A D.C. man has been convicted of first-degree murder for killing another man over a 2021 game of flag football.
A D.C. man has been convicted of first-degree murder for killing another man over a 2021 game of flag football.
A D.C. Superior Court jury found 22-year-old Antonio “Slick” Hawley Jr. guilty of shooting and killing 26-year-old Aaron Wiggins at Watkins Elementary in Southeast on Oct. 6, 2021.
Wiggins, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, had scored the winning touchdown during a late-night pickup game on the school’s sports field.
Players were talking trash during and after the game. Witnesses said that curses and insults were flung between the groups, and things got heated between the two teams.
Prosecutors said Hawley pulled a handgun from another player’s bag and fired 17 shots, hitting Wiggins 13 times. Wiggins died at the scene.
Hawley fled the scene but was later identified by eyewitnesses and video footage. He was arrested in December 2021.
Hawley is scheduled to be sentenced April 10.
WTOP’s Jeffery Leon and Ciara Wells contributed to this report.
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Authorities in the western Mexican state of Colima said they killed three people suspected in the shooting deaths of two family members of Mexico’s secretary of education on Saturday.
Colima, located on Mexico’s Pacific coast, is one of the country’s most violent states. It recorded the highest homicide rate in Mexico in 2023 and 2024, according to the US State Department.
The local prosecutor’s office said officers killed three suspects in the 4:30 am (1030 GMT) shooting of two women, whom Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education Mario Delgado later identified as his aunt and cousin.
They did not identify a motive in the shooting or say whether they were searching for other suspects.
“Deep shock, outrage, and sorrow over the events that occurred this morning in Colima, where my aunt Eugenia Delgado and my cousin Sheila were brutally murdered in their home,” Delgado wrote on X on Saturday.
“Throughout my entire childhood, my aunt Queña —as we affectionately called her— made my birthday cake every year. That was how she earned her living, working hard, selling delicious cakes and traditional Colima food prepared like only she knew how. She is now with my grandparents and with my father, her beloved brother,” he wrote on X.
Officials tracked the suspects’ vehicle to a Colima home on Saturday afternoon and killed three people in a gunfight, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Investigators found weapons and clothing in the suspects’ home linked to the double shooting.
Delgado was appointed education secretary by President Claudia Sheinbaum in 2024 and his profile photo on X shows both of them together. He previously served as national president of the ruling Morena party.
Mario Delgado, Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education, accompanies Claudia Sheinbaum, President of Mexico, during a press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, on January 3, 2026.
Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Last month, Sheinbaum said that efforts to crack down on Mexican cartels and slow migration north were showing “compelling results” in an effort to head off intervention talk by the Trump administration.
Her comments came after President Trump threatened action against Mexican drug cartels by U.S. forces last week. Mr. Trump told Fox News that the United States had “knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water” and that the U.S. was “going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels.”
A jury found a 47-year-old southern Twin Cities woman guilty of second-degree murder in connection with her boyfriend’s shooting death, court documents show.
Charges say Jennifer Lieber shot and killed David Nonovic at their Credit River, Minnesota, home on March 4, 2024.
According to the criminal complaint, Lieber claimed Nonovic came at her with a gun that evening. She told investigators she kicked it out of his hand and it went off, killing him. She told investigators, “I loved him.”
The charges say that Nanovic’s son told investigators a different story. He reported Lieber had been drinking beer and blackberry brandy all night, got the gun and threatened to kill them. The son says she had done this in the past, and physically abused his father.
He told investigators that living in the home was like “living in hell.”
A sentencing date has not been set for Lieber. She faces up to 40 years in prison.
Credit River is located about 26 miles south of Minneapolis.
For anonymous, confidential help, people can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3224.
On Nov. 25, 2020, the day before Thanksgiving, responders rushed to a house fire in Mt. Morris, Illinois. They discovered 27-year-old Melissa Lamesch inside, dead on the floor by the oven in the kitchen.
Initially, investigators were uncertain whether the fire was intentional or accidental. But after taking a closer look, they believed foul play was involved and that the fire was arson. They did not find any electrical issues at the house and learned that the oven and stove burners were all in the off position. The autopsy performed on Lamesch revealed no soot in her lungs and normal carbon monoxide levels, but there were signs of strangulation. Investigators concluded that Lamesch was murdered before the fire started. But why would someone want to kill Melissa Lamesch?
“48 Hours” contributor Nikki Battiste reports on the case in “The Firefighter’s Secret.” An encore of the episode airs Saturday, Jan. 31 at 9/8c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
When the fire occurred, Lamesch had been just two days away from giving birth to a baby boy. She was a dedicated EMT and was excited to become a parent. However, investigators learned there was someone who was not as enthused – the expectant father of the baby, 33-year-old Matthew Plote, who was a firefighter-paramedic.
When Lamesch let Plote know she was carrying his baby, she was surprised by his reaction, says Lamesch’s sister, Cassie Baal. “Melissa thought he would want something to do with the baby. To that point, she thought he was a pretty nice guy,” Baal told “48 Hours.” “She saw a different side of him and that really upset her.”
Investigators learned Plote kept the fact that he was going to become a dad a secret, including from his parents and his co-workers. Rob Schultz, fire chief at the Carol Stream Fire District where Plote worked, explained to Battiste how unusual it was for someone not to talk about a big life event at the firehouse. “We’re here 24 hours a day,” Schultz said. “It’s a — just a normal, uh, course of being a firefighter … that you talk about your family, your personal life, and what’s going on good, bad or indifferent.”
Matthew Plote
Carol Stream Fire District
Although Plote seemed disinterested in becoming a father, Lamesch had sporadically kept in touch with him, even sending him sonograms. “Sometimes he would respond a little bit, but she didn’t know really where he stood exactly,” Baal said.
Lamesch, though, was ready to take care of the baby on her own, with the help of her family. Despite Lamesch not asking Plote for any type of support, investigators believe that as her due date drew closer, Plote became increasingly concerned that having a child was going to alter his lifestyle and that’s why he had kept that baby a secret.
“He was keeping a secret — the fact that he fathered a baby in the hopes that the child wouldn’t be born,” Ogle County Assistant State’s Attorney Allison Huntley told Battiste.
The state began building a case against Plote. He was arrested on March 9, 2022, on charges including murder, the intentional homicide of an unborn child and arson.
There was evidence that Plote had been at Lamesch’s house the day of the fire – something Plote admitted when he spoke with investigators. “He told them everything … about his presence there, he didn’t hide any of that,” defense attorney John Kopp told “48 Hours.” He says his client went there to discuss plans for being involved in the baby’s life. “They discussed their finances,” Kopp said. “And then Matt left as she was making some lunch.”
Prosecutors suspected Plote was lying about Lamesch being alive when he left and that he set the house on fire to try to cover his tracks. “I believe from the very beginning he was trying to set up a story that there was an accidental house fire, that she had been cooking something,” said Ogle County Assistant State’s Attorney Heather Kruse. “Which would explain why her body was found in the kitchen.”
For Chief Schultz, the thought of a firefighter inflicting harm was unthinkable. “It doesn’t chime with what a firefighter is,” he told “48 Hours.” “We put fires out. We don’t start fires. We help people. We don’t hurt people.”
This story originally aired on Nov. 30, 2024. It was updated on Jan. 31, 2026.
Before the fire that set Melissa Lamesch‘s home ablaze on Nov. 25, 2020, the day had started with excited anticipation. Melissa was due to give birth to a baby boy in just two days, and Thanksgiving was a day away.
Cassie Baal: She was gonna have a nice private Thanksgiving with dad. So, I gave her a call the morning of the 25th and we talked for about two-and-a-half hours.
Cassie Baal and her sister Melissa had lots to chat about.
Cassie Baal: We talked a lot about the future. We talked about what was gonna come with the baby. … The conversation ended because she looked outside the window. … She said, “you gotta be kidding me.”… She’s like, “he’s freaking here again. I told him he’s gotta stop doing this.”
At the door was 33-year-old Matthew Plote, the expectant father of Melissa’s baby.
Cassie Baal: She said … “I’ll tell you what he wanted. I’ll give you a call right back, bye.” Hung up.
Nikki Battiste | “48 Hours” contributor: Did she ever call back?
Cassie Baal: No, my sister never called back.
“When Melissa first told me she was pregnant, she told me a couple things about the dad,” said Melissa Lamesch’s sister, Cassie Baal. “Matt Plote … they on and off hung out for years and had a similar clique of friends.”
Photography by Angel Studio/Plote defense attorney
Melissa Lamesch and Matthew Plote met and became friends seven years earlier, while each was in college. They maintained a casual relationship. The friendship, says the Lamesch family, cooled off once Melissa let Plote know about the pregnancy. Melissa told her family he did not share her interest in becoming a parent.
Cassie Baal: He wanted her to get an abortion. She didn’t want that. He blamed her, ghosted her. … It did come to … upset Melissa because they were friends for so long.
Nikki Battiste: She thought he’d at least wanna — be involved a little bit?
Cassie Baal: Yes. Melissa thought that he would want something to do with the baby. To that point, she thought he was a pretty nice guy. … then she saw a different side of him and that really upset her.
MELISSA LAMESCH LOOKS FORWARD TO BECOMING A MOTHER
Deanna and Gus Lamesch were fully prepared to help their daughter with whatever she needed for the baby.
Deanna Lamesch: I had said, if he doesn’t wanna be a part of the baby’s life, you know, don’t push, the baby is your child.
Gus Lamesch: I told her, whatever you needed, I’ll help you financially.
Deanna Lamesch: She knew she had plenty of family support. Everything would have been fine.
The Lamesch family was a large one. Melissa had four siblings, she was already an aunt, and was known for following her own path.
Cassie Baal: Melissa was … unapologetically herself, and that is what she was. … She’s a perfect mix of sugar and spice. … Not too spicy, not too sugary, it was just perfect.
Deanna Lamesch: Melissa was strong. She was fierce. She was a go-getter.
Melissa Lamesch, 27, was a devoted EMT. “My daughter, Melissa, she’s very thoughtful,” Gus Lamesch said. “And that’s why she got into … being a paramedic. … She wanted to help people.”
Deanna Lamesch
Melissa liked to reinvent herself — through hairstyles — and careers. Most recently, the 27-year-old had been working as an EMT.
Gus Lamesch: Melissa kind of fell into the line of work. She had an experience in college that that took her to an emergency room. … And … she really appreciated how she was treated and she wanted to do the same for other people.
Nikki Battiste: You were proud?
Gus Lamesch: Yes. … That was her job and she took it seriously.
As her due date neared, Melissa had to stop working. To make things easier, she moved into her childhood home with her dad. Her parents had divorced several years earlier. Melissa grew increasingly excited about becoming a mom, even though she and Plote had little contact.
Cassie Baal: Melissa would continue to send him like, sonograms or things would happen … sometimes he would respond a little bit, but she didn’t know really where he stood exactly. But … Melissa wanted her baby to have the option of having the mother and the father … so she kept the communication with him. He often shut down.
Plote wasn’t just shutting out Melissa. He kept the fact that he was going to be a father a secret — including from his coworkers and Chief Rob Schultz at the Carol Stream Fire District, several counties away from Melissa’s home.
Chief Rob Schultz: We’re here 24 hours a day. And … it’s a — just a normal, uh, course of being a firefighter … that you talk about your family, your personal life, and what’s going on good, bad, or indifferent. … I knew Matt as … a single guy … that didn’t have any kids.
Even Plote’s own parents did not know about the pregnancy — until Melissa told them.
Cassie Baal: Melissa wanted them to have the opportunity to be part of their grandchild’s life.
Nikki Battiste: How did Melissa say his parents responded to the news of a grandson?
Cassie Baal: Melissa said that his parents were very nice, that, um, they said, let me know what you need, I’ll help you any way we can.
Nikki Battiste: How did Matthew find out that Melissa had told his parents they were having a baby?
Deanna Lamesch: I believe that the parents then approached him … but it was not long after that that she had said “he’s mad I told them.”
Nikki Battiste: Because he had kept it a secret?
Deanna Lamesch: Yes.
Melissa celebrated the upcoming birth with family and friends at a baby shower. She had let everyone know she was having a boy. It was a happy time — until nearly two months later, on that fateful Thanksgiving eve.
Deanna Lamesch: It was just all so surreal.
While Melissa’s family tried to process their loss, investigators were hoping to provide them with answers about what had happened.
Lt. Brian Ketter: The fire debris is everywhere.
Brian Ketter, then the lead detective at the Ogle County Sheriff’s Office, headed to the kitchen, where Melissa had been found.
Lt. Brian Ketter: Everything’s covered in smoke. … Ceilings, walls, have fallen down and everything’s a mess.
Ketter and other investigators also headed outside, to an ambulance, to view Melissa.
Lt. Brian Ketter: We … noticed that she didn’t have a whole lot of fire damage to her.
Nikki Battiste: What does that say?
Lt.Brian Ketter: That the fire didn’t kill her.
WHAT CAUSED THE FIRE?
Michael Poel, then a special agent with the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office, was trying to establish whether the fire at Melissa’s Lamesch’s home was accidental or intentionally set.
Michael Poel: We needed to identify the area of fire origin and what may have caused that fire.
Nikki Battiste (looking at photos): What are you looking for?
Michael Poel: Where the greatest damage is at, where the fire patterns are at. … We’re looking at everything and everything in this picture that may have something to do with the origin of the fire.
Nikki Battiste: Where do you think the fire started?
Michael Poel: Uh, I believe the fires over here. Actually it’s in these cabinets — where these cabinets used to be above the stove area.
Melissa Lamesch was found dead on the floor by the oven in the kitchen. Investigators did not find any electrical issues at the house and learned that the oven and stove burners were all in the off position.
Ogle County State’s Attorney Office
But when Poel examined the stove, thinking that perhaps cooking flames caused the cabinets to catch fire, he saw that neither the oven nor the burners had been turned on.
Michael Poel: All the controls are in the off position and there is no fire damage in the interior of this oven to show that this was some type of cooking fire.
Poel also did not find any electrical issues.
Michael Poel: So, we’re starting to run out of accidental causes … And we could identify at least three very simple and easy ways to exit this residence.
Much of the house, besides the kitchen, remained accessible, so Poel thought Melissa could have found a way out.
Michael Poel: It was what I would call a survivable fire. … This young lady was a paramedic. She is used to dealing with emergencies. … For her to totally lose her perspective and stand there and try and fight that fire. … When you start putting all these things together, you start coming up with, OK, this makes no sense.
While Poel was inspecting the house, investigators talked with the Lamesch family. Ketter learned about the phone call that day between Melissa and Baal, that Melissa ended when Plote arrived at the house.
Lt. Brian Ketter: We learned from the family that he … was a fireman.
Matthew Plote was a firefighter-paramedic with the Carol Stream Fire District. “He was a good firefighter,” said Chief Rob Schultz. “Matt was somebody that was dependable on the fire scene. … He was just one of the guys.”
Carol Stream Fire District
Melissa’s brother Karl Lamesch told investigators he had already spoken on the phone to Plote, telling him he knew he had been at the house that day. Karl Lamesch also told Plote about the fire, and that someone had died, but not that it was Melissa. Investigators did that when they asked Plote to come in for an interview that evening.
DEPUTY: Melissa is deceased.
MATTHEW PLOTE: Oh. OK
Nikki Battiste: As you watched his interview, what did you think about his demeanor, his responses?
Lt. Brian Ketter: Emotionless. Very soft spoken. … Matthew said he went … to talk to Melissa. He wanted to talk about money … about being allowed at the hospital when she was set to be induced in two days. And that’s why he was there.
There was evidence that Matthew Plote had been at Melissa Lamesch’s house the day of the fire — something Plote admitted when he spoke with investigators.
Ogle County State’s Attorney’s Office
In that interview, Plote made a reference to a deadline when explaining his decision to go to the house that day:
MATTHEW PLOTE: I mean, there’s a deadline for — for that. So, we were trying to —
DEPUTY: A deadline for what?
MATTHEW PLOTE:For pregnancy there’s a deadline.
It was a phrase that investigators didn’t quite know how to interpret.
Nikki Battiste: Was Matthew, a suspect at that point?
Lt. Brian Ketter: No, He was not a suspect.
Nikki Battiste: What are the next steps in the investigation?
Lt. Brian Ketter: We need to determine the cause of death. We don’t know if — if Melissa had a medical episode or … if somebody did something to her or if the carbon monoxide from the fire killed her, we don’t know.
To get those answers, two autopsies would be performed: one, two days after Melissa’s death, and then another, about two weeks later while lab work was completed. The results: normal carbon monoxide levels, and no soot was found in her system. What was found was evidence of strangulation, including hemorrhages around her neck. Melissa, it was determined, had been murdered.
Deanna Lamesch: We have to plan a funeral and while we were still waiting for things, it was nearly three weeks.
Melissa Lamesch was two days away from delivering her son when she and her unborn baby died.
Photography by Angel Studio
On Dec. 14, 2020, the Lamesch family held a funeral for Melissa and her unborn baby, whom Melissa was going to name Barrett.
Deanna Lamesch: We didn’t get to kiss his forehead, touch his cheek. The first time we got any kind of contact, they were in a casket. And the first time I touched his hand. … I just remember gasping, just (gasps) … and I decided I was going to keep holding his hand, something Melissa didn’t get to do.
Melissa’s family was convinced that Matthew Plote was responsible for their profound grief — that he killed Melissa, simply because he did not want to become a father. Plote, investigators would learn, had been juggling multiple women in his life.
Gus Lamesch: I believe he did it because he’s selfish and it was gonna change his life, having a child.
Nikki Battiste: Melissa wasn’t asking him for anything, no money, nothing. He could have walked away. So why?
Cassie Baal: I think it was his pride. … He wanted to keep it a secret.
With no other suspects, and with Plote admitting to being at Melissa’s home that day, investigators were also circling in on Plote, but were still gathering evidence.
Lt. Brian Ketter: We had collected DNA evidence at the autopsy and we sent that to the crime lab. We had gotten search warrants for phone records. We were in the process of getting that information back.
They were also waiting to get information back from Amazon, about possible recordings from an Echo Dot that Ketter had noticed and was retrieved from the fire damaged kitchen.
Lt. Brian Ketter: We were hoping it would record conversations or … something from the day … between the two of them.
Nikki Battiste: That Amazon Echo Dot could turn this case around.
Lt. Brian Ketter: Could have — it could have recorded Melissa screaming for help, yelling out his name. … We didn’t know what it would be.
QUESTIONING MATTHEW PLOTE
When Carol Stream Fire Chief Rob Schultz returned the call, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Chief Rob Schultz: I was contacted by our police chief … to give him a call immediately that he had something very important, sensitive to talk about. … One of our firefighters was being investigated .. as a suspect in a murder that occurred … about two hours from our fire district’s boundaries.
It was now nine months since Melissa Lamesch’s death in a house fire that had sent shockwaves through the community in Mt. Morris where her home was located. But firefighters where Matthew Plote worked in Carol Stream, about 75 miles away, were unaware of the fire. Plote had said nothing.
Nikki Battiste: When you heard the name Matthew Plote in that call, what did you think?
Chief Rob Schultz: I was you know … there is no way this could be Matt …they have something wrong here.
But that disbelief started to change when Chief Schultz checked to see if Plote worked the day of fire and learned he had called out sick.
Chief Rob Schultz: The knot in my stomach, like literally wanted to throw up.
The fire chief’s sinking feeling only got worse when he learned that investigators believed Plote killed Melissa and their unborn child because he did not want to be a father — and then set the house on fire in hopes of destroying evidence.
Chief Rob Schultz: We had placed Matt immediately on paid administrative leave. … When I called Matt in to — to tell him I just said … “I’m being told that you’re under investigation for a murder of … your estranged girlfriend and the baby that you’re a father of.”
Nikki Battiste: Did you ask him why he hadn’t mentioned it?
Chief Rob Schultz: Didn’t feel that it was, uh, something that he wanted to talk about and … he felt it was a personal matter and didn’t want to disclose it.
While on leave, on Aug. 28, 2021, Plote was called in again for questioning. (BRIAN KETTER 209.01/00:11 My name is Brian. I’m a lieutenant with the sheriff’s office.) Plote willingly appeared without an attorney.
MATTHEW PLOTE (Sheriff’s Office interview): I wanted to contribute to the — in the life of our child.
Over the course of the seven-hour interview, he explained to investigators why he was at Melissa’s the day of the fire.
MATTHEW PLOTE (Sheriff’s Office interview): So, we talked about, you know, what I could pay her and that we’d — we just said we’d work it out later to visiting.
He said when he left that afternoon, Melissa was talking about making lunch.
MATTHEW PLOTE (Sheriff’s Office interview): She talked about cooking some food or something, but I — I didn’t stay around.
Most of the seven hours was filled with investigators asking questions and Plote saying very little.
LT. BRIAN KETTER (to Plote): So, did you go there to kill her, or did you just go there to talk to her and something happened?
Lt. Brian Ketter: We kept … accusing him of things … and he never said I didn’t do it. … He never said you guys got the wrong person. … He was just emotionless and he wouldn’t communicate. … Not once in seven hours, not once did he get upset. … Most people would’ve told us … I’m done, but he just sat and listened to us.
Nikki Battiste: Had you ever experienced an interview … like that before?
Brian Ketter: Never.
During questioning, Matthew Plote said very little, but told investigators, “I had no intention of hurting Melissa” after being asked if he intended to kill her.
Ogle County State’s Attorney’s Office
It wasn’t just the lack of communication that made Ketter think Plote was guilty, but on the rare times Plote did talk, the unusual way he phrased things.
LT. BRIAN KETTER Did you intend to kill her?
MATTHEW PLOTE: I had no intention of hurting Melissa.
Lt. Brian Ketter: During that seven-hour interview, at one point, Matthew did say ” I had no intentions of hurting Melissa.”
Nikki Battiste: Did that make you do a double take?
Lt. Brian Ketter: Yes. ‘Cause in our opinion, that means I hurt Melissa, but I didn’t intend to do it.
But it was not an admission of guilt, so Ketter wanted to see if Plote would say anything more and made an unusual request of Fire Chief Schultz.
Lt. Brian Ketter: We asked Chief Schultz if he would wear a … listening device. So that he would have a conversation with Matthew, we would be able to hear it and record it and try to gain some evidence that way.
Chief Rob Schultz: When Brian asks this of me, I’m pretty taken aback … And initially I said, “no way,” and I did some thinking about it and called him back and said “yes.”
Nikki Battiste: You have a lot of responsibilities as a fire chief, but I can’t imagine you ever thought wearing a wiretap would be one of them.
Chief Rob Schultz: No. … and I don’t freely talk about it … It’s not something that I’m proud of. It was something that needed to be done in the hopes of helping the investigation. … There’s a grieving family out there that’s looking for answers.
So, on Sept. 9, 2021, Chief Schultz called Matthew Plote and asked him to come in to talk.
Chief Rob Schultz: And he agreed. He says,” I’d like to come talk to you.”
Plote came in later that day. The fire station was quickly cleared of all other personnel, and Ketter and other investigators headed over. They were able to place a device that just recorded audio on a phone on Fire Chief’s Schultz’ desk and listened in from outside the fire station and from an adjoining office.
Nikki Battiste: How were you feeling?
Chief Rob Schultz: Nervous. Very nervous. A bit scared.
Schultz tried to learn what happened to Melissa, by appealing to Plote on a personal level.
ROB SCHULTZ (to Plote): I’m trying to find answers and I’m trying to help you. … Help me — help me — walk through — I mean, what — what happened?
But the nearly two-hour conversation yielded very little info from Plote, with him again barely speaking about the day Melissa died.
Chief Rob Schultz: I remember saying … “fill in all the blanks for me.” … And “isn’t it odd that no one here knows that you’re going to be a father.” Like that’s — that’s something we celebrate here.
Nikki Battiste: What did he say?
Chief Rob Schultz: Nothing. … Uh, head was down, uh, a lot of the conversation.
Nikki Battiste: Did he ever say I didn’t kill Melissa and my baby?
Chief Rob Schultz: He did not.
With none of the interviews resulting in a confession, there was still no arrest — something that exasperated the Lamesch family.
Gus Lamesch: It was excruciating. And, I mean, we were pestering the police constantly.
There were several reasons for the delay. There was the wait for the fire marshal’s report — which concluded that “the fire cause is most likely incendiary in nature, possibly the result of a fire being intentionally set in an effort to conceal a potential homicide.” And getting information from Amazon on whether Plote’s voice was recorded on that Echo Dot they retrieved from the kitchen took time.
Lt. Brian Ketter: It did reveal voices, but nothing that proved helpful for our case. … It wasn’t even on the day of the murder.
Investigators had also waited to obtain Plote’s DNA until after the August 2021 interview, hoping he would first confess to killing Melissa.
Lt. Brian Ketter: We got the results back saying … that it was his DNA … under her fingernails.
Matthew Plote was arrested and charged more than a year after Melissa Lamesch’s death.
Ogle County Sheriff’s Department
On March 9, 2022, after a year-and-a-half of investigating Melissa Lamesch’s death, Matthew Plote was arrested on charges including murder, the intentional homicide of an unborn child and arson.
John Kopp: The motive that the State painted, was … just an inaccurate portrayal of Matt. By the time of Matthew Plote’s arrest, he had hired attorney John Kopp.
John Kopp: They painted him to be this monster that … at the drop of a hat, after a career of saving people, decided to suddenly start killing people.
John Kopp: The evidence doesn’t show that Matthew Plote murdered Melissa Lamesch or their unborn child.
MATTHEW PLOTE ON TRIAL
Allison Huntley: Melissa Lamesch was loved. … This is not someone who had enemies lined up around the block who wanted to see her deceased. Rather, there was one person and one person only … and that was Matthew Plote.
Assistant State’s Attorneys Allison Huntley and Heather Kruse were part of the team prosecuting Matthew Plote.
Heather Kruse: All signs pointed toward Matthew Plote from the very beginning.
John Kopp: What we wanted to portray to the jury is that he was a — a guy … saving lives for his entire career.
Defense attorneys John Kopp and Liam Dixon say their client was misunderstood — and as a firefighter, was a responsible person, not a murderer.
John Kopp: Matt’s plan was to financially support her. He had offered her money before. … His plan was to be there.
Plote pleaded not guilty to all charges. On March 18, 2024, more than three years since Melissa’s murder, his trial began in Ogle County, Illinois. The prosecution argued that Plote murdered Melissa and their unborn child because he didn’t want to be a father.
Allison Huntley : He was keeping a secret — the fact that he fathered a baby — in the hopes that the child wouldn’t be born.
The defense told the jury there’s no evidence Plote harmed Melissa, and that he had gone to see her that day just to talk.
John Kopp: They discussed their finances; they discussed what would happen with the birth of the child … and then Matt left as she was making some lunch.
Heather Kruse: I believe, from the very beginning, he was trying to set up a story that there was an accidental house fire, that she had been cooking something. … I believe that was how he laid out the scene … which would explain why her body was found in the kitchen.
Fire Investigator Michael Poel testified that he found no evidence of an electrical or cooking fire in the home where Melissa Lamesch’s body was discovered.
Ogle County State’s Attorney’s Office
Prosecutors called Fire Investigator Michael Poel to testify about his findings. He told the court that he found no evidence of an electrical or cooking fire.
MIKE POEL (in court): And you start ruling these — these various different things out.
Nikki Battiste: How certain are you that this fire was intentionally set?
Michael Poel: I’m certain that it was intentionally set.
Nikki Battiste: No doubt.
Michael Poel: No doubt.
During cross examination, the defense suggested that Poel was unsure of his findings, citing language in his report such as “most likely” and “it is believed.”
JOHN KOPP (in court): You used the phrase “it is believed” because that’s an uncertain opinion. Correct?
MICHAEL POEL: It’s the way I described it.
JOHN KOPP: But that’s an uncertain opinion. Correct?
MICHAEL POEL: Not to me.
Poel says he was just using standard terms used during fire investigations.
The State also called forensic pathologist Dr. Amanda Youmans, who had performed one of the autopsies.
DR. AMANDA YOUMANS (in court): There was no soot in her airways … And her … measure of carbon monoxide in the blood was within normal limits. So she was deceased prior to the fire.
Youmans testified that Melissa’s body showed evidence of a violent struggle. The jury heard about the hemorrhages around Melissa’s neck — a specific type of broken blood vessels called “petechial hemorrhages” which according to Youmans, is a telltale sign of strangulation.
DR. AMANDA YOUMANS (in court): This is the most petechial hemorrhages I’ve ever seen in a strangulation case.
Deanna Lamesch: To sit through trial was beyond devastating.
Deanna Lamesch came to court every day.
Deanna Lamesch: I had been prepped by the victims’ advocate. … Things were going to be gruesome. I was going to see a lot.
Deanna Lamesch says she always kept Melissa and her baby Barrett in her thoughts.
Deanna Lamesch: She was so strong-willed and had such pride. That baby was gonna be a strong guy.
Plote’s parents also attended the trial.
Nikki Battiste: They’ve been by his side throughout this?
John Kopp: Yes. Every court date.
One of the most important witnesses to testify was Melissa’s sister, Cassie Baal, talking about the day Melissa died and that call which Baal says was interrupted by Plote.
ALLISON HUNTLEY (in court): What was the last thing your sister said to you during that phone call?
CASSIE BAAL: Sorry (emotional).She said she would make the conversation quick and she would call me right back.
ALLISON HUNTLEY: Did Melissa call you back?
CASSIE BAAL: No.
Jurors watched those recorded interviews with investigators, where Plote admitted he was at the house.
DEPUTY: How long were you at the house?
MATTHEW PLOTE: It wasn’t more than an hour I don’t think
Prosecutors wanted jurors to hear that phrase Plote used —
MATTHEW PLOTE: I mean, there’s a deadline for — for that.
— referring to the birth of his son as a “deadline.”
Allison Huntley: He said, there’s a deadline to these kinds of things. That was his deadline to murder Melissa.
Heather Kruse: So, if you think about it logically, Thursday’s Thanksgiving and Friday is her due date, his deadline. The only time to do this was Wednesday. So he took off work and completed his goal.
The prosecutors found even more telling what Plote didn’tsay — especially during that seven-hour interview — four hours of which were played for the jury.
Allison Huntley: What is chilling … is the fact that he never denied murdering Melissa. And he never denied killing her baby boy, not one time. It’s chilling from a personal perspective, but that’s also excellent evidence that the defendant couldn’t bring himself to lie about that fact.
John Kopp: Over the course of multiple interviews for several hours, he was calm and reserved.
His silence, the defense says, actually points to his innocence — not his guilt.
Prosecutors wanted jurors to hear that phrase Plote used —
MATTHEW PLOTE: I mean, there’s a deadline for — for that.
— referring to the birth of his son as a “deadline.”
Allison Huntley: He said, there’s a deadline to these kinds of things. That was his deadline to murder Melissa.
Heather Kruse: So, if you think about it logically, Thursday’s Thanksgiving and Friday is her due date, his deadline. The only time to do this was Wednesday. So he took off work and completed his goal.
The prosecutors found even more telling what Plote didn’tsay — especially during that seven-hour interview — four hours of which were played for the jury.
Allison Huntley: What is chilling … is the fact that he never denied murdering Melissa. And he never denied killing her baby boy, not one time. It’s chilling from a personal perspective, but that’s also excellent evidence that the defendant couldn’t bring himself to lie about that fact.
John Kopp: Over the course of multiple interviews for several hours, he was calm and reserved.
His silence, the defense says, actually points to his innocence — not his guilt.
QUESTIONING THE INVESTIGATION
John Kopp: The State’s expert didn’t do a fraction of what he should have done to properly determine the cause of the fire. … This should have been an undetermined fire.
To try to poke holes in the prosecution’s case, the defense called only one witness: retired firefighter and independent inspector John Knapp. He was not at the scene of the fire but did study reports and photos.
JOHN KNAPP (in court): I felt like there was probably more information that could have been gathered that wasn’t …
He disputed the prosecution’s claim that Plote set the fire. He testified that the evidence collected doesn’t prove that the fire was intentionally set byanyone.
JOHN KNAPP (in court): I couldn’t make that determination to whether or not — what the cause of the fire should be other than undetermined.
Michael Poel: When you’re not there at the scene, you don’t see what we’ve seen, not always does every little tidbit end up in a report.
Poel says the defense’s expert is wrong, and that his investigation was thorough.
Michael Poel: We’re looking for anything and everything that could have contributed to the origins of this fire. … They weren’t there. … You needed to be there when we were doing the examination.
Plote waived his right to testify. During closing arguments, the defense accused investigators of having tunnel vision.
John Kopp: The complete lack of investigation … of any other individual is shocking. I’ve never seen such a poorly investigated case.
Liam Dixon: They didn’t follow-up on any other leads that may have happened. Any other boyfriends, any other — anybody else.
Allison Huntley: If there had been another lead, investigators certainly would’ve followed it. There simply wasn’t..
Prosecutors told the jury that the evidence was clear: Melissa Lamesch was strangled to death by the only person who had a motive to kill her, Matthew Plote, who was juggling multiple women and didn’t want to change his lifestyle.
Allison Huntley: He clearly … did not want to be involved in this baby’s life. This is someone who actively hid the fact that a woman in the community was carrying his child.
John Kopp: He … clearly had made some choices about having … multiple relationships but did not make him a killer.
The trial lasted a week. After two hours of deliberation, the jury returned with a verdict: guilty of all charges.
Deanna Lamesch: I could hear people sobbing and gasping … but like, I — I couldn’t even lift my head …
Nikki Battiste: What did you feel?
Deanna Lamesch: Shock. Shock.
The verdict was a relief for Chief Schultz. He says the case had long weighed on him and everyone at the firehouse who had worked with Plote.
Chief Rob Schultz: There was a huge closure here when Matt was found guilty. … You still have the family out there that lost a daughter or lost a grandson … You’re never going to change that.
Three months later, on June 27, 2024, Melissa’s family and friends gathered at the courthouse for sentencing. Plote listened with little reaction as victim impact statements were read:
GUS LAMESCH (in court): We lost Melissa in the prime of her life. … Melissa and Barrett should still be alive and enjoying life with her loving family.
Cassie Baal looks at Matthew Plote, foreground left, as she gave her victim impact statement at Plote’s sentencing.
CBS News
CASSIE BAAL (in court): I shouldn’t have spent Thanksgiving that year feeling like there was nothing to be thankful for. … This shouldn’t be real, but it is real. It is all real because one man decided to make the decision that Barrett and Melissa weren’t needed or wanted.
DEANNA LAMESCH (in court): None of this had to happen, all he had to do was walk away.
Plote also addressed the court with this brief statement:
MATTHEW PLOTE (in court): To say anything other than I share the pain and the sadness and the loss of Melissa and Barrett.
Nikki Battiste: Do you believe him?
Gus Lamesch: Oh, no, definitely not.
Cassie Baal: For him to … say, “I too have pain and loss for Melissa and Barrett,” like that — what a joke.
Judge John Roe imposed the maximum sentence: life behind bars.
Nikki Battiste: Matthew Plote will likely die in prison. Does that give you any sort of peace?
Deanna Lamesch: No. … I know it’s the justice system and we received our justice, but nothing about this is just. Nothing about this is fair. No punishment in the world brings them back.
Melissa’s sister Julialyn Shedd tries to hold onto fond memories.
Julialyn Shedd: I miss her personality. … I think it’s her sass. … Melissa was — I believe still is the best person that I’ve ever met.
“Melissa was … unapologetically herself, and that is what she was,” Cassie Baal said of her sister. “She’s a perfect mix of sugar and spice. … Not too spicy, not too sugary. It was just perfect.”
Photography by Angel Studio
Nikki Battiste: What do you miss most about your daughter and there’s a grandson you never got to meet?
Gus Lamesch: Where do you start. I mean … he was gonna come into my home. … I was looking forward to raising him.
Through all of their grief, the Lamesch family honors Melissa in many ways.
Deanna Lamesch: We took toys to a local homeless shelter.
Nikki Battiste: To honor Barrett?
Deanna Lamesch: To honor Barrett. … We donated money to the no-kill shelter that Melissa got her cat from.
They also sponsored a tree at a local arboretum that Melissa loved.
Deanna Lamesch: Every year … at the holidays, this tree will always be lit as part of their display.
Shining brightly, like Melissa always did.
Cassie Baal: Melissa was strong. She was fierce. She was powerful. Nothing was gonna stop her. And she was always gonna prove herself and she’d do whatever it take to do it.
“48 HOURS” POST MORTEM
“48 Hours” contributor Nikki Battiste and producer Ruth Chenetz discuss the relationship between Melissa Lamesch and Matthew Plote, the defense’s attempt to cast doubt on the investigation, and the touching story of how Melissa’s family discovered the name she had chosen for her soon-to-be-born baby boy.
Produced by Ruth Chenetz and Emily Wichick Hourihane. Michelle Sigona is the development producer. Michael Baluzy and Phil Tangel are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
The judge sentenced Grayson to 20 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections followed by two years of mandatory supervised release. He has the right to appeal his sentence.
As he explained his sentence, the jduge said firing three rounds threatened other in the neighborhood, and that a strict sentence was necessary to “to deter ohers from acting under the same circumstances.” He noted the defense argued that this sitaution was unlikely to happen again as Grayson, now a convicted felon, can no longer haev a gun or serve as a police officer, but said he believes the shooting was the result of Grayson’s temper and mindset. The judge also said he believes probation would “depreciate the seriousness of the crime.”
if Grayson serves his full sentence he will be 51 when he is released.
The judge sent March 6 as the hearing date for that appeal.
Massey’s family was in court for the sentencing, along with a number of family members dressed in purple. When the sentence came down, one of Massey’s family members shouted “yes!” When the hearing was complete, the family stood crying as one thanked God. Massey’s mother Donna also thanked the court at large.
Massey’s mother and father testified in the hearing, and her two teenaged children all made statements at sentencing.
“This traumatic experience has caused deep loss in my life,” Massey’s daughter Summer told the court. “Since her death, I have not been the same person.”
Her son Malachi told the judge, “My soul is ripped. It’s like a part of me is really dead.”
“This is like pain I can’t explain,” he continued. “Sometimes I really wake up and believe she’s really here. It’s unbelievable.”
Her father James Wilburn told the court that while he is bent, he is not broken, but that his family continues to suffer in the wake of her loss.
“Her laugh, cooking, voice,” Wilburn said. “I will never hear again, ‘Daddy I love you.’”
Her mother Donna told the court, “I cried every day. I lost my short term memory. Today, I’m afraid to call the police for fear that I may end up like Sonya.”
“She was one of the smartest, sweetest people I ever knew,” she continued.
Grayson’s attorneys submitted character letters on behalf of their client, and argued that the jury convicted Grayson on a lesser charge, as he was tried for first-degree murder, and that his life and livelihood have been severely impacted by the conviction. They asked for probation or conditional discharge, saying Grayson would comply with the terms, has been well-behaved on release and had previously successfully completed probation.
The defense also said Grayson was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2023 which has now spread to liver, and separately has been diagnosed with Stage 4 rectal and lung cancer, and argued imprisonment would be dangerous for his heath.
The judge said they did not see any evidence that Grayson’s cancer treatment would be different in prison compared to outside of prison.
What happened in the Sonya Massey shooting?
In July 2024, Massey, a 36-year-old unarmed Black woman, called police for help for a possible prowler outside her home.
Inside the home, Grayson said Massey began acting erratically and rebuked him “in the name of Jesus” while walking towards a pot of water on her stove. Body cam video from Grayson’s partner captured the moment he shot Massey, who died of a gunshot wound.
Grayson’s body camera was not activated for most of the call, only turning on shortly after he pulled his weapon.
At trial last fall, Dawson Farley, Grayson’s former partner on the night of the Massey shooting, testified during the trial that he was not afraid of Massey during the call, but instead feared Grayson. Farley told the jury that, while he was confused after Massey said “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” he never perceived that as a threat. He added he only unholstered his gun because Grayson did.
Grayson also took the stand in his own defense at trial. He testified that finding broken windows on Massey’s car, her 911 call for help and waiting four minutes for her to answer the phone made him concerned someone else was inside. He also said he believed she may have been “under the influence of something” and said she appeared “scatterbrained.”
The judge sentenced Grayson to 20 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections followed by two years of mandatory supervised release. He has the right to appeal his sentence.
As he explained his sentence, the jduge said firing three rounds threatened other in the neighborhood, and that a strict sentence was necessary to “to deter ohers from acting under the same circumstances.” He noted the defense argued that this sitaution was unlikely to happen again as Grayson, now a convicted felon, can no longer haev a gun or serve as a police officer, but said he believes the shooting was the result of Grayson’s temper and mindset. The judge also said he believes probation would “depreciate the seriousness of the crime.”
if Grayson serves his full sentence he will be 51 when he is released.
The judge sent March 6 as the hearing date for that appeal.
Massey’s family was in court for the sentencing, along with a number of family members dressed in purple. When the sentence came down, one of Massey’s family members shouted “yes!” When the hearing was complete, the family stood crying as one thanked God. Massey’s mother Donna also thanked the court at large.
Massey’s mother and father testified in the hearing, and her two teenaged children all made statements at sentencing.
“This traumatic experience has caused deep loss in my life,” Massey’s daughter Sonta told the court. “Since her death, I have not been the same person.”
Her son Malachai told the judge, “My soul is ripped. It’s like a part of me is really dead.”
“This is like pain I can’t explain,” he continued. “Sometimes I really wake up and believe she’s really here. It’s unbelievable.”
Her father James Wilburn told the court that while he is bent, he is not broken, but that his family continues to suffer in the wake of her loss.
“Her laugh, cooking, voice,” Wilburn said. “I will never hear again, ‘Daddy I love you.’”
Her mother Donna told the court, “I cried every day. I lost my short term memory. Today, I’m afraid to call the police for fear that I may end up like Sonya.”
“She was one of the smartest, sweetest people I ever knew,” she continued.
Grayson’s attorneys submitted character letters on behalf of their client, and argued that the jury convicted Grayson on a lesser charge, as he was tried for first-degree murder, and that his life and livelihood have been severely impacted by the conviction. They asked for probation or conditional discharge, saying Grayson would comply with the terms, has been well-behaved on release and had previously successfully completed probation.
The defense also said Grayson was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2023 which has now spread to liver, and separately has been diagnosed with Stage 4 rectal and lung cancer, and argued imprisonment would be dangerous for his heath.
The judge said they did not see any evidence that Grayson’s cancer treatment would be different in prison compared to outside of prison.
What happened in the Sonya Massey shooting?
In July 2024, Massey, a 36-year-old unarmed Black woman, called police for help for a possible prowler outside her home.
Inside the home, Grayson said Massey began acting erratically and rebuked him “in the name of Jesus” while walking towards a pot of water on her stove. Body cam video from Grayson’s partner captured the moment he shot Massey, who died of a gunshot wound.
Grayson’s body camera was not activated for most of the call, only turning on shortly after he pulled his weapon.
At trial last fall, Dawson Farley, Grayson’s former partner on the night of the Massey shooting, testified during the trial that he was not afraid of Massey during the call, but instead feared Grayson. Farley told the jury that, while he was confused after Massey said “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” he never perceived that as a threat. He added he only unholstered his gun because Grayson did.
Grayson also took the stand in his own defense at trial. He testified that finding broken windows on Massey’s car, her 911 call for help and waiting four minutes for her to answer the phone made him concerned someone else was inside. He also said he believed she may have been “under the influence of something” and said she appeared “scatterbrained.”
Sneak peek: The Sneak Attack on Katlyn Lyon – CBS News
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ALL NEW: A mother goes viral on TikTok demanding justice for her murdered daughter. “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty reports Saturday, Jan. 31 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
SPOKE WITH SOME FAMILY MEMBERS WHO HAVE NOT LOST HOPE. KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND HELP US FIND OUR GRANDCHILDREN. A PLEA FOR HELP. AS A SACRAMENTO FAMILY CONTINUES TO SEARCH FOR THEIR MISSING LOVED ONES WITH NO NEW INFORMATION AND NO CLOSURE, THINGS ARE JUST. IT’S A LOT QUIETER NOW AND. WE JUST MISS HIM A LOT. YEAH, OUR LIFE IS NOT AS FULL AS IT WAS, YOU KNOW? IT JUST SEEMS MORE EMPTY WITHOUT THEM. FIVE YEAR OLD ATHENA AND THREE YEAR OLD MATEO LEE WERE LAST SEEN A YEAR AND A HALF AGO, SHORTLY BEFORE THEIR MOTHER, 28 YEAR OLD ANGELICA BRAVO, WAS FOUND DEAD INSIDE A NORTH SACRAMENTO HOME, LEAVING INVESTIGATORS WITH A COMPLEX AND ONGOING CASE. WHAT WAS COMPLEX ABOUT THIS CASE WAS WE WERE WAITING ON A CAUSE AND MANNER OF DEATH FOR ANGELICA BRAVO. SO WHEN CAMERON WAS MISSING, THE KIDS WERE MISSING US. WE DIDN’T HAVE A MURDER WARRANT FOR CAMERON AT THAT TIME. WHAT WAS DIFFICULT WAS HE’S ALSO THE CUSTODIAL PARENT FOR THE KIDS. SO WE DIDN’T HAVE A KIDNAPING CASE AT THAT POINT. INVESTIGATORS BELIEVE ATHENA AND MATEO ARE WITH THEIR FATHER, CAMERON LEE, WHO POLICE SAY IS A SUSPECT IN ANGELICA’S KILLING. WITH THE CHILDREN’S WHEREABOUTS STILL UNKNOWN. THE FBI REMAINS INVOLVED. WE DON’T KNOW WHERE THE CHILDREN ARE, SO OUR REACH IS GLOBAL. AND CERTAINLY WE WANT TO BRING THEM BACK WHEREVER THEY MAY BE. AND AS TIME PASSES, WITHOUT ANY NEW DETAILS, WE THINK ABOUT THEM EVERY DAY. WE PRAY FOR THEM EVERY DAY. JUST TWO DAYS AWAY FROM MATEO’S FOURTH BIRTHDAY, THE FAMILY SAYS THEY’RE HOLDING ON TO MEMORIES. WE USED TO CALL. WE CALL ATHENA THINKING THAT WAS HER NICKNAME. AND MATEO, HE HAD A COUPLE, BUT TITO WAS ONE OF THEM. AND WHILE THERE ARE STILL NO ANSWERS, THE FAMILY IS DOING EVERYTHING THEY CAN. STAYING ACTIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA, HOPING SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE MAY RECOGNIZE THE CHILDREN AND SPEAK UP. I JUST REALLY HOPE THAT IF ANYBODY DOES SEE, EVEN IF THEY THINK THEY’RE LIKE, OH, THAT, THAT LOOKS LIKE THAT COULD BE THEM, YOU KNOW, JUST REPORT IT. MARICELA DE LA CRUZ KCRA 3 NEWS. AT THIS TIME, LEE FACES CHARGES FOR MURDER AND POSSESSION OF AN ASSAULT STYLE WEAPON. A FEDERAL ARREST WARRANT HAS ALSO BEEN ISSUED FOR UNLAWFUL FLIGHT TO AVOID PROSECUTION. THE FBI IS OFFERING A REWARD OF UP TO $25,000 FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO HIS ARREST, AS WELL AS AN ADDITIONAL $25,000
Sacramento family seeks help in finding missing children Athena and Mateo Lee
Ahead of National Missing Persons Day, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Sacramento Police Department are intensifying efforts to find 5-year-old Athena Lee and 3-year-old Mateo Lee, who have been missing for more than a year and a half, as their family continues to hope for their safe return.”Keep your eyes open and help us find our grandchildren,” said Dawn Bodea, a family member, as the Sacramento family continues to search for their missing loved ones without any new information or closure.”Things are just a lot quieter now. We just miss them a lot. Our life is not as full; it seems more empty without them,” Bodea said.Athena and Mateo were last seen shortly before their mother, 28-year-old Angelica Bravo, was found dead inside her ex-boyfriend’s home in North Sacramento, leaving investigators with a complex and ongoing case.”What was complex about this case was we were waiting on a cause and manner of death for Angelica Bravo, so when Camron was missing, the kids were missing, we didn’t have a murder warrant for Camron at that time. What was difficult was he’s also the custodial parent for the kids, so we didn’t have a kidnapping case at that point,” said Anthony Gamble of the Sacramento Police.Investigators believe Athena and Mateo are with their father, Camron Lee, who police say is the suspect in Angelica’s killing. With the children’s whereabouts still unknown, the FBI remains involved.”We don’t know where the children are, so our reach is global, and certainly we want to bring them back where they may be,” said Gina Swankie of the FBI. “These children are changing rapidly. They may not even remember what happened that day, so they may be going about their everyday day-to-day lives.”As time passes without any new details, Bodea said, “We think about them every day, we pray for them every day.”Just two days away from Mateo’s fourth birthday, the family is holding on to memories.Despite the lack of answers, the family is staying active on social media, hoping someone, somewhere, may recognize the children and speak up. “I just really hope that if anybody does see—even if they think—that looks like it could be them, you know, just report it,” Bodea said.At this time, Camron Lee faces charges for murder and possession of an assault weapon. A federal arrest warrant has also been issued for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to Lee’s arrest, as well as an additional $25,000 for information that leads to the safe recovery of Athena and Mateo.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
Ahead of National Missing Persons Day, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Sacramento Police Department are intensifying efforts to find 5-year-old Athena Lee and 3-year-old Mateo Lee, who have been missing for more than a year and a half, as their family continues to hope for their safe return.
“Keep your eyes open and help us find our grandchildren,” said Dawn Bodea, a family member, as the Sacramento family continues to search for their missing loved ones without any new information or closure.
“Things are just a lot quieter now. We just miss them a lot. Our life is not as full; it seems more empty without them,” Bodea said.
“What was complex about this case was we were waiting on a cause and manner of death for Angelica Bravo, so when Camron was missing, the kids were missing, we didn’t have a murder warrant for Camron at that time. What was difficult was he’s also the custodial parent for the kids, so we didn’t have a kidnapping case at that point,” said Anthony Gamble of the Sacramento Police.
“We don’t know where the children are, so our reach is global, and certainly we want to bring them back where they may be,” said Gina Swankie of the FBI. “These children are changing rapidly. They may not even remember what happened that day, so they may be going about their everyday day-to-day lives.”
As time passes without any new details, Bodea said, “We think about them every day, we pray for them every day.”
Just two days away from Mateo’s fourth birthday, the family is holding on to memories.
Despite the lack of answers, the family is staying active on social media, hoping someone, somewhere, may recognize the children and speak up.
“I just really hope that if anybody does see—even if they think—that looks like it could be them, you know, just report it,” Bodea said.
At this time, Camron Lee faces charges for murder and possession of an assault weapon. A federal arrest warrant has also been issued for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to Lee’s arrest, as well as an additional $25,000 for information that leads to the safe recovery of Athena and Mateo.
GLOUCESTER — Merlin Hunt Jr. went out of his way to help others, whether it was part of his Tally’s towing business or just wanting to assist someone in need.
A Marine Corps veteran from Gloucester, he spent six years serving his country during the Vietnam War, likely changing him in ways that most people cannot fathom.
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LOWELL — The murder retrial of Billy, Billoeum, and Channa Phan is officially ready to proceed.
Jury impanelment is scheduled to begin in Middlesex Superior Court on Monday morning — or Tuesday if the winter storm forces the Kiernan Judicial Center to close.
The schedule was set on Friday during the final pretrial hearing, where Judge Chris Barry-Smith also denied a defense motion to dismiss the indictment against one of the three brothers, each charged with first-degree murder for the shooting death of 22-year-old Tyrone Phet outside his Lowell home in 2020.
Barry-Smith rejected the bid by attorney William Dolan, who represents defendant Channa Phan, ruling that although the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office failed to turn over information tied to a gang-motive theory in a timely fashion, the lapse did not rise to the level requiring dismissal.
Prosecutors have argued the residence functioned as a stash house for the Outlaws, street gang, which they claim the Phan brothers are members of. Due to the shooting, a search warrant was obtained by the Lowell Police for the Wilder Street home, where officers seized guns, ammunition, 200 grams of cocaine, and 100,000 pressed pills containing methamphetamine.
The shooting — allegedly carried out by rival gang Crazy Mob Family — triggered a retaliatory motive for the killing of Phet less than 24 hours later.
Phet was not alleged to be a CMF member, but prosecutors contend he lived in the same Spring Avenue building where a CMF member once resided.
Phet was shot to death in a hail of gunfire while sitting in his car outside the multi-family residence at 55 Spring Ave. Phet — a 2016 Chelmsford High graduate and captain of the football team his senior year — was struck eight times during the shooting.
The Lowell Police recovered 21 spent shell casings at the scene from two different caliber guns.
Barry‑Smith said the prosecution’s decision to pursue a broader gang theory in the retrial “not surprisingly” prompted the defense to seek all information police and prosecutors possessed about the Wilder Street shooting and subsequent search warrant.
Prior to the first trial — which ended in a mistrial after jurors became deadlocked —prosecutors turned over the police report about the incident but not the underlying investigative materials, Barry‑Smith said. That omission was not a major point of contention at the time because the initial trial’s lead prosecutor — former Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Daniel Harren — had elected not to pursue a wide‑ranging gang theory.
Once the new prosecution team sought to expand that scope, Barry‑Smith said, they were obligated to produce the full set of Wilder Street information — something they did not do until recent weeks.
“The Commonwealth’s principal shortcoming is that failure to produce Wilder Street information once it determined Wilder Street was relevant to the case,” Barry‑Smith said, adding that a secondary issue was that prosecutors “were not adequately familiar” with what evidence had been turned over during the first four years of the case, leading to a misunderstanding.
The judge described the discovery violation as the product of “mistake, inadvertence, misunderstanding, and a failure to be fully familiar” with prior disclosures — not an attempt to ambush the defense.
“It was not delivered, nor was it designed to spring evidence upon the defense,” Barry‑Smith said.
The judge reiterated that he has already denied the Commonwealth’s request to expand the scope of gang evidence for the retrial, calling the proposed showing “too thin.”
The Wilder Street material may be considered for rebuttal, but that will depend on how the trial unfolds.
Because prosecutors have since turned over the missing materials, and because the expanded gang theory will not be permitted, Barry‑Smith said dismissal was not warranted.
“I don’t find that the District Attorney’s Office’s conduct was purposeful or egregious,” he said.
As for jury selection, the expectation is it will take two days to get the needed pool of 16 jurors.
The trial will run daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, with an hour‑long lunch break. Barry‑Smith said the case is expected to conclude by the end of the week of Feb. 9.
Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Thomas Brant told Barry-Smith that the prosecution intends to call more than 40 witnesses.
Brant also raised a scheduling wrinkle: Feb. 8 is Super Bowl Sunday, and with the New England Patriots still in contention for a spot in Super Bowl 60 as of the hearing, juror availability and the scheduling of witnesses could be affected.
“I don’t care, and my desire is to move the case as quickly as possible, but …” Brant said.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Barry‑Smith replied, adding that he may delay the Feb. 9 start time to as late as 10 a.m.
“I might delay things on that Monday, but I’m not going to call it off,” he said.’
The Sun will publish weekly wrap-ups on the trial’s progress, with summaries appearing this Sunday and again on Feb. 8. A final story detailing the verdict will follow shortly after the jury reaches a decision, with the latest possible publication date being Feb. 15.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
On Feb. 6, 2021, Kevin Jiang, a 26-year-old Yale graduate student and former Army National Guardsman, spent the day with Zion Perry, his fiancée, who was also a graduate student there. The couple went hiking and ice fishing, followed by dinner at her home in the affluent East Rock section of New Haven. Police say that at around 8:30 p.m. Jiang left her apartment and headed off in his Prius to his house, where he lived with his mother.
Kevin Jiang was a 26-year-old Yale graduate student, an Army veteran, and, his friends say, a man of faith who volunteered with the homeless.
Kevin Jiang/Instagram
He barely made it two blocks before his car was struck from behind by a dark SUV in what appeared to be a minor fender bender. Police believe he got out of his car, likely to check on how the other driver was and exchange information. Instead, the other motorist shot Jiang eight times — with several bullets fired so close to his head that the exploding gunpowder left burn marks on his face.
David Zaweski, the lead homicide detective in Jiang’s murder, talked with “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green for “The Ivy League Murder.” An encore of the broadcast is streaming on Paramount+.
Zaweski said that one witness told investigators she heard the minor fender bender, looked out a window, heard gunshots and saw muzzle flashes from a weapon. And another witness added that she not only heard the gunshots, but she saw the shooter — dressed all in black — standing over his fallen victim, continuing to fire bullets into him after he was down. Detectives would later recover a chilling home surveillance video that virtually captured Kevin’s final moments alive, confirming the witness’ accounts.
But deepening the mystery was the fact that the eight spent shell casings lying near Jiang were .45 caliber bullets — and they were similar to .45 caliber shell casings found at the scene of four recent shootings in the area.
According to police, a gunman had fired .45 caliber bullets into four homes over the last several months. In those cases, no one had been hurt. Investigators interviewed the homeowners but were unable to find any connection between them.
At first glance, Jiang’s murder had all the earmarks of a violent case of road rage. But Zaweski and his colleague Steven Cunningham quickly began to wonder if there was more.
“It seems a little bit more personal,” Zaweski told Green. “When you have someone laying on the ground and not moving, what would cause someone to continue firing?”
Cunningham questioned the car accident. “Was it deliberate to get him out of the vehicle? Possibly something that was planned?” he said.
“And if he was specifically targeted,” Zaweski continued, “what could have happened in his life to drive someone to do this?
It was a logical investigative avenue to pursue, but after breaking the tragic news to Jiang’s mother and his fiancée, investigators say the portrait that emerged of Kevin was that of a gifted young man who couldn’t have had an enemy in the world. He was living with, and taking care of, his mother, whom he brought from Seattle to live with him. He volunteered to work with the homeless, was deeply religious, and was a former lieutenant in the U.S. Army National Guard. Just a week earlier he had proposed to Perry, which she posted on Facebook, virtually on the anniversary of their meeting at a Christian retreat.
Kevin Jiang and Zion Perry
Facebook
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson summed up the young newly engaged couple for Green. “They clearly shared a lot in common,” he began. “They both loved nature. Zion was a scientist studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry… he was in the School of the Environment. They’re both brilliant and hardworking students,” he said, “and yet they didn’t feel like their accomplishments were what defined them at the deepest level.”
Zaweski and Cunningham knew they faced a daunting investigation. Jiang’s murder may just have been another random shooting by the mysterious .45 caliber gunman. Whoever the shooter was, he was still on the loose.
“The suspect was out there,” Zaweski said. “He wasn’t identified. We didn’t know where he went … and we didn’t know what he would be doing next.”
With few leads to pursue and a vague image of a dark SUV from surveillance footage at the scene, they knew they likely would need a break. And they got one the following day when they received an urgent call from Sgt. Jeffrey Mills of the nearby North Haven police. He provided them with startling information about two different 911 calls.
The first one occurred about a half hour after Jiang’s murder. A motorist had gotten stuck on a desolate snow-covered railroad track outside a scrap metal yard he had accidentally driven into, he said, while looking for a nearby highway entrance. The motorist, Qinxuan Pan, was from Malden, Massachusetts. His record was clean, and he was calm with an excuse that Mills had heard before from others who got lost near that scrap yard. So, he helped Pan get a tow and a nearby hotel room. At the time, Mills was unaware that there had been a murder in New Haven.
But about 15 hours later, at 11 a.m. on Feb. 7, Mills responded to another 911 call at an Arby’s, where employees had found a bag containing a gun and box of .45 caliber bullets. The Arby’s was right next door to the Best Western hotel where Pan had been taken. And by then he knew Kevin Jiang had been murdered, by someone driving a dark SUV similar to Pan’s. That’s when he reached out to New Haven homicide.
It turned out Pan had checked into the hotel but never stayed there. And when Zaweski sent detectives to Malden, where Pan went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and lived with his parents — no one was home.
Zaweski turned to his computer searching for Pan, hoping to find a connection to Jiang. “We’ll use Facebook as a tool to try and get a background on an individual, who they’re friends with,” Zaweski explained. But there seemed to be no connection with Jiang.
“And so, you’re going down the list of names,” Green says, “Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then you’re like, ‘whoa.’”
“There’s our connection,” Zaweski replies. That connection was Zion Perry, who was listed as a friend of Pan. She and Pan had met each other at a Christian group when Perry was an undergraduate at MIT. And although Perry was barely an acquaintance of Pan and hadn’t communicated with him since she left MIT and moved to New Haven to attend Yale, the homicide detectives felt they had more than a break. They had a potential suspect who was missing from his home. And a possible motive: an obsession with Perry.
“It did seem like there was a secret obsession of Pan’s going on behind the scenes that Kevin wasn’t aware of, and that Zion wasn’t aware of,” Zaweski said. After all, Jiang’s murder occurred just one week after Perry posted their engagement on Facebook, along with previous photos of them dating.
Qinxuan Pan
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
Investigators believe Pan was also responsible for the four .45 caliber shootings, and that the shootings were part of a premeditated plan. They theorized that those shootings were done to mislead them when Jiang was eventually killed, to make them think his death had been just another random incident.
“He planned it, Cunningham said. “And he knew we’d be looking at these other things.”
“This wasn’t a random incident out there,” Zaweski added. “He was targeted.”
Now, their homicide investigation, and the massive manhunt for their brilliant, tech-savvy MIT fugitive took off. U.S. Marshals joined the case and learned that Pan’s family had access to millions of dollars in assets. Pan was missing, and they worried he might be trying to flee the country. The pressure was on.
“This became so high profile so fast,” U.S. Marshal Joe Galvan told “48 Hours.” “It was just heightened.”
The Marshals galvanized their vast resources to track down Pan. They noticed Pan’s parents had withdrawn large sums of cash, and that they had taken a long trip south with their son right after the murder. When the parents had been stopped in Georgia, they were in the car, but their son was gone. They said he’d simply gotten out of the car and walked away, and they didn’t know where he’d gone. Investigators were skeptical.
“They would go to the ends of the earth to help support and hide him,” said Matthew Duffy, a supervisor of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut. The Marshals focused in on the parents as their way to find Pan. They knew finding him would take patience as they utilized all their surveillance techniques to track the family.
Weeks went by, but eventually, their patience paid off. Pan’s mother finally made a mistake that would lead the Marshals straight to her son. She made a phone call from a hotel using a clerk’s phone. Investigators spoke to the clerk and were able to track that call, leading them to Pan’s location at a boarding house in Alabama.
“They went there with a small army,” Duffy said. “Around 20 guys … he just came out and said, ‘I’m who you’re looking for.’”
At the time of his arrest, Pan had on him approximately $20,000 in cash, multiple communication devices, and his father’s passport. He was charged with Jiang’s murder, accepted a plea deal, and was sentenced in April 2024 to serve 35 years in prison.
Pan’s parents were never charged with anything. “48 Hours” reached out to the Pans, but they did not respond to our request for comment.
Investigators believe that had Pan not gotten stuck on the train tracks on that fateful February night, Jiang’s murder may never have been solved.
“Could he have gotten away with murder?” Green asked Zaweski.
“He very well could have,” Zaweski replied. “If he had not gotten caught up on those tracks … it would’ve been very difficult.”
Though investigators, friends, and family were relieved that Pan had been caught and brought to justice, Jiang’s mother spoke at Pan’s sentencing to say she felt that 35 years was too short a sentence for the man who’d killed her only son.
Perry agreed. “I wanted to address Pan specifically,” she said at the sentencing. “Although your sentence is far less than you deserve … there is also mercy. May God have mercy on you. And may he have mercy on all of us.”
Even four years after Jiang’s death, friends wonder what Kevin, a man of deep faith, might have thought about his killer.
“Do you think Kevin would’ve forgiven Pan?” Green asked Jamila Ayeh and Nasya Hubbard, who served with Jiang in the military.
“Yes, I do,” said Hubbard. Added Ayeh, “Without a doubt.”
A newly engaged Yale graduate student is gunned down by an unknown attacker after a fender bender. Was it extreme road rage or was he targeted? “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green reports.
It was Thursday, Dec. 1, 1988, when Deborah Atrops, known as Debe, was found murdered in her car, next to a construction site in Beaverton, Oregon. Debe had been reported missing two days earlier by her estranged husband, Bob Atrops, who lived about five miles away on a rural road.
Deborah “Debe” Atrops holds her infant daughter, Rhianna.
Washington County District Attorney’s Office
On the night she went missing, Bob says Debe, who was then 30 years old, never arrived to pick up their baby, Rhianna, as expected.
Allison Brown: It think that it’s important for everyone to know that just because a case goes unsolved doesn’t mean that it’s forgotten.
Allison Brown is a senior deputy district attorney in Washington County Oregon, who, along with attorney Chris Lewman, joined a team of investigators working on Debe’s unsolved murder. Brown says they hoped talking to the original detectives, witnesses, and looking at the evidence again, might give the old investigation new momentum.
Allison Brown: There were opportunities for forensic analysis that were not available in 1988.
DEBE ATROPS DISAPPEARS
Debe Atrops was last seen alive on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 1988. Bob Atrops called the Tigard, Oregon, police that night at 9:40 p.m.
DISPATCHER: This is Tigard Police. May I help you?
BOB ATROPS: … My wife is running about three hours overdue from a hair appointment. I was getting a little concerned. … We live in Sherwood. …
DISPATCHER: OK, what’s her name? …
BOB ATROPS: Deborah Atrops.
DISPATCHER: OK, and what kind of vehicle would she have been driving?
BOB ATROPS: It’d be a black Honda Accord.
Bob told the dispatcher Debe hadn’t shown up after an appointment in Tigard, about eight miles from his house, at a hair salon called Razz Ma Tazz.
BOB ATROPS: Called and let it ring, ring, ring about 20 times …
DISPATCHER: It would probably be easier for you to make a run down her path to, you know, how she would go … than it would be for us.
Debe and Bob Atrops.
Family home video
Bob says he drove the route and saw no sign of Debe. He called Tigard police back at 10:25 p.m.
DISPATCHER: Why don’t we give it another hour … and, if you haven’t heard anything, give me a call back.
Bob did call back — a third time — at 11:29 p.m.
BOB ATROPS: Hey, this is Bob Atrops again. Have you heard anything or—?
DISPATCHER: No, and the guys have gone out and looked. It’s real foggy out, but they have checked around the area.
DISPATCHER: … Did you go to the Razz Ma Tazz and see if her car was there at all?
BOB ATROPS: Yeah, I did. I drove up there’s no car …
DISPATCHER: There’s no friends or anything she might have gone to visit?
BOB ATROPS: No. Checked. Called everyone I can think of.
But the one call Bob did not make that night was to Debe.
DISPATCHER: OK sir, we have checked around the Sherwood area and we can’t find her car at all.
The dispatcher suggested Bob call the Washington County Sheriff, which he did at 11:34 p.m., and they opened a missing person’s case the next morning. But Debe Atrops would not be a missing person for long.
Det. Michael O’Connell: Even though I’ve been retired for years, it still kind of hung over me.
Washington County Sheriff’s Detective Michael O’Connell remembers responding to the scene when Debe’s car was found. The license plates had been taken off, the window was open and the keys were inside. O’Connell’s partner called Bob Atrops.
DETECTIVE LAZENBY: With you being the husband —
BOB ATROPS: Uh-huh.
DETECTIVE LAZENBY: — we need permission. We’d like to search the car …
BOB ATROPS: OK.
DETECTIVE LAZENBY: And I’d like to know if that’d be alright with you.
BOB ATROPS: Sure.
A few minutes later police found Debe’s body face down in the trunk.
Det. Michael O’Connell: She was nicely dressed. … Still had her coat on … Looked like she’d been placed somewhat carefully in the trunk.
Investigators are seen searching Debe Atrops’ car for evidence. The young mother’s body was found in the trunk of her car on Dec. 1, 1988, in Beaverton, Oregon.
Washington County District Attorney’s Office
Police say Debe had been strangled, and there were no signs of sexual assault. There was mud on her coat and shoes, the front passenger tire and the steering wheel of the car. Law enforcement scoured her vehicle for evidence.
Det. Michael O’Connell: It looked like someone may have tried to wipe down the hood. There were, like, broad clothing swipes, like, someone maybe was trying to destroy fingerprints.
O’Connell and his partner went to Bob’s house to tell him they had found his wife’s body. A witness who saw Bob later that day told the cold case team Bob was “very calm, much calmer than I would expect.”
Allison Brown | Prosecutor: It wasn’t consistent with a grieving, estranged husband.
Debe’s stepfather, Ed Holland, says her mother, Gloria, who was close to Debe, was overwhelmed with grief.
Ed Holland: She broke down … and I held her, and that’s all I could do … She just laid there, sobbing.
Police searched outside Bob’s home for any further clues.
Det. Michael O’Connell: The driveway was a mix of mud, dirt, and gravel. And it looked like … her car may have driven through some of the mud.
Bob had said Debe was last there about a week before her murder. Police took photos of the tire tracks outside his house and collected soil from his driveway and lawn.
Det. Michael O’Connell: Just to make sure we weren’t missing anything.
Police never found any tire tracks that matched Debe’s car on Bob’s property. Yet Bob Atrops was an obvious suspect. But he wasn’t the only man in Debe’s life. Since she had moved out five months before, Debe had been dating—and those relationships were complicated.
Ed Holland: Debe had very good taste and was a good judge of people, but a terrible judge of men. Every man that she seemed to hook up with was a problem.
WHO KILLED DEBE ATROPS?
Rhianna Stephens: It was great growing up with my dad. He was an amazing dad.
Young Rhianna Stephens with her father Bob Atrops.
Rhianna Stephens
Natalie Morales: Do you have memories of him being hands on? …
Rhianna Stephens: Yeah. My dad was very hands on … I knew that I was his number one.
Rhianna Stephens: I remember being at my grandpa’s house with my cousin, going through old photo albums and finding a picture of this woman. And I was like, “Who’s that?” And she just kind of was like, “That’s your mom.” … From that point on, I always remember knowing the story.
Debe Atrops’ daughter Rhianna Stephens says she learned about her mother’s murder when she was 6 or 7 years old. She says growing up, her dad only shared fond memories of her mom.
Rhianna Stephens: I didn’t know that they had separated. … Anything that I had ever heard about her was always good from him.
But things were not always good in Bob and Debe’s marriage. Debe’s stepfather, Ed Holland,remembers meeting Bob, a construction product salesman, and talking to Debe’s mother about how quickly Bob and Debe walked down the aisle.
Debe and Bob Atrops on their wedding day in June 1987.
Darlene Lufkin
Ed Holland: They were still in a courtship when they got married. … I said to Gloria, I said, “This is way too fast.” … She says, “Well, if they’re in love, why not?”
Debe’s friend Darlene Lufkin says, like Holland, she was not confident the relationship had a strong foundation.
Natalie Morales: How long did they know each other?
Darlene Lufkin: Just a few months it seems like. … It takes time to get to know someone. And I don’t think she really knew Bob yet.
Bob and Debe got married in June 1987 and adopted Rhianna the following March.
Because of conflicts in their marriage, just a few months after bringing Rhianna home, Debe moved into her own apartment in Salem, 30 miles away from Bob. Investigators say Debe had soon reconnected with an old boyfriend, Jeff Freeburg.
Natalie Morales: You said he was the one for her, perhaps …
Darlene Lufkin: That’s the one she kept wanting to go back to. … She really, really liked him. And I don’t think he was just ready for that kind of relationship yet.
Debe Arops was dating John Pearson at the time of her death.
By September 1988, Debe had a new boyfriend—a man she met at work—named John Pearson. Pearson was separated from his wife and had two young boys.
Darlene Lufkin: But I remember she was on the phone at my house once with him.She handed me the phone, and he said how much he was looking forward to meeting me and the girls. …
Darlene Lufkin: When Debe was seeing people for some reason, she wanted them to meet me and my girls.
Lufkin says she and Debe had grown close in their 20s when Darlene was a single mom.
Darlene Lufkin: She’s really the only friend I had that enjoyed spending time with my daughters. And I treasured that.
In that autumn of 1988, although Debe was dating Pearson, she stayed in touch with Freeburg. He loaned Debe $8,000.
Natalie Morales: He had lent her money to buy… a car. Could there have been motive in that?
Allison Brown: He was wealthy … So, I think he was happy to help Debe.
Back in 1988, detectives had asked Freeburg for his alibi on the night Debe was last seen alive— and he said he was home except for going out briefly to get some dinner.
Det. O’Connell: He seemed very straightforward. Didn’t hesitate to answer our questions. Didn’t seem to be hiding anything.
Police had also questioned John Pearson, who said he was with his children and his estranged wife that night. Pearson knew about Debe’s hair appointment and gave detectives a detailed description of many items inside her car.
Natalie Morales: John Pearson … told police back then that there was a Burger King bag … as well as a box with cranberries and a child car seat. … Seems like a lot of details about … the car.
Allison Brown: Yeah.
Pearson also told police there “wasn’t enough room in the trunk for a body”and that “stuff would have to have been taken out”… but O’Connell says Pearson had seemed truthful back in 1988.
Det. O’Connell: He was mostly accessible. … Didn’t appear to be trying to throw us off or anything.
And prosecutors Chris Lewman and Allison Brown say there is an innocent reason John Pearson knew so much about Debe’s car.
Allison Brown: They were seeing each other every day. … I mean, something to look into for sure, which is why they did multiple interviews of John Pearson and a polygraph in 1988. …
Natalie Morales: And did he pass the polygraph?
Allison Brown: He did. And he was willing to do it and basically do everything that they asked him to do.
Bob Atrops hired a lawyer a week after Debe’s body was found and declined to take a polygraph. Detective O’Connell says, Bob did not seem very worried about finding out who killed his wife.
Det. O’Connell: He was kind of removed. … just kind of distant.
O’Connell and his partner looked into the calls Bob said he made the night Debe went missing.
Bob told detectives he called the babysitter, Debe’s boss, and her parents while he was home waiting for her. They all confirmed he did call them that night – but there was a hitch. Those three calls were long distance and should have shown up on his phone bill.
Det. Michael O’Connell: That was a problem. Those phone calls were not there.
While detective suspected Bob Atrops killed Debe, they didn’t have enough evidence to connect him to the crime.
Rhianna Stephens
By now detectives suspected Bob had killed Debe. They thought there was no record of those three phone calls because Bob was out of the house that evening disposing of Debe’s car and her body. Police began looking for evidence Bob made those calls from somewhere else.
Det. Michael O’Connell: It involved checking payphones. … We looked at every angle. … We struck out.
They did not find proof that Bob was lying or evidence connecting him to Debe’s murder.
Det. Michael O’Connell: I didn’t like the thought of it just remaining unsolved.
O’Connell and his partner had a final meeting with Bob in 1990—asking him to account for those missing calls, or to admit he had killed his wife. But Bob maintained his innocence.
Det. Michael O’Connell: And then it kind of went dead.
When the cold case team next interviewed Bob in 2022, they asked again about those phone calls and heard a very different story.
DET. WINFIELD: I’ll be honest with you, Bob. Your story that you’re telling us today is significantly different than what you told investigators back in the day … And so, my question is … what really did happen?
A NEW LOOK AT THE COLD CASE
Darlene Lufkin: We spent a lot of time … together. … We took the girls to the beach … went to … music in the park with picnic dinners.
It’s been more than 30 years since Darlene Lufkin last saw her friend Debe Atrops, but she says she still feels the loss.
Natalie Morales: Sounds like you have really fond memories of Debe.
Darlene Lufkin: Oh yeah. … I miss her every day still.
Lufkin, like many in Debe’s life, longed for answers and in 2022 she got one step closer when the cold case team sent Debe’s coat and those soil samples for testing.
There was mud on Debe Atrops’ coat, her shoes and her car. Soil samples and a DNA sample from her coat was sent to an FBI lab for testing.
Bob Atrops’ defense
Allison Brown: The soil was sent to the FBI lab. The DNA was sent.
While they waited, the cold case team continued to examine Bob’s behavior back in 1988, which prosecutors say was suspicious from that first call.
Allison Brown: He calls law enforcement within, you know, probably 20 minutes of calling their friends and family and to us that seemed, a little quick … So, we believe he was attempting to … get his story out there and to portray himself as a concerned husband and try to … develop that narrative that he wanted to early on.
Detective O’Connell says he had the same feeling. Remember, Bob had called police four times that night.
Det. Michael O’Connell: What’s the Shakespeare quote? He protests too much? It was interesting to us that he was calling so frequently and so soon. … It didn’t seem normal.
The cold case team also turned their attention to the road where Debe’s car was found — next to that construction site. Bob’s former boss at Allied Building Products told them he believed Bob had a connection there.
Allison Brown: He was … selling roofing products … we knew, I knew that he was selling products in that area.
In 2022, the results from those DNA tests came back. The lab said they found a mixture of DNA on the collar and shoulder of Debe’s coat.
Allison Brown: They swabbed that area of her coat, because if you’re strangled, that would be the area … you’d have contact with.
The lab compared that sample from Debe’s coat to her boyfriend at the time, John Pearson.
Allison Brown: It’s not present.
And neither was her ex-boyfriend, Jeff Freeburg.
Allison Brown: Jeff Freeburg … not present.
But the lab said Bob could not be excluded as a contributor to that DNA mixture.
Chris Lewman: We can’t say it’s a match. It’s just, it’s moderate support that it’s more likely Mr. Atrops than an unknown individual.
Prosecutors admit, while the DNA from Debe’s coat excludes Freeburg and Pearson, it does not make a complete case against Bob Atrops.
Allison Brown: I think it’s another piece. … There are many, many different pieces. It was a very fact intensive case.
Another one of those pieces, they say, is the mud.
Allison Brown: This murder was connected to mud. Her body was covered in mud, there was mud on the outside of the car, on the inside of the car.
The FBI lab concluded that the mud on Debe Atrops’ tire did not match the mud where her car was found. However, they said that mud from Debe’s car tire was “indistinguishable” from the mud found in Bob Atrops’ front lawn.
Washington County District Attorney’s Office
The FBI lab, which examined this evidence, concluded that the mud on Debe’s car tire did not match the mud where her car was found. However, that mud on the tire, they said, was “indistinguishable” from the mud from Bob’s lawn in color, composition and texture. This is evidence, prosecutors say, that Bob was lying when he said Debe did not come to his house the night she went missing.
Allison Brown: According to the defendant’s interview, she had not been to his house for about 10 days.
Bob Atrops hadn’t spoken to police about the case since that final conversation with detectives in 1990. But in 2022, he agreed to talk to the cold case team.
Investigators asked Bob about those calls to friends and family that didn’t appear on his phone bill back in 1988.
DET. WINFIELD: It is October 19th, 2022 … here with … Bob Atrops.
DET. WINFIELD: You made those phone calls?
BOB ATROPS: Yes.
DET. WINFIELD: From your house?
BOB ATROPS: Yes.
DET. WINFIELD: Using your home phone?
BOB ATROPS: With an MCI card.
DET. WINFIELD: No.
BOB ATROPS: Yes.
DET. WINFIELD: No.
Bob now said he had used an MCI calling card to make those missing long distance calls from home.
BOB ATROPS: Yeah, an MCI card from Allied Building Products …
DET. WINFIELD: That is not what you told investigators. … and you said, “I made those calls from my home phone.”
BOB ATROPS: Yes.
DET. WINFIELD: “Using my home long distance.”
BOB ATROPS: But you dial in, and … you punch in the code and then you can complete the long-distance call.
Prosecutors say Bob didn’t have that MCI calling card in 1988, and what’s more, prosecutor Chris Lewman says, this story doesn’t make sense.
Chris Lewman: In 1988, to make a calling card, you had to input about a 16-digit calling card number and then another six- or eight-digit code. And if you’re frantically looking for your wife, why take the time to do that, and enter all those numbers?
In 2023, prosecutors brought the case to a grand jury—who voted to indict.
Rhianna Stephens: I got a phone call on March 2nd of 2023 at five o’clock in the morning … that my dad had just been arrested. … I was just in shock.
On March 2, 2023, Bob Atrops was arrested for the 1988 murder of his estranged wife. He pleaded not guilty.
Washington County District Attorney’s Office
Rhianna says Bob is a loving dad, and a doting grandfather to her three children.
Natalie Morales: What was it like seeing your dad … front page story?
Rhianna Stephens: It was awful to see the news … making him out to be this terrible person that he just isn’t. …
Rhianna Stephens: He didn’t do this.
Cold case detectives spoke to Bob Atrops again after his arrest.
DET. WINFIELD: My opinion is, you’ve told yourself a story for the last 34 years, and you’ve told yourself the story over and over and over again to the point that it’s become the truth for you … It doesn’t make it true, but it makes it easier for you to tell that story.
BOB ATROPS: I don’t believe that, but OK.
DET. WINFIELD: What part don’t you believe?
BOB ATROPS: A story that I created, I guess. …
DET. WINFIELD: You don’t believe that you created a story?
BOB ATROPS: No.
DETECTIVE WINFIELD: OK. …
DETECTIVE WINFIELD: You just are not in a position to acknowledge that you played a role in her death.
BOB ATROPS: No, I did not.
Bob Atrops pleaded not guilty to Debe’s murder. Attorney April Yates argues it’s more likely Debe’s killer was her boyfriend at the time, John Pearson, than Bob.
April Yates: John Pearson not only had motive, he had opportunity. He knew where Debe Atrops was going to be. He knew about her hair appointment. And also, he knew an incredible amount of detail about her car.
But prosecutors say Pearson had nothing to do with Debe’s murder. Back in 1988 he told police that, about a week before the murder, Bob confronted Debe because he was suspicious she was in a new relationship. Pearson said Debe was afraid if Bob found out it was true, he would kill her. The prosecution planned to call Pearson as a witness in Bob Atrops’ upcoming trial.
Chris Lewman: We wanted to have him testify … because we found him credible.
But that would never happen. Pearson, who had been ill, and had an outstanding warrant for a DUI in Oregon, stopped responding to detectives. When authorities located him in Arizona, five days before opening arguments were to begin, John Pearson killed himself.
Janis Puracal: John Pearson fled the state … He was on the run.
Attorney Janis Puracal was part of the defense team.
Janis Puracal:Police find him in a trailer in the desert in Arizona. When police surround that trailer, he … ends his life, rather than coming back to Oregon to answer questions about Debe Atrops murder. Those are the facts. Prosecution can spin it all they want, but those are the facts.
DID BOB ATROPS MURDER HIS ESTRANGED WIFE?
Rhianna Stephens: I’m trying to be strong for my dad.
In spring 2025, Robert Atrops’ murder trial began at the Washington County Courthouse. Prosecutors worried the jury might get stuck on details they could not explain.
Allison Brown: In a case where we need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, we’re not going to be able to answer every single detail of what happened that night.
ALLISON BROWN (in court): Remember, the appointment’s supposed to end around 7:15 … By 9:40 p.m., he’s calling 911.
At the trial, which allowed audio but not video recording of witnesses, attorney Allison Brown argues that Bob Atrops intentionally misled the police — starting with those four calls he made to them the night Debe was last seen alive.
Allison Brown: He didn’t tell the law enforcement officials that they were separated, that they lived separately … So, he didn’t actually give them the information that they would need to find her.
Prosecutors noted Bob Atrops called police four times the night Debe Atrops went missing in November 1988, but he never called her apartment.
Family photo
Bob didn’t tell police Debe lived in Salem until the next day. Even more incriminating, prosecutors say, is the fact that Bob Atrops did not call Debe the night she went missing — or ever.
Chris Lewman: He never called her apartment.
Allison Brown: … that would’ve been the first phone call, right? … Someone hasn’t showed up. You’re expecting them. You call them.
Natalie Morales: Mm.
Allison Brown: … not only was that not the first phone call, but he never made that phone call at all.
At trial, prosecutors played Bob’s interview with investigators in 2022 where he explained why he didn’t ever make that call.
DET. CAREY: Did you ever call Debe’s place?
BOB ATROPS: Her house? No … I didn’t even consider that as an option …
DET. CAREY: So, let me rephrase and correct me if I’m right, you never considered calling the place she lives?
BOB ATROPS: Not when she was supposed to be in our vicinity, no.
Prosecutors also want the jury to hear more about the troubles in Bob and Debe’s marriage. Debe’s friend Christy Knapp testified to an encounter with Bob at his house, soon after Debe moved out.
CHRISTY KNAPP (court audio): We went there to get some serving dishes. … We walked into the entry, and he just started freaking out and screaming. … He seemed really, really tall, and really scary. … It was terrifying.
Another friend, Tami Nelsen, told police in 1988 Debe had confided in her that Bob Atrops had choked her in a violent confrontation shortly before she moved out. Nelsen told the jury Debe was still worried about Bob after their separation.
ALLISON BROWN (court audio): What did she say she was concerned about?
TAMI NELSEN: Well, she was concerned that he’d kill her. … And I thought she was teasing to begin with … you know, or she was being dramatic.
ALLISON BROWN: Yeah.
TAMI NELSEN: And so, I turned around and I looked at her, and I saw that she was genuinely scared.
Nelsen had also told police in 1988 that a few months before her murder, Debe was worried about Bob finding out about her relationship with John Pearson. Nelsen later told the cold case team Debe had said, “If anything happens to me Bob did it.”
Allison Brown: Debe is predicting her own murder. She is telling friends and family if he finds out about this, he will kill me.
Natalie Morales: Mm-hmm.
Allison Brown: And she was right.
But in their cross-examinations, the defense suggests these stories Debe told are not reliable and they say Debe had a history of making up false tales.
April Yates: She had told different stories to different people, and these things were verifiably not true.
Some of Debe’s friends say she did tell questionable stories, often about her health. Darlene says she thought Debe might have done it for attention.
Darlene Lufkin: One time she said that she went to work out … her stomach flipped or something and she had to go get emergency help with it … It didn’t seem real to me.
Attorney April Yates says there is a simple explanation for why Bob Atrops didn’t call Debe that night—he had spoken to her stepfather, Ed Holland.
April Yates: Ed told Bob that he had been by Debe’s apartment … and she wasn’t home. … There was no reason for Bob to call.
April Yates: And the next morning, Debe’s parents went to her apartment again, as did law enforcement, so there was no reason for Bob to call or go there. The fact that the state is trying to make something out of that — it’s a red herring.
During trial, the babysitter and Debe’s stepfather testified that Bob had called them the night Debe went missing, which supports Bob’s story. Attorney Stephanie Pollan says the best explanation for why those so-called missing calls weren’t on his phone bill is that the billing equipment was faulty.
Stephanie Pollan: We found the engineer … and he testified that this equipment failed all the time.
But the cold case team believes Bob made those calls while he was out of the house, getting rid of evidence, to help him create a false alibi. And they say it was impossible to check every payphone in the area back in 1988.
Allison Brown: What was significant is he’s not where he said he was, he’s not at home. Why would he lie about where he was that night?
While the state emphasized the link between the mud on Debe’s tire and the soil from Bob Atrops’ front yard, the defense says that this soil is everywhere in the region and is as common as — dirt.
April Yates: This soil is everywhere. … My yard, her yard, the DA’s yard. It doesn’t make us suspects in a murder.
Back in 1988 police didn’t collect mud from Jeff Freeburg’s property, or John Pearson’s. They only took samples from where Debe’s car was found and from Bob Atrops’ driveway and lawn. Then there was the matter of the DNA from Debe’s coat.
April Yates: … the DNA in this case doesn’t tell the jury anything about who killed Debe Atrops.
Attorney Yates points out that the amount of DNA on Debe’s coat that the lab had said could be consistent with Bob Atrops was miniscule—the equivalent of about six skin cells.
April Yates: And this very low level of DNA is consistent with something called transfer DNA … People who have babies and shared custody transfer DNA all the time.
Natalie Morales: So, in your opinion, this DNA was not strong evidence?
April Yates: This DNA was not only not strong evidence—it doesn’t mean anything.
The defense argues there is a much more important DNA result from Debe’s autopsy.
Janis Puracal: One of the very first items that the lab tested for DNA were vaginal swabs taken from the autopsy.
Attorney Janis Puracal specializes in evidence that can lead to wrongful convictions. She says the DNA from Debe’s autopsy does not point to Bob Atrops.
Janis Puracal: The semen came from John Pearson. … and the likelihood ratio … is 94.6 sextillion. … it’s an enormous number.
Attorney Janis Puracal says the DNA from Debe Atrops’ autopsy points to John Pearson – not Bob Atrops.
Prineville, Arizona, Police Department
And she points out Pearson’s DNA at autopsy contradicts his statement to police from 2022.
Janis Puracal: John Pearson told law enforcement that he did not have sexual contact with Debe Atrops in the 72 hours before she was murdered, and definitely not on the day that she was murdered. But they found that semen … two days later, at the autopsy. Everything is telling us that that … was most likely deposited on the day that she was murdered.
And the defense reminds the jury, John Pearson was avoiding the cold case team in the months leading up to his suicide. In its closing statement, the defense says the state just doesn’t have enough to make its case against Bob Atrops.
But prosecutors argue all of the pieces point in one direction — to Bob Atrops.
Allison Brown: Like you hear: motive, means and opportunity, he had it all.
Now, after two weeks of testimony, it is time for the jury to decide.
Allison Brown: We didn’t know if that would be enough or not. … it’s incredibly nerve-wracking.
“WE ARE GRIEVING SOMEONE THAT IS STILL ALIVE”
“I know my dad. … I know his heart,” Rhianna Stephens told “48 Hours “… And I know that he’d never be able to live with himself doing that.”
CBS News
Natalie Morales: What did you think before the jury left to go deliberate? Did you feel confident?
Rhianna Stephens: I didn’t feel confident. I just— because of the fear of the unknown. … I don’t feel like any evidence was actually given that proves my dad did this. … because he didn’t. There is no evidence that he did this.
On April 17, 2025, the jury reached a decision.
Stephanie Pollan: It was six hours that they were deliberating. … we thought that that was a quick verdict and that could be a good thing.
JUDGE OSCAR GARCIA (court audio): My understanding, the jury has a verdict in this case. Is that correct?
FOREPERSON: Correct. …
JUDGE OSCAR GARCIA: To the charge of murder in the second degree, the jury has found the defendant guilty.
Guilty. Thirty-seven years after her death, Robert Atrops was found guilty of murdering Debe Atrops.
April Yates: It was like the room went dead silent … and everything was still in that moment.
Rhianna Stephens: We all crumbled. We are grieving someone that is still alive. …
Natalie Morales: Were you able to say anything to your father in that moment right after?
Rhianna Stephens: No. I —
Natalie Morales: Hug him, nothing?
Rhianna Stephens: I haven’t been able to hug my dad in over two years.
April Yates: We had so many family and friends of Bob behind us. … It was really hard, for them especially, to see this happen to their loved one.
Natalie Morales: I could see it’s hard for you, too.
April Yates: It is hard. It’s hard to have an innocent client get convicted.
Prosecutors say they are glad that justice was served.
Natalie Morales: This case took 37 years to finally be resolved. Are you satisfied that we know the truth about what happened to Debe Atrops?
Allison Brown: Yeah, absolutely … There’s no other people … no other suspects, no one else with the motive. … We feel absolutely a hundred percent sure that he’s the one who committed this crime.
Prosecutors are confident the investigation proved the other men in Debe’s life, including Jeff Freeburg, were not involved in her murder. Freeburg declined “48 Hours”‘ request to comment on the case.
Allison Brown: There just really wasn’t any information that pointed in the direction of Jeff Freeburg … he gave his DNA freely … There really just wasn’t any motive, evidence, or anything else that caused him to be a significant suspect.
And, they say, John Pearson’s suicide was an unrelated tragedy.
Chris Lewman: He had an open criminal case …I believe he thought they were there to arrest him for this misdemeanor warrant and took his life.
Allison Brown: There was quite a bit of investigation that was done by our detective after he committed suicide to show it had nothing to do with guilt for Debe’s murder.
When “48 Hours” reached out in 2025, Pearson’s lawyer declined to comment on the case. Prosecutors say Pearson’s family told them he had wanted to testify at Bob’s trial.
Chris Lewman: I thought that it would be important for him to … relay all the things he knew, including those statements that Debe made back in 1988, that … Bob’s going to kill me if he finds out about us.
As for the defense’s argument that Debe had a history of making up stories, prosecutors say this is unfortunately consistent with life inside an abusive relationship.
Allison Brown: When someone’s going through a domestic violence situation, they are in a way living a lie.
Natalie Morales: Bob’s side of the courtroom … was full. … Did that strike you as interesting?
Allison Brown: It depends on the case.
Chris Lewman: Yeah, I mean, I think he had a large support system and it’s not uncommon for people … in a domestic abuse situation to kind of go unknown as a DV abuser … And I think Bob was good at that. I mean, he was a salesman.
After all these years, Darlene Lufkin says she thinks the jury got it right.
Darlene Lufkin: I had my suspicions all along …
Natalie Morales: You believed that that was the right verdict?
Darlene Lufkin: I do. … I just feel that the question’s been answered now.
At her father’s sentencing in July 2025, Rhianna Stephens made an emotional appeal for leniency.
With Bob Atrops at her side, an emotional Rhianna Stephens addresses the judge at her father’s sentencing.
CBS News
RHIANNA STEPHENS (in court): When I was 8 months old, someone robbed me of getting to have a life with my mom, there to support my every milestone. … Thirty-six years later, I’m being robbed of my father, the man that was there for all of those milestones. … I need him in my life.
Attorney Pollan read a letter from Bob Atrops’ current wife who has been married to him since 2011.
STEPHANIE POLLAN (reading letter in court): “My husband has always been a devoted and loving father to his daughter.”
Despite these appeals, the judge sentenced Robert Atrops to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
Natalie Morales: When you lost your mom at a young age, and you said, now you grieve your dad who’s still alive, how do you make sense of what’s happening?
Rhianna Stephens: I can’t make sense of what’s happening. I just have to live through it and keep fighting.
Home video of Debe Atrops and her daughter Rhianna.
Ed Holland
Darlene Lufkin: She truly loved Rhianna …
Natalie Morales: What do you want people to know about your friend, Debe?
Darlene Lufkin: That she didn’t deserve this … that she was a light that should still be here.
Natalie Morales: Do you think about your mother now?
Rhianna Stephens:I do think about her.I wonder what life would’ve been like. … had I gotten to live … my whole life, grow up having my mom.
Robert Atrops will be eligible for parole in 2048. He will be 93 years old.
Produced by Sarah Prior. Ken Blum and Grayce Arlotta-Berner are the editors. Chelsea Narvaez is the field producer. Rebecca Laflam is the associate producer. Danielle Austen, Cindy Cesare, and Sara Ely Hulse are the development producers. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
It was a cold night in New Haven, Connecticut, in February 2021 when lead detective David Zaweski and his colleague Steven Cunningham arrived at the crime scene.
Det. David Zaweski: The patrol officers had already been out there canvassing the area. They were knocking on doors looking for anyone that might’ve seen anything or heard anything.
Det. David Zaweski: The crime scene detectives were starting to locate all the, uh, shell casings.
Kevin Jiang, 26, was a graduate student at Yale University’s School of the Environment.
Det. David Zaweski: His body was still on scene … covered in a white sheet.
Anne-Marie Green: When you saw the body … what did you see?
Det. David Zaweski: What we could see were gunshot wounds to his upper body and to his head. And you could see stippling on the left side of his head.
Stippling is a burn pattern caused by gunpowder exploding from a weapon fired at close range.
About a hundred feet down the street —
Det. David Zaweski: There was a Prius just parked in the middle of the road with its hazards on.
They quickly discovered the Prius belonged to Kevin. Crime scene detectives noticed a peculiar bit of damage that suggested it had been hit from behind.
Det. David Zaweski: There was an impression that was left on the back bumper that looked like a license plate holder.
Anne-Marie Green: So, this is like a fender bender. It’s not a violent crash.
Det. David Zaweski: No. There’s not much damage.
One witness told detectives she heard the sound of an accident and went to the window to look.
Det. David Zaweski: When they look out, they see a Prius come to a stop and put its hazards on. They see a dark colored SUV pull up behind it and then reverse back toward the intersection. They see the operator of the Prius walk out and approach the SUV – most likely to see how they were, exchange insurance information. When the operator gets to the black SUV, they hear a round of gunshots and they see the muzzle flash from the gun from the driver’s side of the SUV.
Another witness heard the first round of gunshots and went to her window.
Det. David Zaweski: When she looks outside, she sees a subject, wearing all black, standing over another individual who’s laying on the ground. … she hears another round of gunshots and she can see the muzzle flash from the gun as he’s firing.
Det. David Zaweski: But she sees someone standing over another person, which means the victim is already down. And they’re still shooting.
Det. David Zaweski: Yes.
Anne-Marie Green: What did you think?
Det. David Zaweski: There’s a little bit more to it. It seems a little bit more personal. When you have someone laying on the ground and not moving, what would cause someone to continue firing at them?
The detectives were able to confirm these accounts when they got a look at video from a neighbor’s security system.
Det. David Zaweski: It was located on the inside of a window, facing outward.
Det. David Zaweski: We hear the collision between the two cars.
Det. David Zaweski: And that’s when you see Kevin’s Prius pull into frame … and the SUV pulls up behind him. And then reverses out of frame. You see Kevin exit his vehicle and then walk out of frame to approach the SUV.
Det. David Zaweski: You then hear two gunshots.
Det. David Zaweski: A scream.
Det. David Zaweski: And then six more gunshots.
Moments later, the video shows the SUV driving off into the night.
Anne-Marie Green: Can you make out any details when it comes to the SUV?
Det. David Zaweski: Unfortunately, not. … You could kind of get the idea of the potential make and model of it with the taillights, but you couldn’t discern any identifying features.
WERE RANDOM SHOOTINGS IN NEW HAVEN RELATED?
Investigators soon felt the dark SUV and the .45 caliber shells recovered at the scene pointed to a potential link to earlier shootings around the area that police had been investigating. Four times over a two-month span, someone fired shots into family homes – the fourth incident occurred just one hour before Kevin’s murder.
Det. David Zaweski: We had detectives in the bureau looking into each of the incidents to see if there’s any more of a connection to link them.
Paul Whyte (points out where the bullets came in): Two bullets came in from this window and ended up in this wall.
Paul and Nyree Whyte’s home was the target of the third shooting.
Paul Whyte: We had just finished dinner … I had a fire going.
Nyree, a schoolteacher, headed upstairs to take a shower. Paul — an educator with degrees from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia University — was sitting downstairs.
Paul Whyte: All of a sudden, something comes through this window. … then a second bullet came through – you heard the pop and the glass going everywhere with that one.
Paul shouted a warning to Nyree.
Paul Whyte: Get down. Someone’s shooting.
Nyree Whyte: And then I heard bang-pop again and I turn, and I literally saw the frame of the door just splinter.
Anne-Marie Green: And then she yells back at you.
Paul Whyte: Right, that someone’s shooting upstairs.
It was over in a matter of moments and no one was injured.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you feel lucky?
Paul Whyte: Yes.
Nyree Whyte: Absolutely.
Paul Whyte: Absolutely.
Detectives interviewed the Whytes and the occupants of the other houses.
Det. David Zaweski: There didn’t seem to be any connection between them.
And none of them, investigators say, had any connection to Kevin Jiang. But the shell casings from all the shootings would later tell a different story.
Det. David Zaweski: When the casings are sent to the lab, they all came back as matches to the casings found at the homicide.
The casings matched, but Kevin was the only person murdered, and detectives didn’t know why.
Det. David Zaweski: It could have been a road rage incident that turned a little too violent.
Or was Kevin targeted?
Det. Steven Cunningham: The car accident … was it deliberate … to get him out of the vehicle … Possibly something that was planned.
Det. David Zaweski: And if he was specifically targeted, what could have happened in his life to drive someone to do this?
SURVEILLANCE VIDEO CAPTURES KEVIN JIANG’S FINAL MOMENTS
It was late when detectives Zaweski and Cunningham left the crime scene on Feb. 6. They went to Kevin’s home looking to find a family member to notify about what had happened. His mother, Linda Liu, came to the door.
Anne-Marie Green: It’s got to be the hardest conversation.
Det. David Zaweski: It is. They always are.
Det. David Zaweski: You want to be direct and upfront and make it clear. As horrific as it is … for them. … So, we explained to her that he was shot and killed in the area of Lawrence and Nichols Street in New Haven.
Anne-Marie Green: Can she even comprehend that?
Det. David Zaweski: She’s absolutely devastated. She falls to the ground crying.
The detectives wanted to know everything about Kevin and why he may have been targeted that night. Liu began to tell them about her son.
Det. David Zaweski: It was just the two of them. And he was actually supporting her.
Kevin Jiang
Trinity Baptist Church/YouTube
Det. David Zaweski: She told us that he was a grad student at Yale University and was in the Army National Guard.
Kevin was deeply religious. He and his mother were part of the congregation at Trinity Baptist Church. Pastor Gregory Hendrickson knew them both and says that Liu, a divorced single parent, got Kevin through a tough childhood where he was often bullied.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: She was very committed to sort of seeing him come through and eventually he thrived on the other side of that … I think he had a sense of … honoring his mom by, as she had cared for him when he was a child … caring for her as she was getting older.
Kevin bought a house in 2019 and Hendrickson says he invited his mother to come live with him.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: She was living alone, she was living on the other side of the country, she didn’t have a lot of family support around her and … he … wanted … her to come and be with him during his studies at Yale.
Kevin Jiang had recently proposed to his girlfriend Zion Perry. “Oh, Kevin. Oh wow, oh yes, yes! Definitely! Wow, this is so pretty!” she replied.
Zion Perry/Facebook
Police also learned then that Jiang had recently gotten engaged to his girlfriend of a year, Zion Perry. She posted the proposal on Facebook. This was just one week before he was murdered.
Nasya Hubbard: He was so in love with Zion — you could tell — he didn’t even have to really say too much.
Nasya Hubbard served with Kevin in the Army National Guard.
Nasya Hubbard: I — oh my gosh. … I remember one time … he was on the phone with her and I was like, wow, like you could hear the genuineness and his love towards her. And I was like, wow. I hope I find someone like that.
Perry grew up in Pennsylvania, where she was an honors high school student. The couple met in January 2020 when Zion was still an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: He said, you know … I met her at Christian Retreat … she is very kind and we enjoy talking and um, just have great conversations together. … then she, uh, came to do her PhD at Yale.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: They clearly shared a lot of common — they both loved nature. … I mean, Zion was … a scientist … she is studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry. … So, you know, he was studying the — in the School of the Environment … they’re both brilliant and hardworking students … and yet … they didn’t feel like their accomplishments were, what, defined them at the deepest level.
Zaweski and Cunningham then interviewed an emotional Perry, and she told them she and Kevin had spent the day together.
Det. David Zaweski: They had gone ice fishing and had dinner at her house … and then he left her house around 8:30 that night.
Kevin Jiang and Zion Perry
Kevin Jiang/Facebook
Kevin didn’t get far. His Prius was struck by the dark SUV just two blocks from Perry’s house — close enough for Perry to hear the gunshots that followed.
Det. David Zaweski: She remembers hearing the gunshots, but she thought there was a good five or ten minutes after he’d left to when she heard the gunshots. So, she didn’t think he was anywhere near the area and didn’t think twice about him potentially being involved in any way.
Anne-Marie Green: Did she have any idea who would have done something like this?
Det. Steven Cunningham: At that point, no. Nothing that she told us that she — she could think of.
After speaking with Perry, detectives were no closer to figuring out why Kevin would be a target.
Det. Steven Cunningham: It seemed like just an innocent — innocent guy.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you think this was gonna be a tough case though?
Det. David Zaweski: That night —
Det. Steven Cunningham: Yes.
Det. David Zaweski: — we had a little bit, but there wasn’t a lot to go on.
But just 15 hours after the shooting, they got a huge break.
Det. David Zaweski: Little did we know that we’d get the phone call …
Det. Steven Cunningham: And it was like, wow.
THE MAN STUCK ON THE TRAIN TRACKS
News of Kevin Jiang’s murder spread among his loved ones and closest friends.
Nasya Hubbard: And I was at home and I actually got a phone call from another soldier … And she was saying, I know you guys were close … And then … like, her voice cracked. … and … she told me that he had passed away … And I was like not comprehending what was going on. … So I text him … And I was like, “answer your phone please.” And obviously, he never answered me.
Hubbard reached out to Capt. Jamila Ayeh. And if sharing the news about Jiang wasn’t tragic enough, someone posted the chilling video of his murder online, and his fellow soldiers now saw and heard Kevin’s final moments alive.
Nasya Hubbard: … to this day. … I can still hear him — hear him screaming … I was like, why did I listen to that?
Detectives Zaweski and Cunningham were back at their desks in headquarters, struggling for answers and leads to pursue.
Anne-Marie Green: Day two … you get a phone call.
Det. David Zaweski: Yes.
The call, from a sergeant at nearby North Haven Police Department, was urgent.
Det. David Zaweski: … two incidents had happened in North Haven the night before and then earlier that morning.
It began with a 911 call from a local scrap metal yard around 9 p.m. – less than a half hour after Kevin was killed.
911 CALL: I’m the, uh, security guard at … Sims Metal Management. … I just had somebody drive through my yard here … they didn’t know where they were going. … So I’ve been chasing them around the yard and, uh, they just pulled way in the back, off the property … it’s like a black minivan, SUV type of thing.
Sergeant Jeffrey Mills and Officer Marcus Artaiz responded and spotted that vehicle stuck on snow-covered railroad tracks, not far from the rear exit of the Sims scrap metal yard. They approached the driver.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: How you doing?
QINXUAN PAN: I’m stuck.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Oh, yeah. What are you doing back here?
QINXUAN PAN: Stuck here.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: What are you doing back here, though?
QINXUAN PAN: I just got it here accidentally, and I got stuck. … Is there any way to get unstuck here?
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Uh, the only thing I can do is call you a tow truck.
QINXUAN PAN: OK, cool. Thanks.
A still from police bodycam video shows Qinxuan Pan talking with North Haven police after officers responded to a 911 call about a trespasser on private property.
North Haven Police Department
The motorist was 29-year-old Qinxuan Pan from Malden, Massachusetts.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: OK. Do you have your driver’s license on you?
QINXUAN PAN: Yes.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Registration?
QINXUAN PAN: Yes. You can take this. OK.
His driver’s license and criminal background were clean. During the encounter, Mills noticed a yellow jacket on the passenger seat. He also saw a blue bag and a briefcase in the backseat, but not much else.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS (bodycam): He took a wrong turn. … He got lost, and he thought the Jeep was probably chasing him, the security guy.
Because Sgt. Mills hadn’t heard about Kevin’s murder, he wasn’t particularly concerned.
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam): So, it’s nothing you think?
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Yeah, he’s —
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ: He doesn’t look like he’s got any scrap on him or anything.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: No.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: I’ve been on the tracks I don’t know how many times with vehicles that were, you know, called into suspicious or whatever but kids go back there … people always come down there, um, according to the security guard … and they turn around in the front lot and they leave ’cause they missed the highway or something.
Anne-Marie Green: Yeah. Did he look nervous?
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: He wasn’t nervous at all … He was perfectly calm.
QINXUAN PAN (bodycam): So what — what do you recommend I do? … I mean if I can get it off the track, I prefer to drive — drive it myself.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: He was just like, well sorry. I got stuck on the tracks can you help me get off?
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam): So how about you get a hotel for the night. We’ll have the tow truck drop you off at the hotel and you pay with credit card and you can arrange pick it up the car in the morning.
QINXUAN PAN: OK, let’s get the hotel then.
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam):: Yeah let’s do that.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: That’s probably the safest thing to do.
QINXUAN PAN: OK.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: OK.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: The tow truck came, uh, took a little work, but it got it off the tracks. … he gave, uh, Mr. Pan, uh, ride back to Best Western and I cleared the call like any other call.
But hours later, there was another call to 911.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: February 7th, around 11:00 a.m.
911 OPERATOR: Hello. Can I help you? … This is the police department.
CALLER: Uh hello, I work at Arby’s here in North Haven.
911 OPERATOR: Mm hmm.
ARBY’S EMPLOYEE: … we found a gun … and probably like, uh, 10 boxes of, um –
911 OPERATOR: Bullets?
ARBY’S EMPLOYEE: … bullets.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: An employee found a couple of bags on the grass at the north entrance here. When they brought ’em in …
Fifteen hours after the first 911 call, Sgt. Jeffrey Mills responded to another 911 call at an Arby’s, where employees had found a bag containing a gun and box of .45 caliber bullets. The Arby’s was next door to the Best Western hotel where Qinxuan Pan had been taken.
North Haven Police Department
OFFICER #1 (bodycam): There were three bags … this one, that one, and this.
OFFICER #2: Got it.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: I took a better look at the bags that it came in … And here’s a … blue retail bag with the Massachusetts logo on it and a small leather black briefcase. And it instantly hit me. These are the bags that were in Mr. Pan’s car the night before.
The Arby’s was right next door to the Best Western where Pan was dropped off. And by then, Mills had heard about the murder in New Haven.
Anne-Marie Green (with Mills outside Arby’s): What’s going through your brain?
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: At that point … knowing … that New Haven had a homicide … they were looking for a dark-colored GMC SUV. Um, now, we’ve got a firearm. And then Officer Bianchi shows me a yellow jacket that was in it … And the suspect was wearing a yellow jacket.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS (bodycam): So, he might be at Best Western right now.
OFFICER #1: Let’s go over there.
OFFICER #2: I’m gonna go over there.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: And when we got here I went in to the front desk and spoke with the attendant there and asked if Qinxuan Pan had checked in. Which they checked and said yes he did … I mean he hasn’t checked out yet.
That’s when Mills alerted New Haven homicide about Pan.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you immediately think there might be a connection with the homicide?
Det. David Zaweski: There’s a very good chance. … the vehicle matched. And … the items that were left behind at the Arby’s restaurant … it included a .45-caliber handgun and that matched the casings that were at the scene.
Zaweski immediately sent detectives to meet Mills at the Best Western.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: Uh so we got a key, went to room 276 … We knocked on the door, we entered the room. And the room was clean. … Nothing in it. It didn’t appear that anybody stayed in it for the night. … At first, we were like, oh, we lost him.
Qinxuan Pan, 29, was a graduate student at MIT studying artificial intelligence
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
New Haven police sent investigators, including Detective Joe Galvan, to track down Pan. Galvan went to Malden, Massachusetts, where Pan lived with his parents and was a graduate student at MIT.
—
Det. Joe Galvan: … right outside of Boston …very affluent homes … There’s no one there. … so we knock on the door. … So … the day after the homicide, we were unsure if, uh, maybe the family, um, was on vacation. … out of state, out of the country.
But police were also worried.
Det. Joe Galvan: … were they — given the heinous act that occurred in New Haven the day before, were they potentially kidnapped by their own son? Were they victims of another … hor-horrible crime?
WAS AN OBSESSION A MOTIVE FOR MURDER?
With Qinxuan Pan and his parents missing from their home, Detective David Zaweski turned to his computer searching for Pan.
Det. David Zaweski: The first thing I wanna know is, who he is … and if there’s any connection between him and Kevin. … I see that he has a Facebook page.
Anne-Marie Green: What was his page like?
Detectives searched Qinxuan Pan’s Facebook account for possible clues.
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
Det. David Zaweski: There was not much activity at all. His last, uh, post was back in 2016, and he had a few photos with some other students, but that was it.
Anne-Marie Green: Is that when you first found out that he’s an MIT grad student?
Det. David Zaweski: Yes that was the first time we got the connection between him and MIT.
Det. David Zaweski: So, I check his friends list to see if Kevin is in there.
Anne-Marie Green: Is he?
Det. David Zaweski: Kevin is not listed, but I do notice that Zion Perry is listed.
Zion Perry, Kevin’s fiancee, who also went to MIT.
Det. David Zaweski: Now we have a connection … I got in contact with her. … she explained that they had met at MIT back in, uh, 2019. And they were more associates than friends.
Anne-Marie Green: Nothing romantic?
Det. David Zaweski: No. … She said that they never dated, they never had any romantic relationship.
Det. David Zaweski: The last time she spoke with him was May of 2020 … he reached out to her through Facebook Messenger … to congratulate her on graduating. … He asked to FaceTime with her and she politely declined it.
Anne-Marie Green: She must have been wondering why you asking me so many questions about this guy. What’d you say to her?
Det. David Zaweski: She was, and that’s when I told her that he was a person of interest in this and she was completely shocked. … he was barely a part of her life. … and why he would’ve been involved with this in any way.
Anne-Marie Green: What did she have posted on her page?
Kevin Jiang and Zion Perry after Kevin’s proposal.
Zion Perry/Facebook
Det. David Zaweski: The last things that she had posted were the engagement between her and Kevin.
Anne-Marie Green: Are you starting to formulate a theory about the case that goes a little beyond possible road rage?
Det. David Zaweski: Yes … It did seem like there was a secret obsession of Pan’s going on behind the scenes that Kevin wasn’t aware of and that Zion wasn’t aware of.
The next day, Zion Perry joined Kevin’s mother, Linda Lui, and father, Mingchen Jiang, and nearly 700 people on a virtual vigil for Kevin. Perry addressed the mourners.
ZION PERRY: One day, I — I will get to see … Kevin again, yeah, in heaven and then everything is made right … I thank Miss Liu and Mr. Jiang for raising such a fine young man and for, yeah, bringing him into the world.
LINDA LIU: He gave me a lot of joy. He’s very thoughtful, warm boy taking care of me. And, uh, I miss him.
MINGCHEN JIANG: He’s a nice boy. Everybody likes him. (CRYING) Thank you. … Thank you, you all.
That week, Pastor Hendrickson eulogized Kevin at his funeral.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson:We come to you today, remembering Kevin, grateful for his life, grieving over his loss.
Perry read a poem Kevin wrote to her. It began –
Zion Perry: “If this world falls apart, it will be all right, because we have each other’s hearts.”
A medical officer also trained to operate tanks, Kevin was buried with full military honors, just two days before his 27th birthday, on Valentine’s Day.
Meanwhile, Galvan, a member of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut — along with supervisor Matthew Duffy and Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault — were utilizing their vast resources to urgently gather intelligence on Pan.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: MIT graduate … not socially active … degree in computer science.
Lawyer William Gerace.
William Gerace: … grad student … in artificial intelligence.
Anne-Marie Green: Genius?
William Gerace: Genius. … socially not a genius.
The Marshals discovered Pan had three active phones, and they noticed that in the months before Kevin was killed, Pan was using one of those phones to contact car dealerships.
Det. Joe Galvan: He would tell them all the same thing. … um, said he was going for a test drive. I believe he said he was going on a camping trip.
Investigators were able to match the date of Pan’s test drives with each of the .45 caliber shootings in New Haven, including Kevin’s murder. It was all part of a plan, investigators say. They believe that Pan likely fired shots into those homes to ultimately mislead them, hoping that they would think Kevin’s murder was just another random shooting.
Det. Steve Cunningham: … he planned it … and he knew we’d be looking at these other things.
Det. David Zaweski: Yeah he did his best to … to mislead us.
Det. David Zaweski: Now we knew that, yes, this wasn’t a random incident out there … That he was targeted.
They also discovered that not long after Kevin’s murder, Pan called his parents, and they made a cash withdrawl of about $1,000.
William Gerace: They had tremendous assets somehow from Shanghai.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Access to large sums of money … several million dollars.
The Marshals zeroed in on Pan’s parents and picked up a ping on their phone at a North Carolina gas station.
Det. Joe Galvan: Our task force … found it on — on the … on the ground.
The cellphone was crushed.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Like a car ran over it.
Three days later, investigators caught up with Pan’s parents driving near Atlanta, Georgia.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Georgia state police pulled them over.
Anne-Marie Green: He’s not in the vehicle.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Nope.
Police told them they suspected their son had killed someone.
Anne-Marie Green: Were they shocked?
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: No.
Anne-Marie Green: They weren’t shocked that their son was being investigated in connection with the cold-blooded murder.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: They may have been, but they didn’t — they didn’t lead on to us at all. They didn’t lead on to us at all.
Det. Joe Galvan: The father said our son called, said he was in Connecticut and needed help. He asked us to bring cash. Then once we picked him up in Connecticut,he took the wheel. … they take this very long drive down south …
Pan’s father didn’t say why his son was heading that direction.
Det. Joe Galvan: And he says he is quiet, acting weird. Doesn’t really say what’s going on. … they make it down to Georgia and … he pulls over … and he gets out of the car and walks away. … he said, no words to them, just walked away from the car. … That was their story
Pan’s parents agreed to be photographed. Pan’s mother declined to answer any questons without an attorney, but she later volunteered that her son walked away from her and his father and likely killed himself. The Marshals were skeptical.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: We knew after talking to the parents that they would go to jail for him. … knowing the degree that the parents were helping him … And his resources, his intelligence, we had to take a different approach on it …
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: … we needed to focus in on the parents … they probably would lead us to him.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: … they would go to the ends of the earth to help support and hide him.
Anne-Marie Green: And what does that mean?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Patience.
And they would need plenty of it. Weeks went by without an arrest. They wondered if they missed something — and if their murder suspect had outmaneuvered them?
UNRAVELING QINXUAN PAN’S PLOT
Five weeks passed without a solid lead on the MIT student wanted for Kevin Jiang’s murder.
Anne-Marie Green: Can you give me a real sense of the pressure.
Det. Joe Galvan: Yeah, because this became so high profile so fast … it was — it was just heightened.
Then the manhunt for Pan suddenly heated up. Police said his mom told them she suspected her son killed himself. But they noticed his parents had a lot of banking activity.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: We start to see large sums of cash being withdrawn.
Anne-Marie Green: How much?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: At that time it was about $5,000, $10,000.
Det. Joe Galvan: That’s a large sum of money that someone could use to get out the country.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: They still have family in China.
And then Pan’s parents rented a car.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: And they start traveling south again.
But the vehicle’s GPS system the Marshals were tracking went dark.
Anne-Marie Green: Did they turn it off?
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: It was disabled.
By then, investigators said they knew that their son had disabled GPS systems in several cars he drove in the runup to Kevin’s murder.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Counter tactics.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Counter tactics …
At one point, surveillance cameras at a Georgia mall recorded Pan’s father purchasing a computer.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Now this is during COVID. So everybody has their masks on. … We see the father walk in. … And probably about 10 minutes later, we see an individual fitting the description of the son. … So, the story of the suicide out in the woods … that’s — that’s not true.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: So from there … the parents end up traveling back north and —
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Once they’re in Connecticut, the GPS comes back on.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: We felt — we felt the clock was really ticking.
And it ticked away for nearly two more months until May 4, 2021, when Pan’s parents drove off for a third time. But there was a difference.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: They were traveling with another couple …
Anne-Marie Green: What do you think the deal was with the other couple?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Yeah, make it appear that it’s a regular trip … There’s no big deal, we’re just going on a trip, meet some friends … we’re not here to help our son.
Pan’s parents and their unwitting companions were eventually placed under surveillance at a North Carolina hotel, where Marshals interviewed a clerk after the Pans checked out.
Det. Joe Galvan: At one point … Quixuan Pan’s mother. … came to the clerk’s desk late at night and asked to borrow his phone.
This is a picture of Qinxuan Pan’s mother Hong Huang making the call at a Georgia hotel that broke the case wide open.
U.S. Marshals
Det. Joe Galvan: After she used his phone, she deleted the number from his phone.
Anne-Marie Green: Were you able to find that number?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Yes.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: We were.
The Marshals tracked the phone to a boarding house near the University of Alabama in Montgomery.
Anne-Marie Green: So, you guys are closing in —
Det. Joe Galvan: Yeah.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: They went there with a small army, around 20 guys … they ended up finding his room and they knocked on it and he just came out and said, I’m who you’re looking for.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: He had, uh, approximately $20,000 cash on him. He had his father’s passport … And he had had multiple communication devices on him.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Seven SIM cards —
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Seven SIM cards and um —
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: — and the computer.
Pan was arrested for the murder of Kevin Jiang and brought back to Connecticut. He maintained his innocence, but a judge ordered him held on $20 million bond.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Huge relief …
His case was delayed by the pandemic, but investigators had amassed a trove of evidence.
Remember that license plate imprint on Kevin’s car? Police say it matched the plate on the bumper of the SUV Pan was driving when Kevin was rear ended.
And forensic tests revealed that Pan’s DNA was on the gun and ammo found outside Arby’s…and Kevin’s blood was also on Pan’s hat, and on the gear shift of the SUV pan was driving the night Kevin was murdered.
Anne-Marie Green: Was there anything missing?
Stacey Miranda: The murder weapon.
Turns out, the gun recovered at the Arby’s was not the gun that was used to kill Kevin.
“Who knows where that murder weapon ended up,” said Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Stacey Miranda.
But there was so much other evidence that Pan’s lawyer William Gerace recommended he cut a deal.
William Gerace: Overwhelming evidence. Overwhelming evidence.
Qinxuan Pan was charged with Kevin Jiang’s murder, accepted a plea deal, and was sentenced in April 2024 to serve 35 years in prison.
U.S. Marshals
On Feb. 29, 2024, three years after Kevin’s killing, Pan pleaded guilty to his murder in exchange for serving 35 years in prison without parole.
Stacey Miranda: … and had he not been stuck on the railroad tracks, this still might not be a solved case. We might not know who did this.
At his sentencing in April, Pan sat silently as Kevin’s loved ones and friends described their loss. By court order, the camera was fixed on him. Some of Kevin’s mother’s remarks were read by a family friend.
ESTHER: I was dreaming that Kevin will have a few beautiful children after getting married. … this beautiful and joyful dream is destroyed. I am left alone by myself. … I will never see Kevin smile again. (emotional)
Then Kevin’s mother decided to speak.
LINDA LIU: To charge the murderer, Pan, 35 years in prison is too short and too light …
Qinxuan Pan, who sat with his head bowed during sentencing, looks up in court when Zion Perry rose to address him.
CBS News
Pan never explained why he killed Kevin, but the only time he looked up was when Zion Perry rose to speak.
ZION PERRY: I wanted to address Pan specifically. … Although your sentence ifs far less than you deserve … there is also mercy. May God have mercy on you. And may he have mercy on all of us.
Then Pan briefly addressed the court.
QINXUAN PAN: Your honor, um, what I’m thinking about is my action and the horrible consequences. … I feel sorry for what my actions caused and for everyone affected … I fully accept my penalties.
JUDGE HARMON: Court is gonna impose the agreed upon sentence of 35 years.
Finally, Judge Harmon passed sentence, and Pan was led away in handcuffs.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever consider charging his parents?
Stacey Miranda: We couldn’t charge them … because we couldn’t prove that they knew when they picked him up that he was — had committed a murder.
Anne-Marie Green: So they might be lucky that they didn’t find themselves charged as well.
Stacey Miranda: 100%.
“48 Hours” reached out to Pan’s parents for comment but did not hear back.
Now Kevin’s friends are left to wonder what Kevin, a man of deep faith, might have thought about his killer.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you think Kevin would’ve forgiven Pan?
Nasya Hubbard: Yes … I do.
Capt. Jamila Ayeh: Without a doubt.
Nasya Hubbard: Yeah.
The officers visited Kevin’s grave after they spoke to “48 Hours.” Hubbard recalled her first time there when she says she felt Kevin’s presence.
“He gave me a lot of joy,” Linda Liu said of her son.
Kevin Jiang/Instagram
Anne-Marie Green: And did something happen?
Nasya Hubbard: It’s just like wind blew, you know? And I was —
Anne-Marie Green: Did you feel like it was him?
Nasya Hubbard: Um, I felt like it was definitely different, as if like a peace kind of like, I want you to carry on, don’t be — don’t be sad that I’m gone. … Just keep going.
Qinxuan Pan is scheduled to be released in 2056, when he is 65 years old.
Produced by Murray Weiss. Emma Steele is the field producer. Elena DiFiore, Marc Goldbaum and David Dow are the development producers. Gary Winter and George Baluzy are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Melissa Rocuba’s Final Moments | Post Mortem – CBS News
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48 Hours correspondents Natalie Morales and Anne-Marie Green discuss the 2013 killing of Melissa Rocuba that went unsolved for nearly nine years, and how new information retrieved from old evidence led to an arrest in the case.
Defense testimony continued Friday in the trial of Brendan Banfield, a former IRS investigator charged with aggravated murder in the 2023 deaths of his wife, Christine Banfield, and another man, Joseph Ryan, in Fairafx County, Virginia.
Defense testimony continued Friday in the trial of Brendan Banfield, a former IRS investigator charged with aggravated murder in the 2023 deaths of his wife, Christine Banfield, and another man, Joseph Ryan, in Fairafx County, Virginia.
The jury heard from the defense’s digital forensics expert to try to counter the prosecution’s theory that Brendan Banfield set up a profile on a fetish website pretending to be his wife to lure another man to the home so Brendan Banfield could kill her and pin it on the man.
Harry Lidsky, a private investigator and digital forensic examiner, reviewed the digital evidence that the family’s au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, and prosecutors said show Christine Banfield often used her phone and laptop at the same time.
Lidsky said he agreed with the original lead detective, who disagreed with lead investigator Brendan Miller’s catfishing theory.
Deputy Chief of Major Crimes Patrick Brusch said it was his decision to remove Miller from the case, after Miller provided an executive summary that concluded that Christine Banfield never lost control over her phone and laptop. That conclusion ran counter to prosecutors’ theory that Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhães used Christine Banfield’s devices to communicate with Ryan and other men as they were staging the scenario.
Proceedings ended Friday without Brendan Banfield taking the stand to testify in his own defense. Watch the recap below.
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