00:00:00
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Spokane,
Washington, March 1959, nine-year-old little
girl Candy Rogers
00:00:18
reported missing from home. JOANNE POSS: That is
what haunts me at night. That's what all
this brings back,
00:00:26
is that what did
that poor girl, what horrendous things did that poor
little sweetheart go through?
00:00:32
NANCY GRACE: For more
than six long decades, police cannot identify
her killer and finally
00:00:39
bring him to justice. For 62 years, they had
people working on this case. There was never,
like, a time where
00:00:48
they let that case go cold. Someone was constantly
following leads. NANCY GRACE: But then
forensic science offers
00:00:55
a potential breakthrough. I'm very grateful and amazed
at the energy and effort we put into our cold cases.
00:01:04
And hopefully, with
the forensic genealogy, we will be able to solve
more, that this will
00:01:10
be the first of many
other cases that will be solved in this way. NANCY GRACE: This is
the remarkable story
00:01:18
of nine-year-old
Candy Rogers and how forensic genetic
genealogy cracked her case
00:01:24
wide open 62 years later. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
00:01:56
NANCY GRACE: March 6, 1959,
Spokane, Washington police get a worried call from the family
of a nine-year-old little girl
00:02:05
whose smile lit up a room. JOANNE POSS: Candy
Rogers was my cousin. She was just getting ready
to become a Camp Fire girl.
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Bluebirds were the
same as Camp Fire, but on a much younger
basis because we're talking kindergarten,
first, second grade.
00:02:22
It was just a fun time to get
together with a whole bunch of little girls. JULIE HUMPREYS: She was very
excited about the mint sale.
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She had sold about 20
boxes the year before, and she wanted to
beat that number and get to go to
camp without cost.
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So you had to sell a certain
number of boxes to do that. And on the way home, she'd
stopped at the director's home
00:02:43
to pick up her boxes and
picked up about seven boxes and brought them home, was
very excited about getting
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out and starting. But she couldn't
start till 4 o'clock. And she was a rule follower.
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So her mother's close
friend had asked, she said, I'll buy
a box from you. And this was right when
she got home from school.
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And Candy said, no, we
can't start till 4 o'clock. So she waited. She played with her dog.
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She visited with her grandma,
had a snack, and at 4 o'clock, went down the stairs and
went to sell the candies
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in her neighborhood. NANCY GRACE: It's getting dark. Little Candy Rodgers
still isn't home.
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Her parents become
increasingly fearful. I happened to be at
a Camp Fire overnighter
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across the street
from our house. And my mother came over and
asked my twin sister and I
00:03:34
to come with her. And she said, Candy's missing. OK, what do you mean "missing"?
00:03:41
And she said they
can't find her. She went out to sell
Camp Fire mints. And I just assumed that
the innocent age of 13,
00:03:51
she was lost, so they
needed to find her. And she said, Dad and the boys
are going to look for her.
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And they took off, and
they were gone for hours. And they came back, and
they went out the next day.
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They never found her. NANCY GRACE: Officers
arrive, and they join in the search for Candy.
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ZAC STORMENT: Both homes
would have been checked, the grandparents'
and the mother's.
00:04:14
She was not there. So from there, the
search broadens out, looking proximate to the
home and ever expanding.
00:04:22
The first night, it was a lot
of family and police officers and interested parties,
people that knew of this
00:04:31
and knew of her. By the next morning, it
was an entire community. The news was out that
this little girl had
00:04:37
been missing all
night long, and people came out in droves to help. I don't think anybody really
knows exactly what happened.
00:04:44
But somewhere along the
way in selling candies, she was abducted, whether
that was at somebody's home,
00:04:50
somebody pulled her in
and took her from there, whether it was a car driving by.
00:04:55
We don't know the details, but
she was kidnapped and taken against her will that night.
00:05:02
One of the interesting
developments and very concerning developments was the
discovery of mint boxes leading
00:05:10
down the hill toward the river. It took some time to actually
reconcile the numbers with how
00:05:16
many she was issued, which
was seven, in a cardboard container, with
how many she sold,
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which was one, and how many
were found, which was six. When those numbers
all matched up,
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the concern was
certainly elevated. The policemen at
the time certainly knew something-- something
terrible had happened.
00:05:35
There's notes of patrolmen
talking to each other, making mention of, this
does not look good.
00:05:40
They knew that. They mentioned
that to each other and were personally concerned.
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NANCY GRACE: Additional
resources are called in to help search for the little girl.
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They sent a helicopter
on March 7, 1959. It actually landed at
what is now Spokane
00:05:57
Falls Community College. They flew down the Spokane
River gorge near what's referred to as Seven Mile.
00:06:04
Anyone that lives in that
area knows that that area has many power lines
crossing the river there,
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high-tension power lines. And unfortunately,
that helicopter hit a set of those
high-tension power lines
00:06:16
and is described as exploding
and falling into the river. NANCY GRACE: This is an
investigation filled with one
00:06:25
tragedy after the next. Three people searching
for Candy Rogers have died and so far
no sign of the missing
00:06:34
nine-year-old little girl. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [SENTIMENTAL MUSIC]
00:06:48
NANCY GRACE: March 6, 1959,
Spokane, Washington, Candy Rogers, just nine years
old, declared missing
00:06:55
when she fails to return home. The town rallies. They searched the entire area,
determined to find Candy alive
00:07:04
and bring her home. On March 22, 1959, two airmen
from Fairchild Air Force Base,
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not associated with the search
at all, we're on a day off, and they had decided
to go hunting
00:07:16
together in an area about seven
miles northwest of Spokane. They made a discovery
of two shoes,
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matching pair, that looked
like a little girl's shoes in the woods that day. And I think it was the
fact the shoes looked
00:07:30
fairly pristine for
having been in the woods and were still together. They recognized that that's
unusual, and they felt,
00:07:38
we better call. And they actually did call with
the thought of Candy Rogers in mind.
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Two carloads of patrolmen
were brought up. They went into the area
where the shoes were found,
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and within a matter of
minutes, a patrolman made the comment that we don't
need to look any farther.
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She's right here. And what he had
seen or witnessed was a little girl's
knee sticking
00:08:01
out from a pile of brush. You can be sure that that
affected every one of those,
00:08:07
whether officers--
whether it was the officer that actually came
upon her or not,
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that it affected everybody. The body was placed in
an area where a giant-- a very large rock
bluff and outcropping
00:08:22
was to the west of the body. In 1959, there wasn't
a lot of sunlight. Sun sets before 6:00 PM.
00:08:29
So the sun wasn't
on her a great deal. The ground is still cold. There's still snow
in some places.
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So I think her
temperature was kept down. For us, this is
good luck in that forensic biological
evidence is being preserved.
00:08:44
The autopsy of Candy Rogers
occurred the next day, on March 23, 1959. The cause of death
was ruled to be
00:08:51
asphyxia through strangulation
and a homicide, very obviously. She was very obviously
sexually assaulted.
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Semen was observed
on her clothes, and that evidence was collected. Ligatures were present.
00:09:10
It appeared that a ligature
had been on Candy's hands at one point but was
no longer present.
00:09:15
She did have a ligature
around her neck, and her feet were bound. I was on my way to church,
and I had-- was going to go
00:09:25
with one of the neighbor girls. And we went out the door. And my mom came out and said,
by the way, they found Candy,
00:09:32
but she's dead. Never imagined that
she would be killed. That just doesn't
happen to your family.
00:09:41
I think it must have been
very, very hard for detectives. Whenever a case
turns from a missing
00:09:48
persons case to a homicide
case, the dynamics change. First of all, the
hope that you will
00:09:56
find that person, that
missing person alive is gone. There's the reality that there's
a death and then the knowledge
00:10:04
that we have to take all these
tips and find this person and figure out what happened.
00:10:12
It's-- It's a tough
change, particularly with the grief and
the hope that's gone
00:10:19
that she's not alive. So the investigation takes on a
different flavor at that point.
00:10:26
ZAC STORMENT: Registered
sex offenders were not quite a concept at this point. But the detectives of the
time knew their people,
00:10:33
and they knew the
likely offenders. Those were some of the
first people contacted,
00:10:37
and those were the
people they had in mind. And that would have been
part of the information
00:10:42
sent to other agencies
across the United States. Do you have someone in mind who
may be capable of committing
00:10:48
such a crime? And they got many responses. They can't possibly work
them all immediately,
00:10:54
and it's best just to
keep gathering the tips and hope that one of
them will actually be
00:10:58
the answer you're looking for. In so many ways, Candy
represented every child and the horror of what
had happened to her
00:11:09
and that no one was
held accountable, I think, drove many people
to never give up on this,
00:11:16
to keep looking, to say,
we've got to be able to find something to solve this. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
focus their attention
00:11:22
on a potential suspect. ZAC STORMENT: Hugh Morse
emerged in the case file as an interesting,
very promising lead
00:11:32
because he is a very
interesting, and in fact, serial killer. Hugh Morse was eventually
caught in Minnesota
00:11:41
and incarcerated there
and spoke of his crimes. He had raped and murdered
women across the United States,
00:11:48
including Spokane. He even took a polygraph
on this matter. He passed it, and
he stuck to his guns
00:11:58
that he was not responsible
for Candy Rogers. He did acknowledge
that he had sexually
00:12:03
assaulted other children. People were trying to
make him fit in that hole, make the square peg fit
in the round hole, so to speak.
00:12:11
It's easy to say now that he
was given too much credence, that they should have
looked elsewhere.
00:12:16
But that being said, even if
they looked at every other name in the case file as hard
as they did Hugh Morse,
00:12:27
nothing would have come up. NANCY GRACE: Tension spreads
through the tight-knit community of Spokane, everyone
knowing Candy Rogers' killer
00:12:37
is still on the loose. We weren't allowed out
like we used to be. Our doors started to be locked.
00:12:46
They talked about safety. They talked about, you don't
get in a car with anybody.
00:12:52
You don't take
candy from anybody. You stay in a group. I mean, all of a sudden,
all this stuff about,
00:13:01
you have to stay safe. And I still-- I didn't really
put it all together until--
00:13:10
you know, after you sit
and you think about it, they go, oh my gosh. We can't go out
after dark anymore.
00:13:16
We can't go down
to the malt shop and get malt. We can't
play out after dark, and our doors are locked.
00:13:24
And it was because of Candy. So they were certainly,
as a community, outraged. At the same time, they
really didn't have anyone
00:13:33
to focus their anger toward. There wasn't an obvious suspect. There wasn't anyone to
say, this is the person
00:13:38
we want to hold responsible. No immediate person
evolved like that. Every cold case has family
that's aching for news,
00:13:46
and updates are
difficult to give when there is nothing new to report. We did have tips
come in all the time,
00:13:54
but sadly, there's
not much to report. And those are difficult
conversations, that they
00:13:58
go on across the country. Years passed, but Candy's
file is never closed. A new generation
of investigators
00:14:08
take up a new challenge,
how to solve a very old case with very new science? What stood out to
me was that the police
00:14:18
had already done
everything that could be done from traditional means. Everyone that could be
talked to had been talked to.
00:14:24
Everyone that could be
looked at as a suspect and developed into an actual
defendant had been eliminated.
00:14:34
Traditional means were never
going to solve this case. That's what became apparent.
00:14:37
So much work had
already been done that we had to look at this
from a different perspective.
00:14:43
A detective brought the
case into the modern realm of DNA technology. She reviewed the
entire case inventory,
00:14:53
everything we had on
property as evidence and did see there is some hope
for finding DNA here.
00:14:59
At the same time, she
didn't get caught up in the enthusiasm of
this new technology
00:15:04
and allow anything
to be consumed. She and the scientists
at the time-- I believe it was Lisa Turpen--
00:15:09
they were careful. They examined it. They found that DNA
is there, and they were thoughtful in
their processes as far
00:15:16
as what can we do with this. Lisa Turpen
examined the evidence removed from Candy
Rogers at the crime scene
00:15:25
and specifically the underwear
that Candy Rogers was wearing. And it was Lisa Turpen who
was able to find a semen stain
00:15:33
on the underwear
and extract a DNA, male DNA from that semen stain. She was able to take the
DNA extract and purify it,
00:15:42
and she was able to
preserve it in a freezer for future testing. After more than six decades,
can bloodline detectives
00:15:52
utilize new
technology and finally catch a brutal child killer? We find out next.
00:16:01
[AUDIO LOGO] [OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 2021,
Spokane, Washington, a brand-new generation
of cold case detectives
00:16:15
investigate the
1959 unsolved rape and murder of a nine-year-old
little girl, Candy Rogers.
00:16:25
Candy's case file never closed. But now, 60 years
later, investigators pin their hopes on a new
scientific technique,
00:16:36
forensic genetic genealogy. The Golden State Killer
case and the techniques and science they used
to solve that case
00:16:46
sent a shock wave
through anyone working cold case investigations. Conversations began
in about 2018 or 2019
00:16:54
of, how do we get
involved in this? How do we understand it? And how do we make use of it?
00:16:59
We are essentially aware
the time has arrived. The technology is here, but
we don't know what to do.
00:17:07
I first became aware of
Othram in a conversation I had with forensic
scientist Brittney Wright.
00:17:13
She's a forensic DNA scientist
with the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab in Cheney.
00:17:19
She got me a phone number
for their company in Texas. And I submitted my
number and name,
00:17:28
and I didn't expect to hear
a response immediately. But that day, David
Mittelman called me,
00:17:33
and I told him my concerns
were really about the sample being degraded and
small and that I was not
00:17:39
willing to risk consuming it. And this is not a
concern at all to him. I can tell in his voice
that we can do this.
00:17:47
He seemed ultra confident. But when the number
actually came to light, that we're looking
at about $5,000,
00:17:55
I felt confident in
saying, yeah, do it. I knew that my chain of
command would approve of that.
00:17:59
That's a great deal. By any measure, that
is a great deal. The DNA was very
degraded in this case.
00:18:07
I was able to locate
the DNA sample in a very-- what we call a
deep freeze or a deep freezer.
00:18:13
So it was at negative
80 degrees Celsius. And I found it in a
frozen liquid form.
00:18:21
My plan was to do
everything in my power to find a sample that could work
for forensic genetic genealogy
00:18:29
purposes. And then that DNA sample
was overnighted to the lab. The first time I heard
of the Candy Rogers case,
00:18:38
it was right after the
detective, Zac Storment, had spoken to David and
Michael about the case,
00:18:45
and they said that
they were going to send the evidence to Othram. I looked it up.
00:18:51
And as a mom of a
nine-year-old girl at the time, I was devastated instantly. The whole community was
devastated by this case,
00:19:01
but there was never any answer. I remember Zac Storment
saying that for 62 years,
00:19:06
they had people
working on this case. There was never,
like, a time where they let that case go cold.
00:19:13
Someone was constantly
following leads. The leads would always
end up being dead ends,
00:19:18
and there was just
never something that they could go on. And so when he heard of Othram,
he just thought, you know,
00:19:25
we'll give it a try, but it's
probably not going to work. And the DNA arrived at
Othram, and we knew that there
00:19:32
was little evidence left. This was a sex
assault, obviously, from 62 years ago, which means
there was a lot of degradation,
00:19:38
a lot of contamination
and other issues that you would have to deal with. So a DNA profile is
going to be a collection,
00:19:46
a list of DNA markers. And so to be able to
read these markers, to know what difference
does exist in your DNA,
00:19:54
and to be able to
construct that DNA profile, we use what's called
a DNA sequencer.
00:19:58
The DNA sequencer that we use
has a consumable component to it called a flow cell.
00:20:04
And so this flow cell is
a two-dimensional surface. And what happens is, is that
you're building a library,
00:20:11
a representation of
lots of DNA fragments that make up all your DNA. You're loading it onto
this glass surface,
00:20:17
putting it into a machine
that enables you to synthesize another piece of
DNA just like it
00:20:22
and take photos
at the same time. And then you're reading
it out to a file in a computer
algorithm, and that
00:20:27
goes and takes these fragments,
figures out where they go. And next thing you know,
you end up with what
00:20:32
largely resembles a text file. It kind of looks like
something you could load up into Microsoft Word.
00:20:36
So once you've got that profile,
you can upload that profile to a genealogical
database, and that database
00:20:44
is going to be comprised
of other DNA profiles from other folks that
have uploaded their DNA.
00:20:49
Then you can start
to make comparisons. And what you're looking for
is similarity across lots
00:20:55
and lots of markers. If the person's
your sibling, you're going to share a lot of markers
and therefore a lot of DNA.
00:21:02
If they're your second
or third cousin, you'll have shared
a lot less DNA. Another way to think about
it is that the more markers
00:21:08
you share, the more recent
your common ancestor was, the more recent in history the
person that relates you two
00:21:15
existed. And-- and once
you've done that, you can then start to
build family trees
00:21:21
for the people that are known. The known matches in the
database have an identity.
00:21:25
So you know who they are. You figure out who their parents
are and their grandparents.
00:21:29
And if you've got enough
matches that connect back to your unknown
profile, you can build
00:21:34
family trees for those matches. And if you go back
enough generations, you should eventually hit
what's called the most
00:21:40
recent common ancestor,
so the most recent point in the family tree at
which those trees will
00:21:45
converge to a common ancestor. Once you find that,
then you can find out the descendants, all of them,
of the original common ancestor.
00:21:54
And one of those descendants
is generally the person that you're looking for. We were able to take the semen
DNA from Candy Rogers' crime
00:22:03
scene and build a
high-performing DNA profile that was uploaded into
the genealogical database,
00:22:10
as consented for
law enforcement use. And David actually made the
phone call to Zac Storment.
00:22:17
I-- it was a holiday weekend,
and he called him up and said, I have information for you.
00:22:26
And I remember Zac called
right away and said-- actually, I was right there
when he made the phone call,
00:22:33
and he said, I know that
if the CEO of the company is calling me,
it's either really
00:22:38
good news or really bad news. And David said, it's good news. We've built a
profile, and we would
00:22:44
like to exclude certain people. They gave me a
list of three names. I went to work that night and
started checking those names.
00:22:57
It was apparent
they were all dead. It was also apparent that
only one had children.
00:23:04
I spent some time
researching the children that were alive of the
oldest of the three brothers.
00:23:11
His name was John Reigh Hoff. From what I could
tell, he had four children, who were still
alive and all living
00:23:17
in the Spokane area. The youngest daughter
of the four children-- there was-- Othram didn't
find much information on her.
00:23:26
So she became something I
had to research on my own, and that caused me
to look into her
00:23:32
more, initially, than
the other three children. From that, I found a
phone number for her.
00:23:39
So I called her the next day. I left a message, being
very vague in the message,
00:23:44
basically telling I'm
a police officer doing a cold case investigation. I was with my daughter, and I
thought, it's a joke, you know?
00:23:54
This is, like, on TV. I don't know anything
about anything. I don't know what
he's talking about.
00:23:59
So then my daughter Googled
him, and he was real. He was really a
policeman, a detective.
00:24:07
So then I called him back. And he just asked if I
could come talk to him, or he would come
talk where I was.
00:24:14
So I said I'll come down there. She's done nothing wrong. And she may love
this person very
00:24:20
much that you're about to
point a very cold finger at. You're going to make
an accusation that
00:24:26
is going to change her life. And I was very cryptic in
what I was talking about because I was not certain.
00:24:35
As great as genealogy is, as
great as all this new science is, it's on me. And if they're wrong and
I'm making this accusation
00:24:43
against the family
member, it's me that's going to suffer for it. So I'm cautious, initially,
and I talk about the case.
00:24:49
And I do get the
impression that her father was alive and in the area at the
time, and that was enough to--
00:24:54
to proceed. She also knows
something I don't. Cathie knows when
her father died,
00:25:00
and I didn't know this at
that time, I don't think. Cathie knew her
father died in 1970.
00:25:05
She knows I'm talking about
a case older than that, and I did tell her I was
talking about a little girl that
00:25:10
was murdered. And I think it evolved rather
quickly, the horror that started to show on her face.
00:25:17
What I learned about John
Reigh Hoff was that he was-- he was in trouble as a
youth, not particularly
00:25:24
a violent person,
but he always seemed to be in a little
bit of trouble, stealing cars or petty
theft-type things.
00:25:31
His parents decided
they were going to do something about this and
got him signed up in the army
00:25:36
at an early age. He entered the army
when he was 17, and they had to sign
for him to do this.
00:25:42
He was also expecting a child
with his wife at the time. Military dynamic going on
in Spokane at the time,
00:25:50
Fairchild's the
primary air force base, but the army had the
task of protecting Fairchild with
surface-to-air missiles
00:25:56
that were surrounding the base. And there were a number of them. And John Reigh Hoff was
a member of the army
00:26:01
assigned to those stations. This gave him in-depth
knowledge of those back roads
00:26:08
in northwest Spokane
because many of the bases were in that area. And in fact, one was
only 2 miles from where
00:26:14
Candy Rogers' body was found. John was eventually
kicked out of the Army in 1961, after he was
declared as a deserter
00:26:22
for being arrested for an
attack on a woman in what's known as Browne's
Addition in Spokane.
00:26:28
That's literally
across the river from West Central, Spokane. In that incident, he
attacked an apartment manager
00:26:35
and tried to strangle
her with her own clothing to the point of unconsciousness.
00:26:39
So there is some
similarity here. In that investigation,
police used a sketch artist or a sketch
kit, rather, to develop
00:26:48
a profile of John Reigh Hoff. And that profile was put out
to members of law enforcement
00:26:53
first, and an actual MP,
a military policeman, at one of the stations
associated with the base
00:27:00
identified him. And anybody that's
worked in law enforcement or follows law
enforcement stories
00:27:05
know that sketches
don't often result in identifications like this. This is remarkable.
00:27:10
But this MP said,
that's John Reigh Hoff. This caused detectives
to contact his wife
00:27:16
and show her that
picture, rather. And she also said, well,
that looks like my husband.
00:27:22
Ultimately, he was arrested. He was sentenced to
six months in jail, and this caused him
to be discharged
00:27:28
from the army dishonorably. He still maintained a
job throughout the rest of his life.
00:27:32
He sold Cutco
knives door to door. He worked in a lumber
yard for a period and then ultimately ended up
working at a meatpacking plant.
00:27:40
While at the meat
packing plant, he stuffed-- he suffered a
chemical burn to his face
00:27:45
that I think Cathie
and family would agree changed his life to a degree,
that disfigured his face
00:27:53
a great deal. John Reigh Hoff ultimately
shot himself in 1971. If it was my dad, I
mean, I really wasn't sure.
00:28:04
I kind of thought it might
be, just because of the way it was all happening. But they need to be accountable
even if they're dead.
00:28:11
My uncles were all
gone and my dad. I said, I suppose
you'd want my DNA. And he said, well, if
you're willing to give it.
00:28:19
And I'm like, sure, you know? Detectives take a
DNA sample from Cathie, and they send it to a forensic
scientist, Brittney Wright.
00:28:29
Is John Reigh Hoff the man who
brutally raped and murdered a little girl,
nine-year-old Candy
00:28:38
Rodgers, all those years ago? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO]
00:28:52
NANCY GRACE: 2021,
Spokane, Washington, it's been a long road
for detectives searching
00:28:58
for the killer of
nine-year-old Candy Rogers, this beautiful little girl
raped and murdered in 1959 while
00:29:09
out selling Camp Fire mints. For over 60 years, the trail
to a suspect has gone cold.
00:29:17
But now bloodline
detectives may have come up with a name, the name
of a suspect, John Reigh Hoff.
00:29:28
We did the DNA collection. It's a simple process. And with that, at
that moment, I'm
00:29:34
pretty excited to get to
Cheney, to the state crime lab and get this to Brittney Wright.
00:29:40
I got Brittney on the
phone and told her, I have something
of interest to you. I gave Brittney the DNA
fairly late in the day,
00:29:52
and my understanding is she
worked on it through the night. After they get
through their process,
00:29:58
I get the call from
Brittney that we're there, that this is it. This is finally the
person that's going
00:30:03
to shed light on this case. It's Cathie. And the number was
2.9 million to 1 that Cathie is the daughter of
the person who left the semen
00:30:13
on Candy Roger's underpants. NANCY GRACE: To be 100% certain,
the body of suspect John Reigh
00:30:22
Hoff must be exhumed, dug up. This case was too
big to let 2.9 million to 1 be the number
that resolves it.
00:30:34
I did not want to leave
any room for anyone to cast doubt on it
being one of his brothers
00:30:40
or an unknown brother
the genealogy was not able to locate and might
even be alive to this day.
00:30:47
We did this dig on
September 23 of 2021. The weather was good, and the
right people were available.
00:30:55
Brittney Wright, the
scientist, came along. We collected the
entire body, and we did
00:31:02
this for a couple of reasons. Most importantly was we did
not know what part of the body
00:31:10
might actually yield DNA. Out of an abundance
of caution, we felt we better take
everything because we
00:31:16
don't want to do this again. We don't want to come back. After the body is
retrieved, we were provided
00:31:22
with a makeshift cough and
sort of a cardboard coffin by the funeral home. And we transported the body
to an evidence facility,
00:31:31
where I placed him
on, and then Brittney had some conversations
with other scientists
00:31:36
about what was best. And I retrieved those body parts
and brought them to the lab
00:31:41
and left them with her. Because I knew that
this case was so important and because I
really wanted to get
00:31:48
the answers to close this
case, I contacted a cousin that I have in Seattle. And I asked him, because
he was a dentist--
00:31:58
I asked him to walk me through
how he performs a root canal because I knew that where
the DNA is in a tooth
00:32:05
is where the pulp is. And so I knew that
what he does daily was exactly what I needed
to know to get to the DNA.
00:32:13
And I looked at four teeth. Three of them came back with
nothing, and then one of them
00:32:19
came back with just enough
DNA for me to do one test and get the information. And I produced a
full DNA profile.
00:32:28
And I was able to compare that
profile from the tooth that came from John Hoff, and
it was a complete match
00:32:35
to the DNA profile from the
semen from the underwear. And the match
statistic that I issued
00:32:42
was 1 and 15 quintillion. The entire DNA
section in the lab was looking over my
shoulder because this
00:32:50
was such an exciting moment. So my first reaction was
just pure excitement and joy,
00:32:57
and then that surreal
feeling hit me again when I did realize that
I was the first to know
00:33:03
in the world who did it. Bloodline detectives
are thrilled they have identified
Candy Rogers' killer
00:33:12
after more than 60 years. But now they want to
know, what made John Reigh Hoff commit this brutal crime?
00:33:22
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Spokane,
Washington, 2021, incredibly,
00:33:36
bloodline detectives have
been able to identify the rapist and killer of a
nine-year-old little girl 62
00:33:45
years ago. While the killer is dead,
his family now must grapple with his horrific crime.
00:33:55
At first, you have guilt with
it even though you didn't-- you deal with that
guilt, you know?
00:34:01
You feel it. You feel responsible
for the pain. Then I visited his grave, and
we still had his tombstone
00:34:10
on it and everything. And I just visited
him and told him what I thought,
that I hated him,
00:34:18
that I was disgusted,
that he made me sick, that I'd never
ever see him again, that he wasn't my father.
00:34:27
I had said that to my pastor. I had said that I had kind
of wished he wasn't dead so
00:34:33
that he could be arrested
and get put in jail and go to trial and stand and
be accountable and punished.
00:34:42
And he just told me-- he said, trust me, Cathie. He has already stood before
the one judge that matters.
00:34:51
He must have had horrific
demons and was very selfish. And to be able to do what
he did to a young girl
00:35:01
when he had little kids himself
is just beyond comprehension. So that's what we know of him.
00:35:11
We know what he presented
and what his family believed, and then we now know the truth.
00:35:18
I think he's an evil person. I think sometimes you just can't
put any other label on evil.
00:35:24
Evil is evil, and
there's no way around it. I have a very deep respect for
the Spokane Police Department.
00:35:33
They truly care. There-- there is a
heart behind it too, but it also was extremely
rewarding in the end
00:35:40
to be able to be a
part of the team that was able to deliver
this information to Candy Rogers' family.
00:35:48
And it also had a very
cathartic component to it too, seeing both-- both a lot of joy in the
family getting some closure
00:35:58
by getting some answers, but
there was also a lot of grief and a lot of pain because it
dug up something very painful
00:36:06
for a lot of people as well
as pain for the Hoff family, having to know that their dad
did something so terrible.
00:36:14
So there was a lot of
emotions, both happiness, but there was also a
bit of grief to it too.
00:36:19
This crime was
committed 62 years ago. 62 years ago, no one had any
idea what DNA was, definitely
00:36:26
not that they would
ever be using DNA in a criminal investigation. It's incredible that law
enforcement had the foresight
00:36:34
to collect everything from
the crime scene and to save it and to preserve it in a way
that could be used later on.
00:36:41
But it was stored,
and it was kept. And that stain in
the underwear was enough for the lab in Washington
to be able to get a DNA
00:36:49
extraction and for us
to be able to build one of these high-performing
DNA profiles.
00:36:55
What I've seen in this whole
process is when Candy Rogers was abducted, it brought the
community together collectively
00:37:05
to search for her, to
pray for her, to lift each other up in
their fear, but yet
00:37:12
in hope that they'd find her. And then, when her
body was found, the community again came
together in extreme grief,
00:37:22
but in resolve to find the
person responsible for killing and raping a little
nine-year-old girl,
00:37:30
and also in a collective vow
to hold their children tighter and to try and protect
our children more.
00:37:38
And then, again, 62 years later,
this community came together in a collective sigh of
relief when we announced
00:37:47
that the cold case
was solved and maybe even in being able
to say, finally, some form of justice or
redemption or closure
00:37:59
has been achieved. And the community
felt all those things together in all those
different stages of this case.
00:38:07
I think that's remarkable. JOANNE POSS: She
died at an early age, but good has come of it.
00:38:17
Hopefully, soon we will have
a playground named after her which will encompass
other little children
00:38:22
that have been
taken, that have lost their lives at an early age. And I'll never ever
forget her, the smile.
00:38:33
She lived here until her
life was taken from her, and God only knows what
she could have done if it
00:38:40
had not been taken from her. She could have been a mother. She could have had
children of her own.
00:38:46
She could have been
a great scientist. She could have been a
doctor or a teacher.
00:38:49
All that was taken from her. Good has come. And I've met Julie Humphreys. She's been absolutely a saint.
00:38:59
She has put 100% behind
naming this playground for Candy, the hours that she
has put in to keep Candy alive.
00:39:09
I can't say anything but
positive stuff for the people that I have met at
the police station.
00:39:16
Without forensic
genetic genealogy, this case is still unsolved
and never would be.
00:39:21
Short of some other
unimaginable technology emerging, this was the only way. John Reigh Hoff's name never
appears in the case file.
00:39:31
They would have had to interview
many hundreds of other homes to actually have
gotten to his house,
00:39:38
if the radius of their
search would have encompassed his home on Broadway. So I don't think
that was realistic so
00:39:46
that what they did,
as much as they did, as hard as they worked, it was
never going to solve the case.
00:39:52
And that's-- that's sad. I wish there was
something to say, that they were
almost there or there
00:39:56
was this one thread
that could have been pulled a little harder. But without FGG,
it doesn't happen.
00:40:02
I hope this is the
beginning of the Spokane Police Department solving
many cold cases the same way.
00:40:09
What could be more
tragic than the sex attack and murder of a
precious nine-year-old girl?
00:40:16
It's a tragedy that even
affects the killer's own family. It's also an incredible triumph
for bloodline detectives.
00:40:27
Their use of forensic genetic
genealogy after more than 60 years demonstrates that
every killer, dead or alive,
00:40:37
can be brought to justice. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us
here on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:40:46
[SENTIMENTAL MUSIC] [AUDIO LOGO] [THEME MUSIC]