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After Linda Slaten was murdered in 1981, her sons Jeff and Tim spent almost 40 years hoping their mother’s case would get solved. Take a look inside the investigation.
On the morning of Sept. 4, 1981, the Lakeland, Florida, police were called to an apartment complex where they found the body of 31-year-old Linda Slaten. She had been raped and strangled with a wire coat hanger while her two sons Jeff, 15, and Tim, 12, slept in the other rooms. The killer had entered through her bedroom window.
Tim’s haunting memory
Lakeland Police Department
Tim Slaten says he will never forget that morning after police woke him and his older brother, Jeff, up. As Tim walked past his mother’s bedroom, an officer swung the door open. “I saw the whole crime scene,” Tim says. “I saw my mom’s bloody body with a coat hanger around her neck … And I still see it.”
A crucial print
Edgar Pickett
When former Sergeant Edgar Pickett — who led the crime scene unit — arrived at the crime scene, he dusted most of Linda’s bedroom for prints.
A crucial print
Lakeland Police Department
Sergeant Pickett also dusted the bedroom windowsill where he recovered a palm print — a piece of evidence that would later play a crucial role in the investigation.
Recovered DNA
Lakeland Police Department
During the autopsy, swabs were collected from Linda Slaten that contained semen. Investigators carefully preserved the contents of the rape kit for years to come.
Forensic DNA analysis didn’t exist until 1984. Later, it would prove key to solving this case.
The brothers’ new reality
Jeff Slaten
The Slaten brothers immediately moved in with their grandparents. They had to face a new reality of life without their mom. A few weeks after their mom’s funeral, the brothers returned to school and familiar activities.
“Being with friends and just started living life again, I guess,” says Tim. “You know, going back to football.”
The supportive coach
Tim Slaten
Tim says his teammates and coach were always very supportive. When he didn’t have a ride, “Coach Joe,” as the kids called him, would take Tim to and from football practice and continued to do so after his mom was killed.
This team photo was taken a month after Linda’s murder. Tim hung it on his bedroom wall as a reminder, he says, of something his mom taught him: to keep moving forward and never give up.
Persons of interest
Jeff Slaten
As detectives searched for the killer, Linda’s ex-husband, Frank Slaten, became a person of interest due to his history of abuse towards her. Before their divorce, Jeff says his dad was “a violent alcoholic.” But investigators eventually seemed satisfied that Frank was home in Alabama on the night of the murder. At the time of her death, Linda had a boyfriend who was also a person of interest, but he had an alibi as well.
Clearing Jeff
Jeff Slaten
Investigators focused their attention on Linda’s older son, Jeff. As a 15-year-old, Jeff had plenty of typical teen conflicts with his mom, which he was open about with detectives. But investigators seemed most interested in the argument Jeff had with his mom on the last day of her life.
“They used to take me out of school and they was always interrogating me all the time,” Jeff says. But after he took two polygraph tests and passed, police cleared him.
The case loses momentum
CBS News
Lakeland, Florida, detectives looked at other people as well, but no one was ever charged. And without any new leads, the case eventually ground to a halt.
Guilt and grief
Jeff Slaten
In the following years, Jeff went on to have two kids. But he’s always lived with guilt for not hearing anything on the night of his mom’s murder. “I (would have) died that night trying to save my mom,” Jeff says. “But I didn’t hear nothing. And it’s so hard to live with that.”
“We’re still here”
Tim Slaten
Tim got married and started a family, too. The Slaten brothers had built lives for themselves, but they made sure to frequently check in with the Lakeland investigators to see what kind of progress was being made on their mom’s case.
“No matter how many detectives we had to go through over here, we was going to let them know, ‘we’re still here. And we wanna know who killed our mom,’” says Tim.
A new detective
Lakeland Police Department
In 1998, Detective Brad Grice took over the Slaten case and immediately got to work. He sent the unidentified DNA from the Slaten rape kit to the state’s major crime lab at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement — the FDLE. A year later, the FDLE had developed a full DNA profile of Linda Slaten’s anonymous killer. Detective Grice then took DNA samples from prior persons of interest and submitted them to the FDLE for comparison. None were a match.
Old friends reunite
Brad Grice
Around the 20th anniversary in 2001, Detective Grice called the Slaten brothers to arrange a meeting at the Lakeland Police Department. “Soon as Jeff and Tim walked in the door, I realized I had known Jeff for years, since I was in my 20s,” Grice says, “through bowling.”
Grice’s search continued
Jeff Slaten
Detective Grice took DNA samples from the brothers and cleared them again.
Even Frank Slaten, who had stopped drinking and apologized to his sons for past abuses, volunteered a sample of his DNA and Grice was able to clear him, too. Here they are pictured together in 2005. That’s Jeff on the left, Tim in the middle and their dad on the right.
17 years of dedication
Brad Grice
In 2005, Detective Grice sent the unknown DNA profile from the Slaten rape kit to the FBI’s national DNA database where it was continuously compared against new DNA submissions. Through the course of his investigation, Grice says he eliminated dozens of suspects through DNA evidence. But after 17 years of working the Slaten case, he retired in 2015.
Renewed hope
CBS News
Detectives Tammy Hathcock and Russell Hurley were the new generation of investigators working the Slaten case. In 2018, Detective Hathcock received a call from the FDLE about a groundbreaking new DNA technology called investigative genetic genealogy that law enforcement agencies were using.
The FDLE explained that the detectives could submit the unidentified DNA from the Slaten case to be examined by genetic genealogist CeCe Moore. “If you have that DNA, there is no reason you cannot solve that mystery,” Moore says.
Pieces of a genetic family tree
CBS News
CeCe Moore uploaded the anonymous DNA from the Slaten rape kit to a public genealogy website called “GEDMatch,” which generated a list of people who shared DNA with the unknown killer. From there, she constructed a genetic family tree with the help of birth certificates, marriage licenses, obituaries, and social media.
In the end, Moore developed three branches of the killer’s family tree that led her to the one person who was most likely responsible for Linda Slaten’s murder.
Linda’s killer revealed
Tim Slaten
According to CeCe Moore, that person was Joseph Clinton Mills – the same man Tim Slaten knew back in 1981 as “Coach Joe.” Tim’s team football photo, which used to make him feel proud, sickens him today because standing directly behind him is the man he once trusted. “I’ve been carrying the killer’s picture in my house this table whole time and never had a clue,” Tim says.
In plain sight
Lakeland Police Department
Back in 1981, Joseph Mills – then 20 years old – was interviewed by police just one day after the murder, but it was conducted over the phone. During the brief call, Mills told investigators that he’d dropped Tim off after football practice on Sept. 3, 1981, the night before the murder – but police never considered him a suspect
The palm print
Lakeland Police Department
After learning Joseph Mills’ name, Detectives Hathcock and Hurley discovered that in 1984, Mills had been convicted of grand theft for forging a will. He never went to jail, but police collected fingerprints and palm prints from him.
In the summer of 2019, investigators compared Mills’ palm print from 1984 to the palm print that was lifted off Linda Slaten’s windowsill in 1981 and they were a match.
Digging through trash for DNA
Lakeland Police Department
Despite CeCe Moore’s findings and the palm print match, the detectives still needed to compare a fresh DNA sample from Mills to the DNA from the Slaten rape kit. So Detectives Hathcock and Hurley covertly took trash bags from Mills’ home and went through them at the police department.
They recovered a piece of medical adhesive tape in one of the bags that they sent to the crime lab for testing.
A look into Joseph Mills’ life
Lakeland Police Department
While they awaited the DNA results, the detectives dug further into Mills’ personal life. He was 58 at that time and had lived in Kathleen, Florida, for most of his life, which was just 30 minutes away from the crime scene. He was also married with children and grandchildren.
A spot-on match
Lakeland Police Department
Almost two weeks later, the crime lab’s results revealed that Mills’ DNA on the medical adhesive tape and the unknown DNA recovered from the rape kit were a spot-on match. In December 2019, detectives arrested Mills and brought him in for questioning.
The interview room
Lakeland Police Department
During his interrogation, Mills told detectives that Linda Slaten invited him over for consensual sex, which investigators knew was a lie. “I think it’s pretty evident that he targeted her,” Det. Russell Hurley says. The detectives believe that after Mills dropped Tim off on Sept. 3, 1981, he returned later that night and broke in through Linda’s bedroom window while no one was home. He then hid in her closet and waited for her to go to bed. That’s when he raped and strangled Linda with a wire hanger from her closet.
The sentencing
WTSP
Joseph Mills pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and sexual battery. At his sentencing, Linda Slaten’s family took turns confronting him and asked him why he killed Linda. And while they didn’t get an answer – or an apology – from Mills, he told the court, “I am a good person.”
The judge sentenced Mills to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A small measure of justice
CBS News
Although the Slaten brothers feel some solace in knowing that Mills will never leave prison alive, it angers them that he had all those years of freedom while they lived most of their life without their mom. “I just wonder what life could have been like to have her,” Jeff says.
The Slaten brothers today
CBS News
Tim and Jeff remain extremely close. They visit their mother’s grave often and Jeff lights a candle every year on the anniversary of her death. Despite everything they’ve been through, they always continued to live life to the fullest for their mom.
“My mom, she’s looking down on us and would want us to live our lives and do good,” Jeff says, “I want to make her proud.”
September 4, 1981 was the day these men say their childhood ended. Jeff Slaten and his younger brother, Tim, had been awakened by Lakeland, Florida, police officers, and told their mother had been murdered. Police hustled the boys outside, but Tim, still in his pajamas, caught a glimpse of his mother. She had been raped and strangled.
“I saw the whole crime scene right then and there as a 12-year-old kid,” Tim Slaten tells CBS News chief investigative and senior national correspondent Jim Axelrod. “You can’t unsee that,” says Axelrod. Tim, with tears in his eyes, says he “still sees” the image of his dead mother, and knows he always will.
Prior to and after Linda Slaten’s murder, Tim Slaten’s football coach, Joe Mills, would regularly drive Tim to and from football practice. Coach Joe became a role model for the boy, who proudly hung up his football team photo, with the coach standing behind him, in his room.
Tim Slaten
To this day, the Slaten brothers feel grief and guilt, for not hearing anythingthat night, for not coming to their mom’s rescue. “I (would have) died died that night tryin’ to save my mom,” Jeff Slaten says. “But I didn’t hear nothing. And it’s so hard to live with that.”
Immediately after the murder, Jeff and Tim moved in with their grandparents. For those first frightening days, the entire family slept in the same room. It was their grandfather who rarely slept. He was standing guard all night with a shotgun.
The Slaten brothers immediately moved in with their grandparents. They had to face a new reality of life without their mom. A few weeks after their mom’s funeral, the brothers returned to school and familiar activities. “Being with friends and just started living life again, I guess,” says Tim. “You know, going back to football.”
Jeff Slaten
A few weeks later, the boys were back in school, and Tim was back playing football, his favorite sport. “Just trying to live life again,” he says. His teammates and coach, “Coach Joe,” were always supportive, always rooting for him. Coach Joe, 20 at the time, was a young man Tim had looked up to. He often drove Tim to and from football practice — a routine that had started well before the murder.
For years, Tim Slaten proudly hung his team football photo in his bedroom, taken just one month after the murder. The photo was also a reminder, he says, of something his mom had taught him: to keep moving forward and never give up.
After the murder, Lakeland investigators had collected a rape kit and lifted a palm print from Linda Slaten’s bedroom window, where the killer had entered. Detectives had questioned a slew of suspects, like Linda’s abusive ex-husband, Frank Slaten. Even her own son, Jeff, became a person of interest, telling Axelrod, “Lakeland Police, they was interrogating me all the time.”
But no one was charged. Before long, the case went cold and stayed that way for nearly four decades. Jeff Slaten says, he thought for sure he’d take his last breath without knowing who murdered his mom.
But remarkable advances in DNA technology renewed hope, and that carefully stored rape kit revealed an unlikely suspect, Joseph Clinton Mills — Coach Joe.
Now those car rides to practice took on new meaning. So did Tim’s team football photo, which sickens him today. Because standing directly behind Tim is the man he once trusted and admired, Coach Joe. He would often ask Tim how the case was going. Was there any news? Were there any new leads? Coach Joe was talking to a 12-year-old boy, trying to keep tabs on a murder investigation through the son of the murdered woman when he knew exactly who did it.
“I’ve been carrying the killer’s picture in my house this whole time and never had a clue,” Jeff says. “He’s a cold-hearted monster, that’s for sure.”
On Sept. 4, 1981, Jeff Slaten, 15 and his brother Time, 12, were awakened by Lakeland, Florida, police and told their mother, Linda Slaten, had been murdered. Investigators collected a rape kit and lifted a palm print from the windowsill where the killer had entered. They questioned a slew of suspects, but no one was charged, and the case went cold.
Prior to and after Linda Slaten’s murder, Tim’s football coach, Joe Mills, would regularly drive Tim to and from football practice. Coach Joe became a role model for the young boy, who proudly hung up his football team photo in his room where Mills stood right behind him.
Linda’s sons spent decades living in fear of the man they called “the Monster.” Nearly 40 years later, advances in DNA technology revealed Linda Slaten’s likely killer: Coach Joe.
“I looked up to this guy,” Tim tells “48 Hours” contributor Jim Axelrod. “And I had a picture in my house ever since then, and never knew it was him.”
“He’s a cold-hearted monster, that’s for sure,” says Jeff.
SEPTEMBER 4, 1981
Jim Axelrod: On the morning of September 4th, 1981 … you’re going to walk three doors down —
Judy Butler: Mm-hmm.
Jim Axelrod: — and have a cup of coffee with your sister.
Judy Butler: Right.
When Judy Butler knocked on her older sister’s front door, Linda Slaten never answered. At the time, the sisters both lived in a Lakeland apartment complex.
Jim Axelrod: So, you started to walk back to your place, and what happened?
Judy Butler: And I turn, and I see that the screen is out of the window.
Linda’s bedroom window was wide open. Judy walked over and looked inside.
Judy Butler: And my vision comes across her.
Jim Axelrod: Where was she?
Judy Butler: She was laying … instead of up and down on the bed, she was laying crossways. … And at first, I thought maybe she was asleep. … And then, then, I just started screaming.
Linda Slaten’s killer entered through her bedroom window.
Lakeland Police Department
When police arrived, they found the partially nude body of Linda Slaten, 31, with a wire coat hanger wrapped around her neck. The killer had entered her bedroom through the open window.
The crackle of police radios inside the small two-bedroom apartment woke up Linda’s 15-year-old son, Jeff, who was sleeping on a cot in the living room.
Jeff Slaten: I asked, “What is goin’ on?” He said, “Police officers. … Put on some clothes and go outside.” And he made sure I went out the front door.”
Jeff Slaten: And when I went out there, it looked like every cop in the state of Florida … news crews, and my Aunt Judy was out there crying, and she told me my mom been murdered (cries). And I just couldn’t believe it.
In the apartment’s second bedroom, another officer woke up Linda’s younger son, Tim, then 12 years old.
Tim Slaten: He goes, “You need to wake up and go outside with your brother.” He never mentioned my mom. I’m like, “why’s he not saying my mom? And why’s a cop waking me up?”
Still in his pajamas, Tim walked past his mother’s closed bedroom door. Suddenly, it swung open, as an officer left the room.
Tim Slaten: And I saw the whole crime scene. … I mean, I saw my mom’s bloody body with a coat hanger around her neck (cries).
Jim Axelrod: You can’t unsee that.
Tim Slaten (very emotional): No. … And I still see it.
1974 | SEVEN YEARS BEFORE THE MURDER
Linda Slaten
Jeff Slaten
In 1974, Linda Slaten was a 24-year-old single mom — finally free. She had just divorced Jeff and Tim’s abusive father, Frank Slaten, after nine volatile years of marriage.
Jeff Slaten: He was a violent alcoholic to be honest with you.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
Jim Axelrod: Did he hit your mom?
Jeff Slaten: Oh, yeah.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
In the years that followed, nothing was easy for the young family. Linda struggled for work, made her own clothes to save money, and couldn’t afford a car.
Jim Axelrod: If you couldn’t get a ride to practice, who would take you?
Tim Slaten: Coach come pick us up.
That’s “Coach Joe,” as the kids called him. He often drove Tim and some other boys to and from football practice.
SEPTEMBER 3, 1981 | LINDA SLATEN’S FINAL HOURS
On the last full day of her life, Linda and Jeff argued. Tensions had been rising with her teenage son.
Jeff Slaten: I remember coming home, there was nothing to eat in the house. … You know how it is when you’re a 15, 16-year-old kid, you’re mouthy and …
Jeff Slaten: I got mad, and I went out the door and got on my bicycle and road 11 or 12 miles to the northside of town … to go to my grandma and grandpa’s house to get somethin’ to eat.
At 8:30 that night, Tim came home from football practice.
Tim Slaten: The coach brought me home.
Around 9 p.m., Linda took Tim to a party next door to play cards.
Jeff Slaten: Grandma and grandpa brought me home by, I think it was around 9 — 9 or 9:30 or so.
Linda and Tim came home about 11. By midnight, Jeff made up with his mom, he says, and still remembers their final moment together.
Jeff Slaten: She’s washin’ the dishes and stuff. When she went to go to her bedroom and … I said, “I love you, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow,” you know.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett was a legendary fingerprint expert with the Lakeland Police Department and led the crime scene unit when Linda Slaten was murdered. Sergeant Pickett recovered a palm print from the bedroom windowsill — a piece of evidence that would later play a crucial role in the investigation.
Edgar Pickett/CBS News
Jim Axelrod: What do you remember about the Slaten case?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I could remember everything about it. Goin’ to that window and lookin’ at it, where he went through it. … Then I went in there and the children was asleep. And I saw that coat hanger around her neck.
Former Sergeant Edgar Pickett, now 94 years old, was a legendary fingerprint expert with the Lakeland Police Department. He led the crime scene unit. In fact, the crime lab bears his name. But that sort of recognition was a long time coming.
Arriving at the Slaten crime scene in 1981, Pickett, then 53, was just a year away from retirement. But his hard-earned reputation had never spared him from prejudice.
Jim Axelrod: So, you pull up at the scene, and another detective says what to you?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: That “A Black man don’t have any business lookin’ at a naked white woman.”
Jim Axelrod: Even though she was a homicide victim?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: That’s correct.
Sergeant Pickett believed Linda Slaten had been strangled with a coat hanger from her own closet. He dusted most of the bedroom for fingerprints, even the floor.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: And then I got that print off of that windowsill. … It was a palm print … it wasn’t a fingerprint.
Jim Axelrod: You got the most important print there is.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I know it.
The evidence Pickett uncovered would play a crucial role decades later — especially the palm print.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I had really had never seen anybody in the shape that that lady was in. And I’ve seen a lotta people killed.
An autopsy later confirmed what he already knew: Linda Slaten had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Swabs taken and preserved in a rape kit revealed semen. That morning, Pickett says, his thoughts kept returning to Linda Slaten’s boys.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I had children too. And I really wanted to clear that case. I did.
Jeff and Tim Slaten stand outside their former home.
CBS News
Jim Axelrod: You guys are standing on the spot where your life changed.
Tim Slaten: Yes, right here.
Jeff Slaten: Yeah, when I stopped being a kid was right there (pointing).
Jim Axelrod: You were 15.
Jeff Slaten: 15.
Jim Axelrod: You really felt like this was the end of your childhood, right here?
Jeff Slaten: Yes, sir. I think this is exactly when it ended, when my Aunt Judy told me my mom had been murdered.
Emerging through the terror and tears that September morning 41 years ago, the questions kept coming. Why? Who? Who could have done such an evil thing?
SEPTEMBER 4, 1981 | HOURS AFTER THE MURDER
On that late-summer morning in 1981, Jeff and Tim Slaten faced a frightening world they no longer recognized, a world without their mother.
Jim Axelrod: How do 12 and 15-year-old boys process that, deal with that?
Tim Slaten: It was hard.
Jeff Slaten: Yeah. I thought about committin’ suicide a couple times (cries). It was that bad.
The brothers moved in with their grandparents, Clarence and Margaret Harris.
Tim Slaten: We just, we stayed in the house. We didn’t go anywhere.
Jeff Slaten: Scared to death.
Tim Slaten: Scared to death to do anything.
For those first terrifying days, the family slept in the same room — except Grandpa Harris.
Tim Slaten: He would stand guard with a gun all night while we slept.
The grandparents hoped a quick return to familiar routines would help their distraught grandsons. A few weeks after their mom’s funeral, the boys were back in school.
Tim Slaten: And just you know, being with friends and just — just started livin’ life again, I guess. … You know, goin’ back to football.
His teammates, and Coach Joe in particular, were always supportive, always rooting for him, says Tim.
Tim Slaten: And I looked up to this guy. He was my assistant football coach. … Give me rides to the games, rides to practice.
Tim Slaten’s football team photo was taken a month after Linda’s murder. Tim hung it on his bedroom wall as a reminder, he says, of something his mom taught him: to keep moving forward and never give up.
Tim Slaten
Tim’s team football photo hung in his bedroom. It was taken just one month after the murder. The picture was a reminder, he says, of something his mom had taught him: to keep moving forward and never give up.
Jim Axelrod: She was a fighter?
Tim Slaten: Yes. Oh, yes.
Jeff Slaten: She mighta only weighed 100 pounds soakin’ wet, but she was pretty tough.
Judy Butler: Everybody liked her that met her. Everybody was asking her for a date. … Cause she was so young and pretty.
And then Linda met and married Frank Slaten.
Judy Butler: He was a mean, no-count scoundrel.
As detectives searched for the killer, Linda’s ex-husband, Frank Slaten, became a person of interest due to his history of abuse towards her. But investigators eventually seemed satisfied that Frank was home in Alabama on the night of the murder.
Jeff Slaten
The brothers say it’s hard to know when their dad began to beat their mom. The more he drank, the more violent he became.
Jeff Slaten: Yeah, I remember one time I was in the bathroom. He had her by the throat with a gun to her head and I was comin’ there tryin’ to get him off of her. … And I felt like I had saved her that, you know, that night. That day.
Jim Axelrod: But you were just a little guy yourself.
Jeff Slaten: Yeah, I was only … 6-and-a-half, 7 years old.
Frank Slaten’s history of abuse made him a person of interest for Lakeland detectives. But investigators seemed satisfied that Slaten was home in Alabama on the night of the murder. At the time of her death, Linda had a boyfriend. He, too, had a credible alibi. Others were looked at — like the partygoers next door — but no one was charged.
Jeff Slaten: The Lakeland Police Department … they used to come down to take me out of school and they was always interrogating me all the time.
Jim Axelrod: In the early days, it sounds like who the police really were most thorough in checking out —
Jeff Slaten (Jeff raises his hand): Was me.
The Slaten brothers immediately moved in with their grandparents. They had to face a new reality of life without their mom. A few weeks after their mom’s funeral, the brothers returned to school and familiar activities.
Jeff Slaten
As a 15-year-old, Jeff had plenty of typical teen conflicts with his mom, which he readily admitted to detectives — including that heated argument on the last day of her life.
Jeff Slaten: I know they had me, put me on a lie detector test one time. … And I passed it. Then they wanted to do it again. … They was wantin’ to put me under hypnosis.
Jeff Slaten: And then there’s one time, one of the cops … he’s, like … “You got big arms on you. And you’re strong enough to put your hands around your mom’s neck and kill her.”
Jeff Slaten: Wha…who would do that to a kid? I was a 15-year-old kid hurting, and say that to me? I mean, that’s— that’s always hurt.
Finally, Jeff’s grandparents said, “Enough.”
Jeff Slaten: They’s, like, “Get out there and find who killed my daughter. Leave this kid and leave this family alone.”
Two weeks later, according to the Lakeland Police report, Jeff took a second polygraph test and was cleared. At that point, the investigation slowed, then ground to a halt.
As the years passed, Jeff and Tim started their own families. But to this day, there is still grief and guilt for not hearing anything that night — for not coming to their mom’s rescue.
Jeff Slaten: I (would have) died that night tryin’ to save my mom. … I mean, we’re right there in the house. How could you not hear somethin’ like that?
And they lived in fear of the man they called, “The Monster.” Unless he was dead, he was out there … somewhere.
Around the 20th anniversary of their mom’s murder, Jeff and Tim met with Lakeland Detective Brad Grice, who was taking a fresh look at the case.
Det. Brad Grice: Soon as Jeff and Tim walked in the door, I realized I had known Jeff for years, since I was in my twenties … through bowling.
Jeff Slaten: I was, like, “Brad.” (laughs). … Sure enough, I knew him from bowlin’ years ago.
Grice took DNA samples from the brothers to clear them again, then gave Jeff something in return — a promise.
Det. Brad Grice: He made me promise that I wouldn’t retire until I solved his mother’s case. And I wanted to so bad for him and his brother. I did.
Grice had already sent DNA from the Slaten rape kit to the state’s major crime lab at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement — the FDLE.
Jim Axelrod: Do you have any confidence that you could solve it?
Det. Brad Grice: I was hopin’ DNA would, you know? It was becomin’ a big tool.
By March 1999, the FDLE had developed a full DNA profile of Linda Slaten’s anonymous killer.
Jim Axelrod: All you need is a DNA match.
Det. Brad Grice: A hit. … That’s all I needed was a hit in the database.
Detective Grice took dozens of DNA samples from prior persons of interest, submitting them to the FDLE for comparison.
Det. Brad Grice: We were tryin’ everything.
Even the brothers’ father, Frank Slaten — who had stopped drinking — volunteered a sample. None matched.
Then in September 2001, Grice got a tip. Nearly a year after the Slaten killing, a 24-year-old man named Jimmy Ulmer pulled a 10-year-old girl through her bedroom window and nearly killed her.
Det. Brad Grice: He was convicted of that and sentenced to, like, 80 years in prison.
The savage assault seemed eerily similar to the Slaten case. And Detective Grice discovered that, around the time of Linda’s Slaten’s murder, Jimmy Ulmer had been staying with a friend who happened to live in the very sameapartment complex as Slaten.
Jim Axelrod: Hang on. Jimmy Ulmer … was staying in an apartment right across the way from the Slatens?
Det. Brad Grice: Yes.
Jim Axelrod: You must’ve felt like that’s our guy.
Det. Brad Grice: I felt very strong. I did.
Ulmer had died in prison five years earlier in 1996. But Grice got a DNA sample from his mother.
Det. Brad Grice: I honestly felt that when we got the results back that we would know who did it. Then we get the notice that it wasn’t him.
Jim Axelrod: At that point, you must’ve been, like, “We’re never gonna solve this thing.”
Det. Brad Grice: It sure felt that way. It was very discouraging.
Jeff Slaten: You know it’s like, “Oh my God, we’re back to square one again.”
Tim Slaten: It felt like you was on a rollercoaster for pretty much your whole life.
By 2005, 24 years after the murder, Detective Grice was heading up a new cold case unit. And the FBI was running the DNA profile of Slaten’s killer continuously through all federal databanks. But the years continued to pass without a match.
Det. Brad Grice: Jeff would call. And “Jeff, I — I got nothin’ for ya,” you know? … It hurt my heart too, you know?
Grice had a growing suspicion he was chasing a ghost.
Det. Brad Grice: I honestly thought the suspect might be deceased.
He had made that promise to the brothers that he wouldn’t retire until their monster was caught.
Det. Brad Grice: I had some medical things that were poppin’ up.
It was a promise he couldn’t keep. Detective Grice retired in 2015.
Jim Axelrod: There was probably nothing in your professional life you wanted more than to call Jeff Slaten and say, “Got him.”
Det. Brad Grice: Absolutely.
Jeff Slaten: After Detective Brad Grice retired, I’m like, I said, “Well, I’ll probably take my last breath and not know who murdered my mom.” I was already starting to come to terms with it.
But three years later, there was renewed hope. A groundbreaking DNA technology began to electrify the law enforcement community. And Genetic Genealogist CeCe Moore was taking on the Slaten case.
CeCe Moore: I was determined I was going to help these boys find out who killed their mom.
JUNE 2019 | 38 YEARS AFTER THE MURDER
CeCe Moore is a renowned expert in the field of investigative genetic genealogy.
CeCe Moore: If you have that DNA there is no reason you cannot solve that mystery, whatever that mystery is.
During the autopsy, swabs were collected from Linda Slaten that contained semen. Investigators carefully preserved the contents of the rape kit for years to come.Forensic DNA analysis didn’t exist until 1984. Later, it would prove key to solving this case.
Lakeland Police Department
Moore launched her hunt for Linda Slaten’s killer by uploading the anonymous DNA from Slaten’s rape kit to a public genealogy website called GEDMatch. She then meticulously constructed — branch by branch — his genetic family tree.
CeCe Moore: I built the family trees of those people who shared DNA with him. And then I identify common ancestors between those people.
She made those connections by poring over birth certificates, marriage licenses, obituaries and social media to fill in the family tree with names.
Jim Axelrod: It sounds like basically you’re putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle.
CeCe Moore: Yes. My work is constantly putting together puzzles. Piece by piece by piece.
CeCe Moore (referring to section of family tree): These matches all share DNA with each other. So, they’re my first genetic network.
CeCe Moore uncovered three genetic networks — branches of the killer’s family tree that ultimately narrowed to the one person most likely responsible for the murder of Linda Slaten.
CeCe Moore: Fortunately, those three genetic networks converged into one family tree that pointed at one immediate family. And he was the only son in that family. And we knew the killer was a male. So, it had to be him that was the DNA contributor.
After hundreds of leads and dead ends, after dozens of suspects were investigated and cleared, CeCe Moore identified the probable killer in one weekend.
CeCe Moore: There was just one person who was high confidence.
Jim Axelrod: And who was that?
CeCe Moore: Joseph Clinton Mills.
Joseph Clinton Mills — Coach Joe — who drove Linda Slaten’s 12-year-old son, Tim, to and from practice. But authorities wanted to be certain before they notified the brothers.
CeCe Moore: And then there is sort of exhilaration because he’s alive. … And so there’s a real chance for justice and maybe even answers.
CeCe Moore’s final 2019 report confirmed that Joseph Mills, then 58, was living in Kathleen, Florida, about half an hour from the crime scene.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: I reviewed the case, and … I’m like, “I remember that name.” … I remember seeing that name. That — that guy was interviewed.”
Detectives Tammy Hathcock and Russell Hurley were the next generation of Lakeland investigators leading the Slaten cold case.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: I’m telling you, it’s like I won the lottery. I remember grabbing that piece of paper from the report and just running down the hallway to my sergeant saying, “Oh, my God he was interviewed! He was interviewed!”
According to the case file, investigators did question Joseph Mills, then 20 years old, just one day after the murder.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: He was very basically touched. I mean like just a very brief interview.
And it was conducted on the phone, not in person.
The fact that investigators never questioned Mills face to face suggests he was never considered a suspect. During the brief call, Mills acknowledged he had driven Tim Slaten home from football practice on September 3. Just hours later, Linda Slaten was dead.
Jim Axelrod: How was Joseph Mills not followed up on more aggressively in 1981?
Det. Tammy Hathcock: At that point, I mean he was just a football coach that had dropped off Timmy. … He was never on their radar to … be a suspect just based off of the information that they were given by Timmy and by Mr. Mills.
Detectives Hathcock and Hurley discovered that in 1984, Mills had been convicted of grand theft for forging a will. He never went to jail, but police collected fingerprints and palm prints from him. In 2019, investigators compared Mills’ palm print from in 1984 to the palm print that was lifted off Linda Slaten’s windowsill in 1981 and they were a match.
Lakeland Police Department
Joseph Mills was convicted in 1984 of grand theft for forging a will. He never went to jail, but he was fingerprinted. Lakeland police also took a palm print. In August 2019, investigators compared those prints to the palm print Sergeant Pickett lifted off Slaten’s windowsill nearly 38 years before.
Jim Axelrod: When the prints came back, there was a match?
Det. Russell Hurley: Yes.
High-tech genetic genealogy had identified Mills as the likely killer, and an old-fashioned palm print match helped confirm his identity. But Hathcock and Hurley still needed to compare a fresh DNA sample from Mills to the decades-old DNA recovered from the crime scene.
Det. Russell Hurley: ‘Cause we had to get his DNA without his knowledge and see if we can get a match. …We had to do some surveillance.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: It was several weekends that we were following him around …
Det. Tammy Hathcock: … trying to get discarded DNA.
Jim Axelrod: Just looking for a cup that he drank from or a tissue that he used.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: Anything.
After tracking Mills with no luck, the detectives decided it was time to get their hands dirty. They covertly took Mills’ trash back to the police department
Det. Tammy Hathcock: Here we are in dress clothes just digging through trash bags. … Not the most glamorous thing.
They discovered a piece of used medical adhesive tape and sent it off to the FDLE crime lab for testing. After searching Mills’ trash, they dug through his life.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: He’s been married to the same woman. And he lived in the same place.
Det. Russell Hurley: He was a business owner … a cleaning service.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: …he was a truck driver over the years.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: He had a family.
Jim Axelrod: Married, kids
Det. Tammy Hathcock: Married, kids, grandkids.
Eleven days later, the stunning lab results: Joseph Mills’ 2019 DNA found on the medical tape and the 1981 unknown DNA from Linda Slaten’s rape kit were a spot-on match. That’s when the brothers were told the monster had been found.
Jim Axelrod: This guy you last knew as Coach Joe, oh my goodness, it was him.
Tim Slaten: And I had a picture in my house ever since then, and never knew it was him.
“Coach Joe”Mills and Tim Slaten
Tim Slaten
Tim’s 1981 team football photo, a source of pride for years, sickens him today. Because standing directly behind him is the man he once trusted and admired. Coach Joe.
Tim Slaten: I’ve been carrying the killer’s picture in my house this whole time and never had a clue.
Even after the murder, Joseph Mills continued driving Tim to and from football practice — picking him up and dropping him off at his grandparents’ house.
Tim Slaten: He’d ask us how the case was goin’. … He wouldn’t ask questions about it. He just, “Well, any new news or any new leads?” And I was, like, “No, nothing.” You know.
Jim Axelrod: He’s talkin’ to a 12-year-old boy and tryin’ to keep tabs on a murder investigation through the son of the murdered woman?
Jeff Slaten: Yeah.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
Jim Axelrod: When he knows exactly who did it.
Jeff Slaten: He’s a cold-hearted monster, that’s for sure.
On Dec 12, 2019, the detectives moved in, arresting Joseph Mills.
Joseph Clinton Mills was arrested 38 years after Linda Slaten’s murder.
Lakeland Police Department
DET. TAMMY HATHCOCK (sitting next to Mills in backseat of police car): You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law …
Det. Russell Hurley: He was calm, cool, and collected like it was another day on the beach. … Most people’s reaction would be, “Why am I bein’ arrested?”
Jim Axelrod: “Why are you takin’ me in?” You expected some of that?
Det. Tammy Hathcock: Right, some kind of emotion, and nothing.
DECEMBER 2019 | 38 YEARS AFTER THE MURDER
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY (police interview): It’s been 38 years, and I’m sure you go to bed every night thinking about this. I have no doubt in my mind.
Detectives Hathcock and Hurley finally had Joseph Mills right where they wanted him — in the claustrophobic confines of a police interview room.
JOSEPH MILLS (police interview): When I picked the boys up, we — we — we stayed in the vehicle. And I don’t recall going to, in or out of the house, period.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: There’s no way that is the truth. I mean, he’s saying he’s never been in there. … We got him.
DET. TAMMY HATHCOCK (police interview): What we have tells us a different story. OK. You were in that apartment.
Ratcheting up the pressure, the detectives told Mills they had overwhelming evidence placing him inside Linda Slaten’s bedroom.
DET. TAMMY HATHCOCK (police interview): Your fingerprints matches you, the DNA matches you.
During his interrogation, Mills told detectives that Linda Slaten invited him over for consensual sex, which investigators knew was a lie. “I think it’s pretty evident that he targeted her,” Det. Russell Hurley says.
Lakeland Police Department
That’s when Mills’ story began to change.
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY: And then how did you end up crawling through her window?
JOSEPH MILLS: It was like an invitation.
An invitation from Linda Slaten, Mills claimed, for consensual sex — a flat-out lie, say the detectives.
Det. Russell Hurley: He said it was a sex game, that she had the hanger around her neck when he came through the window and she asked him to tighten it down.
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY: And then did you … start applying pressure?
JOSEPH MILLS: Yes.
Det. Russell Hurley: And when I pointed out well the brutality of the hanger and how deep it was into her skin he stuck with the “It was a game.”
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY (to Mills): You purposely killed her. We’re all sittin’ here, we know that.
Jim Axelrod: At the end of the day what happened here?
Det. Russell Hurley: I think it’s pretty evident that he targeted her.
After dropping off Tim from football practice on Sept. 3, 1981, Joseph Mills returned later that night, the detectives say, breaking in through Linda Slaten’s bedroom window. No one heard Mills, they believe, because no one was home. Jeff was still at his grandparents’ house; Linda and Tim were at the party next door.
Det. Russell Hurley: If you look at the crime scene and all that — the hanger obviously came from the closet. … We figured that’s what happened … is he was hiding in the closet.
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY: Were you ever in the closet?
JOSEPH MILLS (long pause): No sir.
In the final moments of her life, the detectives believe that Linda, after saying goodnight to her sons, walked into her bedroom and closed the door — never knowing that Mills was already inside waiting for her. There was no invitation, no consensual sex, they say. Joseph Mills raped and murdered Linda Slaten.
Detective Brad Grice always suspected the killer’s name was buried somewhere in the thick police case file.
Jim Axelrod: Why do you feel that the investigation didn’t circle back to Joseph Mills?
Det. Brad Grice: Well, obviously, I put a lotta that on me now.
Jim Axelrod: You do?
Det. Brad Grice: I do.
The crime lab’s results revealed that Joseph Mills’ DNA on the medical adhesive tape and the unknown DNA recovered from the rape kit were a spot-on match.
Lakeland Police Department
Grice blames himself for not taking a harder look at Joseph Mills — a sentiment notshared by the Slaten brothers. They feel nothing but gratitude to the detective and friend who spent 17 years chasing the elusive killer.
Jeff Slaten: I could tell how — how hard he wanted to solve it.
Jeff Slaten: And I actually named my son after him. My son’s named Brad, too.
Det. Brad Grice: Jeff put a little pressure on me over the years, you know, he did. You can’t retire until you solve this case, and then he named his son after me.
Det. Brad Grice: And honestly, I just wanted to solve this case for them more than anything.
So did this former investigator — 94-year-old Edgar Pickett. The brothers had always wanted to meet him.
Jeff Slaten: So, I wanna thank you for all you did for our mama back then. … If you hadn’t of done it, this monster would still be running free today.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: Sure would, huh?
Jeff and Tim Slaten meet Sgt. Pickett for the first time, thanking him for his role in solving their mother’s murder.
CBS News
It is poignant praise for Sergeant Pickett, who lifted the palm print that helped identify the monster, Joseph Mills.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: That’s the case I can never forget.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett (pointing to his head): It’s up here, I can’t get rid of it.
During his distinguished and trailblazing 29-year career, Sergeant Pickett had seen it all. And yet, it’s the Linda Slaten case that haunts him to this day. He never knew police had questioned a man named Joseph Mills just one dayafter the killing.
Jim Axelrod: You didn’t know for 38 years that he was talked to immediately afterward?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: No, I didn’t.
Instead, Pickett says he was asked to compare prints of a number of black men who were questioned in the days after the murder following neighbors’ reports of suspicious activity.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: They kept pickin’ up a lotta Blacks. And they was given me their prints for me to look at theirs.
It not just haunts, but angers Pickett: Black men were rounded up and fingerprinted, while the White football coach — driving Linda’s sonto and from practice — was never considered a suspect.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: They just talked to him and let him go.
Jim Axelrod: You’re telling me this case … could’ve been solved in the first days after the murder…if they had just taken a print from Joseph Mills?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: That’s correct.
Jim Axelrod: There’s a lot of people who came before you. I get it. … But you got a palm print in the windowsill almost immediately. … Wouldn’t you just get some prints from the guy, anybody who had been near the house in the 24 hours prior to the murder?
Det. Russell Hurley: There was no indication that he had been in the house. I mean, all the witnesses said that he dropped the kid off from practice and never got out of the truck, so … The only reason why he was spoke to was because, when they backtrack on the previous 24 hours, he was in that equation
Jim Axelrod: You don’t feel like he slipped through the net?
Det. Tammy Hathcock: No.
Det. Russell Hurley: No.
Joseph Mills’ day of reckoning would finally come 40 years later.
Jeff Slaten: He’s got cold, black, murderin’ eyes, this Joseph Clinton Mills. He just sit there. … Not a word…
FEBRUARY 9, 2022 | 41 YEARS AFTER THE MURDER
Tim Slaten: Our mom was a good person. He took that away from us.
To avoid a trial and a possible death sentence, Joseph Mills pleaded guilty to all charges — including first-degree murder, sexual battery and burglary. At his sentencing, what Linda Slaten’s family wanted most was the answer to one question.
JEFF SLATEN (yelling at Mills in court): Why? I just want to know why, Joe? Why’d you take my mama from me? I loved my mama. We was happy.
Tim Slaten: My blood would start boilin’ every time I look at him.
The brothers, and Aunt Judy, tried to look him in the eye.
Judy Butler: To see if there was any human being in there, to see if he was alive, to see if he had a soul. Never saw it.
His silence infuriated the family. And a few minutes later, so did his comments to the court.
JOSEPH MILLS (in court): I am a good person. I’m not that person that they’re painting me out to be …
CeCe Moore: I think this case made me the angriest out of the hundreds of cases I’ve been involved in because what he did with her children there. … And then the things he said about her.
Jim Axelrod: That she lured him in.
CeCe Moore: Even all these years later he was willing to try to make her look bad, to denigrate the victim, and her boys have to hear that. It’s just sickening.
JUDGE: I will sentence you to life in prison without the possibility of parole …
And just like that, Joseph Clinton Mills was gone — facing four life terms and finally, a measure of justice.
Jim Axelrod: Maybe not full justice in your view.
Tim Slaten: It’s not full justice, by no means.
Tim Slaten: I wanted him to go to trial. … I wanted to see him up on the stand and tell everybody why he did this, and he never did that.
The Slaten brothers feel somecomfort knowing Joseph Mills will never leave prison alive. But there’s still anger, they say, because Mills never took full responsibility for the premeditated rape and murder of their mother. He never apologized. And there were all those years of freedom.
Tim Slaten: He lived his whole life. He raised his family. You know, he had a good life.
The Slaten brothers feel some comfort knowing Joseph Mills will never leave prison alive, but there’s still anger, because Mills never took full responsibility for the premeditated rape and murder of their mother.
Jeff Slaten
It’s the brothers who feel they were handed the far more severe sentence: lifewithout the possibility of growing up with their mom.
Jeff Slaten: She’d still be here today. She’d only be 72, you know? Coulda had her my whole life.
Jeff Slaten: I just wonder what life could have been like to have her.
Jim Axelrod: Any part of you when you think about all of this … at all angry with the way the police handled it, that it took this long to get Joseph Mills?
Tim Slaten: You could look at it that way. I know it’s a lotta hard work behind the scenes that people don’t see that goes on. You know, what they do, the hours upon hours they put in. I mean, you could get mad, but only so much could be done in a day.
CeCe Moore: We owe a huge debt of gratitude to those original crime scene investigators. Because at the time this crime was committed, they didn’t even know DNA was going to be used in criminal investigations. … And so the fact they collected that and then it was stored responsibly and carefully all these years by that department is so important. If that hadn’t happened, we couldn’t have done our work.
Jeff and Tim say they’re determined to move on as best they can, to live life well for their mom and for their families.
The brothers also know they never would have survived their ordeal without each other. They remain extremely close, live just a few miles apart, and share passionate hobbies, like restoring cars.
Jim Axelrod: You give the credit for living this life to the spirit of your mom?
Tim Slaten: Yes.
Jeff Slaten: Most definitely.
“Sure do love you, Mom. I miss you so much every day,” say Jeff Slaten with his brother Tim at their mother’s gravesite.
CBS News
Jeff Slaten: My mom, she’s looking down on us and would want us to live our lives and do good. You know. … And I always think she’s looking down on us. I want to make her proud.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
Jeff Slaten: Want to make her proud.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
The Slaten brothers visit their mother’s grave together often.
Jeff burns a candle next to a portrait of his mother every year on the anniversary of her death.
Produced by Mead Stone. Gabriella Demirdjian is the field producer. Marc Goldbaum and Sara Ely Hulse are the development producers. Nancy Bautista is the broadcast associate. Mead Stone, Greg Kaplan and Grayce Arlotta-Berner are the editors. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Linda Slaten was murdered in Florida in 1981. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Jim Axelrod joins “CBS Mornings” with details on the investigation that eventually led police to a killer almost 40 years later, and a preview of his “48 Hours” report “The Betrayal of Linda Slaten.”
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When Josh SanSoucie went for a sleepover at a friend’s house back in 1998 at the age of 15, he had no idea he would land in the middle of a murder investigation. More than 20 years later, Josh, now 39 years old, is giving his first TV interview to “48 Hours” about that night in Hopewell, Missouri that changed his life forever and landed his friend in prison.
In the early hours of Dec. 5, 1998, Michael Politte, then 14, says he found his mother’s body lying on her bedroom floor on fire.
Washington County Sheriff’s Department
The story begins on Dec. 4, 1998, when Josh SanSoucie and his schoolmate, then-14-year-old Michael Politte, met up at a general store in the small town of Hopewell, Missouri, where they lived. Michael invited Josh to sleep over and the pair headed to Michael’s house to play chess and video games. When they got bored around midnight, they say they headed down to the railroad tracks near Michael’s house and Michael set a fire, something Michael says the kids in his rural neighborhood often did for fun. It wasn’t long before the boys say they returned to Michael’s house. Soon after, Michael’s mom, 40-year-old Rita Politte, returned home from working at a local bar and everyone turned in for bed. Michael and Josh say that just before 6:30 a.m., they awoke to a smoke-filled house. The pair say they crawled towards the front door, while Michael yelled for his mom. He didn’t get a reply.
“Michael, what are you feeling at this point?” asked Moriarty.
“Panic, fear,” Michael replied.
When Michael approached his mother’s room, he says he was met with a grisly sight: “I seen her laying. … I seen blood on her legs, and she was on fire from the waist up. … I didn’t know what to do.”
Rita Politte, 40, was bludgeoned and set on fire — all while her son and a friend said they were sleeping a couple of rooms away.
Politte family
Rita Politte had been brutally murdered — bludgeoned and set on fire — all while the two teens said they were sleeping a couple of rooms away. Both Josh and Michael were questioned by authorities repeatedly in the hours and days following the murder. They both denied any involvement, but two days after the crime, Michael was arrested for his mother’s murder. Investigators said Michael Politte showed a lack of emotion in the wake of the crime. They also said an accelerant sniffing dog alerted to Michael’s shoes on the morning of the murder, and that he failed a voice stress test. Voice stress tests are controversial, and the results are often inadmissible in court.
Also, prior to Michael Politte’s arrest, Josh SanSoucie gave a videotaped interview to police that seemed to poke a hole in Michael’s account of the evening. Josh had slept on the floor next to where Michael had been sleeping in his bed. In that videotaped interview, Josh indicated that he woke up to a noise in the middle of the night, and Michael wasn’t in the room.
“I don’t remember ever saying that,” Josh SanSoucie told “48 Hours” in his first television interview since then. “And I feel like if I said that, then it was maybe at a weak point or something.”
Josh now says that although he did wake up briefly in the night, he never saw Michael missing from the room. He told “48 Hours” that the police questioning was so relentless that he remembers telling his mom at the time, “They keep saying that I’m lying. I don’t even know if I’m telling the truth anymore.”
In a deposition before Michael went on trial, Josh did clarify his statement. Josh said that he never sat up from where he was sleeping on the floor and that, “It’s not that I did not see him in his bed. It’s I couldn’t see him in his bed.”
In January 2002, three years after the crime, Michael Politte’s trial began. The prosecution presented evidence that an accelerant had been used to set Rita Politte on fire and the jury was told how an accelerant had been detected on Michael’s shoes. The jury also heard about that fire Michael had set on the railroad tracks prior to the murder.
But perhaps the most damaging evidence against Michael at trial was the prosecution’s claim that Michael had confessed to the crime during a suicide attempt while incarcerated. Three witnesses who worked at the juvenile detention center wrote in reports that Michael said, “I haven’t cared since … I killed my mom.” But Michael maintains he said, “I haven’t cared since they killed my mom,” alluding to whoever the real killer(s) might be. The jury did not hear from Michael, however, because when it was the defense’s turn to present their case, he didn’t take the stand. Instead, the defense argued there was no direct evidence tying Michael to the crime: no murder weapon had been found and, despite the violence of the attack, Michael had no injuries and no blood on his clothing.
Josh SanSoucie did not testify, and the jury never heard or saw his videotaped interview with police.
After a three-day trial, the case went to the jury. Deliberations lasted over four hours and then the jury found Michael Politte guilty of second-degree murder. He was later sentenced to life in prison.
Although the trial was over, Michael Politte’s fight to clear his name wasn’t. Five years after his conviction, Michael wrote to the Midwest Innocence Project, and they agreed to take on his case. The organization worked on it for years and, eventually, attorneys Tricia Bushnell, Megan Crane and Mark Emison became involved.
Michael Politte’s new team of defense attorneys picked apart the case against him.
“Mike was convicted because he was a kid, pure and simple,” Megan Crane told “48 Hours.” “They said … he wasn’t emotional enough. … Trauma doesn’t look like what people think it should look like.”
Michael’s new attorneys also identified what they say are problems with the scientific evidence used to convict Michael, starting with the prosecution’s claim that an accelerant was used to set Rita on fire. They say there is no proof an accelerant was used in the commission of the crime.
The attorneys also say that there is no proof of an accelerant being present on Michael’s shoes. Instead, attorney Mark Emison says a chemical used in the shoe manufacturing process was wrongly identified as gasoline and even the Missouri state crime lab agrees. In a 2020 letter, the crime lab says, “… it is now known that solvents found in footwear adhesives have similarities to gasoline. … But that in the late 1990s, this knowledge was not widely known.”
Michael Politte claims he knows who is really responsible for his mother’s murder. His attorneys believe police didn’t properly investigate the crime, and they have filed court documents that name alternative suspects.
In April 2022, after serving 23 years behind bars, Michael Politte walked out of prison. Incarcerated at just 14-years-old, he was now 38.
CBS News
For years, Michael’s team of lawyers fought unsuccessfully to get his conviction overturned but then in 2021, there came an unexpected development. A bill passed in Missouri giving juvenile offenders convicted of serious crimes a second chance. As a result, Michael was granted parole. In April 2022, he walked out of a Missouri state prison. Incarcerated at just 14-years-old, he was now 38. But Michael tells Moriarty in this week’s “48 Hours” that his freedom is not enough because he still has a felony conviction for his mother’s murder on his record. He remains committed to clearing his name and is hopeful.
Josh Hedgecorth, the current prosecutor of Washington County, Missouri, where the murder took place, filed a motion on May 16, 2022, asking for Michael’s conviction to be overturned. Hedgecorth agrees with Michael’s defense team that the scientific evidence used to convict Michael is problematic.
“To me, it all — always comes back to the science,” says Hedgecorth.
Hedgecorth has revealed to “48 Hours” that the Washington County Sheriff’s Department has reopened the investigation into Rita’s murder.
“We wanna do the right thing. If someone else did this, we wanna know that,” Hedgecorth tells Moriarty. “Even if it’s new evidence that it was Michael.”
Despite Michael’s optimism that his name will eventually be cleared, his case just got more complicated. Earlier this month, Hedgecorth lost his bid for reelection. And just this week, the Missouri Supreme Court temporarily halted Hedgecorth’s effort to overturn Politte’s conviction.
Josh SanSoucie says he feels badly for Michael and his family. Thoughts of “what if” have haunted Josh for all of these years. The night of the sleepover, Michael had asked Josh if he would rather sleep on the couch in the living room, or in Michael’s bedroom on the floor.
“Is there anything you would have done differently when you look back?” Moriarty asks.
“I wish I … slept on the couch,” Josh replies.
If an intruder came in through the front door, they would have had to pass by the couch to enter Rita’s room. If that is what happened, Josh believes that person may have seen him and left. “You think if you had slept on that couch, Rita would still be alive?” Moriarty asks. Josh replies that he does.
Michael told “48 Hours” that he wants Josh to know that he feels that Josh didn’t do anything wrong. The pair haven’t seen each other since they were kids, but they hope to reunite one day. “He didn’t do it,” Josh told Moriarty. “I don’t know who did, but I know it wasn’t him.”
It was Jan. 6, 1982, a bitter cold evening with blizzard-like conditions, when two women hitchhikers vanished from the popular ski resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado, and were later found shot to death.
Even though the women — 29-year-old Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer and 21-year-old Annette Schnee — disappeared on the same day, their cases were not linked until Annette’s body was discovered six months later. She was wearing an orange sock — a recent Christmas present from her mother. Investigators had found her other orange sock near the body of Bobbie Jo, and they knew then that the women almost certainly were killed by the same person.
But for nearly 40 years, the identity of their killer confounded police, even though he was within their grasp the night of the murders. It was only when the killer was identified decades later that investigators learned the bitter truth.
On the night of the murders, authorities had launched an all-out effort to rescue a local miner, Alan Lee Phillips, whose truck became stuck in a raging snowstorm. It would be decades before police realized Phillips had, only hours before the rescue, killed Bobbie Jo and Annette.
Details of Phillips’ rescue and his crimes were revealed during his trial this year, where he was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and other charges.
Some recall that the weather on the night of the murders was brutal, with temperatures plunging to negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit. When Phillips’ truck got stuck in a snowdrift on a mountain pass, he began using his truck’s headlights to signal SOS in morse code. Incredibly, a sheriff flying overhead on a commercial jetliner spotted the signal through the falling snow and alerted the crew, who radioed down to dispatch at the sheriff’s office.
Dave Montoya, a local fire chief, heard the call and offered to drive up the pass. When he arrived, he was met with a familiar face. He had worked alongside Phillips in the mines. And on Phillips’ face, Montoya recalls, was a prominent bruise. He told Montoya he got it when he fell while wandering around in the snow.
Police now believe that Phillips got the bruise when Oberholtzer hit him in the face with a special brass key ring made by her husband, Jeff. He specifically made it for her in case she ever encountered trouble while hitchhiking.
Partly because investigators did not believe Jeff Oberholtzer had a solid alibi, he became a suspect in his wife’s murder.
“To live under this cloud of suspicion for as long as you did, what did that do to you?” Morales asked Oberholtzer on location in Colorado.
Jeff Oberholtzer continued to reside in the area even after his wife was murdered.
“It was very painful,” he replied. “Being under suspicion from not only the authorities, but also being tried in the court of public opinion. People didn’t want a suspected murderer in their house.”
It would take a long time for the full story to unravel, but Oberholtzer eventually was cleared.
Annette Schnee
Schnee family
As it turned out, Phillips’ first victim that January day was Annette Schnee, a housekeeper at a local Holiday Inn. After Annette left work, she visited a doctor and then hitchhiked to a drug store in Breckenridge later that afternoon. Hitchhiking was very common in the mountain towns back in the 1980s. Annette got some medication at the drug store and was not seen after 4:45 p.m. that day.
Authorities now believe Phillips picked up Annette in his truck.
A few hours later, at about 7:50 p.m., Oberholtzer disappeared. Oberholtzer was at a pub that night with a few friends, and at 6:21 p.m., she called her husband, Jeff.
“She said she’d be home relatively soon … she said she had a ride,” Jeff told “48 Hours.”
Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer
Laurie Merlo
Jeff said he fell asleep watching TV. When he woke up around midnight, and Bobbie Jo still was not home, he felt something was terribly wrong. He said he went out looking for her, and tried to report her missing. Breckenridge police told him they could not do anything for 24 hours, so he returned home.
Just hours later, Jeff said he received a call from a rancher in the area, who said he had found Bobbie Jo’s license on his property. Jeff rushed over and, on his way, he said he spotted Bobbie Jo’s distinctive blue backpack on the side of the road and stopped to retrieve it. He said he also found two items: Bobbie Jo’s right glove, and a tissue, both of which had traces of blood.
No one knew it then, but decades later, those traces of blood would lead directly to Phillips. Police have always credited Bobbie Jo with fighting back enough to draw that blood.
The next day, Jan. 7, worried friends formed a search party and went out on skis looking for Bobbie Jo. Around 3 p.m. that afternoon, they located her body in a snowbank where Phillips had shot and killed her.
Jim Hardtke, then an agent for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), said Bobbie Jo was fully clothed, and an autopsy would later reveal she was not sexually assaulted. A pair of zip ties were on one of her wrists. Not far away was that special key chain made by Jeff.
There was another item found not far from Bobbie Jo’s body—an orange sock or bootie. It seemed to have no direct connection to the crime scene, or at least none that was readily apparent, according to Hardtke.
“It was just one of those mysterious things that you pick up at a crime scene that you keep until you know what it is or never will find out,” Hardtke said.
One of the many twists in the case is that, at that point, authorities did not yet know that Schnee was missing. They had never even heard her name.
It wasn’t until two days later — on Jan. 8 — that a co-worker of Annette’s called Frisco police to report that Schnee had not come to work at the Holiday Inn for two days. That was very unlike Annette, said her sister Cindy French.
Police traced Schnee’s movements to the drug store in Breckenridge, but there her trail vanished. She seemed to have simply disappeared.
“Mom would just say, ‘I just wanna know why, how,’” French remembers. “‘And nobody can give it to me. Nobody knows why or how.’”
But on July 3, 1982 — nearly six months after Schnee was last seen alive — a young boy out fishing came upon her body in a stream, about 23 miles from where she was last seen in Breckenridge. Agent Hardtke attended the autopsy. No bullet was recovered, but forensics showed that Annette was shot in the back as she was running downhill toward that stream, authorities said.
Hardtke suspected Annette had been sexually assaulted, but it was impossible to tell given the amount of time her body had been in the stream. Hardtke based his assumption about the sexual assault on the state of Annette’s clothing. The zipper on her jeans was broken and her shoes were on the wrong feet.
Even though Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer and Annette Schnee disappeared on the same day, their cases were not linked until Annette’s body was discovered six months later. She was wearing an orange sock, pictured. Investigators had found her other orange sock near the body of Bobbie Jo, and they knew then that the women almost certainly were killed by the same person.
Evidence
During the autopsy, Hardtke spotted something that would forever change the investigation.
“On her left foot, I noticed an orange bootie,” he said. “And in my mind, I’m remembering the orange bootie that was found at the top of Hoosier Pass…very close to where Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer’s body was found…so it tied the two together.”
As Hardtke told “48 Hours,” “Holy s***, this is amazing. This ties…the cases together.”
In piecing together the timeline of events the day of the murders, detectives believed that Phillips first picked Schnee up hitchhiking, assaulted and killed her. During that assault, Schnee lost her orange bootie in Phillips’ truck. Later that day, police believe Phillips picked up Oberholtzer hitchhiking and attempted to assault her as well.
Detectives believe that when Oberholtzer fought back and jumped from his truck, she kicked out the orange bootie left there by Annette.
The orange socks/booties convinced police that they were looking for one killer, but Phillips’ identity remained hidden for decades. In early 2020, Park County Detective Sgt. Wendy Kipple heard about something called genetic genealogy, in which specially trained genealogists upload a DNA sample from a crime scene through publicly available DNA databases.
Kipple submitted the DNA from the blood collected in connection with the Oberholtzer murder to United Data Connect, a genetic genealogy company located in Denver.
“On Jan. 9, 2021, I get a phone call from the genealogist, and he says, ‘I have two more names for you.’”
“And what were the two names you were given?” Morales asked Kipple.
“Alan Phillips and Bruce Phillips,” Kipple replied.
“And Bruce Phillips was the brother that never lived here, didn’t have any ties to Colorado. And what did you learn about Alan Phillips?” Morales asked.
“Alan Phillips still lived nearby,” Kipple said. “He had worked here in, in the mine, Henderson mine, for decades he worked there. He had his own mechanic shop. And he was still here.”
Alan Lee Phillips was arrested and charged with the murders in February 2021 — nearly four decades after the killings.
Park County Sheriff’s Office
As it turned out, he was the person authorities had rescued that long ago night in a snowstorm, the man with the large bruise on his face. But it took nearly 40 years to connect that rescue victim to the man who killed Annette Schnee and Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer.
On Nov. 7 of this year, Phillips was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
In 1982 the bodies of Annette Schnee and Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer were found outside a luxe ski town. A man rescued from a snowdrift the night of the murders turned out to be their killer. “48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales reports
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A little girl was adopted by an American couple — only to have her adoption annulled. Whatever happened to this child? Now grown up, she told “48 Hours” her story.
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In 1982, Annette Schnee and Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer were found murdered near the resort ski town of Breckenridge, Colorado. CBS News correspondent Natalie Morales joins “CBS Mornings” with details on the DNA that helped investigators find the killer years later and a preview of her “48 Hours” report: “Last Seen in Breckenridge.”
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Gabriella Vargas is a self-proclaimed “pink-haired, tattooed mom from California who enjoys woodworking and gardening.” She also happens to be one of the most talented investigative genetic genealogists in the world, according to the investigators she worked with. When the 34-year-old Roxanne Wood cold murder case came across her desk in April 2021, “it was deemed unsolvable prior to my involvement,” Vargas said.
Vargas was confident she could solve this cold case – and fast – finally bringing justice for Roxanne Wood’s family. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant takes viewers inside the haunting case in “The ‘Unsolvable’ Murder of Roxanne Wood.”
In February 1987, Terry Wood came home from a night of bowling to discover his wife, Roxanne, dead on the kitchen floor in their home in Niles, Michigan. Detectives say Roxanne had been sexually assaulted and her throat slashed. DNA was preserved from the crime scene, but given technological limitations of the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge any suspects. The case went cold.
Janet Wood
In February 1987, Roxanne Wood and her husband, Terry Wood, went out for a night of bowling with friends. Roxanne left the bowling alley early to return home so she could rest up for work in the morning. But then a man entered her home through an unlocked door. He sexually assaulted her, grabbed a filet knife from Roxanne’s own kitchen drawer and slit her throat. Terry returned home 45 minutes after his wife to find Roxanne dead.
Even though witnesses placed Terry at the bowling alley at the time of the murder, he was immediately considered a suspect.
Investigators found DNA at the crime scene and a sample was preserved. But given the limitations of technology in 1987, not much could be done with it. Terry continued to live under a cloud of suspicion in the community.
As DNA technology evolved, that sample was eventually able to be uploaded to CODIS, a national criminal DNA information repository, in 1999. But no match was returned from that database. As disappointing as that was, everyone was hopeful that the DNA would at least clear Terry when it was tested against his. The result? It wasn’t Terry’s DNA.
After that, the case offered no new leads until 2020.
In order to solve the mystery faster, investigators needed a way to quickly search through the massive case file. They enlisted a group of students from Western Michigan University to digitize approximately 3,500 pages of reports, notes and information into a searchable database.
Around the same time that the students began crunching data, investigators decided to test the DNA one last time. They hired Identifinders International — a company that specializes in genetic genealogy — to examine the tiny amount of DNA left from the crime scene.
“We found out there was, what I would call, a gnat’s eyebrow of DNA left. About 3% of what we normally use,” said Colleen Fitzpatrick, president and founder of Identifinders. “That was the lowest amount of DNA we’ve ever had to work with to solve a case.”
Gabriella Vargas, pictured with Ari, a Goffin’s cockatoo, is a self-proclaimed, “pink haired, tattooed mom from California who enjoys woodworking and gardening.” She also happens to be one of the most talented investigative genetic genealogists in the world, according to the investigators she worked with.
CBS News
Identifinders spent about 10 months working with the data the sample produced, but came up empty.
“It really did feel impossible,” said Fitzpatrick.
Then, one day in April 2021, Fitzpatrick happened to be chatting with investigative genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas, who worked as a consultant for Identifinders.
“And I said, ‘Well, why don’t you let me look at it?’” said Vargas. “I concluded that I did not stand with the others. I believed that this case was extremely solvable. And I believed that I could solve it.”
So, Vargas got to work. She was able to generate a genetic profile from the suspect’s trace DNA. This genetic profile provided a plethora of information valuable to nailing down a suspect, like where their ancestral origins come from and what race they are.
Once she had the genetic profile, Vargas turned to GEDmatch, an online database where people can upload their DNA results in the hopes of finding more relatives after using consumer sites like 23andMe and Ancestry.com. Users can opt into law enforcement matching, which can allow investigators like Vargas to find matches for their suspects.
Using the results from GEDmatch, Vargas was able to build out the family tree of Roxanne’s killer, going as far back as 1797.
“Essentially what we’re looking for amongst these matches are where they connect to each other. And it led me to a union couple,” said Vargas.
A union couple is where two sides of a family tree meet. This couple was born around 1920, and based on that, Vargas could presume that they would have kids around 1940 or 1950. Thus, the suspect would have to be one of their three sons.
Vargas immediately notified law enforcement of her findings. Investigators conducted background checks on all three sons and eliminated two of them as suspects. The last had a criminal history and had served time for unlawful deviant conduct.
Investigators had their suspect, and his name was Patrick Gilham. But before an arrest could be made, they had to be sure Gilham’s DNA matched the DNA left at the crime scene.
Investigators surveilled Gilham for days, learning his habits and traffic patterns. They even followed him to a laundromat where an undercover trooper collected Gilham’s discarded cigarette butt to be tested for DNA.
The DNA came back from the lab as a perfect match to the crime scene DNA, and Gilham was arrested in February 2022. He was questioned by police for over five hours and insisted he did not remember murdering Roxanne. He said that only a monster could do such a thing.
Gilham later pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to a minimum of 23 years in prison.
Gabriella Vargas, who cracked this ice-cold case in just four days, hopes this innovative investigative technique can help other families in search of justice.
“It’s an honor to be able to work these cases to bring justice to these victims and closure to these families,” said Vargas. “And I will never stop. If anything, I’m more determined now to solve as many cases as I can.”
A look at how investigators solved the murder of Roxanne Wood after more than three decades with no leads, and a tiny DNA sample the size of a human cell.
Niles, Michigan | 1987
Michigan State Police tape after blocks the driveway of the Niles home of Roxanne and Terry Wood following Roxanne’s murder.
WSBT
“There’s a lot of young girls that grew up not knowing if there was a bad guy around the corner, because this was unsolved,” said Detective John Moore about the Roxanne Wood case.
Horror at home
According to Detective First Lieutenant Chuck Christensen, Terry Wood said he rushed over to Roxanne, whose bloodied body was on the kitchen floor. Terry held Roxanne’s head in is hands to see if she was alive. Finding no signs of life, he grabbed the phone and called police.
Michigan Department of State Police
In the early morning hours of February 20, 1987, Roxanne Wood headed home from a night out with friends about 45 minutes before her husband, Terry. When Terry got home, he found Roxanne dead on the kitchen floor. He called local police and said, “my wife has been murdered. She is dead. She has been cut.”
The “Rock” of the family
Sisters Janet Wood, left, and Roxanne Wood.
Janet Wood
Roxanne Wood took on a motherly role with her younger siblings, Brad and Janet. “48 Hours” correspondent, Peter Van Sant talked to Janet about her sister, whom she called “Rock.” “She always made people think you’re her best friend,” said Janet. “She just loved everyone.”
Bowling night
Terry and Roxanne Wood
Janet Wood
On the evening of February 19, 1987, Roxanne and Terry Wood met at home after work. The couple drove separate cars to a restaurant and had dinner together. Later, they went to a nearby bowling alley where investigators say Terry played in a league.
The investigation begins
An open drawer in the Wood home kitchen where the knife, thought to be the murder weapon, was kept.
Michigan Department of State Polic e
When investigators from the Michigan State Police arrived at the Wood home, they took photos of the scene and Terry was questioned by police. Roxanne’s body was examined for more evidence.
Suspicions surround Terry Wood
Terry and Roxanne Wood
Janet Wood
Investigators at the scene found no evidence of forced entry raising suspicion. According to investigators, Terry also seemed to get belligerent with first responders that night. And when Terry was brought to the station for routine questioning, he quickly asked for an attorney. This set off alarm bells for investigators.
Janet Wood told “48 Hours” what an investigator told Terry while looking into Roxanne’s murder. “I believe you’re the killer and I will not rest until you’re behind bars.”
Life without Roxanne
Janet Wood
CBS News
Janet Wood says she always knew Terry didn’t kill her sister. She talked to “48 Hours” about the possibility of her sister’s killer still being out there. “I didn’t lose hope ever. I mean, this guy just didn’t do this and then lead a clean, pristine life, the rest of his life.”
Cold case
Roxanne Wood
Janet Wood
Due to limitations on technology in 1987, Roxanne Wood’s murder case went cold.
The Michigan State Police still had a tiny amount of the 1987 DNA evidence from Roxanne’s case. In 2020, more than 30 years after Roxanne was killed, they started looking into new ways to solve the case with some innovation.
Outside resources
Western Michigan University students McKenzie Stommen and Samantha Rogers, with Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten, look at case files.
CBS News
In 2020, Professor Ashlyn Kuersten and students at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan started helping the Michigan State Police with the Roxanne Wood case. The students digitized more than 3,500 pages from the 1987 case file, making it quicker and easier to search through evidence for information.
“The officers are able to search by name … and see if they’ve already been interviewed,” said student Samantha Rogers. “Things that they wouldn’t be able to do just flipping through thousands of pages.”
Identifinders International
Colleen Fitzpatrick, president of Identifinders International.
CBS News
Detective First Lieutenant Chuck Christensen took the investigation a step further and reached out to genetic genealogist, and president of Identifinders International, Colleen Fitzpatrick. Her company helps identify unidentified remains and people involved in violent crimes by looking at their DNA.
“A gnat’s eyebrow of DNA”
Blood on the kitchen floor of the Wood home in 1987.
Michigan Department of State Police
In 2020, Identifinders International started looking into the unidentified DNA left from Roxanne’s case. “We found out there was, what I would call, a gnat’s eyebrow of DNA left, about 3 percent of what we normally use,” said Colleen Fitzpatrick. “It really did feel impossible.”
Gabriella Vargas
Gabriella Vargas, pictured with Ari, a Goffin’s cockatoo, is a self-proclaimed “pink haired, tattooed mom from California who enjoys woodworking and gardening.” She also happens to be one of the most talented investigative genetic genealogists in the world, according to the investigators she worked with.
CBS News
After about 10 months of testing the small amount of DNA left to solve the Roxanne Wood case, Colleen Fitzpatrick discussed the case with Identifinders International consultant Gabriella Vargas. After months without success, Fitzpatrick didn’t want to disappoint investigators.
Vargas looked at the case file and generated a genetic profile from the killer’s trace DNA. She then entered the DNA information into an online database. “I believed that this case was extremely solvable,” she told “48 Hours.” “And I believed that I could solve it.”
Surveilling for DNA
“48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant, left, with Michigan State Trooper Ryan Codde outside of the laundromat where Codde picked up Gilham’s cigarette butt.
CBS News
In April 2021, Gabriella Vargas used the online DNA database to start building a family tree of the suspect. That family tree led to a man named Patrick Gilham, who was living in South Bend, Indiana, not far from where Roxanne Wood was killed. Investigators surveilled Gilham with the hope of collecting his DNA. While undercover, Trooper Ryan Codde noticed Gilham was a smoker and knew a cigarette would be a great source for a DNA sample. Trooper Codde picked up Gilham’s cigarette after having a conversation with him outside of the laundromat.
Suspect identified
Patrick Gilham being interviewed by Detective Jason Bailey, upper left, and Detective John Moore on July 29, 2021.
Michigan State Police
On July 29, 2021, investigators brought Patrick Gilham in and interviewed him. They told him he wasn’t in trouble and that they needed to question him about an old case. Detectives showed Gilham photos of Roxanne and told him she was assaulted. They asked him questions about Roxanne, but Gilham denied knowing her. Soon he said, “I gotta talk to my lawyer, man,” and investigators let him go.
Patrick Gilham arrested
Patrick Gilham
Michigan State Police
On February 17, 2022, Patrick Gilham, 67, was arrested and questioned for more than five hours. When asked why his DNA was found at the scene, he kept telling investigators, “I have no clue!” and “I don’t remember.” Gilham asked for an attorney at the end of interview. He pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and on April 25, 2022, Gilham was sentenced to a minimum of 23 years in prison for the 1987 murder of Roxanne Wood.
35 Years as a Suspect
Detective John Moore, left, and Detective Jason Bailey
CBS News
Detective John Moore said up until Gilham’s arrest, Terry Wood was considered a person of interest. For 35 years, he labored under false assumptions that he murdered his wife. “I’d heard stories that at times he’d walk into a place and somebody would call him “Slash,” said Detective Jason Bailey.
Remembering Roxanne
Roxanne’s siblings, Janet Wood and Brad Woods, looking at photos of their beloved sister.
CBS News
Roxanne’s brother Brad Woods was only 14 when his sister was murdered. He says he couldn’t believe the day when they finally found the guy who killed his “Rock.” “It didn’t seem real. You know, it was nothing like I had ever played in my mind of how I would be when they came to the door to say, ‘We’ve got him.’”
In February 1987, Terry Wood came home from a night of bowling to discover his wife, Roxanne, dead on the kitchen floor in their home in Niles, Michigan. Detectives say Roxanne Wood had been sexually assaulted and her throat slashed. DNA was preserved from the crime scene, but given technological limitations of the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge any suspects. The case went cold. Then, 34 years later, investigative genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas got to work on what had been deemed unsolvable by many because of the scant amount of DNA that was left.
“I believed that this case was extremely solvable,” Vargas told “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant. “I believed that I could solve it.”
FEBRUARY 19, 1987
Brad Woods remembers February 20, 1987, like it was yesterday. He was just 14 years old.
Brad Woods: I was getting ready for school. … And I can remember my mom pounding on the bathroom door, saying to hurry up, she needed to talk to me.
Hours earlier, Brad’s 30-year-old sister Roxanne, known as “Rock”, had been nearby in her Niles, Michigan, home alone, when she was viciously attacked — her throat slashed.
Brad Woods: When I came out, you know, she had told me that — she had gotten a call that — Rock had been killed.
Devastated, Roxanne’s family couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to harm her.
Janet Wood: She always made people think you’re her best friend. … She just loved everyone.
Janet Wood: She was tall, statuesque. She dressed to the nines. That was very important to her. She was very classy.
Roxanne Wood, nicknamed “Rock,” was described by her younger brother and sister as the rock of their family.
Janet Wood
JanetWood could not help but admire her older sister. Their parents were divorced, and Roxanne had taken on a maternal role with her siblings.
Brad Woods: With divorced parents, a lot of times, you feel like you’re being shuffled between, you know, house to house. … And the one thing that was always stable for me was — was Rock.
Janet Wood: She was being mom to you.
Brad Woods: Yeah. … Rock. You know, she was always there.
Peter Van Sant: She was your rock.
Brad Woods: She was. She was (laughs).
Roxanne’s last name would eventually change from Woods to Wood after meeting future husband, Terry Wood, shortly after she graduated from high school.
Janet Wood: She was working at his father’s company. … Terry was still in high school. … On the wrestling team. … And in he walks. And he’s in his wrestling shorts and whatever. … (laughs) She said, “The nicest looking legs she ever saw.” And — and she was just smitten by him right away.
Roxanne and Terry married in 1982.
Janet Wood: She said it was the happiest day of her life.
Six years later, Janet would change her name from Woods to Wood as well, when she married Terry’s brother, Rob. Both brothers wound up working for the family business. For Roxanne and Terry, it proved to be a bit too much togetherness.
Janet Wood: They got dressed in the morning together, and they rode to work together, (laughs) and they came home for lunch together, and then they went back to work together.
Roxanne’s solution? Taking a job in nearby South Bend, Indiana. A little time apart seemed to help the marriage.
Janet Wood: Very, very content, happy, looking forward to starting a family.
Terry and Roxanne Wood
Janet Wood
February 19, 1987, started out as a typical Thursday evening for the couple. They met for dinner at a restaurant in downtown Niles after work and then went to a local bowling alley, arriving in separate cars.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: From the report, you could tell when Roxanne entered that bowling alley, all eyes were on her.
Michigan State Police Detective Sergeant John Moore.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: There wasn’t a whole lotta ladies there because this was the men’s bowling league, so she drew some attention.
As midnight approached, Roxanne was ready to call it a night, but Terry wanted to stay.
Janet Wood: There’s witnesses where Terry and she said goodnight to each other— hugged, kissed, “Love you. Drive Safe.”
After Roxanne headed home, Terry stayed behind and bowled another game. He then headed home and arrived home about 45 minutes after his wife. Terry entered the house through the garage and once inside, he came upon a horrific sight.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: She was laying on the floor. She had her nightgown on. He said there was a lot of blood.
According to Detective First Lieutenant Chuck Christensen, Terry said he rushed over to Roxanne.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: He got behind her, according to him, and — and picked her head up. And held her — held her head in—
Peter Van Sant: To see if —
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: —his hands for—
Peter Van Sant: — she was alive?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: To see if she was alive, yes.
Finding no signs of life, Terry grabbed the phone and called the local police station.
TERRY WOOD (police call audio): She is dead, she has been cut.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Terry noticed that … her panties were down around her knee/ankle area … her nightgown was pulled up.
DISPATCHER: Now listen to me, OK?
At times, Terry seemed to get belligerent with the person trying to help him.
DISPATCHER: I’m going to get some information from you and I’m going to get a car started, OK?
TERRY WOOD: No, get 50 f****** cars started, g*******now!
DISPATCHER: They are started.
TERRY WOOD: No, they’re not. Now, g*******. Now!
The dispatcher kept Terry on the phone.
DISPATCHER: Don’t scream into the phone because the phone distorts, and I can’t understand you that well, OK?
TERRY WOOD: You mean so you can get a recording on it.
DISPATCHER: No, I’m trying to get some information from you, OK?
TERRY WOOD: Yeah, right.
Terry’s aggressive demeanor on the phone quickly became a red flag according to investigators.
Peter Van Sant: Is that suspicious behavior to you?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: It’s a bit suspicious. … Typically, they’re in … shock, distraught. But not normally do you hear that anger component in there, to the level that it is in this one.
Detective Sergeant Jason Bailey says a seed of suspicion grew even more once police arrived at the home.
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: He definitely had fits of rage. I know at one point he was screaming—that he wanted a supervisor, a sergeant there.
Peter Van Sant: Is he making himself a suspect by this kind of behavior?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Everybody reacts differently. But based on this abnormal reaction, I believe he was making himself a suspect.
First responders eventually had no choice but to subdue Terry by placing him in the back of a patrol car. And when they drove him down to the police post for routine questioning, Terry quickly asked for an attorney, which investigators say set off more alarm bells.
Janet Wood: The detective at that time told him within five to ten minutes … “You did this, and I will not rest until I put you away forever.”
Peter Van Sant: An investigator said that to Terry?
Janet Wood: To Terry. … “I believe you’re the killer and I will not rest until you’re behind bars.”
IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS
As investigators began piecing together clues in Roxanne Wood’s rape and murder, the emerging picture offered up just one suspect: her husband, Terry.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: There was no sign of any forced entry.
Peter Van Sant: Did that raise eyebrows?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Absolutely.
But Terry told police they’d been having problems with the lock on the back door, claiming it didn’t work. Investigators, however, remained suspicious.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: We have a sheath, up here, of a filet knife, located near the body.
An open drawer in the Wood home kitchen where a filet knife, thought to be the murder weapon, was kept.
Michigan Department of State Police
That filet knife, presumed to be the murder weapon, had been taken from a kitchen drawer. It was never found.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: That would be odd … that a killer would come to a house without a weapon.
Terry told police that he’d slipped in Roxanne’s blood as he lifted her head to check on her. But there were no blood smears indicating he’d actually done that. Investigators thought they’d discovered a potential motive when they looked into Roxanne and Terry’s past.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: We did uncover an extramarital affair by both parties.
Peter Van Sant: By both parties?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Yep.
Peter Van Sant: And, so, when you have a murder like this, and you learn there was some infidelity, are you wondering, “Could jealousy have been a motive?”
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Absolutely.
Janet Wood: I remember the detective saying … “It was rage. … Only someone close to her would have this kind of rage.” I never bought that.
Janet firmly believed in Terry’s innocence.
Janet Wood: I just knew him too well. … So that just didn’t fit with what I knew. … Terry wasn’t a rageful guy. He may have a sharp tongue (laughs), occasionally, but never a violent— person.
Despite strongly suspecting Terry, prosecutors didn’t believe there was enough evidence to charge him. After just a few months, the case went cold, leaving a cloud of suspicion hanging over Terry. He declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview.
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: I’d heard stories that at times he’d walk into — walk into a place and somebody would call him “Slash.”
DNA was preserved from the crime scene, but given technological limitations of the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge any suspects.
Michigan Department of State Police
DNA was left at the crime scene. A sample was preserved but given the limitations on technology back in 1987, not much could be done with it. Still, Roxanne’s family never gave up.
Janet Wood: I didn’t lose hope ever. … I mean, this guy just didn’t do this and then lead a clean, pristine life, the rest of his life.
DNA technology evolved, and the sample was eventually able to be uploaded to CODIS, the national criminal DNA database in 1999. But no match was returned. As disappointing as that was, everyone was hopeful that the DNA would at least clear Terry when it was tested against his. The result? It wasn’t Terry’s DNA.
Peter Van Sant: So, did that eliminate Terry as a person of interest, as a suspect in this case?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: No.
Peter Van Sant: Why not? It’s not his semen.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Just because you find semen in somebody doesn’t necessarily mean that that person is the one that killed them.
After that, the case offered no new leads until 2020.
After more than three decades of compiling thousands of reports, police were drowning in paperwork. That’s when a professor and an innovative group of students at Western Michigan University figured out a way to speed up the investigation.
Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten: The real-world experience I think is priceless.
Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten teaches a criminal justice studies program. For years, she’s been talking to Detective Christensen about how her students might help on a cold case.
Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten: What a great partnership that would be if we could ever make something like that happen.
Investigators enlisted a group of students from Western Michigan University, including Samantha Rogers and McKenzie Stommen, to digitize approximately 3,500 pages of reports, notes and information about the Roxanne Wood case into a searchable database. “I was hopeful that we would be able to solve the case or move the case forward,” said Stommen.
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So, the professor and the detective came up with a plan. Dr. Kuersten’s students would process around 3,500 pages of documents accumulated since the day Roxanne was murdered into a single, digitized database. Samantha Rogers was one of several students who worked on the case.
Samantha Rogers: The officers are able to search by name … and see if they’ve already been interviewed. If they needed a follow-up. …They can search locations. … Things that they wouldn’t be able to do just flippin’ through thousands of pages.
McKenzie Stommen says the decades-old files were a solemn reminder of how long some victims wait for justice.
McKenzie Stommen: It gave … a sense of gravity to what we were doing that these cases have gone unsolved for that long.
Around the same time the students began crunching data, Christensen decided it was time for a Hail Mary pass. Colleen Fitzpatrick is the president and founder of Identifinders International, a company that specializes in genetic genealogy.
Colleen Fitzpatrick: It’s been used in forensic cases to help identify — unidentified remains and violent offenders for violent crimes.
Christensen hired her genealogy company to examine the tiny amount of DNA preserved from Roxanne’s case.
Colleen Fitzpatrick: We found out there was, what I would call, a gnat’s eyebrow of DNA left, about 3% of what we normally use. … That was the lowest amount of DNA we’ve ever had to work with, to solve a case.
Identifinders spent about 10 months working with the data the sample produced but came up empty.
Colleen Fitzpatrick: It really did feel impossible, it really did.
Then one day in April 2021, Fitzpatrick happened to be chatting with investigative genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas who worked as a consultant for Identifinders.
Gabriella Vargas: And I said, “Well, why don’t you let me look at it? … I concluded that … I did not stand with the others. … I believed that this case was extremely solvable. And I believed that I could solve it.
So, Vargas got to work. Incredibly, she was able to generate a genetic profile from the killer’s trace DNA.
Gabriella Vargas: It … tells me where does … their ancestral origins come from. Are they Eastern European? Are they Mediterranean? Are they African American?
Peter Van Sant: And what was the race of this person?
Gabriella Vargas: Caucasian.
“Roxanne Wood’s family was my motivation for working as hard and as fast as I did,” Gabriella Vargas, an investigative genetic genealogist, told “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant. “They never gave up hope that one day, justice would be served.”
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Vargas then turned to an online DNA service. When consumers use DNA sites like 23andMe and Ancestry.com, they can take their results and upload them to a broader database called GEDmatch in the hope of finding more relatives.
Gabriella Vargas: They can choose to opt into law enforcement matching. If they do that, I can see if they are a match to my suspect.
Vargas was able to use GEDmatch and the genetic profile she developed to start to build the family tree of Roxanne’s killer.
Peter Van Sant: How far back did you go in time?
Gabriella Vargas (showing family tree to Van Sant): One side of the tree … the ancestor was 1823. On the other side, the top ancestor was 1797. … Essentially what we’re looking for amongst these matches are where they connect to each other. … And it led me to a union couple.
A union couple is where two sides of the family tree meet.
Gabrielle Vargas: This couple was born around 1920. Based on that, we can presume that they would have kids around 1940, maybe 1950. … It would have to be one of their children.
The couple she found had three sons. She let the detectives know. They did background checks and eliminated two of the three brothers as possibilities. They were down to the last brother.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: He’s been involved in a lotta different things, a lotta —
Peter Van Sant: Violent things?
Det. Sgt. John Moore: Horrible — violent things, sexual deviant things. You name it, he’s probably been involved in it.
Peter Van Sant: And you connect the DNA with someone who has a history of violent behavior … you got yourself a suspect.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: Absolutely.
DNA LEADS TO SUSPECT WITH A VIOLENT PAST
After 34 years and one last chance at solving the case with a speck of DNA too small to see with the human eye, Detective Chuck Christensen’s daring bet paid off big.
Det. Lt.Chuck Christensen: And to know that we had come to this point was simply amazing.
Michigan State Police now believed they had finally tracked down Roxanne Wood’s killer.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: We were confident now we were going to solve this and make an arrest.
Peter Van Sant: You could now pinpoint who that individual was that had committed these awful crimes. And who is that person?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: That individual is Patrick Gilham.
Patrick Gilham — a man who was living just a few miles from where he allegedly raped and murdered Roxanne Wood.
And it turns out, he had a troubled past.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Had been a drinker.
Peter Van Sant: Was he into drugs?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: He’s into drugs. Just an individual that was … lost in life and a bad individual … based on his background.
When detectives dug into Gilham’s criminal history, they found a connection to another disturbing case eight years before Roxanne’s attack.
Maureen Farag was attacked by Patrick Gilham in her Gary, Indiana, home in 1979 — eight years before Roxanne Wood’s attack.
Robert Farag
Robert Farag: My wife, Maureen, was attacked by Patrick Gilham in 1979.
Robert and Maureen Farag and their two young daughters lived in Gary, Indiana, back in September 1979.
Robert Farag: We were just kind of blossoming into adulthood with the kids, with our lifestyle, with our jobs.
Robert was economic director for the city, and Maureen was an art teacher at the local middle school.
Peter Van Sant: What is it about Maureen that you fell in love with?
Robert Farag: Wow. I can’t say one thing only. … She was very attractive, which just caught my eye. … She was so nice. People gravitated to her because of her warm personality.
One night, while making his way home from a business trip, Robert called Maureen with a favor.
Robert Farag: I said, “Maureen I don’t have my keys to the house, could you leave the side door open.”
At around 11 p.m., Robert turned onto his street. He’ll never forget what he saw.
Robert Farag: When I pull up—I see the police cars.
Robert quickly found Maureen, who calmly told him she was in bed when she was startled awake by a noise downstairs.
Robert Farag: Maureen sees this guy going through her purse. … He got scared, whatever and chased her. Maureen started going upstairs. And he grabbed her at the bottom of the stairs and got on top of her. And he tried his best to molest her. He wasn’t successful.
Maureen told Robert the man then took her purse and fled. Throughout the attack, Maureen had stayed quiet. She didn’t want to awaken her two girls.
Peter Van Sant: That takes an incredible amount of courage. … She was willing to sacrifice herself there, if need be, to protect her 1 and 3-year-old daughters.
Robert Farag: Yes. Maureen had a lot more than courage. She had strength.
About a week later, Gilham was pulled over in Gary for a traffic violation. A police officer noticed credit cards on the seat next to him. They were Maureen’s.
Robert Farag: The police officer called me and said, “We picked the guy up. We’re bringing him in to the station.”
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: When he was interviewed by police, he said, “All I remember is going into the house. And I blacked out and woke up with my pants around my ankles.”
Patrick Gilham was charged with burglary and unlawful deviate conduct. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in Indiana State Prison.
Peter Van Sant: How did you go on with life from that point?
Robert Farag: We forgot about it. … We changed our house. We changed our neighborhood. … She never told anybody because she felt that was a private issue.
Patrick Gilham was charged with burglary and unlawful deviate conduct. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in Indiana State Prison — but only served seven years of his sentence before being released.
Patrick Gilham served just seven years of his 14-year sentence. About four months after his release, police believe Gilham assaulted Roxanne Wood.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Criminals learn as they go. And I believe he learned from that first crime he did that, “I better not leave this witness alive because I will be in prison for a long, long time.”
Maureen Farag died in 2018 from cancer not knowing anything about the Roxanne Wood case. Now, armed their DNA evidence, investigators were ready to move in on Patrick Gilham.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: At this point, we decide to get a surreptitious sample to compare to the profile that we had from Roxanne Wood from the scene. And we do this through our undercover surveillance team.
Ryan Codde: I’m Ryan Codde. And I am a trooper with the Michigan State Police.
Peter Van Sant: And you do some undercover work from time to time?
Ryan Codde: I do. I’m assigned with a fugitive recovery team for the Fifth District.
In May 2021, Codde and his team surveilled Gilham in South Bend for days on end and picked up a crucial clue that would aid them in collecting his DNA.
Ryan Codde: We noticed that he was a smoker.
In May 2021, undercover investigators surveilled Patrick Gilham in South Bend for days on end and picked up a crucial clue that would aid them in collecting his DNA: he was a smoker.
Michigan Department of State Police
Peter Van Sant: And why does that help you?
Ryan Codde: Just in the simple fact that uh, you know, when you’re smoking, it’s a great source of DNA. You have your lips directly on the butt of the cigarette. And your saliva gets in the cigarette.
Hot on Gilham’s tail, the team witnessed their target flick a cigarette butt outside his truck window while driving.
Peter Van Sant: Oh boy, you’re rubbing your hands, you’re going, “This is gonna be that final piece of the puzzle,” that you had talked about, right?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Yes. Yes.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: But there’s a twist. We sent that up to the lab right away. A couple days later the lab director calls me, and he said, “It’s not a match.”
A CRUCIAL PIECE OF EVIDENCE
Det. Sgt. John Moore: DNA is DNA. If … it’s not a match, it’s not a match.
Detective Moore says investigators were shocked when the lab called to say the DNA sample from Patrick Gilham’s cigarette butt did not match Roxanne’s killer.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: We were scratchin’ our heads. … I called the trooper that grabbed that cigarette butt, and I said, “Is there any way at all that you lost sight … when it flipped outta his finger?” And he said, “… a car drove by right then.”
It was possible the cigarette butt tested was not Gilham’s.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: The only thing logically that we can do is go back and get another one.
So undercover Trooper Ryan Codde headed back to work, once again tailing Gilham.
Trooper Ryan Codde: He pulled into this laundromat … which we saw as a window of opportunity that he would most likely be coming out to take a smoke break.
This time, Codde was determined not to lose sight of Gilham’s discarded cigarette butt for even a moment. And instead of tailing him in a car, Codde followed Gilham on foot.
Trooper Ryan Codde: I’m not a smoker. … And there was a gas station right over on the corner that I saw. And I — I was like, “Well, you know, I need to go over and get a pack of cigarettes … and — sit on the — the curb next to the laundromat.”
Trooper Ryan Codde: He came and took a seat — probably about six to eight feet away from me. And we had a smoke together (laughs).
Peter Van Sant: So how did you strike up a conversation with him?
Trooper Ryan Codde: I just tried to say hi to him … made some small conversation. … He liked the Red Wings.
It wasn’t long before Gilham finished his cigarette and went back inside.
“48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant, left, with Michigan State Trooper Ryan Codde outside of the laundromat where Codde picked up Gilham’s cigarette butt.
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Trooper Ryan Codde: I — saw him throw his cigarette — which was right — right in about this area. And — so it was a great situation because the cigarette was by itself.
Trooper Ryan Codde: So, I pull out — a glove and go over, and I picked the cigarette up with my hand.
Peter Van Sant: Was it still — was it still smokin’—
Trooper Ryan Codde: Oh, it was — it was still warm. Yes, it was (laughs). So I wrapped it up inside that glove, I stuck it in my pocket, and — and headed out.
Investigators held their breath until the results from Gilham’s cigarette butt came back. It was a perfect match to the DNA left at the 1987 crime scene.
Det Lt. Chuck Christensen: I was ecstatic. I was very, very happy.
But investigators were not yet ready to make an arrest, opting to bring Gilham in for an interview in July 2021.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: You’re not in trouble. You’re here voluntarily.
Detective Bailey says they told Gilham they needed to question him about an old case.
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: “Do you know anybody by the name of Roxanne?” He explains to us, “I know two Roxannes.” And he says, “One’s a stripper, one’s a drug addict.”
Gilham was shown a picture of Roxanne Wood.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: That girl look familiar? You ever met her before?
PATRICK GILHAM: Nope. Never met her.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: That’s a newer picture. Here’s an older picture.
Then Gilham was shown a second photo of Roxanne.
PATRICK GILHAM: Nope.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: Never seen her? Never met her? Don’t know who she is?
PATRICK GILHAM: (shakes his head no)
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: And I said, “Well, we’re here to talk to you about her. This woman’s been assaulted.”
Patrick Gilham reacts after being shown photos of Roxanne Wood during questioning.
Michigan Department of State Police
PATRICK GILHAM: This is too much for me man. (Waves his hands in the air, taps hands on table.)
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: You could see his body just tense up, and — almost to the point of hyperventilation, hands started shaking, threw his hands, you know, back in the air. … I’ve never had a reaction outta somebody … like that in 23 years of doing this.
Peter Van Sant: Does he continue talking?
PATRICK GILHAM: I gotta talk to my lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: At that time, he requested to speak to his attorney.
PATRICK GILHAM: I gotta talk to my lawyer, man.
Patrick Gilham was arrested at his South Bend, Indiana, home in February 2022, just days shy of the 35th anniversary of Roxanne Wood’s murder.
Michigan Department of State Police
In February 2022, just days shy of the 35th anniversary of Roxanne’s murder, Patrick Gilham was arrested at his South Bend, Indiana, home.
Roxanne’s brother, Brad Woods.
Brad Woods: It didn’t seem real. It was nothing like I had ever played in my mind of how I would be when they came to the door to say, “We’ve got him.”
Detective Christensen then met face to face with the man who had lived for decades with cruel rumors and doubt: Terry Wood.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: I sat him down and explained … he was no longer a person of interest, and we knew he had nothing to do with it.
Terry and Roxanne Wood
Janet Wood
Peter Van Sant: How did he react?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: He was very emotional. He started crying, of course … was bewildered, and in shock.
As a 35-year-old burden was lifted off Terry, the hammer was about to fall for Gilham.
DETECTIVE: You’re under arrest, OK?
Investigators questioned him for five-and-a-half hours at a police station in South Bend, with Gilham only asking for an attorney at the very end. At times, he spoke in circles.
PATRICK GILHAM: I can’t believe I did it — if I did it. But you’re saying I did so.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: When pressed on it, he just kept saying … “You guys are telling me I did this. And if I did this, I’m a monster.”
PATRICK GILHAM: I’m a monster, man. If I did that, that’s a monster. That’s a monster, man.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: “Only a monster would do this.”
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: Let me ask you this. How do you think your DNA was found with her?
PATRICK GILHAM: I have no clue.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: How do you think?
PATRICK GILHAM: I have no clue man!
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: He said that several times during the interview when he was confronted with the case facts. And he kept saying, “I don’t remember.”
But Janet Wood says Gilham’s reaction when he was questioned seven months prior proved he was lying now.
Janet Wood: He visibly reacted. … shook like a leaf, leaned back in his chair, pounding his chest.
PATRICK GILHAM: I gotta talk to my lawyer.
Janet Wood: “I think I need a lawyer.” … You tell me he doesn’t remember what he did.
Gilham was charged with Roxanne Wood’s murder. But had a golden opportunity to apprehend him decades earlier slipped through investigators’ fingers?
DAY OF RECKONING
In the summer of 1987, just months after Roxanne Wood was murdered in her home, her alleged killer crossed paths with yet another woman. It was a hot night in South Bend when Rose Caparell went outside to her front lawn.
Rose Caparell: I was standing down there watering and all of a sudden, I hear this loud car coming down the street.
Rose, standing alone, says she noticed a blue El Camino, driven by a stranger, getting closer.
Rose Caparell: I looked, and he had a taillight out on the car. … about three, four minutes later I hear the same car coming back down this street.
Peter Van Sant: Now, it had a bad muffler, right?
Rose Caparell: Oh, the muffler was loud. … I just got a feeling that somethin’ just wasn’t right. … And by the time I got halfway to my front door, a man came around the corner of the house.He had a stocking cap on, and he had a full beard. All you could basically see was his eyes. … I just turned and ran, screamin’ down the street.
Peter Van Sant: Have you ever run faster in your life than that moment?
Rose Caparell: No. And I’m not a runner. And I ran.
Rose says she ran to a neighbor’s house and called local police, but the assailant had escaped.
Peter Van Sant: What do you believe would’ve happened if that man had caught up to you?
Rose Caparell: My thought was he was gonna rape me.
In the summer of 1987, just months after Roxanne Wood was murdered in her home, her alleged killer crossed paths with Rose Caparell in South Bend, Indiana. “I truly believe that I would’ve been — raped and murdered,” she told “48 Hours.”
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A few days later, while Rose and her family were driving to dinner, her daughter Tina says she spotted that same blue El Camino with a burned-out taillight in a parking lot.
Tina Caparell: My mom says right away, “That’s the car.”
Stunned, Rose and Tina say they went to call the police leaving Rose’s husband, Stan, a retired Marine, waiting for the car’s owner.
Tina Caparell: I came back … to my dad holding a gun at the attacker sitting on the ground.
Tina says her father demanded the man hand over his driver’s license. They say the name on that license: Patrick Gilham.
Tina Caparell: We had never heard the name before.
Rose says the police never arrived, so Stan lowered his gun and let Gilham leave. She says she later reported the incident at the South Bend Police Station.
Rose Caparell: We didn’t pursue it ’cause we figured they would be doin’ somethin’ with it.
No arrest was ever made. Decades later when Caparell saw the report of Gilham being arrested for Roxanne Wood’s murder, she and Tina decided to tell their story to the Michigan police.
Peter Van Sant: Imagine if the police had come. They might have solved Roxanne Wood’s case just a few months after it had occurred.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Possible. Yes.
Peter Van Sant: An opportunity lost.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Yeah. Yeah. It could have went that way.
But in April 2022, Gilham’s day of reckoning finally came.
Rose Caparell: When he walked in, I openly said, “Piece of s***.” … I didn’t realize I was saying it as loudly as I did.
In a Michigan courtroom, he faced some of people whose lives he had viciously altered.
Janet Wood: He made eye contact with me. He sat down and he looked up. And he stared right in my face.
Even though Gilham had insisted to investigators that he didn’t remember murdering Roxanne, he later pleaded no contest to second-degree murder. And now everyone waited for his sentence to be handed down.
Brad Woods: It was almost like being face-to-face with the devil. I remember being shaky, and nervous, and I just couldn’t believe I’m sitting this close to the person that did this.
Brad and Janet finally got the chance to address the man who killed their sister all those years ago.
JANET WOOD (at sentencing): Patrick Gilham is the very definition of a nightmare women fear our whole lives …
Janet Wood addresses Patrick Gilham at his sentencing. Gilham, wearing headsets, appeared confused, as though he’d seen a ghost, when looking at Janet.
CBS News
According to Brad Woods, Gilham appeared confused, as though he’d seen a ghost, when looking at Janet. He wore headphones in order to hear.
Brad Woods: Janet does look a lot like Rock … he was probably in shock, seeing her sitting there.
JANET WOOD (at sentencing): …His actions gave all of us a life sentence, while he got to live his as a free man. … And we are here today to see him finally pay something for what he’s done which is likely the rest of his life in a cage like the violent animal that he is.
BRAD WOODS (at sentencing): It seems like people like him find Jesus in prison, but don’t bother looking because the devil will be the only one greeting you.
When it was his turn to speak, Gilham offered an apology and a prayer.
PATRICK GILHAM: I can’t believe I did what I did. And I pray for them every night. I am so sorry. I just hope that sometime in the future, with God’s help, that they can start to forgive me.
The judge sentenced Gilham, who was 67 at the time, to a minimum of 23 years in prison. Sitting in court, Terry Wood, now vindicated, watched as his wife’s real killer was led away. Robert Farag witnessed Terry’s pain firsthand.
Robert Farag: I shook his hand. He was, you know, shaking, crying. I felt more empathy for him than I could for any other person I’ve met.
Terry was cleared and his wife’s killer found thanks, in large part, to advances in technology. Genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas, who solved a decades-long cold case in just four days, says she’s eager to do it again.
Peter Van Sant: As a result of your work, more and more law enforcement agencies will be coming to you, more and more families hoping that you can do your miracle work and solve their cold cases. That’s quite a burden for you, isn’t it?
Gabriella Vargas: Oh, absolutely not. It’s an honor. It’s an honor to be able to work these cases to bring justice to these victims and closure to these families. And I will never stop.
As the Wood family finally found some peace, their rock will always be with them giving them the strength to move forward. Janet remembers a dream she had about her sister.
Janet Wood: We were in downtown Niles. … She came up and grabbed me. She goes, “Janet.” And I was like, “Rock, oh my God.” And we’re walkin’ and walkin’ and walkin’ and just laughin’.
Sisters Janet Wood, left, and Roxanne Wood.
Janet Wood
Janet Wood: And all of a sudden, I look up and it’s dead silent. And we’re at the gates of the cemetery. And I said — um, I said, “Oh.” I said, “Do you have to go back?” And she goes, “Yes.” She goes, “But it’s fine.” She goes, “I’m good. I’m really good.” (Claps her hands) That was it.
Patrick Gilham will be eligible for release in 2040 with good behavior.
He will be 86 years old.
Produced by Susan Mallie and Jennifer Terker. Stephen McCain is the development producer. Lauren Turner Dunn and Emily Wichick are the field producers. Ken Blum and Mike Baluzy are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
A psychiatrist faces judgment after she’s accused of brainwashing her cousin to kill. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant has the latest on the case.
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On November 11, 2012, Jake Nolan accompanied his cousin, psychiatrist Dr. Pamela Buchbinder, to a NYC Home Depot where Buchbinder purchased a sledgehammer; 24 hours later, the sledgehammer became a key piece of evidence in a crime that ended with Nolan and Dr. Michael Weiss in the hospital.
Dr. Buchbinder and Jake Nolan can be seen, upper right, in a New York City Home Depot the night before Nolan attacked Dr. Michael Weiss — Buchbinder’s ex-lover. Buchbinder has not commented on why she purchased the sledgehammer.
NYC sledgehammer attack
Steven Hirsch
Dr. Michael Weiss, a psychiatrist, maintained a home/office in midtown Manhattan.
Inside the crime scene
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
The morning of November 12, 2012, Jake Nolan arrived at Weiss’ building.
Inside the crime scene
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
After asking Weiss to print out some financial forms, Nolan went to a restroom to prepare for the attack. Weiss says Nolan came out swinging the sledgehammer.
Inside the crime scene
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
Weiss says he ducked just in time, missing the full brunt of the sledgehammer which hit him on the shoulder.
Inside the crime scene
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
Weiss says Nolan then reached for the kitchen knife he brought with him.
Inside the crime scene
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
Nolan cut Weiss several times.
Jacob Nolan takes a selfie
Nolan defense team
… and eventually spilled into the public hallwaywhere neighbors heard the struggle and called 911. As both injured men waited for help to arrive, Nolan snapped this selfie.
Inside the crime scene
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
Weiss, physically larger than Nolan, overpowered his attacker. Weiss says he grabbed the knife and cut Nolan in self-defense.
Inside the crime scene
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
The two men wrestled in Dr. Weiss’ office.
NYC sledgehammer attack
Roger Stavis
Neither man suffered life-threatening wounds, though Nolan was the more severely injured of the two.
NYC sledgehammer attack
Defense photo
At the time, Nolan claimed Pamela Buchbinder manipulated him into attacking Weiss. After the attack, Nolan was arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder, among other charges. In 2016, he was found guilty and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison.
NYC sledgehammer attack
Murray Weiss
In 2017, Pamela Buchbinder was charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree attempted assault.
In 2022, she accepted a deal to spend 11 years in prison, in exchange for pleading guilty to attempted assault and a lesser charge in connection with Dr. Weiss’s attack.
On Oct. 11, 2022, Manhattan psychiatrist Pamela Buchbinder was sentenced to 11 years in prison after admitting her guilt in connection with one of the most bizarre crime stories in New York City history — the brutal and nearly fatal 2012 attack on her ex-lover and the father of her child, Dr. Michael Weiss.
According to authorities, the assault on Weiss in his Manhattan office was the climax of an epic “War of the Roses” battle between two extremely well-educated and respected psychiatrists. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant exclusively reports in “The Psychiatrist and The Selfie.”
What made the crime even more astonishing, according to Van Sant, was the fact that the alleged “hit man” turned out to be Buchbinder’s troubled young cousin, Jacob Nolan, who claimed that Buchbinder had manipulated him into carrying out the murder for her.
Back in 2012, Buchbinder and Weiss were going through a bitter custody battle over their son, Calder, then 4 years old, and fighting over visitation. Yet, despite their arguing, it turned out Weiss took out a $1.5 million life insurance policy for his son, and gave his mother, Buchbinder, control in the event of Weiss’s death, starting on Nov. 9, 2012.
Jake Nolan and and Dr. Pamela Buchbinder
By then, authorities said, Buchbinder allegedly had taken her bipolar cousin under her wing, seemingly to help him deal with his mental health and drug and alcohol issues. But instead of healing Nolan, the son of a wealthy real estate investor, authorities claimed Buchbinder slowly brainwashed and weaponized him into carrying out the hit.
Buchbinder accompanied Nolan to a local Home Depot on Nov. 11, 2012, where they purchased a sledgehammer, according to authorities. And the following day, Nolan took the sledgehammer and a knife Weiss had given Buchbinder as a gift, and used a map Buchbinder drew of Weiss’s office to surprise him.
But the assault did not kill Weiss. Instead, the two ended up fighting in the office, with both of them left bloodied, and badly hurt.
According to prosecutors, while they waited for paramedics to arrive to take them to the hospital, Nolan snapped a selfie, which he sent to Buchbinder to show her what happened to him.
Nolan’s defense attorney, Steven Brounstein, later said that Nolan was “putty” in Buchbinder’s hand.
And at Nolan’s trial in 2016, Brounstein acknowledged Nolan committed the assault, but he argued that Buchbinder took advantage of Nolan’s fragile and submissive mental health, and therefore was not fully responsible for his actions.
Prosecutors, however, disagreed, insisting that being bipolar did not mean that Nolan did not understand what he was doing, or had been turned into a “babbling idiot who had no control over his facilities.”
In the end, a Manhattan jury took less than an hour to convict Nolan, then 23, and he was sentenced to more than nine years in prison. But his conviction did not end speculation that his older psychiatrist cousin was also responsible for the brutal assault.
In 2017, prosecutors eventually charged Buchbinder in connection with the attack, and she then spent five years on Rikers Island as her lawyers wrangled over the case and the courts were shut down due to the pandemic.
Meanwhile, her high-powered lawyers, Ronald Fishetti, Eric Franz and Monica Nejathaim, claimed Buchbinder was not only innocent, but there were legitimate explanations about her relationship with Nolan, and the evidence against her.
But last September, Buchbinder — looking rail-thin and gaunt — surprised the court by announcing she had reached a deal with prosecutors, and she pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for 11 years in prison.
A month later, however, when she showed up for her routine sentencing, Buchbinder stunned the court again – this time saying she wanted to withdraw her plea. She claimed that on the day she pleaded guilty, she was exposed to mace on Rikers Island, did not take her medication, and inadvertently got a contact high when someone was smoking drugs on her bus ride to court.
Judge Thomas Farber, however, rejected her argument, and continued the sentencing, with Weiss then reading a victim’s impact statement in which he laid out how the attack left him with PTSD, and a fear that Buchbinder’s hatred for him will continue even after she is released from prison.
Then, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann took to the podium.
“I think it’s necessary to make the record straight,” Seidemann began. “The defendant tried to have Dr. Michael Weiss murdered … she hated his guts.”
“She sought to destroy him because of their failed relationship,” he continued. “She stood to control $1.5 million in life insurance on his life in the name of his son.”
Buchbinder responded succinctly. “If there was one true statement Mr. Seidemann said, I missed it,” she said.
In 2017, Pamela Buchbinder was charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree attempted assault. In 2022 (pictured in center) she accepted a deal to spend 11 years in prison, in exchange for pleading guilty to attempted assault and a lesser charge in connection with Dr. Weiss’s attack.
Murray Weiss
Finally, Farber sentenced Buchbinder to 11 years and issued an order of protection, but not before he had his say.
“There can be no doubt that if you plot to bash somebody’s head in with a sledgehammer that the intent is to cause his death,” the judge said.
Outside court after Buchbinder was led away in handcuffs, her attorneys said that with time off for good behavior, Buchbinder will be free in 2027 to start her life over, and try to re-establish her relationship with her son.
