00:00:00
[OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): Spokane, Washington, October 4, 1978-- two utility workers are shocked
to discover the partially
00:00:21
nude body of a young teen girl. She had severe
bruising over her body and she was asphyxiated
by her own clothes.
00:00:33
She had some defensive wounds. It was clear that she put
up what fight she could.
00:00:38
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The
young victim is identified as 16-year-old Krisann Baxter.
00:00:44
She's a runaway. Krisann's case goes cold,
and it haunts Spokane investigators for decades.
00:00:55
MAN: There are
countless cases that are unsolved involving
sex assaults, homicides,
00:01:01
other violent crimes. And these cases have
languished for years, sometimes for decades.
00:01:07
NANCY GRACE: This is the
story of a 45-year-long search for a killer-- a search that
has finally cracked wide open
00:01:17
by brand new forensic science. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
00:01:46
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Spokane, Washington, 1978. Spokane is a quiet city nestled
between the Spokane River and
00:01:57
picturesque Selkirk Mountains. DON MCCABE: Spokane
is a typical city. The crime was not as
much as it is now.
00:02:09
Almost every day you hear
of somebody getting shot and/or killed. Back then, it was a rarity.
00:02:21
BRAD BAXTER: Krisann is my aunt. She was 16 years old,
my dad Steve's sister. He was really
close with Krisann.
00:02:34
CHUCK BAXTER: We adopted her
when she was a month old or so. My mom stayed at home and my
dad worked for the post office.
00:02:42
It was pretty simple, just an
average growing up together. BRAD BAXTER: She was a little
bit of a rebellious child.
00:02:49
And she writes about going
out with friends all the time, and going to
carnivals, and she was
00:02:56
babysitting a lot, earning
money, talking about boys a lot. There is talking
about hitchhiking.
00:03:05
It was seen as just
a way to get around. People trusted each other. It was the end of the '60s.
00:03:12
It was just a different
mentality to strangers than it is now. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Teen
girl Krisann Baxter often argues
00:03:21
with her mother, Charlie. And afterwards, she
usually runs away. MIKE DRAPEAU: Krisann had
left the house on the 26th.
00:03:30
They'd had an argument. She left the house. BRAD BAXTER: When she
didn't come back home,
00:03:35
my Grandma Charlie
called the authorities and reported her missing. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Four days after Krissann
00:03:42
was reported missing
by her mother, the 16-year-old girl is found. Two utility workers are
shocked when they inadvertently
00:03:51
discover Krisann's partially
nude body underneath a set of power lines. MIKE DRAPEAU: They
went over there
00:04:01
and checked it out
and found that it was the body of a young girl. They went and just
checked her real quick
00:04:06
and saw that she was dead. The reports indicate
that both of the workers were pretty shaken
up by the affair.
00:04:12
NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): The utility workers immediately called 911. Then I went up and viewed the
body from 6 to 10 foot radius
00:04:23
to start with. Then I moved in to
get a closer look. MIKE DRAPEAU: She was
laying on her back
00:04:34
with her legs spread out, and
she was naked below the waist. She had some socks on, but
they couldn't find her shoes.
00:04:41
She had a blue top that was
pulled up around her neck. She had a bra that had
been forcibly torn off
00:04:49
and had been tied
around her neck. And that's probably what
she was asphyxiated with.
00:04:55
It was still tied on her
neck when they found her. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): At
this point in the investigation,
00:05:00
police still have not
identified the young victim as being Krisann Baxter. Her body is taken
to a local hospital.
00:05:08
DON MCCABE: When we
got back to the office, we met a couple of
sergeants from the Spokane
00:05:14
Police Department. And they had a copy of a
missing person's report. MIKE DRAPEAU: They
were able to look
00:05:24
at her running report that
was on file and some pictures that they had. They tentatively identified
her from those photos.
00:05:32
NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): The body is then identified as missing
16-year-old Krisann Baxter.
00:05:41
BRAD BAXTER: For my dad,
he was told by his mom that she couldn't do it. She couldn't find
the strength to see
00:05:51
her baby girl laying there. And he said that he
would do it, went down and met with the coroner,
and he said, yep, that's--
00:06:03
that's Krisann. And then he told me that he
just broke down in tears when he saw that it was indeed her.
00:06:11
CHUCK BAXTER: My brother
called me up saying, I wanted to give you some
news before you seen it on TV.
00:06:18
He called me about 9:00 PM
and told me what had happened. He just said, you know,
our sister was murdered,
00:06:26
and I went out and just
drove around for a while and thought about it. And, well, it was never
the same after that.
00:06:35
Krisann Baxter's family
tries their best to grapple with their daughter's murder.
00:06:41
Spokane Police launch
a murder investigation. But will an autopsy
provide more clues
00:06:48
to the identity of her killer? We find that out next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [OMINOUS CHORDS]
00:06:59
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
October 4, 1978. Utility workers find
the partially nude body
00:07:10
of a teen girl hidden
under a set of power lines in Spokane, Washington. The young girl is identified
as 16-year-old Krisann Baxter.
00:07:21
She was reported missing from
home just four days earlier. The coroner performs an autopsy,
hoping to find out exactly
00:07:29
how this young girl died. MIKE DRAPEAU: They fumed
Krisann's body for fingerprints
00:07:35
and didn't find
anything of note. They took her clothing. They found numerous hairs that
were not consistent with her,
00:07:43
so they took those. They clipped all her
dollar fingernails, took samples of her
hair in case they
00:07:48
found her hair somewhere
else on the suspect's personal items later. They took her
fingerprints, in case
00:07:57
they find her
fingerprints on something that the suspect has later. And they took lots of
things from the scene.
00:08:04
DON MCCABE: There's a lot of
paperwork involved, making sure that all the evidence was
properly placed on the property,
00:08:11
the samples from her body, and
we would put all those together for processing at a later time.
00:08:21
If we were fortunate
enough to find a suspect, we had to separate those
from the regular evidence
00:08:31
and make sure that they were
placed into the refrigerator at the property room. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
The grieving family
00:08:40
of Krisann Baxter make
funeral arrangements for their dear girl. CHUCK BAXTER: They buried her
on the 11th, on my birthday.
00:08:49
It was just kind of
quite a-- quite a shock. It wasn't easy, you know. And then I didn't come
back up to Spokane
00:09:00
very much because I
knew that somebody here was the one that killed her. And I didn't want to--
00:09:05
I just didn't want
to be up here. CHUCK BAXTER: She
prayed a lot, so I knew that she was a believer in God.
00:09:14
She did say that she loved her-- her mom, and her dad, and her
brothers Steve, Chuck, and Tim
00:09:20
multiple times in her diary. But I can only go by what
I've read in that diary that she wrote in.
00:09:28
And she was only
15, 16 years old. Some of her friends that I
actually found in her diary--
00:09:34
she seemed like a
very great friend-- one of them actually
sent me a message on Facebook saying that
if she told you that she
00:09:41
was your friend, she meant it. And she was a very,
very solid friend. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:09:48
NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): A witness comes forward who believes he
saw Krisann Baxter hitchhiking.
00:09:55
MIKE DRAPEAU: He had reported
he was driving north on freeway and had seen a vehicle there
with two people arguing
00:10:01
or conversating in the area. So they had an idea that it
was probably a white male,
00:10:06
and they had an idea
what he might be driving. They had a description
of the truck.
00:10:10
I don't think they ever had
anybody that he could pick out as the person he saw there.
00:10:14
And I don't know that they
ever definitively knew that it was Krisann that
they were talking to.
00:10:21
BRAD BAXTER: Reading
in her diary, her and her friends were always
going down to the 7-Eleven
00:10:25
by their house and then
hitchhiking from there, it seemed like, from
reading through the diary.
00:10:31
I've had a lot of scenarios
run through my head. But the only one that
seems to fit correctly
00:10:37
is that she ran away from
home, and she was hitchhiking, and she got picked up
by the wrong person--
00:10:45
a person with bad intentions. That I would ever
think to hitchhike would be maybe the
thrill of doing it,
00:10:55
the thrill of not
knowing someone you're getting into a car with. Or maybe it was
just because she was
00:11:02
looking for
transportation from one side of the city to the other. From the things that I've
read about her, she was feisty.
00:11:08
She was independent. She was a typical
girl of her age. So children are the
ultimate victim.
00:11:17
Cases are amongst the
worst of the worse. Teenagers, also. So it's a disturbing
case even today.
00:11:24
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
By the early 1980s, Spokane investigators run out of leads.
00:11:30
DON MCCABE: We had gone out
and contacted the family, and we've contacted her
boyfriend from school.
00:11:39
He was in jail, so there
was no way that he could have perpetrated this crime. MIKE DRAPEAU: They started
trying to find her associates
00:11:48
to see who had last
seen her, to see if anyone had had
a hand in her death or had taken her
to where she was.
00:11:54
And they also did
tips to the community. They had numerous
tipsters call in and say that they knew
who might be responsible.
00:12:01
So they investigated
all of those leads. They began to investigate
people who they knew,
00:12:09
the usual suspects
as the case is. Right? They looked at people that they
thought might be good for it
00:12:15
from previous history
in the county, and then eventually outside
the county, in the state
00:12:20
and in the country, and
figure out where those people were and go interview them.
00:12:26
A lot of them were
excluded because they were able to show they were
not-- a lot of them were truck
00:12:30
drivers who were in specific
places at specific times or never came to Spokane. So a lot of them were
eliminated that way.
00:12:37
The ones that could not
were also polygraphed, and all of those passed. So there were no obvious
suspects from that general pool.
00:12:49
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): There's
a very disturbing element added to this already tragic story.
00:12:55
Krisann Baxter's family
actually receives dozens of distressing prank calls
from individuals who claim they
00:13:05
murdered teen girl Krisann. And the calls are so
frequently, the family finally decides to leave Spokane.
00:13:16
CHUCK BAXTER: Then we moved
my mom out of Spokane. People would call up and say
that they were the ones that
00:13:21
killed her, and she'd get those
kind of phone calls all day long. I just thought it was kind
of weird that, you know,
00:13:27
somebody would do something
like that to another person. NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): Tips that
00:13:31
might be credible
also start to dry up for Spokane investigators. DON MCCABE: Basically, when
your tips stop coming in
00:13:41
and things to follow up,
there's not too much more to do, than they would kind of
close the case for investigation
00:13:51
until something
would come up and we could open it up and go back. It never went cold in the fact
that they stopped working it.
00:14:01
They just didn't have
anywhere else to go with it, so they inactivated it. And so that's the way
it stayed, roughly.
00:14:07
If they would get a new
tip, they would work it. And then once that
tip exhausted itself,
00:14:12
they would re-inactivate it. So it was open and
closed a little bit. And then in 1984,
Henry Lee Lucas,
00:14:19
who was a known serial
killer in Florida, confessed to the State
Patrol in Florida
00:14:24
that he had murdered
Krisann Baxter and many, many other people. NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): And now,
00:14:31
an infamous serial
killer says he killed 16-year-old Krisann Baxter. The problem with that is
that the serial killer,
00:14:40
Henry Lee Lucas,
has also confessed to hundreds of other murders. Do Spokane police
have a prime suspect,
00:14:48
or is Henry Lee Lucas lying
about his involvement? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:14:56
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Spokane, Washington, 1984.
00:15:07
Police have a new
lead in the 1978 rape and murder of teen
runaway Krisann Baxter.
00:15:14
Henry Lee Lucas, a
notorious serial killer, says he murdered Krisann. But can a serial killer
who has lied before
00:15:25
be telling the truth now? CHUCK BAXTER: We
always thought it was Henry Lee Lucas because
he confessed to killing her.
00:15:33
And he described the
location through a detective in Pasco, Washington,
where her body was found.
00:15:40
And he had information
that nobody else had, so they just assumed
that he did it.
00:15:45
BRAD BAXTER: He was dubbed The
Confession Killer, because he said that he killed
all these people,
00:15:51
but there really wasn't any
evidence to link these people back to his killing. I was led to believe that.
00:15:59
I wouldn't have
thought any different. He was interviewed
by detectives. I've seen transcripts
of that interview.
00:16:06
On its face, it was
like every other Henry-- Henry Lee Lucas confession. It was believable to law
enforcement at the time.
00:16:14
He seemed to know
details of the case that only someone who
was there would know.
00:16:20
So Detective McCabe, with
the Sheriff's Office, formally charged Henry
Lee Lucas with the murder
00:16:27
of Krisann Baxter. It later turned
out, with this case and many, many other
cases to which he
00:16:33
confessed, that he was not in-- that he had been
fed the information and he was just parroting
what they had told him.
00:16:41
And he was eliminated from
this case and many others by processing of his DNA, which
by then was just coming about.
00:16:49
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Henry Lee Lucas is ruled out by DNA analysis. And the case once
again goes cold,
00:16:57
this time for over a decade. But then, 2006,
the file is opened once again thanks
to advancements
00:17:06
in forensic science. MIKE DRAPEAU: They sent
many items to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab in 2006.
00:17:14
They processed all the
evidence that they were sent, but among that was the oral
swab from Krisann's mouth.
00:17:21
They were able to
identify source male DNA profile from the semen
off of that swab.
00:17:27
And they were able to get a
profile that was good enough to be uploaded into CODIS,
which is a database we use
00:17:34
to identify unknowns and
known DNA profiles in cases that we work. So they uploaded the
profile of this person
00:17:43
into CODIS at the
time, and it's remained in CODIS being checked against
everyone who's put into CODIS
00:17:49
since that day. And they never got a hit
on that CODIS profile. It is disappointing.
00:17:55
That is kind of our main tool
at our crime lab is CODIS. So when you don't
have a hit, it's
00:18:01
disappointing because
there's really not much else you can do except wait. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Investigators
00:18:07
are deeply disappointed there
are no hits in the CODIS national DNA database. Now they must wait
for more advancements
00:18:18
in forensic science. I began looking at this
case in earnest in 2019. So I read through it.
00:18:27
I knew a little bit
about forensic genealogy, so I knew that there
might be something
00:18:32
we could do with this case
and some of the others. Because we had a CODIS sample
that was just sitting there,
00:18:38
we knew we had some
DNA from the suspect. So I did some research on that. Forensic genetic genealogy
is a tool for law enforcement
00:18:48
to solve their cold cases. They utilize DNA databases. So once a profile is built,
it's uploaded to DNA databases
00:18:56
where that profile is matched
with its genetic relatives. When we build a tree, we
take the highest DNA match.
00:19:04
We identify who that
match is, if they do not have a tree already
attached to their profile,
00:19:09
and then we extend
their branches. So we get as far back as we need
to go based on the amount of DNA
00:19:16
they share with the person
we are trying to identify. Then we go to the next match.
00:19:21
We do the same thing. So we work in groups first to
build that common ancestor. And once we do that, we
shift to another group.
00:19:29
And we continue to build until
we reach a common ancestor. Then we work to bring those
branches forward and find where
00:19:36
the union couple is that
connects those clusters, those groups of individuals. MIKE DRAPEAU: I read
through the case
00:19:45
to make sure that the
sample we had was workable. And then I sent it to the
Washington State Patrol Crime
00:19:51
Lab, who was just
beginning to get up and running with
that whole idea. So I sent it out to the
lab and had them review it.
00:20:00
We decided which samples
we were going to retest and which one would be the best.
00:20:04
Because you can't use the
sample you've already used to generate the CODIS sample.
00:20:08
You have to have at least some
more to do a different test on. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): In the
Washington State laboratory,
00:20:15
forensic scientist Alison
Walker prepares a DNA sample. Her intent-- to
utilize the science
00:20:23
of investigative
genetic genealogy. ALISON WALKER: We didn't
have any hits in CODIS.
00:20:29
We had a pretty good
profile up there. We were pretty confident
it should hit If there was
00:20:34
a sample in the database, and we
had exhausted all of our leads, kind of on our end.
00:20:39
And knowing there was still
potentially a sample available that we could go back
to, knowing we could get
00:20:44
another sample and then send
it off to genetic genealogy was the key decision. So when I got the sample,
it was a swab stick
00:20:55
in kind of a glass test tube. And what I did was I took the
swab out of the test tube,
00:21:03
looked at it. And so I took the
second half, what was left of that kind of
swab fluff around there,
00:21:11
and did what was called a
differential extraction. And so this type of
extraction separates
00:21:17
skin cells, epithelial cells
from sperm cells in the sample. And this extraction
method attempted
00:21:24
to separate those
cells to get a cleaner male profile to send off. So once I extracted
those samples,
00:21:33
I quantified the amount
of DNA that was present. And that's where we got
the 1.3 nanograms of DNA.
00:21:42
And that was basically
enough DNA for one test. So I was hoping I'd
have more that I could
00:21:49
do some testing in our lab,
get a more current STR profile, and send it out to genealogy.
00:21:56
But ultimately,
the sample we had, we could only have
one shot at it. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:22:07
MIKE DRAPEAU: On the
3rd of December 2020, I ended up selecting Othram as
a likely lab to send this to.
00:22:13
I'd never dealt with a
genealogy lab before. So I got a call from
David Mittelman.
00:22:19
He's the CEO of Othram. We had a long conversation about
the sample and what they do.
00:22:26
He said they were in-house,
they do all their genealogy, they do all their testing.
00:22:30
They had good scientific
process that's backed up, and he said they
would take the sample.
00:22:35
So I selected them
out of the group because no one else would do it. And we sent the sample from
the state lab to Othram,
00:22:43
and they ended up processing it. KRISTEN MITTELMAN:
The investigators realized that they could use DNA
profiles that have more markers
00:22:52
than what is found in
standard CODIS testing and be able to infer
identity from crime scenes.
00:22:59
And they started
to use assays that were built for medical
testing or consumer testing.
00:23:06
When you go to the doctor
and you give blood, you give fresh
DNA, a lot of DNA. It's not contaminated.
00:23:15
It goes straight into a tube. It's not degraded. And unfortunately, DNA testing
is a destructive process.
00:23:21
Every time you test that
sample, you consume it. It's gone forever. And in forensics, you
don't have a lot of sample,
00:23:30
and you can't call the
perpetrator back and tell them to give you some more DNA.
Right?
00:23:34
That's it. That's your only
chance to get justice. So we decided we were going
to build forensic grade genome
00:23:41
sequencing from the ground up. We were going to find all the
pain points that are making
00:23:48
these cases impossible
or intractable to actually solve
and, one by one, tackle those pain points until
we can give justice and answers
00:23:59
to every case, everywhere. DAVID MITTELMAN: We built a
profile using forensic grade
00:24:06
genome sequencing. This is a technique that's based
on a platform of DNA sequencing,
00:24:11
which is a process in which
you can feed DNA to a machine, and you can essentially read out
the sequence of DNA information
00:24:18
that is present in that DNA. And we read out the information
at hundreds of thousands
00:24:24
of spots in the genome. And each one of these spots
in the genome is a marker. So you have hundreds of
thousands of DNA markers.
00:24:31
You can build what's
called a DNA profile that consists of all these markers. And this profile can
be used to do all sorts
00:24:37
of interesting analysis. You can dissect the historical
origins of a person. You can do genetic
genealogy search
00:24:44
and look for distant
relatives that might help you infer who the person is. You can even do
traditional comparisons
00:24:51
to exclude or include someone
as a possible contributor for the DNA. The evidence was
kept in good shape.
00:24:59
And DNA from that evidence
was in good shape. So we built the
profile and then we
00:25:02
proceeded on to this
next step, which is the forensic
genetic genealogy, to do the matching in a
genetic genealogy database
00:25:09
with consenting participants,
and then the genealogy to out all the familial relationships.
00:25:15
KRISTEN MITTELMAN:
It immediately led to matches that
helped the genealogist be able to build a family tree.
00:25:24
We were able to
get sixth cousins, seventh cousins, fifth cousins. The more matches you have
on a genealogical tree
00:25:32
from different places
in the families, the faster you can
get to the answer and figure out which
branches to eliminate
00:25:38
and which branches
to actually follow-- and allowed us to be able
to hone into a family tree
00:25:46
and let law enforcement start
the investigation on perpetrator for Krisann Baxter.
00:25:55
MIKE DRAPEAU: On the
22nd of September, they called me and said
that they had been able
00:26:02
to process it, that
they had a possible lineage for the suspect. So they sent me a
ton of information
00:26:11
on a ton of likely persons
related to the suspect. And the suspect was
one or none of six
00:26:19
or seven people directly
related to one single mother. That was excellent news. It immediately took the
suspects from every single male
00:26:29
in the United States in 1978
to maybe six or seven people. It was Keith Douglas Lindblom.
00:26:37
And I felt that I should reach
out to the family at that point, even though I had no
definitive information,
00:26:43
no absolute confirmation. I thought it was probably time
to reach out to the family
00:26:48
and say, we have a suspect. This is his name. Did you know him? Have you ever heard of him?
00:26:54
BRAD BAXTER: Mom called and
said that there's two Spokane County Sheriffs at the door.
00:26:59
They have some new
information on Krisann's case. And I immediately thought that
this is some sort of a scam.
00:27:06
They're just trying to
get into my parents' house to do something. Because, I mean, it's
been 45 years later.
00:27:12
Like, I was like,
this is super weird. I would never thought
that anything would
00:27:17
have come of this that long. So I left work and I went
to my parents' house. And sure enough, it was two
deputies with the Spokane County
00:27:28
Sheriff, and they had a 3-ring
binder about that thick, full of pictures, and
documents, and just
00:27:35
everything on Krisann's case. And I thought, wow,
this is-- this is real. And that's when
I found out there
00:27:44
was another suspect that they
think was the killer that actually killed Krisann.
00:27:51
NANCY GRACE: So who is
Keith Douglas Lindblom? Is he responsible for Krisann
Baxter's rape and murder
00:27:59
all the way back in 1978? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [OMINOUS CHORDS]
00:28:10
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Spokane, Washington, 2021--
00:28:19
investigators now
working with Othram Labs, a leader in the forensic
science of investigative
00:28:25
genetic genealogy. Together, they firmly
believe they've got a prime suspect
in the 1978 murder
00:28:33
and rape of teen
girl Krisann Baxter. Their painstaking
research narrows the killer's family
tree down to just one
00:28:43
name, Keith Douglas Lindblom. ALISON WALKER: Detective Drapeau
came to the evidence window.
00:28:51
And he actually told the
PCs, hey, go grab Alison. Bring her up here. I have some good
news to tell her.
00:28:55
And I was like, OK, great. And so he was dropping off
evidence for another case,
00:28:59
and he's like, here's
the name of the suspect. So now we got to
follow that path.
00:29:04
That was exciting knowing
like, we finally got a name. MIKE DRAPEAU: He had been
in Spokane County in 1975.
00:29:13
He was with a co-conspirator
named Larry Powell at the time. It was conceivable that he
could have been with him when
00:29:19
he committed a crime in 1978. He was out and available
in the community to commit
00:29:25
this crime with or by himself. So I found that he was
currently housed in the Airway
00:29:33
Heights Correctional Facility,
which isn't normal for life without. But he's spending life
without the possibility
00:29:39
of parole in Airway Heights
Correctional Facility. I researched his
criminal history,
00:29:45
and then I was able to go out
and interview him in person because he's still around.
00:29:50
Once I told him kind
of why I was there, he knew immediately who
I was talking about.
00:29:55
He said that he was with
Keith Lindblom in 1975. He knew Keith because
Keith was dating his
00:30:03
15-year-old sister at the time. Keith had been in prison before. Keith was 10 years-- almost
10 years older than he was.
00:30:11
He kind of looked up to Keith,
because Larry Powell was kind of coming up into
his criminal persona,
00:30:17
and he thought Keith was a
good role model for that. They were driving
north in Larry's car.
00:30:24
Larry was driving, Keith
was riding passenger. They saw 15-year-old
girl that Larry
00:30:31
Powell knew from high school. And Keith asked him to stop
and pick her up, so they did.
00:30:36
Keith produced
the knife and told her not to get out of the car. He told Larry to drive
to a specific location
00:30:43
off of Magnesium. They both raped this young girl. And Powell said he participated
because he was afraid of Keith.
00:30:52
He'd never even had sex before. It was kind of Keith's idea, but
he didn't want to turn him down.
00:30:58
Lindblom wanted to
kill the girl so that she couldn't tell anybody,
and Powell talked him out of it.
00:31:03
And so, eventually, they
put her back in the car and they drove her off
to a place about a mile
00:31:10
to a mile and a half from
where Krisann's body was eventually found, and they
dropped her out of the car
00:31:15
and drove away. And she immediately
told someone. They were apprehended. The knife was
recovered in the car.
00:31:21
They were charged and eventually
convicted of that crime. I was able to find some
portion of the court record
00:31:27
from that particular
charge in '78, and find that Lindblom had
pled guilty to the assault.
00:31:34
He'd gone to jail. His sentence was
listed as 26 years, and they gave him 7 and 1/2.
00:31:44
Eventually, because his
sentence had been limited by the independent sentencing
review board in '78,
00:31:53
I was able to get
a single letter from the sentencing
review board that gave his release and parole dates.
00:31:59
And he was released from
custody to his own recognizance on that charge on
August of 1978.
00:32:07
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] DON MCCABE: It's
very frustrating when those things happen. Each jurisdiction has
their play at hand,
00:32:23
and they have to do
what they have to do. I don't know why
they let him out. NANCY GRACE: Keith
Douglas Lindblom
00:32:35
is released from
prison just two months before Krisann Baxter's murder. Detectives then learn he
dies in a house fire in 1981,
00:32:47
and he's cremated. They still need a DNA sample
to confirm he is the killer. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:32:58
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Spokane, Washington, 2023.
00:33:09
Bloodline detectives
are convinced they've IDed the killer of
teen girl Krisann Baxter
00:33:16
back in 1978. The killer's name-- Keith Douglas Lindblom. But there's a big
catch to confirming
00:33:25
whether it's Lindblom. He's dead. He was cremated. Investigators now must
track down his relatives.
00:33:34
They've got to match
the relatives' DNA to the DNA recovered at
the original crime scene.
00:33:43
Detective Drapeau that the
suspect did have a daughter, and so he started tracking down
a reference sample from her.
00:33:50
She gave investigators there
her DNA, which got back to me. I sent it to the Washington
State Patrol Crime Lab,
00:33:56
because that's something
we can do on our side with our processing
techniques, is see
00:34:00
if there's a direct relation. ALISON WALKER: I got
the reference sample in on July 11, got
some of my coworkers
00:34:08
to help me run it really fast. So we were able to run it that
same day, do the comparison.
00:34:15
And when I do a comparison to
look for familial relations, because she was his
direct offspring,
00:34:24
she should share half of
her DNA with her father. And then, if her father
left the source of the DNA
00:34:31
from the homicide,
she should basically match 50% of the DNA profile
from that unknown male
00:34:39
in the oral swabs. So that's what I was looking
at, is comparing her reference sample to that unknown male
profile from the oral swabs
00:34:46
and seeing is it
consistent with being a parent-child relationship,
am I seeing her sharing
00:34:51
50% of the DNA profile. And I did. MIKE DRAPEAU: We took
that DNA sample from her
00:34:58
and sent it to Othram, who
checks thousands and thousands of locations and not just 11.
00:35:03
And they were able
to definitively match her as the definite
biological descendant of--
00:35:09
of the suspect DNA,
which was Keith Lindblom. DAVID MITTELMAN: I'm very
excited and also relieved to be
00:35:18
able to call law
enforcement and tell them, you know, good news like this. I'm excited because it's
our mission and our goal
00:35:25
to help bring answers and
justice to all victims and their families. And then I'm
relieved because you
00:35:31
take on a massive
responsibility when you receive evidence, or
even the derivative work
00:35:36
product of evidence. And there's a tremendous
responsibility. You don't want to
mishandle this evidence.
00:35:42
You don't want to consume
it without getting answers. You don't want to do
something that could
00:35:45
set the investigation back. So there's a lot
of pressure to make sure that you can deliver
something that would be helpful.
00:35:51
And so seeing the case
through to the end is exciting because
it goes to our mission
00:35:55
and why we get up
in the morning. And then there's also just
kind of a sense of relief,
00:35:59
because we know that we
were able to do the job, and do it well,
and not do anything
00:36:03
that would, in any
other way, make it harder to solve the case. ALISON WALKER: I think
this is very cool.
00:36:08
I never thought I would be in a
position to solve a cold case. When I started here, they
were very daunting, very
00:36:16
scary cases to work. But actually working
one and solving one, it's just super amazing.
00:36:23
I can't even really find a
good adjective to describe it. The biggest kind of
fact for me was I
00:36:30
wasn't even alive when
the crime took place. So the fact that when
I think about that,
00:36:34
and that they were working so
hard to try to solve this crime, and I was just going about
my merry way through school
00:36:42
and just kind of living
my life, and then our paths just kind of came
together, to be that person
00:36:48
is just awesome. I thought that it was all
done and over with until Brad told me what was going on.
00:36:59
I was surprised to hear that
they'd been on it all this time. I was very impressed with that.
00:37:05
And I thought that
after a few years, that it'd just all go away. But it's all still there.
00:37:11
That was nice. Well, he's gone, so
that's good enough for me. Don't have to go through
all that all over again.
00:37:23
BRAD BAXTER: It was
pretty mind blowing to know how they found this
out with the genetic genealogy
00:37:29
and the DNA. It's pretty incredible that they
could do those kind of things nowadays, find a murderer.
00:37:38
I'd like to think that
I'm a good person. I would never wish
harm on anyone. But he was a--
00:37:46
a pretty bad human to-- to kill someone. So I do think that I would have
wished that he would have been
00:37:53
alive, and they could
have found him guilty and put him behind bars. It kind of makes me
think that there's
00:38:04
a little bit of a
failing system back then, that he should have
been behind bars longer.
00:38:13
Because I believe
that letting him out was a direct result
of Krisann dying. If he would have been
behind bars still,
00:38:22
Krisann may still
be with us today. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] It's-- it's hard to-- to talk about,
knowing that she never
00:38:38
was able to grow up
from that little girl and live a-- live a full life. I believe she would have
been a very outspoken woman
00:38:47
and been a successful--
successful gal. CARLA DAVIS: The one thing about
the perpetrator being deceased,
00:38:56
justice is still served. And if it's been
decades, then it's possible that no
one else was hurt
00:39:03
or no one else was a victim. So I think that
it's a-- you know, yes, you do want that person
to be alive so the family can
00:39:11
have that closure. But I think they can
get closure and have peace knowing that
maybe someone else
00:39:17
is alive because they're not. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: Part of
me wishes that the family
00:39:22
could have gotten justice. It's an incredible moment to
know every one of these cases--
00:39:27
and we have thousands
of them now-- they change you. Every story, every
person's case,
00:39:34
it touches you in
a different way. You would think you would become
desensitized to some of this.
00:39:39
You never do. It never doesn't
feel like a huge win to be able to get the answer.
00:39:46
Every case is just as
important as the other one. It doesn't matter if
it's a notorious case,
00:39:52
a contemporary case, a case
that's been cold for decades, or a case no one ever
wrote an article about.
00:39:58
There is someone out there-- there are a lot of someones out
there, that's what I've learned,
00:40:02
that need to hear the answer. BRAD BAXTER: I'd also like
to add that if there's any other families
out there that
00:40:11
have a case similar to
this, to not give up. Because there is hope, and
we're a prime example of it.
00:40:20
The heartbreaking case of teen
girl Krisann Baxter's murder proves that even when a
killer is no longer alive,
00:40:29
he cannot escape justice. Keith Douglas
Lindblom is confirmed. He is the killer
of Krisann Baxter,
00:40:39
and that's confirmed long after
both the killer and the victim have left this Earth.
00:40:45
Yet, even in death,
Lindblom cannot hide from his own family tree-- a family tree that
proves he is a killer.
00:40:58
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives." [OMINOUS CHORDS]
00:41:08
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [THEME MUSIC]