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GameChanger [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:43
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that knows that anyone with two ears and a heart loves
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and Colonel that's enough the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:12
[Music] crime [Music] today's True Crime Story is a scary one it's about a woman living alone an
00:03:43
intruder a brutal murder a horrific crime scene followed by strange events confusion and a botched
00:03:54
investigation dorothia Lan Cuts II AKA Denita El cuts was an aggressive businesswoman who had
00:04:02
worked her way up in the real estate world she was a friendly vivacious and outgoing single
00:04:10
38-year-old who had lots of friends but sometime between 12:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Saturday July 29th
00:04:21
1978 someone entered Cut's lavishly restored 19th century home at 125 wolf Street in Oldtown
00:04:31
Alexandria Virginia and killed her and it looks like that same someone has managed to get away with
00:04:41
murder for 44 years now this is true crime [Music] garage at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday July 29th
00:05:07
1978 the Alexandria fire department responded to a fire at25 Wolf Street in Oldtown Alexandria
00:05:18
Virginia the firefighters fought bravely to put out the fires this is a single family home that they're responding to
00:05:26
there's an upstairs there's a ground level and there's also a basement and the place was well ablazed by the time
00:05:33
that they arrived on the scene they're responding to this Fire based off of phone calls they're receiving from
00:05:40
Neighbors having witness smoke coming from this home after they put out the fire they're in the process of combing
00:05:49
through the scene trying to figure out what caused the fire trying to clean up this residence about an hour after the
00:05:57
fire is put out they come to a very Grizzly Discovery and that is the body of a woman that was recovered from the
00:06:08
basement level of the home well this fire is going to be ruled in arson so this female that they find it in the
00:06:15
basement is now going to be ruled a victim it would take a little bit of time Captain but authorities do identify
00:06:24
the remains of this person to be that of dorthia Lane Cuts II also known as Denita El Cuts she is the homeowner
00:06:36
she's 38 years old and she lives there by herself now a little bit of background on our victim you know first
00:06:46
I have to point out that the captain and I we are like Lord we'll never be royals
00:06:53
but when you hear Denita Cut's background she almost sounds like she is royalty tell me more kind sir so Denita
00:07:03
Cuts or Dortha was born in Charleston South Carolina in 1940 she grew up on her parents 200 acre
00:07:13
estate wow and these are people that are rich enough that they name their property name their homes she was
00:07:20
brought up much like her mother her mother is Doria Lane Cuts first attending boarding school in Baltimore
00:07:28
and then Briar Cliff Jr College in New York and then College in Switzerland the University of Geneva so she went to some
00:07:38
pretty impressive schools now denita's Father Richard malcol Cuts died in 1973 remember our case is taking place in
00:07:49
1978 about 5 years later he was a brigadier general in the Marines and had served as an aid to President Franklin D
00:08:00
Roosevelt and he and his father are credited with inventing an anti-recoil device for firearms so this is a long
00:08:11
history of some very important and impressive people she goes by Denita that's a name that she went by since she
00:08:19
was a child yeah that's to distinguish herself from her mother who had a very similar first name now she grew up
00:08:26
loving Antiques and in fact Denita actually owned an antique or two antique stores at one point in her life but in
00:08:35
the 60s in the 1960 she moved to Alexandria Virginia to become a real estate agent this in
00:08:44
1968 where she was rather successful as a real estate agent but also keep in mind she does come from money so at the
00:08:53
time of her death she had actually been a little bit removed from the agency that she worked for she was moving on to
00:09:05
maintain properties of her own she owned several properties rental properties rehab type properties that she was in
00:09:13
the process of being her own businesswoman so she had moved on to greener pastures at this time now it
00:09:22
seems like we say this a lot with the cases that we cover but there are some definitely weird things about this case
00:09:30
so pay attention you're exactly right Captain it seems like all of these homicide cases especially the Cold Case
00:09:36
ones that there are some strange details in these cases now one detail that I find to be rather weird is Denita had
00:09:48
been out of town leading up to her murder so she recently come back into town right she goes out to dinner with
00:09:55
some friends she's having a good time she comes home a little after midnight and then what we know is the fire
00:10:04
department is responding to a fire at 530 a.m. and after they clear the fire they find her dead in the basement it's
00:10:15
believed that the home was on fire for a minimum of 30 minutes before it was noticed and before firefighters arrived
00:10:25
we do not have an exact report based off of their arson investig to tell us exactly when they believe the fire was
00:10:32
started but through the reports that have been released we know that they believe that at minimum that fire had
00:10:40
been burning for 30 minutes so she is home less than 6 hours before she is killed and her home is set on fire now
00:10:49
I'm assuming that she was actually killed in the house and then the house was set on fire to cover up the murder
00:10:57
that likely seems to be the situation here captain and we're going to go through some of the old articles out of
00:11:04
1978 that are about this crime and I will summarize all of these so we don't have to go through every word but the
00:11:12
first one that I want to go through is from July 31st 1978 and it's titled death in Oldtown
00:11:21
and this comes from the Washington Post and I'm going to scan past the stuff that we've already covered but it says
00:11:27
between some time between 12:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. on Saturday someone entered her home and this is BAS in killed her
00:11:37
based off of what police sources are telling the Washington Post police go on to say that Cut's body she was found
00:11:45
bound and gagged and found by firemen the body had been stuffed behind a basement furnace and was lying in a
00:11:53
puddle of blood it was almost an hour after they arrived on the scene again that was at 5:30 a.m. that the firemen
00:12:02
found the body this while trying to clear smoke out of the basement the medical examiner autopsy report was
00:12:10
scheduled to be be released on this day so what we can see here is immediately this is BigTime news this is an affluent
00:12:19
area of Virginia this is a place where these types of crimes these types of murders do not traditionally occur so
00:12:28
now everybody in this area is going to be on edge and this the author of this article John Feinstein he goes on to say
00:12:39
that police remain baffled by the apparent murder arson and says the quote that he gets
00:12:46
from the detective is for all intents and purposes we're right on square one they go on to say this is one of
00:12:55
those kind of weird old timey things that you you you question when you hear this the detective stating this to the
00:13:01
newspaper a detective John Turner said it's hard to make much progress on a weekend what that doesn't make you feel
00:13:10
very good does it yeah well we just won we just don't like to work that hard on the weekend it would be nice too if all
00:13:16
murderers could take the weekend off as well because apparently the police might
00:13:21
not be working in EXA ex apparently the police might not be working in Alexandria Virginia on the weekend so
00:13:29
Cuts is found bound and gagged and then seems like the the murderer moved her body behind the
00:13:36
furnace yeah she may have been so this is where the reports get a little weird and we've seen this in plenty of other
00:13:44
cases where the longer that a case is out there some more information kind of trickles out kind of seeps out and you
00:13:52
get a little more details and then you have to sit back and look at them and go all right well both of these can't be
00:13:59
right so which is correct yeah it gets a little wonky donkey the wording here says in this article says the body had
00:14:08
been stuffed behind a basement furnace it was lying in a puddle of blood to me that implies that it was moved very
00:14:16
possibly moved there are some other reports that later come out that say that they believe maybe that when the
00:14:24
killer left the premises that she actually wasn't dead and she haded tried to move herself that she was trying
00:14:32
to possibly get get out of this basement but was very badly injured from the attack right now one problem that police
00:14:43
are going to have early on in this investigation is that they were trying to contact all of Denita Cut's close
00:14:51
friends and they said that a lot of the people they were trying to speak with some of them were out of town you know
00:14:57
we know that cuts didn't grow up in this area that she moved here for professional and other reasons later in
00:15:05
her adult life um one person that they do state in the newspaper that they are particularly interested in speaking with
00:15:14
was a former boyfriend and the detective goes on to say that they would like to question this man to get more details
00:15:21
about a civil suit that Denita Cutz filed against him in 1976 so 2 years prior to the murder and this I guess
00:15:33
this suit took place this lawsuit took place shortly after Denita broke off the relationship again according to this
00:15:41
article we don't know the details of that relationship they also do not name the boyfriend in this article there is
00:15:50
another article out there that says something else that makes me wonder are they even talking about the same man or
00:15:57
potentially a different man where this other article states that she had broke up with a boyfriend shortly before she
00:16:04
was killed again without them naming either boyfriend or naming the boyfriend right we cannot determine if in fact
00:16:12
this is the same person we do know based off of all of the witnesses and all of the people that knew her that she had an
00:16:20
extensive social life and that she had a lot of friends so it wouldn't be surprising to any of us that she had
00:16:28
broke off this relationship or for whatever reason this relationship 2 years prior had dissolved and now she
00:16:35
had had went on to another relationship that had also not worked out what we do know is that she was traveling leading
00:16:44
up to the time of her death she had just arrived back in town on that Friday remember we know that she made it home
00:16:52
that night and she came home shortly after midnight that night that's why her body was found on Saturday that's why we
00:17:01
know she was killed on Saturday but when we say she was killed on Saturday and she arrived back into town on Friday
00:17:09
keep in mind we're not even talking about an actual 24-hour window of time there she arrives back in town Friday
00:17:18
afternoon maybe early evening we don't have that exact hour right but she's killed she could have been killed very
00:17:26
shortly after midnight or attacked very shortly after midnight we don't know how
00:17:32
long her attacker was in that home we do not know how they gained access to the home we don't know how long there was
00:17:41
between the attack and when the when the fire was set we do know that at very minimum at the very minimum we have
00:17:50
reason to believe that that fire burned for at least 30 minutes before firefighters were on scene and what a
00:17:57
crazy scene that that must have been but we do have some eyewitnesses of the crime scene well
00:18:03
these are more people that knew of Denita and but this gives us a little ability to flesh out the situation a
00:18:12
little bit more here right so we have a a friend a former co-worker of hers her name is Mary who said that the whole
00:18:21
thing didn't make sense to her it didn't make any sense to her because she went on to say that Denita was was very
00:18:29
strong she was aggressive she was in very good shape she jogged all of the time what didn't make sense to her
00:18:37
friend Mary is that she couldn't believe that Denita wouldn't have put up a fight
00:18:43
or scream or something those are her exact words she goes on to say it just wasn't like her to be docile I don't
00:18:52
understand it this is interesting to me here because given the area and taking a
00:18:57
look at Old Town the fact of her friend saying I just don't understand why she didn't put up a
00:19:05
fight or scream or something what we don't have is any earwitnesses saying that they had heard some kind of scuffle
00:19:14
or some kind of fight or a woman screaming we don't have any of that b maybe because it happened in the
00:19:23
basement the attack could have happened there and be harder to hear obviously what I what I think that we might be
00:19:31
looking at here is a situation where either a she was attacked and incapacitated and when she came to or
00:19:41
was able to be in a in a a state that she could potentially put up a fight or scream or
00:19:48
something that she may have already been bound and gagged by that time right or the asent was able to control her up to
00:19:58
the point of tying her up and gagging her it makes you wonder too cuz you were saying that she was out of town be
00:20:05
before all this happened like maybe somebody knew that she was out of town and maybe they knew that she came from
00:20:11
money and that they were in the in the house maybe trying to rob it when she came home that's a very good point here
00:20:20
and you could have a situation where yes this was a planned robbery a planned burglary we should say
00:20:29
and that the person was unaware that she would be returning that night because we already
00:20:36
stated she came from money she lived in an affluent area not only that this woman once owned two antique stores
00:20:45
antique store owners are antique collectors by Nature her home was filled with valuable antiques yeah one man's
00:20:54
junk is another man's treasure there was another friend and this is a man that said that told police that the two of
00:21:02
them were planning to go out early that Saturday morning to look at some property in Alexandria that Denita was
00:21:10
thinking of purchasing remember she was in the real estate game as a worker be so to speak for quite some time and now
00:21:19
she's using her real estate Investments so that she doesn't have to work for someone else and this person her friend
00:21:28
tells police that they were supposed to be leaving together that morning at 7 a.m. remember Denita Cut's body was
00:21:37
located discovered inside that burning home at about 6:15 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. at the very latest so there might be some
00:21:46
strange and weird things in this case but one thing that's not that confusing here is the timeline yes we have a very
00:21:53
brief window of time to work with the the confusing thing seems to to me what went
00:22:00
down in that window of time right so the general timeline is this we know that she returned from her
00:22:10
vacation Friday evening I don't know how long she was on this vacation but the key is she returns that Friday evening
00:22:20
we know that after returning home she goes to dinner with friends we know that she returns to her home home at about
00:22:29
12:15 to 12:30 a.m. depending on which news article you read the autopsy shows that Miss Cuts died shortly before 5
00:22:43
a.m. just after 5:00 a.m. neighbors smelled smoke coming from the house called the fire department and the fire
00:22:52
department is on the scene and actively putting out the fire by 5:30 a.m. one thing that's very odd and strange to me
00:23:02
in this case here Captain is that we have a situation where somebody went to the trouble to set multiple fires inside
00:23:12
of this home and jammed the door to the basement almost sealing Denita Cut's [Music]
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00:25:52
here in the garage cheers to you all and let's put on our our diapers cuz it's going to get weird in here that's right
00:26:00
talk hands in the air to everybody out there in listener land especially the people in the back yeah there are two
00:26:08
really great articles that come out after the fact right we were talking earlier about articles that came out
00:26:14
shortly after the murder shortly after the arson the next article that I want to
00:26:20
hone in on comes out in November of the same year of 1978 and again I'll read my summar
00:26:28
version of this article and it reads the principal homicide detective assigned to
00:26:33
investigate the murder of Alexandria socialite Denita Cutz quit the force two weeks ago so this article
00:26:42
comes out late November Denita was killed Late July of the same year this article is about four months later and
00:26:52
it's telling us that the lead investigator the detective assigned to to investigate this homicide quit the
00:27:00
Force 2 weeks prior to the release of this article and the detective says that he
00:27:07
quit the force because he was angered over the police Force's handling of a suspect in this unsolved case so Joseph
00:27:20
Seuss is the detective that we're talking about and at the time he was a 9-year veteran of the local police force
00:27:29
right so it's not his first rodeo exactly and he said that the Denita Cut's case was quote the final straw in
00:27:40
the Department's series of recent failures to quote live up to the high standards needed in police work Seuss
00:27:49
who has since joined the Alexandra City Sheriff's Office so he didn't leave the biz entirely
00:27:58
right he quit the police force be over this matter and it sounds like there was a lot of concerns he had leading up to
00:28:08
this unsolved homicide of miscuts but it was the final straw for him to quit that
00:28:14
force and take a job with the sheriff's office but this isn't as strange as if he just resigned from law enforcement
00:28:22
period correct he he clearly has an issue with that Department with the Department that he worked for worked
00:28:31
with for nine straight years so his resignation was effective the mid part of November and he says was
00:28:41
the latest in a series of incidents that indicate growing morale and discipline problems within the
00:28:48
228 member police force 220 members of the police force and yet you have another detective telling us you know
00:28:57
it's difficult to solve these weekend homicides the murder of Denita Cuts again 38 at the time was found beaten
00:29:05
gagged and bound July 29th in the burned out basement of her Wolf Street townhouse this has remained a mystery to
00:29:14
her friends and Neighbors in the affluent Oldtown section the detective goes on to say I personally have never
00:29:22
been involved in a case that was so poorly controlled according to the detective
00:29:28
the only worthwhile suspect in the case was allowed to be questioned by half a dozen detectives who showed the suspect
00:29:37
photos of the crime scene later according to no no yes later according to this detective the suspect
00:29:46
made statements about the murder to detectives but the detective Seuss he says he was unable to determine whether
00:29:53
these statements were the result of reviewing the photographs or whether the suspect was really the murderer a point
00:30:01
that detective Seuss said would be crucial in determining whether or not to charge that particular suspect the
00:30:08
detective goes on to tell us I hope these diapers are on sorry that's that's not what he told
00:30:14
us that's that's what the captain told us at the top of I was going to say that's that's weird that he brought up
00:30:20
diapers I brought up diapers so the detective goes on to tell us he meaning the suspect mentioned something things
00:30:27
like a house being on fire a woman in a basement and a door being blocked at the
00:30:33
same time he denied that he had murdered anyone he rambled on about Visions the devil and about being a
00:30:41
prophet so you can see why it would be very difficult to tell whether this particular individual is reciting for
00:30:50
you things that he learned about the crime from the other detectives things that he learned about the crime from
00:30:57
seeing photographs of the crime scene or if he's telling you about something he actually participated in or was
00:31:04
responsible for well on somebody talking like this you know you go to mental illness and you start thinking well
00:31:11
maybe this guy is schizophrenic and and then he doesn't even know that he he he's not
00:31:18
classifying what he did as murder he burnt down the building or the building got burnt down somehow but because he
00:31:25
bound and gagged her she was n able to get free so she is a victim he murdered her but see how somebody I could see how
00:31:33
somebody that was not mentally stable could not see it in those terms yes and this suspect is troubling for many
00:31:42
reasons yeah you think the other part of this too that's incredibly concerning is the detectives handling of
00:31:50
this suspect who seems rather fragile to begin with if you're asking asking me based off of those very brief statements
00:32:00
here now just like the boyfriend or boyfriends this suspect is never named in any of these articles but a little
00:32:09
more background on this guy we learned that this suspect was arrested 2 days after the cuts murder this when the
00:32:17
suspect was found hiding under bushes outside an Oldtown resident so he's in the same neighborhood 2 Days Later
00:32:26
hiding in the bushes outside of a home he was picked up he was charged with attempted burglary and then released the
00:32:35
next day the police arrested this suspect several days later according to the detective when a butcher knife and a
00:32:43
pocket watch found in his possession were identified as items taken in another Oldtown home burglary yeah and
00:32:52
see again you wonder this guy doesn't seem mentally stable he gets into this area he starts breaking into his houses
00:33:01
well broke into a house that the owner wasn't there so that he could just spend time there he could squat there he could
00:33:07
have been squatting there for days he took what we do have is in both of these incidents he was picked up
00:33:17
outside of a home where it's believed that he was attempting to burglarize that home and then later he's picked up
00:33:25
again after being in possession of items that were taking taken in a previous burglary from that same neighborhood
00:33:34
right so he does make for a really good suspect even though he doesn't seem to be all there and your detectives may
00:33:42
have screwed up some of the questioning process the the Control process that you
00:33:47
want when speaking with these individuals and trying to get their statements and collect
00:33:54
evidence he's hiding in the bushes I mean th this guy has to go to the top of the suspect list and we know that he was
00:34:02
previously in somebody else's home illegally and we know for a fact that whoever killed Denita Cuts we don't know
00:34:10
why they were there or for what purpose that they were there but we do know that
00:34:14
they committed the murder and the attack inside the home now when this guy was charged with
00:34:22
burglary he was held in jail and then was sent to to a state mental institution this in Maran Virginia where
00:34:32
and you're exactly right here Captain based you know your earlier statement this man was diagnosed as
00:34:39
schizophrenic uh after he was arrested for this the burglary charge he was later released this about two week sorry
00:34:48
he was later released I don't have the exact date of when he was released but we know that he was
00:34:55
released sometime in November of that same year so he could have been locked up or in jail for several weeks if not
00:35:04
several months before they let him go he was freed on his own personal recognizes the possible
00:35:12
suspect this is the information we do have is a 30-year-old Alexandria man according to his attorney receives a
00:35:23
monthly Army pension for mental disabil so what you're telling me is that this guy is a suspect a good suspect we would
00:35:33
both agree we're having a lot of agreements lately we're going to have to that's not good for Ratings turn up
00:35:40
the heat a little bit in the garage get a little angry but you're telling me that so they they get him to a mental
00:35:46
hospital he gets better he gets let out because he's now mentally stable but law enforcement is going to
00:35:56
make make this statement about him give me that statement so this comes from the
00:36:02
assistant Commonwealth's Attorney his name is Richard melon and his quote is I would say that the man is one of the
00:36:11
most dangerous suspects the sheriff has had in custody for a long long time I'm shocked that what he goes on to say I'm
00:36:22
shocked that the man is free wow wow well let let's take this for what it is right like it would be
00:36:33
interesting to that's a powerful statement it's a very powerful statement it would be interesting to interview
00:36:38
Richard mendleson to find out exactly what he meant by that statement and I know there's people out there they're
00:36:44
shaking their heads they're going come on Colonel seems pretty clear to me what he's saying what I'm pointing out is to
00:36:52
what degree of Truth is this statement based off of the idea that he committed this
00:37:01
Denita Cuts murder right is Mendelson only saying this because he's convinced that this
00:37:08
man killed this woman when this man obviously was never charged with it he was never prosecuted for it we still
00:37:17
don't know 44 years later who killed this woman there's a chance that he did not do it is he simply basing basing the
00:37:25
statement off of the idea that he did Kill Denita Cuts right you see what I mean so it could be it's a bold
00:37:33
statement it's very bold that's a bold statement cotton it's but it could be a flawed statement if it's based off of of
00:37:43
things that are not fact yet they're not true yet so let's let's go on to to examine this statement a little bit
00:37:51
longer well you also wonder and I know I don't think this is what he's implying but it's like you also so wonder what
00:37:57
what is this guy's military background right you know but but he says the word dangerous right well and
00:38:05
we know that he's receiving a check from the military for mental disability so we
00:38:10
we also don't know the full extent of his mental disability yeah right he could simply be pointing out like even
00:38:18
if he wasn't involved in the cuts murder this guy this guy's scary right based off of like you said it could be a
00:38:25
combination of his military background and what the military says about this guy's mental
00:38:31
disability is is he is he prone to just attack people willy-nilly for no reason at all well and it's like I have guys
00:38:40
that I'm friends with that were like ex Marines those guys are they're deadly guys they could be deadly right but I
00:38:49
don't consider them dangerous they're in control of their actions right but they
00:38:54
could be dangerous if they wanted to be they wake up feeling dangerous is this guy beyond the
00:39:01
capacity of knowing who the enemy is right the militaries trained to protect us and in some cases even kill or
00:39:11
destroy the enemy mhm is this guy so far gone that he is unable to figure out who
00:39:18
the enemy is or is he so paranoid that he believes everybody to be the enemy when here he is at home on our home
00:39:28
turf and he's he's even in a a very nice safe neighborhood at that the prosecutor
00:39:35
goes on to say in this article that a medical report from the state mental institution revealed that the suspect
00:39:42
was in fact fit to stand trial but only under the influence of tranquilizers then mendleson went on to
00:39:50
tell us that he argued at the bail hearing right this is when he's trying to tell the judge this dude's super
00:39:57
dangerous don't Grant him bail we can't let him out right he's telling the judge
00:40:04
this guy is and his exact words are exceedingly dangerous don't let him out on bail but
00:40:12
the problem for that became what Mendelson would tell us I couldn't tell the judge that he was a suspect in the
00:40:20
Denita Cuts case right he doesn't have evidence to to does have evidence he doesn't have
00:40:28
evidence to nail this guy he he's saying that in his own personal opinion and personal expert professional
00:40:35
expertise he did not feel confident while he felt confident telling the judge how dangerous this man was he did
00:40:44
not have the evidence or the backing from the police department to tell the judge in good standing that this man is
00:40:51
a suspect in a murder case well and if it was a different time they probably could have pulled some DNA a off of off
00:40:58
of her house right and at least showed that he was possibly that that'd give more of a a reason to say well we think
00:41:09
he was at least attempted to get into her house if we can pull fingerprints or DNA off of like a door handle or
00:41:16
something but obviously it's not those times a couple of more interesting parts to this article before we move on to the
00:41:25
next one a police captain goes on to back up the statement of the assistant Commonwealth attorney's statement by
00:41:35
saying this is a police captain stating that they did not have enough evidence to charge this man with murder he does
00:41:44
say we are still interested in this man we would certainly have to keep him in mind as a possible or as possibly
00:41:52
involved now he goes on to say that there were the the FBI was involved in putting
00:41:59
together a psychological profile of Denita Cut's killer right and he wouldn't go into the
00:42:09
details of that psychological profile of the offender but save you one he did disclose that one result of that
00:42:18
profile was the FBI telling the Alexandria police that in all probability the killer was
00:42:29
mentally ill that according to the police captain he's basically saying you guys know who our number one suspect is
00:42:39
I yeah maybe I I don't know that that's I wouldn't say that that's his exact words I I'm leaving it at exactly what
00:42:45
he told us that that his statement is we are still interested in him we would certainly have to keep him in mind as
00:42:52
possibly involved the FBI profile they've told us that in all probability the killer was mentally ill Now that
00:43:02
statement is very interesting to me for a multitude of reasons they are seeing something at the crime scene or in
00:43:10
relation to the victim and how the victim was treated and how the victim was left that is indicating to these
00:43:17
experts that we are dealing with a person who is mentally ill at the time of this attack and at the time of
00:43:25
setting these fires right now this article gives us a little more detail and that's only because it's released 2
00:43:33
years after the murder and they it talks about a police reconstruction of the crime and it says that Denita Cutz came
00:43:43
in her front door alone shortly after midnight on Saturday July 29th 1978 mhm she climbed the stairs to her second
00:43:52
floor bedroom turning on the lights as she went went she turned down her bed took off her clothes and dropped them on
00:44:01
the seat of a rocking chair she put on a night gown and flicked on the television
00:44:09
set choosing Channel 5 which runs all night movies on Saturdays she then went to the bathroom
00:44:17
to wash up shortly after this an unknown person confronted Cuts in her house perhaps it was an intruder
00:44:26
who had come through an unlocked bedroom window perhaps it was a Prowler attracted by the lights that forced his
00:44:33
way in perhaps it was a friend with a grudge that had let himself or herself in with a key those were the working
00:44:42
theories 2 years into this investigation and again they go back to the fact that
00:44:48
6 hours after the need Cuts return to her home she was dead remember her body was found in the cellar right the extra
00:44:56
details we get here it's interesting of the Reconstruction so the the upstairs portion of this home must have been left
00:45:04
in a way or not as damaged as some of the other portions of the home that they were able to make out these details that
00:45:11
that she likely did this in this order and then the attack occurred later we learn that of some of the injury
00:45:20
suffered by our victim the autopsy determined that she had been struck on the head
00:45:26
and that she died from asphixiation this caused by the smoke from the fire now we should say
00:45:35
fires because this article gives us the detail that there were seven fires set inside the home yeah that sounds like a
00:45:44
madman so somebody looking to either completely destroy the scene or at least cover his tracks didn't set one fire
00:45:54
didn't set two in a fact fact there were some early articles that hinted at the possibility of Three Fires this article
00:46:01
that gives us the most details states that there had been seven fires set inside that home well and at this time
00:46:11
of this article two years later we have police firemen authorities telling us the same thing that you just
00:46:20
stated there right at this point in the in the case they've not arrested anybody
00:46:27
they've not charged anybody with her murder and they're saying you know one reason that the police have had
00:46:33
difficulty developing a lead in this case is that firemen were fighting seven blazes in the house may
00:46:42
have inadvertently obliterated critical evidence and I think that's probably highly likely in this situation yeah it
00:46:52
definitely happened now beyond the strange fact of setting seven different fires this is a little bit weird too so
00:47:01
they say that when Cut's body was found she was lying face down in a 4ft wide crawl
00:47:08
space 10 ft from a basement window she had been bound hand and foot with quote everything in the house end quote
00:47:20
this is coming from our detective who quit the force to join the Sheriff's Office so I feel like do you feel like
00:47:28
that gives him a little more street cred than some of these other statements he's
00:47:32
a little more gangster a little more ganger uh according to detective Seuss he says that she was bound with
00:47:39
everything in the house and he goes on to elaborate on that statement saying sweaters slacks masking tape electric
00:47:47
cord even a pair of socks so you have somebody who sets seven fires you have somebody that seems to be tying her up
00:47:56
with everything that they can get their hands on inside of the house he goes on to tell us that the killer apparently
00:48:03
hit cuts on the head with an antique lamp and this is based off of police finding a shattered base in the house
00:48:12
and then left her for dead in a cedar closet with the door barricaded in the basement this guy's an absolute animal
00:48:19
the detective goes on to say that cut somehow got one foot free and probably made her way up the basement stairs only
00:48:27
to find the door to the main part of the house barricaded in the Gathering smoke she
00:48:33
must have thought of a little window at the end of the crawl space as her last chance she was pretty resourceful the
00:48:40
detective says and he goes on to say she damn near made it so he's seeing stuff at the crime scene that indicates that
00:48:51
she clearly was not dead by the time that the killer left the the premises right and we know that she died from
00:48:57
smoke inhilation but he jammed the killer jammed the door shut and even when she managed to wiggle
00:49:06
free from all of her restraints again she's tied up with quote everything in the house according to the detective she
00:49:14
finds the door jammed up and then tries to make her way to the window and unfortunately she was unsuccessful now
00:49:21
the police do do go on to tell us that they never found any anything missing from the house and more than
00:49:29
$100,000 worth of jewelry remained hidden in a secret compartment beneath the main staircase no keys were
00:49:37
unaccounted for and no windows were broken according to the detective also the victim was not sexually assaulted
00:49:45
according to the medical examiner report like what you're talking about with the
00:49:49
suspect he's stating you know there's this fire and that you know he's basically basically stating the whole
00:49:56
crime scene in in his ramblings before he gets his mental health checked and it just seems like it just
00:50:06
lines up perfectly with this crime police go on to tell us that they did find a jammed handgun at the
00:50:14
house and they say that they believe possibly the murderer used that to intimidate the victim maybe this is why
00:50:23
she allowed herself to be bound to some extent or again I th this broken base to
00:50:32
the lamp you almost wonder if if he attacked her first hitting her over the head with this lamp before he tied her
00:50:42
up to begin with yeah I almost leaned towards that like there she came home there was an attack and then because she
00:50:49
was uh incapacitated at the time then he was able to bound her up in 1980 an article came out that told us
00:50:59
that there's not a lot of Hope for solving this case and they point out that the C Cuts murder has never been
00:51:11
solved even to this day forget about 1980 this even though the police department interviewed more people
00:51:19
devoted more manh hours ran more polygraph tests and spent more money for travel and expenses than in any other
00:51:27
investigation in the city's history as of the time of this writing which was 1980 they go on to tell us that the
00:51:36
police do not expect to be able to solve the case and in fact they go on to site
00:51:42
that one of the complications is a lieutenant Arthur bratcher Who supervised this investigation and also
00:51:51
supervised 14 other unsolved homicides in the area was placed on anactive status so you have one of the leads here
00:52:03
who is not in good with his own agency and has been in charge of supervising and overseeing several homicide
00:52:14
investigations all that remained unsolved as of 1980 can't imagine how frustrating this is not just for the
00:52:22
family but for the community as well and the thing that really intrigues me here
00:52:26
Captain is I would love to get my hands and and view it with my own eyeballs the
00:52:32
FBI profile the psychological profile that was put together on the likely offender of this murder and I cannot get
00:52:41
past these two very bizarre facts of this case of one there were seven different fire set in this home and two
00:52:54
that the victim was was bound hand and foot with quote everything in the house sweaters slacks masking tape electric
00:53:02
cord and even a pair of socks these are two things that are very different these are outlier items very
00:53:13
different from how many cases have we covered here in the garage hundreds billions and I cannot think of a case
00:53:20
that involved one or both of these situations it's one of those cases that you would love to put in front of
00:53:29
somebody like Dr James a brussel or former FBI agent John Douglas and get their thoughts and opinions on this case
00:53:41
and then obviously if we had the suspect's name we could be able to go back and look at their criminal history
00:53:47
or to go and see what they did because they were released did they commit other crimes or did this person get the
00:53:55
the the medical treatment that they needed and they're fine now that they got medical treatment well and something
00:54:03
that you hit on earlier Captain is the community you can't imagine the frustration from the family but also you
00:54:09
can't imagine the frustration from this community you also can't imagine the fear the fear of the people in the
00:54:17
community because we know that the newspapers and that reporters had a difficult time interviewing people for
00:54:26
these articles that they wrote about the case over the years and even years after
00:54:32
the murder there were still neighbors and people in that neighborhood that refused to speak to newspapers or to the
00:54:39
media at the time for fear of retaliation from Denita Cut's [Music] killer [Music]
00:55:01
thank you so much for joining us here in the garage Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful
00:55:07
listeners yes we do Captain this week we are recommending brainstorm an investigation of the mysterious death of
00:55:14
film star Natalie Wood by Sam Peroni I tell you what I wish this book was out back when we covered the Natalie Wood
00:55:22
case because s Peron did a brilliant job of putting this book together he lays out the case presents all the facts a
00:55:30
lot of new facts that he has uncovered and he doesn't tell you what to think he lets you decide for yourself what you
00:55:37
think really happened after examining everything that he's put together that's called brainstorm an investigation of
00:55:45
the mysterious death of film star Natalie Wood by S Peron you can find that great title and many more on our
00:55:51
website's recommended page at true Crim garage.com if you need more True Crime garage for your earballs check out our
00:55:58
bonus show exclusively on Stitcher it's called off the Record and until next week be good be kind and don't
00:56:07
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