00:00:00
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Sacramento,
California, January 15, 1981, the body of a dead teen found
dumped on the side of the road.
00:00:25
She's been brutally
stabbed a number of times. There was all signs
that indicated that it was
00:00:31
a sexually motivated murder. Why would someone
do that to her? NANCY GRACE: Police
cordoned off the scene.
00:00:38
They don't know it
yet, but this homicide will become one of the most
puzzling cases in California.
00:00:48
PAT HIGGINS: Somebody
that knew her saw her get off the city bus. And that was the
last sighting of her.
00:00:55
It really touched a
lot of people's heart, because she was so young. NANCY GRACE: Investigators
are relentless
00:01:04
in their search for justice. The case stays
active over 40 years. We had the DNA.
00:01:13
And that was it. And the case really
went cold again. NANCY GRACE: This is the
story of Mary London whose
00:01:22
tragic murder remains
unsolved for Sacramento Police until groundbreaking
DNA technology leads
00:01:30
them straight to the killer. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02:02
NANCY GRACE: Sacramento,
California-- in 1981, it's a quiet and seemingly
safe part of the world.
00:02:12
Even though Sacramento is
the capital of California, it still feels like
a rural community.
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It's a very rural area. You'd think people
live here-- they cut their lawns on Saturday.
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They have barbecues. And everybody is feeling
very safe and content. PAT HIGGINS: I grew
up in the city.
00:02:33
Lived here my whole life. I liked it. And I thought it was
a great place to live.
00:02:41
It was a safe place
to raise your kids. At least, we all thought it was. NANCY GRACE: Mary London is
a vulnerable 17-year-old girl
00:02:50
from a troubled family. She attends a local high school. PAT HIGGINS: She just seemed
like a sweet high school girl.
00:02:59
Didn't seem to have any
enemies or anything like that. Seemed like she had
had a rough upbringing.
00:03:07
ESTHER SCHNEIDER: She
was a very sweet person. She liked everybody. We didn't get to know
each other that well.
00:03:16
I was the oldest one. Last time I saw her, she was six
years old when we lost our mom.
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We both gave hugs to each other. And I told Mary that
everything's going to be OK.
00:03:36
WENDY OLIVOS: My mom
just says she remembers Mary as a little girl. Loved everybody.
00:03:42
And that, you know, she just--
my mom wanted to protect her. The father was very
abusive in the home.
00:03:52
And he was abusive
to my mom as well. She was separated from my mom. ESTHER SCHNEIDER: Mary was
in the foster care, I guess,
00:04:04
because of her dad. My mom being so
young, you know, she couldn't take it no more.
00:04:13
And she left. She ran away. And she kept running away. I was in the foster
care, because Mary's dad
00:04:26
and I never did get along. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Mary
London's routine is always
00:04:36
the same every single day. That is, until January 14. On that day, Mary's
routine is broken.
00:04:46
Her foster parents
become worried. Investigators will soon discover
that afternoon is the start
00:04:53
of a murder investigation. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: Mary
London was like clockwork. She did the same thing
every day during the week.
00:05:01
3:30, she got on the bus. She went home. But this day was different. PAT HIGGINS: They made a
missing persons report.
00:05:11
They did a pretty
thorough investigation. They went out and tried
to talk to everybody.
00:05:16
They talked to
everybody that knew her, all the family and friends. And they didn't
have the technology
00:05:22
that we have nowadays. So it was really just
talking to people and trying to get
leads that way.
00:05:30
She was at school that day. And she had gone to
a friend's house. And then she told the
friend she was going to come
00:05:36
downtown to see somebody. And the friend saw her
get on the city bus. And then somebody that knew her
saw her get off the city bus
00:05:45
downtown at 8th and K Street. And that was the
last sighting of her. Teen girl Mary London
is never seen alive again.
00:05:56
Her body found the morning of
January 15, gruesomely stabbed. The utility worker who finds
her immediately alerts police.
00:06:09
Right away, police pick up clues
left behind at the crime scene. PAT HIGGINS: She was found
naked except for one sock.
00:06:17
And it had the Sac
High Dragon on it. And that's how they were
able to go back to the school
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and figure out her
identity fairly quick. She had a shoe that was
further up the road.
00:06:27
And she was also tied too. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT:
She had a drapery cord wrapped around her, which
I thought was very odd.
00:06:37
To me, it kind of
reeked of someone that was forced out into this area. It was just a very,
very graphic scene.
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NANCY GRACE: The discovery
that Mary London's the victim of such a vicious
attack spreads fear
00:06:54
throughout the small community. Nobody wants to
live in an area where a brutal murder
like this takes place.
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But it happens. It has the reverberations
of the community saying, is there a serial
killer out here?
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And is it going to happen again? If it was me, I'd be picking my
kids up from school every day
00:07:19
until this person was caught. NANCY GRACE: There is a killer
on the loose in Sacramento--
00:07:25
the community in a panic. As we see next on
"Bloodline Detectives," police move quickly and launch
a full-scale investigation.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: January
1981, Sacramento police launched their investigation
into the savage murder
00:07:52
of teen girl Mary London. She never got the
opportunity to become a mom, get married, you
know, live her life.
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NANCY GRACE: Police search
for whatever forensic evidence they could possibly find.
00:08:09
I knew that area
fairly well, and it was always just farmland. That was pretty
desolate out there.
00:08:17
There's no houses. There's no businesses. There's nobody around. So as a detective,
where do you start?
00:08:23
Well, that actually says
something about the crime. It says that Mary's killer
took her to this remote area,
00:08:33
either because he knew the area
or because it was a far enough away dump site so that
nobody would hear her scream,
00:08:45
so that nobody would
see him dump her. And so when detectives
arrive at the scene,
00:08:52
one of the first things
they'll do is tape it off, make sure nobody
touches the scene.
00:08:57
Even this being 1981, they
are still collecting evidence. So they're looking
for fingerprints.
00:09:06
They're looking for
hairs, trace evidence. They're looking for
footprints, tire tracks,
00:09:13
anything that can point them in
the direction of Mary's killer. And there is definitely
evidence there.
00:09:20
There's evidence at
every crime scene. You just have to find it. NANCY GRACE: Cops continue
to search the crime scene
00:09:28
while the body of
teen girl Mary London is taken away for autopsy. She'd been stabbed
three times-- and very
00:09:38
clear stab wounds to the heart. There was some
indication that she may have potentially
been strangled-- like,
00:09:44
what they would call a soft. When somebody gets
strangled, you often see what's called
petechiae, which
00:09:50
is you pop some blood vessels. There was some slight
evidence of that. But clearly, it was the
stab wounds to the heart
00:09:57
that had killed her. The most critical
piece of evidence was, what we would
call, the sexual assault
00:10:03
kit collected from her body. When she was examined by a
pathologist back in 1981,
00:10:10
they took swabs from her body. And they reported, at
the time, that they did not find any sperm.
00:10:17
And that was kind of-- I would say that was a
roadblock back in the day. Because it led
investigators to think
00:10:24
there wasn't going to be
any biological evidence. NANCY GRACE: The toughest
moment for any investigator
00:10:33
is not what they do
to solve the crime. It's the human factor-- the difficult and
horrible moment
00:10:41
when they must tell
a victim's family what has happened-- in this
case, to their daughter.
00:10:50
M. WILLIAM PHELPS:
I've interviewed scores of detectives whose job it was
to break the news to a parent
00:10:58
that they've lost
a child to murder. And, you know, this is
the part of the job that
00:11:05
keeps detectives
up at night, keeps them staring at the ceiling,
keeps their stomach in knots.
00:11:13
You know, I have to go to
a house, knock on the door, and tell these people that
their 17-year-old child is dead.
00:11:22
ESTHER SCHNEIDER: I
didn't know nothing about what happened to her. And my foster mom called me up.
00:11:28
And she said, Esther? She said, are you sitting down? And I said, no. Well, I think you
better sit down.
00:11:33
And she said, Mary's dead. And I said, no. I said, that can't be. And she said, yeah.
00:11:40
She's dead. I was watching the
news, and it was. They were talking
about her on the news.
00:11:47
I just couldn't believe my eyes. It was shocking to me. NANCY GRACE: The
funeral service held
00:11:56
for Mary is highly emotional. Everyone is there. WENDY OLIVOS: I remember there
was so many people there.
00:12:06
But I think that
it really touched a lot of people's heart,
because she was so young.
00:12:16
I remember where I was
sitting with my mom. Everybody was walking
by, you know, to see
00:12:22
her, saying goodbye to her. My mom went up to
say her goodbyes and give her a kiss and a hug.
00:12:31
And I remember it,
like, to this day. I'm 47 years old, and I remember
it like it was yesterday.
00:12:38
And I just remember her
laying there just so peaceful. But through the years, it
always stuck in my head.
00:12:45
You know, like, who-- why
would someone do that to her? NANCY GRACE: Sacramento
police are determined they
00:12:54
will find Mary London's killer. One of the key
components of any homicide is, OK, what's the last
24 hours of her life?
00:13:03
Who was she with? Who was she not with? They did everything they could
possibly do to try to figure
00:13:07
out who was she last seen with. They were trying to interview
folks from the high school.
00:13:14
To solve cases back
then was so difficult. I mean, it was basically,
you had to talk to people
00:13:20
and hope you got a witness. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT:
And ultimately, they didn't think they had
physical evidence at the time.
00:13:26
So it made it a
very difficult case to pursue on who is the person
that left this evidence behind.
00:13:32
Because they didn't know
there was actually evidence. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: Once
you run out of leads,
00:13:37
you have to wait for
information to come in. OK? Or you have to
wait for technology
00:13:43
to catch up to the case. Months turn into years. And this case goes cold. But the years pass.
00:13:55
And Mary London's case
goes stone cold, unsolved until investigator
Anne Marie Schubert
00:14:03
begins to use a revolutionary
forensic weapon. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:14:14
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE:
Sacramento, California, "Bloodline Detectives"
now using forensic weapons
00:14:24
to solve the 1981 murder
of teen girl Mary London. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT:
I had done DNA cases.
00:14:35
I'd become fairly
proficient at them. I started teaching in the late
'90s on cold cases and DNA.
00:14:42
And there was--
as far as I knew, there was no DA's office
that had a cold case unit.
00:14:46
And I knew our county had a
lot of unsolved murders, not the least of which
was the East Area
00:14:51
Rapist/Golden State Killer. So I went to my office and asked
if we could start the unit.
00:14:56
And I was lucky
that they said yes. And I was lucky that I
was able to create it.
00:15:00
And so what we started to do
is look for all cases involving women, because we
suspected if there
00:15:05
was a sexual assault
involved, that we would have DNA evidence. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: It's
definitely possible to get
00:15:12
DNA from any crime scene. You just have to keep searching. There's no way that a killer
can ever not leave a piece
00:15:24
of evidence at a crime scene. Because today, we
have touch DNA-- skin cells just
falling off of us.
00:15:33
NANCY GRACE: The new cold
case team has a suggestion for Sacramento Police. I very distinctly remember an
investigator coming and saying,
00:15:41
hey, can I look at one
of these cold cases? And I suggested, go--
go look at Mary London,
00:15:46
because it-- all signs
indicated sexual assault. You cannot ask for a
better case than Mary London,
00:15:53
a 17-year-old girl. I had a handful
of cases, but this has got to be the top priority.
00:15:58
ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: Then
he came back and said, well, there's no sperm found. And I was surprised.
00:16:03
But I said, OK, let's-- you know, let's move
on to a different case, because we-- we
didn't think there
00:16:07
was going to be
biological evidence. M. WILLIAM PHELPS:
Back in the '80s, crime scene specialists spent
a tremendous amount of time
00:16:18
at murder scenes collecting
every possible thing they can. They bag it. They put it in
the evidence room.
00:16:26
Because they all know that
technology in crime solving keeps changing. So sooner or later, they can
go grab a piece of evidence
00:16:35
and test it. And that's exactly what
we have in this case. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: About a
year into the cold case unit,
00:16:43
we started to realize
that the staining method that was used by
pathologists back in the day
00:16:50
was not sufficient
to actually identify sperm that was, in fact, there. So we reanalyzed it.
00:16:58
We sent it back as
soon as we started to understand this better. And I talked to the
pathologists in the current time
00:17:03
about the old staining process. Then we started to say, OK,
we've got to send it back in.
00:17:08
And that's what
we ultimately did. And that's when I ultimately
discovered that there was,
00:17:12
in fact, sperm that
could potentially lead us to the person who killed her. NANCY GRACE: The
"Bloodline Detectives"
00:17:19
have a breakthrough,
because they can identify the killer's DNA. But now they need a match.
00:17:27
And for that, they go to CODIS,
the national DNA database. JOSEPH DIZINNO: CODIS
stands for the Combined
00:17:35
DNA Indexing System. It started back in the '90s
with many of the state laws to mandate taking DNA
from defendants upon
00:17:48
conviction after they convict-- were convicted of
a violent crime. And the reason for that is
if they serve their sentence
00:17:56
and got out, they may
re-commit those crimes. So this was a database to
then look at an unknown DNA
00:18:06
sample from a crime scene,
compare it to the CODIS database to see if this
person had possibly committed
00:18:16
another crime, and
identify who that person may be when we don't know the-- the source of the sample
from the crime scene.
00:18:24
And it's been very,
very successful. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: We
resubmitted the evidence
00:18:31
in the early 2000s. Ultimately, developed a
DNA profile of the person who left the sperm behind.
00:18:39
That profile was then
uploaded to our convicted offender database. And there was never a match.
00:18:49
Investigators,
however, get a tip just when they need one the most. A source tells them to
look for a male friend
00:18:57
of Mary Sue who disappears
shortly after her murder. The only name they're
given is Darrell.
00:19:05
Next on "Bloodline
Detectives," we see if that's enough to
crack this case wide open.
00:19:15
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Sacramento,
California, 2016, police reopened the case
of teen girl Mary London,
00:19:29
murdered 1981. After 35 years, the
case is reopened. And very soon, the cold case
team has a possible lead.
00:19:45
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: With
any murder investigation, the victim is the bullseye. And the first ring
around that bullseye
00:19:54
is everybody that person knows. PAT HIGGINS: One of the
witnesses in the case had said that Mary was coming
downtown to meet somebody.
00:20:02
And they thought his
name was Darrell. But they had very
little information. They described him
as male, Black.
00:20:08
And they thought he
might be 23 years old. But they had no information. WENDY OLIVOS: She
had a boyfriend.
00:20:14
And her foster mom confirmed
she did have a boyfriend. I told my mom she
was dating someone.
00:20:22
So that name, we thought, was
her boyfriend or something. But we don't know for sure.
00:20:28
That was just a name that
was kind of thrown out there. PAT HIGGINS: And the detectives
over the years, originally
00:20:35
and subsequently, they did
so much work on offenders with the name of Darrell. And just nothing ever came up.
00:20:43
NANCY GRACE:
Investigators refused to give up on the murder
of 17-year-old Mary London.
00:20:49
They have a DNA specimen. And they're trying
desperately to see if a man named Darrell could be a match.
00:20:58
I got two phone calls
naming the same Darrell. And obviously, I was thinking
that was a great lead.
00:21:04
He fit the description. He was the right age and
everything like that. Unfortunately, we had
his DNA in the system.
00:21:10
And it was not a match. So it was a dead end. And then on New Year's Eve,
I was working at my desk.
00:21:17
And I think it was
early afternoon. And I get an email saying,
Pat, can you-- can I call you?
00:21:22
And I'm super excited,
because I thought, oh, this has got to be great news. It's a holiday afternoon.
00:21:26
The head of the crime
lab is calling me. And she says, well,
I've got news for you.
00:21:30
And I'm like, OK. She said, it's good
news and bad news. And I'm like, oh no. And she said, well, the bad
news is he is not our guy.
00:21:38
It was just a
statistical anomaly. And it wasn't--
it's not our guy. We can-- I'm like, well,
what's the good news?
00:21:45
She said, well, now
you can rule him out. And you can go on and
pursue other leads.
00:21:50
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: What
most people don't understand about solving crimes and
detective work is that, you
00:21:55
know, most of it is a dead end. But every time you
get to a dead end, you're closer to
catching your person.
00:22:04
And the reason
for that is you're eliminating each
possibility, each person, each scenario every time
you get to a dead end.
00:22:12
And it's a process of exclusion. You're trying to exclude people. You're not trying
to include them.
00:22:18
You're trying to exclude them. That gets you
closer to your guy. NANCY GRACE: The "Bloodline
Detectives" frustrated again.
00:22:28
They now must eliminate Darrell. But he's the last
of their leads. We had the DNA.
00:22:35
And that was it. NANCY GRACE: So many
times, a tip in one murder can help investigators
in another murder.
00:22:44
And that's what happens here. The forensic science
of genetic genealogy helps crack the case of
the Golden State Killer.
00:22:52
And now, Sacramento
detectives look into the idea of using genetic genealogy
to crack the case
00:22:59
of Mary London's murder. 1981, Sacramento, what you
have going on at the time is the original Night
Stalker, later to become known
00:23:12
as the Golden State Killer. PAT HIGGINS: Ann
Marie, and her team, and other people that worked
the Golden State Killer
00:23:18
had talked over the years. We had talked over and over. Like, there's a whole
basis of DNA out there--
00:23:24
Ancestry, 23andMe, all
these different things. And there's this
wealth of information.
00:23:29
And it was so frustrating
that we couldn't solve cases from that information. So when they came up with this
way-- this way of doing it,
00:23:36
I was, like, so excited. Because there's so many
cases that people get answers for just based on this.
00:23:44
JOSEPH DIZINNO: Forensic
genetic genealogy is taking, let's say,
DNA from a crime scene,
00:23:52
using a little bit
different method to take a look at the DNA,
gathering much, much more data.
00:23:59
And the forensic scientists then
work with law enforcement who also work with a genealogist
to try to identify who
00:24:10
that unknown DNA
from the crime scene could possibly have
originated from. The DNA profiles used
in genetic genealogy
00:24:22
are called single
nucleotide polymorphisms-- SNPs. It's much, much more data
that is useful to tracing,
00:24:33
let's say, a family tree. The ideal sample is
the mother and father. You generally need
three-- the unknown,
00:24:42
the mother, and the father. However, many times
that is not possible. So you start looking
at other relatives
00:24:51
whose DNA may be available. But the farther away you
get, the more difficult it becomes to build
that family tree.
00:25:01
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: So you need
a DNA sample from a crime scene. And you need it
put into a database
00:25:06
like GEDmatch,
23andMe, something like that, Ancestry.com. And you put it in. And you see if there's a
match anywhere to anyone.
00:25:18
And sometimes, a
match will pop up. And it might be eight degrees
separation from your person.
00:25:28
And you have to
get a team together now, and build a family tree,
and start going backwards.
00:25:33
So it's a lot of man
hours, a lot of work, and a lot of money. We realized that this
actually might work--
00:25:41
at least in my mind. I'm going through all the
cases that I knew about that we could potentially do this with.
00:25:45
So I always had
hope on Mary's case. I always had hope. NANCY GRACE: For a second time,
Mary London's case goes cold.
00:25:53
The team now focusing all
their efforts on using a new crime-fighting tool. We sent the sample
with the remaining--
00:26:03
extracting the extract
to a private laboratory to develop the SNP profile
that you can then upload
00:26:11
into a genealogy site
to help you potentially relate it to relatives
of the suspect.
00:26:18
Genealogy is complex. It is not simple. Every case is different. You may go down
a different road.
00:26:23
You might have affairs. You might have adoptions. You might have an
aunt adopting somebody
00:26:28
you think is their child. So you have a lot
of complexities. This is very, very
meticulous work.
00:26:35
Obviously, it's
very valuable work. But every one of those cases
deserves the dedication
00:26:40
you need to find the answer. PAT HIGGINS: Ann Marie's office
did a ton of work with it.
00:26:45
And so the initial time
they investigated genealogy, the people in the system
were too far removed.
00:26:50
It was, you know,
third, fourth cousins. And they're like, Pat, sorry. We can't do anything.
00:26:53
But maybe we'll get lucky. NANCY GRACE: Once again,
what seems like good leads become dead ends.
00:27:03
Now police go old school. They appeal to the public. I was a big proponent in to
put that out to the public eye.
00:27:12
I said, the case
is 35 years old. We have DNA, and it's
not in the system. We just need the public's
help to try and get
00:27:18
a name to match the DNA up to. So we did a big press
release and news releases. And some stations
ran footage on it.
00:27:30
NANCY GRACE: After police
begged for help on the news, investigators are
in for a surprise.
00:27:37
WENDY OLIVOS: I was
watching the news. I was at home. And my aunt Mary's
face appeared on TV.
00:27:41
And I called my mom and my dad. And I was like, oh my gosh. Mary-- they're talking
about Mary's case.
00:27:51
I was watching the news. And they were talking about
Mary again, my sister Mary.
00:27:58
WENDY OLIVOS: When that
appeared on the news, we were never notified. So I guess they didn't know that
she had any living relatives.
00:28:07
So we contacted the
police department. When I told-- I talked to
one of the detectives--
00:28:11
and I told them my
mom is her sister. And then they set up for
us to come meet them.
00:28:19
My mom and I actually went down. And we were interviewed. We were on the news. We talked about the
case and everything.
00:28:29
The police department seemed
very surprised that my mom-- that she had a living sister.
00:28:37
PAT HIGGINS: We knew
her mom had died. We knew her dad had died. Her stepmom had died.
00:28:41
And there was not-- the case file didn't
list any other relatives. We didn't have
anywhere to follow up.
00:28:46
So it was assumed all
Mary's relatives were dead. So I just felt awful
when she called,
00:28:50
and she said, I'm
Mary's half sister. And I was like, oh my god. I'm so sorry. So she came down.
00:28:57
And I just-- I talked to her
and said I would do everything I could to try and solve
her sister's murder.
00:29:04
NANCY GRACE: In
2020, Kurt Campbell, one of District Attorney
Schubert's investigators,
00:29:09
calls Detective Pat Higgins
with a potential breakthrough. PAT HIGGINS: Right
around April, I
00:29:17
get a call from Kurt Campbell. And he says, hey, Pat,
can you do a Zoom meet? And COVID has just hit.
00:29:24
I'm working at home. And I'm like-- I knew my kids
did Zoom on stuff. I'm like, yeah.
00:29:30
He said, well, what
about in an hour? I'm like, well,
I'll figure it out. Because I'm figuring when
somebody calls you and says out
00:29:36
of the blue they want to do a
Zoom meeting about Mary London, I'm like, god, it's got
to be good news this time.
00:29:42
And so, you know, I'm like, OK. I asked my kids. They said, dad, it's simple. They'll send you a link.
You hit the button.
00:29:47
You start talking. So I did it. And they said they'd got a name
on investigative genealogy.
00:29:56
I was just shocked. And this case has had
a lot of ups and downs. And last-- you know,
the last I'd heard
00:30:02
was it was not a viable lead. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT:
Well, ultimately, after probably hundreds of
hours by investigators that are
00:30:13
pretty highly
sophisticated-- the same types of investigators
that worked on the Golden State Killer--
00:30:17
they ultimately came up
with a potential suspect of a man named Vernon Parker. NANCY GRACE: "Bloodline
Detectives" now have a name.
00:30:28
But they still must find
out more about Vernon Parker and establish once and for
all if he's the man who
00:30:34
murdered teen girl Mary London. That's next. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Sacramento--
investigators
00:30:50
in the 1981 murder
of Mary London now using genetic
genealogy to help her case. And one suspect
begins to stand out.
00:31:04
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: When
they put their sample into the genealogy
databases, finally
00:31:09
they come up with a name-- Vernon Parker. And is it a celebration? Well, not yet.
00:31:17
It's definitely a good sign. What they find out
about Vernon Parker is that he was involved
at the time in a sex
00:31:26
trafficking ring, prostitution. So it's looking more
and more like this is a very, very bad guy.
00:31:38
But it takes so long to do this. And, you know, you're still not
really 100% sure is it really
00:31:46
Mary's killer. So let's go talk to him. NANCY GRACE: But finding
Vernon Parker is no easy task.
00:31:58
Detectives hit a major roadblock
in their investigation. As detectives begin to
look into Vernon Parker,
00:32:05
they find out a year
after Mary was murdered, Vernon Parker was murdered
himself in the same manner.
00:32:12
He was stabbed to death. PAT HIGGINS: We
found out that Vernon Parker had died downtown.
00:32:17
It's about a block away
from where she went missing. I wanted to make sure
that it was the right guy.
00:32:21
So I did all the research,
every case we had. I found multiple files
talking about Vernon Parker.
00:32:30
He had been arrested
multiple times, so-- under various birthdays. So there was different
records for him.
00:32:36
So I had to match up
the different records to make sure we're talking
about the same person,
00:32:40
because they had
fingerprints from arrests. And I found, I think it was,
at least eight reports that--
00:32:46
in the year around Mary
went missing that Vernon was contacted by the
police right in the area
00:32:52
that she was missing. NANCY GRACE: The suspect
Vernon Parker is dead. There is no way to
swab him now for DNA.
00:32:59
But detective Higgins
won't give up. PAT HIGGINS: The
first thing we did is we had to figure out if we
had any DNA from Vernon Parker.
00:33:08
We found out that the
coroner's office still had tissue blocks from his autopsy.
00:33:13
So we got those sent to the lab. The lab confirmed that the
DNA belonged to Vernon Parker
00:33:26
with some astronomical number. I was just shocked. I mean, it went from--
you know, because the case
00:33:34
had had so many ups and downs. I was just, wow. NANCY GRACE: Pat
Higgins calls Mary's
00:33:40
sister Esther with the news. He called me up and he asked
me-- he said-- he said, Esther?
00:33:48
Is this Esther? I said, yeah. He said, do you remember
what we was talking about?
00:33:54
I said, are you talking
about my sister Mary? He said, yes. He said, we found the
one who-- who killed her.
00:34:05
And all I said, now
she can rest in peace. NANCY GRACE: Vernon
Parker is dead. And now detectives
can only speculate
00:34:14
about what happened to Mary
the day she was murdered. I think in my my heart
and my gut feels like she
00:34:23
went with someone she knew. Her foster mom was saying that
Mary had a lot of friends.
00:34:31
She was very sweet. You know, I guess, pretty
open, you know, and trusting. So I think that this person
that did this to her, she knew.
00:34:52
PAT HIGGINS: I don't
know what his motive was. But I think she
got off the-- she--
00:34:57
I think she was coming
down to meet Vernon. And it just seems
too coincidental that she's last seen in the area
where he is known to hang out.
00:35:06
He's involved in
criminal activity. And they came down here. And they met up. And something went bad.
00:35:13
M. WILLIAM PHELPS:
What I think happened that day is Vernon Parker,
who is a known sex trafficker,
00:35:22
abducted Mary London. Lured her somehow
into his vehicle. Brought her out to that rural
road and said, you're mine now.
00:35:34
I own you. And she probably
fought back at him. From what I was told,
there was a struggle,
00:35:44
that she did fight. And she just didn't
let that happen to her. I've just got this feeling,
you know, anybody that
00:35:54
would take your
life, you know, they would fight for their life. And I think that's what she did.
00:36:01
She'd fight for her life. I just know. NANCY GRACE: 36 years
after Mary London's murder,
00:36:11
police may never know
exactly why she was murdered. But they know this. They know who the killer is.
00:36:18
And finally, hope and
pray that peace can finally come to this family. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: There's
no such thing as closure.
00:36:29
It's just loss. And it's just an endless feeling
that that person left one day and never came back.
00:36:39
And that somebody did that. Somebody took that life. PAT HIGGINS: The person who
did it escaped punishment.
00:36:48
I've worked homicide
for a long time. I don't know that
they ever get closure. I think all we can do
is give them answers.
00:36:57
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: I
think in this case, there's a sense of closure
for the crime being solved,
00:37:02
because we have that DNA hit. And it looks like
we got our guy. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: This
is something that they
00:37:10
have lived with for decades. And they don't forget it. Their lives are
never the same, ever.
00:37:16
They don't look at
the sunlight the same, because their child
or their sister or their mother or
their wife has been
00:37:23
taken in a very violent way. I was hoping they'd
solved the case, you know, and hoping that they'd
found the one who did it.
00:37:33
But it took so long, so
many years, so many years, you know, of waiting. It's just the idea of waiting
to find out who did that.
00:37:46
ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT:
For me, I just-- I hope it brings some solace. I don't know if I can
say it brings justice.
00:37:51
I just hope it brings some
solace and some knowledge that we never forgot
about that person.
00:37:59
WENDY OLIVOS: I'm so
happy that they were able to do this after all
so many years, you know,
00:38:04
because we needed closure. You know, he's not alive to face
us, but that doesn't matter.
00:38:15
I'm just glad he's-- karma got him. We met the detective that
was on the case back then.
00:38:23
He was the one that actually
went to the crime scene. It was an honor to meet him,
you know, because it was--
00:38:32
I felt like a connection there. They worked hard on this
case throughout the years.
00:38:38
But it was always dead
end, dead end, dead end. But then they went back to it. They kept going back to it.
00:38:44
I just want to thank him and
everybody who worked on it. You know, they put all
their energy into the case.
00:38:55
I'm always telling my
family, and my friends, and my coworkers, and like-- you know, how-- you know,
how they just kept going.
00:39:06
You know, they never stopped. And that means a
lot to my family. NANCY GRACE: For
Sacramento Police,
00:39:17
this case proves how
effective and powerful genetic genealogy really is. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT:
This has been
00:39:27
a 40-year pursuit of justice. And the Sacramento
Police Department deserves tremendous
credit, because they
00:39:34
never forgot about Mary. Even-- even in the time frame
before genealogy, so much work
00:39:40
was being done to try to find
people who were responsible, persons of interest. So it's-- to me, it's
this perfect culmination
00:39:48
of persistent pursuit of
justice by law enforcement that ultimately brings together
the science of genealogy
00:39:57
that led to the answer. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: It's
not a be-all end-all crime solving method.
00:40:03
It's only as good as the
DNA that's put into it. And right now, there's
not a lot of DNA
00:40:10
being put into those databases. Because people are scared that
they're giving up who they are.
00:40:17
And they're not. You're just a number in there. You're not a known
person in the database.
00:40:24
So the more people that put
their DNA into these databases, the more crimes
we're going to solve.
00:40:29
But right now, there's not a lot
of people in those databases. So it's tough. WENDY OLIVOS: I
look at her picture.
00:40:39
And I just, like,
wonder, like, how it would have been to, you
know, get to know her, you know,
00:40:45
grow up with her. You know, I feel that-- that was stolen from me. I just wish I was able
to know her, you know.
00:40:55
But I definitely feel
connected to her. I do feel a connection. I just feel her spirit.
00:41:15
[MUSIC PLAYING]