The Mystery of Jane Mixer

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Speaker 5 She had been shot once in the front and once in the back of the head.

Speaker 5 Here is just where he dumped her, on a night of cold rain.

Speaker 5 Jane was a silent but very strong presence growing up.

Speaker 5 I had a lot of unanswered questions, both about Jane's murder, about who she had been.

Speaker 5 I looked back to 1969 to find out.

Speaker 6 She was bright and articulate and concerned and empathetic.

Speaker 6 And I mean she stood up for what she thought was worth saying.

Speaker 7 One of the first women admitted to the University of Michigan Law School. Very promising future ahead of her and her life was stolen.

Speaker 6 She was on her way home for a weekend.

Speaker 6 She was picked up supposedly at 6 o'clock by someone who's going to give her a ride to Muskegon, Michigan.

Speaker 7 She gets into the vehicle with him,

Speaker 7 expecting to head west.

Speaker 7 And we've got a certain number of hours where Jane's basically missing.

Speaker 7 In the early morning hours, March 21st, 1969, Jane's body was discovered in the Denton Road Cemetery.

Speaker 5 My aunt was shot twice in the head and strangled.

Speaker 6 My name is Barbara Nelson and my sister was Jane Mixer. I think I didn't want to even get close to what had happened to her.

Speaker 6 At the time of Jane's death, there were a a whole series of murders of young women.

Speaker 6 They did arrest a man for the murder of one of the young women, and he was tried and convicted.

Speaker 5 For many years, most people thought my aunt was the victim of a serial killer. When I did my research,

Speaker 5 I was not convinced that Collins killed my aunt.

Speaker 7 Jane's case was just too different. The fact that she was placed in that cemetery with her belongings, very unlike the other cases.

Speaker 5 There were many mysteries.

Speaker 5 I had reasons to think that somebody was still out there.

Speaker 7 I certainly felt that someone had gotten away with murdering Jane.

Speaker 6 I never, in my wildest dreams, thought things would happen as they did. Never, ever.

Speaker 10 Deadly ride.

Speaker 5 Jane was both an inspiration of many things I wanted to be, driven, disobedient, brilliant, independent.

Speaker 5 And I also knew that she died horribly.

Speaker 12 Jane Mixer was murdered in Ann Arbor, Michigan in March 1969. She was 23,

Speaker 12 about the same age her niece, Maggie Nelson, was, when she resolved to learn all she could about the aunt she never knew.

Speaker 5 I didn't feel as though I could ask anyone in my family the details about Jane's murder.

Speaker 12 What was it that you wanted to know, that you needed to know?

Speaker 5 The questions weren't so much. I mean, they were like, who was she?

Speaker 5 How did she die? But they were really also, why does the story haunt me so much?

Speaker 6 We didn't talk about what had happened to Jane.

Speaker 12 Maggie's mother, Barbara, Jane's older sister by two years, admits there was a pall of silence. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 6 One, it was painful, and it seemed almost lurid to think about it or talk about it.

Speaker 12 But Maggie felt compelled to unravel the mystery surrounding Jane.

Speaker 5 I was often called her name, but I didn't know much about her.

Speaker 12 She went to the public library and pored over old newspaper reports, finally learning the details of her aunt's death.

Speaker 12 Back home, she dug up some of Jane's diaries and began to read.

Speaker 5 This is from Jane's journal in 1966.

Speaker 5 You know, for a world that demands direction, I certainly have none. Will I be a teacher? Will I go to France? Really, I don't know how smart I am.

Speaker 5 And that, above all else, keeps me working and working hard.

Speaker 12 Maggie discovered that Jane was high school valedictorian. Over the objections of school officials, she had given a fiery graduation speech calling for social justice.

Speaker 12 She went on to the University of Michigan and was committed to changing the world.

Speaker 13 If it was civil rights, that civil rights laws had to change and she was going to do something about it.

Speaker 12 Maggie also tracked down Phil Weitzman, one of the people closest to Jane in 1969, when she was one of just 37 female law students in a class of 420.

Speaker 13 Whatever she got involved in, she was

Speaker 13 extremely passionate about.

Speaker 12 She was most passionate about Phil. And early that spring, they were ready to make a big announcement.

Speaker 13 We decided to get married. And Jane said that she wanted to go home and talk with her parents

Speaker 13 and felt that she could convince them that this was a good thing.

Speaker 12 Jane planned to go there first, with Phil following a few days later.

Speaker 12 So she posted a note on a college rideboard looking for a lift from Ann Arbor to her home in Muskegon.

Speaker 13 No one thought anything of it because everyone did it.

Speaker 12 Phil says she found a ride with a man named David Johnson.

Speaker 6 We talked on the telephone and I thought she should come with Phil.

Speaker 6 She told me that she thought that it would work out better if they came independently.

Speaker 6 And I said it seemed like it wasn't the right thing to do and she said, trust me.

Speaker 6 And those are the last words she ever said

Speaker 12 jane had told her parents she'd be leaving ann arbor around 6 p.m they expected her to arrive home around 9 30.

Speaker 12 as the time ticked by and jane didn't show up her father grew concerned finally around 11 p.m he simply couldn't wait around anymore

Speaker 5 He got very nervous, so he set out looking for her, driving in his car.

Speaker 5 There's only one freeway, really, you know, between Ann Arbor and where my grandfather lived. The idea that he could just encounter her on the road, wandering somewhere, needing help.

Speaker 5 So he drove, you know, several hours just looking on the road to see.

Speaker 12 Sometime that night, Jane was killed.

Speaker 12 Jane Mixer's body ended up here in an old out-of-the-way out-of-the-way cemetery 14 miles from Ann Arbor. Her killer left her out in the open, atop a grave, just steps from the gate.

Speaker 12 It wasn't until the next morning that a woman in a nearby home noticed the body and called police.

Speaker 15 When we arrived there, it was 10.30 in the morning and it was a cold, crisp morning.

Speaker 12 Detective Donald Bennett, now retired, was sent to investigate.

Speaker 8 We saw what appeared to be a body of a woman lying underneath some clothing on top of a grave.

Speaker 15 We first lifted off the uppermost piece of clothing, which was the raincoat.

Speaker 18 You could very quickly see that she'd been shot in the head.

Speaker 15 And then around her neck, we could see a nylon hose, so she'd been strangled also.

Speaker 12 There was no apparent sexual assault, but Jane's pantyhose had been pulled down.

Speaker 12 During the autopsy, Bennett scraped a single drop of blood off Jane's left hand.

Speaker 15 Well, it probably grabbed my attention because it was a singular round spot of blood dried. I didn't know what it meant, so I thought, well, we'll find out later.

Speaker 12 Three decades later, that tiny drop of blood would become a controversial piece of evidence. But back in 1969, there was little the police could do with that.

Speaker 12 So, they searched for other clues. On the night of the murder, a green station wagon was seen careening away from the cemetery, but that was never tracked down.

Speaker 12 Police searched Jane's dorm room and found a phone book that had a mark next to the name, David Johnson. But that David Johnson, a University of Michigan student, had an ironclad alibi.

Speaker 12 He was acting on stage the night of the murder and said he never offered Jane a ride. The cops checked out other David Johnsons in the area, as well as Jane's acquaintances, including her fiancé.

Speaker 13 I was too numb to really care. I was much more concerned about dealing with the death of someone I was about to get married to.

Speaker 19 For the third time in the past two years, the body of an Ann Arbor Ypsilati co-ed has been found, the girl brutally murdered.

Speaker 12 Police were stymied and concerned. This crime seemed to fit a disturbing pattern.
Jane Mixer was the third young woman in the area to turn up dead in the past two years.

Speaker 12 And four days later, the pace picked up when a fourth body was found.

Speaker 12 By the end of July, there were seven victims. Most were brutalized before they were killed.

Speaker 14 You would see these photographs each time a body was found, you know, all lined up with dramatic headlines.

Speaker 12 Catherine Ramslin teaches and writes about forensics.

Speaker 14 This is one of the better better maps of where each of the murder victims have been found.

Speaker 12 Her latest book is about serial killers. Back in 1969, she was living near Ann Arbor.

Speaker 20 They have young women being murdered and nobody can find the guy and stop him.

Speaker 6 That's just

Speaker 14 something that had never happened here.

Speaker 21 Karen Sue was dead. The victim in the seventh unsolved murder of college co-eds in the world.

Speaker 12 As body after body was recovered, the Mixer family retreated.

Speaker 6 We were buried within our own little worlds of pain and didn't talk about what was really going on.

Speaker 12 But the community was clamoring for action. We're afraid we might be the next one.
You never know.

Speaker 14 He's out there, he's a monster, he's a madman.

Speaker 10 How long can you have young women being killed before the pressures become so great because you, as the police, can't solve this?

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Speaker 21 Mary Fleischer had been stabbed several times.

Speaker 21 20-year-old Joan Schell, she'd been sexually molested and her throat had been slashed.

Speaker 19 The body of an Ann Arbor Ypsilantic co-ed has been found brutally murdered.

Speaker 6 It was shock and horror

Speaker 6 and being scared.

Speaker 12 Barbara Nelson says the murder of her little sister Jane left her numb.

Speaker 6 And it just seemed to me that how could life get any worse?

Speaker 10 Within a month, two more women would die.

Speaker 14 This is the original police sketch.

Speaker 12 Forensics expert Catherine Ramslin says back in 1969, the killer seemed unstoppable.

Speaker 14 We did not know much about serial killers in those days. We didn't even use the word serial killer.

Speaker 12 It wasn't until the seventh victim was found that police finally got a break in the case.

Speaker 12 When they made the arrest, it was a real shocker.

Speaker 23 We wanted to announce that one John Norman Collins has been charged with the murder of Karen Sue Byneman.

Speaker 12 John Collins was an education major at Eastern Michigan University.

Speaker 14 He was level-headed, smart on the honor roll, and he had no known criminal record. He played baseball.
He was the tri-captain of the football team.

Speaker 12 A witness claimed she had seen Collins with Karen Byneman shortly before her death.

Speaker 12 And while it was widely assumed that he was responsible for all seven murders, Collins stood trial for just one, the Byneman homicide.

Speaker 12 He was convicted of first-degree murder.

Speaker 14 Pretty much all they had against him was circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 14 I think when you put together the fear at that time and the need for the police to resolve it, I don't think there was going to be any other verdict than that one.

Speaker 12 Although John Collins maintained his innocence in Byneman's murder, he was sentenced to life, and he has never been charged with the murders of any of the other six victims.

Speaker 12 Still, back in 1969, people here in Michigan breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Speaker 14 Investigators gave the media the sense that even if we can't prove he killed all of them, we know he did.

Speaker 12 The Mixer family came to accept that Collins killed Jane.

Speaker 6 And the murders stopped. So there was this sense of relief.
I mean, I think that's what made so many of us think that, yeah, they got the man. They stopped.

Speaker 12 Still, Barbara harbored a deep-seated fear from those days, and years later, her daughter, Maggie, would pick up on it.

Speaker 5 There was a lot of hysteria when I grew up.

Speaker 5 There's a lot of barricading of the doors.

Speaker 5 Hysterical fear, you know, the kind of fear that just doesn't feel like it's going to do you any good to hold on to it.

Speaker 12 But that fear only fueled Maggie's curiosity about her Aunt Jane's short life.

Speaker 12 Were you surprised or concerned when Maggie started asking questions?

Speaker 6 Absolutely. Felt like it was a book that shouldn't be opened.
And then also wanted to say, yes Maggie yes go for it you know

Speaker 12 and Maggie a professor of writing went for it in a big way

Speaker 5 her research would eventually become a book that has poetry prose newspaper articles journal entries a book about Jane's life she writes I am happy Tomorrow I may not be yesterday I wasn't but I am now and that's all that matters it would also deal with the impact Jane had on other people including Maggie herself.

Speaker 5 Her grave has no epitaph. I found her in the wild.
Her name was Jane, plain Jane.

Speaker 12 Maggie began to understand how strong the bonds were between her mother and her aunt Jane.

Speaker 5 This is from Jane's Journal in 1966. She writes, to Barbara, here's to the hope that you'll never stop growing up.
Not only for what you are, but what I am when I am with you, myself.

Speaker 5 Gratefully, your sister, Janie.

Speaker 6 By the time we were both in college, we were extremely close. I would say she was actually my best friend.

Speaker 6 Dealing with Jane's death was extraordinarily painful. I don't think there are any words that can really capture it.

Speaker 12 After the horror, Barbara got on with her life, but there were still unanswered questions.

Speaker 5 No one has known what happened to Jane that night for 36 years.

Speaker 12 Jane's case became inactive in 1970 when John Collins was convicted of Karen Byneman's murder.

Speaker 14 He thinks there was a miscarriage of justice.

Speaker 12 Ramslin, who's been researching the case, has been corresponding with Collins. He's been in a state prison now for the last 35 years.
Has he ever denied or admitted to anything?

Speaker 5 He consistently denies that he

Speaker 14 has ever killed anyone, including Jane Mixer. Including Jane Mixer.

Speaker 12 On that one point, at least, Ramslin tends to believe him.

Speaker 14 The Jane Mixer murder was so different from the others.

Speaker 12 She's never been convinced that John Collins killed Jane.

Speaker 14 Her murder just did not have the brutality about it that some of the others did.

Speaker 12 The killer had taken the time to cover up Jane's body and carefully arrange her belongings around her.

Speaker 7 And she'd also had a raincoat pulled up over her face to protect her from the elements. Very unlike the other cases.

Speaker 12 Detective Eric Schroeder is one of many investigators who also believe Jane's case stands alone.

Speaker 7 She was found fully clothed. She was not a victim of any blunt force trauma.

Speaker 12 For years, Jane Mixer's murder has bothered him.

Speaker 7 A homicide case is a homicide case. They're never closed.

Speaker 12 Detective Schroeder was convinced that Jane's case should be taken out of cold storage.

Speaker 12 At the same time, Schroeder and his colleagues began to quietly reinvestigate Jane's murder.

Speaker 12 Maggie was still writing her book

Speaker 12 and struggling.

Speaker 5 It was scary, very, very gruesome. It was a terrible book to write.
I had terrible nightmares. I mean, many times, I thought I should abandon ship.

Speaker 12 Those nightmares began to haunt her.

Speaker 5 I had this phobia that Jane's killer might be alive and free.

Speaker 12 Little did she know.

Speaker 7 We had no idea that this person even existed.

Speaker 7 I've never been involved in a case this encompassing. This is the turtleneck shirt that Jane Mixer was wearing.
This is her jumper dress.

Speaker 7 This case got to me.

Speaker 12 Michigan State Police Detective Eric Schroeder was deeply touched by the story of Jane Mixer.

Speaker 7 This case had kind of fallen through the cracks. I just didn't feel that we could give up on it.
This was tied around her neck as a ligature.

Speaker 12 So in 2001, when Schroeder was put in charge of cataloging evidence from old cases, he jumped at the chance to finally do Jane justice.

Speaker 7 Jane Mixer deserved to have some answers.

Speaker 12 He hoped to find new evidence.

Speaker 7 This is all the evidence that was collected during the investigation.

Speaker 12 Evidence that could not be detected in the 60s. DNA.

Speaker 7 These are the pantyholes that were on her body. We took these to the lab.

Speaker 7 The forensic scientists took the cuttings from the areas that they located with the possible staining and did the DNA analysis.

Speaker 12 The lab also looked for telltale DNA on Jane's clothing, the ligature, and a bloody towel found under her head.

Speaker 7 It took about a year for the scientists to give me a call.

Speaker 12 They called with startling news. The lab did find incriminating DNA, but that DNA did not match John Collins, the man who had been blamed for the murder for more than 30 years.

Speaker 12 Now, there was a new suspect.

Speaker 6 I was dumbfounded. It's still an open case.

Speaker 12 Detective Schroeder telephoned Jane's sister, Barbara Nelson.

Speaker 6 There would be no reason to think it would be closed, but I had no idea that there were people that were actually aware that it was an unsolved case.

Speaker 12 Maggie Nelson was just finishing her book about Jane. Were you shocked?

Speaker 5 Oh yeah, very shocked. It definitely was beyond the realms of anything I could have ever imagined.

Speaker 12 The lab found that the DNA on Jane's pantyhose matched this man, 62-year-old Gary Leiterman from Goebbels, Michigan. A husband of nearly 28 years.

Speaker 12 Father of two children, now grown, and a retired registered nurse.

Speaker 7 We decided to just go ahead and contact him directly.

Speaker 12 When police came knocking on his door in November 2004, he says he thought nothing of it. You were leading a pretty normal life.

Speaker 24 I would say so, yes.

Speaker 24 Thoughts went through my mind like perhaps there were some problems in the neighborhood. Maybe somebody had something stolen.

Speaker 12 After questioning Leiterman for more than three hours, the detectives dropped their bombshell. They told him his DNA was found on crime scene evidence that had been sitting in storage since 1969.

Speaker 12 What was your reaction?

Speaker 24 I was incredulous. What do you mean, my DNA?

Speaker 12 Back when Jane Mixer was murdered, Leiterman was 26 and single. He had served four years in the Navy and lived in a town about 20 miles from Ann Arbor.
Did you know Jane Mixer? No, I did not.

Speaker 12 Although the police kept grilling Leiterman, he stuck to his story. Why didn't you believe him?

Speaker 7 Primarily the DNA.

Speaker 12 The police lab could not pinpoint where the DNA came from, but said it was not blood and not semen. It might be something like sweat, saliva, or skin cells.

Speaker 12 It was enough for police to accuse Leiterman of murder. A 35-year-old murder.

Speaker 6 What went through your mind?

Speaker 24 They were wrong. I did not do this.

Speaker 24 My concerns for my family and what this was going to do to them, just the accusation is horrible.

Speaker 12 Leiterman was taken into custody.

Speaker 24 Detective Schroeder had put me on the phone with my wife when she was in the car. I could hear the anguish, the terror in her voice.

Speaker 12 At the time, Leiterman's wife was too distraught to speak with us, so their close friend Rachel QB stepped in to talk about the man she has known for three decades.

Speaker 11 I believe they've got the wrong man.

Speaker 14 It just isn't, it isn't Gary.

Speaker 11 And the Gary I know

Speaker 11 wouldn't have done this.

Speaker 12 Leiterman had never been accused of a violent crime before.

Speaker 24 My personal life was pretty much wrapped up with my family, taking vacations with them, dragging the kids along to Civil War battlefields.

Speaker 12 But he did have one scrape with the law in 2001 when he was caught writing himself fake prescriptions. He had become addicted to painkillers during a bout with kidney stones.

Speaker 12 He was ordered to a treatment program, which he successfully completed. But his DNA was put in a database.
And that is how he now finds himself accused of murder. Did you kill Jane Mixer?

Speaker 24 No, I did not.

Speaker 12 Did you take her body to the cemetery and dump her there? Were you with anyone who did that?

Speaker 24 No, I was not. No, I did not.

Speaker 12 Did you have anything to do with the murder?

Speaker 15 Nothing.

Speaker 12 Prosecutor Stephen Hiller doesn't buy that and believes Leiterman should pay for this crime. What would be the motive for him to to kill a woman?

Speaker 25 The fact that her pantyhose had been taken down, her jumper had been pulled up so that her genitals were exposed, I think that it's fair to conclude that the motive was sexual assault.

Speaker 12 But there was no physical evidence of sexual assault. And that is just one of the many challenges Hiller faces in this old case.

Speaker 25 We had missing evidence. We had lost evidence.
People's memories fade. We didn't have the murder weapon.

Speaker 12 The state's biggest challenge may be that Gary Leiterman's DNA isn't the only DNA that was found on Jane Mixer. Remember that tiny drop of blood scraped from Jane's left hand back in 1969?

Speaker 12 Well, the state's own lab says the DNA in that matches another man, a convicted killer named John Ruelis.

Speaker 12 But the prosecutor insists he is absolutely sure that Ruelis did not murder Jane for one simple reason.

Speaker 25 He was four and a half at the time.

Speaker 12 Four and a half.

Speaker 8 Four and a half years old.

Speaker 25 Four and a half year old didn't put a gun to Jane Mixer's head and pull the trigger, put it to her head again and pull the trigger, knot a stocking around her neck, and drag her body into the cemetery and arrange her clothes around her.

Speaker 12 So how did a four-year-old's blood get on Jane Mixer's hand? The Ruellis and Mixer cases were processed in the lab around the same time, raising the issue of contamination.

Speaker 12 But Hiller says that didn't happen.

Speaker 25 All right, sweetie.

Speaker 12 As he'll explain in court when he tries Gary Leiterman for murder.

Speaker 25 Unlike John Rules, Gary Leiterman was perfectly capable of having committed this murder.

Speaker 24 I think I'm a kind and gentle person. I've never been abusive to anybody.
I'm fortunate to have the love and support of my family and their prayers.

Speaker 25 All right.

Speaker 12 But Leiterman is feeling the stress.

Speaker 24 I'm as confident as you can be that I'll be acquitted. But no one ever knows for absolutely sure.

Speaker 12 And in this case, even the victim's victim's family has doubts.

Speaker 6 I wasn't sure they had the right man. There are enormous mysteries that remain in this case.

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Speaker 22 All right, please. The Honourable Donald E.
Shelton presiding.

Speaker 12 Michigan prosecutor Stephen Hiller says Gary Leiterman got away with murder for 36 years.

Speaker 7 Jane Mixer's death remained unsolved

Speaker 7 until August of 2004.

Speaker 12 A lot of the evidence was saved from this crime scene, correct?

Speaker 31 We got lucky.

Speaker 12 Now in 2005, Leiterman is on trial for the 1969 murder of Jane Mixer.

Speaker 24 I'm innocent.

Speaker 12 His friends and family are standing by him.

Speaker 24 They talk to my wife three or four times a week. I know they pray for me.

Speaker 12 Jane's sister, Barbara, and her daughter, Maggie, vow to be here every day and weigh the evidence themselves.

Speaker 6 I wanted to bear witness to Jane's life, you know, and this is in some sense, you know, a part of her life.

Speaker 6 I couldn't not be here. Just couldn't.
I had to be here.

Speaker 12 Come forward. Jane's father is the first witness called.

Speaker 18 Well, they took us to the morgue and exposed the body, and it was my daughter, Jane.

Speaker 26 Was there any any question?

Speaker 18 No, no questions.

Speaker 24 I could not think of a more terrible and sad and horrifying feeling, being told that your daughter's never coming home again.

Speaker 12 You saw me swear it or? David Johnson, the man who was acting in a play the night of the murder, testifies he never spoke with Jane.

Speaker 26 Did you ever know a person named Jane Mixer?

Speaker 12 I did not.

Speaker 26 Did you ever agree to take Jane Mixer to Muskegon? No.

Speaker 12 What's your theory on what happened in March of 1969?

Speaker 26 I think that Gary Leiterman

Speaker 25 called Jane Mixer in response to her

Speaker 25 ad for a ride to Muskegon and represented himself as David Johnson.

Speaker 12 Healer believes that Jane got into Leiterman's car and sometime that night, he made a sexual advance that ended in murder.

Speaker 25 Ultimately, that night, he... put a gun to her head twice, pulled the trigger.

Speaker 12 Leiterman, an avid hunter, did own a.22.22-caliber handgun, but there is no proof that it was the gun that killed Jane.

Speaker 17 It's a picture of the body lying inside the fenced area of the cemetery, covered with a yellow raincoat.

Speaker 6 I had not known exactly how my sister died, and the trial certainly made that very clear.

Speaker 12 The old detectives do their best to recall the case.

Speaker 26 Do you recall the morning of March 21st, 1969?

Speaker 32 Yes,

Speaker 18 to a degree.

Speaker 12 Evidence they found.

Speaker 17 A small portion of a fired bullet.

Speaker 12 Evidence they lost.

Speaker 31 Do you recall a cigarette butt?

Speaker 18 Yes, I do.

Speaker 8 Do you know what happened to it?

Speaker 18 No, I don't. I wish I could answer you, sir.

Speaker 12 But the crucial issue here concerns evidence they didn't even know existed back then.

Speaker 8 Are these the pantyhose that were removed from Jane Mixer's body dead?

Speaker 15 Yes, they are.

Speaker 12 DNA.

Speaker 26 The person whose DNA you took, you see him in the courtroom?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 26 Would you point to him, please?

Speaker 7 He's seated here.

Speaker 12 The new investigators who took over the case testify about the three distinct spots of DNA on Jane's pantyhose that clearly match Gary Leiterman. Here, here, and here.

Speaker 12 That is correct. And they say DNA in other places is a partial match.

Speaker 7 A4 would be right there.

Speaker 12 Those places include three additional spots on the patty hose, spots on the bloody towel found under Jane's head, and spots on the nylon stocking that was tied around her neck.

Speaker 19 This is the leg opening of the stocking.

Speaker 12 Hiller says that is a lot of DNA and proof that Leiterman was there when Jane was murdered, perhaps sweating as he moved her body. Leiterman denies that.

Speaker 12 But you can't think of any physical contact that you had with her.

Speaker 24 No, I cannot.

Speaker 9 We also don't know when that stain came in contact with that pantyhose.

Speaker 12 Yeah. Defense Attorney Gary Gabry says he can imagine some possibilities.

Speaker 9 I believe there's innocent explanations in which the DNA could have been on there. Such as.
Such as having contact with the pantyhose in a laundromat.

Speaker 17 Surface the clerk.

Speaker 12 Or as his expert testifies, DNA could have been transferred in a public place

Speaker 12 with a chance encounter, like a sneeze.

Speaker 26 Material that's ejected during the sneeze certainly has an abundant amount of DNA associated with it.

Speaker 12 Hiller dismisses that, saying there is just too much DNA to explain away.

Speaker 25 It was in places where it would not have resulted from casual contact.

Speaker 25 There is no innocent explanation.

Speaker 25 for Jane Mixer's pantyhose to have Gary Leiterman's DNA on them.

Speaker 12 But he cannot so readily dismiss the crime lab's finding that a spot of blood on Jane Mixer's hand matches the DNA of a convicted felon who was only four years old when Jane was murdered.

Speaker 25 Certainly we had to consider how

Speaker 25 to handle John Ruelis' blood.

Speaker 12 In 1969, young John Ruellis was living in downtown Detroit, about 40 miles away from where Jane's body was found. Investigators could not connect Ruelis to Gary Leiterman or to Jane Mixer.

Speaker 12 But remember, the Mixer and Ruellis cases were in the lab around the same time. Which begs the question, did something go wrong in the lab?

Speaker 9 Would you agree that human beings make mistakes?

Speaker 7 Yes, they do.

Speaker 12 If a mistake was made with Ruellis, Gabrie says the evidence against Leiterman cannot be trusted.

Speaker 9 It's going out on quite a limb to say, well, there's contamination in this part, but there's not contamination in this part.

Speaker 12 Michigan state officials would not allow 48 Hours or any other outsiders inside the lab. This is their video.
But Hiller insists he can show that nothing went wrong there. And he calls witness.

Speaker 8 All the guidelines were followed in this particular case.

Speaker 12 After witness.

Speaker 11 We wear gloves on our hands that we change between every item that we test.

Speaker 12 Who describe the great pains taken at the lab to keep all evidence separate to prevent and catch errors.

Speaker 21 We have a separate laboratory where we analyze bulk evidence.

Speaker 12 Lab supervisor Jeffrey Nye says he retraced every step. In this particular case, you don't believe there's any issue of contamination.

Speaker 25 That's right.

Speaker 8 No issue whatsoever.

Speaker 9 That means that John Rulas is around this young lady who is ultimately found dead and bleeds on her. How does that happen?

Speaker 12 How that happened, the prosecutor says, is lost to history. But he insists the evidence clearly shows that somehow, some way, four-year-old John Ruellis was there.

Speaker 12 So you honestly believe that John Rules was somehow in the vicinity of Jane Mixer back in 1969? That his blood, it's actually John Ruellis' blood.

Speaker 25 His blood was on her.

Speaker 12 No question.

Speaker 25 Not in my mind.

Speaker 12 With Hiller's case case hinging on DNA, Defense Attorney Gabri highlights other evidence that points away from Gary Leiterman.

Speaker 9 There were no fingerprints that have been associated with Gary Leiterman. Is that correct?

Speaker 5 That's correct.

Speaker 12 Leiterman's fingerprints do not match any of the prints still unidentified in the case.

Speaker 12 Nor did Leiterman own a car anything like the one seen speeding away the night of the crime.

Speaker 9 It was Lime Green 68 Chevy Station Wagon.

Speaker 12 Veiderman does not take the stand. Two weeks after opening arguments, the jurors begin deliberating.
Veiderman's close friend, Rachel Cuby, says the case against him seems weak.

Speaker 11 I don't believe that Gary did this. There were way, way, way too many unexplained things.

Speaker 12 Still, his family is worried. And even the Mixer family feels sympathy towards them.

Speaker 5 Gary Leiderman is a loved person by many people. If he's found guilty, that will be a very deep tragedy for his family.

Speaker 6 You know, I try to put myself in their position, and I say my heart goes out to them.

Speaker 12 Even so, Barbara and Maggie have come to believe that the state has proved its case.

Speaker 7 He's seated here.

Speaker 12 What do you think then is the most incriminating piece of evidence?

Speaker 6 It's got to be the DNA.

Speaker 12 But has the state won over the jury?

Speaker 12 Gary Leiterman's fate is in their hands.

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Speaker 5 Parallel to the highway, there runs a narrow gravel road that used to be a lover's lane.

Speaker 5 The cemetery opens out to grass, then the highway.

Speaker 12 Maggie Nelson ends her book at the place where Jane Mixer's murder investigation began.

Speaker 5 So So much talk about the possible significance of the name on the headstone where her body was found,

Speaker 5 but here is just where he dumped her on a night of cold rain and where my mother and I stand today listening to the birds.

Speaker 12 Long before there was a suspect, Maggie brought her mother here.

Speaker 6 I did it because she asked me and I think because I knew that it was time.

Speaker 6 It was a healing experience. It was an extraordinary healing experience.

Speaker 12 All right, please. Now, five years later, they wait anxiously to hear whether a jury believes Gary Leiterman killed Jane 36 years ago.

Speaker 5 It was just pure...

Speaker 5 stress.

Speaker 6 I think for each one of us,

Speaker 6 our stomachs turned over.

Speaker 31 Do you have a note from the jury indicating that they have reached a decision?

Speaker 12 Leiterman's family also waits, hoping it will be the end of their ordeal.

Speaker 31 Counsel and defendant, please rise.

Speaker 12 The jury is swift. It has taken only four hours for them to determine Leiterman's fate.

Speaker 24 We, the jury, find the defendant guilty. Signed by the jury for it.

Speaker 32 Thank you.

Speaker 31 Seat, sir.

Speaker 6 There was just this kind of stunned silence. I felt like I was sort of numb.

Speaker 35 Is Is this and was that your verdict? Jury number 264, chair number one.

Speaker 25 Yes.

Speaker 35 Is this and was that your verdict? Jury number 218?

Speaker 5 It was just very emotional to think that these 12 people were saying we believe this person killed your relative.

Speaker 35 Is this and was that your verdict? Jury number 335, chair six.

Speaker 6 I think when it became a reality to me is when I turned to my father and my father began sobbing. And I knew then that this was a huge thing, a huge thing.

Speaker 5 He was much more emotional than I've ever seen him.

Speaker 5 At a certain point he just completely had to say, I'm never going to know what happened here. And I just don't think he thought at 91 he'd be hearing a jury read a guilty verdict.

Speaker 17 Sentencing will be August 30th at 1.30.

Speaker 12 What did you think when you heard the verdict?

Speaker 24 First thing that went to my mind was, did I hear that correctly?

Speaker 12 Did it sink in? Because you really had no reaction at all to it.

Speaker 24 Yes, I was devastated.

Speaker 6 What would be wonderful would be to have Gary Leiterman actually say, I did it.

Speaker 6 And as long as he doesn't say that, there'll always be this just nagging doubt about what really happened.

Speaker 31 Mr. Leiterman, you have been convicted of first-degree murders.
Anything you'd like to say to the court?

Speaker 12 Six weeks later, at his sentencing, Leiterman speaks out in court for the first time. He expresses sympathy for the mixers.

Speaker 24 It was probably an awful time of their lives back in 1969 to know that they lost their daughter and their sister.

Speaker 24 And she's appeared to be a lovely young lady.

Speaker 12 But he steadfastly denies having anything to do with Jane's murder.

Speaker 24 But I also want to say that I am innocent of this crime.

Speaker 12 Under Michigan law, his sentence is mandatory.

Speaker 31 It is the sentence of the court that you serve the rest of your natural life in the Michigan Department of Corrections without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 12 Even with his fate now sealed, Leiterman still finds it hard to accept the jury's verdict.

Speaker 24 I wish I could say benevolent things about them and about the decision they made, but I'd simply have to deal with it. I'd have to deal with it and move on.

Speaker 12 So have you just accepted it and that's the way it's going to be?

Speaker 24 I haven't accepted it. It's not the way it's going to be, hopefully.

Speaker 12 You're fighting?

Speaker 24 Yes, we are.

Speaker 12 It will be an uphill battle.

Speaker 12 But Leiterman's new attorney, Mark Satawa, feels he has a shot.

Speaker 21 The fact that there is not just some biological material, but a blood drop from a person who was four years old at the time, I think it calls into question the entire reliability of

Speaker 21 the testing in this case.

Speaker 12 Prosecutor Stephen Hiller believes justice was served.

Speaker 26 Gary Leiterman deserves to pay the price for what he's done.

Speaker 10 And he'll do that.

Speaker 12 After a long journey, Maggie Nelson may have found some peace. Are you still haunted by any of the questions from that night?

Speaker 5 I think I'm less haunted now.

Speaker 12 Her search for answers has finally brought Jane Mixer home.

Speaker 5 The horror of Jane's death made her a forgotten person. It was too hard to look at it.
And in some strange way, she's come back to life.

Speaker 5 My family got to remember how much they loved her, you know.

Speaker 32 Gary Leiterman died in prison in 2019. He was 76 years old.

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