00:00:11
NANCY GRACE: Pascagoula,
Mississippi, December 1982. A truck driver crossing the I-10
bridge spots what he believes
00:00:21
is a woman's body. RANDY MUFFLEY: It was
two reserve deputies who were responding to the bridge.
00:00:26
And they started walking
the bridge and looking, and they came across
the body of a toddler,
00:00:31
female toddler face
down in the water. NANCY GRACE: Well, it's
certainly a grim discovery.
00:00:37
And it's a discovery that
sparks a mystery, a mystery that lasts for 38 years. No one had ever seen
something like this before.
00:00:48
It was really,
really traumatizing. NANCY GRACE: No one claims
the little girl as theirs.
00:00:55
At first, people
in the community, give her the name Baby Jane. But eventually, she'll
be known as Delta Dawn.
00:01:04
Ironically, as cops investigate
what happened to the tot, they will stumble upon
a separate murder case.
00:01:12
Can new forensic science
finally give answers to two different mysteries that
remain unanswered for 38 years?
00:01:21
I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] 1982, Pascagoula, Jackson
County, Mississippi,
00:01:54
an industrial city situated
on the Gulf of Mexico in two hours east
of New Orleans.
00:02:01
COURTNEY FRETWELL: Only about
20,000 people live there. And it's kind of
a suburban feel,
00:02:07
small town feel outside of any
larger city in Mississippi. NANCY GRACE: December 5,
1982, this normally quiet
00:02:17
southern community is shaken. A passing truck driver
happens to spot what he thinks
00:02:25
is a woman's body on the
banks of the Escatawpa River off Interstate 10
near Moss Point.
00:02:33
RANDY MUFFLEY: It was
two reserve deputies who were responding to the bridge. And they started walking
the bridge and looking,
00:02:38
and they came across
the body of a toddler, a female toddler face
down in the water.
00:02:47
COURTNEY FRETWELL: One of
the first theories early on was that the child had
been thrown from the bridge
00:02:53
on Interstate 10. And the reason why the officer
suspected that was the location
00:02:59
of her body was very unusual. It was in a location that wasn't
readily seen from the bridge
00:03:07
and from the highway. It was a little bit off. So this told investigators
that the child had likely
00:03:13
been thrown from
the bridge and ended up where she did by the river. NANCY GRACE: Police
in Pascagoula
00:03:19
surprised by the discovery. It's a tragedy with many
more questions than answers.
00:03:26
MIKE EZELL: As a young patrolman
Pascagoula Police Department, broadcast across
the police radio.
00:03:32
This was something that
I'd never heard of before or I'd seen something like this
because we were all talking
00:03:38
about it back in those
days because this was something that
just doesn't seem to happen in Jackson County.
00:03:44
EDWARD CLARK: This case
was very emotional to begin with, you know, simply because
of who it involved, you know,
00:03:51
a baby. And it's always something
hard to look into. It can tear you apart
emotionally if you let it.
00:04:03
In a small
community like this, word spreads quickly about
a terrible crime, especially
00:04:12
one that involves a child. Neighbors want to help
in any way they can. It's that way in Pascagoula when
a precious tot is found dead.
00:04:23
Officers from Jackson
County Sheriff's Office get a call with a
very disturbing tip.
00:04:31
EDWARD CLARK: There
was CB chatter of a female walking down
the road with the baby
00:04:37
with no shoes, no jacket. The female was in
distress, crying I wouldn't take assistance from
anybody, and just kept walking.
00:04:47
Now we've never verified that. This did not come out until
after the baby was found,
00:04:52
so we don't know that
that actually happened. NANCY GRACE: Events
and information
00:04:57
seem to be cascading. A little baby found
dead in the river, a mysterious woman
in distress carrying
00:05:06
a child next to a busy freeway. But where is this woman? Who is she? COURTNEY FRETWELL: They
had dragged the river.
00:05:16
They brought in
helicopters to conduct aerial searches of the area. They had extensive
searches on the ground.
00:05:23
This was a very exhaustive
search for the Jackson County investigators. NANCY GRACE: As the
tragedy sinks in,
00:05:30
there is a sense of deep
loss among residents and urge to do
something, anything
00:05:37
for this precious child. And that is exactly how Bobbie
Hudgins and her family feel.
00:05:45
BOBBIE HUDGINS: My dad was the
deputy Sheriff for the Jackson County Sheriff's
Department, and he brought
00:05:51
her case file home one evening. He was going over
the case with my mom, and it just tugged at her heart.
00:06:00
And she asked him was
there a way that they could claim the body or
adopt the body and give
00:06:08
her a Christian burial. RANDY MUFFLEY: And the placard
they put on her gravesite
00:06:16
said "Baby Jane
Known Only to God" because no one else knew
who she was at the time.
00:06:23
NANCY GRACE: The tragic
loss of a tot girl and the crime surrounding it
has the attention of everyone.
00:06:30
But even so, investigators
make very little progress, and the entire community
remains traumatized.
00:06:39
Police searched the river
desperate for clues. COURTNEY FRETWELL:
Investigators were hopeful
00:06:45
that their search of
the area would reveal where this adult female was. They had already
discovered the child,
00:06:53
and they assumed that by
searching the area by land, by water, by air, that they
would eventually find her.
00:07:02
NANCY GRACE: While police
search the Escatawpa River for a woman who may be the tot's
mother, they find another body.
00:07:11
And it is not the mother. It's the body of an adult male. RANDY MUFFLEY: They come
and dragged this river here
00:07:19
for a couple of days. They dragged the river. And on December the eighth,
they discovered the skeletal
00:07:26
remains of a Black male. NANCY GRACE: Police now have
two unidentified dead bodies
00:07:33
including a tot girl. They're looking for a
missing woman, a woman staying close to the river.
00:07:40
Next on "Bloodline Detectives,"
this mystery only deepens. Pascagoula, Mississippi,
December 1982, police
00:07:58
make a terrible discovery. They find the body of an
unidentified tot girl. Witnesses come forward to tell
police that in the days earlier
00:08:09
they've seen a barefoot
woman walking along the interstate holding a baby. Police conclude she may
also be in the river,
00:08:20
and they begin a search for her. But instead, they
make a discovery that raises even more questions.
00:08:29
COURTNEY FRETWELL: Three days
after the police discovered the child's body
on December 8th,
00:08:34
officers found an additional
body in the river. But unlike the child, officers
found very skeletonized remains
00:08:44
of an unidentified young
African-American male only about 60 yards away from
the child's body in the river.
00:08:52
They were able to determine
that he had been in the water for about six months before.
00:08:58
And when they
looked at his body, they determined that he had
been a victim of a homicide
00:09:04
and had been shot in the head. NANCY GRACE: In 1982,
Pascagoula is a little town
00:09:11
where there's practically
no crime at all, much less serious crime. And now suddenly,
local police are
00:09:18
investigating two dead bodies. To top it all off, they can't
find any meaningful clues
00:09:25
in either case. Investigators hope and
pray Baby Jane's autopsy will reveal how she died.
00:09:36
BOBBIE HUDGINS: The autopsy
said that the baby wasn't dead until she hit the water.
00:09:43
She had mud in
her lungs and also that she didn't have
any food in her stomach, that she had not eaten
for at least three days
00:09:52
before she passed away. My dad was thinking maybe
that the mother was holding her close to her
chest and thought
00:10:01
she may have
accidentally killed her, and she didn't know
what to do and panicked.
00:10:06
You know, that's
my dad's belief. NANCY GRACE: Baby Jane's
autopsy gives police insight
00:10:14
into how this little
tot girl died, and it also helps build
a timeline of events.
00:10:20
But still, police are no closer
to finding out who she is and who caused her death.
00:10:28
COURTNEY FRETWELL: Police were
doing things like blood typing. They weren't necessarily
doing advanced, complex DNA
00:10:35
forensic testing in these cases. So in a lot of instances when
there wasn't forensic evidence
00:10:42
or they weren't able to
collect it or test it, police officers were having
to go out and find witnesses
00:10:50
and really get back to good,
old-fashioned police work when it came to
investigating cases.
00:10:56
It was a much different
world back in the 1980s. NANCY GRACE: Police desperately
need a break in the case.
00:11:04
From autopsy photos, they
arrange for a sketch artist to sketch baby Jane's face.
00:11:12
And next, a professional
artist makes an even more detailed color
image of the tot's likeness.
00:11:19
This image is now sent to
newspapers throughout the area. EDWARD CLARK: It was a
very close picture to what
00:11:28
the child actually looked like. It was almost haunting. It was very close to what
she actually looked like.
00:11:36
NANCY GRACE: Baby Jane's picture
fails to bring any leads. And this tot girl remains
unidentified for 27 years.
00:11:47
But then, 2009, a cold
case team reopens the case. And one of the first things they
do is create a Facebook page.
00:11:57
Baby Jane is renamed Delta Dawn. It's a name taken
from a famous Tanya Tucker song about loneliness
on the Mississippi Delta.
00:12:11
RANDY MUFFLEY:
When she was found, she had on a diaper and a
dress with three flowers on it.
00:12:17
You know, from the end I
referred to her as Baby Jane. But in 2009 when investigator
Hope Manning began looking
00:12:25
into the cold case, she
started a Facebook page and didn't feel comfortable
calling her Baby Jane.
00:12:31
She wanted to give her a name. And how she was discovered
early in the dawn morning here
00:12:36
in the river she started
calling her Delta Dawn. COURTNEY FRETWELL:
Throughout the years,
00:12:44
the police received a lot of
different tips and information about missing children.
00:12:49
And each time that a
case came in, it was compared against Delta Dawn's. But unfortunately, none
of the cases matched.
00:12:59
NANCY GRACE: By 2009,
DNA is a standard police investigative tool. Investigators hope
this science can
00:13:08
reveal Delta Dawn's identity. But of course,
there's a problem. Investigators never collected
a DNA sample back in 1982,
00:13:19
a sample from baby Delta Dawn. Now the only option left-- to dig up, exhume
the child's body.
00:13:30
RANDY MUFFLEY: In 2009,
Hope petitioned the courts to have Baby Jane exhumed so we
could get some tissue samples
00:13:38
for DNA comparison,
which was done by Dr. McGarry and the coroner
at the time Vicki Broadus.
00:13:45
And they were successful in
getting some tissue samples. And those were sent to
North Texas University
00:13:52
where the DNA profile was made. It was only uploaded to CODIS,
which, you know, most likely
00:13:58
we were never going to get
a hit on it because she wasn't going to commit a crime.
00:14:02
COURTNEY FRETWELL: When the
child's body was exhumed, DNA was collected
from her remains
00:14:09
so that the DNA
could be uploaded to various missing
persons databases including the National
Center for Missing
00:14:16
and Exploited Children. When the DNA was uploaded to
various databases in 2009, investigators unfortunately
didn't get a match.
00:14:25
NANCY GRACE: Jackson County cold
case detectives hit a dead end. Fast forward another 10
years, and the discovery of
00:14:33
a remarkable new forensic tool. Can science finally identify
the name of baby Delta Dawn?
00:14:44
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." Pascagoula, Mississippi,
December 2019, it's 37 years
00:15:04
after an unidentified tot
girl and a male murder victim both found days apart along
the Escatawpa river off I-10.
00:15:15
The unidentified little girl
has been named Delta Dawn. The adult male murder
victim also is unidentified.
00:15:25
Police call him
Moss Point John Doe. And now, a new generation of
cold case detectives take over,
00:15:34
and they pin their hopes on
new DNA forensic science. Genetic genealogy
combines advanced DNA
00:15:42
testing with traditional
genealogical research. DNA can be collected from
the unidentified person,
00:15:51
and the DNA can be uploaded
to various genetic databases to not only search
for the exact match
00:15:58
of the unidentified person
but to also potentially locate familial matches, family
members of the person
00:16:05
that they are
attempting to identify. EDWARD CLARK: I had recently
put my DNA into a website.
00:16:13
That day that I did
it, the day I uploaded it had found over
1,500 people I was kin
00:16:19
to in just a matter of minutes. I knew we had the baby's DNA. Why don't we go this route?
00:16:25
We're surely to find a relative. RANDY MUFFLEY: Sergeant
Clark brought to my attention
00:16:30
because he'd done
the family genealogy. When he got his report back,
he saw, like, over 1,000 people
00:16:36
that he was, you know,
relative of across the world. He approached me and
said, why can't we
00:16:42
do this for the Baby Jane? NANCY GRACE: The task ahead for
investigators and scientists
00:16:49
is a difficult one. DNA samples taken from
baby Delta Dawn and Moss Point John Doe are old.
00:16:58
They are badly degraded. Investigators now contact the
forensic genetic genealogy
00:17:05
specialists at
Othram laboratories. The scientists there at Othram
have an incredible track
00:17:13
record at cracking cold cases. Because Othram was able
to identify remains found
00:17:22
in sewage tanks or
bodies of water before, remains that have
been contaminated by being submerged,
that it's very different
00:17:32
than finding remains on land. There's a lot more
contamination with the water and it obviously makes it
very different for the way
00:17:39
the DNA looks. And so I think
that's the reason we were chosen to work this case.
00:17:45
DAVID MITTELMAN: The typical
problems with skeletal remains are that the DNA is
generally fairly degraded.
00:17:50
There is going to be a lot of
non-human stuff like bacteria and other things that have
since become kind of infused
00:17:56
with the remaining
human material. And sometimes there's even
damage and other things
00:18:01
that have environmental
insults that have made the DNA harder to work with. We worked on a case that
was over 100 years old.
00:18:08
Those are really
challenging cases. And a lot of people that
employ methods that are not
00:18:13
forensic in nature,
if you apply, like, recreational or
medical DNA testing approaches, you might even
be led to the conclusion
00:18:20
that there isn't any DNA. But there is DNA. It just takes a little bit
of extra effort to get it,
00:18:25
to isolate the
part that's usable, and to prep it such
that it can be properly read by these machines.
00:18:32
NANCY GRACE: It's been
almost four decades since the bodies
were discovered, but police still hope
for a breakthrough.
00:18:39
Oh, yeah. I mean, this was pretty
much our last hope. It was the only thing
we had left to go on.
00:18:43
It was DNA research. NANCY GRACE: The
scientific work ahead is not without a real cost.
00:18:50
The Jackson County sheriffs
need financial help to continue the scientific
work on the cases.
00:18:58
KRISTEN MITTELMAN: I absolutely
think that it affected a lot of people in the community.
00:19:02
I know it did because
this is a case that we crowdfunded on DNA solves. And we actually had a woman
cancel her 40th birthday trip
00:19:12
so that she could
pay for this case because she said that
she would have been the same age as Delta Dawn.
00:19:20
And for her entire life,
that story had haunted her, and she wanted to know
if she could help figure
00:19:26
out who that little girl was. RANDY MUFFLEY: It just
happened to work out. As we were looking into the cold
case and looking to reopen it,
00:19:35
Catherine Serbousek from New
York had contacted my office, and she had read
about Baby Jane.
00:19:40
She wanted to know
what she could-- what she could do to help. I told her we were in the
process of getting Othram
00:19:47
to build us a profile
that we can enter and do a genealogical research. So I put her in
touch with Othram,
00:19:54
and they worked
out the finances. And she's very beneficial to us. NANCY GRACE: The work
by Othram labs is a go.
00:20:03
Othram request samples
from the Jackson County sheriff's crime scene analyst. Jeremy Miller takes
the samples in person
00:20:12
to Othram's
headquarters in Texas. When I was working here
for the Sheriff's Office,
00:20:18
I was over the evidence room. They asked me to
bring all the samples that we had left from a
previous exhumation in 2009.
00:20:26
And we still had
them in a freezer. There was nine pieces that
I brought over to them.
00:20:33
NANCY GRACE: Othram begins the
delicate task of extracting DNA from 37-year-old bone samples.
00:20:43
DAVID MITTELMAN:
We'll generally look at various different parts
of what skeletal remains are
00:20:47
available to us. We'll do a lot of
kind of initial work to kind of characterize and
see which pieces of evidence
00:20:54
are most suitable. We'll do multiple
extractions of DNA. We'll then QC that DNA and look
at the degradation, how much
00:21:02
she nearly got,
you know, how much non-human stuff is in there. And based on all of those
kind of measurements
00:21:09
and determinations, we'll kind
of put together a game plan for what the best piece of
DNA is that we could recover
00:21:15
and how to best process
it so we can build one of those high-performing
DNA profiles
00:21:20
that can be used to perhaps
identify who the person is. NANCY GRACE: Weeks later, Othram
has news for the cold case
00:21:27
detectives back in Mississippi. COURTNEY FRETWELL: When Othram
received the DNA sample, which
00:21:33
in this case was a very
small amount of DNA, it was less than 1 picogram. NANCY GRACE: It's an
unimaginably small amount
00:21:44
of DNA. 1 picogram is equivalent
to a trillionth of a gram. Othram was able to
take the small amount
00:21:55
and generate a DNA
profile from the sample. Once Othram had
the DNA sample, It was uploaded across
various databases
00:22:04
looking either for an exact
match to the sample or a family member. DAVID MITTELMAN: We've
got this little girl
00:22:12
that we're trying to identify. Like there's no
public record really. Like how are we going to
find the public records
00:22:17
for a little girl? It's not an adult. We get led
to essentially what we think is her closest family
members, and we find someone
00:22:24
that we think is likely to
be a close family member, and we relay that
information to the Jackson
00:22:30
County sheriff's office. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: It's that
moment when you realize, I think I know who
this person is,
00:22:37
and I'm going to be able to
give back a lead that will help this investigation close.
00:22:42
It's often still a puzzle when
we return the information back to law enforcement, and they're
the ones that figure out
00:22:48
that final piece with that DNA
sample that comes back for us to confirm the relationships.
00:22:54
NANCY GRACE: At last the
pieces of this vexing puzzle are coming together. For the first time, police have
a solid lead on the identity
00:23:06
of baby Delta Dawn's family,
and they travel to Missouri to trace the tot's origins.
00:23:14
MIKE EZELL: Captain
Muffley came back with some potential information
that we could follow up on.
00:23:20
We were just ecstatic. So the guy's made contact with
some investigators in Missouri,
00:23:26
and they started working
the case from there. You know, those guys were
so fired up and ready to go.
00:23:33
It was exciting to see that. And I knew that if
they got up there and they could find
some folks to talk to,
00:23:39
we'd have a very good
chance at solving this case. COURTNEY FRETWELL:
From the DNA sample,
00:23:45
Othram was able to identify
a relative of Delta Dawn, a woman named Theresa Spencer.
00:23:52
And as soon as Jackson
County deputies heard the name Theresa Spencer,
they went to her house.
00:23:58
And when they went to her
house, the first thought that Theresa Spencer had
was that the deputies
00:24:05
were there for her
sister Gwendolyn Clemons. RANDY MUFFLEY: She
thought that maybe we
00:24:12
had found her sister who
had been missing since 1982. They couldn't tell her that we
had found a baby not a woman.
00:24:20
They just told her that we
found a potential family member. When they made that
encounter with her,
00:24:27
we knew we were on
the right track. NANCY GRACE: The information
from baby Delta Dawn's relative
00:24:32
matches that of the forensic
genetic genealogy team. RANDY MUFFLEY: She
told investigators
00:24:38
that her sister and her
daughter went missing right after Thanksgiving in 1982. NANCY GRACE: After
almost four decades,
00:24:49
the riddles of both baby
Delta Dawn's identity and that of Moss
Point John Doe are
00:24:56
so much closer to being solved. But investigators need
just a little more proof.
00:25:02
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." It's been 37 years since
the vexing mystery began
00:25:19
surrounding an
unidentified tot girl found dead in
Pascagoula, Mississippi there on the riverbanks.
00:25:28
For years, authorities called
the little girl Delta Dawn. Around the time the
tot girl is discovered,
00:25:36
witnesses tell police they
saw a distressed-looking woman carrying a child. Cops look for the woman,
but she's never found.
00:25:48
Now, a new generation
of cold case detectives and a ground-breaking
laboratory named
00:25:54
Othram labs may have answers. They have identified Theresa
Spencer as a likely relative
00:26:03
of tot girl, Delta Dawn. When police arrive, Theresa
tells them her sister Gwendolyn Mae Clemons
and her baby daughter
00:26:12
have been missing since
Thanksgiving 1982. DAVID MITTELMAN: 40 years
is a long time for a case.
00:26:21
We were excited just
to get a DNA profile. There were repeated
attempts made to get a profile from this DNA,
and they were not successful.
00:26:28
So just knowing we had a
DNA profile was a relief and it felt great. But then being able
to narrow in on what
00:26:34
we thought was a reasonably
close family member was fascinating. And so we passed
that information
00:26:40
back to the
investigators as part of this FBI Joint task force. And she opens the door.
00:26:45
She says, did you
find my sister? And it's, like, such
a shocking revelation. And sure enough, without
revealing anything
00:26:52
about what Othram did, she just
unloads the story of a sister that she had who
had a little girl.
00:26:58
They vanished and that was it. Nothing ever came of it, and
she never heard from her again.
00:27:06
EDWARD CLARK: At that point,
we did speak with Theresa. She gave us a
timeline of her sister
00:27:15
when she left
Joplin, Missouri, who she left Joplin, Missouri with. COURTNEY FRETWELL:
She was recently
00:27:21
divorced from her
daughter's father, and she had recently met
a man, and the two of them
00:27:29
had gotten into a
relationship together. And Gwen decided to take
her 18-month-old daughter,
00:27:37
go with her new
boyfriend, and start a new life for themselves. When Gwen left on this trip,
she was never seen again.
00:27:46
NANCY GRACE: But
cold case detectives need proof, proof
that Theresa Spencer is, in fact, a close
relative of baby Delta Dawn.
00:27:55
They ask her for a DNA
sample in the belief that woman is the
tot girl's aunt. DAVID MITTELMAN: There
is a lot of similarities
00:28:05
between this lost
sister and her daughter and the little girl
we're trying to identify.
00:28:10
They asked this woman, would
you be willing to do a DNA test because ultimately that's
going to help us understand
00:28:16
if, in fact, this little
girl and the person you know might be the same? And it turns out
she was the aunt.
00:28:22
She was the aunt of
this little girl. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: We
needed her aunt's DNA sample
00:28:29
so that we could do a
one-to-one comparison and without a shadow of a
doubt prove that this was
00:28:34
an aunt and niece relationship. And that's exactly what
happened in this case. NANCY GRACE: For 38 years,
a precious little girl
00:28:45
is known as Baby Jane
and then Delta Dawn. But now, at last, her
real identity is revealed.
00:28:56
COURTNEY FRETWELL: Delta dawn
was eventually identified as Alisha Ann Heinrich. MIKE EZELL: Of course,
you know, that name
00:29:04
didn't mean anything to me. But what it meant was
after all these years, that child out there known
only to God now had a name
00:29:11
and we knew where she came from. NANCY GRACE: An
incredible coincidence takes place just at this time.
00:29:18
While detectives Randy Muffley
and Edward Clark are actually with baby Delta Dawn's
aunt, Theresa Spencer,
00:29:27
they got a call
from Othram labs. Othram labs confirms Theresa
is Delta Dawn's aunt,
00:29:36
and they tell her they have
found her missing niece. RANDY MUFFLEY: Myself
and Sergeant Clark
00:29:43
and one of the
investigators from the FBI went back up there. And while we were
there, you know,
00:29:49
conducting further interviews
about Gwendolyn's lifestyle. And while we were there speaking
with them in their living room,
00:29:56
we got the call
from Othram saying that they confirm that the aunt
was the relative of Baby Jane.
00:30:08
It turns out that
you are her aunt. So we're positive that
we've recovered Alisha.
00:30:15
NANCY GRACE: But there's
still one piece missing from this vexing jigsaw puzzle.
00:30:22
It's the fate of Gwendolyn Mae
Clemons, the tot girl's mother. Gwendolyn Mae Clemons
disappeared without a trace,
00:30:30
but police suspect they
know what happened. COURTNEY FRETWELL:
I think she was just not happy with her life.
00:30:37
She decided to
leave her husband. She met another man who
at one point she probably
00:30:45
thought she was in
love with, and she wanted to start a new life. They decided to
travel to Florida
00:30:51
together to be miles
and miles away. And I think pretty
quickly and pretty early
00:30:58
on in the relationship there
was trouble between the two of them. RANDY MUFFLEY: Wayne sent
Theresa and her sister
00:31:04
a letter saying
that, you know, she had been communicating
with this male from a previous relationship.
00:31:13
They were in love, and
she knew that she felt like a high school kid again. Just all giddy.
00:31:17
And couldn't wait to
start a new life with him. EDWARD CLARK: We did talk
with family on both sides.
00:31:25
We don't know if there was an
altercation between the two. Maybe he hurt her,
done something to her.
00:31:34
Then you have a child
you have to deal with. I've always thought kind
of along those lines
00:31:39
after, you know, what we learned
after talking with everybody and interviewing
everybody, that our suspect
00:31:45
ended up killing both of them. RANDY MUFFLEY: Several
things got to happen. But, you know, we could
take guesses at it.
00:31:54
But apparently, something
happened between the male and Gwendolyn because he
returned three days later
00:32:01
without Gwendolyn
and the baby saying that he dropped them
off with another male
00:32:07
that she run off with. Our theory is he'd done
something because from speaking with the family, Gwendolyn
would have never done
00:32:15
anything to hurt that child. NANCY GRACE: Is it
possible Gwendolyn Mae Clemons is still alive
and living under the radar
00:32:24
with an assumed name? As much as I want
to hold out hope that Gwendolyn is still
out there somewhere,
00:32:32
she hasn't been seen since 1982. And at this point, I
unfortunately don't think that she's out there anymore.
00:32:41
NANCY GRACE: Delta Dawn's
real name is Alisha Heinrich. The tight-knit
community of Pascagoula
00:32:48
rallies together to
recognize Alisha's life and her tragic death
in the best way they can.
00:32:57
RANDY MUFFLEY: 25 years
after her discovery, they had another service. And then once we
identified her, they
00:33:05
had a new headstone made
for her with her name on it and both of the pictures, the
one that was on the headstone
00:33:12
before and her actual picture,
at the top of the headstone. MIKE EZELL: And we all went
out with the media on that day.
00:33:20
We had the burial
and the tombstone. It's one of those surreal
moments where, you know,
00:33:25
you're excited, but
you're also saddened because this child never
had a chance to grow
00:33:30
up and be a part of life. It's good and bad, you know. And that's some of the things
that happen in police work,
00:33:36
you know. You get up one day, and
you're down the next. You get excited, and
you lose your happiness.
00:33:44
The cost of this tragedy. She become a
part of our lives. It wasn't like she
was a stranger.
00:33:53
It was, like, having her as
a sister that I never met. We had a great big
picture of her hanging
00:34:00
in our living room for years. We looked at her
every day that we went through the living room.
00:34:07
Although we never knew her
in life and although it was tragic circumstances
with her losing her life
00:34:16
and not knowing
her, she as brought several families together. You know, her family has
become a part of our family.
00:34:26
We had even asked if they
wanted to bring the baby to Missouri where she was from.
00:34:33
The aunt said that
she was in our lives longer than theirs and it
wouldn't be proper to take her
00:34:41
away from us down here. NANCY GRACE: The discovery
of Alisha Heinrich's identity
00:34:48
after 38 long years is an
incredible achievement. But remember, there's still
another mystery to be solved.
00:34:57
Who is the adult,
male murder victim also found in Pascagoula,
Mississippi back in 1982?
00:35:04
Police have long called
him Moss Point John Doe. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:35:21
It's been 38 long years, and
finally, "Bloodline Detectives" and Othram labs
uncover the identity
00:35:29
of a precious tot girl found
in Pascagoula, Mississippi. But there's still another
mystery to solve--
00:35:36
the identity of an adult
male, a homicide victim found almost the same time. Up to now, police have called
him Moss Point John Doe.
00:35:49
DAVID MITTELMAN: When we
got his skeletal remains, unfortunately, and
this happens sometimes,
00:35:54
the remains were just
in really bad shape. There was a lot of DNA damage. And it was just
something that we weren't
00:36:00
really set up to work on. And so we put the case on pause,
and we kind of made a promise
00:36:06
to ourselves because
at Othram we don't want to leave any case behind. We made a promise to ourselves
to come back to that case.
00:36:13
It had been a year. But then we called back
the agency, said, you know, what guys?
I think we're ready.
00:36:17
I think we feel confident
that we can take on that case, not destroy the evidence,
not waste the evidence
00:36:23
and come back with
a great answer. And so we took the
case on, reignited it. And sure enough, using some
of the newer techniques
00:36:29
we developed, we were
able to build a profile from Moss Point John Doe. And he ended up being
a homicide victim.
00:36:37
His name was Gary Simpson. His uncle had been looking for
him, had reported him missing.
00:36:42
His uncle was looking for him. We ended up eventually
connecting to his sister who's still alive to this day.
00:36:48
KRISTEN MITTELMAN:
When we identified him, his sister said that he actually
reminded her of the Black John
00:36:55
Travolta, and that he was
the life of the party, and she had spent
decades looking for him.
00:37:00
And so it was a real
pleasure to be able to help that investigation as well. NANCY GRACE: The loved ones of
both Alisha Heinrich and Gary
00:37:09
Simpson can now rest in the
knowledge their loved ones have finally been identified.
00:37:15
But police still
want to know exactly what happened to them and to the
toddler girl Alisha's mother.
00:37:23
EDWARD CLARK: It is
still open because we have not located her. I believe we know the
story of what happened,
00:37:30
but we have still
not located her. So therefore, until we do, we
are still going to be looking.
00:37:37
MIKE EZELL: You
know, you never know. We didn't know we'd ever find
out who this child was either.
00:37:42
So there's always that
opportunity, that hope that it may happen, you know. And with these men
and women that we
00:37:49
have working on these cases
here and with the advancement of technology and, you know,
the working networks that we
00:37:57
have with other law enforcement
Agency's, anything's possible. NANCY GRACE: The
team reflects on how
00:38:04
two seemingly impossible to
crack cases have been closed. Closed by a groundbreaking
scientific technique,
00:38:13
forensic genetic genealogy. COURTNEY FRETWELL:
Genetic genealogy is a huge game changer
for law enforcement
00:38:20
who're being able to
solve cases that are 20, 30, 40, even 50 years old. Like I say, without it, we
would never solve this case.
00:38:30
NANCY GRACE: It's
a success brought about by a partnership
between skilled scientists
00:38:36
and dedicated police officers. MIKE EZELL: What I'll say about
law enforcement officers, well,
00:38:43
they are persistent. They know that there's an
answer out there somewhere. And if you just look
around this country,
00:38:51
you look around
this county, and you see law enforcement officers
wanting to do their jobs.
00:38:57
And when law
enforcement is allowed to utilize their training,
modern technology,
00:39:02
and good, old-fashioned
shoe leather, we can solve some cases. And that's what these guys did.
00:39:09
EDWARD CLARK: I still
can't believe we are where we are with this case. Once the ball did get
rolling, I had a feeling
00:39:16
that we were going to, you know,
find out what her name was. I had no idea that we were
going to get as much as we did--
00:39:22
an actual story,
an actual timeline. It was a team effort. And it played out perfect.
00:39:29
RANDY MUFFLEY: There
were so many people who knew about the
story from around here.
00:39:32
It was nice to give our
community that closure, give her her name back. So many people
around here kept up
00:39:39
with the case all these years,
and she wasn't forgotten by no one around here. NANCY GRACE: Back in 1982,
a river in Pascagoula,
00:39:49
Mississippi becomes
the resting place for two complete strangers. One, a precious tot girl
whose mother seemingly
00:39:59
vanished into thin air. The other, an adult male,
the victim of violence. We'll probably never really know
the reason for their deaths,
00:40:10
but what we do
know 40 years later their real names are Alisha
Heinrich and Gary Simpson.
00:40:19
They were identified
by the incredible work of scientists and investigators
who never gave up.
00:40:26
I'm Nancy Grace. Thanks for being with us here
on "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]