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I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson.

I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.

Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st-century lens.

Some are solved, and some are cold.

Very cold.

This is Buried Bones.

Hey, Kate, how's it going?

It's going really well.

I want to give some big props to one of our listeners.

Well, I'll give props to all of our listeners, but one in particular

who I feel like knows me so well.

So she emailed me probably a couple of months ago and said, Hey, I have something that I just want to send to you.

I found it and I think you might like it.

And since it's small, and I said, you know, I can take care of the postage or whatever.

And she just was really sweet and she sent it to me.

And since it's small, it was easy to get to me.

So it is a book that I feel like comes close to

the rareness of your, what's the name of your medical book that you pulled out on the very first episode where you looked up, maybe it was chloroform.

I can't remember what, mercury, I think.

This is it here.

Yeah.

This is The Essentials of Forensic Medicine, 1892.

And where did you get that?

I can remember where you told me you got that from.

Yeah, believe it or not, this was a hand-me-down from my dad.

He kind of collected books, and I think he just was in a bookstore at some point in the past and bought it.

And then when I saw it after getting into forensics, it was like, oh, this is a really, I mean, cool book where you have, and I don't want to open up too much, but you have the hand-drawn diagrams in it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, it's a really cool book.

So this listener, her name's Jodi, sent it to me.

And this is a book that's called The People's Common Sense Medical Advisor.

Yeah.

Right.

Here it is.

And it's falling apart a little bit, which means, you know, it's a great book.

People have used it a lot.

Right.

It's from 1909.

And she was really sweet.

So, you know, sending me this, and she, you know, inscribed it, Happy Sleuthing, Best Regards, Jodi, which was really nice.

Really cool.

But I, you know, I was flipping through here.

And like with your book, this has a lot of really interesting pictures, anatomy of a joint, anatomy of a knee joint.

You know, it gets really specific.

It has testimony from different patients because this book was written by a doctor who, let me see if I can get to this.

The Invalids Hotel and Surgical Institute of Buffalo, New York, a remedial home established by R.

V.

Pierce and located in one of the healthiest cities in the United States.

This was a book that was used by, you know, I'm sure physicians, but also a book that people probably would have kept at home and used as a medical reference.

You know, I remember having not these books, obviously, but books like that at friends' houses and at our house, just sort of like, oh my gosh, I have something hurting in my knee pre-internet, which I was pre-internet, so were you, where you think, where am I going to get medical advice?

And it was books like this, where you pick up a book and it's not going to be perfect, but it shows you a diagram and it kind of will do what WebMD does for me now or my real doctor.

Yeah.

In fact, on my other bookshelf, I have the Merck manual.

You know, so get all the information on all these drugs.

I mean, it's thick.

Yeah.

It's a small book.

You know, it's like maybe six by eight inches, but it's about three and a half to four inches thick.

And so if there's any questions that I, back in the day, I had about any drug substances, I'd go to the Merck manual.

Well, this goes along with this.

We had another listener email me.

This was for a wicked words.

So she emailed me and mentioned that there was a guest who said that leeches are no longer used in medicine because doctors found out they were harmful rather than helpful.

So before you comment on this, let me tell you, she says her mom had leeches used after her surgery just a couple of years ago.

She said, I had a lot of questions.

I said, what's going on with the doctor?

And the doctor said that the leeches have an anticoagulant in their saliva and can be used to increase the blood flow around a surgical wound to promote the healing.

The surgery was for the removal of a cancerous tumor in her breast because I said, I'm going to talk to Paul about this.

And I said, can I have more context?

So that's what she said.

That she said, from what I understood, the effects of the radiation made it difficult for the skin to heal itself.

And that's how they used leeches.

So what do you think?

You know,

I know I've seen, you know, that leeches had been used.

I couldn't tell you why they had been used in the medical sense.

What you just read, that generally makes sense to me.

I've also read, and this is, I don't know if you want to call it descriptive.

I'll try not to be too descriptive, but in essence, when you have like necrotic tissue, you know, where the tissue around a wound or something is has died,

that sterile maggots can be used.

And they will go in and preferentially eat on the necrotic tissue.

Now, having seen maggots in real life on dead bodies, it's like, no, that's not going to be done to me.

Amazing.

I've never had to issue a trigger warning of don't eat your food right now because we're going to be talking about maggots feasting on dead flesh.

But there you go.

Wow.

Well, I was shocked by the leeches, and it proves that sometimes there are things that carry over from hundreds of years ago that still work today.

No, yeah, no, for sure.

Absolutely.

This October, we're doing something very different.

We'll be recording Buried Bones live at sea.

That's right.

Kate and I will both be part of the first ever True Crime Podcast Voyage, hosted by Virgin Voyages and iHeart Podcasts.

This is five nights of mystery, luxury, and Halloween fun, sailing to the Dominican Republic and Bimini Bahamas, adults only.

No kids, no stress.

Expect a live podcast recording of buried bones, crime-themed trivia, behind-the-scenes sessions with iHeart hosts, and yes, plenty of surprises.

And it's all wrapped in the full Virgin Voyages experience: 20-plus eateries, Michelin star chef-curated menus, lux staterooms, Wi-Fi, and entertainment included.

It's not just a cruise.

It's a celebration of thoughtful true crime storytelling, and we want you to join us.

Book your cabin now at virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

That's virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

We'll see you on board.

This episode is brought to you by IQBar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor.

IQ Bar is the better for you plant protein-based snack made with brain-boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash.

The Ultimate Sampler Pack is a great way to try all IQ bar products and flavors.

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All IQ bar products are entirely free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners.

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I always feel like I have to have something to perk me up in the afternoon.

IQ bars are really convenient and they taste great.

And right now, IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ products, plus get free shipping.

To get your 20% off, just text Bones to 64,000.

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Well, this story is science-y, and I think it's the kind of story that you like because we, you know, we'll be going down an interesting road that will feel familiar to you.

So that's why I I started with this science-y stuff, which is not always my thing.

Even though I went to a science magnet school here in Austin, I still am befuddled by science.

So I wanted to kind of prime you up for this.

Okay.

Okay, let's go ahead and set the scene.

Okay, I'm going to issue a trigger warning.

We are going to talk about sexual assault in this case, and it'll happen fairly quickly right at the beginning of the episode.

We are in a very, very modern time for us, 1972.

I mean, two years before I was born, I feel like it was just yesterday.

You're a young one.

What are you talking about?

I mean, yeah, I'm happy to bring these sorts of stories because I think we were just recently in the mid-1800s.

So I do have some photographs for you.

Great.

And this is in an area of Washington called Bethel.

It's about 20 miles north of Seattle.

So right now, that area is pretty much suburbia, but back then it was pretty rural, lots of farms and wooded areas.

Okay.

It's 5:45 p.m., and a couple is driving along a secluded dirt road surrounded by woods.

And it's about a half a mile away from major roadways.

The couple is driving into the woods to go target shooting, and they see a log that's blocking their path.

The guy gets out of the car to see what it is and then to move it.

And when he does, he sees a young woman lying in the road.

She's alive, but barely.

She's moving, she's groaning in pain, pain.

She appears to have a head injury.

And she's dressed only in a bra and underwear and her shoes.

And these are ankle boots, which will become important later on.

One is tied, one is untied.

And the shirt that she had been wearing is found nearby.

It's kind of a gray blue color and blue jeans are nearby.

So they rush her to the hospital.

She dies from her injury.

This injury is a gunshot wound from a small caliber bullet right above her right ear.

That's where we are so far.

A young woman who turns out to be 20 found in the roadway in a wooded area, an isolated spot in Washington state, 1972.

Of course, I mean, I think we're leading to this looks like this is a potential sexual assault also.

Yeah, is this, is this an off-road location?

Or is this a paved road?

You know, this log that's laying across the road.

So I'm kind of keying on that right now as could the presence of that log, which sounds like it's a tree that's fallen,

does that give us some temporal aspect on when people had access to freely pass through that road versus not?

So that's one of the things that I'm kind of keying in on just from understanding the crime scene a little bit better.

Her location.

behind the log, her state of dress, which is it's it's interesting where she's got her bra and underwear on, but also wearing her ankle boots.

And with the ankle boots, you know, I wonder, could her

jeans have been taken off of her or could she have taken those jeans off over the ankle boots?

Probably not is my guess.

Does she partially redress if there was sexual assault?

And was she completely nude at the time of the sexual assault?

That's another question.

But does she partially redress, gets her underwear on, gets her bra on,

and then recognizes that she barefoot out in the woods.

That's not going to work.

And she's able to put her boots back on in order to try to move.

And she's doing this with a gunshot to the head, you know, and

the location of the gunshot, you know, behind the right ear or by the right ear, you know, that's a...

It sounds like almost like an execution type of gunshot.

Small caliber, and small caliber can mean a lot.

Is it a 22?

Is it a 25?

Is it a 32?

Is it a 380?

And is there any information as to the distance of that gunshot wound?

Is there any gunpowder around the entry wound?

Is there stippling to any of the skin if any of the exposed skin is there?

Right now, the location of her shirt and blue jeans would suggest a location to where either the offender assaulted her her and shot her, or that's where she was pushed out of a vehicle or taken out of a vehicle, but she was still alive to where she could move into the street.

So, okay, I've got a pretty good sense of what's going on so far.

Good.

Lucky for us, we do have an autopsy that gives us a lot more information.

There are still clues that need to be gathered just from the scene.

And of course, we still haven't identified her yet, but we will right now.

So she is found by this couple at 5.45 p.m.

About 11 o'clock.

Some distressed parents call the police because their daughter Jodi has not returned home.

So this is about five hours later or so.

Their names are Rosemary and John Loomis.

Jodi is 20.

She is our victim, Jodi Loomis.

And a detective comes to their house to tell them the news that they believe that this is Jodi.

She died shortly after arriving to the hospital and the Loomises go and they identify her.

So it's positive that this is their daughter.

So there's stuff about Jodi that actually will be kind of important.

And then of course there's the autopsy and things that they discover at the scene after the autopsy or maybe even during.

And then there's the timeline of what her parents said happened.

So there's a lot happening, a lot of information.

What do you want to tackle first?

Well, with the information, you know, this is unusual for you to be able to provide me with a lot of the information that I'm used to working with.

I'm excited.

So I'm going to, you know, start with my process.

I want to know first I start with an autopsy.

I want to know what happened to the victim, what caused her death and what other types of injuries are present.

And

we'll kind of intertwine that information with what I know about the crime scene and then we can go from there.

Okay, here we go.

Autopsy is conducted the next day.

The medical examiner recovers fragments from, here's the gun, a.22 caliber bullet, finding that she was killed by that gunshot wound.

Tell me about a.22 as far as why would someone use that gun?

Is it easy to conceal or is this for picking off animals or what?

Well, there's so many reasons to choose a.22.

You know, first, it could be just this is the gun that the offender had access to.

There is no other reason outside I've got a gun, whether it be a legally purchased gun or something illegally obtained.

That's just what the offender had.

There may not have been a purposeful decision to use a.22.

Now, a.22 at close range absolutely can be fatal.

I've had homicides with.22 caliber guns, whether it be gunshot wounds to the head.

I've had homicides where somebody's been shot in the torso with a.22.

There's textbook examples of.22s going into the femoral artery and then the bullet actually traversing, you know, and causing an embol, kind of like an embolism.

So, you know, it is a fatal weapon.

However, it is also not a very powerful weapon.

And right now, I'm assuming it's a handgun, but you can have rifles that shoot 22.

And typically, those may be a little bit more powerful rounds.

Why a 22 may be chosen by the offender, they can be smaller weapons, particularly if they're designed to be very compact.

They can be much smaller than, let's say,

your nine millimeter compact weapons.

The 22s could potentially have

less report.

They're a little bit quieter, though it's still a loud sound when they are shot.

you know but you do see that you can silence a 22 and it can make it fairly quiet you know but it's not like in the the movies where it's like this, you know, whisper.

You know, you still have a,

you still have a noise that is discernible, but it does, it's not going to be a very loud noise relative to,

you know, a larger caliber weapon or a more powerful weapon.

And then, you know, if you're really sophisticated, these 22 bullets, and it sounds like in this case, you know, they can

become very mangled.

And if it's got a coating on it, the markings that the barrel of that 22 gun leave on the bullet itself can be very indistinct and make it hard, if not impossible, for a firearms examiner to do a comparison to link that bullet back to a gun.

One example I can give you is there's an old book out there,

it's basically How to Become a Hitman.

And it's part of this whole anarchy cookbook, same publisher.

And in it, they talk about using a 22.

And there's a reason because of, you know, the bullets, you know, not marking very well, being able to silence them.

They're cheap guns.

I would say that I've never had a case in which I've had a, you know, anything close to what I would say a professional hitman coming in and purposely using a 22.

I've got one case in my career, and it was actually after I retired, in which I went, this is a professional hit.

Outside of that, you know, I think the 22 being grabbed in this case, in all likelihood, is probably because that's what the offender had access to.

But maybe you'll tell me different.

This October, we're doing something very different.

We'll be recording Buried Bones live at sea.

That's right.

Kate and I will both be part of the first ever True Crime Podcast Voyage, hosted by Virgin Voyages and iHeart Podcasts.

This is five nights of mystery, luxury, and Halloween fun, sailing to the Dominican Republic and Bimini Bahamas, adults only.

No kids, no stress.

Expect a live podcast recording of buried bones, crime-themed trivia, behind-the-scenes sessions with iHeart hosts, and yes, plenty of surprises.

And it's all wrapped in the full Virgin Voyages experience.

20-plus eateries, Michelin star chef-curated menus, luxe staterooms, Wi-Fi, and entertainment included.

It's not just a cruise.

It's a celebration of thoughtful true crime storytelling, and we want you to join us.

Book your cabin now at virginvoyages.com slash true crime.

That's virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

We'll see you on board.

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Keep in mind, you know, this is a wooded area, heavily wooded area, area, rural area, and there's probably hunting going on summertime.

You know, it's early evening.

So, you know, I mean, a gunshot might not sound, I mean, growing up on a farm, when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder.

I thought somebody's out there hunting illegally or illegally, depending on the time of year.

Oh, sure.

You know, in that particular environment, you know, a gunshot is not going to be as obvious and stand out like if you're in a quiet neighborhood.

But unless this person went out to shoot squirrels or rabbits, they're not choosing a 22 to go hunting out there.

If they're hunting deer or something, they've got a real hunting rifle with much larger caliber rounds.

Okay.

So let's talk a little bit.

There's not a lot left, honestly, Paul, of the autopsy.

I don't think they thought there was a lot more to say here.

We know that the 22 killed her.

They said there is evidence of a sexual assault.

They weren't specific about it, but, you know, 72, I think they would have been able to identify it, right?

The medical examiner recovered some samples of dirt and leaf mold from her buttocks, which to them meant that she had been totally undressed, at least, you know, there and laying on the ground.

And that's pretty much it as far as the medical things go.

So they see signs of sexual assault.

I know I've gone on rants before because I hate it when they use the phrase, no signs of sexual assault.

And then don't talk.

It's like, well, you can have sexual assault and not see injuries, whether it be external injuries, whether it be internal injuries to the female anatomy.

So in this particular case, what is evidence of sexual assault?

And again, I'm going to avoid getting graphic, but did they observe some injuries?

Then it's their duty to articulate what those injuries are.

Are they observing fluid inside cavities?

Did they, you know, look at the microscope?

Did they identify sperm?

You know, they need to articulate that at autopsy or those samples are, you know, from the fluids get sent to the lab and then the lab ends up identifying what those fluids are.

They did do a rape kit and they did keep a lot of evidence, which is going to be good for us later on.

But they aren't specific about exactly what the signs are.

You're right.

Let's go to the scene.

So they actually are looking for the gun or more bullets.

They use a metal detector.

They can't find anything.

They didn't find any other bullets or traces of the murder weapon.

So they never find the gun.

They find a dime near her body.

And Jodi's parents said she always carried a dime.

Man, I haven't even thought about this for a long time for the payphone in case there was an emergency.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So

they found this dime.

They find blood on the ground and leaves, you know, it's strewn about in the area.

And there's a little clip that Jodi used to clip her pants away from the bike chain.

So

Jodi, let's get into a little bit bit more about Jodi so that I can explain the bike.

She was a nurse's aide, 20 years old, as I told you.

She was living with her parents.

She went to community college.

She wanted to be a nurse.

She was engaged, though there wasn't a date set.

Ultimately, I'll just say that the police rule this guy out, the fiancé.

She was an avid equestrian.

And so why don't you just pull up the photos that I sent you?

I just wanted you to put a face to this story and you could kind of tell me what you see once you just get onto the first page.

Yeah.

So, yeah, this is a photo.

This is Jodi in her equestrian or horse riding gear.

I'm not sure exactly the proper term.

She's standing and holding on to

basically, I'm assuming this is this is her horse that she would ride.

It's just a typical picture of her, her and her horse.

She's got the riding helmet on.

She's got the jacket.

This looks like she's getting ready to compete.

You know, this is not out taking the horse out into the woods.

It looks like she's probably doing some sort of competition.

You know, it's tough to get an idea of her stature standing next to a horse,

but she looks like she's average height, you know, 5'4, 5'6,

average build.

And this is only a photo showing her from the waist up, but that's probably as much as I can see.

She has glasses on that are shaded.

I don't know if those are sunglasses or if they're prescription glasses that are tinted, but outside of that, yeah, I think that's about the only thing I can pull out of this photo.

Okay, let me tell you a little bit about the day that this happened.

She loved to ride the horses, of course, and she had been riding her bike to a local stable to ride her horse when she was killed.

So most of the time, Jodi would get a ride to the stable, but today she wanted to ride her bike.

So she sets out a lot later than she intended to because she had been waiting to ask her younger sister if she could borrow her boots.

Younger sister doesn't come home and it's going to get dark soon.

So Jodi just grabs the boots that we end up finding at the woods and she hits the road around four o'clock.

The last time that her parents see her is 4 p.m.

The couple discovers her an hour and 45 minutes later.

So here's one of the keys.

Jodi's parents said she took this more remote route to the stable because she wanted to stay off these major roads where there's a lot of traffic.

So she didn't take her normal route.

So I wanted you to take a look at the photo that I sent you.

That is Jodi on a bike.

This is clearly not the road where she was found because it's not dirt or, you know, it doesn't look like there are trees that are going to fall over or anything.

I think this would have been a major problem if a tree had fallen over because you can see a car in the distance.

Well, it's a two-lane road.

You can see it's separated by a solid yellow line.

And, you know, it's got a very slight curve along this section, but there is a lot of visibility.

I think, you know, I can see maybe out to a half a mile, you know, before the road curves out of sight.

Both sides of the road appear to be, you know, heavily forested, though the location where Jodi is at with her bike in this photograph, it appears that it's mostly tall grasses and weeds.

I can see mailboxes and driveways at several points along this road that indicate it's a, you know, it's kind of got a residential aspect to it, but is rural.

It looks like your typical rural road, very narrow for a bicyclist.

There isn't a dedicated bike lane like you often see today.

And, you know, if this is a road that Jodi took because it was less traveled, I can completely understand that.

You know, when I would go biking out in California, I would do the same thing.

You know, on these narrow roads that don't have a good shoulder, you know, and the big trucks start passing you at high speeds, it can be quite scary.

So this here, though, you know, if she's on this road or a similar road to get to the horse stables the day that she went missing, if it's not routine, that's kind of what I was initially wondering.

If it was a routine practice of hers, then I could see where an offender could lie in wait.

But if it's not routine, and we know nothing about who the offender is, whether it's an associate or a stranger, but let's say it's a stranger, then that would tend to suggest that she was a victim of opportunity if she had been abducted.

from the roadway.

And of course, the big question right now is, well, where is her bicycle found?

Well, I can tell you that.

So when they are searching, they find the bicycle, white bicycle, about 180 feet from where she was found.

It looks like it had been thrown into a ravine, useless to me, 180 feet.

I can never figure out what that means.

Is that a long way away?

It's hard for me to ever know.

I can figure out.

I'll tell you why.

I told my students this the other day.

I can figure out a quarter of a mile because I can huff and puff my way through a quarter of a mile on a track that I used to run.

But that's it.

I don't have any other context other than that.

Well, you know, I go back to playing football, you know, so as you know, a football field is 100 yards or 300 feet long.

So half a football field is 150 feet, tack 30 feet on top of that, and you've got your 180 feet.

Okay.

So they've got the bicycle and what they're now looking at is there is apparently a vehicle in the area that people had spotted.

So now this is big news.

Young woman who has been found dead.

On August 26th, so this is three days after she is killed.

Police say they're looking for a vehicle that witnesses saw in the vicinity of the dirt road.

They don't release any details about the vehicle, but they're just, you know, telling reporters that they're looking for a vehicle.

I'm not quite sure what that, what the point of that is because I know it's a little odd.

It's a little nondescript.

It is nondescript.

So two days after that, on August 28th, they say they're looking for two vehicles that were seen in the the area where Jodi was found, but they don't give any, you know, description of the vehicles.

Finally, the next day, the police say they're looking for something specific, a 1966 steel blue Chevrolet station wagon.

66.

So this is 72.

So, you know, I mean, it's not an old car, steel blue Chevrolet station wagon.

So I think I put this point in because I wanted you to understand that I don't know who they've called in at this point as far as are there state police involved or is is there, you know, a major city involved?

It doesn't sound like it to me so far.

It sounds like they're kind of already making mistakes here.

Well, you know, and sort of the nondescript aspect of a vehicle, there may have been a reasoning behind it.

And maybe not.

But

if they had reasoning, my thought is that they could say this particular location, this day, this time, we saw vehicles.

And so now people are thinking, oh, I was at that location.

Oh, I remember seeing this type of vehicle versus putting out there a description or even a make and model vehicle.

And now they have people calling in saying, well, I was there and yeah, I saw that vehicle.

And so in some ways, it's enhancing the veracity of the description of the vehicle from the witnesses because they're not being fed the information up front.

So that kind of makes sense to me in that context.

And then to get 1966 steel blue Chevy station wagon, you know, that's pretty specific.

And absent, you know, you don't have surveillance video,

you know, back in 1972.

To get that specific, I start thinking, okay, a witness came forward and you have a witness who knows his or her cars and is going, I was there and I saw this particular make and model vehicle.

I think this investigation gets more and more confusing.

Now we're getting to this muddled timeline.

So tell me what you think about the timeline.

So you remember her parents said she walked out the door at 4 o'clock.

Her body was found at 5.45.

So her bike ride from her house to the stable is about 40 minutes total.

Where Jodi was found on Penny Creek Road is about 20 minutes from her house, so halfway through, going along the route that she took.

She was seen by witnesses riding her bike at 5 o'clock, not far from where she was found at 5.45.

But that was an hour after she left home.

Now, I think one of the things you'll probably say is witnesses don't get their times right sometimes.

So, you know, if the spot where she was left is 20 minutes from her house, what happened to that whole hour?

And let me give you one more piece of information.

So, of course, police want to know, she encounters somebody.

The last person who they believe saw Jodi alive, besides the killer, had been working at a farm stand.

It was a girl.

They don't say hold.

She had been working in a farm stand along the route that Jodi was riding.

She said that she saw Jodi approach the turn at the road, the dirt road where she was found.

She stopped.

She looked into the woods.

The girl interpreted the look on her face as kind of confused, but not alarmed.

I don't know if the girl didn't see whether she went into the woods or not, but this was a route that she would normally not take because remember, she usually got a ride, but she would have known, she would have known how to do this.

So it it wouldn't have been completely out of the ordinary so that lost hour is what's I think confusing police at this point well I'm not sure there's a lost hour so she leaves at four o'clock she was seen riding her bike at five o'clock was that this girl who saw her kind of stop and and look down the dirt road no several different witnesses different witnesses not far from where she was eventually found if it's just a 40-minute bike ride to the stables from her parents' house you know 20 minutes past the time that she should have gotten to the stables, she's still seen riding her bike along that road.

You know, does she stop and talk to somebody?

Is there a neighbor?

You know, and so she's just chatting with somebody who happened to be passing her on the road, completely innocent type of just everyday type of interaction that could have delayed her of getting to the stables.

And as far as I know, and maybe you tell me otherwise, she doesn't have to be at the stables at a particular time.

It's not like she's got a coach coach that's going to be waiting for her to give her a lesson at six o'clock or whatever.

So, you know, she's not necessarily going to abide by some, in my mind, this is how I'm kind of thinking out loud.

She's not going to think, oh, I have to get to the stables by a certain time.

And so if she does stop to talk to a friend or a neighbor or whatever, you can see where, you know, she's not in a rush to get moving again.

It's not her routine route to get to the horse stables.

So I wouldn't be surprised given the nondescript nature of that landscape where maybe she's stopping and going, is this the dirt road or is it the next one down?

And that's what this girl saw her do.

Just speculating in my mind.

Yeah.

But she's last seen riding at five o'clock by multiple witnesses.

And then her body is found at 5.45.

Well, we don't know how long her body's been out there.

Was it out there just for five minutes?

Was it out there for 40 minutes?

You know, was she literally abducted and killed five minutes after she was last seen seen riding her bike?

Now, her body is found only a 20-minute drive away from the parents' house.

Where she's seen by these witnesses, is she further away from the parents' house on the map?

It says going along the route, not far from where she was found.

So, I don't think it's a she went somewhere and then backtracked.

I think it was somewhere along this, you know, zero to 20 minutes marker.

And this is where I'd want to map these points out.

But let's say she gets mostly to the stables and then she encounters the offender or offenders that abduct her.

Do they take her back away that actually gets her closer to her parents' house, but they go into a more secluded area down this dirt road?

You know, so that's kind of what I would be judging: is how far did she actually get on her bike?

And the location of her bike is, you know, on this map is significant.

And then the location of her body is significant.

Why do the offenders take her to that particular location?

Okay.

And I had just thought and maybe she popped her chain and it took forever for her to get it back on.

I mean, who knows?

Absolutely.

You know, you don't have a cell phone.

She has no choice.

She has to fix the bike or whatever.

And so I could see that easily.

We, I was walking by a little kid who had popped their chain and just look completely like, what do I do?

What do I do?

And I said, well, let's go get your parents and find out how to put on a chain.

You know, but also this can be answered.

Did she have grease on her hands?

Yeah.

Not that I saw on the autopsy, but you're right.

Okay.

Okay.

We've talked about the girl at the farm stand.

We've talked about her fiancé.

Jim is totally cleared at this point.

He is actually a janitor at the hospital where she had been taken, but he was at work at the time.

He was cleared.

And like I said, we know he's cleared here.

Police in September, so this is a month after she's found, they announced that they're now looking for two suspects.

They had something about two cars before, but they were not very specific, except for the description of one car.

They know their identities.

They believe that both of them have left the state.

They don't give any details about the two suspects, and they do say that the information about a vehicle led them to these suspects.

But we don't know if this is the Chevrolet that they're talking about.

My impression, and you could tell me I'm wrong here, was that the police were just trying to say freaking anything, to say we're doing something, but they don't have enough confidence in anything to be able to give specific information.

I mean, two suspects, we can't say who they are, but they're not in the state anymore.

So nobody's in danger.

Maybe two cars, but that's how we found them, but we can't tell you about the car.

I mean, they're really not saying anything except we are still working on this case.

But you think I'm wrong?

No, there's no reason for them to be updating the public in terms of where they are at in their investigation.

You know, part of it is, is that even though it's nondescript, just the fact that they're saying based off of vehicle information and there's two suspects, the actual suspects may be going, oh, they're onto us.

Now it makes it that much harder for law enforcement to drill down.

You don't want to be tipping your hand, you know, when you don't need to.

You can just go to a press conference and give generic updates.

We are continuing to take leads.

We have some leads that we are following.

We will keep you guys abreast to the point that we can without compromising the investigation.

Well, none of this works because the case goes cold.

There is nothing new for decades, but then there is something new.

Over the years, there's a lot of speculation about Ted Bundy, who is from this area.

And they wonder if this could have been one of his earliest killings, but ultimately, and this is where I need you to weigh in, law enforcement says, we don't think so because the MO is so different from Bundy's typical MO.

So what do you think about that?

This is a common misperception about serial predators is that they're cookie cutter.

Every single time they commit a crime, they commit it the same way.

I've worked too many cases and seen the variance firsthand of what the same offender does,

whether it be victim type, whether it be how the victim is interacted with, you know, the initial interaction, is it an abduction or is it like Ted Bundy, you know, sweet talking, you know, a college co-ed, you know, is it picking up a sex worker on the stroll?

There are so many offenders that I've looked at where

the variance and what they do is stunning, where you think it's different individuals committing the crimes.

Now, there are behaviors that these serial predators tend to exhibit that will differentiate their crimes.

And these are behaviors that are driven by the offender's inner fantasies.

But the act of committing the crime, their MO, what it takes to commit the crime, will vary based on the circumstances of the case.

You can have a Ted Bundy do a very planned type of crime.

You can have a Ted Bundy do a spontaneous victim of opportunity.

You know, so the fact that Ted Bundy is in this area has to be at least acknowledged.

However, just because he is in the area, this notorious and very prolific serial killer, does not mean he's involved.

But you cannot say, well, this M.O.

is different, so it's not him.

Yeah, this is not followed up on at all, Bundy.

Regardless, this is a case that just goes cold, cold, cold.

Now, there was some comfort with her parents in that knowing that they had gathered, you you know, all of this.

They had her underwear, they had vaginal swabs from the original rape kit.

They had all of her clothes.

So we are now going to flash forward into the 90s, 20 years later.

And this is a little bit of an evolution of what happens with law enforcement in this area at the time.

The sheriff's office in Snohomish County had the funding and the manpower to get a major crimes unit up and going.

When they get this established in the 90s, they start pulling out cold cases.

They get to Jodi's case, which was a notorious case, and they realized there are no slides made from any of the potential DNA evidence.

They cannot find her underwear anymore.

They cannot find the vaginal swabs from the original rape kit anymore.

The only thing they have are clothes at this point.

So they send everything off.

It goes to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab.

But it's another decade before anything can be made of the little evidence that they were able to send off.

I understand when things disappear, but my goodness, that's the most important stuff they had in this case, vaginal swabs in her underwear.

I've been involved in multiple cases from this era where that type of critical evidence has either been lost.

or was purposefully destroyed, where, you know, a pathologist literally, once he identified oh there's sperm on you know off of the vaginal swab vaginal swab is thrown away because back in the 1970s that's all they could do is identify yeah there's there's the existence of semen poor poor practice absolutely very frustrating when you go i could have solved the case if that had just been kept you know when they say that they couldn't find these items and it's very possible those items are absolutely gone but these items over decades have a tendency to find

places where they hide themselves, so to speak.

You know, we've had success and most notably a Golden State Killer where an entire rape kit nobody knew about was actually within the coroner's own storage because the pathologist out of practice back in 1980 collected two rape kits at autopsy.

One he gave to law enforcement, the other he kept to coroners.

You know, so these vaginal swabs, you know, is there any paper trail going from the coroner's office to the investigating agency?

Is there any paper trail showing that these swabs were ever sent out to, let's say, Washington State Patrol Crime Lab?

What does their paperwork say?

My sheriff's office, when we did a complete inventory of hundreds of thousands of items contained within this property warehouse, all of a sudden evidence from many old cases was found.

Some of it had just been put into the wrong box.

You know, so this is where, you know, on a major case like this, when I talk to investigators and they say, well, property saying they can't find the evidence.

And then it's like, you need to go back there and search with your property people.

And you need to figure out, you know, is it just in a wrong box?

Is it in a wrong paper bag that's in a wrong box?

That stuff really happens.

Then you have property people over time, for whatever reason, they just destroy homicide homicide evidence.

And you just go, what?

How does this happen?

And it's just you got somebody who's processing hundreds, if not thousands of items a week for destruction purposes and doesn't catch, oh, this actually is related to a homicide and just goes through the destruction process.

What you hope is, is that there's actually documentation showing, okay, well, that item is gone.

I don't need to search the property room now.

I know that item's gone because I've got a paper.

I've got the destruction receipt.

Well, this is quite a case.

We get to 2008, and there's a renewed push to solve cases in this county.

The investigators pull out the old evidence and have it analyzed for possible sources of DNA.

They had sent this off to the crime lab.

It was unclear, you know, what they were going to be able to do at that point in the early 90s.

The crime lab then looks for possible sources of DNA, and they look at those boots that Jodi had borrowed from her sister.

And on one of the boots, a researcher at the State Patrol crime lab finds a semen stain.

So he's able to construct a partial DNA profile.

Wow.

So, you know, we're at a good point.

They upload it to CODIS, nothing.

And they start getting DNA samples from all the men who were named in the original case file.

I'm presuming the ones that they were not telling us about.

They get samples from the family members of the men, nothing.

So this case goes cold for another nine years.

Can I ask a question, and you may not have the answer, is these were her sister's boots.

Right.

How old was her sister?

Older sister, younger sister?

Younger, 12.

She's 12 at the time.

And, you know, because part of the process, after you find that you have semen on the sister's boots, is interviewing the sister.

Did you have any sexual relations with a boy?

you know, prior to your sister borrowing your boots.

Now, with the sister being 12, it's very unlikely.

You probably still need need to conduct that type of interview, particularly in 2008, and you don't get a CODIS hit.

Now

there's a lot of man hours, a lot of effort, you know, tracking down DNA samples from all these various suspects.

When if it turns out, well, no, that's just a consensual sample, you know, that was deposited, you know, during some fling that the sister had.

But the fact that she's 12, it's unlikely.

Yeah, and I actually had wondered how long a semen stain would be there on a boot in particular.

You know, if it is, let's say it is the sister, which is so unlikely, but it was, she said, yeah, I have a boyfriend, but you know, we haven't had sex for six months or something.

Tromping through mud, it's Washington State.

Water, this is a, I can show you a picture of the boot sooner rather than later if you want.

Would the semen stain from six months earlier maybe still be there, or is it even less likely because of all of the environmental elements that the sister would have been in during this time?

You just stated the variables.

You know, semen stains can exist on clothing, can exist on, let's say, these types of boots for decades and still be viable using modern DNA technology.

Or environmental insults could potentially damage that semen stain very rapidly.

So it all depends.

But I'm excited at this point in 2008.

It's like, okay, they have biological evidence.

You need to identify identify who this male is.

It takes another nine years.

So in 2017, the prosecutor in that county, who's a guy named Craig Matheson.

So in 2017, he finds out about genetic genealogy being used somehow, some way.

He sends the sample to Parabon Nano Labs.

Have you dealt with Parabon before?

Yes, I know Parabon well.

Okay.

So Parabon says they can use it to identify a pool of relatives.

We know how this goes.

And then they find family members that are related to the person whose DNA profile they have.

In 2018, a genealogist builds a family tree and identifies a group of seven siblings who were born in Edmonds, Washington.

Six of the seven are men.

One is a very likely match for the profile.

Of those six brothers, some have died.

But one of the men who are still living is a guy named Terrence Miller, and he is the guy.

This is seven years years ago.

He's in his mid-70s.

Do you want to know about him or what more do you want?

I mean, there's a long list of stuff about him.

I most certainly can extrapolate exactly how they drilled down onto Terrence Miller.

And then ultimately, they got a direct sample from him and did your classic court-approved STR analysis.

That's, you know, all the law enforcement databases CODIS is built upon.

And that direct comparison confirmed that Terrence Miller is the semen donor on Jodi's boot.

Sort of.

So

they decide to get the sample surreptitiously.

So I know we've talked about that.

I mean, you know, what they end up doing is they have all this information about him.

He does have a record that's connected to sex offenses, including in his own family.

In August of 2018, they follow him to a casino where he drinks from a coffee cup.

He throws it away.

And they say within 30 seconds, they grab the coffee cup and they send it to the crime lab and there's a a match why would they have done this surreptitiously and not gone through the warrants and everything else oh this this is the classic way on how to approach an investigation

so

with this type of suspect And it takes time to do DNA, even when it's rushed.

It can take a day or several days.

If they approach him, let's say they go and get a search warrant, and now they approach him and compel him to provide a DNA sample.

Unless they have lawful reason to detain him for some reason, and

there's some aspects where you can detain if he's got other crimes.

In essence, he's out of custody.

Is he a flight risk?

Is he going to disappear on you?

It can compromise the investigation while you're waiting for DNA analysis.

Is he destroying physical evidence?

Let's say the gun, where he goes, oh shit, I still have the murder weapon.

And that's gone.

So you're better off in this type of situation of getting that surreptitious sample.

And sounds like it was a match.

So Terrence Miller, that's his semen on these boots.

Now you get the search warrant.

And that search warrant isn't just for his DNA.

That search warrant is looking for all the various types of evidence possibly related to Jody's homicide.

And now you can confront him and interview him, or doesn't have the time, he hasn't had the time to sit there and come up with a very sophisticated lie.

You catch him cold.

So, this is usually how these types of cold cases in which genealogy has been done occur.

And you never make an arrest on genealogy.

Genealogy just points you.

And like in this instance, it pointed to a family that had six men.

And now they have to evaluate those six men as to which one is possibly Jodi's offender.

But you don't make an arrest when you go, oh, well, Terrence looks like the likely one because of his criminal history.

You always, always, always get that direct sample.

You never arrest based off of genealogy.

It is strictly an investigative tool, an investigative lead.

Well, talking about, you know, ambushing him and getting him before he has a chance to do anything, after they get the results within a few days, in November of 2018, they have investigators in plain clothes.

He's in a ceramic shop.

He owns a ceramic shop.

They show up.

They see that he has printed out an article about another local arrest using familial DNA evidence.

I mean, which is just

if that's not a foreshadow, I don't know.

And of course, he's arrested.

You know, this happens sort of quickly, but then there's also, I still have to tell you about his rap sheet, essentially.

He has a history of sex offenses that makes law enforcement want to check him first when they get this list of brothers.

So his DNA wasn't in any of the databases initially.

In the 60s, he was arrested for lewd conduct and for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

And in the 70s, it looks like he had offended against a family member and was given the opportunity to go to counseling.

So when he did that, the charges were dismissed.

He had been married four times, not a crime, but one of them, which was his first marriage, was to a 14-year-old who was pregnant at the time.

When he killed Jodi, he had three kids from his previous marriages.

He had a third wife, which ended in a divorce.

When, here's a key thing: you know, I had thought this is such a rural area.

This must be a local.

He lived five miles away from the spot where he murdered Jodi and left her behind.

Let me tell you about the trial.

So he's arrested in the spring of 2019.

He is charged and the case goes to trial in the fall of 2020.

Gosh, not long ago.

The initial bail was set at a million dollars, but his attorney negotiated this to be $750,000 and he's released on bond.

People testify, but after closing arguments, he gets to go home one last time while the jury deliberates because he's out on bond and he takes his own life.

I could have predicted that.

On November 9th, 2022.

And then, of course, the jury finds him guilty a few hours after that.

Is there any information as to did he make any admissions when he was interviewed?

No, I haven't seen anything about that.

I mean, I can do a quick check, but no, no admissions as far as I know.

And where he got that money.

So a bond is, how much would that be?

Is that 10%?

How much do you have to put off?

Yeah, I think it's 10%.

I'm not real familiar with that.

$75,000.

I don't know.

That's why his attorney negotiated specifically down to $750,000 because he knew his client probably had sufficient funds in order to be able to do the bond.

So all of this is no justice for Jodi.

And in a way, yes, because, you know, we find out who the offender is.

I don't know if her fiancé ever had a cloud of suspicion, even though he had a really solid alibi.

We've done those cases before, but this was not what the family wanted, surely, out of all of this.

Yeah, they got an answer.

And this is hard.

I can't speak, you know, to how the family would feel about the circumstances of Terrence being let out and taking his own life while out of custody.

I could assume they would be appalled at the fact that this guy that's being accused of murdering and sexually assaulting and murdering their 20-year-old daughter is even being allowed to be out of custody while he's going through trial.

Terrence Miller's age probably was a a factor that the judge considered.

He's unlikely to be a flight risk.

I'm surprised for this type of crime that they reduced the amount down to something that he could afford to post.

So I think the family rightfully would be very, very upset about that.

Now, whether or not, I mean, they may see him taking his own life as the easy way out.

You know, they'd want him to have to go through the conviction, have to go through, you know, the impact statements.

The family's confronting him about, you know, the loss of their loved one and what that has done to the family,

and then knowing that he would be in prison for the rest of his life.

You know, it is an unfortunate ending to this, but at the same time, law enforcement stayed on it.

And, you know, it was fortunate that there was biological evidence on.

the boot.

Yeah.

And there are answers.

I mean, thank goodness.

One of the things that's unfortunate to me is certainly I wish that this had happened.

Before the trial started, her sister, who was 12 at the time, had to take the stand, identify the boots that her sister had borrowed from her.

This was, I'm sure, traumatizing for the family, even decades later.

But, you know, at the same time, there you are.

You do have some answers.

You do have a face.

You're not looking over your shoulder.

I mean, what if you're suspecting your neighbor?

You know, I mean, that's probably where I would have headed is maybe a family member or maybe a neighbor or something.

And knowing that this guy is out there, I am shocked that he wasn't in CODIS, but I guess not.

Based off the criminal history that you provided, you have lewd and lascivious with a minor back in the 1960s.

Sounds like he got a slap on the wrist for what sounds like sexual abuse of a family member, which I'm assuming is another child.

That's a big, big mess up in the justice system right there.

How old those crimes are, you know, it really comes down to Washington's laws in terms of does he qualify for cases that are that far back in time to to be sampled into and put into CODIS.

There's like in California, there was changes over time to where at a certain point you could retroactively, you know, for these older cases, you could go back and now get samples from sex offenders that were convicted decades prior.

But there's so many sex offenders that qualify to be sampled and they've never been sampled and they're just just out in the public.

And there's monies available for agencies to be able to, you know, dedicate resources to go out and track those guys down and get their samples.

But some agencies will never follow through with it.

Well, we don't often have these cold cases that we are able to follow up and say, this is what actually happened.

So I'm grateful for that.

I know you like talking about genetic genealogy and DNA and all of the advances.

That's what you work on all the time.

So this was a case that I'm glad had closure, but to me in some ways, an unsatisfying ending.

What I'm hoping is, is that next week we can have some cases where we see true to form justice.

That's what I look for.

I know I don't always give them to you, but I really, I really try.

We have a mixed bag when we are in the 1800s and the early 1900s.

You just never know.

Sure.

Well, every time I sit down to talk to you, I never never know what you're going to give me.

That's the goal.

Okay.

I will see you for a very different case next week.

Sounds great.

Take care, Kate.

Me too.

This has been an Exactly Right Production.

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com/slash buried bones sources.

Our senior producer is Alexis Emerosi.

Research by Marin McClashin, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Toliday.

Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel.

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod.

Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Deco the Criminal Mind, is available now.

And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.

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