as a match. NANCY GRACE: The identification
of Valentine Jane Does killer is a
huge breakthrough
00:28:56
for Bloodline Detectives, but
that's only half the story. They're determined to
give Valentine Jane
00:29:04
Doe her real name and
restore her past life after almost 30 years. Now that investigators
had identified a suspect,
00:29:16
the next thing that
they needed to do was figure out who
their victim was. And using very similar DNA
testing and technology,
00:29:24
they were able to identify
this female victim. CECE MOORE: The investigations
that Lori Napolitano and I were
00:29:35
performing were in parallel. So she was working
with the DNA matches for the unidentified
victim, while I
00:29:43
was working with the DNA matches
for the unidentified suspect. And we were off siloed
doing our own thing.
00:29:50
And so I wasn't aware of
the identity of the victim until I had identified
the potential perpetrator.
00:29:59
Once Lori Napolitano
and her team at FDLE was able to make a
positive identification,
00:30:05
they shared with me that
they believe Valentine Jane Doe was Wanda Kirkum. Something that
took over 29 years
00:30:15
came to them in an instant. The name of the victim
was Wanda D. Kirkum. Finally, after
nearly three decades,
00:30:25
her identity was known. Nearly 30 years go by and
then in a single instant, a female victim who has been so
alone, without even a name, now
00:30:39
has a real name and a real
life story to go with it. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:30:56
For nearly 30 years,
Florida investigators called her Valentine Jane Doe,
the victim of a violent sex
00:31:03
attack and murder in Key West. Now, they have her real name,
Wanda Kirkum and the task
00:31:12
of locating any
relatives to determine how the teen girl Wanda
Kirkum ended up in Key West.
00:31:20
We were able to
identify a family member that lived close to
where we are, in Florida.
00:31:26
That family member was
in Spring Hill, Florida. So we were able to get
an interview with her,
00:31:32
and she certainly confirmed
that, yes, she was the sister of Edith Rogers Kirkum,
who had somewhat
00:31:42
of an estranged relationship
with her sister, and eventually, recognized that
her sister had left California
00:31:48
many, many, many years ago and
moved to New York with a man, and they believed that
they both had a child
00:31:56
by the name of Wanda Kirkum. Although Wanda's parents
had already passed away, investigators were
able to track down
00:32:05
an aunt of Wanda's, who
provided investigators with a picture of Wanda. And when investigators
looked at the picture
00:32:13
and compared it to their
victim, it was a match. Who was Wanda Kirkum? Well, it turned out that she
was from Western New York.
00:32:24
She ran away from home
when she was 16 years old. Doesn't seem like
she had a very good
00:32:31
relationship with her family. Her parents are both dead
now, and there wasn't really
00:32:40
much family left from Wanda. And at the time of
her disappearance, her family allegedly
were abusive and never
00:32:47
even reported her missing. After the police
had identified one, they were able to track down one
of her cousins, a cousin that
00:32:56
grew up with Wanda. And investigators spoke
with her to find out more about their victim Wanda.
00:33:03
And what the cousin had shared
with investigators that there were some very
serious allegations
00:33:09
made that Wanda's parents
had been abusive towards her. So this cousin apparently,
from what she said,
00:33:17
spent some childhood
time with Wanda, growing up in upstate New York. They would occasionally
have visits with family
00:33:23
members and whatnot. And she asserted
that Wanda might have had a troubled childhood,
a very dysfunctional
00:33:30
family with both her parents. We understood that she did run
away, probably around the age
00:33:35
of 15 to 16 years old. And that
unfortunately-- and this was also challenging to
the initial detectives--
00:33:42
this is a child
at 15 or 16 years old that was never actually
reported as a missing person.
00:33:48
RICH ROBINSON: I think that
Wanda was out along US Highway 1. I think that he came along.
00:33:54
He saw her hitchhiking
along the side of the road. He saw his opportunity. He decided to, possibly,
befriend her, offer her a ride.
00:34:05
Once she got into his car,
that's when he assaulted her. Next on "Bloodline
Detectives,"
00:34:13
how science and
old school police work team up to finally
paint a portrait of a tragic, young girl.
00:34:31
The science used to identify
Wanda Kirkum after nearly 30 years is extraordinary.
00:34:37
Just as extraordinary
is the teamwork between the forensic
scientists at Parabon Labs
00:34:44
and, in this case,
Florida law enforcement. Together, they complete the
picture of a life cut short.
00:34:55
But there's so much more
we don't know about her, and that's the frustrating
part about this case.
00:35:00
She had gotten a tattoo, had the
word "Love" in it and a heart, and this is a person who didn't
seem to get a whole lot of love
00:35:09
at home, and yet she had
it tattooed on her body, so she was seeking it. She had a sense of fashion, was
trying to find her way in life.
00:35:21
She clearly needed help. She needed support. She was a very trusting person. So many people have
gone to the Florida Keys
00:35:28
to reinvent themselves,
and maybe that's what she was trying to do, too. The announcement that this
case was finally solved,
00:35:38
that the victim had
finally been identified, as well as her killer, this
was huge for the community.
00:35:44
The community had
waited years and years for this case to be solved. And finally, with the use of
forensic genetic genealogy,
00:35:52
they finally had the answers
they spent years searching for. BILL BECKER: That was some great
foresight by the Monroe County
00:35:59
Sheriff's Office
and their detectives to preserve all
of that evidence, to preserve the blood
evidence from both the victim
00:36:06
and the perpetrator, and
they had no idea of knowing at the time that
this evidence would
00:36:13
eventually lead
to both the victim and the killer and
their identities. There's no doubt this is 100%
the reason we solved this case.
00:36:24
Without that, we would still
have an unsolved murder, still trying to identify the
victim, the suspect,
00:36:29
and still have a case
sitting on the shelf. So there's no question that
this is what broke the case.
00:36:34
Obviously, the hard work the
men and women in the Sheriff's Office, moving forward, trying
to keep up with technologies
00:36:39
and submissions. But in the day, without
this technology, this and many other
cases now in the future
00:36:45
would never be solved. It was a real team effort
between FDLE, Parabon, and the Monroe County
Sheriff's Office,
00:36:54
and we each played really
important roles in this. It was wonderful collaborating
with Lori Napolitano.
00:37:01
Splitting our casework
the way that we did, I think it makes
the work that FDLE is doing in Florida
much more efficient
00:37:11
because we can work together. They have their strengths,
we have our strengths. They have access to
records, we don't.
00:37:18
And so I really love the
partnership that we have, and I think it's a great model
for the rest of the country.
00:37:24
I wish all 50 states had a
program like Florida does. It can really help bring these
cases to resolutions more
00:37:33
quickly and more efficiently. This was huge. You know, we were very
proud of our teams.
00:37:39
We did press releases and made
sure the media knew about it. We want to encourage other
agencies to see how successful
00:37:44
it was for us, and maybe
they have a cold case, they may try this technology. So we want to spread the
good word that, look,
00:37:50
this is out there.
We use it. It's accessible. We close this case. There's a reason to continue
even 20 years later,
00:37:56
to work on cold cases, to
try to solve these cases, that it can be solved, or
even the detectives who
00:38:01
are no longer work here, who
worked in that case years ago, can maybe feel some
closure in themselves.
00:38:06
They held this for 20 years. These initial detectives
and people then, even ones that worked
on it after that,
00:38:11
they struggle with this
that they couldn't close it, they couldn't solve it,
they couldn't get closure,
00:38:16
they couldn't hold
someone accountable. We're happy to tell
those people involved.
00:38:20
They're excited, and so they've
got a million questions, and they're just so
happy because this
00:38:27
is the one case they couldn't
close, they couldn't solve, now it's solved. So for them, it's closure.
00:38:31
They take these, like we
said earlier, personal. They can relate to this being
their daughter, their sister,
00:38:37
their cousin, a family
relative, a friend, someone they grew up with. And this for them, I
think, is just a little bit
00:38:45
of relief for them. While we wish that
it never occurred, we wish we could have held
this person accountable,
00:38:50
we wish you could have arrested
him before he got killed and have him sit the rest of
his life in life in prison.
00:38:56
Again, the fact that at least
he was murdered a year later, at least, again,
his act of terror
00:39:03
on women and other people
has come to an end. I think it's always
disturbing when somebody
00:39:09
dies without an identity. There is a dignity that
I believe we all deserve. We all deserve to have
an identification in life
00:39:20
and in death, to
know who we are, for people to know who we are. And so it's a real indignity
and injustice to me
00:39:28
when somebody has
died, and they are listed as a Jane or John Doe. Nobody deserves that,
everybody deserves an identity.
00:39:37
It is a silent epidemic
in this country. I think people are
becoming more aware of it,
00:39:44
but there are tens
of thousands of Jane and John Doe's
across the country. Investigative genetic
genealogy has the capability
00:39:52
to bring names back
to these individuals, to provide their
identities, and to bring
00:39:58
answers to their
families and loved ones about what happened to them. But we've got to work
at case by case by case,
00:40:04
and there are a lot
of cases out there. There is the real potential
that we can identify all
00:40:11
of these people like
Valentine Jane Doe, but we need the funding, we need
the interest from the public
00:40:19
to participate, to upload
their DNA, to GEDmatch and allow us to compare
that against these nameless
00:40:27
individuals, so we can help
them regain their names and their identities. The more that
everyone's DNA is shared
00:40:36
the more cases like Wanda
Kirkum's can be solved and the more a
tragic young life,
00:40:44
lost, even to her own family,
can find dignity again. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:40:54
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