True Crime Vault: The Woman in the Suitcase

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Speaker 1 Welcome to the True Crime Vault, home to 2020's most chilling stories.

Speaker 3 This young lady vanished into thin air. So that was the intriguing part.
That was the piece of the puzzle that we had to solve first.

Speaker 2 It's the last we see of her. Pretty much somebody dumped her out there.
To die. Yes.

Speaker 5 The memory was not clear because I was in pain, in too much pain. My head was not working.

Speaker 2 This woman had a horrific assault. She has no clue what the heck happened to her.

Speaker 1 Were you thinking at any point that this case is just unsolvable?

Speaker 7 You take whatever clue you have.

Speaker 9 It might take you to a dead end, might take you to a blind alley, but it might take you to the promised land.

Speaker 11 Ken Brennan picks up on this one little piece of information that everyone else missed.

Speaker 12 This was the defining moment in the whole case, right here.

Speaker 1 This is a pretty bizarre theory.

Speaker 15 They're looking at me like, what the hell kind of an investigator are you?

Speaker 5 I tried to bring myself back into the accident and see if I can remember something else.

Speaker 2 Wow. Wow, Israeli, you gotta be kidding me.

Speaker 18 Right now, the temperature's as cool as Homestead at 70 and as warm as 74 in Miccosukee. Should be a very good beach day.
Sun's up at 6:51.

Speaker 1 This was one of those cases that just sort of grabs you by the throat. It's just a complete mystery.

Speaker 2 It's about 8:15, 8:30 in the morning. The sun's starting to come up.

Speaker 3 You've got a Florida Power and Lightworker driving up the street

Speaker 17 and he notices what he thinks is a body.

Speaker 2 A white female, blonde hair, nude, battered up, unconscious, lying on the side of the road.

Speaker 2 But she was dumped out and left for dead.

Speaker 1 This mystery woman who's just sort of turned up out of nowhere. Clearly a crime has happened and they don't know what to make of this at this point in the game.

Speaker 1 The woman was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition. Miami-Dade Detective Alan Foote was the one who got this case.

Speaker 2 She had cuts on her face. She has swollen jaws, bruises on her body.

Speaker 2 She was unconscious for almost 24 straight hours. I started out by going out and knocking door to door in the area.

Speaker 1 I didn't see anything or heard anything.

Speaker 17 There's no clothing or anything that would distinguish who she is.

Speaker 2 We've got no identification. I've got a Jane Doe on my hands.
I'm running into nothing.

Speaker 1 And now the big question for investigators: who is this woman and what happened to her?

Speaker 20 A day passed as investigators waited to see if she was going to regain consciousness.

Speaker 5 I remember

Speaker 2 voices around me.

Speaker 5 Somebody asked me what was my name.

Speaker 5 I had a lot of pain. I was in pain.
Very, very, very painful. Painful.

Speaker 20 At first, it's almost impossible for her to speak, but she can write.

Speaker 2 When she came to, I get a phone call telling me that she's written some things down on a piece of paper.

Speaker 2 Her name is Ina Putnitska.

Speaker 2 She's Ukrainian. She wasn't particularly adept with English.
Ina had been working for a cruise ship line.

Speaker 5 I wanted to have an occupation in my life. I want to be someone.

Speaker 1 But I guess

Speaker 5 it's all change.

Speaker 2 One of the things she writes down is my attorney's name is this and a phone number.

Speaker 1 Why did she write attorney? Did she need an attorney? Had she done something? What was that all about? So that was kind of the mystery number one.

Speaker 2 I did not know whether she was involved in something civil or something criminal. But for someone to ask for an attorney as a victim right off the bat does throw a red flag.
I didn't know nobody.

Speaker 5 I have a salon up here. So the only one person who I knew, that was my attorney.

Speaker 6 She was trying to reconstruct the events of probably the most horrific thing that can happen to anybody, much less a visitor to a strange country.

Speaker 2 Her attorney basically tells me she has a civil lawsuit from an injury she sustained while working for the cruise line.

Speaker 5 My finger was cut and I was signed off of the ship for the medical treatment.

Speaker 2 She was recovering from this injury

Speaker 2 and the cruise ship line had put her up in the hotel where she was just biding her time until the wound healed.

Speaker 11 The first break Detective Foote has in this case is that the hotel where she is staying has a rather sophisticated extensive surveillance camera system.

Speaker 21 We have 16 cameras covering the whole perimeter of the hotel including parking lot, the entrance, the exits, the lobby, the restaurant, the lobby bar, the front desk. the back exits.

Speaker 21 Those cameras have a motion sensor detector and then we have two security guards at night and on duty so we can see you know anybody or anything that happens in the perimeter of the hotel.

Speaker 11 So Detective Foot starts to look at the cameras.

Speaker 2 Now where's the guard shack?

Speaker 3 Up here? AC here?

Speaker 11 Frame by frame to see if he can capture his victim and also anybody else that might have interacted with her inside the hotel.

Speaker 2 There's no video cameras in the hallways. They don't do that for privacy of your guests.
There's no video cam in the elevator. So all you have to rely on is the exterior and the interior lobby.

Speaker 1 In the hospital, slowly, Ina is beginning to fill in a few blanks about what what happened to her on the night of the attack.

Speaker 5 I left in the hotel. I went outside with my friend for dinner.
Her fun.

Speaker 5 We stayed there a while, had some drinks.

Speaker 2 We were able to place her coming back to the hotel at approximately 11.30 midnight. There's no mistaking her.

Speaker 20 The security cameras catch her leaving again at 3.33 a.m. in a red jacket and then returning at 3.40.

Speaker 1 Did that strike you as odd that she's going and coming in the middle of the night?

Speaker 2 I mean, she could explain that.

Speaker 5 I went to the gas station to buy a phone card. I'm very close with my mother.
I used to call her very often back in Ukraine. I love her and I miss her.
She misses me.

Speaker 1 After running her errands, Ina returns to the hotel lobby at about 3.41 a.m.

Speaker 1 and she's never seen by those cameras again.

Speaker 2 It's the last we see of her. So that's how we believe she was attacked in the hotel.
The only chance that you have of sorting out what happened to her is when she starts talking.

Speaker 5 The memory was not clear because I was in pain, in too much pain. My head was not working, absolutely.
I was in shock. I couldn't stand up and I could not walk.

Speaker 5 It was very cold, if I remember.

Speaker 2 It was like very, very cold

Speaker 5 and dark and cold.

Speaker 2 The fragments of memory that she had didn't add up in any significant way.

Speaker 1 The biggest mystery, of course, is how did she get out of the hotel? Do you come up with any theories?

Speaker 2 I was looking for anything. I'm looking in her room over the balcony.
I'm looking in the bushes to see if a body was thrown over and there was a body imprint or maybe she was lowered by rope.

Speaker 2 But all of the possible explanations didn't check out. The effort to find out who had done this to her was really hung up on the question of how had she

Speaker 2 ended up eight miles away in the weeds.

Speaker 1 They just have questions here, very few answers. Is she somehow involved in this?

Speaker 20 Is there something in her life that wasn't revealed? Somebody she knows? Is it somehow tied to the hotel?

Speaker 1 This investigation is yielding nothing. Investigators are still trying to figure out who would have attacked this woman and left her for dead in a field.

Speaker 1 Detective Alan Foote is becoming frustrated.

Speaker 2 I start following other leads, suspects in the case.

Speaker 11 Investigators identify the person that she was out with the night she disappeared, Peter Demoulius, who's a Greek national, and he also works on a cruise ship.

Speaker 2 The police, they

Speaker 24 ask me what happened within.

Speaker 2 He told me that they went out to the Coconut Grove area where they went bar hopping. They had quite a few drinks.
And eventually, about 10 o'clock that night, they caught a cab back to his apartment.

Speaker 2 He gets out and then she takes the cab to her hotel room.

Speaker 26 Why I have to worry? I don't worry.

Speaker 24 I know I am not on the guy.

Speaker 11 Police look into Peter's background. They realize that several months prior, Peter was actually arrested for a dispute between the two of them at a nightclub in Miami.

Speaker 2 Peter felt that there were some unsavory characters there and wanted her to leave.

Speaker 2 So she did not want to leave and he kind of grabbed her by the arm and they got into a little argument and an officer working security arrested him for domestic violence.

Speaker 1 Did that make him a suspect in your mind?

Speaker 2 Partially.

Speaker 1 But then there are people in the hotel that they're also looking at.

Speaker 1 There is the night manager, George Perez. What does he know?

Speaker 2 The very first time I met George Perez, he looked at me and said, oh my god, I hate cops.

Speaker 1 Pretty blunt, pretty honest.

Speaker 2 Oh yeah, I'm used to it.

Speaker 17 Was Was I nervous? Absolutely, I would have every right to be.

Speaker 1 So they're taking a good look at George Perez because, first of all, he has this hostile attitude. He doesn't like cops.
He's made that very clear. But then there's videotape of him talking to Ina.

Speaker 1 You can see her arm in this surveillance camera where clearly she's had conversations with him.

Speaker 2 He left the front desk unattended and went into the elevator with the victim and was gone for approximately 15 minutes and then came back down alone.

Speaker 2 I asked him why he was going in the elevator with Ina and he told me she was a little intoxicated.

Speaker 11 George has a master key to every room in the hotel and so it was important to sort of timeline him the night she disappeared.

Speaker 17 She had had a few drinks out with her friends and I could tell that she was a little bit intoxicated. So I escorted her, made sure she got in the room safely, came back down to my post.

Speaker 1 Did she look intoxicated on the tape to you?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 with that, he became my second suspect.

Speaker 11 By now in the investigation, the police realized that not only was she severely beaten, but she was also raped.

Speaker 11 And so now they believe they have the DNA of a suspect.

Speaker 20 So now investigators go back to that friend and the hotel manager to get their DNA, to see if it was a match.

Speaker 17 They had asked me if I would be subject to a DNA sample, which I voluntarily agreed to without a problem.

Speaker 24 Also, I don't afraid about all that.

Speaker 1 And then, finally, they think they might actually have a little bit of a break here. Ina is beginning to remember.
Fragments of that night are starting to come into focus.

Speaker 5 I saw dreams, I saw nightmares.

Speaker 5 For me, it was very difficult to realize what was the reality, what was not the reality.

Speaker 1 What did she say about who she thought had assaulted her?

Speaker 2 There were two white gentlemen. I don't think she could give me an age.
They were either Hispanic or European accents.

Speaker 5 I remember, I guess, at least two other people.

Speaker 5 I don't remember the faces.

Speaker 5 I remember like a noise and I remember a person like standing over you, putting like a pillow or something and then it's dark you know it's just like a feeling that you cannot breathe.

Speaker 2 Ina's memory was very iffy and she kept coming up with slightly different versions of what she thought might have happened so they did try hypnotism. They tried everything they could think of.

Speaker 20 One memory she has is of being taken down the back stairs of the hotel, out the door, and put into a car.

Speaker 5 And I remember that something is going down, down and down, like somebody cares you

Speaker 2 and like you're going down, down, down, down.

Speaker 5 It's like a flash, just a small flashes of the memory.

Speaker 2 She also said that she had vague memories of being sexually assaulted in a car.

Speaker 5 I remember a laugh, somebody was laughing.

Speaker 5 at this point.

Speaker 11 The problem is there are surveillance cameras at this back door that that doesn't capture any of this.

Speaker 2 The cameras work properly, so we reached a dead end on that point. It just didn't fit.

Speaker 1 For every step forward, they get a couple steps backward because her memory is all over the place. Then she's certain she remembers something happening in her room.
So her story is changing.

Speaker 1 How much of a red flag was that to you?

Speaker 2 For me, it wasn't a giant red flag. She had some head trauma, some serious head trauma, and I was

Speaker 2 giving the benefit of the doubt that that's pretty much what was causing the lack of memory.

Speaker 11 Investigators obviously are wide open to look at any potential lead and search Ina's room to see if there's any evidence of an attack there.

Speaker 2 I'm expecting furniture to be flipped. dressers to be knocked over, bed mattresses all over.
I found it as a typical room, undisturbed.

Speaker 1 No sign of a fight or assault?

Speaker 2 No, beds unmade. I found beer bottles.
I found clothes hanging in the bathroom, but nothing to indicate that there had been any kind of a struggle.

Speaker 1 What's hard for the detectives is that Ina is a victim, of course, but they're beginning to think that there's more to her story than either she is willing to tell them or maybe she can tell them.

Speaker 20 Investigators are frustrated, and so they go back and look as much as they can at Ina's movements. And it helps them that the hotel has a swipe keycard system.

Speaker 20 So they'll be able to go back and see exactly when she went into her room.

Speaker 1 They notice that Ina is coming back into the hotel, getting on the elevator, and it's 3.41 a.m.

Speaker 1 But then when she gets back to her room and she's got that key to swipe that tells what time, it's 3.58. That's 17 minutes.
That's a big gap. What happened?

Speaker 1 Police then have to look at a kind of unsavory theory. Could she be a prostitute? Could she have possibly gone to meet somebody, maybe a John, at his room? They didn't

Speaker 5 told me exactly, are you a prostitute?

Speaker 5 But the questions were like,

Speaker 5 you know, if I ever had a sex for money

Speaker 5 and this kind of question, it was emotionally difficult. Very, very, very difficult.

Speaker 2 Talking to employees at the hotel, security guards outside, even talking to her, I'm picking up absolutely zilch.

Speaker 2 Nothing to indicate that she was a prostitute.

Speaker 17 On the contrary, everybody thought very highly of her. Very quiet, very private girl.

Speaker 1 So that left you kind of at a dead end at that point.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 The case seems to be going nowhere. And then somebody else enters the picture.
An unlikely character who has a pretty unlikely theory.

Speaker 2 I could feel it.

Speaker 28 I knew this was the guy.

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Speaker 1 Ken Brennan is a private eye who's kind of right out of central casting. I mean, if you've ever met him, you remember Ken Brennan.

Speaker 2 He wears gold chains and rings on his fingers, and he rides a motorcycle. He speaks with a New York Long Island accent, filled with profanity.
He is funny, blunt, smart.

Speaker 1 If he's on a case, he's going to solve it.

Speaker 1 What is it about this kind of work that attracts you?

Speaker 31 It doesn't like catching bad guys.

Speaker 32 Something I've always, you know, enjoyed doing, even when I was a youngster.

Speaker 33 I've been working in law enforcement since 1975. I was in law enforcement before.

Speaker 34 I was a police officer before, as well as being a federal agent.

Speaker 1 Is it true that you've never taken a sick day?

Speaker 35 No, I really haven't.

Speaker 32 You enjoy what you're doing.

Speaker 34 It never seems like a job then.

Speaker 1 So when the Miami case dropped into your lap, what did you think?

Speaker 34 The mere fact that

Speaker 28 nobody knew how she got out of the hotel, you know, that she just kind of vanished, and especially because it involved a sexual assault.

Speaker 1 This is a guy who feels determined to get justice in cases that involve sexual predators.

Speaker 1 In fact, he told us that he carries around the arrest file of the very first sexual predator whom he interrogated.

Speaker 12 They're the worst crimes, I feel, of all of them.

Speaker 7 And there's too many of them out there that aren't solved.

Speaker 11 One of the big challenges in sexual assault cases is that it's typically not funded as much as robbery and homicide. And so what happens is that sexual assault investigators get overwhelmed.

Speaker 11 And these cases aren't easy to solve.

Speaker 11 As weeks turn to months, now nine months in the investigation, and they still have no idea who attacked her.

Speaker 1 Were you thinking at any point that this case is just unsolvable?

Speaker 2 I don't like to think that and I really didn't think that. I always kept hope that something

Speaker 2 would eventually solve the case. I don't like to give up.

Speaker 20 By now, Enos filed a lawsuit against the hotel alleging negligence in the security that they had that allowed this to happen.

Speaker 15 We felt they could have had better security.

Speaker 22 They weren't monitoring the security cameras correctly.

Speaker 6 They led an assailant onto the grounds of the hotel.

Speaker 5 Why and how, somebody

Speaker 5 would get into your room without the key.

Speaker 5 How?

Speaker 1 The hotel is denying any wrongdoing, so that's where Ken Brennan comes in.

Speaker 20 When a hotel gets sued in a big case like this, they will will typically hire their own investigator to determine the facts as best they can.

Speaker 21 We have to clear the responsibility of the hotel. What happened in our hotel, it can happen in the best hotel in the world.

Speaker 38 The biggest glaring thing was that

Speaker 32 nobody really knew how it occurred. Everybody loves a good mystery.

Speaker 31 Everybody wants to be the

Speaker 36 ability to solve something that somebody wasn't able to do before.

Speaker 36 Of course, that would be rewarding.

Speaker 1 What What did you think of Ken Brennan when you first laid eyes on him?

Speaker 2 This guy's going to drive me nuts.

Speaker 33 Most police officers don't like PIs.

Speaker 1 How'd you get him to accept and to trust you?

Speaker 32 He said, hey, listen, Alan, I'm not going to mess up your case.

Speaker 34 You know, I'm not going to screw it up. If we're going to solve this thing, we're going to be a team.

Speaker 37 We're going to work it together.

Speaker 1 You don't like PIs, but yet you trusted him.

Speaker 2 Why? There was just something about him that was honest. I really felt that he was going to do what he said.

Speaker 11 One of the first things that Detective Foote shares with private investigator Ken Brennan is that the DNA doesn't match Peter D'Amoulius or George Perez.

Speaker 1 Those two guys are eliminated. But now Ken Brennan's trying to figure out what did happen.
Then he begins to share with the detectives his suspicions about Ina. Could there be more to the story?

Speaker 1 Could there be more about her? So he begins knocking on doors around the neighborhood where she was found.

Speaker 13 Where exactly were they across the street?

Speaker 34 I bothered to take the time and to surveil her activities while she was still in the neighborhood.

Speaker 26 And there was nothing indicative of her being a prostitute. So you ruled that out? So I ruled that out pretty readily in the very beginning of the investigation.

Speaker 5 I was very, very upset about this. Very, very upset.

Speaker 2 I knew who I was.

Speaker 5 I knew I am.

Speaker 1 Another mystery. The tape shows the victim entering the elevator at 3.41 a.m.

Speaker 1 And then her room key swipe is showing recording at 3.58. So how did you explain those missing 17 minutes?

Speaker 34 There seemed to have been a problem.

Speaker 31 They thought that maybe she might have went to another room, went and saw somebody.

Speaker 28 I said, well, listen, did anybody bother to take the time to find out if the time stamp on the security cameras, if that matched the time stamp on the card access system, which nobody ever did.

Speaker 43 And it turns out when we did do that, there was a 17 minute lapse.

Speaker 1 So that mysterious gap in time wasn't really a mystery at all, just a clock that was 17 minutes off.

Speaker 31 I knew immediately that after she was on that elevator, she went up directly to a room.

Speaker 2 One of the theories that occurred to Ken was because Ina had asked for a lawyer right at the beginning,

Speaker 2 there was some thought that this was some sort of Eastern European organized crime con.

Speaker 15 I thought that in this particular case that it might have been a possibility.

Speaker 34 The whole purpose was to try to obtain money from either the insurance company or from the hotel itself.

Speaker 2 It happens all over the world.

Speaker 1 Because she was filing a lawsuit against the hotel, a big lawsuit.

Speaker 31 Exactly, and she didn't make a very good witness because she flip-flopped on a lot of the statements that she had given to police.

Speaker 5 That just made me laugh.

Speaker 5 I mean, I don't know, bro, where did they take this? And who came up with this idea?

Speaker 39 I believe that no matter what happened, it was going to be in the videotape.

Speaker 1 How much footage were you going to have to comb through? Because there were a lot of cameras in the hotel, right?

Speaker 32 Hours upon hours upon hours upon hours.

Speaker 28 It was extensive.

Speaker 31 That's something that you have to go through almost frame by frame.

Speaker 33 Frame by frame. It was a countless amount of hours.

Speaker 2 Ken has a very deliberate way of looking at the cases that he takes.

Speaker 2 He knew she had to have left the hotel, and he believed from everything he understood about the way the camera systems work that that had to have been recorded.

Speaker 25 You had to watch each and every frame on every video because we were originally looking for possibly an employee that might have moved one of the cameras out of the location it was originally at and maybe possibly snuck the victim past that way.

Speaker 1 Slowly but surely, Brennan has begun to eliminate pretty much everybody they've looked at except one guy.

Speaker 41 She goes out on the video.

Speaker 14 She goes out of the hotel early in the morning.

Speaker 22 When she returns,

Speaker 23 there's a big, large black man standing with her, and she just has a quick conversation with him.

Speaker 38 They get onto the elevator together. I'm trying to look to see, do they look like they know each other?

Speaker 13 Because again, I'm thinking this could still possibly be a scam or something like that.

Speaker 38 And after you keep reviewing it, it doesn't look like they have any kind of familiarity.

Speaker 41 He's just offering her to walk in front.

Speaker 38 She's not acknowledging him like she knows him.

Speaker 1 So Brennan has kind of given up on this whole conspiracy theory idea.

Speaker 2 It appeared in the video that this was just a chance meeting and that it was nothing that was staged and it didn't appear to be staged at all.

Speaker 1 Now he's moved on to something else. He's looking at this one guy on the elevator.
But that seems like it's a stretch as well.

Speaker 23 Later on during the video, he's seen exiting the elevator.

Speaker 32 So we follow him to another camera and he goes off the property.

Speaker 26 While I'm watching the video of this person coming off the elevator, then I went through this frame at a time.

Speaker 11 Sometimes the smallest details ultimately end up cracking a case.

Speaker 12 This was the defining moment in the whole case, right here.

Speaker 4 This young lady vanished into thin air.

Speaker 4 That was the intriguing part.

Speaker 3 That was the piece of the puzzle that he had to solve first.

Speaker 1 Ken Brennan is now fixated on this guy that he saw on the surveillance camera walking into the hotel.

Speaker 1 You first see him at that elevator, entering it with Ina at about 3.41 a.m. And then you see him leaving with a suitcase at 5.28.

Speaker 34 About an hour later, he comes back and he re-enters the hotel, but he doesn't have the suitcase with him.

Speaker 1 Huh. Does that register something right away in your mind?

Speaker 43 As soon as he comes back without the suitcase, now he becomes a person of interest to me.

Speaker 25 He was the only one that had the time and the opportunity to commit the crime and come back to the scene.

Speaker 1 Many people would look at this video and just think, okay, a guy's wheeling a suitcase out of the elevator. Brennan sees something that nobody else would see.

Speaker 2 Ken observed that when this man pulled the suitcase out of the elevator, he had to give that little suitcase a tug to get it over the little lip between the elevator and the floor.

Speaker 41 The suspect has to reach back.

Speaker 14 and grab the handles with both hands to pull that suitcase out of the crack.

Speaker 34 I do a lot of traveling. You do a lot of traveling.
I'm sure you have a lot of your clothing items in it.

Speaker 14 Was it ever so heavy you needed two hands to pull it out of the crack?

Speaker 31 No, probably not. As soon as he made the tug, as soon as he tugged out with both hands, it was like a light bulb went over my head and I said, she's in that suitcase.

Speaker 11 Ken Brennan is convinced that this suitcase may well have a body in it.

Speaker 11 And the problem is he's having trouble convincing the investigators, in particular Detective Foote, that this could be a plausible way that Ida was taken out of the hotel.

Speaker 2 You know, where's this guy coming out of left field with this black male suspect? Alan Foote's reaction was that this just was not possible. The suitcase was too small.

Speaker 2 It was just an outlandish theory.

Speaker 1 But this is a small suitcase. What would lead you to even think a woman could fit into a small suitcase?

Speaker 15 Well, the reason why I thought a woman might be able to fit in the suitcase is because this is a large guy.

Speaker 41 So our frame of reference on how large a suitcase is might be a little off.

Speaker 26 So I decided to use a measurement of the suitcase in relationship with markings on the elevator itself.

Speaker 1 With that reference point, it's pretty incredible. Brennan's able to determine that the bag is actually 29 inches high.

Speaker 1 And if you examine this image where we see the suitcase against the floor runner, he concludes that the bag is 19 inches wide. Just like this one.

Speaker 34 Then I knew exactly how wide the suitcase was.

Speaker 1 And then you were able to really theorize theorize that someone could fit in there. That's correct.

Speaker 23 What I did was I had a, one of the fellows that worked for me had a girlfriend who was that size.

Speaker 28 So we got a hold of a suitcase that was the same dimensions and see if she could fit in it.

Speaker 3 Boom, she did.

Speaker 26 Goes, yeah,

Speaker 26 she fits fine.

Speaker 1 The theory seems so bizarre. I mean, a grown woman being stuffed into a suitcase.
So we decided to conduct a little unscientific experiment just to see.

Speaker 1 We went to a gymnastic school and found a couple of women who are about Ina's size and asked if they would help us figure this out.

Speaker 1 Our volunteer was about 5'3, Ina's size, and to our shock and amazement, she was actually able to fit inside this suitcase comfortably.

Speaker 1 We could zip it up and wheel her around.

Speaker 1 She was okay, but it proved Brennan's theory.

Speaker 38 So I knew that she would fit. All I was doing is basically validating what my hunch was.

Speaker 1 Brennan's theory actually fits now, the evidence and even the timeline.

Speaker 1 He's able to conclude that this guy was able to go into the hotel, follow Ina, we see him on the elevator, somehow assault her, put her in the suitcase.

Speaker 1 We see him leaving the hotel with the suitcase, get her in his car, drive her to a location and dump her body, and then come right back to the hotel.

Speaker 34 All the puzzles started fitting together at that particular point.

Speaker 16 And I knew I had my guy then.

Speaker 8 Then I just had to find out who the heck he was.

Speaker 11 The real dilemma at this point for Ken Brennan is: he has a person pulling the suitcase, but he has no idea who that person is.

Speaker 1 He's got to find this guy. He's got to identify this guy.
It's not a job anymore. It's an obsession.

Speaker 35 I said, hello, high warm. I know I'm right.

Speaker 16 I could feel it.

Speaker 31 I knew this was the guy.

Speaker 28 And I was gonna catch this guy.

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Speaker 45 Oh my god, are you kidding me?

Speaker 12 Stream Survivor Series War Games, November 29th at 7 Eastern on the ESPNA.

Speaker 1 When Ken Brennan posed this idea that Ina had been attacked by this large man that we see on the surveillance tape, wheeled out of the hotel in a suitcase and dumped.

Speaker 1 Detective Foote thought this was a joke.

Speaker 1 Thinking that maybe he's a little out there?

Speaker 2 Sometimes we're all out there, but it's a lead. It's not on my priority.
I'm putting this lead off to the side while I pursue the leads that I have.

Speaker 23 Actually, he said, well, you know, that's a nice theory.

Speaker 13 Good luck with it.

Speaker 32 Let me know when you get any further.

Speaker 2 Ken is persistent, and you know, he went after that lead.

Speaker 1 He's determined.

Speaker 2 He is determined.

Speaker 1 This is a pretty bizarre theory. How does this go over with the hotel?

Speaker 26 In fact, one of the owners said, what the hell kind of an investigator are you? He goes, you're telling me it's this big black guy.

Speaker 15 Everybody else says it's too white Hispanic, you know, where's this coming from?

Speaker 38 And they all started laughing.

Speaker 28 And that's what really pissed me off.

Speaker 26 And I said, hella high warrant.

Speaker 31 I'm going to find out.

Speaker 26 I'm going to prove to these people that I'm right.

Speaker 28 I knew this was the guy. And I was going to catch this guy.

Speaker 1 The case is pretty cold at this point. He's long gone.
How do you even begin to try to find this guy?

Speaker 14 You know, I don't know if he was somebody that was staying at the hotel, that was a visitor that was just visiting.

Speaker 41 If this guy just walked off the street, we didn't know.

Speaker 32 So that was the next part of the investigation.

Speaker 1 Like so many hotels, this one actually photocopied IDs of registered guests. But you can see the pictures are barely recognizable and weren't even useful.

Speaker 1 So you go back to the tape.

Speaker 34 So I go back to the tape.

Speaker 1 And what do you find?

Speaker 23 I was looking to see if he had any interaction with any of the other people at the hotel.

Speaker 28 And he does.

Speaker 34 He ends up interacting with another fellow.

Speaker 1 The big question now is who is this second man that they see on the videotape? Well, Brennan, being the eagle eye that he is, notices right away that the man is wearing a lanyard around his neck.

Speaker 1 Could that help them pinpoint where this guy might have worked?

Speaker 25 Trying to find out why he's wearing this name tag.

Speaker 20 Problem is that they can't read it. The video simply isn't good enough to allow them to see what the name is on that lanyard.

Speaker 11 One of the problems with surveillance cameras are that they many times are not totally crystal clear. So for example, if you have names on a name plate, you may only capture part of it.

Speaker 11 And unfortunately, that's where Brendan is at this point. He has partial words, but he doesn't know exactly what they mean.

Speaker 2 He even went to NASA to see if they had ways of magnifying images that would tell him what was on that ID badge.

Speaker 23 And I say, listen, you know, I know you guys look at digital photography from like years away.

Speaker 28 Maybe you could help me out on this case that I'm working on.

Speaker 1 So they couldn't do it.

Speaker 31 No, so they informed me, listen, you know, we tried, but we're not able to get that for you. So I said, okay, fine, you know, let's go back to the tape.

Speaker 14 Later on in the video, when he's out by the hallway, you can clearly see that this says Mercury.

Speaker 23 What's Mercury?

Speaker 31 That was the problem. I didn't know.
It could be anything.

Speaker 34 And on the back of his shirt, you could make out barely a V and an O.

Speaker 2 And for whatever reason, I don't know.

Speaker 14 I think that says Verado.

Speaker 34 What the hell is a Verado? I said, I don't know, but let's find out.

Speaker 48 So then I went online and did a search, and I got a hit, and it showed that Mercury Marine made a brand new outboard engine by the name of Burrado.

Speaker 34 After I saw that and I realized that was a boat engine, I said these guys are working at the boat show.

Speaker 2 He discovered that in fact this big boat show had been going on at the same time that this crime occurred.

Speaker 1 And then they learned that Mercury was a major exhibitor during the boat show.

Speaker 1 Brennan is convinced that he's just about to close this case. He assumes that the guy he's looking at works with this other guy that he's seen on the tape at Mercury.

Speaker 1 And so now the only thing he's got to do is figure out who he is.

Speaker 2 Ken would text me or send me emails of everything he's doing. He tells me about the t-shirt and the Virado.

Speaker 2 And at this point, I'm giving him the thumbs up. Good job.

Speaker 42 Breckner and Marina is actually the parent company.

Speaker 34 This company by the name of Brunswick. I I ended up contacting Brunswick speaking to the head of security.

Speaker 14 And I said, listen, do you have any employees that stayed at the Airport Regency Hotel?

Speaker 34 He said, no, he didn't.

Speaker 1 So it's a dead end.

Speaker 34 So it's a little bit of a setback.

Speaker 2 So I said, well, trust me, one of the guys there is walking around with one of those Mercury Verado shirts.

Speaker 16 Somebody was giving them out.

Speaker 26 So he goes, okay, let me get back to you. So I said, okay, fine.

Speaker 15 A couple of days later, he calls me back.

Speaker 26 He says, as far as we can tell, the only people that received any of the Verado shirts were employees that worked at the food corps.

Speaker 1 So another connection.

Speaker 32 So there's another connection.

Speaker 28 I said, well, let's find out who's the caterer for the Miami Boat Show.

Speaker 31 So it ends up becoming a company called Centaplate.

Speaker 26 So I end up contacting Centaplate and they told me, listen, we'd love to be able to help you, but we hire people from all over the country.

Speaker 26 We wouldn't be able to tell you where these people stayed no matter what.

Speaker 11 They told him that they do reimburse people for

Speaker 11 housing, but they have no idea where they might stay.

Speaker 20 They simply don't have that kind of detail. These are people who are coming in, doing contract work, and when it comes to the hotel, it's up to them where they stay.

Speaker 1 They can't say who stayed at the Regency Airport Hotel, so now he's hit another dead end.

Speaker 31 But I've come a long way and I said, I'm not going to give up on this guy yet.

Speaker 28 I said, listen, he's really distinctive.

Speaker 43 The guy's about six foot four.

Speaker 34 He's a black fella and he wears glasses.

Speaker 32 So I said, Does anybody remember working with a guy that matches that description?

Speaker 34 Sure enough, about a week or so later, he says nobody knows the guy's name.

Speaker 39 But one of the people that remembered seeing this fella remembers something about him being hired out of Louisiana.

Speaker 34 He believes that's where he's from.

Speaker 1 So now you've gone from Miami to Louisiana.

Speaker 31 So now I'm over in Louisiana.

Speaker 1 Brennan's search is now taking a big turn to the big easy.

Speaker 1 Trying to find somebody in New Orleans is kind of like finding a needle in a haystack.

Speaker 34 I'm so far into this investigation now, there's no way I'm gonna let this guy go.

Speaker 12 I'm gonna track this guy down.

Speaker 1 This is a case that has detectives in Miami stumped. It all starts in this hotel lobby.
A petite blonde woman walking onto a hotel elevator.

Speaker 2 Was found miles away from where she was supposed to be. No memory of what had happened to her.
She had been badly beaten.

Speaker 5 You're begging for your life.

Speaker 5 And for someone, it's funny.

Speaker 1 Somebody was laser focused on this case, determined to solve it.

Speaker 11 This comes down to one particular moment where Brendan believes he's pulled the case together.

Speaker 26 As soon as he tugged out with both hands, it was like a light bulb went off in my head and I said,

Speaker 34 She's in that suitcase.

Speaker 41 You stuffed her in there and thinking she was a corpse.

Speaker 1 Why, me?

Speaker 5 What did I do?

Speaker 28 I'm so far into this investigation now.

Speaker 34 There's no way I'm gonna let this guy go.

Speaker 1 Brennan is now going in for the kill.

Speaker 2 He's telling me, I got the guy. This is the guy.
This is gonna be your guy.

Speaker 2 The person is so casual that he acts like a person who's done this sort of thing before.

Speaker 13 And you'll see, there'll be all the cases start popping up.

Speaker 1 Bingo. I screamed.
With everything I had on that night, her whole life changed.

Speaker 1 He was like Jekyll and Hyde. Hyde.
I could just see the monster come over him. I just want you to catch this guy.

Speaker 7 I knew I had the guy.

Speaker 34 And now I just got to find out where the hell is he.

Speaker 1 It's New Orleans. It's Mardi Gras.
It is one of the biggest parties of the year.

Speaker 1 But Mardi Gras also can have a dark side.

Speaker 2 The wildness of Mardi Gras can be a problem for the police because people who are drinking that much in crowded situations sometimes are out of control and

Speaker 2 it can cause real law enforcement problems.

Speaker 1 It was here in 2000 that Captain Ernest Dema found himself in the middle of all of his mayhem trying to arrest a rowdy college kid.

Speaker 1 And it did not go well.

Speaker 30 This is 10, 11 o'clock at night. I was in the process of effecting an arrest.

Speaker 30 And during the course of the arrest, young college kid was able to get out of my grasp and start running down Raw Street.

Speaker 30 And for all practical purposes, once he gets in the crowd, it's over.

Speaker 30 And out of nowhere, out of nowhere from the crowd comes this dark, imposing figure, just like you'd see in the Batman comic book. I mean,

Speaker 30 he swooped down on this kid before the kid even knew what was going on.

Speaker 25 I happened to have been on vacation with my two boys, and we were at Monte Grove.

Speaker 31 There was a tussle and the guy broke away from him and started running through the crowd.

Speaker 35 And I

Speaker 35 witnessed it and I ran the guy down.

Speaker 30 And boom, Batman comes, swoops down on him, tackles him in the street, pins him down, and by the time we got there, it was over.

Speaker 30 I gave him the nickname Batman just because how the incident unfolded.

Speaker 37 Yeah, he called me Batman because I had a black turtle back.

Speaker 26 And you swooped in.

Speaker 41 Black jeans on.

Speaker 28 So when I went and grabbed the guy,

Speaker 16 he said I looked like Batman coming through the crowds.

Speaker 30 It was almost like we bonded together immediately.

Speaker 14 So

Speaker 41 we ended up becoming friends.

Speaker 28 because of that incident. And he says, listen, if you ever need any help in New Orleans, give me a call.

Speaker 35 Well, I needed help in New Orleans.

Speaker 11 So that time is now. Brendan reaches out to Captain Dema of the New Orleans Police Department for help.

Speaker 30 He called me and he said, Ernie, this is Ken Brennan.

Speaker 2 I said, who?

Speaker 30 He said, Batman.

Speaker 32 And then I knew who he was.

Speaker 40 I call him up and I say, listen, you know, I need help.

Speaker 30 But like I said, if he would have called me and asked me for anything, especially criminal activity,

Speaker 2 I would have found him.

Speaker 1 So he calls him and he tells him about this big investigation, about the guy with the suitcase, how he's trying to track down who this guy is and having a tough time doing it.

Speaker 1 And he tells him about this company, CenterPlate, that had employed a guy from Louisiana who fit the description of the suspect he's looking for.

Speaker 2 Ken knows that the man he's looking for

Speaker 2 was doing food concessions and he needs somebody in New Orleans to help him

Speaker 2 find out who this person was.

Speaker 28 Centerplate handles a venue outside outside of New Orleans at a semi-pro baseball stadium.

Speaker 34 So I said, listen, you know, I know it's not even in your city, but do you mind sending a guy out and see if you can find a guy, big six foot four black guy, wearing glasses?

Speaker 30 That kind of information wouldn't really be in the computer because we were looking for someone who only fit the description of a large African American.

Speaker 30 And we really didn't have any information on him per se that I know of.

Speaker 30 It was just talking with other officers who worked at the Zephyr Field and see if they knew anybody that fit that description.

Speaker 11 This is a big deal for Brennan because he at least now has the power and authority of the New Orleans police to follow up on leads in that jurisdiction which he wouldn't have had otherwise.

Speaker 13 So he's good enough to send the sergeant out to that locality.

Speaker 30 And from the contacts at Zephyr Field and from the information we received, we were able to come up with a hard description on the person that he was looking for.

Speaker 1 Trying to find somebody in New Orleans is kind of like finding a needle in a haystack because since that attack had happened, Hurricane Katrina has devastated the area.

Speaker 18 Officials estimate that 80% of New Orleans is now underwater.

Speaker 22 All of these levees had started to breach and that water was coming into

Speaker 30 the city and there was no way to stop it.

Speaker 2 The community there had literally been scattered to the four winds.

Speaker 26 So

Speaker 36 I said, well,

Speaker 38 who knows if this guy's even, if he's alive, who knows if he's living there anymore, what he's doing, what's going on.

Speaker 4 I said, I have no idea. But I said, damn, I see.
I came this far.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to give up yet.

Speaker 2 Ken Brennan's friend in New Orleans actually helped him enormously by tracking down the person he was looking for.

Speaker 20 It's a big city. There's a lot that they don't know.

Speaker 20 And yet, somehow they're able to figure out that he worked at the Superdome when Katrina hit.

Speaker 20 And they get a name.

Speaker 1 It has been months and months, Brennan trying to just get a name to this video image on tape. And when he finally hears the name, I go, you gotta be kidding me.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, it's a name we've all heard before.

Speaker 1 From Miami to Louisiana, this case was taking private eye Ken Brennan on a multi-state manhunt.

Speaker 38 As long as I had a gasping breath on this case, I was going to make sure that I sorted that he had.

Speaker 20 This guy is exactly what you want.

Speaker 20 Obsessed,

Speaker 20 taking it personally.

Speaker 20 and unwilling to give up, even if that involves some wacky theories that other people would say, no way, no how.

Speaker 1 Brennan's got a contact in New Orleans, and incredibly, they're actually able to find the name of the suspect. But that name isn't the break he was hoping for.

Speaker 43 They come back and tell me the guy's name is Mike Jones.

Speaker 34 I go, you got to be kidding me.

Speaker 26 Mike Jones?

Speaker 16 Was it 10 million of them?

Speaker 31 Mike Jones. Mike Jones, that's the guy's name.

Speaker 36 I said, geez, you know.

Speaker 1 That's as generic as you can get.

Speaker 28 Yeah, I mean, if the guy's name was like Mikkel Gorbachev or something, you know, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to track down.

Speaker 34 But a guy named Mike Jones is pretty tough.

Speaker 20 The name Mike Jones, there's nothing worse than that in terms of trying to figure out who it is. At least they've got a middle name, and that's Lee.
So now they have Michael Lee Jones.

Speaker 20 And now they've got to do some more detective work.

Speaker 11 The combination of having the middle name leads them to to potentially identifying and locating this person.

Speaker 34 What I did was I took that information and I went back to the hotel registry.

Speaker 41 And lo and behold, what do I find out that there was a Michael Lee Jones Jr.

Speaker 23 that did stay at the Airport Regency Hotel.

Speaker 1 That's a pretty big moment.

Speaker 28 Yeah, well that's an aha moment where you say, hey listen, at least I know I was on the right track.

Speaker 41 And they notated on his car that he did work for CenterPlay.

Speaker 34 The Mike Jones that I was looking for was the same Mike Jones that was in Miami at the Miami boat show, okay?

Speaker 32 That I know.

Speaker 34 And now I just got to find out where the hell is he?

Speaker 1 Brennan is on a pretty good winning streak at this point. Now, it turns out Michael Jones no longer works for Center Plate, but Brennan is going to roll the dice once more.

Speaker 11 One thing you have to do as an investigator is follow employment. And so now you have a suspect.
that works in food concessions. So the idea is, well, let's see if we can find him.

Speaker 14 I said the likelihood is that even though he doesn't work for CenterPlate anymore, that he's probably going to work for one of their competitors doing the same line of work.

Speaker 31 So I asked the guy from Centerplate, I said listen give me a list of your like 10 top competitors in this business.

Speaker 1 This guy is not giving up. He makes a master list of all the catering companies in the country.
and calls them one by one asking if they have a Michael Jones working for them.

Speaker 2 You know, it gets varying levels of cooperation from various companies.

Speaker 1 At the bottom of the list is a company called Ovations. It's based in Tampa.

Speaker 34 I made an appointment to go see him in person. I talked to the COO of the company and I said, listen, do you have a Michael Lee Jones working for you?

Speaker 23 He says, well, listen, he says,

Speaker 36 I'd require a subpoena to be able to release that to you.

Speaker 1 They want a subpoena? What does that tell you?

Speaker 41 So what tells me that the guy works there?

Speaker 41 Why else ask for a subpoena?

Speaker 31 I talked to 35 other companies.

Speaker 34 Nobody had an objection to tell me that no, that no Michael E.

Speaker 32 Jones worked there.

Speaker 1 Brennan's now got to turn to Detective Alan Foote. He's the Miami-Day detective who originally handled the case and let Brennan run with it.

Speaker 1 How urgent was it for you to get that subpoena?

Speaker 39 I wanted it right away.

Speaker 2 I obtained a subpoena for Michael E. Jones' records.
And as soon as I received the information, I faxed the information to Ken.

Speaker 26 It was very important.

Speaker 41 And fortunately, he was able to obtain a subpoena for me and

Speaker 14 get it faxed over to the company at Ovations, to the COO there, while I was still president.

Speaker 20 Ovations finally releases the information, and it's just as Brennan suspected. He's working for them, and he's working now at a minor league baseball park in Frederick, Maryland.

Speaker 11 It sometimes can make it really frustrating for investigators as the offender just passed through that location. And so, as a result, it makes them sometimes difficult to catch.

Speaker 28 So, I said, Listen, you know, we got to get some DNA from this guy, either from voluntarily or without his knowledge.

Speaker 44 Because I have a DNA profile from the victim, and we have to match it to somebody.

Speaker 1 It's the moment Ken Brennan has been waiting for, and long last, he's about to come face to face with that mystery man with the suitcase.

Speaker 12 You take whatever clue you have, wherever you can go, and you just keep working at it and see where that takes you.

Speaker 9 It might take you to a dead end, might take you to a blind alley, but it might take you to the promised land.

Speaker 1 It's been more than a year since Ina Budnitska was attacked in that Miami hotel. And Ken Brennan has located that mystery man he's been searching for, Michael Jones, in Frederick, Maryland.

Speaker 2 Frederick, Maryland is in the western part of the state in the mountains.

Speaker 1 At this point, are you elated?

Speaker 36 You're pretty excited because I'm getting close to the end of the chase.

Speaker 2 He's telling me, this is going to be your guy. And I'm thinking, it's a theory.

Speaker 2 But I still have no indication that it's a black male.

Speaker 1 So you're not there yet?

Speaker 2 I'm not there yet.

Speaker 2 I'm not there.

Speaker 10 And I can understand his reluctance.

Speaker 2 However, I knew I had the guy.

Speaker 8 I got to get his ass up dead and get him.

Speaker 1 So what do you tell Detective Foote?

Speaker 41 What do you need next?

Speaker 34 So I said, listen, we got to get some DNA from this guy, either voluntarily or without his knowledge.

Speaker 36 So he made arrangements with his department to be able to fly up to Frederick, Maryland.

Speaker 36 He was able to interview the suspect at the time.

Speaker 1 Detective Alan Foote is the first to actually confront Michael Jones.

Speaker 2 He found him working at the food concession of a minor league baseball park in Frederick.

Speaker 1 What was he like when you first met him?

Speaker 2 A teddy bear. A teddy bear.
A big-mannered guy. Mild-mannered guy.
He was soft-spoken. He appeared to be educated.
He was very,

Speaker 2 I thought, forthcoming.

Speaker 1 Michael Jones doesn't seem to be rattled at all. He is cool, calm, and collected while he talks to the detective.

Speaker 2 Oh, he's staying cool as a cucumber. He's just very relaxed, leaned back in the chair, no

Speaker 2 hiding or stuttering, looking for something.

Speaker 1 Jones does confirm that he was in Miami, he was working at the boat show, and that he was indeed staying at that Regency hotel when Ina was attacked.

Speaker 2 So I'm thinking, hmm.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So I said, do you have any sex with European women? And he says, yes, but it was with a German woman at the post show. So I have to throw out some more at him.
Was it a Russian girl?

Speaker 2 Was it at the hotel?

Speaker 2 And he's completely denying it. And he's being totally cooperative.

Speaker 20 That's exactly what you want to do if the police or authorities are asking some very serious questions.

Speaker 2 So I came out and eventually flat out asked him, did you rape, beat, drop for dead? Did you do it?

Speaker 2 And he says, says well no of course not and does he seem believable at that point yes he does and then i asked him would you be willing to give a dna specimen because i have specimens from the rape and he said absolutely

Speaker 11 jones readily gives up his dna

Speaker 11 because he believes they can't link him to this crime What did that tell you that he was so willing?

Speaker 2 I figured the guy didn't do it.

Speaker 4 Because I don't know, Ken, I don't think so.

Speaker 9 I talked to him.

Speaker 7 I said, yeah, I know you talked to him. I'm telling you, it's the guy.

Speaker 1 It's going to take a while for these DNA samples to come back.

Speaker 11 So while Brennan is waiting for the DNA to come back, he contacts senior investigator Tom Chase with the Frederick Police Department.

Speaker 34 I informed Lieutenant Chase that I believe that he might be a person of interest for him in case something happened in one of those neighborhoods that he could possibly be responsible for.

Speaker 19 I utilize my contacts to keep an eye on the fact that he was still in town because I want to make sure he's available for them when they're ready to come and get him.

Speaker 20 This is the ballpark where he was working at the time and this is where he was living.

Speaker 20 If the authorities have a strong hunch that someone's responsible for a very serious crime,

Speaker 20 they can keep an eye on that person.

Speaker 19 I was more diligent in keeping track of the reports that were coming in for any type of suspicious person or

Speaker 19 any type of sexual assaults.

Speaker 23 He had his offices going by to keep an eye on him.

Speaker 44 He was going by on his own time on his way home from work.

Speaker 1 Brennan can't stand just sitting around waiting, waiting, waiting.

Speaker 1 So he actually gets Jones to meet him.

Speaker 2 at the ballpark to talk to him.

Speaker 41 And I interviewed him for three successive days.

Speaker 11 Basically these interviews with offenders are sort of a cat and mouse game.

Speaker 11 The offender is trying to figure out what you know as the investigator and the investigator is trying to better understand the offender.

Speaker 1 The guy is calm and collected. What does he tell you?

Speaker 28 He says, listen, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 34 Yeah, I was at the boat show. Yeah, you know, I hooked up with a couple girls while I was there, but I don't know anything about this Russian girl.

Speaker 2 Are you believing him? No.

Speaker 26 Not at all. Not for a minute.

Speaker 34 Not for a second. Because the first thing is, if he had nothing to do with it, why would he talk to me for three days?

Speaker 28 The reason why he talked to me for three days is because he knows that I know more about this case than anybody did.

Speaker 44 So he was trying to find out for me, you know, how much he has to worry.

Speaker 34 How much of this case, this guy knows, you know, how close is he to me?

Speaker 1 How could somebody who's guilty of this horrible crime be so relaxed and friendly?

Speaker 1 I mean, who but an innocent man would willingly give up his DNA sample to a cop who he knows is looking at him for a crime.

Speaker 11 He knows what evidence he's left and what he hasn't left, and he's been, in his mind, very careful.

Speaker 1 It doesn't trouble you at all that he seems to be cooperative?

Speaker 44 Not at all.

Speaker 40 He said, let me tell you something.

Speaker 28 I know you did this.

Speaker 34 I said, this ain't like a bad dream where you're just going to wake up and it's going to be over.

Speaker 26 He said, take a good look at my face.

Speaker 28 I said, because he's going to see this face again.

Speaker 31 I said, because I'm coming for you.

Speaker 1 The next time Brennan sees Jones, it will be in an interrogation room. And this will be a chance to determine, is his hunch right on the money, or is this gonna just blow up in his face?

Speaker 28 You better remember how that happened.

Speaker 37 Something went bad.

Speaker 49 I didn't heard that girl.

Speaker 37 Something went bad.

Speaker 39 You might not have thought you heard it.

Speaker 27 Something did it.

Speaker 1 Since Ina was found assaulted and abandoned in that field, her memory has been foggy all over the map. But suddenly, she's got a breakthrough.

Speaker 5 I try to

Speaker 5 bring myself back into the accident and see if I can remember something else, small details.

Speaker 2 She came to my office and said she didn't know if she was dreaming or if it was a reality, but she remembers being in the hotel room and

Speaker 2 sitting on the bed, and across from her was a black male. Wow.
Wow, he's right.

Speaker 2 So I put together a photo lineup with Michael E. Jones in it and I just tell her, tell me if you recognize any of them for any reason.

Speaker 5 And I choose a person from

Speaker 2 the lineup.

Speaker 5 And this is the person who

Speaker 5 basically

Speaker 5 hurried me. I said.

Speaker 2 She goes right for Michael Lee Jones.

Speaker 1 Finally, it all seems to be coming together. And the DNA results have arrived.

Speaker 2 I called Ken up. I says, you're not going to believe this.

Speaker 31 He goes, it's him.

Speaker 26 I go, no kidding.

Speaker 34 Yeah, I know it's him.

Speaker 1 What was that moment like?

Speaker 34 Oh, it was total elation. I was happy.

Speaker 1 So the next step would be to make an arrest?

Speaker 2 Yes. I get an arrest warrant and I go back to Maryland.

Speaker 2 I meet up with Ken and members of the Frederick Police Department and we go out to Michael's apartment and we're caravanning like John Wayne in a wagon train or the Calvary's coming because we're going to go get our guy and we go to his apartment.

Speaker 31 We knock on the door and

Speaker 34 comes to the door and he answers and we look at each other face to face and I said I told you I'd be back.

Speaker 49 You're being charged with rape, all right?

Speaker 49 She says I left her.

Speaker 38 We already have the hit on the DNA. Okay, now it's just a question of interrogating them to see if I can get this guy to roll on it, right?

Speaker 49 Look at these.

Speaker 20 I didn't do that. You were there.

Speaker 2 I didn't do that.

Speaker 11 You show suspects pictures of victims because what you're trying to do is humanize the victim in the eyes of the offender. The problem is it doesn't tend to work because they don't care.

Speaker 2 Once we started throw the fact that, you know, obviously he was under arrest for this kidnapping or rape, his story changed.

Speaker 50 Just give me your version of what went down.

Speaker 49 And you only get one chance at it.

Speaker 49 All right, I'm going to straight up.

Speaker 10 I know the only thing he's going to come up with is she was a prostitute.

Speaker 7 I paid for her.

Speaker 12 She was fine when I left her.

Speaker 32 I have no idea what happened to her, okay?

Speaker 1 Jones says that he and a friend, that guy in the Mercury t-shirt, went out to a strip club that night.

Speaker 1 That when he returned to the hotel, that he did see Ina hanging out with some women in front of the hotel.

Speaker 49 I mean, obviously, they were hookers or whatever.

Speaker 49 And, you know, we were talking, they were like, you know, we want to have some fun.

Speaker 49 And then what happens next?

Speaker 50 You go to her room, she go to your room.

Speaker 49 You went to her room.

Speaker 29 You went to her room.

Speaker 49 And then, you know, she whispers in my ear $100.

Speaker 49 So we did it and we gave her $100 and I left.

Speaker 11 The offender is trying to steer them in another direction. Yes, I'll admit I had sex with her, but you can't prove anything beyond that.

Speaker 5 Is a victim?

Speaker 5 Easy victim for everybody. Easy to blame you.

Speaker 5 Easy to blame.

Speaker 50 Then what happened after that, after you had sex with?

Speaker 49 Going back to murmuring?

Speaker 49 So you don't know

Speaker 49 what happened to her. That's what you're telling me, right? Yes, sir.

Speaker 11 Unfortunately for Jones, his story doesn't match their surveillance video.

Speaker 11 True, he's with his friend, they're talking to some other women, but the problem is when you look at the surveillance video, when she leaves the hotel at 3.33 a.m.,

Speaker 11 she walks out of the hotel and past these women and doesn't stop to talk to anybody.

Speaker 48 There wasn't any kind of an exchange between the two of them that would have been indicative at all of somebody soliciting a prostitute or a prostitute soliciting a John.

Speaker 2 And then he couldn't come up with explanations as to why'd you leave the hotel when you weren't supposed to.

Speaker 11 Jones literally stayed at the hotel another full day after the attack.

Speaker 1 The question is, why would he be leaving the hotel at 5.28 in the morning without checking out, carrying a big suitcase, only to return about an hour later without it?

Speaker 2 So he put his suitcase in the trunk of the car, but he never came back to get the suitcase.

Speaker 49 You know, I took my shit downstairs and put it in the trunk. I think I went to the 700 or something for a soda.

Speaker 32 And they'll let that nine in the morning when you're checking out.

Speaker 49 So I didn't even show if I was going to sleep.

Speaker 20 Despite the fact that they have his DNA and he's given inconsistent statements, there are still real challenges in this case. He has got a story, and that is that their sex was consensual.

Speaker 20 She doesn't remember. Exactly what happened.

Speaker 49 I didn't hurt her any s down away.

Speaker 20 The key for investigators is going to be poking holes in his story.

Speaker 12 Even though he's calm and he's cool and he looks like he hasn't done a thing in the world, it was my job to be able to show that he's a liar.

Speaker 1 Brennan is now going in for the kill. He is focusing on that key moment, that tug of the suitcase when Jones was getting off the elevator.

Speaker 49 What stuff did you bring out to your car?

Speaker 49 Oh, I have a little suitcase.

Speaker 13 I say, well, what was in the suitcase?

Speaker 1 What do you have in your bag when you went out to your car?

Speaker 49 My clothes. How much clothes do you have?

Speaker 49 We were there like, I think two weeks. How much stuff? How big was your bag?

Speaker 11 When Brendan drills down on what exactly is in the suitcase, Jones actually pauses, which the investigators know they've now hit a nerve.

Speaker 42 You could just see the wheels turning and he's saying, well, I got to come up with a scenario.

Speaker 47 Why is this heavier than it appears to be?

Speaker 50 How heavy was it? Was it fairly light?

Speaker 49 No, it was heavy. I had a bunch.
I had an Xbox in there, all kinds of shit. Yeah, Xbox was in there.
Anything else? You clothes?

Speaker 49 Clothes? How many pairs of issue books? You have books.

Speaker 3 I said, you're an avid reader. You read all the time.

Speaker 25 I said, yeah, what kind of books do you like?

Speaker 21 What was the name of the books you read?

Speaker 49 I have no idea. I couldn't even tell you what the name of the book was, you just took out my pocket.

Speaker 1 He reads all these books, but now this avid reader kind of has a case of amnesia.

Speaker 49 Everything you're saying doesn't add up. What doesn't make sense? What doesn't make sense? Your timeline stinks.
Your story stinks. The whole story stinks.

Speaker 1 There's no doubt in Brennan's mind that Jones is lying. And he's convinced that any jury that sees this videotape will believe the same thing.

Speaker 38 Because any of the things he was talking about made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Speaker 10 Who goes and leaves, takes their clothes out to the car before they check out?

Speaker 2 Nobody.

Speaker 10 Who's six foot four, weighs 380 pounds, has some underwear and an Xbox and a suitcase, and needs two hands to pull it out of a crack.

Speaker 2 Nobody.

Speaker 8 Doesn't make sense.

Speaker 38 Doesn't make sense because it's all bull.

Speaker 8 What is true is that he already beat this girl.

Speaker 32 He's dragging her out.

Speaker 13 He's gone for an hour because he's looking for a place to dump her because he thinks she's dead.

Speaker 49 Would you be willing to take a polygraph exam?

Speaker 1 Jones fails the polygraph test, but he continues to maintain his innocence.

Speaker 2 So you don't know what happened to her or how how he happened to her.

Speaker 16 But he played his role right to the very end, the bitter end.

Speaker 20 Michael Jones was charged with sexual battery and kidnapping.

Speaker 1 And before the case can even go to court, it almost falls apart. And the defense gets help from, of all people, the victim.
It seemed like at this point you've got a slam dunk case, but it wasn't.

Speaker 2 No. I was afraid this guy was just going to get let off.

Speaker 35 He was going to walk.

Speaker 1 Ken Brennan has spent months and months on this case, trying to figure out who committed this brutal attack on Inobrutnitska in February of 2005.

Speaker 1 The big problem for him is that she just can't remember anything.

Speaker 5 It was stressful and many times upset of myself. I said, why can't I just remember?

Speaker 3 We're at 3:38.

Speaker 1 But Brennan finally thinks he knows what happened in that fateful meeting between Ina Butnitska and Michael D. Jones.

Speaker 48 Somewhere, there's either an offer to come up to his room on the fifth floor and have a drink or something.

Speaker 49 Talk to her, start telling me something about she was

Speaker 49 disabled, she got hurt on some cruise ship or something.

Speaker 48 So they... Leave the elevator.
She goes to her room. And I know she went there to leave her coat because her coat was left at the scene.

Speaker 1 Brennan doesn't know whether Jones may have gone to Inna's room that night, but he is convinced that the attack did not happen there.

Speaker 25 The room was lived in, but it wasn't disturbed, which would be indicative of a crime of that nature.

Speaker 34 But somehow or other, they ended up in his room.

Speaker 38 And whatever happens, he ends up beating her to death there.

Speaker 41 He thinks she's dead, stuffs her in the suitcase, and then takes her down.

Speaker 1 But now, after almost a year of sleuthing, it looks like his investigation might come unraveled because because Ina just doesn't accept Brennan's theory.

Speaker 1 And she's sticking by her original story that the attack happened in her room.

Speaker 5 I didn't go nowhere. I didn't go to nobody's room.
I remember myself going into my room. That's what I remember.

Speaker 1 But Ina's memory is all over the map. I mean, she first told police that she was attacked by two white men with Spanish accents.

Speaker 1 And then she picked Jones out of a lineup, but said that there might have been two guys who raped her.

Speaker 20 They're concerned that there are inconsistencies. They're concerned she's not going to be a good witness.
That's a real issue in a case like this.

Speaker 2 There has to be some physical evidence or corroboration to support the victim's claim that it was an attack as opposed to a consensual act.

Speaker 1 Even with Brennan's bombshell surveillance theory, the case against Jones is coming up pretty thin.

Speaker 2 I don't believe that they ever found the suitcase that Jones used.

Speaker 2 And of course, hotels are cleaned every morning, so the chances of their finding any physical evidence from his room would be very small.

Speaker 1 Jones' defense lawyer can smell the prosecution's weakness a mile away.

Speaker 29 We believe that they couldn't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 29 The Miami-Dade Police Department, I think, the detectives there believe that since they had DNA and a suspect of match, that he must have been the one who did the rape and the beating, but there's no evidence that he did that.

Speaker 2 Michael Lee Jones never confessed to raping or beating Ema. His claim was that he had consensual sex with her, but that he had no part in beating her or dumping her body.

Speaker 20 For a potential jury, this isn't going to be a slam-dunk case. Yes, they've got his DNA, but he's now saying, Yeah, we had sex.
I paid her for sex.

Speaker 49 So we did him and gave her her 100 bucks and all that.

Speaker 2 Prosecutor's office was uncomfortable with the fact that Ina's memory was in bits and pieces. Prosecutors decided they had a case of he said, she said.

Speaker 2 They didn't feel they could win a case if it went to trial. You don't know the way that a jury would feel.
So the prosecutor's office decided to offer him a plea.

Speaker 1 It turns out Jones pleads guilty to a reduced charge. The case never even comes up before a jury.
And he gets, get this, two years.

Speaker 1 Two years.

Speaker 26 Two years.

Speaker 2 Two years. I was upset.
I just told him, you can't, you can't let this guy out.

Speaker 5 I was angry. I was angry.
But I couldn't do anything. I'm not familiar with the justice system.

Speaker 5 But I was upset and sorry. Yes, I was upset.

Speaker 1 In fact, everyone involved in the case is upset. Everyone, that is, except Ken Brennan.

Speaker 7 See, that didn't bother me either.

Speaker 3 I said, hey, listen, don't worry about it.

Speaker 1 The dogged investigator has yet another hunch.

Speaker 12 This wasn't his first time at the rodeo here.

Speaker 33 He's done this before.

Speaker 1 And the hotel security cameras are about to give up one final secret about Michael Jones.

Speaker 51 It started with a phone call in the early hours of the morning.

Speaker 1 911, what is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 51 A terrified woman tells the operator she's been kidnapped, assaulted, and that she's trapped in a room with her attacker.

Speaker 51 He's fallen asleep, so she quietly and ever so carefully finds his phone and calls for help.

Speaker 27 Is there any way you can get out of the building? I don't know without waking him. I'm scared.

Speaker 51 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland into a crime scene.

Speaker 30 We've got something big going on here.

Speaker 20 The first thing that hit my mind is a monster.

Speaker 51 A new series from ABC Audio and 2020, The Hand in the Window. Out now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 51 Give it up for Chicago.

Speaker 47 Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 27 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd. Bezos now ripped to shreds on his super yacht, and the boxes keep

Speaker 2 coming.

Speaker 47 Watch Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers.

Speaker 45 Terms apply.

Speaker 1 Now remember, Michael Jones works for a company that sends him all over the country. He's never in one place for very long.
You could say it's kind of a serial rapist ideal job.

Speaker 32 This is a perfect gig for this guy.

Speaker 13 They pay you to move around the country. You stay for a couple of weeks, you work there, and then you move on, you're somewhere else.

Speaker 37 What better occupation could a serial rapist have?

Speaker 1 So when Detective Foote tells Brennan that Jones copped a plea, a two-year sentence for his attack on Ina, Brennan is ready to play his final ace.

Speaker 2 Ken Brennan knew that he was dealing with a serial rapist and he was proved right.

Speaker 11 The FBI has a system called CODIS, which is a DNA database. It's a central repository of all of the records that police submit to the FBI.

Speaker 13 I said, make sure you put this DNA into CODIS, and you'll see, there'll be other cases start popping up because I'm sure this isn't this

Speaker 23 first time.

Speaker 1 And once detectives entered Jones's DNA into that CODIS system,

Speaker 1 bingo.

Speaker 1 I was notified that they had DNA that had matched my case. Turns out Detective Terry Thrumston had a cold case up in Colorado Springs.

Speaker 1 At that time, Jones was working at the Colorado Springs World Arena. He traveled all over the United States for his job

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 he was good at being a rapist. The Colorado victim, 41-year-old Jennifer Russler, is seen here just minutes before that attack leaving a local convenience store.
On that night, her whole life changed.

Speaker 1 She was a woman alone walking at 2.30, 3 o'clock in the morning. The man asked her if she wanted to ride.
She said yes and got in his vehicle, got to her apartment.

Speaker 1 He asked for a drink drink of water. When I asked him, you know, you need to leave, you know, I was going to go to bed.
And he just, he was like, Jekyll and Hyde.

Speaker 1 He just, it just, I could just see the monster come over him.

Speaker 3 And then he

Speaker 1 sexually assaults her at that point.

Speaker 1 You know, he wasn't nervous.

Speaker 1 He was calm. It was like we was on a date.
And I knew, Terry, I knew this happened happened before. I've just, I had a feeling this has happened before because he was too calm.

Speaker 1 She wanted to confront him.

Speaker 1 She wanted justice for what happened.

Speaker 1 I just want you to catch this guy.

Speaker 20 The DNA is incredibly powerful, but it still doesn't make this an open and shut case.

Speaker 20 The defense focuses on the fact that Jennifer let him into the house and they claim that shows this was consensual.

Speaker 1 But Thrumston refuses to let it go and takes the case to trial anyway. I kept trying to get a hold of her and couldn't get a hold of her and I didn't find out till the beginning of December

Speaker 1 that she had passed away.

Speaker 1 It was a shock. We had to figure out if we were even going to be able to go forward without our victim being alive.

Speaker 1 I still wanted to go forward.

Speaker 1 Detective Prumston actually might have a DNA match to a case of another woman who might have been raped by Jones.

Speaker 1 Her story has a kind of familiar ring. A stranger in a car, a ride, and an attack.

Speaker 1 I screamed with everything I had, and

Speaker 1 the reality was, is just there was nobody there. It was, there was nobody there.
This woman, we're going to call her Rachel, might have been Jones' first victim.

Speaker 2 Rachel was the key to putting Michael Lee Jones in prison for the rest of his life. It was really Rachel who made a very convincing witness in court.

Speaker 1 I'm a working professional and I'm a mom.

Speaker 20 Rachel's been waiting years for this moment to be able to tell her story as best she remembers it. Most importantly, to try to get justice.

Speaker 1 She was able to describe exactly what had happened to her six years later in full detail of what had happened without a doubt.

Speaker 20 At the time of the attack, Rachel helped create a composite sketch of the person who attacked her.

Speaker 2 And it looked a whole heck of a lot like Michael Lee Jones.

Speaker 1 Seeing that sketch next to his face, it was extremely satisfying. I just felt like, yes.

Speaker 1 But is that going to be enough to sway a jury? Within a couple hours, the jury came back and said he's guilty.

Speaker 1 Jones gets hit with a sentence of 24 years to life and in 2015 a Louisiana judge slams him with an even bigger sentence, 45 years for the brutal attacks in the New Orleans area.

Speaker 1 You gave almost two years of your life to this case. How did it feel to finally see this guy brought to justice?

Speaker 35 I gave

Speaker 34 two years of my life investigatorial-wise, but you know, the victims give a hell of a lot more.

Speaker 28 They're the ones that should be commended for this, you you know, because I can only do the investigation and you know make an arrest,

Speaker 34 but they're the ones that put them in prison, you know.

Speaker 26 The victims are the heroes here.

Speaker 28 They're the ones that have to get on the stand and say, this is what this guy did to me.

Speaker 34 This is when he did it to me.

Speaker 36 This is how he did it.

Speaker 5 And I feel happy that... the criminal isn't you know where he's supposed to be and he

Speaker 5 never gonna hurt nobody in the future.

Speaker 1 You need to go through through this as painful and as traumatic and embarrassing as all of that might be, you have to do that because you just don't.

Speaker 1 You never know how many other women may have been impacted by this person. Detective Foote has retired from the Miami-Dade Police Department and he's got a new opinion of private investigators.

Speaker 1 At least this one. You weren't that crazy about private eyes to begin with.
Did this case change your mind at all?

Speaker 2 In respect to Ken Brennan, it did, yes.

Speaker 1 But private eyes in general, not so much.

Speaker 2 I still have the same opinion about private investigators, but I respect Ken Brennan

Speaker 2 as a person and as an investigator.

Speaker 2 I could count on him. Glad to know him.

Speaker 1 As for Ina, she settled her suit against the hotel. And even though she was the key to helping solve so many other crimes, she doesn't really feel like a hero.
She says she's just a survivor.

Speaker 5 I wish it never

Speaker 5 happened to anyone. I wish it

Speaker 5 never happened to nobody.

Speaker 2 I've been a reporter and a journalist for almost a half century, and I think this is the most remarkable piece of detective work that I've ever come across. The sheer doggedness, the creativity,

Speaker 2 the cleverness that Ken Brennan brought to this case make it truly extraordinary.

Speaker 1 As for the man himself, Brennan, with the case closed, he can treat himself to a celebratory cigar

Speaker 1 and a great sense of satisfaction.

Speaker 43 I've been doing this since 1975.

Speaker 12 In every one of the multitude of cases that I've done, this was by far the most rewarding.

Speaker 1 You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9 on ABC.
You can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1 It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at Whitehouse Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

Speaker 37 I know there's going to be a twist, won't they? A massive twist.

Speaker 46 At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 1 I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker.
Find it now now in the In the Dark podcast feed.