The small community of Paradise, Texas, was rocked after the body of 7-year-old Athena Strand was found two days after being reported missing from her home. A 31-year-old FedEx driver is being held and police say he has confessed to her kidnapping and killing. Omar Villafranca has more.
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The investigation into the murders of four University of Idaho students is entering a critical stage in its third week, as police are starting to receive forensic testing results from the crime scene, law enforcement experts tell CNN.
The public, as well as the victims’ family members, have criticized police for releasing little information, in what at times has been a confusing narrative.
But the complex nature of a high-level homicide investigation involves utmost discretion from police, experts say, because any premature hint to the public about a suspect or the various leads police are following can cause it to fall apart.
“What police have been reluctant to do in this case is to say they have a suspect, even though they have had suspects who have risen and fallen in various levels of importance, because that’s the nature of the beast,” said John Miller, CNN chief law enforcement analyst and former deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism for the New York Police Department.
“Police having no suspects is factually incorrect,” Miller said. “Police have had a number of suspects they’ve looked at, but they have no suspect they’re willing to name. You don’t name them unless you have a purpose for that. That’s not unusual.”
The victims – Ethan Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Madison Mogen, 21 – were found stabbed on the second and third floors of their shared off-campus home on November 13, according to authorities.
The quadruple murder has upended the town of 26,000 residents, which had not recorded a single murder since 2015, and challenged a police department which has not benefited from the experience of investigating many homicides, let alone under the pressure of a national audience, Miller says.
The Moscow Police Department is leading the investigation with assistance from the Idaho State Police, the Latah County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, which has assigned more than 40 agents to the case across the United States.
“They have really coordinated this into over 100 people that are operating as one team,” Miller said of the homicide investigation.
The FBI plays three important roles in the Idaho investigation, according to Miller.
The first involves its behavioral science unit, which is highly valuable for cases with an unknown offender because it narrows the scope of offender characteristics.
The second is its advanced technology, such as its Combined DNA Indexing System, which allows law enforcement officials and crime labs to share and search through thousands of DNA profiles.
Lastly, the FBI has 56 field offices in major cities throughout the country, which can expand the reach and capability of the investigation.
“The FBI brings a lot to this, as well as experience in a range of cases that would be beyond what a small town typically would have,” Miller said.
Every homicide investigation begins with the scene of the crime, which allows investigators only one chance to record and collect forensic evidence for processing, which includes toxicology reports on the victims, hair, fibers, blood and DNA, law enforcement experts say.
“That one chance with the crime scene is where a lot of opportunities can be made or lost,” Miller said.
Extensive evidence has been collected over the course of the investigation, including 113 pieces of physical evidence, about 4,000 photos of the crime scene and several 3D scans of the home, Moscow police said Thursday.
“To protect the investigation’s integrity, specific results will not be released,” police said.
Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told CNN she saw “lots of blood on the wall” when she arrived at the scene and police said “some” of the victims had defensive wounds.
Chances are “pretty high” a suspect could have cut themselves during the attack, so police are looking carefully at blood evidence, says Joe Giacalone, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and retired NYPD sergeant who directed the agency’s Homicide School and Cold Case Squad.
Lab results from the scene can be returned to investigators fairly quickly, but in this case investigators are dealing with mixtures of DNA, which can take longer, he says.
“When you have several donors with the DNA, then it becomes a problem trying to separate those two or three or four. That could be part of the issue … toxicology reports can sometimes take a couple of weeks to come back,” Giacalone added.
The next stage in a homicide investigation is looking at the behavioral aspects of the crime. Two agents with the FBI’s Behavior Analysis Unit were assigned to the case to assess the scene and go over evidence to learn about the suspect or suspects’ behavior, based on the way they carried out the crime, Miller says.
“Understanding the victimology in a mystery can be very important, because it can lead you to motivation, it can lead you to enemies and it can lead you to friends,” he said.
Investigators will learn every detail about the four victims, their relationships with each other and the various people in their lives, Miller says. This includes cell phone records and internet records, he says, as well as video surveillance from every camera surrounding the crime scene.
“When you do an extensive video canvass, you may get a picture of a person, a shadowy figure, and then if you have a sense of direction, you can string your way down all the other cameras in that direction to see if that image reappears,” Miller said.
The program can match a suspect’s DNA found at the scene with that of a person who is already in the system. It also scans all crimes across the country to determine if the way the attack was carried out mirrors a previous one, pointing to the same perpetrator, Miller says.
“You always start with people who are close to the victims, whether it’s love, money or drugs,” Giacalone told CNN. “That’s generally the first step that you take because most of us are victimized by someone we know. We have to ask things like, who would benefit from having this person or in this case, a group, killed?”
In an effort to locate the weapon – believed to be a fixed-blade knife – detectives contacted local businesses to see if a similar knife had been purchased recently.
“It’s highly unlikely, although not impossible, that a first-time offender is going to come prepared with a tactical knife and murder multiple people, even in the face of resistance, and that this is going to be their first encounter with violent crime or the use of a knife,” Miller said.
One aspect of a homicide investigation is to “keep the media happy,” according to Giacalone.
“Today in the social media, true crime, community-driven world in these cases, the demand for information is so great that sometimes police departments kind of fill in that blank air and say something just for the sake of saying something, and then realizing that it’s either not 100% true, or it’s misleading,” he said.
It’s critical for police to protect their information at “all costs” and they always know more than what they release to the public. Otherwise, it could cause the suspect to go on the run, he says.
Miller said it’s “not fair” to investigators for the public or media to criticize them for not releasing enough information about the case.
But, ultimately, the department has a moral obligation to share some information with families who are suffering in uncertainty, Miller says, but they must be judicious about what they share.
“If you tell them we have a suspect and we’re close to an arrest but that doesn’t come together, then everybody is disappointed or thinks you messed it up or worse, goes out and figures out who the suspect is and tries to take action on their own,” he said.
Investigators rely on the trove of physical and scientific evidence, information from the public and national data on violent crimes to cultivate possible leads, Miller says.
Public tips, photos and videos of the night the students died, including more than 260 digital media submissions people have submitted through an FBI form, are being analyzed, police say. Authorities have processed more than 1,000 tips and conducted at least 150 interviews to advance the case.
“Any one of those tips can be the missing link,” Miller said. “It can either be the connective tissue to a lead you already had but were missing a piece, or it can become the brand new lead that solves the case.”
Every tip must be recorded in a searchable database so investigators can go back to them as they learn new details over the course of the investigation, Miller says. While 95% to 99% of public tips may provide no value, one or several might crack the entire case, he adds.
“Police in this case could be nowhere tonight, having washed out another suspect, and tomorrow morning they could be making an arrest,” Miller said of the Idaho investigation. “Or, for the suspect they’re working on today, it might take them another month from now to put together enough evidence to have probable cause. That’s just something they won’t be able to reveal until it happens.”
After Linda Slaten was murdered in 1981, her sons Jeff and Tim spent almost 40 years hoping their mother’s case would get solved. Take a look inside the investigation.
On the morning of Sept. 4, 1981, the Lakeland, Florida, police were called to an apartment complex where they found the body of 31-year-old Linda Slaten. She had been raped and strangled with a wire coat hanger while her two sons Jeff, 15, and Tim, 12, slept in the other rooms. The killer had entered through her bedroom window.
Tim’s haunting memory
Lakeland Police Department
Tim Slaten says he will never forget that morning after police woke him and his older brother, Jeff, up. As Tim walked past his mother’s bedroom, an officer swung the door open. “I saw the whole crime scene,” Tim says. “I saw my mom’s bloody body with a coat hanger around her neck … And I still see it.”
A crucial print
Edgar Pickett
When former Sergeant Edgar Pickett — who led the crime scene unit — arrived at the crime scene, he dusted most of Linda’s bedroom for prints.
A crucial print
Lakeland Police Department
Sergeant Pickett also dusted the bedroom windowsill where he recovered a palm print — a piece of evidence that would later play a crucial role in the investigation.
Recovered DNA
Lakeland Police Department
During the autopsy, swabs were collected from Linda Slaten that contained semen. Investigators carefully preserved the contents of the rape kit for years to come.
Forensic DNA analysis didn’t exist until 1984. Later, it would prove key to solving this case.
The brothers’ new reality
Jeff Slaten
The Slaten brothers immediately moved in with their grandparents. They had to face a new reality of life without their mom. A few weeks after their mom’s funeral, the brothers returned to school and familiar activities.
“Being with friends and just started living life again, I guess,” says Tim. “You know, going back to football.”
The supportive coach
Tim Slaten
Tim says his teammates and coach were always very supportive. When he didn’t have a ride, “Coach Joe,” as the kids called him, would take Tim to and from football practice and continued to do so after his mom was killed.
This team photo was taken a month after Linda’s murder. Tim hung it on his bedroom wall as a reminder, he says, of something his mom taught him: to keep moving forward and never give up.
Persons of interest
Jeff Slaten
As detectives searched for the killer, Linda’s ex-husband, Frank Slaten, became a person of interest due to his history of abuse towards her. Before their divorce, Jeff says his dad was “a violent alcoholic.” But investigators eventually seemed satisfied that Frank was home in Alabama on the night of the murder. At the time of her death, Linda had a boyfriend who was also a person of interest, but he had an alibi as well.
Clearing Jeff
Jeff Slaten
Investigators focused their attention on Linda’s older son, Jeff. As a 15-year-old, Jeff had plenty of typical teen conflicts with his mom, which he was open about with detectives. But investigators seemed most interested in the argument Jeff had with his mom on the last day of her life.
“They used to take me out of school and they was always interrogating me all the time,” Jeff says. But after he took two polygraph tests and passed, police cleared him.
The case loses momentum
CBS News
Lakeland, Florida, detectives looked at other people as well, but no one was ever charged. And without any new leads, the case eventually ground to a halt.
Guilt and grief
Jeff Slaten
In the following years, Jeff went on to have two kids. But he’s always lived with guilt for not hearing anything on the night of his mom’s murder. “I (would have) died that night trying to save my mom,” Jeff says. “But I didn’t hear nothing. And it’s so hard to live with that.”
“We’re still here”
Tim Slaten
Tim got married and started a family, too. The Slaten brothers had built lives for themselves, but they made sure to frequently check in with the Lakeland investigators to see what kind of progress was being made on their mom’s case.
“No matter how many detectives we had to go through over here, we was going to let them know, ‘we’re still here. And we wanna know who killed our mom,’” says Tim.
A new detective
Lakeland Police Department
In 1998, Detective Brad Grice took over the Slaten case and immediately got to work. He sent the unidentified DNA from the Slaten rape kit to the state’s major crime lab at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement — the FDLE. A year later, the FDLE had developed a full DNA profile of Linda Slaten’s anonymous killer. Detective Grice then took DNA samples from prior persons of interest and submitted them to the FDLE for comparison. None were a match.
Old friends reunite
Brad Grice
Around the 20th anniversary in 2001, Detective Grice called the Slaten brothers to arrange a meeting at the Lakeland Police Department. “Soon as Jeff and Tim walked in the door, I realized I had known Jeff for years, since I was in my 20s,” Grice says, “through bowling.”
Grice’s search continued
Jeff Slaten
Detective Grice took DNA samples from the brothers and cleared them again.
Even Frank Slaten, who had stopped drinking and apologized to his sons for past abuses, volunteered a sample of his DNA and Grice was able to clear him, too. Here they are pictured together in 2005. That’s Jeff on the left, Tim in the middle and their dad on the right.
17 years of dedication
Brad Grice
In 2005, Detective Grice sent the unknown DNA profile from the Slaten rape kit to the FBI’s national DNA database where it was continuously compared against new DNA submissions. Through the course of his investigation, Grice says he eliminated dozens of suspects through DNA evidence. But after 17 years of working the Slaten case, he retired in 2015.
Renewed hope
CBS News
Detectives Tammy Hathcock and Russell Hurley were the new generation of investigators working the Slaten case. In 2018, Detective Hathcock received a call from the FDLE about a groundbreaking new DNA technology called investigative genetic genealogy that law enforcement agencies were using.
The FDLE explained that the detectives could submit the unidentified DNA from the Slaten case to be examined by genetic genealogist CeCe Moore. “If you have that DNA, there is no reason you cannot solve that mystery,” Moore says.
Pieces of a genetic family tree
CBS News
CeCe Moore uploaded the anonymous DNA from the Slaten rape kit to a public genealogy website called “GEDMatch,” which generated a list of people who shared DNA with the unknown killer. From there, she constructed a genetic family tree with the help of birth certificates, marriage licenses, obituaries, and social media.
In the end, Moore developed three branches of the killer’s family tree that led her to the one person who was most likely responsible for Linda Slaten’s murder.
Linda’s killer revealed
Tim Slaten
According to CeCe Moore, that person was Joseph Clinton Mills – the same man Tim Slaten knew back in 1981 as “Coach Joe.” Tim’s team football photo, which used to make him feel proud, sickens him today because standing directly behind him is the man he once trusted. “I’ve been carrying the killer’s picture in my house this table whole time and never had a clue,” Tim says.
In plain sight
Lakeland Police Department
Back in 1981, Joseph Mills – then 20 years old – was interviewed by police just one day after the murder, but it was conducted over the phone. During the brief call, Mills told investigators that he’d dropped Tim off after football practice on Sept. 3, 1981, the night before the murder – but police never considered him a suspect
The palm print
Lakeland Police Department
After learning Joseph Mills’ name, Detectives Hathcock and Hurley discovered that in 1984, Mills had been convicted of grand theft for forging a will. He never went to jail, but police collected fingerprints and palm prints from him.
In the summer of 2019, investigators compared Mills’ palm print from 1984 to the palm print that was lifted off Linda Slaten’s windowsill in 1981 and they were a match.
Digging through trash for DNA
Lakeland Police Department
Despite CeCe Moore’s findings and the palm print match, the detectives still needed to compare a fresh DNA sample from Mills to the DNA from the Slaten rape kit. So Detectives Hathcock and Hurley covertly took trash bags from Mills’ home and went through them at the police department.
They recovered a piece of medical adhesive tape in one of the bags that they sent to the crime lab for testing.
A look into Joseph Mills’ life
Lakeland Police Department
While they awaited the DNA results, the detectives dug further into Mills’ personal life. He was 58 at that time and had lived in Kathleen, Florida, for most of his life, which was just 30 minutes away from the crime scene. He was also married with children and grandchildren.
A spot-on match
Lakeland Police Department
Almost two weeks later, the crime lab’s results revealed that Mills’ DNA on the medical adhesive tape and the unknown DNA recovered from the rape kit were a spot-on match. In December 2019, detectives arrested Mills and brought him in for questioning.
The interview room
Lakeland Police Department
During his interrogation, Mills told detectives that Linda Slaten invited him over for consensual sex, which investigators knew was a lie. “I think it’s pretty evident that he targeted her,” Det. Russell Hurley says. The detectives believe that after Mills dropped Tim off on Sept. 3, 1981, he returned later that night and broke in through Linda’s bedroom window while no one was home. He then hid in her closet and waited for her to go to bed. That’s when he raped and strangled Linda with a wire hanger from her closet.
The sentencing
WTSP
Joseph Mills pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and sexual battery. At his sentencing, Linda Slaten’s family took turns confronting him and asked him why he killed Linda. And while they didn’t get an answer – or an apology – from Mills, he told the court, “I am a good person.”
The judge sentenced Mills to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A small measure of justice
CBS News
Although the Slaten brothers feel some solace in knowing that Mills will never leave prison alive, it angers them that he had all those years of freedom while they lived most of their life without their mom. “I just wonder what life could have been like to have her,” Jeff says.
The Slaten brothers today
CBS News
Tim and Jeff remain extremely close. They visit their mother’s grave often and Jeff lights a candle every year on the anniversary of her death. Despite everything they’ve been through, they always continued to live life to the fullest for their mom.
“My mom, she’s looking down on us and would want us to live our lives and do good,” Jeff says, “I want to make her proud.”
September 4, 1981 was the day these men say their childhood ended. Jeff Slaten and his younger brother, Tim, had been awakened by Lakeland, Florida, police officers, and told their mother had been murdered. Police hustled the boys outside, but Tim, still in his pajamas, caught a glimpse of his mother. She had been raped and strangled.
“I saw the whole crime scene right then and there as a 12-year-old kid,” Tim Slaten tells CBS News chief investigative and senior national correspondent Jim Axelrod. “You can’t unsee that,” says Axelrod. Tim, with tears in his eyes, says he “still sees” the image of his dead mother, and knows he always will.
Prior to and after Linda Slaten’s murder, Tim Slaten’s football coach, Joe Mills, would regularly drive Tim to and from football practice. Coach Joe became a role model for the boy, who proudly hung up his football team photo, with the coach standing behind him, in his room.
Tim Slaten
To this day, the Slaten brothers feel grief and guilt, for not hearing anythingthat night, for not coming to their mom’s rescue. “I (would have) died died that night tryin’ to save my mom,” Jeff Slaten says. “But I didn’t hear nothing. And it’s so hard to live with that.”
Immediately after the murder, Jeff and Tim moved in with their grandparents. For those first frightening days, the entire family slept in the same room. It was their grandfather who rarely slept. He was standing guard all night with a shotgun.
The Slaten brothers immediately moved in with their grandparents. They had to face a new reality of life without their mom. A few weeks after their mom’s funeral, the brothers returned to school and familiar activities. “Being with friends and just started living life again, I guess,” says Tim. “You know, going back to football.”
Jeff Slaten
A few weeks later, the boys were back in school, and Tim was back playing football, his favorite sport. “Just trying to live life again,” he says. His teammates and coach, “Coach Joe,” were always supportive, always rooting for him. Coach Joe, 20 at the time, was a young man Tim had looked up to. He often drove Tim to and from football practice — a routine that had started well before the murder.
For years, Tim Slaten proudly hung his team football photo in his bedroom, taken just one month after the murder. The photo was also a reminder, he says, of something his mom had taught him: to keep moving forward and never give up.
After the murder, Lakeland investigators had collected a rape kit and lifted a palm print from Linda Slaten’s bedroom window, where the killer had entered. Detectives had questioned a slew of suspects, like Linda’s abusive ex-husband, Frank Slaten. Even her own son, Jeff, became a person of interest, telling Axelrod, “Lakeland Police, they was interrogating me all the time.”
But no one was charged. Before long, the case went cold and stayed that way for nearly four decades. Jeff Slaten says, he thought for sure he’d take his last breath without knowing who murdered his mom.
But remarkable advances in DNA technology renewed hope, and that carefully stored rape kit revealed an unlikely suspect, Joseph Clinton Mills — Coach Joe.
Now those car rides to practice took on new meaning. So did Tim’s team football photo, which sickens him today. Because standing directly behind Tim is the man he once trusted and admired, Coach Joe. He would often ask Tim how the case was going. Was there any news? Were there any new leads? Coach Joe was talking to a 12-year-old boy, trying to keep tabs on a murder investigation through the son of the murdered woman when he knew exactly who did it.
“I’ve been carrying the killer’s picture in my house this whole time and never had a clue,” Jeff says. “He’s a cold-hearted monster, that’s for sure.”
On Sept. 4, 1981, Jeff Slaten, 15 and his brother Time, 12, were awakened by Lakeland, Florida, police and told their mother, Linda Slaten, had been murdered. Investigators collected a rape kit and lifted a palm print from the windowsill where the killer had entered. They questioned a slew of suspects, but no one was charged, and the case went cold.
Prior to and after Linda Slaten’s murder, Tim’s football coach, Joe Mills, would regularly drive Tim to and from football practice. Coach Joe became a role model for the young boy, who proudly hung up his football team photo in his room where Mills stood right behind him.
Linda’s sons spent decades living in fear of the man they called “the Monster.” Nearly 40 years later, advances in DNA technology revealed Linda Slaten’s likely killer: Coach Joe.
“I looked up to this guy,” Tim tells “48 Hours” contributor Jim Axelrod. “And I had a picture in my house ever since then, and never knew it was him.”
“He’s a cold-hearted monster, that’s for sure,” says Jeff.
SEPTEMBER 4, 1981
Jim Axelrod: On the morning of September 4th, 1981 … you’re going to walk three doors down —
Judy Butler: Mm-hmm.
Jim Axelrod: — and have a cup of coffee with your sister.
Judy Butler: Right.
When Judy Butler knocked on her older sister’s front door, Linda Slaten never answered. At the time, the sisters both lived in a Lakeland apartment complex.
Jim Axelrod: So, you started to walk back to your place, and what happened?
Judy Butler: And I turn, and I see that the screen is out of the window.
Linda’s bedroom window was wide open. Judy walked over and looked inside.
Judy Butler: And my vision comes across her.
Jim Axelrod: Where was she?
Judy Butler: She was laying … instead of up and down on the bed, she was laying crossways. … And at first, I thought maybe she was asleep. … And then, then, I just started screaming.
Linda Slaten’s killer entered through her bedroom window.
Lakeland Police Department
When police arrived, they found the partially nude body of Linda Slaten, 31, with a wire coat hanger wrapped around her neck. The killer had entered her bedroom through the open window.
The crackle of police radios inside the small two-bedroom apartment woke up Linda’s 15-year-old son, Jeff, who was sleeping on a cot in the living room.
Jeff Slaten: I asked, “What is goin’ on?” He said, “Police officers. … Put on some clothes and go outside.” And he made sure I went out the front door.”
Jeff Slaten: And when I went out there, it looked like every cop in the state of Florida … news crews, and my Aunt Judy was out there crying, and she told me my mom been murdered (cries). And I just couldn’t believe it.
In the apartment’s second bedroom, another officer woke up Linda’s younger son, Tim, then 12 years old.
Tim Slaten: He goes, “You need to wake up and go outside with your brother.” He never mentioned my mom. I’m like, “why’s he not saying my mom? And why’s a cop waking me up?”
Still in his pajamas, Tim walked past his mother’s closed bedroom door. Suddenly, it swung open, as an officer left the room.
Tim Slaten: And I saw the whole crime scene. … I mean, I saw my mom’s bloody body with a coat hanger around her neck (cries).
Jim Axelrod: You can’t unsee that.
Tim Slaten (very emotional): No. … And I still see it.
1974 | SEVEN YEARS BEFORE THE MURDER
Linda Slaten
Jeff Slaten
In 1974, Linda Slaten was a 24-year-old single mom — finally free. She had just divorced Jeff and Tim’s abusive father, Frank Slaten, after nine volatile years of marriage.
Jeff Slaten: He was a violent alcoholic to be honest with you.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
Jim Axelrod: Did he hit your mom?
Jeff Slaten: Oh, yeah.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
In the years that followed, nothing was easy for the young family. Linda struggled for work, made her own clothes to save money, and couldn’t afford a car.
Jim Axelrod: If you couldn’t get a ride to practice, who would take you?
Tim Slaten: Coach come pick us up.
That’s “Coach Joe,” as the kids called him. He often drove Tim and some other boys to and from football practice.
SEPTEMBER 3, 1981 | LINDA SLATEN’S FINAL HOURS
On the last full day of her life, Linda and Jeff argued. Tensions had been rising with her teenage son.
Jeff Slaten: I remember coming home, there was nothing to eat in the house. … You know how it is when you’re a 15, 16-year-old kid, you’re mouthy and …
Jeff Slaten: I got mad, and I went out the door and got on my bicycle and road 11 or 12 miles to the northside of town … to go to my grandma and grandpa’s house to get somethin’ to eat.
At 8:30 that night, Tim came home from football practice.
Tim Slaten: The coach brought me home.
Around 9 p.m., Linda took Tim to a party next door to play cards.
Jeff Slaten: Grandma and grandpa brought me home by, I think it was around 9 — 9 or 9:30 or so.
Linda and Tim came home about 11. By midnight, Jeff made up with his mom, he says, and still remembers their final moment together.
Jeff Slaten: She’s washin’ the dishes and stuff. When she went to go to her bedroom and … I said, “I love you, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow,” you know.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett was a legendary fingerprint expert with the Lakeland Police Department and led the crime scene unit when Linda Slaten was murdered. Sergeant Pickett recovered a palm print from the bedroom windowsill — a piece of evidence that would later play a crucial role in the investigation.
Edgar Pickett/CBS News
Jim Axelrod: What do you remember about the Slaten case?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I could remember everything about it. Goin’ to that window and lookin’ at it, where he went through it. … Then I went in there and the children was asleep. And I saw that coat hanger around her neck.
Former Sergeant Edgar Pickett, now 94 years old, was a legendary fingerprint expert with the Lakeland Police Department. He led the crime scene unit. In fact, the crime lab bears his name. But that sort of recognition was a long time coming.
Arriving at the Slaten crime scene in 1981, Pickett, then 53, was just a year away from retirement. But his hard-earned reputation had never spared him from prejudice.
Jim Axelrod: So, you pull up at the scene, and another detective says what to you?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: That “A Black man don’t have any business lookin’ at a naked white woman.”
Jim Axelrod: Even though she was a homicide victim?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: That’s correct.
Sergeant Pickett believed Linda Slaten had been strangled with a coat hanger from her own closet. He dusted most of the bedroom for fingerprints, even the floor.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: And then I got that print off of that windowsill. … It was a palm print … it wasn’t a fingerprint.
Jim Axelrod: You got the most important print there is.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I know it.
The evidence Pickett uncovered would play a crucial role decades later — especially the palm print.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I had really had never seen anybody in the shape that that lady was in. And I’ve seen a lotta people killed.
An autopsy later confirmed what he already knew: Linda Slaten had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Swabs taken and preserved in a rape kit revealed semen. That morning, Pickett says, his thoughts kept returning to Linda Slaten’s boys.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I had children too. And I really wanted to clear that case. I did.
Jeff and Tim Slaten stand outside their former home.
CBS News
Jim Axelrod: You guys are standing on the spot where your life changed.
Tim Slaten: Yes, right here.
Jeff Slaten: Yeah, when I stopped being a kid was right there (pointing).
Jim Axelrod: You were 15.
Jeff Slaten: 15.
Jim Axelrod: You really felt like this was the end of your childhood, right here?
Jeff Slaten: Yes, sir. I think this is exactly when it ended, when my Aunt Judy told me my mom had been murdered.
Emerging through the terror and tears that September morning 41 years ago, the questions kept coming. Why? Who? Who could have done such an evil thing?
SEPTEMBER 4, 1981 | HOURS AFTER THE MURDER
On that late-summer morning in 1981, Jeff and Tim Slaten faced a frightening world they no longer recognized, a world without their mother.
Jim Axelrod: How do 12 and 15-year-old boys process that, deal with that?
Tim Slaten: It was hard.
Jeff Slaten: Yeah. I thought about committin’ suicide a couple times (cries). It was that bad.
The brothers moved in with their grandparents, Clarence and Margaret Harris.
Tim Slaten: We just, we stayed in the house. We didn’t go anywhere.
Jeff Slaten: Scared to death.
Tim Slaten: Scared to death to do anything.
For those first terrifying days, the family slept in the same room — except Grandpa Harris.
Tim Slaten: He would stand guard with a gun all night while we slept.
The grandparents hoped a quick return to familiar routines would help their distraught grandsons. A few weeks after their mom’s funeral, the boys were back in school.
Tim Slaten: And just you know, being with friends and just — just started livin’ life again, I guess. … You know, goin’ back to football.
His teammates, and Coach Joe in particular, were always supportive, always rooting for him, says Tim.
Tim Slaten: And I looked up to this guy. He was my assistant football coach. … Give me rides to the games, rides to practice.
Tim Slaten’s football team photo was taken a month after Linda’s murder. Tim hung it on his bedroom wall as a reminder, he says, of something his mom taught him: to keep moving forward and never give up.
Tim Slaten
Tim’s team football photo hung in his bedroom. It was taken just one month after the murder. The picture was a reminder, he says, of something his mom had taught him: to keep moving forward and never give up.
Jim Axelrod: She was a fighter?
Tim Slaten: Yes. Oh, yes.
Jeff Slaten: She mighta only weighed 100 pounds soakin’ wet, but she was pretty tough.
Judy Butler: Everybody liked her that met her. Everybody was asking her for a date. … Cause she was so young and pretty.
And then Linda met and married Frank Slaten.
Judy Butler: He was a mean, no-count scoundrel.
As detectives searched for the killer, Linda’s ex-husband, Frank Slaten, became a person of interest due to his history of abuse towards her. But investigators eventually seemed satisfied that Frank was home in Alabama on the night of the murder.
Jeff Slaten
The brothers say it’s hard to know when their dad began to beat their mom. The more he drank, the more violent he became.
Jeff Slaten: Yeah, I remember one time I was in the bathroom. He had her by the throat with a gun to her head and I was comin’ there tryin’ to get him off of her. … And I felt like I had saved her that, you know, that night. That day.
Jim Axelrod: But you were just a little guy yourself.
Jeff Slaten: Yeah, I was only … 6-and-a-half, 7 years old.
Frank Slaten’s history of abuse made him a person of interest for Lakeland detectives. But investigators seemed satisfied that Slaten was home in Alabama on the night of the murder. At the time of her death, Linda had a boyfriend. He, too, had a credible alibi. Others were looked at — like the partygoers next door — but no one was charged.
Jeff Slaten: The Lakeland Police Department … they used to come down to take me out of school and they was always interrogating me all the time.
Jim Axelrod: In the early days, it sounds like who the police really were most thorough in checking out —
Jeff Slaten (Jeff raises his hand): Was me.
The Slaten brothers immediately moved in with their grandparents. They had to face a new reality of life without their mom. A few weeks after their mom’s funeral, the brothers returned to school and familiar activities.
Jeff Slaten
As a 15-year-old, Jeff had plenty of typical teen conflicts with his mom, which he readily admitted to detectives — including that heated argument on the last day of her life.
Jeff Slaten: I know they had me, put me on a lie detector test one time. … And I passed it. Then they wanted to do it again. … They was wantin’ to put me under hypnosis.
Jeff Slaten: And then there’s one time, one of the cops … he’s, like … “You got big arms on you. And you’re strong enough to put your hands around your mom’s neck and kill her.”
Jeff Slaten: Wha…who would do that to a kid? I was a 15-year-old kid hurting, and say that to me? I mean, that’s— that’s always hurt.
Finally, Jeff’s grandparents said, “Enough.”
Jeff Slaten: They’s, like, “Get out there and find who killed my daughter. Leave this kid and leave this family alone.”
Two weeks later, according to the Lakeland Police report, Jeff took a second polygraph test and was cleared. At that point, the investigation slowed, then ground to a halt.
As the years passed, Jeff and Tim started their own families. But to this day, there is still grief and guilt for not hearing anything that night — for not coming to their mom’s rescue.
Jeff Slaten: I (would have) died that night tryin’ to save my mom. … I mean, we’re right there in the house. How could you not hear somethin’ like that?
And they lived in fear of the man they called, “The Monster.” Unless he was dead, he was out there … somewhere.
Around the 20th anniversary of their mom’s murder, Jeff and Tim met with Lakeland Detective Brad Grice, who was taking a fresh look at the case.
Det. Brad Grice: Soon as Jeff and Tim walked in the door, I realized I had known Jeff for years, since I was in my twenties … through bowling.
Jeff Slaten: I was, like, “Brad.” (laughs). … Sure enough, I knew him from bowlin’ years ago.
Grice took DNA samples from the brothers to clear them again, then gave Jeff something in return — a promise.
Det. Brad Grice: He made me promise that I wouldn’t retire until I solved his mother’s case. And I wanted to so bad for him and his brother. I did.
Grice had already sent DNA from the Slaten rape kit to the state’s major crime lab at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement — the FDLE.
Jim Axelrod: Do you have any confidence that you could solve it?
Det. Brad Grice: I was hopin’ DNA would, you know? It was becomin’ a big tool.
By March 1999, the FDLE had developed a full DNA profile of Linda Slaten’s anonymous killer.
Jim Axelrod: All you need is a DNA match.
Det. Brad Grice: A hit. … That’s all I needed was a hit in the database.
Detective Grice took dozens of DNA samples from prior persons of interest, submitting them to the FDLE for comparison.
Det. Brad Grice: We were tryin’ everything.
Even the brothers’ father, Frank Slaten — who had stopped drinking — volunteered a sample. None matched.
Then in September 2001, Grice got a tip. Nearly a year after the Slaten killing, a 24-year-old man named Jimmy Ulmer pulled a 10-year-old girl through her bedroom window and nearly killed her.
Det. Brad Grice: He was convicted of that and sentenced to, like, 80 years in prison.
The savage assault seemed eerily similar to the Slaten case. And Detective Grice discovered that, around the time of Linda’s Slaten’s murder, Jimmy Ulmer had been staying with a friend who happened to live in the very sameapartment complex as Slaten.
Jim Axelrod: Hang on. Jimmy Ulmer … was staying in an apartment right across the way from the Slatens?
Det. Brad Grice: Yes.
Jim Axelrod: You must’ve felt like that’s our guy.
Det. Brad Grice: I felt very strong. I did.
Ulmer had died in prison five years earlier in 1996. But Grice got a DNA sample from his mother.
Det. Brad Grice: I honestly felt that when we got the results back that we would know who did it. Then we get the notice that it wasn’t him.
Jim Axelrod: At that point, you must’ve been, like, “We’re never gonna solve this thing.”
Det. Brad Grice: It sure felt that way. It was very discouraging.
Jeff Slaten: You know it’s like, “Oh my God, we’re back to square one again.”
Tim Slaten: It felt like you was on a rollercoaster for pretty much your whole life.
By 2005, 24 years after the murder, Detective Grice was heading up a new cold case unit. And the FBI was running the DNA profile of Slaten’s killer continuously through all federal databanks. But the years continued to pass without a match.
Det. Brad Grice: Jeff would call. And “Jeff, I — I got nothin’ for ya,” you know? … It hurt my heart too, you know?
Grice had a growing suspicion he was chasing a ghost.
Det. Brad Grice: I honestly thought the suspect might be deceased.
He had made that promise to the brothers that he wouldn’t retire until their monster was caught.
Det. Brad Grice: I had some medical things that were poppin’ up.
It was a promise he couldn’t keep. Detective Grice retired in 2015.
Jim Axelrod: There was probably nothing in your professional life you wanted more than to call Jeff Slaten and say, “Got him.”
Det. Brad Grice: Absolutely.
Jeff Slaten: After Detective Brad Grice retired, I’m like, I said, “Well, I’ll probably take my last breath and not know who murdered my mom.” I was already starting to come to terms with it.
But three years later, there was renewed hope. A groundbreaking DNA technology began to electrify the law enforcement community. And Genetic Genealogist CeCe Moore was taking on the Slaten case.
CeCe Moore: I was determined I was going to help these boys find out who killed their mom.
JUNE 2019 | 38 YEARS AFTER THE MURDER
CeCe Moore is a renowned expert in the field of investigative genetic genealogy.
CeCe Moore: If you have that DNA there is no reason you cannot solve that mystery, whatever that mystery is.
During the autopsy, swabs were collected from Linda Slaten that contained semen. Investigators carefully preserved the contents of the rape kit for years to come.Forensic DNA analysis didn’t exist until 1984. Later, it would prove key to solving this case.
Lakeland Police Department
Moore launched her hunt for Linda Slaten’s killer by uploading the anonymous DNA from Slaten’s rape kit to a public genealogy website called GEDMatch. She then meticulously constructed — branch by branch — his genetic family tree.
CeCe Moore: I built the family trees of those people who shared DNA with him. And then I identify common ancestors between those people.
She made those connections by poring over birth certificates, marriage licenses, obituaries and social media to fill in the family tree with names.
Jim Axelrod: It sounds like basically you’re putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle.
CeCe Moore: Yes. My work is constantly putting together puzzles. Piece by piece by piece.
CeCe Moore (referring to section of family tree): These matches all share DNA with each other. So, they’re my first genetic network.
CeCe Moore uncovered three genetic networks — branches of the killer’s family tree that ultimately narrowed to the one person most likely responsible for the murder of Linda Slaten.
CeCe Moore: Fortunately, those three genetic networks converged into one family tree that pointed at one immediate family. And he was the only son in that family. And we knew the killer was a male. So, it had to be him that was the DNA contributor.
After hundreds of leads and dead ends, after dozens of suspects were investigated and cleared, CeCe Moore identified the probable killer in one weekend.
CeCe Moore: There was just one person who was high confidence.
Jim Axelrod: And who was that?
CeCe Moore: Joseph Clinton Mills.
Joseph Clinton Mills — Coach Joe — who drove Linda Slaten’s 12-year-old son, Tim, to and from practice. But authorities wanted to be certain before they notified the brothers.
CeCe Moore: And then there is sort of exhilaration because he’s alive. … And so there’s a real chance for justice and maybe even answers.
CeCe Moore’s final 2019 report confirmed that Joseph Mills, then 58, was living in Kathleen, Florida, about half an hour from the crime scene.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: I reviewed the case, and … I’m like, “I remember that name.” … I remember seeing that name. That — that guy was interviewed.”
Detectives Tammy Hathcock and Russell Hurley were the next generation of Lakeland investigators leading the Slaten cold case.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: I’m telling you, it’s like I won the lottery. I remember grabbing that piece of paper from the report and just running down the hallway to my sergeant saying, “Oh, my God he was interviewed! He was interviewed!”
According to the case file, investigators did question Joseph Mills, then 20 years old, just one day after the murder.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: He was very basically touched. I mean like just a very brief interview.
And it was conducted on the phone, not in person.
The fact that investigators never questioned Mills face to face suggests he was never considered a suspect. During the brief call, Mills acknowledged he had driven Tim Slaten home from football practice on September 3. Just hours later, Linda Slaten was dead.
Jim Axelrod: How was Joseph Mills not followed up on more aggressively in 1981?
Det. Tammy Hathcock: At that point, I mean he was just a football coach that had dropped off Timmy. … He was never on their radar to … be a suspect just based off of the information that they were given by Timmy and by Mr. Mills.
Detectives Hathcock and Hurley discovered that in 1984, Mills had been convicted of grand theft for forging a will. He never went to jail, but police collected fingerprints and palm prints from him. In 2019, investigators compared Mills’ palm print from in 1984 to the palm print that was lifted off Linda Slaten’s windowsill in 1981 and they were a match.
Lakeland Police Department
Joseph Mills was convicted in 1984 of grand theft for forging a will. He never went to jail, but he was fingerprinted. Lakeland police also took a palm print. In August 2019, investigators compared those prints to the palm print Sergeant Pickett lifted off Slaten’s windowsill nearly 38 years before.
Jim Axelrod: When the prints came back, there was a match?
Det. Russell Hurley: Yes.
High-tech genetic genealogy had identified Mills as the likely killer, and an old-fashioned palm print match helped confirm his identity. But Hathcock and Hurley still needed to compare a fresh DNA sample from Mills to the decades-old DNA recovered from the crime scene.
Det. Russell Hurley: ‘Cause we had to get his DNA without his knowledge and see if we can get a match. …We had to do some surveillance.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: It was several weekends that we were following him around …
Det. Tammy Hathcock: … trying to get discarded DNA.
Jim Axelrod: Just looking for a cup that he drank from or a tissue that he used.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: Anything.
After tracking Mills with no luck, the detectives decided it was time to get their hands dirty. They covertly took Mills’ trash back to the police department
Det. Tammy Hathcock: Here we are in dress clothes just digging through trash bags. … Not the most glamorous thing.
They discovered a piece of used medical adhesive tape and sent it off to the FDLE crime lab for testing. After searching Mills’ trash, they dug through his life.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: He’s been married to the same woman. And he lived in the same place.
Det. Russell Hurley: He was a business owner … a cleaning service.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: …he was a truck driver over the years.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: He had a family.
Jim Axelrod: Married, kids
Det. Tammy Hathcock: Married, kids, grandkids.
Eleven days later, the stunning lab results: Joseph Mills’ 2019 DNA found on the medical tape and the 1981 unknown DNA from Linda Slaten’s rape kit were a spot-on match. That’s when the brothers were told the monster had been found.
Jim Axelrod: This guy you last knew as Coach Joe, oh my goodness, it was him.
Tim Slaten: And I had a picture in my house ever since then, and never knew it was him.
“Coach Joe”Mills and Tim Slaten
Tim Slaten
Tim’s 1981 team football photo, a source of pride for years, sickens him today. Because standing directly behind him is the man he once trusted and admired. Coach Joe.
Tim Slaten: I’ve been carrying the killer’s picture in my house this whole time and never had a clue.
Even after the murder, Joseph Mills continued driving Tim to and from football practice — picking him up and dropping him off at his grandparents’ house.
Tim Slaten: He’d ask us how the case was goin’. … He wouldn’t ask questions about it. He just, “Well, any new news or any new leads?” And I was, like, “No, nothing.” You know.
Jim Axelrod: He’s talkin’ to a 12-year-old boy and tryin’ to keep tabs on a murder investigation through the son of the murdered woman?
Jeff Slaten: Yeah.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
Jim Axelrod: When he knows exactly who did it.
Jeff Slaten: He’s a cold-hearted monster, that’s for sure.
On Dec 12, 2019, the detectives moved in, arresting Joseph Mills.
Joseph Clinton Mills was arrested 38 years after Linda Slaten’s murder.
Lakeland Police Department
DET. TAMMY HATHCOCK (sitting next to Mills in backseat of police car): You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law …
Det. Russell Hurley: He was calm, cool, and collected like it was another day on the beach. … Most people’s reaction would be, “Why am I bein’ arrested?”
Jim Axelrod: “Why are you takin’ me in?” You expected some of that?
Det. Tammy Hathcock: Right, some kind of emotion, and nothing.
DECEMBER 2019 | 38 YEARS AFTER THE MURDER
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY (police interview): It’s been 38 years, and I’m sure you go to bed every night thinking about this. I have no doubt in my mind.
Detectives Hathcock and Hurley finally had Joseph Mills right where they wanted him — in the claustrophobic confines of a police interview room.
JOSEPH MILLS (police interview): When I picked the boys up, we — we — we stayed in the vehicle. And I don’t recall going to, in or out of the house, period.
Det. Tammy Hathcock: There’s no way that is the truth. I mean, he’s saying he’s never been in there. … We got him.
DET. TAMMY HATHCOCK (police interview): What we have tells us a different story. OK. You were in that apartment.
Ratcheting up the pressure, the detectives told Mills they had overwhelming evidence placing him inside Linda Slaten’s bedroom.
DET. TAMMY HATHCOCK (police interview): Your fingerprints matches you, the DNA matches you.
During his interrogation, Mills told detectives that Linda Slaten invited him over for consensual sex, which investigators knew was a lie. “I think it’s pretty evident that he targeted her,” Det. Russell Hurley says.
Lakeland Police Department
That’s when Mills’ story began to change.
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY: And then how did you end up crawling through her window?
JOSEPH MILLS: It was like an invitation.
An invitation from Linda Slaten, Mills claimed, for consensual sex — a flat-out lie, say the detectives.
Det. Russell Hurley: He said it was a sex game, that she had the hanger around her neck when he came through the window and she asked him to tighten it down.
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY: And then did you … start applying pressure?
JOSEPH MILLS: Yes.
Det. Russell Hurley: And when I pointed out well the brutality of the hanger and how deep it was into her skin he stuck with the “It was a game.”
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY (to Mills): You purposely killed her. We’re all sittin’ here, we know that.
Jim Axelrod: At the end of the day what happened here?
Det. Russell Hurley: I think it’s pretty evident that he targeted her.
After dropping off Tim from football practice on Sept. 3, 1981, Joseph Mills returned later that night, the detectives say, breaking in through Linda Slaten’s bedroom window. No one heard Mills, they believe, because no one was home. Jeff was still at his grandparents’ house; Linda and Tim were at the party next door.
Det. Russell Hurley: If you look at the crime scene and all that — the hanger obviously came from the closet. … We figured that’s what happened … is he was hiding in the closet.
DET. RUSSELL HURLEY: Were you ever in the closet?
JOSEPH MILLS (long pause): No sir.
In the final moments of her life, the detectives believe that Linda, after saying goodnight to her sons, walked into her bedroom and closed the door — never knowing that Mills was already inside waiting for her. There was no invitation, no consensual sex, they say. Joseph Mills raped and murdered Linda Slaten.
Detective Brad Grice always suspected the killer’s name was buried somewhere in the thick police case file.
Jim Axelrod: Why do you feel that the investigation didn’t circle back to Joseph Mills?
Det. Brad Grice: Well, obviously, I put a lotta that on me now.
Jim Axelrod: You do?
Det. Brad Grice: I do.
The crime lab’s results revealed that Joseph Mills’ DNA on the medical adhesive tape and the unknown DNA recovered from the rape kit were a spot-on match.
Lakeland Police Department
Grice blames himself for not taking a harder look at Joseph Mills — a sentiment notshared by the Slaten brothers. They feel nothing but gratitude to the detective and friend who spent 17 years chasing the elusive killer.
Jeff Slaten: I could tell how — how hard he wanted to solve it.
Jeff Slaten: And I actually named my son after him. My son’s named Brad, too.
Det. Brad Grice: Jeff put a little pressure on me over the years, you know, he did. You can’t retire until you solve this case, and then he named his son after me.
Det. Brad Grice: And honestly, I just wanted to solve this case for them more than anything.
So did this former investigator — 94-year-old Edgar Pickett. The brothers had always wanted to meet him.
Jeff Slaten: So, I wanna thank you for all you did for our mama back then. … If you hadn’t of done it, this monster would still be running free today.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: Sure would, huh?
Jeff and Tim Slaten meet Sgt. Pickett for the first time, thanking him for his role in solving their mother’s murder.
CBS News
It is poignant praise for Sergeant Pickett, who lifted the palm print that helped identify the monster, Joseph Mills.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: That’s the case I can never forget.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett (pointing to his head): It’s up here, I can’t get rid of it.
During his distinguished and trailblazing 29-year career, Sergeant Pickett had seen it all. And yet, it’s the Linda Slaten case that haunts him to this day. He never knew police had questioned a man named Joseph Mills just one dayafter the killing.
Jim Axelrod: You didn’t know for 38 years that he was talked to immediately afterward?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: No, I didn’t.
Instead, Pickett says he was asked to compare prints of a number of black men who were questioned in the days after the murder following neighbors’ reports of suspicious activity.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: They kept pickin’ up a lotta Blacks. And they was given me their prints for me to look at theirs.
It not just haunts, but angers Pickett: Black men were rounded up and fingerprinted, while the White football coach — driving Linda’s sonto and from practice — was never considered a suspect.
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: They just talked to him and let him go.
Jim Axelrod: You’re telling me this case … could’ve been solved in the first days after the murder…if they had just taken a print from Joseph Mills?
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: That’s correct.
Jim Axelrod: There’s a lot of people who came before you. I get it. … But you got a palm print in the windowsill almost immediately. … Wouldn’t you just get some prints from the guy, anybody who had been near the house in the 24 hours prior to the murder?
Det. Russell Hurley: There was no indication that he had been in the house. I mean, all the witnesses said that he dropped the kid off from practice and never got out of the truck, so … The only reason why he was spoke to was because, when they backtrack on the previous 24 hours, he was in that equation
Jim Axelrod: You don’t feel like he slipped through the net?
Det. Tammy Hathcock: No.
Det. Russell Hurley: No.
Joseph Mills’ day of reckoning would finally come 40 years later.
Jeff Slaten: He’s got cold, black, murderin’ eyes, this Joseph Clinton Mills. He just sit there. … Not a word…
FEBRUARY 9, 2022 | 41 YEARS AFTER THE MURDER
Tim Slaten: Our mom was a good person. He took that away from us.
To avoid a trial and a possible death sentence, Joseph Mills pleaded guilty to all charges — including first-degree murder, sexual battery and burglary. At his sentencing, what Linda Slaten’s family wanted most was the answer to one question.
JEFF SLATEN (yelling at Mills in court): Why? I just want to know why, Joe? Why’d you take my mama from me? I loved my mama. We was happy.
Tim Slaten: My blood would start boilin’ every time I look at him.
The brothers, and Aunt Judy, tried to look him in the eye.
Judy Butler: To see if there was any human being in there, to see if he was alive, to see if he had a soul. Never saw it.
His silence infuriated the family. And a few minutes later, so did his comments to the court.
JOSEPH MILLS (in court): I am a good person. I’m not that person that they’re painting me out to be …
CeCe Moore: I think this case made me the angriest out of the hundreds of cases I’ve been involved in because what he did with her children there. … And then the things he said about her.
Jim Axelrod: That she lured him in.
CeCe Moore: Even all these years later he was willing to try to make her look bad, to denigrate the victim, and her boys have to hear that. It’s just sickening.
JUDGE: I will sentence you to life in prison without the possibility of parole …
And just like that, Joseph Clinton Mills was gone — facing four life terms and finally, a measure of justice.
Jim Axelrod: Maybe not full justice in your view.
Tim Slaten: It’s not full justice, by no means.
Tim Slaten: I wanted him to go to trial. … I wanted to see him up on the stand and tell everybody why he did this, and he never did that.
The Slaten brothers feel somecomfort knowing Joseph Mills will never leave prison alive. But there’s still anger, they say, because Mills never took full responsibility for the premeditated rape and murder of their mother. He never apologized. And there were all those years of freedom.
Tim Slaten: He lived his whole life. He raised his family. You know, he had a good life.
The Slaten brothers feel some comfort knowing Joseph Mills will never leave prison alive, but there’s still anger, because Mills never took full responsibility for the premeditated rape and murder of their mother.
Jeff Slaten
It’s the brothers who feel they were handed the far more severe sentence: lifewithout the possibility of growing up with their mom.
Jeff Slaten: She’d still be here today. She’d only be 72, you know? Coulda had her my whole life.
Jeff Slaten: I just wonder what life could have been like to have her.
Jim Axelrod: Any part of you when you think about all of this … at all angry with the way the police handled it, that it took this long to get Joseph Mills?
Tim Slaten: You could look at it that way. I know it’s a lotta hard work behind the scenes that people don’t see that goes on. You know, what they do, the hours upon hours they put in. I mean, you could get mad, but only so much could be done in a day.
CeCe Moore: We owe a huge debt of gratitude to those original crime scene investigators. Because at the time this crime was committed, they didn’t even know DNA was going to be used in criminal investigations. … And so the fact they collected that and then it was stored responsibly and carefully all these years by that department is so important. If that hadn’t happened, we couldn’t have done our work.
Jeff and Tim say they’re determined to move on as best they can, to live life well for their mom and for their families.
The brothers also know they never would have survived their ordeal without each other. They remain extremely close, live just a few miles apart, and share passionate hobbies, like restoring cars.
Jim Axelrod: You give the credit for living this life to the spirit of your mom?
Tim Slaten: Yes.
Jeff Slaten: Most definitely.
“Sure do love you, Mom. I miss you so much every day,” say Jeff Slaten with his brother Tim at their mother’s gravesite.
CBS News
Jeff Slaten: My mom, she’s looking down on us and would want us to live our lives and do good. You know. … And I always think she’s looking down on us. I want to make her proud.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
Jeff Slaten: Want to make her proud.
Tim Slaten: Yes.
The Slaten brothers visit their mother’s grave together often.
Jeff burns a candle next to a portrait of his mother every year on the anniversary of her death.
Produced by Mead Stone. Gabriella Demirdjian is the field producer. Marc Goldbaum and Sara Ely Hulse are the development producers. Nancy Bautista is the broadcast associate. Mead Stone, Greg Kaplan and Grayce Arlotta-Berner are the editors. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Authorities investigating the killings of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death last month say they have received thousands of tips from the public.
In a Saturday update, the Moscow Police Department said it has received more than 2,640 emails to a tip web address, more than 2,770 phone tips and more than 1,000 submissions to an FBI link.
Investigators have collected more than 110 pieces of physical evidence and roughly 4,000 crime scene photos.
But the case remains unsolved. Police have not located the murder weapon nor identified a suspect.
“To assist with the ongoing investigation, any odd or out-of-the-ordinary events that took place should be reported,” Moscow police said Saturday. “Your information, whether you believe it is significant or not, might be the piece of the puzzle that helps investigators solve these murders.”
Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernolde’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were likely stabbed multiple times in their sleep just days before Thanksgiving break, police said.
Their horrific deaths have since rattled Moscow, a college town of some 25,000 people which hasn’t recorded a single murder since 2015, and the nation.
In an attempt to clear up false information that’s been spreading about the case, Moscow police this week debunked several theories.
“There is speculation, without factual backing, stoking community fears and spreading false facts,” the Moscow Police Department said in a news release Friday.
None of the victims in the quadruple homicide were tied and gagged, refuting online reports. A report of a “skinned” dog weeks before the killings is not connected to the case, according to police, and deceased animals left on a resident’s property elsewhere were determined to be wildlife activity.
Additionally, police noted the students’ killings are not related to two other stabbing incidents in neighboring states Washington and Oregon – in 1999 and 2021, respectively – which may “share similarities,” but “there does not appear to be any evidence to support the cases are related,” according to the release.
Police also reassured the public that a September incident which involved an argument between a group of people walking on the University of Idaho bike path and a cyclist, who displayed a folding knife, is not connected to the students’ killings.
“The individual involved turned himself in, and charges were referred to the Moscow City Attorney’s Office,” police said.
And although police have said they don’t know who carried out the killings, they have released information eliminating some people as suspects, most recently a person listed on the lease of the residence where the killings happened, police said Friday.
“They have spoken to this individual and confirmed they moved out prior to the start of the school year and was not present at the time of the incident. Detectives do not believe this person has any involvement in the murders,” Moscow police said.
Police also ruled out the two surviving roommates who were in house at the time of the killings and other people inside the house when the 911 call was made. The person who made the 911 call alerting authorities to the home after the killings has not been identified.
Goncalves and Mogen, two of the victims, were driven home by someone after the pair purchased food from a truck hours before they were killed – authorities have ruled out the driver as a suspect.
Additionally, a man seen in surveillance video from a food truck visited by Goncalves and Mogen, and another man the pair called “numerous times” in the hours before their deaths, were also ruled out as suspects by police.
It remains unclear how close authorities are to releasing information about a potential suspect or suspects. “Only vetted information that does not hinder the investigation will be released to the public,” Moscow police noted Friday.
But some details released by authorities since the start of the investigation have required further clarification.
This week, Moscow police noted and backtracked comments from the Latah County prosecutor that said, “the suspect(s) specifically looked at this residence” and “that one or more of the occupants were undoubtedly targeted.”
Moscow police called that a “miscommunication,” and added: “Detectives do not currently know if the residence or any occupants were specifically targeted.”
On Thursday, Moscow police attempted to clarify the key conflicting information, once and for all.
“We remain consistent in our belief that this was a targeted attack, but investigators have not concluded if the target was the residence or if it was the occupants,” police said.
Authorities have also needed to clarify other information, including initially saying on November 15 that detectives believed the attacks were “isolated” and “targeted” and that the community was not under imminent threat. The following day, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said police were not definitive in concluding the public was not at risk.
Detectives have received testing and analysis of the crime scene evidence from Idaho State Police Forensic Services, and they will continue to receive the results of additional tests, according to police.
“To protect the investigation’s integrity, specific results will not be released,” police said.
Detectives also collected the contents of three dumpsters on the street where the house is located and seized five nearby vehicles to be processed for evidence, according to police.
As for the murder weapon – believed to be a fixed-blade knife – detectives contacted local businesses regarding knife purchases in the days leading up to the killings.
Multiple agencies and law enforcement personnel are investigating the homicides. More than 30 employees including detectives, patrol officers and support staff from the Moscow Police Department are working on the case, police said Friday in the news release.
The FBI has devoted 22 investigators in Moscow, 20 agents through the country and two investigators from the agency’s Behavior Analysis Unit, police said.
Plus, there are 20 Idaho State Police investigators assigned to Moscow, and an additional 15 uniformed troopers are patrolling the community. Forensic services and a mobile crime scene team from the state police are also working the case.
A driver working for FedEx was arrested and charged Friday in the kidnapping and killing of a 7-year-old girl who had disappeared from her home’s driveway in Texas earlier this week, police said.
Athena Strand’s body was recovered Friday evening, Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin said at a news conference.
“It hurts our hearts to know that child died,” Akin said Friday.
“It’s one of the toughest investigations that I’ve been involved in because it’s a child. And anytime there’s a child that dies, it just hits you in your heart,” he said.
Athena was reported missing Wednesday and authorities launched a search for her across Wise County, located northwest of Fort Worth. Authorities believe the young girl was killed within an hour after her kidnapping from her family’s driveway, which is about 200 yards from her home.
Tanner Lynn Horner, 31, is being held in Wise County jail on capital murder and aggravated kidnapping charges, according to its website. Bond was set at $1.5 million, Akin said. It was unclear whether Horner had an attorney Friday.
Horner, identified by authorities as a contract driver for FedEx, was allegedly making a delivery to Athena’s home at the time she disappeared.
Earlier Friday, police say they received a tip that helped investigators determine Horner abducted the child from her driveway.
Strand’s mother, Maitlyn Presley Gandy, said her daughter was taken from her by “a sick, cruel monster for absolutely no reason,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday morning.
“I cannot describe the pain and absolute anger I feel. Missing her doesn’t cover how I feel,” Gandy said in the post accompanying a video of Athena, then age 3. “I want the world to know my baby, my first baby, my first true love, the reason I breathe.”
“Athena is innocent, beautiful, kind, intelligent, and just the brightest, happiest soul you could ever meet. I don’t want her to be the girl known as the one murdered and discarded by a monster,” she added. “I want everyone to know, every single person in this world, that this is my baby and my baby was taken from me. I want everyone to know her face and her voice and just how wonderful of a person she is.”
Athena will be remembered for so much, like her dream of growing up to be a Viking princess with tattoos just like her dad’s, how much she loved her two little sisters, and her love for anything pink, her mother wrote.
Authorities did not indicate a possible motive and said Horner did not know the family or the child, according to Akin.
Athena’s cause of death remains under investigation and her body was transferred to the medical examiner’s office Friday, Akin said.
Gandy shared another Facebook post dedicated to thanking “the hundreds if not thousands of volunteers” and the authorities who helped look for her daughter.
“As a mother, I know no one is as broken as I am…” she wrote, adding that the official agencies who assisted in the investigation “have all cried with me.”
“It takes a special kind of person and whether a child is yours or not, working crime scenes involving children are hard,” she added. “Thank you for finding my baby. I know everyone wishes this would have ended differently.”
In a statement to CNN, FedEx expressed its sympathies and directed further questions to law enforcement.
“Words cannot describe our shock and sorrow at the reports surrounding this tragic event. First and foremost, our thoughts are with the family during this most difficult time, and we continue to cooperate fully with the investigating authorities,” the statement reads.
A 27-year-old man wanted in the killings of a married couple at their home in a community south of Boston earlier this week has been captured in Florida, authorities announced Saturday.
Christopher Keeley was taken into custody at about 8:20 p.m. local time Friday in the city of Miami Beach by local police, according to a news release from the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.
It’s unclear how he was located. The arrest had followed a multiday manhunt for Keeley.
An undated photograph of 27-year-old Christopher Keeley.
Massachusetts State Police
Carl Mattson and Vicki Mattson, both 70, were found “bludgeoned and stabbed” in their Marshfield, Massachusetts, home at about 9:20 p.m. Tuesday by police responding to a request for a well-being check, the district attorney’s office said. They were pronounced dead at the scene.
A dog was also found dead inside the home, the district attorney’s office said.
In a news conference Wednesday, authorities identified Keeley as the suspect in the killings. Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz told reporters Wednesday that Keeley was “acquainted” with the couple, although he did not disclose their exact relationship.
The victims were targeted, and the killings were not a random act of violence, Cruz said. No possible motive was disclosed.
A black Jeep Wrangler that belonged to the victims and Keeley was believed to be driving was found abandoned early Wednesday afternoon. The vehicle was found in a parking lot in Avon, which is approximately 15 miles from Marshfield.
A hearing will be held to determine if Keeley waives rendition, paving the way for him to be transported back to Massachusetts to face charges, the district attorney’s office said Saturday.
Police said Thursday that a sixth person was on the lease of the home where four University of Idaho students were fatally stabbed last month, but they do not believe that person was present during the slayings. George Piro, former assistant director of the FBI International Operations Division, discussed the latest developments in the case.
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A 33-year-old man was arrested on a murder charge in the shooting of rapper Takeoff, who police on Friday said was an “innocent bystander” when he was struck by gunfire outside a Houston bowling alley.
Patrick Xavier Clark was taken into custody peacefully Thursday night, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said. Clark’s arrest came one day after another man was charged in connection with the Nov. 1 shooting, which authorities said followed a dispute over a dice game and wounded two other people.
Clark was being held in jail Friday awaiting a bond hearing. Court records do not list an attorney who could speak for him, but indicate he was arrested as he was preparing to leave the country for Mexico.
This image provided by the Houston Police Dept., shows Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, who has been arrested in the fatal shooting of rapper Takeoff. (Houston Police Dept. via AP).
Born Kirsnick Khari Ball, Takeoff was the youngest member of Migos, the Grammy-nominated rap trio from suburban Atlanta that also featured his uncle Quavo and cousin Offset.
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The 28-year-old musician was shot outside the downtown bowling alley at around 2:30 a.m., when police said a dispute erupted as more than 30 people were leaving a private party there. Police previously said another man and a woman suffered non-life-threatening gunshot injuries and that at least two people opened fired.
Police Sgt. Michael Burrow said during a Friday news conference that the gunfire followed a disagreement over a “lucrative” game of dice, but that Takeoff was not involved and was “an innocent bystander.” Finner said police do not know whether Clark was invited to the party or if he knew Takeoff.
Every person on the scene left without talking to police, Burrow said. Some of those people have since been located by the authorities, who have also worked to piece together events with ballistics, video and audio recordings, according to Burrow. He said investigators are still trying to track down witnesses.
“We will be looking to find you,” he said. “It will be easier if you come find us.”
On Wednesday, authorities announced the arrest of Cameron Joshua in connection to the shooting. Joshua was charged with illegally having a gun at the time Takeoff was shot, but prosecutors said the 22-year-old is not believed to have fired the weapon. Christopher Downey, Joshua’s attorney, told reporters that he has not seen anything to suggest that his client was involved in Takeoff’s killing.
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Burrow said that investigators believe it was Clark’s gunfire that killed the rapper.
Police say Takeoff was ‘innocent bystander’ and ‘not involved’ in argument that led to fatal shooting
Prosecutors on Friday asked a court to set Clark’s bond at $1 million, arguing he is a flight risk. After Takeoff’s shooting, Clark applied for an expedited passport by submitting the itinerary for an “imminent” flight to Mexico, according to court records. They say he was arrested the day he received the passport and was in possession of a “large amount” of cash.
Fans and other performers, including Drake and Justin Bieber, celebrated Takeoff’s musical legacy in a memorial service last month in Atlanta.
Migos’ record label, Quality Control, mourned Takeoff’s death in a statement posted on Instagram that attributed it to “senseless violence.”
Migos first broke through with the massive hit “Versace” in 2013. They had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, though Takeoff was not on their multi-week No. 1 hit “Bad and Boujee,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert. They put out a trilogy of albums called “Culture,” “Culture II” and “Culture III,” with the first two hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
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Takeoff and Quavo released a joint album “Only Built for Infinity Links” just weeks before his death.
Linda Slaten was murdered in Florida in 1981. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Jim Axelrod joins “CBS Mornings” with details on the investigation that eventually led police to a killer almost 40 years later, and a preview of his “48 Hours” report “The Betrayal of Linda Slaten.”
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There are more questions than answers about the murders of four Idaho college students weeks after the killings. Authorities are providing conflicting statements on whether it was a targeted attack. Lilia Luciano reports.
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It’s been more than two weeks since four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death on Nov. 13 at a home in Moscow, Idaho — but so far, police say a suspect or suspects have not been identified.
Here’s what we know so far.
What happened
Police responded to a report of an unconscious person that they received around 11:58 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13. There, members of the Moscow Police Department found four University of Idaho students dead on the second and third floors of the home.
Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle were roommates who lived in the home while the fourth victim, Ethan Chapin, did not live there but was dating Kernodle.
On Saturday night, police said, Chapin and Kernodle were at a party at a Sigma Chi house on the University of Idaho campus. They returned home around 1:45 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13.
Mogen and Goncalves were at a bar called The Corner Club in downtown Moscow that night. They left the bar, stopped at a food truck, and then also returned home at about 1:45 a.m., police said.
The coroner said the victims were likely asleep, some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times, according to police. There was no evidence of sexual assault, police said. The timing of multiple calls to the cellphone of Kaylee Goncalves’ ex-boyfriend places the murders sometime after 3 a.m.
Two other surviving roommates who lived in the house were out separately in Moscow and returned home by 1 a.m. on Nov. 13, according to police. They appear to have slept through the stabbings, police said. Neither was injured and police have said they do not believe the surviving roommates were involved in the killings.
Moscow Police Chief James Fry said the 911 call was made using one of the surviving roommates’ phones, but he would not confirm the caller’s identity.
Who were the victims?
Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was a senior at the university, majoring in marketing. Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho, was also a senior, with a major in general studies.
Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho, was a marketing major and a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. Ethan Chapin, a 20-year-old freshman from Mount Vernon, Washington, was a member of Sigma Chi. He majored in recreation, sport and tourism management, according to the school.
A flyer asks the public for information as police investigate the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in Moscow, Idaho.
LINDSEY WASSON / REUTERS
On the night of Nov. 30, hundreds of people attended a vigil for the slain students on the school’s campus, where family members of the victims spoke.
“The only cure to pain is love — it’s the only thing that’s going to heal us; it’s the only thing that’s going to heal you,” Steve Goncalves, father of Kaylee Goncalves, told the crowd. Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen met as sixth graders and were best friends, Steve Goncalves said.
“They went to high school together, then they started looking at colleges, they came here together. They eventually got into the same apartment together,” Steve Goncalves said. “And in the end, they died together, in the same room, in the same bed.”
Ben Mogen, Madison’s father, said she was his only child, so “everything she ever did was such a big deal.” Talking about “Maddie,” was his pride, Mogen said, and the two loved attending music concerts together.
Ethan Chapin had a brother and sister, and the three were triplets, his mother, Stacy Chapin, said. The family always tried to eat dinner together when time allowed, she said, and Stacy Chapin and her husband spent countless hours taking the kids to various sporting events when they were younger. The triplets chose the University of Idaho because they wanted a small town and a beautiful campus with a thriving Greek system, she said.
What have authorities learned?
Authorities said that so far they have collected “hundreds of pieces of information,” which on Wednesday, Nov. 30, they said included more than 113 pieces of physical evidence. Crime scene investigators took “approximately 4,000 photographs” and conducted “multiple” 3-D scans of the home. In total, investigators have processed “over 1,000 total tips and conducted 150 interviews,” police said on Nov. 23.
On Nov. 30, authorities moved five cars from the crime scene so that they could continue processing evidence. Earlier in the investigation, they had seized the contents of three dumpsters, but said no useful evidence was found.
On Nov. 16, Fry told reporters that investigators believed it was “a targeted attack.” In the ensuing days, however, police did not clarify that comment, or explain how they could make that statement without a suspect.
But in a statement Nov. 30, the department appeared to walk that back while addressing recent conflicting comments made by Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson, who had said at least one of the victims was “undoubtedly targeted” in the attack. The department Wednesday called Thompson’s comments the result of a “miscommunication.” On Thursday, police clarified that they still believed the attack was targeted, “but have not concluded if the target was the residence or its occupants.”
Alivea Goncalves, the sister of victim Kaylee Goncalves, told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on Nov. 28 that police have not given the families any more information.
“Law enforcement is kind of throwing around this word ‘targeted,’ but we don’t know that means, and it almost makes it feel alienating because we don’t have any more information on that,” Goncalves said. “I don’t know who that target was, if it was one of them, if it was all of them. I just don’t know.”
Four University of Idaho students were found murdered at this home in Moscow, Idaho, on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022.
Angela Palermo/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Police said they questioned both a man in a white hoodie who was seen in a video of Mogen and Goncalves at the food truck and the person who drove the two home that night. Police said they do not believe either was involved in the killings.
Police also do not believe Goncalves’ ex-boyfriend is a suspect, despite the early-morning phone calls.
Police Chief James Fry said the 911 call was made using one of the surviving roommates’ phones, but he would not confirm the caller’s identity. In addition to the two surviving roommates, there were “other friends” at the house at the time the 911 call was made, Fry said. He said during a press conference on Nov. 20 — a week after the killings — that police were not sure how many people were in the home when the 911 call was placed and did not clarify when the “other friends” arrived.
Neither the surviving roommates nor the “other friends” have been publicly identified.
Police later clarified in a statement that “the surviving roommates summoned friends to the residence” because they thought one of the victims had passed out and wasn’t waking up. Several people spoke to the 911 dispatcher, police said. None of the people who were in the home at the time the call was made are believed to have been involved in the killings, police said.
Investigators have “looked extensively” into reports that Goncalves had a stalker, Moscow police said. “They have pursued hundreds of pieces of information related to this topic and have not been able to verify or identify a stalker,” police said on Nov. 22.
A murder weapon, which police described as a large fix-blade knife, has not been found.
Police said Dec. 1 that investigators learned of a sixth person who was listed on the home’s lease. However, investigators “do not believe that individual was present during the incident,” police said in a statement. The person was not identified.
The department said on Sunday, Nov. 27, that tips continued to pour in while community members additionally uploaded more than 500 digital submissions to the FBI link seeking information in the case. Dozens of members of the Moscow Police Department, FBI and Idaho State Police have been involved in the investigation, and Gov. Brad Little directed up to $1 million in state emergency funds for the ongoing investigation.
“We understand there is a sense of fear within our community,” Moscow police said.
Although detectives have already used various tips and surveillance videos to rule out potential suspects, they are currently seeking additional tips and surveillance footage of “any unusual behavior” observed during the night of Nov. 12 — while Goncalves and Mogen were out in downtown Moscow and Kernodle and Chapin were at the university’s Sigma Chi fraternity house — and into the early hours of Nov. 13.
As hundreds of students mourned together inside the University of Idaho’s stadium Wednesday night, family members of four slain classmates urged them to raise their eyes from grief and focus on love and the future.
“The only cure to pain is love – it’s the only thing that’s going to to heal us; it’s the only thing that’s going to heal you,” Steve Goncalves, the father of Kaylee Goncalves, told the crowd gathered at the vigil. “That will make a difference, and that’s something they can see where they’re at right now: That you changed your life a little bit, that you’re a little bit nicer, a little bit kinder.”
Some in the crowd held each other and wiped their eyes as they remembered Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington. The four were stabbed to death Nov. 13 at a rental home near campus in the quiet university town of Moscow, Idaho, and law enforcement has yet to name a person of interest in the case. Fears that the killer could strike again has prompted many students to finish the semester by taking online classes from the perceived safety of their hometowns.
A photo of Maddie Mogen, who was one of four University of Idaho students killed on Nov. 13, 2022, is shown as her father, Ben Mogen, speaks on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022, during a vigil for the four students in Moscow, Idaho.
Ted S. Warren / AP
As a result, similar scenes played out across the state as simultaneous candlelight vigils were held in multiple cities. In downtown Boise, several hundred people cupped their hands around candle flames outside a University of Idaho’s building. High schools in some cities lit up their athletic fields in a sign of solidarity. Homeowners were urged to leave their porch lights on as a gesture of support.
Ben Mogen, Madison’s father, told the crowd in Moscow that she was his only child, so “everything she ever did was such a big deal.” Talking about “Maddie,” was his pride, Mogen said, and the two loved attending music concerts together.
“When I would meet people ever since she was first born, and they would say, ‘Tell me about yourself,’ the first thing I would say is, ‘I have this daughter – here’s a picture of her, she’s on the dean’s list at college, she works hard, she has all these friends at her sorority,’” Mogen said.
Madison’s best friend was Kaylee. The girls met as sixth graders, Kaylee’s father Goncalves told the crowd, and were inseparable friends from that moment on.
Steve Goncalves talks about his daughter, Kaylee Goncalves on Nov. 30, 2022, during a vigil in Moscow, Idaho.
Ted S. Warren / AP
“They went to high school together, then they started looking at colleges, they came here together. They eventually got into the same apartment together,” Steve Goncalves said. “And in the end, they died together, in the same room, in the same bed.”
“It’s a shame and it hurts, but the beauty of the two always being together comforts us,” he said.
Xana Kernodle’s family was unable to attend the vigil.
Ethan Chapin’s mother, Stacy Chapin, fought back tears as she said she was there with her husband and with Ethan’s triplet brother and sister.
Like other families, the Chapin family always tried to eat dinner together when time allowed and spent countless hours taking the kids to various sporting events when they were younger. The triplets chose the University of Idaho because they wanted a small town and a beautiful campus with a thriving Greek system, she said.
Now, despite the terrible circumstances of Ethan’s death, the family is “eternally grateful that we spent so much time with him,” Chapin said.
“That’s the most important message we have for you and your families – it’s make sure that you spend as much time as possible with those people, because time is precious and it’s something you can’t get back,” Chapin said.
Little new information has been released about the investigation into the killings and a suspect has not been identified. A county coroner said the four were likely asleep when they were attacked. Investigators have yet to find the fixed-blade knife used in the killings.
Ben Mogen, father of victim Madison Mogen, speaks during a vigil at the University of Idaho for four students found dead in their residence on November 13 in Moscow, Idaho, U.S., November 30, 2022.
LINDSEY WASSON / REUTERS
Police said Tuesday that detectives have now moved five vehicles from the crime scene to a storage location where they will continue to examine them and process evidence. Video posted by Fox News showed the snow-covered cars being towed away.
Gov. Brad Little announced last week that he was directing up to $1 million in state emergency funds for the investigation. The FBI has assigned 44 people to the case – half of them stationed in Moscow – and the Idaho State Police has 15 troopers helping with community patrols and another 20 investigators working the case.
Local law enforcement agencies have seen an uptick in calls reporting suspicious behavior.
“We understand there is a sense of fear in our community,” the Moscow Police Department wrote on Nov. 27. Since the killings, the number of people requesting welfare checks, in which an officer is sent to check on a person’s wellbeing, has doubled.
The university has also seen an increase in people calling its “Vandal Care” phone line to report that they were struggling or worried someone else was struggling with an issue, the university’s Dean of Students Blaine Eckles said earlier on Wednesday.
“While I personally am very confident that the police will resolve (the deaths), until that happens, no one is resting easy,” he said. “There’s someone out there that took the lives of four of our Vandals, and we don’t know who they are. We don’t know where they are.”
An emotionally shaken family member of the three people allegedly murdered last week by a man who abducted a 15-year-old he had met online warned that the tragedy is a cautionary tale for parents.
“Catfishing led to the deaths of the three most important people in my life — my dad, my mom and my sister,” Michelle Blandin said in a news conference on Wednesday. “When you are talking to your children about the dangers of their online actions please use us as a reference. Tell our story to help your parenting. Not out of fear, but out of example of something that did happen.”
Police say 28-year-old Austin Lee Edwards, who became a Virginia law enforcement officer just this year, drove across the country to meet the teen girl in Riverside, California.
“We don’t know if this was the first physical encounter they had,” said Ryan Railsback, Riverside Police Department’s public information officer. “We also don’t know yet if she knew that he was coming to California.”
Last Friday, a neighbor called police saying the teen looked distressed while getting into a car with Edwards. Soon after, a fire erupted at the family’s home. Investigators found the bodies of Mark, Sharie and Brooke Winek inside.
“Everyone who was there and responded, including fire, the officers, the detectives, it was disturbing to look at,” Railsback said. “It’s gruesome.”
Edwards died by suicide, according to the San Bernardino County Coroner, after an exchange of gunfire with police, who say he pretended to be 17 online. Police have launched an extensive digital investigation.
The 15-year-old, who is Blandin’s niece, also has a sister who was not home at the time she was taken. The 15-year-old remains in the care of child protective services and is undergoing extensive trauma counseling.
“Nobody could imagine this crime happening to our family, especially one day after Thanksgiving,” Blandin said.
A former Virginia state trooper is accused of driving across the country to meet a teenage girl in California, murdering her family and then kidnapping her before police killed him. Nikki Battiste shares more.
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Mexican authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a woman suspected of fatally assaulting Shanquella Robinson while the two were on vacation last month in San Jose del Cabo. Lilia Luciano has the latest on the investigation.
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The prior arrest of the 22-year-old suspected gunman who allegedly opened fire in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub last weekend has put the spotlight on a state law which can be utilized to temporarily remove gun access from those deemed a danger to themselves or others.
Colorado’s controversial red flag law, also known as an extreme risk protection order, allows law enforcement, family members or a roommate to petition a judge to temporarily seize a person’s firearms if they are deemed a risk. But one caveat is they must start the process.
If the public is uninformed of the potential risk, or rejects gun control measures, or law enforcement refuses to enforce the law, it could be rendered useless, some observers said.
The year before Anderson Lee Aldrich, whose attorneys say uses they/them pronouns, allegedly entered Club Q with an AR-style weapon and a handgun, killing five people and injuring at least 19 others, they were arrested in June 2021 on two counts of felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping, according to a news release from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office at the time.
Aldrich allegedly threatened to harm their mother with a homemade bomb and other weapons. But no charges were filed, and the case has since been sealed. It is unclear why the records were sealed.
When asked last week why the red flag law was not used in Aldrich’s case, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said it was “too early” to say.
“I don’t have enough information to know exactly what the officers knew,” Weiser said.
The sheriff’s office did not respond to requests for comment, but it does not appear that anyone, including law enforcement, triggered the process to obtain an extreme risk protection order after Aldrich allegedly made the threat.
Law enforcement sources told CNN the suspect purchased the two weapons brought to Club Q, however, police have not provided details about when the transaction took place. Aldrich’s arrest in connection to the bomb threat would not have shown up in background checks, according to the law enforcement sources.
It is unclear whether the state’s red flag law could have been used in Aldrich’s case, or if, ultimately, it would have prevented the mass shooting last weekend.
Following the 2021 arrest, there was an indication Aldrich was someone who posed a risk of harm, Jeffrey Swanson, a professor at Duke University School of Medicine Duke University School of Medicine who led the research group that published the first evaluations of red flag laws, told CNN.
“The law could have been used. It’s a great sort of parable of how you can pass a law and if it’s not implemented or used, it’s not going to do any good,” he continued.
Red flag laws can be useful in cases where an individual shows an inclination to harm themselves or others or have had encounters with police, but charges were never pursued, according to Swanson.
“It’s designed for cases where there’s a clear indication of someone who poses an imminent risk to others or themselves, but otherwise would be qualified to buy a gun,” he said.
The law allows for a type of restraining order, which does not have any criminal penalties associated with it, unless a person violates the order, according to Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Under the law, a court can issue an order valid for up to a year, restraining a person from accessing guns if the petitioner has met the “standard of proof” to demonstrate a credible and substantial risk, said Anderman, who worked with Colorado lawmakers as they were drafting the bill.
“It’s minimally invasive, yet it restrains a person from obtaining lethal weapons if they’re in a period of crisis,” Anderman told CNN. “And when the laws are used, they work.”
Extreme risk laws have been shown to reduce firearm suicide rates in Connecticut by 14% and Indiana by 7.5%, according to the Giffords Law Center, data up to 2015.
After the 2021 arrest, Aldrich was booked into the El Paso County Jail, the same facility where they were transferred on Tuesday after the Club Q shooting. El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs, has openly rejected the state’s red flag law.
During the debate in 2019 over the Colorado bill, opponents argued the law would allow vindictive people to take guns away from others for no good reason, CNN previously reported.
The formal legal process to temporarily remove a person’s firearms if they are deemed a risk to themselves or others under the state’s law, which went into effect in 2020, has never been initiated by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, according to reporting by The Colorado Sun.
Sgt. Jason Garrett, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, told the Sun Wednesday the office has never requested an extreme risk protection order but did not respond to a question asking why it has not been used, according to the Sun.
El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder, who declined an interview request from The Sun, publicly denounced the law in 2019, telling CNN affiliate KOAA that it violates citizens’ constitutional rights.
“We’re going to be taking personal property away from people without having due process,” Elder told KOAA.
“We’re not going to pursue these on our own, meaning the sheriff’s office isn’t going to run over and try to get a court order,” Elder told KOAA in 2019. However, Elder said if a judge issues an order, “then it is up to law enforcement to execute that order.”
CNN has reached out to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office for comment but did not receive a response.
In 2019, a year before the law came into effect, the Board of El Paso County Commissioners approved a resolution to designate the county a so-called Second Amendment Sanctuary. The county was among dozens in the state to make the declaration, pledging to “actively resist” the bill, arguing it violates Second Amendment rights.
“It’s a highly suspect action from beginning to end,” said Robert Spitzer, a professor in the political science department at SUNY Cortland, referring to the county’s decision to declare itself a Second Amendment Sanctuary. “But it raises the question of whether the police, if they had information, would be willing to take action on their own.”
Spitzer said the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement, prompted by the enactment of the red flag law in Colorado, “really has nothing to do with actual law and a lot more to do with a statement of political defiance.”
There is a “very big question mark” on whether the sanctuary declaration had a tangible effect on law enforcement in the county or not, Spitzer said. “But the implication certainly suggests that it could have,” he added.
One of the major reasons red flag laws are not enforced is because people are not aware of them or do not know what steps to take when someone shows signs of dangerous behavior.
“It’s incumbent on the stakeholders, officials in a state when a law is passed, to have careful thought and some investment and thinking about how to implement this,” said Swanson. “It involves educating the right people about it and law enforcement are key.”
In his response to a question about red flag laws last week, after the Club Q shooting, Colorado Attorney General Weiser said state officials are “working hard to educate and to bring more awareness about the Red Flag Law.”
“We’ve got to do better and we’re going to work on educating law enforcement to make sure that again, for everyone who is [a] responsible gun owner, this red flag law is not about you. This is about people who are dangerous, who we know should not have firearms,” Weiser added.
Another barrier to the law can be police discretion, according to Spritzer. The nature of policing relies on a “great deal of discretion,” which allows officers to decide whether to give a speeding ticket, for example, or not to use an existing law because they don’t support it.
“It opens the door to perhaps not enforcing laws that could have a profound effect on people’s lives and safety,” Spritzer said.
People who have an involuntary commitment history from years ago are banned from buying or possessing firearms, even if they aren’t dangerous. But those who are alienated, display anger, impulsivity or an inclination to harm others might not have a record that disqualifies them from buying a gun, Swanson said.
“What do we know about people who have impulsive anger and possess a gun? If you could think about that compared to the tiny group of people who are getting these risk protection orders, there’s a long way to go,” Swanson said.
“It’s just too small a pebble to make much of a ripple in such a big pond,” he added.
When Josh SanSoucie went for a sleepover at a friend’s house back in 1998 at the age of 15, he had no idea he would land in the middle of a murder investigation. More than 20 years later, Josh, now 39 years old, is giving his first TV interview to “48 Hours” about that night in Hopewell, Missouri that changed his life forever and landed his friend in prison.
In the early hours of Dec. 5, 1998, Michael Politte, then 14, says he found his mother’s body lying on her bedroom floor on fire.
Washington County Sheriff’s Department
The story begins on Dec. 4, 1998, when Josh SanSoucie and his schoolmate, then-14-year-old Michael Politte, met up at a general store in the small town of Hopewell, Missouri, where they lived. Michael invited Josh to sleep over and the pair headed to Michael’s house to play chess and video games. When they got bored around midnight, they say they headed down to the railroad tracks near Michael’s house and Michael set a fire, something Michael says the kids in his rural neighborhood often did for fun. It wasn’t long before the boys say they returned to Michael’s house. Soon after, Michael’s mom, 40-year-old Rita Politte, returned home from working at a local bar and everyone turned in for bed. Michael and Josh say that just before 6:30 a.m., they awoke to a smoke-filled house. The pair say they crawled towards the front door, while Michael yelled for his mom. He didn’t get a reply.
“Michael, what are you feeling at this point?” asked Moriarty.
“Panic, fear,” Michael replied.
When Michael approached his mother’s room, he says he was met with a grisly sight: “I seen her laying. … I seen blood on her legs, and she was on fire from the waist up. … I didn’t know what to do.”
Rita Politte, 40, was bludgeoned and set on fire — all while her son and a friend said they were sleeping a couple of rooms away.
Politte family
Rita Politte had been brutally murdered — bludgeoned and set on fire — all while the two teens said they were sleeping a couple of rooms away. Both Josh and Michael were questioned by authorities repeatedly in the hours and days following the murder. They both denied any involvement, but two days after the crime, Michael was arrested for his mother’s murder. Investigators said Michael Politte showed a lack of emotion in the wake of the crime. They also said an accelerant sniffing dog alerted to Michael’s shoes on the morning of the murder, and that he failed a voice stress test. Voice stress tests are controversial, and the results are often inadmissible in court.
Also, prior to Michael Politte’s arrest, Josh SanSoucie gave a videotaped interview to police that seemed to poke a hole in Michael’s account of the evening. Josh had slept on the floor next to where Michael had been sleeping in his bed. In that videotaped interview, Josh indicated that he woke up to a noise in the middle of the night, and Michael wasn’t in the room.
“I don’t remember ever saying that,” Josh SanSoucie told “48 Hours” in his first television interview since then. “And I feel like if I said that, then it was maybe at a weak point or something.”
Josh now says that although he did wake up briefly in the night, he never saw Michael missing from the room. He told “48 Hours” that the police questioning was so relentless that he remembers telling his mom at the time, “They keep saying that I’m lying. I don’t even know if I’m telling the truth anymore.”
In a deposition before Michael went on trial, Josh did clarify his statement. Josh said that he never sat up from where he was sleeping on the floor and that, “It’s not that I did not see him in his bed. It’s I couldn’t see him in his bed.”
In January 2002, three years after the crime, Michael Politte’s trial began. The prosecution presented evidence that an accelerant had been used to set Rita Politte on fire and the jury was told how an accelerant had been detected on Michael’s shoes. The jury also heard about that fire Michael had set on the railroad tracks prior to the murder.
But perhaps the most damaging evidence against Michael at trial was the prosecution’s claim that Michael had confessed to the crime during a suicide attempt while incarcerated. Three witnesses who worked at the juvenile detention center wrote in reports that Michael said, “I haven’t cared since … I killed my mom.” But Michael maintains he said, “I haven’t cared since they killed my mom,” alluding to whoever the real killer(s) might be. The jury did not hear from Michael, however, because when it was the defense’s turn to present their case, he didn’t take the stand. Instead, the defense argued there was no direct evidence tying Michael to the crime: no murder weapon had been found and, despite the violence of the attack, Michael had no injuries and no blood on his clothing.
Josh SanSoucie did not testify, and the jury never heard or saw his videotaped interview with police.
After a three-day trial, the case went to the jury. Deliberations lasted over four hours and then the jury found Michael Politte guilty of second-degree murder. He was later sentenced to life in prison.
Although the trial was over, Michael Politte’s fight to clear his name wasn’t. Five years after his conviction, Michael wrote to the Midwest Innocence Project, and they agreed to take on his case. The organization worked on it for years and, eventually, attorneys Tricia Bushnell, Megan Crane and Mark Emison became involved.
Michael Politte’s new team of defense attorneys picked apart the case against him.
“Mike was convicted because he was a kid, pure and simple,” Megan Crane told “48 Hours.” “They said … he wasn’t emotional enough. … Trauma doesn’t look like what people think it should look like.”
Michael’s new attorneys also identified what they say are problems with the scientific evidence used to convict Michael, starting with the prosecution’s claim that an accelerant was used to set Rita on fire. They say there is no proof an accelerant was used in the commission of the crime.
The attorneys also say that there is no proof of an accelerant being present on Michael’s shoes. Instead, attorney Mark Emison says a chemical used in the shoe manufacturing process was wrongly identified as gasoline and even the Missouri state crime lab agrees. In a 2020 letter, the crime lab says, “… it is now known that solvents found in footwear adhesives have similarities to gasoline. … But that in the late 1990s, this knowledge was not widely known.”
Michael Politte claims he knows who is really responsible for his mother’s murder. His attorneys believe police didn’t properly investigate the crime, and they have filed court documents that name alternative suspects.
In April 2022, after serving 23 years behind bars, Michael Politte walked out of prison. Incarcerated at just 14-years-old, he was now 38.
CBS News
For years, Michael’s team of lawyers fought unsuccessfully to get his conviction overturned but then in 2021, there came an unexpected development. A bill passed in Missouri giving juvenile offenders convicted of serious crimes a second chance. As a result, Michael was granted parole. In April 2022, he walked out of a Missouri state prison. Incarcerated at just 14-years-old, he was now 38. But Michael tells Moriarty in this week’s “48 Hours” that his freedom is not enough because he still has a felony conviction for his mother’s murder on his record. He remains committed to clearing his name and is hopeful.
Josh Hedgecorth, the current prosecutor of Washington County, Missouri, where the murder took place, filed a motion on May 16, 2022, asking for Michael’s conviction to be overturned. Hedgecorth agrees with Michael’s defense team that the scientific evidence used to convict Michael is problematic.
“To me, it all — always comes back to the science,” says Hedgecorth.
Hedgecorth has revealed to “48 Hours” that the Washington County Sheriff’s Department has reopened the investigation into Rita’s murder.
“We wanna do the right thing. If someone else did this, we wanna know that,” Hedgecorth tells Moriarty. “Even if it’s new evidence that it was Michael.”
Despite Michael’s optimism that his name will eventually be cleared, his case just got more complicated. Earlier this month, Hedgecorth lost his bid for reelection. And just this week, the Missouri Supreme Court temporarily halted Hedgecorth’s effort to overturn Politte’s conviction.
Josh SanSoucie says he feels badly for Michael and his family. Thoughts of “what if” have haunted Josh for all of these years. The night of the sleepover, Michael had asked Josh if he would rather sleep on the couch in the living room, or in Michael’s bedroom on the floor.
“Is there anything you would have done differently when you look back?” Moriarty asks.
“I wish I … slept on the couch,” Josh replies.
If an intruder came in through the front door, they would have had to pass by the couch to enter Rita’s room. If that is what happened, Josh believes that person may have seen him and left. “You think if you had slept on that couch, Rita would still be alive?” Moriarty asks. Josh replies that he does.
Michael told “48 Hours” that he wants Josh to know that he feels that Josh didn’t do anything wrong. The pair haven’t seen each other since they were kids, but they hope to reunite one day. “He didn’t do it,” Josh told Moriarty. “I don’t know who did, but I know it wasn’t him.”
Almost two weeks after the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, police are still searching for clues and asking the public for help.
Investigators are reviewing more than 260 digital submissions – including videos and photos – by the public to an FBI link, the Moscow Police Department said Friday night.
Detectives are requesting all available videos, whether there appears to be motion and content or not, police said in a news release late Friday.
The four students – Ethan Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Madison Mogen, 21 – were found stabbed to death in a Moscow home on November 13, and police still have not found a suspect or the murder weapon, believed to be a fixed-blade knife.
Goncalves and Mogen were at a sports bar the night of the murders, and Chapin and Kernodle were at a fraternity party. Two roommates were at the home when the four bodies were found. Police say they don’t believe the roommates were involved in the murders.
“Detectives are also seeking additional tips and surveillance video of any unusual behavior on the night of November 12th into the early hours of November 13th while Kaylee and Madison were in downtown Moscow and while Ethan and Xana were at the Sigma Chi house,” the release said. “Anyone who observed unusual behavior near these areas or has video surveillance is asked to submit their tips.”
Investigators have sent 113 pieces of physical evidence they collected to the Idaho State Police crime lab for analysis, Moscow police said in the Friday update.
Police said earlier this week that they’ve combed through more than 1,000 tips and interviewed more than 150 people.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little has committed up to $1 million for expenses related to the ongoing investigation, Idaho State Police Col. Kedrick Wills said during a press conference earlier this week.
“Like all Idahoans, Governor Little is deeply saddened by the loss of these four bright and promising young lives,” Wills said. “And he’s making sure the State of Idaho provides all of the resources possible to ensure that the person or persons responsible for this are brought to justice.”
More than 45 investigators from the FBI, state police and Moscow police are involved in the murder case.
Authorities have said they have not ruled out that more than one person may have been involved in the killings. Police believe the attack was targeted.
The murders are the first in Moscow since 2015 and have rattled the town and the university campus with 9,300 students. Some professors canceled classes last week. One wrote on social media he “can’t in good conscience hold class” until police release more information or identify a suspect.
While students were on fall break this week, university President Scott Green sent a note to students and employees Tuesday about learning options. When classes resume, there will be two weeks left in the semester.
“Faculty have been asked to prepare in-person teaching and remote learning options so that each student can choose their method of engagement,” he wrote. “Moving courses fully online is not preferred but may be necessary in limited situations.”
While rumors surrounding the murders swirl through the town of about 25,000, police have said they will only release vetted information that does not hinder the investigation.
“There is speculation without factual backing, stoking community fears and spreading false facts” Friday’s release stated. Police are encouraging the public to reference “official releases for accurate information and updated progress” on the investigation.
