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