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[music] >> [music] >> Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks
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Colonel, that's enough of the B is news. >> All right, everybody, gather around,
00:03:17
grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. [music] >> [music] >> The murder of a child is an unbearable
00:03:51
tragedy, a nightmare for any parent. In the quiet rural village of Armada, Michigan, a community so small it felt
00:04:00
like a haven from big city dangers, Jennifer Milsap believed her 14-year-old daughter, April, was safe.
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That belief was shattered on a July evening in 2014. This is the case of April Don Millsap
00:04:21
and this is True Crime Garage. >> [music] >> April Dawn Milsap [music] was a vibrant
00:04:38
and creative teen who had just finished the eighth grade. She loved animals, especially her border collie named
00:04:46
Penny. and she often walked her dog on lengthy walks along the nearby Makeome Orchard Trail. Our true crime story
00:04:57
kicks off in 2014. But before we get to 2014, let's go back in time and give a little bit of information here. We have
00:05:08
April Milsap who was born on January 2nd, 2000 to Jennifer and Bobby Milsap. The family at that time resided in Wise
00:05:19
County, Virginia. But sadly, this marriage will not last. Jennifer and Bobby divorce when April was still just
00:05:28
a small child. Afterward, Jennifer would relocate. Now, Jennifer, she struggles with a neurological disorder that
00:05:38
impacts her speech, and she decides to relocate with April, her only child, to the tiny rural village of Armada,
00:05:48
Michigan. Jennifer is deeply devoted to her daughter, and she chooses to raise April here, surrounded by family and
00:05:58
friends. April attends school and is described as a bright young girl, outgoing and
00:06:05
extremely close to her mother. The dynamic of the family of two is going to change dramatically. Again, this is when
00:06:15
April is just 7 years old. Her mother meets David Likenfeld, who would go on to get married to Jennifer and then
00:06:24
become a stepfather. And it actually David really becomes a true father figure to April and describes April as
00:06:35
his daughter. We need to point out here, Captain, that this location, the village
00:06:41
of Armada, Michigan, is a very small community. It's a quiet rural town nestled about 40 miles north of Detroit.
00:06:56
Feels like it's a world away from the big city of Detroit, right? Where in the big city you have crime, you have
00:07:04
violence of the big city. This small little village, it weighs in at just about one square mile with a population
00:07:13
of a little over 1,700 residents. So, it's a long ways away, far away from the big city problems that you may have. In
00:07:24
fact, at the time of our case in 2014, you only have two full-time police officers. You do have an additional 10
00:07:33
part- timerrs working for the police, but there was little need for more law enforcement representation at the time
00:07:41
as crime was quite rare and generally it was considered a extremely safe place to
00:07:48
raise a family. In fact, the village of Armada, Michigan hadn't seen a murder there since 1973.
00:07:58
In 2014, April, her beloved pet, Penny, we have her mother, Jennifer. She would recall
00:08:06
that like most teens, April like to go out with friends. She liked to go shopping, but she also was really into
00:08:15
quiet pursuits as well, like drawing and writing. She would craftily spin out these great short stories and beautiful
00:08:26
poetry with ease. Her true passion was her love of animals, particularly her border collie, Penny. While she didn't
00:08:35
consider herself an athlete, she did enjoy frequently walking Penny on one of the several walking paths. Among them
00:08:45
was the nearby Makehome Orchard Trail. This was one of her favorite nature spots. And April treated this activity
00:08:55
as much of a chance to connect with friends. She had a boyfriend at the time, his name is Austin, but also as a
00:09:03
form of exercise. This was something that her mother, Jennifer, was aware of and didn't mind
00:09:09
at all. April had just finished 8th grade at Armada Middle School and was looking forward to attending high school
00:09:17
in the fall, but that would all change in the summer of 2014. Around dinner time in the early evening
00:09:27
on July 24th, 2014, David Likenfeld bid goodbye to his stepdaughter, April, before leaving for his shift at work.
00:09:38
Around 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. that evening, April left her home to take her dog Penny on a walk along the Makeome
00:09:48
Orchard Trail in the area. This is a wellp populated bicycle and walking trail. At 6:28 p.m., April sent a text
00:10:00
to her boyfriend Austin that read, quote, "I almost got kidnapped. OMFG." End quote. But Austin didn't actually
00:10:11
receive it until about an hour after it was sent. There was a delay in the technology
00:10:18
that many may remember was all too common back in 2014. Yeah. If you text something and it wasn't hitting a cell
00:10:27
tower that it might not send until your phone actually connected to a different cell tower. So, omfg
00:10:36
for all the old heads in the garage today. That's Oh my [ __ ] god. >> And I recall, Captain
00:10:48
period 10, 12 years ago. >> Yeah. >> If I got near water, especially if I got near water, my phone would act up and
00:10:56
there would be significant delays or it would lose it would lose service completely. Well, I remember 10 years
00:11:03
ago when I got near a waterfall and make me want to take a leak >> that evening. So, we have Jennifer
00:11:10
Milsap, the mother. She's going to start calling and texting her daughter April when April didn't return from Walking
00:11:18
Penny. This would be in just the general expected time frame of that evening. Now, mind you, this is a walk
00:11:28
she that she's gone out on many, many times, but something seems off here as she's not returned
00:11:38
in the conceived amount of time that that she was expecting. So, she's now receiving no response to the texts and
00:11:46
the phone calls, and she does call her husband, David, at work, who immediately he rushes home to see what's going on.
00:11:54
Eventually, the concerned mother is going to call the local police department to report her daughter
00:12:00
missing. Jennifer's next call was to April's boyfriend, Austin, who then tells her about the weird text that he
00:12:08
had received from April. >> Right. He says that at first he kind of brushed it off as an exaggeration,
00:12:15
almost like a joking kind of text a 14-year-old girl might send saying uh she spotted a creepy looking guy along
00:12:23
the trail. And maybe that's what she meant by, "Oh my god, I almost got kidnapped."
00:12:30
>> Yeah, but that joke turns into seriousness real quick because the mom hasn't been able to reach her. I'm sure
00:12:36
as the mother is making this phone call, her stomach's dropping and the boyfriend's stomach is now dropping with
00:12:42
with fear of what might have happened to April. Yeah, cuz you have two parties separately. Both concern have some level
00:12:50
of concern, but now you're going to double down on that once information is shared between the two. She's not come
00:12:57
home. Mom's nervous and worried. And now the boyfriend goes, "Oh, that text was something could be something serious. It
00:13:06
wasn't so serious before." Everybody, the alarm is sounded. Everybody is concerned. We're going to have Austin
00:13:16
and he's going to bring his friend Alex with him to meet Jennifer. And the three
00:13:22
of them are going to go out looking for April along that orchard trail. They're searching for any kinds of clues as to
00:13:31
April's whereabouts. Now, around 8:30 900 p.m. that night, Jennifer Milsap spotted police who are now out on the
00:13:42
trail as well. >> And good for police for taking this serious. >> They speak with the mother and confirm
00:13:51
getting a good description of what April was wearing that evening. Upon obtaining
00:13:57
this description of the clothing, Jennifer was then asked and sent to the police station. She would remain there
00:14:05
overnight. She's there for, I believe it was 10 hours. And of course, she's terrified and heart sick at this time.
00:14:14
She's wondering, why are they keeping me here for so long? >> Now, doesn't somebody come across
00:14:20
April's dog? That's the thing of it here, Captain, is mom's at the police station unaware that they have a crime
00:14:28
scene that they're working. Let's go through this. April's last seen around 6:25 p.m.
00:14:36
July 24th, 2014. What we're going to have in this case is several eyewitnesses. Because while this area is
00:14:44
small in population, as we pointed out, a lot of people walked this trail. A lot of people would
00:14:52
bike this trail. So the trail itself was a well populated area. A woman comes forward, her name is Mary Stein. She
00:15:02
says that, "Hey, while I was out on the trail, I spotted a girl. She's walking her dog on the trail, but this girl
00:15:11
seemingly was rushing away from someone. She said that based off of the description,
00:15:18
this was probably April. And she said that April had flashed her what she referred to as a tense smile as she said
00:15:26
hello. And but she's passing by quickly. And then she says Mary says that she noticed an angry looking man on a
00:15:34
motorcycle behind the girl. I find that description a little strange, but that was her description. An angry looking
00:15:43
man on a motorcycle behind the girl. >> Yeah. And you don't want to blame this eyewitness, but if [clears throat] I'm
00:15:49
seeing that situation, I'm not leaving, right? I'm >> I'm going to go up to them. Even if it's
00:15:58
just a walk past them to kind of see what's going on because it could be nothing. It could be her father. It
00:16:04
could be whoever, but I'm not leaving that girl's side. >> Uh, the writer wasn't wearing a helmet.
00:16:13
And Mary says that she tried to say hello to him as he's going by. He does not respond to her greeting. Instead, he
00:16:22
doesn't even really look at her at all. >> Right. This this encounter would have
00:16:27
happened just minutes before April sent what we now know to be that frantic text to her
00:16:38
boyfriend Austin. I think I almost got kidnapped. OMFG. Right. So, if I'm following this story correctly, April's
00:16:47
walking her dog. She's in this park essentially bike path, walking path. She >> trail
00:16:55
>> she comes across or this guy comes across her path. This guy on a motorcycle with a helmet. This
00:17:02
eyewitness sees both of them and this might have been a deterrent enough for him to leave. So April feels like,
00:17:11
"Okay, well I was run into by a crepo. So now I can text my boyfriend. I think I was almost I think I almost got
00:17:19
kidnapped. OMFG." Yeah. She must have felt there must have been a window of time
00:17:26
there that she felt that the guy was gone. >> Yeah. Like a sense of relief. >> Yeah. And then think about it from the
00:17:33
witness's perspective. Mary Stein, she's going to see both of these people just rushing along past her and then she
00:17:42
doesn't see them again. >> Yeah. I should probably apologize to the eyewitness because she might have saw
00:17:48
the guy on the motorcycle leave and then thought, "Hey, the girl's and no harm now, so I can walk away."
00:17:55
>> Mhm. >> I'm very judgmental these days. [snorts] >> Well, and the thing too is the girl who
00:18:03
we believe is April says hello to Mary Stein. So that's almost like, you know, she might have gave her that tense smile
00:18:09
as she describes it, but also >> she didn't ask for help. at this time now. So, let's fast forward
00:18:16
to just a an hour and a half, two hours later. So, this is between 8 and 8:30 p.m. Okay. We have a a couple out there
00:18:26
who are enjoying the late July twilight on the Makeome Orchard Trail bike path. >> Well, they say the couple that jogs
00:18:35
together stays together. >> Well, they were riding bikes, so they probably no are no longer together. But
00:18:42
but in so many reports they call them two joggers. >> They come across this dog. The dog will
00:18:49
lead them unfortunately to a body. Okay. So this dog leads them to the lifeless body of a teenager,
00:19:03
teenage girl in a ditch near Fulton and Depot streets. The victim is lying there, not moving, lying there about 15
00:19:12
to 20 feet off of the nature trail. Of course, the police and 911 are called right away,
00:19:19
>> right? >> Armada Police Department officer Phil Newmire was the first to arrive on the
00:19:26
scene and he noted that the dead girl was naked from the waist down. Her blouse and bra appear to have been torn
00:19:36
off of her. >> Yeah, it seems like the blouse was wrapped around her wrist. >> Yeah, there like torn off and then
00:19:43
pushed to to her wa waist area and her shorts and underwear were pulled down around her ankles.
00:19:52
Her feet were bare. Both shoes lying nearby. In the victim's left hand, she had clutched some sort of leafy debris.
00:20:02
And there were pattern markings. So there shoe print markings on this poor victim on her chest, neck, and face
00:20:11
areas. The teenager's face and hair were bloody, and there was a red stain that also appeared to be blood on a nearby
00:20:23
tree. >> Yeah. So they're saying she dies of blunt force trauma to the head and esphyxiation caused by neck
00:20:32
compressions, but like you said, there's there's some kind of shoe or boot mark on her body. So think about how violent
00:20:42
of an attack that has to be to leave a shoe print marking on the victim. >> Multiples as well. So,
00:20:50
>> right >> now, let's go back to April's mother, Jennifer. She sent home and then that
00:20:57
the following day in the morning, a an FBI agent knocked on her door with a picture of April in his hand. Then
00:21:05
there's that sad confirmation of yes, in fact, and indeed, this is her daughter.
00:21:12
Jennifer learned the shattering news that April had been murdered, as the captain had said. An autopsy was
00:21:20
performed the next day that would reveal that April had sustained 48 separate injuries, mostly on the head, neck, and
00:21:30
upper chest area before ultimately expiring from blunt force head trauma and asphixxia due to neck compression.
00:21:38
Whoever killed her, the monster that attacked this 14-year-old girl had bashed in her skull and then stood on
00:21:46
her neck, constricting the life out of the teenager. [music] [music] This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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00:27:55
quick beer break. Cheers to you and cheers to you, Colonel. >> Cheers to all of you out there
00:28:00
listening. Cheers to you, Captain, as well. >> Oh, thank you. Back at the crime scene,
00:28:05
we have no DNA that would be found at the scene. The shoe print or prints on her body would later be used, of course,
00:28:15
in hopes of identifying her attacker and killer. But as we've seen in so many recent cases, the cell
00:28:27
phone, a cell phone and the information on that cell phone can be some of the best evidence or create some kind of
00:28:36
trail to the offender. And that certainly is going to be the case here as well. As we had talked about, this is
00:28:46
a small community, a unified community. And of course, they were shocked and horrified by the brutal
00:28:55
murder of one of their most innocent residents, a 14-year-old girl, April Milsap.
00:29:03
>> Well, there's a couple things, though, as far as the investigation goes. You start by looking into the mom because
00:29:11
she's home alone. So, does she have any reason to have any conflict with her daughter? And then we have this physical
00:29:19
evidence, not DNA evidence, but we have this physical evidence. So, I'm assuming
00:29:24
that her foot doesn't match this size of bootprint. We have a eyewitness that sees a male. So, we can start excluding
00:29:34
the possibility of the mom. And then you got to look into the stepdad, but he has
00:29:39
an alibi. He's at work. And also, does he have a mo motorcycle? Does he match this description of this individual that
00:29:47
the eyewitness saw? But we also have then the boyfriend because just because we have eyewitness that sees this guy on
00:29:56
a motorcycle doesn't mean that he's essentially the killer. [clears throat] So, when we look into the the boyfriend,
00:30:04
we got to figure out where he was at the time of the murder. >> Yes. And with this with the community
00:30:11
here, they're going to rally around Jennifer Milsap and David Likenfeld. What we end up having here, Captain, is
00:30:21
we're going to get a bunch of eyewitnesses, a bunch of witnesses come forward from the community offering a
00:30:28
description of a man on a motorcycle that had been seen chasing the teen, going after the teen, talking with the
00:30:38
teen. This will lead to a composite sketch based on eyewitness accounts of the man. And this is released to the
00:30:47
public. And we also get the community that is putting pink ribbons on every surface in this small community because
00:30:56
pink was the little girl's favorite color. And this was to show support for the slain teen and her family. So they
00:31:06
began displaying her favorite color everywhere that they could. Several vigils and memorials would be held by
00:31:14
the community and April's beloved border collie Penny was present at these vigils. In fact, they dyed the fur her
00:31:24
fur pink in tribute to April's memory as well. And then a fundraiser, an online fundraiser, collected over $16,000 for
00:31:34
April's family as the close-knit community exhibited their love and support for the family, attempting to
00:31:44
process this this loss here, this great great loss. The description that might be the most powerful here, Captain,
00:31:55
seems to not be of the man that police believe is our suspect, but the man's motorcycle. About a month after April is
00:32:06
killed, police would name James Donald Vancalis as a person of interest in the murder. So, he's 32 years old from
00:32:17
Goodell's, Michigan. He is living with his father and his long-term on and off again girlfriend. So his father is a
00:32:28
registered sex offender. His name is James Bernard Vancalis. The two of them are arrested in July of
00:32:37
2014 on unrelated drug charges. So, this is tied to a mutual participation that they have in a
00:32:47
marijuana grow operation that they have. They're running it out of their home. So, the younger of the two, James Donald
00:32:55
Vancales, he has no violent convictions, only like petty criminal history stuff,
00:33:02
theft related crimes, some drug offenses, failure to pay child support, that kind of thing. the registered sex
00:33:11
offender father, he has a much lengthier criminal history and a more scary one as
00:33:18
well. So, the elder fan had been convicted in 1995 of secondderee criminal sexual conduct
00:33:27
with a person under 13 and a fourthderee criminal sexual conduct with a person between 13 and 16. But nevertheless,
00:33:37
investigators [snorts] would ultimately zero in on the son as the person of interest in their
00:33:45
murder investigation. Because when investigators canvas the area and they continue to gather evidence, including
00:33:54
witness accounts, part of those witness accounts, Captain, are of a small black,
00:34:00
white, and blue motorcycle that the suspect was riding and spotted near the crime scene. And early in the
00:34:10
investigation, an officer notices a motorcycle in a driveway that appears to match these multiple descriptions,
00:34:19
>> right? >> And the vehicle, the bike also matches a bike seen on security camera footage
00:34:24
from a neighbor's home. Okay? So, when they're out collecting this evidence, they they're looking for digital
00:34:31
evidence. Part of that will be surveillance footage, doorbell camera footage, things of that nature. They're
00:34:40
also, they did have to do some work to locate April's cell phone. So, her phone wasn't found with her, but it's
00:34:47
eventually located using that cell phone. They look into a fitness app that she has on her cell phone. And that
00:34:57
fitness app was tracking her movements at the time that she is walking her dog along the nature trail.
00:35:06
>> Yeah. It's also tracking her heart rate as well. So based on her heart rate, we
00:35:12
can almost pinpoint the exact time that she was attacked. >> Yeah. And on that fitness app, what
00:35:19
they're going to see is her movements. She's zigzagging, right? her it shows her phone moving
00:35:27
back and forth, back and forth, almost zigzagging for several minutes. And one thing that it's going to show
00:35:37
too is that at some point her her phone is traveling at 3.8 mph, but then it increases dramatically to 22 miles
00:35:52
hour that the phone is traveling. So, based off of that information, what would you think of that? That's
00:36:00
that's telling us she's walking the dog at a normal pace. And oh, we didn't find
00:36:09
her cell phone with her because whoever did this probably took the phone and then tossed it at some point. They left
00:36:18
the area in a motor vehicle or or she got into a motor vehicle. But we don't have anything at the scene suggesting
00:36:24
that she was in a motorized vehicle at any time. >> Right? Cuz we we have found her body.
00:36:31
It's in a drainage ditch. So you have this eyewitness with this motorcycle. You have [clears throat] this eyewitness
00:36:39
that sees a man on a motorcycle. Then you go, "Okay, is it possible that the individual that attacked her, the
00:36:47
individual that killed her, did he take her cell phone?" Mhm. >> And then obviously he takes the cell
00:36:54
phone and he and he dumps it somewhere. >> This motorcycle is going to be a huge
00:37:00
lead because the description of it, it's a unique almost one-ofa-kind motorcycle,
00:37:06
right? We have the it's small black, white, and blue motorcycle with two different size tires.
00:37:14
And that is what will lead police to this James Vancalas. He's already in custody because they we
00:37:23
have the the drug charges, >> right? >> When he's questioned, Van Callus does admit
00:37:30
that he was passing through Armada on the day of the murder. He says he was on his way to visit his brother
00:37:40
between 5 and 6 PM and he said that he returned home about two hours later. So he's saying, "Yeah, you might have seen
00:37:49
me. Somebody might have seen me in that area because I was passing through on my
00:37:53
way to see my brother and then would have passed through again at some point to return." He says
00:38:00
he was wearing a black motorcycle helmet, a carhe heart hoodie, camouflage pants, and KSwiss tennis shoes. Part of
00:38:11
the problem with his story is when they reveal surveillance footage from a gas station in the area,
00:38:20
this shows James at the gas station and on his motorcycle before April's murder.
00:38:28
and his [snorts] phone records once they get onto him, they show him near the trail
00:38:36
around the time that April was killed. Well, it's one thing cuz he confirms it through law enforcement to say, "Well,
00:38:43
yeah, I was in that area, but we really don't need his confirmation because we do have surveillance and then we also
00:38:49
have the eyewitnesses, but him confirming that that is just building the case against him." Well, the case
00:38:56
will continue to build against him because after eyewitness accounts seemingly link Vanales's motorcycle to
00:39:06
the crime scene and then we have some digital forensics supporting these reports. Vanalas is very quickly going
00:39:13
to graduate from a person of interest to a suspect in the eyes of law enforcement. And it was on October 8th
00:39:23
that the county prosecutor announces that the suspect, James Donald Vancales, is charged with firstdegree murder,
00:39:31
felony murder, and kidnapping and assault with intent to commit sexual penetration in the slaying death of
00:39:39
14year-old April Milsap. Vanalas is arraigned the following day, denied bail, and remanded
00:39:50
to the St. Clair County Jail. That same month, both of the Van Callus men will plead guilty to their manufacturing
00:39:59
marijuana operation. The attorney, so they have a shared attorney for those charges. captain. He is then saying
00:40:07
like, I I'll continue to represent the two of you for this marijuana situation, but I'm
00:40:16
not representing you, you know, once Vanales is officially charged with murder. That defense attorney says, "I'm
00:40:24
not representing you in in the murder case." >> But even though that law enforcement is
00:40:29
building the case against him, it doesn't seem like they have this mountain of evidence. And we also live
00:40:35
in this CSI world where we feel like we need DNA evidence to slam dunk every every case that goes to
00:40:46
trial. >> Yeah. We're not going to have DNA evidence here. And that in part will be
00:40:52
a large portion of the defense for Vanalis here. What we end up having is a considerable amount of delays
00:41:07
in getting the trial started. Some of that does come from the prosecution side of the equation. But after several
00:41:17
delays, Vancus's trial gets underway. This is in January, January 20th of 2016. During opening statements, the
00:41:27
prosecutor tells the court that April had died of blunt force head trauma and asphixxia due to neck compression. The
00:41:34
state intended to call 34 witnesses to the stand, including the then living girlfriend of the defendant. her
00:41:43
testimony will be maybe even more damning than than most so far because she says that on the night in question,
00:41:54
she woke up and when she wakes up, she finds her boyfriend cleaning his shoes and his motorcycle helmet with hand
00:42:03
sanitizer. >> Yeah. And we have to remember that when they're doing the autopsy, the weapons
00:42:10
that essentially murdered this girl that murdered April, they believe is a motorcycle helmet and obviously the
00:42:20
stomping of the victim. So, the shoes then become very important. >> Yes. Some of the other witnesses called
00:42:27
would be April's mother, Jennifer Milsap. Uh, Jennifer tells the jury about texting April repeatedly, calling
00:42:34
her repeatedly, going out to search for her daughter when April didn't return home from walking her dog. She was
00:42:42
composed yet, of course, very emotional and paints the picture perfectly of of how frantic the situation was, how
00:42:54
desperate she was when searching for her daughter. We get an FBI investigator who's going to recreate April's final
00:43:04
steps. This using data from April's cell phone fitness tracker app. The phone had
00:43:12
been recovered the day after the murder and contained a wealth of digital evidence linking the suspect to the
00:43:20
crime. Digital analysis expert agent Matthew Zens testified to extracting information
00:43:29
from April Sports Tracker app and combining it with location information obtained from Google Earth. So he
00:43:38
displays an animation that he created showing the path that the teen took while walking her dog Penny alongside
00:43:46
the Makehome Orchard Trail on the day that she was killed. Zens then shows the jury how he had dropped pins on this
00:43:56
route to indicate when calls and text messages were sent, including the one where April sent at 6:28 p.m. to her
00:44:06
boyfriend that read, "I think I almost got kidnapped. OMFG." He describes a 15minute period of the
00:44:14
phone moving in a zigzag pattern. Presumably, this was April attempting to avoid Vancus's
00:44:24
advances or get away from him before the phone starts traveling at that much higher rate of speed and away from the
00:44:32
crime scene. Now, here's this part is odd. Just very strange. The cell phone data showed three attempted calls to a I
00:44:42
have the number here, but I'm not going to give out the number because it's probably somebody's number today. It's
00:44:46
at a 810 area code. Okay. So, three attempted calls to the same 810 area code phone number. First at 6:31, then
00:44:57
again at 6:32, and then at 6:33 before the phone leaves the general area at 6:44 p.m. That number, that telephone
00:45:09
number was linked to the Vancalis family. And as said, we have the phone traveling at 3.8 8 mph suddenly
00:45:17
increasing up to 22 m per hour. >> Yeah. So, you have this killer's girlfriend also saying he's not at home
00:45:28
the time of the murders. He has a motorcycle similar to that. And also, weirdly, he was doing something I've
00:45:34
never seen him do in the middle of the night, and that was to clean his helmet and his shoes. and these shoes because
00:45:43
he tells the police, "Hey, I was wearing KSwiss shoes." Well, no, you probably weren't cuz th this pair of
00:45:52
shoes. I believe it was like a size 12 Jordan flight the power shoes. >> Yep. >> And these were the shoes. Again, the
00:46:03
girlfriend said, "These are the shoes I saw him cleaning." And when they go to find these shoes, they're nowhere to be
00:46:10
found. Well, part of her testimony, too. Okay, so she describes waking up on the
00:46:15
night of January 24th, 2014. Boyfriend's cleaning the shoes just like the captain
00:46:20
said. These are black and white Jordan shoes. She says he's acting strangely. He says to her, according to her
00:46:27
testimony, that he had messed up and that she needed to stick by him and stay with him and she needed to, if
00:46:34
questioned, tell police that he was wearing different shoes that day. He says, "Tell them I was wearing my KSwiss
00:46:42
tennis shoes." Which, remember, that's what he tells police he was wearing on the night that he supposedly went to go
00:46:49
see his brother. Now, we said that that telephone number was connected to the Vancalis family. I wonder if that's him
00:46:56
calling his brother saying, "Hey, I was with you tonight." If if anybody asked, "I I went out to your place tonight."
00:47:04
Well, at some point, James asked his brother to delete text messages be between them, which I believe the
00:47:13
brother claims he responded absolutely not. So, at this trial, not only do we have this ex-girlfriend testifying for
00:47:22
the prosecution, but they also have his brother testifying for the the prosecution as well. And again, the
00:47:29
girlfriend says part of her statement is after while he's cleaning his shoes and
00:47:35
helmet, he asked her to wash his clothing. And she says when she when she goes to wash the clothing, she searched
00:47:43
the pockets of this Carheart hoodie that he was wearing. And she tells the jury that she
00:47:49
found what she thought was human hair and grass clippings in that pocket. And she also says that she noticed an
00:47:59
injury to her boyfriend which she described as a deep long scratch on his right leg. Of course, his defense team
00:48:09
is going to attempt damage control here by attacking this woman's credibility, claiming that
00:48:16
her statements to police were inconsistent and sometimes conflicting. Well, she doesn't back down from this.
00:48:25
She counters that by saying, "Look, I was scared to death of losing my children.
00:48:33
So any contradictory statements that I made were due to nervousness." The we get three weeks of testimony by
00:48:44
prosecution witnesses. As we said, they they called a lot of uh witnesses and experts and members of law enforcement.
00:48:52
Of course, standard procedure. The defense is going to request that the judge dismissed the case, citing a lack
00:48:59
of evidence. The county circuit judge denies this motion. The defendant, he doesn't take
00:49:08
the stand to testify on his own behalf, and in fact, the defense calls no witnesses. At closing arguments on
00:49:16
February 5th, the defense attorney maintains that prosecutors presented no evidence tying his client to the crime.
00:49:24
And what we mean by that is he's citing no physical evidence. The defense fears the possibility of a sympathetic vote
00:49:35
due to the emotional impact of the murder of this teenage girl. Right? like the we know we've seen these types of
00:49:44
cases where >> a community is so affected they may lose sight of what is of the way that the
00:49:52
justice system is supposed to work. They want their pound of flesh and that's what the defense team was worried about
00:49:59
and they're saying look we hate it too. It it it breaks our hearts that this girl was killed but here sits my client
00:50:06
and there's no DNA evidence. There's no fingerprints. There's no hair. There's no semen. There's no fibers that are
00:50:12
implicating my client. >> Yeah. But he has no alibi. And we can also have eyewitnesses that place him at
00:50:19
the scene. And we have video surveillance putting him in that location. And it's 20ome miles away from
00:50:26
his house. And then his father is a pedo. So is it possible that he's a pedo as well? And then we have these
00:50:35
statements from the brother. Why would you need text to be deleted by somebody if you did nothing wrong? And then
00:50:41
you're cleaning possibly murder weapons in the middle of the night and then when
00:50:46
somebody goes, "Hey, what the heck's going on?" You go, "Hey, by the way, you're I need you to have my back here.
00:50:51
I need you to to to go along with this story if anybody asks." And then the police start coming around and guess
00:50:57
what? They start asking. So, this is a lot of circumstantial evidence. And it's also like, well, we got we got some
00:51:05
physical evidence cuz we have these shoe prints. Did he have shoes that would possibly match this? Yes. But also, I
00:51:14
mean, the simple question is, does he have a size 12 shoe like the prints on our victim? Yes. This puts him into the
00:51:23
realm of possibility that he's a possible suspect for for the crime. I think if you're the prosecution here,
00:51:31
you've got to be worried about reasonable doubt. And the reasonable doubt to me would be the senior Van
00:51:38
Callas, right? The one the known registered sex offender. They live together. But what you you so you have to really
00:51:47
hone in on the son being that you have the right guy. And part of that is his own admissions of, "Yeah, I would I
00:51:55
would have been seen in the area cuz I was riding my motorcycle and I was traveling to and from my my brother's
00:52:00
house." When you just have the bike, that's what led you to the suspect. Well, they live together. The senior Van
00:52:10
Callus has access to that bike, to that motorcycle helmet, to even his son's cell phone. But then you
00:52:20
have his own words of saying, "Yeah, you would have seen. I would have been seen
00:52:24
in this area." Well, they're going to double down on all this at trial and really point the finger at the son with
00:52:31
some hardcore evidence. And it might not be the physical kind, but it's the good
00:52:37
kind. So they're they review his internet history, his searches on his internet history related to attracting
00:52:47
young girls that contain phrases like how to make a girl fall in love with you, >> what girls really want.
00:52:55
>> And we're not talking about women. We're not talking about women his own age.
00:53:00
We're talking about >> No, he's 32. Yeah. >> Yeah. He he wants to know what girls,
00:53:04
what teens he can get to fall for him. >> The defense, one of their arguments, too, is like, "Hey, these shoes that
00:53:13
keep being mentioned, you didn't recover those from my client's house, from among
00:53:19
his belongings." So, a lot of back and forth here, but you have the two phones, April's phone, the victim's phone,
00:53:28
confirmed to be on the Orchard Trail. You also have your suspect's phone on the orchard trail. This this is the
00:53:36
thing that's going to be the the best evidence, >> right? That puts them in contact with
00:53:45
each other. >> So, the best evidence that you have here is from security footage of a house that
00:53:55
is very nearby the murder scene, the crime scene. And remember, the killer was dumb enough to take April's phone
00:54:03
with him for a period of time. That security footage from that house, shows a white male on a motorcycle, the
00:54:14
motorcycle, by the way, matching the exact description of Van Callus's motorcycle passing that surveillance
00:54:23
camera at that home. Okay, so they have video of Vancalas on his bike passing that home and oh, what does that video
00:54:34
line up with on the timestamp? The same time that he's passing that camera, it was determined that April Milsap's cell
00:54:43
phone was passing that camera at the exact same time. >> Right. And if he's innocent of this
00:54:47
crime, there would be no reason that he would have her cell phone. But also a damning piece of evidence is when you
00:54:54
have your girlfriend saying, you know, I I wake up and he's clean he's cleaning his prized Nike tenn tennis shoes with
00:55:03
hand sanitizer. >> Mhm. >> And then this weird stuff. Hey, I'm going to need you to to go along with my
00:55:09
story. But she says, "Look, we weren't able to find the shoes, but we also weren't able to find a hoodie in which
00:55:18
she found a clump of human hair and grass in the pocket." So, you have, like you said, solid evidence that there was
00:55:28
a connection, which he never said that he was talking to her and hanging out with her. And then we have we know the
00:55:36
phone was taken from the crime scene and we have evidence that puts him in contact with that phone after the crime
00:55:46
took place. And again, you have your [laughter] your your girlfriend, ex-girlfriend now, but you
00:55:54
have your ex-girlfriend and your brother testifying against you. I mean, this is
00:56:00
pretty no-brainer. The authorities theorized that James Vancalis had approached April as she was walking her
00:56:08
dog Penny along the Makehome Orchard Trail, making sexual advances towards the 14-year-old
00:56:16
when April rebuffed his attentions. He grows angrier and angrier, persistingly following her on his
00:56:26
motorcycle as she attempted to evade him and eventually reaching a boiling point when he finally caught up to her.
00:56:35
He attempts to rape the teen, but this was likely thwarted by the sight of multiple people out on the walking trail
00:56:44
that evening. and he must have dragged her off of the trail, striking her multiple times in the head and face with
00:56:53
his motorcycle helmet. In his anger, unchecked and beyond control, he tramples the teen, violently stomping
00:57:02
her face and chest, think of the sheer brutality of this final act. He's 6'1, 175 lb predator who, and there's no nice
00:57:15
way of saying this, he stood on the on the teen's neck, leaving her to die at the scene, taking her cell phone with
00:57:26
him before he fled the scene, eventually discarding it at a nearby location. The
00:57:34
trial would end on a a Friday and so this would start the deliberations process and
00:57:44
these deliberations resumed on the following Monday which was February 8th. They, the jury,
00:57:52
ultimately deliberated for about 7 hours in total before reaching a verdict. And
00:57:58
in front of a packed courtroom in which you could hear a pin drop, a jury of 12 men and women found the then 34year-old
00:58:08
James Donald Vancalis guilty of firstdegree murder of April Don Milsap. So he's convicted on all counts
00:58:18
including the kidnapping and sexual assault charge. >> It's kidnapping and assault with the
00:58:24
intent to commit sexual penetration. And this is, as said, a crowded courtroom. And it when they're reading off the
00:58:33
verdict. Uh, and you upon hearing the word guilty, April supporters wearing their signature pink, they erupted in
00:58:42
applause, tears, and cries of gratitude. Meanwhile, Vanalas displayed very little
00:58:48
emotion, if any at all, as the verdict was read. and he's now facing a potential life in prison without the
00:58:57
possibility of parole sentence. And the sentencing hearing was set for March 30th, 2016.
00:59:07
>> Well, the rumor had it that he was very disappointed he had to throw away his
00:59:11
Nike tennis shoes. Well, and this is going to be where we have the courtroom filled with victim's family members, and
00:59:20
they're going to have an opportunity here to read their impact statements. Before I get into Jennifer Milsap, the
00:59:29
mother's statement, what we have here from Vanalis is he is proclaiming his innocence.
00:59:37
>> Of course, he is >> denying that he's guilty. He's he's questioning the evidence. Says there is
00:59:44
no evidence, but the judge quickly steps in and says, "Look, this is her exact words." And I I like this quote. The
00:59:54
reality is we're here to sentence you today, not retry the case. Jennifer Milsap, part of her victim impact
01:00:05
statement is as follows. She says, quote, "You, James, are a damn thief. You stole my beautiful daughter's life
01:00:14
and you stole the rest of mine. My life has totally changed since April was killed. My life will never be the same.
01:00:23
I will always miss April and will continue to hold her in my heart. I never thought this could happen to my
01:00:31
daughter or me. I know that the Bible tells us that we are supposed to forgive those who wronged you, but what you took
01:00:40
from us is unforgivable. You have a lot of people to apologize to. Don't expect anyone to accept it because you don't
01:00:49
have the ability to turn back time and take this back. >> And old James Clean shoes,
01:00:58
he will get the maximum sentencing. >> Yes. So, he's sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of
01:01:04
parole. Additionally, the judge granted a restitution to April's mother in the amount of $7,500.
01:01:14
Upon hearing the sentence, Vancus's mother, Brenda, vowed that her son would be vindicated,
01:01:22
telling reporters that he had been framed. The community of our mata Michigan actively supported the
01:01:31
investigation by providing tips and surveillance footage. A year after the murder, this
01:01:38
is on July 13th, 2015, residents dedicated a memorial garden for April near the Makeome Orchard Trail. The
01:01:49
garden, funded by over $7,000 in community donations, was created as a place of reflection and healing,
01:01:58
featuring April's favorite flowers and a bench with her name on it. [music] [music]
01:02:15
We told [music] you to tune in this February as we have several special announcements and today we have our
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Want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and every week. Thanks for telling your mother, thanks
01:03:55
for telling your brother. Until next week, be good, be [music] kind, and don't litter.
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