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subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for details [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage Wherever
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You Are whatever you were doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who has the
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scars from the Dives that he's played in here is the captain it's good to be seen
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and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend today in the garage we are very
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excited to be featuring Juicy ASAP from the Fantastic Brewers at the Saucy Brew Works juicy ASAP is an American India
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Pale Ale with a beautiful deep gold color this beer is dripping with tropical fruit notes a good deal of
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Captain so let's go four and 3/4 bottle caps out of five and a big thank you goes out to all of our wonderful
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listeners especially those ones who contributed to this week's beer fund a big cheers to Katie in Sacramento
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California and a big we like your jib to Melody and Riverside California and last
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but certainly not least a big shout out to sh in planfield Illinois everybody we
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mentioned went to True Crime garage.com and clicked on the Donate button contributing to this week's beer fund
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and for that we thank you yeah BW R in beer run if you're not signed up on our mailing list you should do so so you're
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in the no and you can get discounts on the garage store and you can sign up at true Crim garage.com Colonel that is
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enough of the be yes all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
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[Music] crry [Music] last year True Crime garage received a letter that read in part I live in one
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of those small NYC suburbs where crime is predominantly of the property variety and murder is extremely rare but on a
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Monday morning and September of 2007 a beloved Postman in our community was killed in his third floor walkup
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apartment the victim Steven Spina was a young and friendly single dad the facts are somewhat cut and dry his onag again
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off again girlfriend left him alone in his apartment when she headed to work it was Steven's day off and when he didn't
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respond to his girlfriend's text about a lunch date she returned to his apartment
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midday and found Steven stabbed to death no arrests have ever been made in this case where Steven lived is a small town
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the kind of town where most people know each other step grew up here and was friends with most of the people in town
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and knew or was friends with most of the people on his mail route in fact Steven
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was good friends with one of the detectives original assigned to his case and now a new Cold Case detective has
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been assigned to Steven's case thank you again for taking a look at this true crime garage has such a large following
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I really believe it might help Advance Steven's case if you guys would cover it thanks again Suzanne after reading
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Suzanne's letter we of course got on the internet to see what if anything could be found about Steven Spina there were a
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few internet stories covering the case then we found an interview with his daughter Skyler and watching her
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interview we both knew right then and there we had to cover this case this is true crime garage and this is the still
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unsolved case of Steven [Music] Spina [Music] Sunday September 16th 2007 I would be
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willing to make a handsome wager that on that Sunday night 36-year-old Stephen Patrick Spina when he went to bed and
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the head went to pillow he was probably smiling and looking forward to Monday morning
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stepen had every reason to believe that that Monday would be a great day that night his girlfriend Tamara was staying
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the night at his apartment Stephen had Monday off from work and in the morning his girlfriend would take off for work
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and then she would be joining Stephen for a lunch date after lunch Stephen had his favorite event scheduled for the
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evening taking his daughter to the New York Yankees baseball game now Steven played and participated in
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some form of baseball for almost his entire life and it had to be a dream come true for him to share his love of
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the game with the love of his life his 12-year-old daughter Skyler it was the middle of September and that meant that
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the Yankees were still fighting to keep their October MLB playoff hopes alive that Monday evening the Yankees were
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playing Baltimore unfortunately they never went to the game someone killed Steven Spina that morning in his
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apartment now Captain let's go through what is known about this still unsolved homicide case well like the colonel said
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it was a Monday morning but Steven was a mail carrier so it was actually his day
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off this is a brief description from projectc case.org they have several news articles from Steven's case on their
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website which are interesting to check out if you have the extra time now the facts are as follows on Monday September
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17th 2007 Steven Spina was stabbed to death in his mamin New York apartment there were no signs of forced entry into
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the apartment nothing was reported to have been stolen from the home it is very likely that stepen knew his killer
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he was last seen by a neighbor at approximately 9:30 a.m. that morning and he was found deceased by his girlfriend
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around 12:30 p.m. detectives raised a number of leads including information about Steven's tires being slashed not
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long before his murder also investigated were tips regarding prior relationships
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of Stevens and his girlfriend now let's fill in the blanks here if we can as we know Captain the injuries that are
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reported is that unfortunately our victim was stabbed multiple times here there is
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evidence that this crime is personal the evidence and the crime seen suggests that this was a personal cause homicide
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the weapon itself to the Public's knowledge the weapon identified simply as a knife has never been found evidence
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at the scene suggests that the killer brought the weapon with them to the crime scene and again the apartment was
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not ransacked and nothing was stolen well and like we said Steven was a male carrier and he had a different schedule
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than most people so the fact that he was off on a Monday and killed on the day he
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would have been off it's most likely that the killer knew step because he would had to know that Steven would have
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been home that day yes and you're exactly right there Captain I believe that that is a significant clue in this
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case so a couple things we discussed that the apartment's not robbed there doesn't appear to be anything of
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significant value missing from the apartment when the detectives are searching through the scene the other
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thing though too is this is a third floor apartment it's not like somebody just stumbles in off of the street and
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attacks this guy in his apartment again no signs of forced entry so did Stephen let the person or persons into his
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apartment that day around noon and you're exactly right regarding his schedule so that Monday September 17th
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stevenh was off from work he's a postal carrier in Larchmont which from my understanding the way that his schedule
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works it's quite different from most people's work schedules it's not the typical Monday through Friday 9 to5 type
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of gig Stephen was off on Sundays every Sunday he had off now his other day off each week would be a rotating day for
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example on this week he is off on Monday well the following week he would be off
00:11:01
on Tuesday and then Wednesday and then Thursday and so on and then this pattern repeats itself so on this particular day
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he's off from work this has to be some kind of clue here because not so many people would just know that he would be
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off on this particular day that he would be home if somebody had a beef with him
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or or somebody had a reason to go to his apartment and attack and kill him well then that person very likely knew
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and had prior knowledge that he was off that day definitely the area itself this
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mamin is a small town in fact it's the the village of mamin Steven's girlfriend they had been together on and off for
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about two years right is my understanding at the time of this homicide now on that day she had stayed
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the night at Steven's apartment the night before which was pretty common from from my understanding and she goes
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off to work she works nearby this is about maybe a 10-minute Drive well she is texting Stephen
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because they had plans for a lunch date that day when he doesn't respond to those text she decides well I better go
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to the apartment and check on him make sure he didn't lose his phone make sure everything's okay she gets to the
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apartment this is the tricky thing here no Force entry into the apartment but when the girlfriend Tamara arrives at
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the apartment the door is locked so she has to get the super and convince the super to let her into the apartment
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which she successfully does when she goes in then she finds Stephen having been stabbed to death in
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the apartment she calls 911 again small town so a very quick response time we have police and First Responders on the
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scene very quickly after she arrives back at the apartment that day well with no sign of force entry and the door
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being locked when they arrive it makes you wonder what kind of lock was on the door yeah it's difficult to say I don't
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know the exact specifications of the lock or the door itself other than to know that it required a key for her to
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get in when she found him that day the current detective which we did speak with is not the original detective that
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was there on the scene that day but that that would be interesting to know Captain how did the killer one gain
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access to the apartment and two then leave having left the door locked behind them now there's key things at this
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crime scene that we need to talk about so the weapon again described as a knife there's evidence and things at the scene
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that suggest that the killer brought the weapon with them to the crime scene the knife has
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never been found we've never actually received information or it's never been released to the public how many times
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step was stabbed and there's details about this crime scene and details about the attack and his injuries that have
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never been released to the public so here we have the police holding back a good bit of
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information with the understanding of a few things that we believe that there was no forced entry to the home the
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weapon was brought to the scene there's also some things at the scene captain that it's a difficult scene for for
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police right this would be a pretty violent struggle mhm Steph was in good shape he was 36 years old he would not
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be easy to take down so one thing that we might have to consider here is the possibility of more than one person
00:15:04
present or more than one person involved in the actual attack on Stephen there that day in his apartment police aren't
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willing to say one way or the other if it was two people or one person that was there they do believe though that it's
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likely that there is some kind of involvement here where we have a situation where either somebody else
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knows what somebody did and who killed Steven or may have even had some knowledge at the time prior to this
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attack think about his employment he's a male carrier so he is walking routes and
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carrying the bags of mail so like you said good shape and on his off time he would umpire Little League games so this
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guy has a active life like you said there is a good possibility there was more than one attacker yes police
00:15:58
certainly not ruling out that possibility now one of the items that is of significant evidence here in this
00:16:06
case is that a size 11 bootprint was found at the scene and to be perfectly clear here Captain this bootprint had to
00:16:18
take place either during the attack or just after the attack so this person whoever this bootprint belongs to is
00:16:27
directly involved in the crime it's a bloody bootprint so it's a suspect bootprint that was found at the scene it
00:16:36
has been reported that it's possibly a Timberland brand boot but to be perfectly honest here it's my
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understanding that the print itself while comparing it to other boots that the Timberland boot most fits or best
00:16:56
fits this possible shoe pattern or the the sole of the boot itself right there are a couple of other brands that in
00:17:05
similar styles that could not be 100% ruled out so while police are leaning on the idea that this is a Timberland brand
00:17:14
boot it's certainly not 100% that it has to be a Timberland brand one thing that's very weird about this case too is
00:17:24
that there had been some vandalism done prior to Steven's murder you have to look at this
00:17:32
situation and go okay is this directly connected to the case or is it not so Stephen had a white Nissan stanza which
00:17:41
is like a small sedan and he would park this vehicle out on the street typically in front of the
00:17:51
apartment building his tires were slashed approximately two months prior to his murder now this is very weird and
00:18:01
of course this is going to jump right off the page to everybody for significant reasons one this was a
00:18:07
personal cause homicide this was something that was somebody had a beef with Stephen and and and attacked him in
00:18:14
his apartment well that goes right hand inand with somebody vandalizing his vehicle and then when we talk about him
00:18:22
being stabbed to death en Tire slash well possibly a similar style weapon or the same weapon used here in the
00:18:30
vandalism and then later in the the homicide well when first looking into this case I thought oh that's that's
00:18:38
crazy is is it possible that just one of his tires were slashed and maybe it was an accident or
00:18:47
maybe you know you got a flat tire I I have known some people that actually had a flat tire that were convinced that
00:18:53
somebody slashed their tire but no in this scenario Stephen had all four of his tires slashed and this was reported
00:19:03
to police at the time right and what's interesting here is while we don't know 100% who slashed his tires when talking
00:19:15
with detectives they believe that they know who who slashed the tires so the way
00:19:22
that the the portion of this story goes is when Steph reports this of course the
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first thing they ask him is going to be do you have any idea who would who would
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do this to you you know was this was this random was this some teenagers out pulling a prank or was this somebody
00:19:39
that uh you're having a problem with and he named a person to the detectives and
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said this individual we've been having issues and I believe that it was this person that slashed my tires he's basing
00:19:55
this off of verbal altercations that he's had with an individual as well as threats that were made when we say
00:20:03
threats I don't know the extent of those threats Captain I don't know if this person threatened his life or threatened
00:20:09
him with bodily harm or threatened to slash his tires but whatever the threats were and whatever the verbal
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altercations were that took place this is what led stepen to telling police hey my tires were slashed I'm I'm filing a
00:20:25
report and I believe it was this person now now Steven was a a very popular individual he grew up in this area this
00:20:34
is a small town the village of MC is a small smaller town in fact I want to say it was about 28,000 27,000 would be the
00:20:43
population around the time of his murder but he grew up in this town and this is
00:20:49
the kind of town where you knew most of the people in town and then given his job his occupation out there on his mail
00:20:58
ma route he knew most of the people on his mail route as well in that nearby lchm and his mail route from my
00:21:06
understanding Captain work like this and this is pretty typic typical once you get a route you don't get rotated on and
00:21:14
off of that route frequently you stay on that route for a good deal of time and like I said he's 36 years old he's got
00:21:21
years in on the job so he's had this route for a considerable amount of time he knows a lot of people in the area
00:21:28
from having grown up there and his occupation as you pointed out he umpires baseball games and volunteers with the
00:21:36
youth in the community coaching baseball and being a part of softball in the community so he knows a lot of people
00:21:44
and he's a popular guy he's well-liked but I think this kind of shows his personality a little bit too
00:21:52
when he reports the tires being slashed and then tells police hey this is the person I believe believe did it he tells
00:22:00
the police you know it's not a big deal I just wanted to have it reported you don't need to go talk to this person
00:22:08
which of course they did in fact my understanding is this they don't go and talk to the person because of the
00:22:15
requests that they get from Stephen at the time when he reports the vandalism but of course after the murder they go
00:22:23
and speak with this individual yeah if somebody slash my tires I'm going to go take a [ __ ] in their sandwich the other
00:22:29
thing now this could be directly connected or it could have nothing to do with anything at all here Captain but we
00:22:36
can't we can't just not discuss this next item his girlfriend's windshield was smashed and I don't have
00:22:46
an exact date for this but it's my understanding that this this vandalism took place before step's tires were
00:22:56
slashed and Steven's tires on his white Nissan stanza were slashed approximately
00:23:02
two months prior to the homicide yeah another interesting point to this case you have vandalism to Steven's car then
00:23:10
you have vandalism that happened before that to his girlfriend's car and you wonder if those are connected and if
00:23:16
those are connected then maybe they're connected to his murder I don't know if the windshield being smashed was
00:23:22
reported to police I don't know if if it was if it was the same scenario where it
00:23:26
was believed to be a person that they knew that they could could say hey and suggest we think it was this person who
00:23:35
who did this MH but in a strange twist in this case police tell us tell the captain and the colonel that we have
00:23:47
three to five individuals while we're not really ruling anybody out we've not officially cleared anybody publicly in
00:23:55
the case we have three to five individuals that have separated themselves from everybody else and when
00:24:04
we say separated themselves we mean they've put themselves on a short list of suspects here in this
00:24:11
case three to five individuals the strange twist is the individual that is believed to have
00:24:19
slashed the tires did not make it onto that short list of individuals that the police are interested in for Steven
00:24:28
Spa's case now I don't know what you found or what you were told but again when you're looking into this case and
00:24:35
you hear that Steven's car was vandalized four tires slashed obviously with a knife and he was murdered with a
00:24:43
knife you go red flag well it could have been a box cutter or I mean we don't know exactly what was used for the for
00:24:50
the slashing of the tires but yes you're right it's a sharp weapon similar something it immediately you jump when
00:24:59
you hear of the the knife attack and you hear of the tires being slashed you immediately make that leap and go these
00:25:05
two things have to be connected we say it all the time the timelines are so important and in this case it's even
00:25:11
more important because we have such a small window so you'd have to have an alibi for that small window well and
00:25:18
that's exactly the scenario here Captain we have but a threeh hour window when this murder had to have taken place and
00:25:29
therefore if you go and you speak to suspect number one in the tire slashing incident and you can confirm that this
00:25:37
individual was at work or was in another town or was somewhere where you have a lock down solid Alibi for this person
00:25:49
then this person doesn't make it onto that short list of suspects and I'm guessing knowing the amount of people
00:25:56
that police spoke to in the the amount of people that were investigated in this case that that is what separated this
00:26:03
individual and did not put them on that short list of suspects which would be frustrating if your law enforcement you
00:26:09
think you have a really good lead and then you realize if the glove don't fit you must
00:26:17
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get one month free when you sign up at greenlight.com podcast [Music] all right you filthy animals we are back
00:29:07
cheers thank you so much for listening thanks for telling a friend thanks for sharing these cases on social media
00:29:15
cheers to you car cheers to you Captain cheers to all the people out there in listener land now this case is
00:29:22
incredibly difficult for a couple of reasons it's one a little difficult to tell the story because we have that
00:29:29
holdback information that is not providing a whole lot of details about the crime scene itself we have been told
00:29:37
by law enforcement that this was a complicated crime scene and that they've had some some setbacks with it they are
00:29:47
going through the testing or retesting process we should say there is a significant amount of physical evidence
00:29:54
that was collected at Steven's apartment that evidence is being retested they're
00:30:00
hoping to learn new information based off of those tests and that will be taking place within the next couple of
00:30:10
weeks so we could be getting some big news here in Stephen's case but without that big news or without somebody coming
00:30:18
forward with additional information the way that this case looks now it's sitting there and it's it's pretty cold
00:30:25
with the exception of the retesting of the evidence well at least there's some movement and hopefully those tests give
00:30:32
us some kind of answer well in this area this mck is a it's a village it's a small town as I said earlier we're
00:30:42
looking at about 28 29,000 people in 2007 the state of New York's homicide rate is lower than the national average
00:30:53
the village of mamin homicide rate is well below that of the state of New York in fact most years the village of mamin
00:31:02
experiences zero homicides and because of this as you can imagine Captain there are very few unsolved homicides left on
00:31:11
the books currently they have three so this is personal when you have this type of scenario this is personal for the
00:31:19
detectives and for the police department itself currently in 2023 they only have three unsolved
00:31:29
homicides it's the kind of situation where you have the entire detective Bureau you have the entire police force
00:31:35
everyone from the police chief all the way down through the ranks to the rookie cop all of them here knows every one of
00:31:44
them knows of the three unsolved homicides that you have left here in mic there's a female torso that washed up in
00:31:52
M Marin there's a male victim that was murdered in the 90s and then you have Steven spena case the well-liked mail
00:32:01
carrier that everybody knew so you have a lot of individuals with the vested interest in solving this case because it
00:32:08
is a community it's a crime against the community and Stephen was one of the Beloved members of that Community
00:32:17
currently there's a $40,000 reward for information in this case some of that is coming from by the
00:32:25
way of the family and some of that comes by the way of Crim Stoppers like you said Steven lived on the third floor so
00:32:33
do we have any more information about that location yes like I said here Captain most years experiencing no
00:32:40
homicides in the area so the crime rate rather low it's mostly property crimes in this area Stephen owned a third floor
00:32:49
walkup Co-op apartment at the mck Gardens apartment complex and it looks like this this is a freestanding red
00:32:58
brick Garden style apartment his building was between Palmer Avenue and Boston Post Road and located at 300
00:33:09
richbell Road and as we said Stephen lived there technically he lived there alone to complicate things a little bit
00:33:17
we have his girlfriend Tamara who from my understanding they've been on again off again for about two years at this
00:33:27
point in their relationship everything's going great this is one of the the high
00:33:32
points of their relationship everything's going good they're getting along very well and she is staying most
00:33:40
nights at his apartment now as said Stephen is also a father he's separated from his daughter's mother and his
00:33:50
daughter Skyler she has her own bedroom at his apartment and Stephen had a rule that he was pretty strict about he did
00:33:59
not have his girlfriend stay the night on the same nights that his daughter stayed the night his daughter's mother
00:34:07
is not on that short list is not a person that has separated themselves from everybody else police are satisfied
00:34:15
with all of the information that they've received from her in fact it's well noted and well known in the community
00:34:23
the relationship between Stephen and his ex it was it was a very good relationship
00:34:29
and they had a very good setup as far as shared custody of Skyler went that a a schedule that was working for both of
00:34:38
them on both ends and also keep in mind this is not like a a recent separation or a recent split up this was a
00:34:47
situation that they had been in for years prior to the homicide this wasn't the only ex of Steven that law
00:34:55
enforcement talked to and it it seemed like all of his ex-girlfriends had good things to say about Steph and there
00:35:01
didn't seem that there was any bad blood between any of his exes that's exactly right that that any time that he had a
00:35:08
separation that for the most part people stayed friends and people still liked each other after they parted ways I
00:35:17
think the suspicion here then falls into the category of the person who slashed the tires right this person as we know
00:35:26
is not on that short list for police but you're going to have individuals Stephen
00:35:32
was a popular guy he had been in and out of some different relationships and there is some thought that
00:35:39
maybe this all has to do with jealousy that somebody that was either in a relationship with Stephen or was
00:35:49
involved with somebody who was in a relationship with Stephen at some point that this that this may have to do with
00:35:56
one of those relationships some type of Love Triangle that is believed to be the case
00:36:03
here in this situation that that whoever attacked Stephen had personal cause to do so we talked about that bootprint
00:36:12
that was found at the scene now it sounds like no unknown fingerprints were found at the scene and the scene was
00:36:19
pretty bloody that's the best description I can give to you the the bootprint was a side 11 there that's
00:36:28
That's a hardcore fact right there they're not saying 11 and A2 they're not saying 10 and A2 no they know the size
00:36:35
of this bootprint they believe that it's possibly from a Timberland style boot our victim was stabbed multiple times
00:36:43
but again nothing was missing from this third floor apartment this small garden style apartment one of the things I
00:36:50
can't get over is a couple months before his murder his tires were slashed is it
00:36:55
possible that Stephen told the police I think this is who did it but it was actually somebody else well and because
00:37:03
this is a suburb of New York City I'm envisioning this situation captain and and very much thinking about Law and
00:37:11
Order right where you okay you got the cops now we we have a a victim here a homicide victim here the detectives are
00:37:20
out they're going to go talk to this person who Steven believes slashed his tires and I'm kind of picturing this
00:37:27
and it goes like this where the guy goes yeah I slashed the tires but I I didn't
00:37:32
kill anybody we've all seen that scene before or similar scene on on something like
00:37:37
Law and Order right but what I've been told here from the detectives that have work this case the individual that they
00:37:45
spoke to that Steve had pointed them toward never admitted to slashing the tires and certainly didn't admit to
00:37:52
killing Steven Spina what their belief is they believe that Steven was probably correct about the vandalism that he had
00:38:02
picked the right person and they have reasons for backing that up we can't prove it you're exactly right we can't
00:38:09
prove it 100% but I think that if the detectives were actually getting paid to solve the vandalism incident that they
00:38:16
probably would be able to solve it however they're working a homicide and again while they're satisfied that
00:38:22
they've identified the person that that may be responsible for the vandal ISM they're saying that person is not on
00:38:28
their short list of suspects well one of the things that really frustrates me about this case is you would assume that
00:38:34
the killer would have some blood on him where are the eyewitnesses that saw a man with blood where is the security
00:38:40
footage maybe from the apartment complex or a local store I mean this is a small
00:38:46
town that would have multiple cameras why didn't we get somebody on security footage well and that's just the problem
00:38:55
here we don't have that IE witness and so where we have a situation where the time of day very likely can clue you
00:39:06
into who should be a suspect and who should not be a suspect it also in some weird way works toward the advantage of
00:39:14
the killer because it's a Monday and most people are busy they're off at work they're out doing their thing there's
00:39:21
not a lot of not a lot of eyeballs just scanning the neighborhood watching what's going on one set of eyeballs was
00:39:29
a neighbor person that saw Steven go out to his car around 9:30 a.m. that morning
00:39:36
this person while we said almost nobody has been publicly cleared this person is
00:39:42
not a suspect and there's no evidence to that this person should be a suspect in
00:39:47
fact this information is helpful to the investigation and this person came forward so now we're dealing with a very
00:39:54
short window of only three hours hours a lot of people have suggested maybe the girlfriend his current girlfriend at the
00:40:02
time should be a suspect and of course she was certainly looked at here in this case police have not said if she's a
00:40:10
suspect or not they've certainly not publicly named his girlfriend as a suspect people are suspicious of her
00:40:17
because she lawyered up but there's there's a little more information than just girlfriend finds boyfriend dead and
00:40:26
then lawyers up she didn't lawyer up until about 3 or 4 months after and she was very Cooperative with police and
00:40:34
detectives early on in their investigation and when I asked the detective I said you know some people
00:40:42
think that it's suspicious that this girlfriend switched from being cooperative to not cooperative and then
00:40:47
lawyers up the detective wasn't going to offer up personal feelings or opinions about that but was very open and honest
00:40:58
when saying look it's not uncommon in our investigations for somebody to cooperate for a period of
00:41:05
time and then get a lawyer and be less Cooperative or not cooperate at all so while this may look suspicious to Joe
00:41:14
public out there this doesn't look so suspicious to the detectives that are actively investigating this homicide
00:41:21
well you can also get a lawyer from the beginning and also be cooperative with police I just wonder if there's another
00:41:28
reason why she ended up getting a lawyer is it possible that they were asking her
00:41:34
if there was anybody suspicious in her past and maybe she was getting fearful that she was giving too much information
00:41:41
well sometimes people get scared and that could be the situation here it's it's difficult to say I would love for
00:41:49
her to explain to us her thoughts on it but if she's not talking to detective she's likely not going to talk to us two
00:41:57
guys here in the garage oh come on why not we could offer a lawn chair or a nice cold beverage when we say some
00:42:04
people get scared we know that Skyler his daughter chooses not to live in this area and that is in large part because
00:42:14
the person that killed Stephen has not been identified not been arrested it's one of those tricky cases where you have
00:42:23
some people on the outside that look good and then you get to talking to detectives who have worked this case
00:42:30
very diligently they're telling you that look while we've we've not publicly named
00:42:37
suspects we have three to five that have separated themselves from everybody else
00:42:43
and the person that we believe that slashed at tires is not on that list his daughter's mother not on that list it
00:42:52
doesn't sound like the the girlfriend that his girlfriend at the time was on that list either it sounds to me like
00:42:59
they were interested in some other persons and again they can't rule out they're not saying was this one person
00:43:10
or two people that were at the crime scene when Steven was killed so there's a lot of meat left on the bone here a
00:43:18
lot more information that is needed to take a good strong look at his case what what's interesting too when you go back
00:43:28
to the vandalism incident is Stephen says that while he believes this person slashed
00:43:36
his tires I assume that that meant that he this was a a jealous ex of Steven's current girlfriend or maybe Steven was
00:43:47
involved with somebody that this person that may have slashed his tires was involved with it's my understanding that
00:43:55
while that might have been a suspicion of this individual that Steven told police at the time he was not involved
00:44:02
with what whatever this person suspected him of Stephen had not done he had not had a relationship or or whatever this
00:44:13
individual that slashed his tires believe Stephen had done or whatever he was mad at him for Steven told
00:44:19
detectives that he did not do that he didn't have any involvement in that well I know there's a lot of Suspicion around
00:44:26
on his girlfriend but she didn't work that far from the apartment but she was at work so you'd think that they would
00:44:31
know where she was at at the time of the murders she works about five to maybe 10
00:44:37
minutes drive from the apartment right and from what we've been told is they don't have any evidence to suggest that
00:44:45
she wasn't where she said she was that morning right uh so that would be at work again a lot of the the answers here
00:44:54
and a lot of the information that is public in this case is vague and it's purposely done that way to keep some of
00:45:01
the information vague there's clearly something here in this case that police are aware of that only the killer or
00:45:10
Killers would would know and that's the information that they are protecting and
00:45:16
that is what will ultimately lead them to an arrest the interesting thing to me is that we already have some individuals
00:45:23
that have been separated from the of the herd MH as suspects again they've not publicly cleared anybody not publicly
00:45:32
naming any suspects I would be willing to wager $100 here captain that there are people that they've air quotes
00:45:40
cleared in their investigation they're not going to go out of their way to publicly clear those individuals they're
00:45:47
looking for information they're they're still requesting information from the public they will be retesting physical
00:45:55
evidence at the murder scene that will be retested again this year very soon and that could come back with some
00:46:05
information and yield some Clues to really shrink that list of five potential suspects down to the two that
00:46:13
did it or down to the one that did it at that point we might have winter winter chicken dinner and they might have some
00:46:19
DNA that they're able to test or some even touch DNA you take somebody that was ex-boyfriend of his current
00:46:28
girlfriend and and place them at the scene they shouldn't be in his apartment and there what there is one individual
00:46:36
in particular that has not been named but has moved away from the area that is of concern that has further complicated
00:46:48
the murder investigation and police just want to remind everybody that there is no tip that is too small in this case as
00:46:56
we said this is an area that experiences zero homicides most years and in fact they only have three unsolved homicides
00:47:05
still on the books step Spa's 2007 case is one of those three homicides that is still unsolved everybody on the force is
00:47:15
aware of Steven's case he was a popular guy friendly guy well-liked in fact one of the detectives that was originally
00:47:22
assigned to the case was very good friends with stepen Spina so well Colonel I don't know if you've been on
00:47:29
Reddit this week but we have become Reddit famous again one of the listeners was pointing out in the Browns Chicken
00:47:36
massacure case how we seem to be champion this hold back information but then in other cases we haven't been
00:47:44
champions of law enforcement holding back so much information well I think that every case is unique and certainly
00:47:53
it gets tough to really have a strong opinion on the finer details of those cases until you know what the specifics
00:48:04
are yes it's it's difficult because there are cases that you look at it and you go why are they still holding back
00:48:11
this information why won't they release more information and in fact in step's case I I look at that this case and go I
00:48:19
think that it may be helpful to have more info out there on this case however I don't know what that information is so
00:48:28
detectives know what that information is and they're looking at it and they are deciding okay will this help us identify
00:48:36
the person that that killed Steven Spina if the answer is no then there's no reason to release that information so
00:48:45
just like in the deli case one thing that the police were clear on here was they were saying the way that the girls
00:48:53
were killed is not going to to help us identify the man that was seen on the bridge that day that it's not helpful to
00:49:01
the investigation things here in this case that are helpful are things like the murder weapon was it brought to the
00:49:09
scene did you find find the murder weapon the answers to those questions yes we believe it was brought to the
00:49:15
scene by the Killer and no we've not recovered the murder weapon that is helpful information the number of times
00:49:22
that that Steven was actually stabed doesn't help us identify the killer at all so again it goes back to the idea of
00:49:33
what is that information every case is unique all evidence is unique to their cases and you have to review them one at
00:49:42
a time when you review something at like the Amy mahalic case and they come out with information and they telling
00:49:49
telling you something 27 years after the fact on something that's very a one of a
00:49:54
almost a oneof a kind item they're asking for for the potential owner of a particular item well that yes it's
00:50:03
helpful to identifying the the potential killer or the suspect in the Amy mahalic
00:50:09
case however you're asking the public for their help on something that is 27 years old right and so I think you can
00:50:17
look at each situation and you can have a difference of opinion on should they be releasing more or are fans of holding
00:50:26
back the information in the Browns case it appeared very necessary there were a couple of items that they were convinced
00:50:34
that that that only the killers were going to know that case we saw how it panned out they ended up getting more
00:50:43
than one confession from persons that they did not try that they did not arrest they did not charge with the
00:50:52
murders that hold back information separated the confessions of the killers from the confessions of people that they
00:51:01
just really look they they got they got aggressive with them and they got confessions from people that they were
00:51:07
interviewing those confessions weren't correct and they knew that based off of that hold back information well I didn't
00:51:13
see the question on Reddit but somebody emailed it to me but it is a good question no that's a very good question
00:51:20
that's a very good question well very good question but I think a very good answer all these cases are so unique
00:51:26
they're almost like individuals fingerprints well and to segue this back into Steven's case look at the bootprint
00:51:35
that's something that's very specific that's something that we it's a size 11 someone at the crime scene someone that
00:51:42
was present during the attack and during the murder could be the murderer themselves has a size 11 shoe a size 11
00:51:50
bootprint that information was released to the public that is something that can
00:51:55
help help identify the killer one thing that would be great and I really wish that they would be able to sort this out
00:52:02
is if they could come out and definitively say I think it's very responsible of them to be saying it the
00:52:08
way that they are but it would be great if they would be able to sort this out and definitively say yes that came from
00:52:14
a Timberland brand boot they can't do that because there there's a couple of other bootprints that are so similar
00:52:22
that they're saying we believe it's a Timberland but we can't rule out one or two other possibilities here so that is
00:52:30
a an an identifier and so when we talk about hold back information here we have a good piece of information that could
00:52:39
identify the Killer and that being the size of their shoe right again there's no tip that's too small detectives are
00:52:45
welcoming any and all tips and information if you have any information regarding the murder of Steven Spina and
00:52:52
mck New York please contact the village of M Mar detective Bureau at 914 825 8541 or you can call the New York State
00:53:03
Crim Stoppers tip line at 866 313 tis there is a reward totaling $40,000 for information that directly leads to
00:53:15
the arrest and conviction of the person or person's responsible for Steven's [Music]
00:53:24
murder [Music] want to thank you guys so much for joining us here in the garage thanks for
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garage.com and until next week be good be kind and don't litter [Music] is it possible to predict the
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