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NARRATOR: Haunted by the
mysterious disappearance of her mother, a
young woman set out
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on a personal quest for answers. 20 years after the
initial investigation, in some old bones, she found
evidence of a deep, dark family
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secret, a hint of what really
happened to her mother. [theme music] Verona, Kentucky,
population 500.
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The center of town features a
four-way stop, a one room city hall, and Mr. Herb's, a popular
restaurant where the locals
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gather for its
famous fried fish. In a town this size,
word spread quickly when 25-year-old Marlene Major, the
mother of two young children,
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was reported missing. Her husband, Bill, said
she just got into our car and drove away.
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BRUCE GRAHAM: He admitted
they had an argument Saturday evening, and she was mad at him.
He acted all upset.
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Said he had spent the whole
night driving here and there, looking for Marlene. NARRATOR: Bill and
Marlene Major had
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been married for nine years. They appeared to be
a traditional couple, but their marriage wasn't
the least bit conventional.
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Bill wasn't Marlene's
only love interest. She was having an affair with
Glenn St. Hilaire, a man who
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work for Marlene's husband
and lived in a trailer on their property. BRUCE GRAHAM: As time went
on, Glenn and the Bill's wife,
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Marlene, became closer
friends and actually a romance started between the--
the two of them.
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NARRATOR: Bill not only
knew about the affair, he encouraged it. BRUCE GRAHAM: I felt
that Bill was actually
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using Glenn to get
close to Marlene. Because I don't think Bill's
interest was in Marlene at all.
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NARRATOR: And there
were rumors that Bill also had a girlfriend
on the side. When questioned by police, both
her husband Bill and Glen St.
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Hillaire denied any involvement
in Marlene's disappearance and said they didn't
know where she went.
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Marlene's children,
eight-year-old Donald and four-year-old LaLana were
in bed when Marlene left,
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and they heard nothing
out of the ordinary. Marlene's car was
missing too, but she
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left without taking
any personal items. LALANA BRAMBLE: She went
to the doctor like the week
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before and had
gotten a prescription allergy medication. That was there. All of her jewelry was there.
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She didn't have her
driver's license, her Social Security card. She had nothing with her.
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NARRATOR: Police found
no evidence of a struggle either in Marlene's home or in
Glenn St. Hillaire's trailer.
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LALANA BRAMBLE: It was literally
like she had just completely dropped off the face of
the earth, gone, poof.
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BRUCE GRAHAM: Maybe she decided
to heck with the whole thing. I'll go start a new
life someplace else.
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NARRATOR: Bill told the
children their mother had abandoned them. LALANA BRAMBLE:
He just basically
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said that she was a drug addict. She was an alcoholic. She was a prostitute, that
she did not care about us.
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And that she had ran off
and left with another man. That's what we
thought had happened.
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You know, I mean, what
else were we to believe? NARRATOR: Officials
in Kentucky searched
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diligently for
the missing woman. LINDA TALLY SMITH:
Her dental records were faxed all over
the United States.
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Any time there was a
woman of her approximate build and approximate
age who was found,
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I'd say they were probably faxed
at least 25 different times. NARRATOR: But their
efforts were fruitless.
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Eventually Bill Major
and his two children moved from Kentucky
to Rhode Island, where his parents lived.
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And one year after Marlene's
disappearance, Bill remarried. Glenn St. Hillaire
stayed in Verona
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and took a job at
a local factory. For the next 20 years, no one
heard from Marlene Major, not
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her children, her
family, or her friends. But something in Marlene's diary
hinted at a deep, dark family
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secret that shed new
light on a very cold case. LaLana and her
brother Donald grew up
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believing their mother
had abandoned them. Making things
worse, their father became increasingly abusive.
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-I've seen him beat my brother
to the point Donald could not pick himself up off the floor.
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You know, you would miss
school because you had bruises. Finally, when the children
could take it no longer,
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they confided to
their new stepmother that their father was
sexually abusing both of them
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and had also threatened them. -To keep me and my brother
in line when we were kids,
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it was if you don't
do what I tell you to, if you don't cooperate,
I will kill your brother.
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You know, and would turn
around and tell my brother, if you don't do what I tell
you to, if you don't cooperate,
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I will kill your sister. NARRATOR: Bill's new wife called
police and had him arrested
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for first-degree sexual assault. We're peaking around
the corner, and he looked down the hallway at us.
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And I mean, just
look in his eyes. And just sat there. And I said to myself,
I hope they keep him.
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I pray to God that the keep him. Because if they don't keep
him, we're as good as dead.
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NARRATOR: Bill
Major was convicted and sentenced to
15 years in prison. Nine-year-old LaLana
and 13-year-old Donald
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moved back to
Kentucky to live with their maternal grandmother. And by now, LaLana was old
enough to ask her grandmother
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about something that
had always haunted her. LALANA BRAMBLE: We were
sitting in the parking
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lot in front of a
department store. And I said, well, do you
know where my mother is?
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You know, have you seen? Have you heard from her? It was just like 10 seconds
of absolute silence.
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And she looked at me.
She said, honey. She said, your mother's dead. She said, she's been dead.
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She said your father killed her. NARRATOR: But
LaLana's grandmother had no proof, only suspicion.
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So LaLana decided to
investigate her mother's disappearance on her own. LALANA BRAMBLE: I watched
things, you know, on old murder
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investigations and scientific
documentary shows on Court TV, and, you know-- I watched
all that stuff out
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of interest to see
what I could pick up to see what I could learn. NARRATOR: When LaLana turned
20, she was given access
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to your mother's cold case file. And in her mother's
diary, she found a clue. There was a notation that
implied her mother knew what
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her father was doing
to her brother Donald. MARLENE MAJOR (VOICEOVER): for school and
caught Bill with him.
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He tried to hide what they were
doing, but I know what I saw. I guess I died inside.
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I told him not to
touch me ever again. And if he ever touched
Donald, I'll kill him.
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He wants me to help him,
and I don't know what to do. LINDA TALLY SMITH:
Marlene couldn't even
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tell that horrific
secret to her own family. But she did record it in her
diary, not in specific detail,
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but enough that you know
what she's talking about. NARRATOR: LaLana
also found evidence
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that her mother was
considering divorce. MARLENE MAJOR (VOICEOVER):
I have something on him.
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He'll sign the papers
and won't open his mouth. If he doesn't I'd go to his mom.
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Just take my word
for it, he won't. He'd die before he'd let his
mom find out what I have on him.
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Did he murder someone? No, worse. Let's put it this way-- I could
be the biggest whore that ever
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walked the streets of Verona
and no judge in the country would give him custody
of my kids over me.
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LALANA BRAMBLE: He knew that
if she left, she would tell someone eventually, and he would
end up going to prison for it,
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you know? Which, obviously,
he did not want. NARRATOR: To find out more,
LaLana interviewed everyone
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she could find who
had known her mother. LALANA BRAMBLE: I got
a composition notebook.
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Cost me like $0.99 at Walmart. And if I talked to somebody,
I wrote the date, the time,
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and what the
conversation was over. NARRATOR: And everyone said the
same thing, including Glenn St.
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Helaire, her mother's boyfriend. LALANA BRAMBLE: Glenn
told me about something my father had said.
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And he made the statement
that if my mother had ever tried to leave him and take
us that he would kill her,
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and that he knew how to
commit the perfect crime. -He told several people that
he would cut her head off, cut
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her-- knock he teeth out
with the butt of the gun after he shot her in the head.
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And then he would
remove her jaw. He'd cut her up in
little pieces and spread her throughout the state.
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NARRATOR: And LaLana
discovered something else. One year after her
mother's disappearance,
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a hunter had found a human
skull in a rural tract of land just a mile from her home.
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The bone was too badly
degraded for DNA analysis. And there were no teeth or
jaw, so dental comparisons
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were impossible too. But LaLana was convinced
this was her mother's skull. BRUCE GRAHAM: It's one thing
having a murder case where you
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have no suspect, and you
just have to let it go. But when you feel 100% sure you
know who murdered your victim,
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and you just can't
do anything about it, it's a hopeless feeling. NARRATOR: Almost 20 years
later, LaLana searched the area
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herself, going so far as
to dig in nearby sinkholes. She too was unsuccessful. LALANA BRAMBLE: I was really,
really, really, really
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hoping to find something,
because I was like, if I could find something, if
I could-- you know,
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that would be something
more than we have now. If I could find the
rest of her body.
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But at the same
time, you know, it was constant terror that
I would find something.
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NARRATOR: Despite
her frustration, LaLana soon learned that
new forensic testing might
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be able to identify the
mysterious skull, which for the past 20
years has been kept
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in the medical
examiner's office. LALANA BRAMBLE:
This is our hope. This is our chance.
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NARRATOR: Marlene Major's
daughter LaLana strongly suspected that a skull found
in 1981 was her mother's.
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EMILY CRAIG: There was no face. There was no jaw. It was just the top
of the skull that
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had a distinct bullet hole
right in the to of it. NARRATOR: The medical
examiner determined
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that the fatal bullet
entered her face and came up through
the top of her skull.
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Three types of
weapons could have caused an injury this size. One was a 9-millimeter
pistol, the same type
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of weapon Bill Major carried. A forensic
anthropologist concluded the skull was that
of a Caucasian female
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approximately 30 years old. EMILY CRAIG: The
female characteristics on the skull that we can see
were the lack of a brow ridge.
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Most males have a heavy ridge
right here across their brow. And this particular
skull did not.
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NARRATOR: And there was evidence
that someone deliberately tried to prevent
an identification.
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EMILY CRAIG: At the base of the
skull, where the jaw inserted, there were small cut marks where
it appeared as if that someone
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had deliberately tried to sever
the ligaments that attached the jaw to the
rest of this skull.
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NARRATOR: But 20
years had passed since Marlene Major disappeared. And during that time,
scientists found a way
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to extract DNA from fossils
tens of thousands of years old. It wasn't DNA from
the cell's nucleus,
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of the mitochondria that live
outside the nucleus, which are more plentiful
and easier to analyze.
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But mitochondrial DNA is
passed to children only from the mother, so it limits
the amount of information.
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Marlene Major's relatives were
willing to pay for this new DNA test themselves, at the
time almost $20,000.
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-One of the hardest
things that I ever heard was that one of the
sisters of Marlene Major
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actually was tying to
cash in her own retirement to see if she would be able
to pay for this DNA testing.
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-When my aunt told me that she
was going to pay for the DNA test, I'm like,
they can't do DNA.
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And she's like, yes, they can. There is some kind of
test that they can do. So I went on the internet
and started looking up on DNA
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and found out about
the mitochondrial DNA. NARRATOR: Officials in
Kentucky eventually rethought
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their position and decided
to pay for this new DNA test available through
LabCorp in North Carolina.
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A tiny bone fragment was
frozen with liquid nitrogen, crushed into a fine
powder and placed
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into a vile with the DNA
concentration buffer. The sample was then amplified,
creating millions of copies
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of the DNA so there was a
sufficient amount to be tested. Technicians then used a computer
to compare to mitochondrial
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DNA sequences of
the skull to that found in LaLana's s saliva. SHAWN WEISS: We're
looking at 700 bases,
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and it would be hard
for the human eye to line up all 700 bases. So the majority of
the interpretation
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on the sequencing is
done by computers. NARRATOR: Since mitochondrial
DNA is passed maternally,
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Marlene Major and
her two children would all have the same
mitochondrial DNA profile.
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When the DNA from the skull
was compared to LaLana's DNA, it was an exact match.
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LALANA BRAMBLE: I felt
like taking out a full page ad in the Garrett County
newspapers and saying,
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OK, look. DNA test back positive. Marlene-- Marlene Oaks is dead. OK, she didn't walk
out and leave her kids.
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She's dead. You know, she was murdered. NARRATOR: 20 years after
Marlene Major's skull was found,
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science proved her identity. Her diaries had
suggested motive, and Marlene's the daughter
LaLana was determined
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to bring her father to justice. Prosecutors believed Marlene
Major discovered the truth
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about her husband,
that he was sexually abusing his own children. In her diary, Marlene said
she was considering divorce
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and would use this
information against him if he stood in her way. For this reason, and based
on the forensic evidence,
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prosecutors concluded Marlene's
murder was premeditated. They believe Bill killed
Marlene with his handgun.
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[gunshot] Then dismembered
her body to remove all traces of identification. Prosecutors think he
buried Marlene's remains
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in several nearby sinkholes,
disposed of the gun and pushed her car
into the Ohio River.
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This way he could say,
Marlene simply drove off. TIM CARNAHAN: It's ironic,
because 20 years ago when
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he committed this murder,
he removed the teeth. He removed the jaw. He went through all
these-- all these lengths
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to cover up the crime. And back then, nobody had
any idea that, you know, 20 years later we would be able
to solve it with just a very
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small piece of material
from that skull. NARRATOR: Bill's own
father put the last piece
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of the puzzle in place. He said, Bill
confessed to the murder during a conversation the two
of them had five years earlier.
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TIM CARNAHAN: For a man
to kill his wife, to him, was appalling. And from that day forward, he
pretty well disowned his son.
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He didn't want anything
to do with him. NARRATOR: Bill's
father gave police this information at the time.
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But without any hard evidence,
the information was useless. LINDA TALLY SMITH:
In Kentucky, we
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have a rule that says
that a defendant's statements are not enough. You have to have
something to corroborate
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a defendant's statements. And, you know, from
'96 until 2001, all we had was the statement.
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NARRATOR: Bill's
father, once again, offered to help in
any way he could. TODD KENNER: I asked him if
he would mind us coming up
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to Nova Scotia, put a
recorder on his phone, and then he would contact
his son in Massachusetts.
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And he agreed to. NARRATOR: Sure enough,
Bill incriminated himself. BILL'S FATHER (ON THE PHONE):
I keep calls from LaLana.
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And she wants to know where
her mother is so that she can get the bones and put them
in a casket and have closure.
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BILL (ON THE PHONE): Yeah,
and put me in jail for life. BILL'S FATHER (ON
THE PHONE): You have
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pulled the perfect
crime, haven't you? BILL (ON THE PHONE): No, I
wouldn't call it perfect.
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BILL'S FATHER (ON
THE PHONE): No. BILL (ON THE PHONE): 'Cause
if the crime was perfect,
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nobody would ever know about it. NARRATOR: Bill
Major was arrested and charged with
Marlene's murder.
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During extradition
to Kentucky, he confessed to the local sheriff. TIM CARNAHAN: He said, killing
that girl meant nothing to me.
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It'd be like me getting up
every morning, tying my shoes. That's what it meant to me.
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-She would have been
taking his-- toys, I guess is how you
would phrase it, or-- because his children were
more than children to him.
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-Ultimately, she
died to protect us. You know, she was trying
to get away from him
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and to get us out
of that situation. OK. She was trying to
protect her children.
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NARRATOR: Major admitted pushing
his wife's car into the Ohio River and burying her
body in a sinkhole.
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But neither the car nor
the rest of her remains have ever been recovered. TIM CARNAHAN: We dug
out the sinkhole.
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The sinkhole just
seemed to be endless. We dug out as far as we
could with a backhoe,
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but nothing was found. And again, the river, with
the flooding and the speed of the river during
times, there's
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no telling where that car's out. LINDA TALLY SMITH:
Current is so strong and the years were so many that
the chances of finding that car
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was like looking for a
needle in a haystack. NARRATOR: It took the
jury only 43 minutes
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to find Bill Major guilty
of first-degree murder. He was sentenced
to life in prison.
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TIM CARNAHAN: LaLana had
been driven for a long time to bring closure to this and
to bring her father to justice.
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I mean, it was obvious, just you
could see the passion for this in her eyes, the way she talked.
00:20:09
She had a deep hatred
for her father, and she really-- even though she
didn't really know her mother
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that well-- she was just a child
when all this occurred-- she had a lot of love
for her mother.
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NARRATOR: Bill's
incriminating statements and the scientific
proof the skull was
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in fact Marlene's were
all investigators needed. LALANA BRAMBLE: And I
thought, if anything is going
00:20:32
to be our friend and
who's going to help us, it's going to be the science. You know, because that was not
something he was counting on.
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EMILY CRAIG: The ability to
identify partial human remains after that length of
time is totally amazing.
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And if it were not for the
advances in DNA science, this still would be impossible.
00:20:54
TIM CARNAHAN:
Science is definitely smarter than our criminals. Criminals today may know
what we can do with science,
00:21:01
but nobody knows what
we're going to do tomorrow. [theme music]