Talking Dateline: A Promise to Gloria

Speaker 1 the Creator of Homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 1 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat-and-mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 2 Grand Canyon University is one of the largest universities in the country.

Speaker 2 Praised for its community and impact, GCU integrates a welcoming Christian worldview and open discourse into over 300 online programs.

Speaker 2 Redefine your online education through GCU's industry-driven, academically rigorous programs. In 2024, online students received over $161 million in institutional scholarships.
Find your purpose.

Speaker 2 Private, Christian, affordable. Discover available scholarships at gcu.edu/slash myoffer.

Speaker 1 Hi, everybody.

Speaker 1 We are talking dateline. I'm Josh Mankiewicz.
And today's guest is Andrea Canning.

Speaker 1 Hi.

Speaker 1 Hi. Nice to see you.
Happy New Year. You too.

Speaker 3 I love how with these talking date lines, I get to see you so much more.

Speaker 1 I know, because here's a little inside dateline secret, which is the people that I see the least and that you see the least in person are the other correspondents because we're almost never in the same place at the same time.

Speaker 3 And you live in California. I live in New York.
So there's a bit of a country between us.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 I'm living in California and it is a, it's freezing today. It's 57 degrees.
Oh, I feel so sorry for you. Burning.

Speaker 1 So this episode is called A Promise to Gloria.

Speaker 1 And if you haven't seen it on television or if you haven't listened to it on podcast, it is the episode right below this one on the list of podcasts you were just looking at when you chose this.

Speaker 1 So go there, listen to it, or watch it on television, and then come back here. Okay, a promise to Gloria, you had the greatest interviews in this.

Speaker 3 I really did. And, you know, of course, at the forefront of all that was Yvonne Pointer.

Speaker 3 No one has impressed me more than this mother.

Speaker 3 She is absolutely incredible. She is a force of nature, just the loveliest woman and just so powerful with her voice, with her actions, with what she did with the murder of her daughter.

Speaker 1 She said, I'll find out who did this. Grief took a back seat.
How do you plan a funeral for your child? That thing about God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

Speaker 3 I mean, sometimes you just walk away from an interview, from a story, from an experience, and it touches you in just such a profound way. And

Speaker 3 there's certain people that you just will never forget. And Yvonne is one of those people

Speaker 1 let's talk about how you got on this story to begin with because uh this didn't come in the door the usual way did it it was a very strange set of circumstances as to

Speaker 3 how i got on this story how i met yvonne we had done an hour on missing indigenous women and i thought you know why are we not doing an hour on missing black women or unsolved murders of black women.

Speaker 3 And so I read this article in the newspaper about a woman named Sylvia Bennett Stone. She runs Voices of Black Mothers United.

Speaker 3 And so I called her and I asked her if she had any stories that might fit into a dateline. And she told me about Gloria's story.

Speaker 3 And so I talked to Yvonne and I thought, you know, me, I guess fair to say I was being maybe a little closed-minded. I thought, I feel like this story is going to be maybe too old for a dateline.

Speaker 3 Maybe Gloria is a little too young because we don't usually focus on

Speaker 3 victims that are so young being a teenager. Shame on me because a few days later, I get a call from our senior producer saying, we'd like you to do a story on Gloria Pointer.

Speaker 3 And I'm thinking to myself, what? And I called Yvonne and I said, I'm sorry that I was so closed-minded. And she said, no, it's divine intervention.
This is the power of God. This was meant to be.

Speaker 3 So it was pretty amazing.

Speaker 1 You know, one of the things I noticed when I was watching this is that

Speaker 1 everyone recounts this story story like it was yesterday. You know, I mean, it's, it's lived on.
You expect that it's going to live on for the mom, for Yvonne.

Speaker 1 But, you know, the prosecutor saved that box of files all these years. Didn't have to do that.
You know, her coach talks about it like it, like it happened this morning.

Speaker 3 I think it just absolutely rocked that community. You know, if you think about it, you have this promising young girl, teenager.

Speaker 3 She's going to get an attendance record because she wants to make something of herself.

Speaker 3 She was going to go over to her friend's house to get a comb for her hair because she wanted to look really pretty that day for her award.

Speaker 3 And then her body's discovered at a house right next to the school. I mean, feet from the school.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 the day before her death, her coach had... talked to her about stranger danger.

Speaker 3 Yes, T. Solworth.
She had just talked to the students about it.

Speaker 1 And Gloria said, do we have to talk about that? And she said, yes, because people are crazy.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And

Speaker 3 this is not the best part of town.

Speaker 1 You know, that made me want to ask you something, which is, you know,

Speaker 1 you have six children. Yes.
I don't have any. So between us, we have a normal amount of kids.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 what do you say? What have you said to your kids about this?

Speaker 1 How do you strike a balance between wanting to protect them, wanting them to be, you know, aware of their surroundings, but at the same time, not making them afraid to leave the house.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, you just, you know, you try to get them to stick together. You know, there is that talk of don't talk to strangers, don't get into anyone's car.

Speaker 3 I don't care if they have puppies, candy, presents.

Speaker 3 They, they're telling you they're friends with me. They know my name.
You do not get in that car.

Speaker 3 And I, what I tell them is scream and run.

Speaker 3 I mean, what else, you know, there's not like a whole lot you can do in that situation so i mean uh our executive producer liz cole did a a series years ago um called my kid would never and i remember natalie morales was in tears because you know her child did go into that i think it was an ice cream truck or something like that but you know it was that series

Speaker 3 showed that even you can tell your kids all you want and yeah doesn't mean they're going to listen to you because you know people have a lot of tricks up their sleeves so yeah they're good at it yeah but in this case you know gloria she was minding her own business and unfortunately she just became a target

Speaker 1 most holiday gifts end up in a drawer or the back of your closet or accidentally left at your cousin's house not this one Mint Mobile is offering unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 1 That's their best deal of the year, aka a holiday gift you'll actually use every single day. Don't get them socks.
Get them premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 1 Shop Mint Unlimited plans at mintmobile.com slash dateline. That's mintmobile.com slash dateline.
Limited time offer. Upfront payment of $45 for three months.
$90 for 6 months. Or $180 for 12 months.

Speaker 1 Plan required. $15 per month equivalent.
Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only.

Speaker 1 Greater than 35 gigabytes may slow when the network is busy. Capable device required.
Availability, speed, and coverage vary. See Mintmobile.com.

Speaker 5 If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Granger.

Speaker 5 Granger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 5 Plus, you can rely on Granger for easy reordering so you never run out of what you need. Call 1-800GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Grainger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 6 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 6 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program.
There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 6 Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zin at a store near you.

Speaker 6 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 1 Janice Abernathy is like the detective you want on the case of your loved one.

Speaker 1 She was great.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And she was chosen because she had dealt with youth.
They felt like, let's see if she can help us because we're dealing with so many young people here.

Speaker 3 But yeah, she's

Speaker 3 absolutely someone who cares. She's a go-getter.

Speaker 3 She was

Speaker 3 really, really into that, that case and then was brought in again later, you know, to look at the case again.

Speaker 1 Joseph Wambaugh, who wrote great crime fiction and previously had been a

Speaker 1 lieutenant with the LAPD,

Speaker 1 and who's sort of,

Speaker 1 I'm going to say sort of the father of modern crime fiction.

Speaker 1 Wombaugh used to say that he was interested in not just the stories about how the cops worked on the cases, but how the cases worked on the cops.

Speaker 1 And this was that, because, you know, in this case, you have Janice Aberdanthy, like continuing to work on it after retirement. Yeah.
Like, she's not even on it anymore.

Speaker 1 You can go to Florida and put your feet up, but she did not and couldn't turn her back, which I think is great.

Speaker 3 Well, because these cases haunt the detectives when they're not solved. Yep.
Because that's why they get into this job. They get into this job to find justice, to solve these cases.

Speaker 3 And when it doesn't happen, and they put so many hours, days, years into it, it's horrible, especially to retire. without solving it.

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, you, I would say probably 50% of the time the detectives I interview will shed a tear in the interview and then tell me not to air that, you know, because they get really emotional and they get invested.

Speaker 3 And so she's an example of that.

Speaker 1 So Yvonne said she went through five or six police chiefs. One of the things that we've talked about here and elsewhere too is that, you know, families that

Speaker 1 agitate and that make themselves known to law enforcement and that make repeated calls and having press conferences and, you know, know, having events

Speaker 1 to sort of generate interest in the case. Those families, you know,

Speaker 1 that doesn't get the case solved, but it does help.

Speaker 1 I've definitely noticed that it helps.

Speaker 3 Oh, it helps a lot.

Speaker 1 You know, I mean, sitting and waiting for the phone to ring is generally not the best strategy.

Speaker 1 And Yvonne clearly

Speaker 1 did not do that. She was on this and stayed on this.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I think it shows you, too, that to make a difference, to have your case heard, paid attention to, you don't have to be rich.
You know, you don't have to be powerful. Look at Yvonne.

Speaker 3 She had a voice. And so she, she just wouldn't let it go.
She made that promise to Gloria. I'm going to find your killer.

Speaker 3 Every time there was a new chief, she would march in there and introduce herself. She would make the calls.
She would. you know, talk to reporters.
She would do everything she could.

Speaker 3 And it's incredible. It took decades, but it worked.
The case was solved.

Speaker 1 And I mean, this highlights a problem that I'm not sure there's an easy answer to, which is once a case goes cold, particularly in a jurisdiction where there's going to be plenty of other crimes coming in,

Speaker 1 you know, police move on to sort of the low-hanging fruit, the cases that are much easier to solve, the ones where there is a fingerprint or there's a DNA hit or there's videotape of the suspect or there's witness statements and all the things that you, you know, originally did not have in this case.

Speaker 1 And that just puts the, you know, the case where there aren't as many clues and there isn't as much evidence

Speaker 1 farther and farther down on the stack.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it was, thankfully, it was one of those cases and in large part to Yvonne that did not fall through the cracks. But I do feel like it easily could have because it was hard to solve.

Speaker 3 They just weren't getting anywhere. You know, they're like, they thought they had this suspect, Romel Broome, because he had attacked another girl.

Speaker 3 But something in Yvonne told her, call it Mother's Intuition, that Rommel was not the killer.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, police were not wrong for thinking that he was a likely suspect. I mean,

Speaker 1 he was, of course. I mean, he had a record for exactly that kind of crime.

Speaker 1 And in previous years, you know, before there was DNA, a lot of murders got hung on the Rommels of the world because they'd committed other similar crimes.

Speaker 1 It totally made sense.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think it came down to timing. You know, he couldn't have killed Gloria and then also attacked this other girl.
And there was a snowstorm that day.

Speaker 3 So I think where Yvonne's intuition kicked in was, you know, she was just going by facts of where was Romel, where was Gloria.

Speaker 3 It wasn't adding up for her, but some police certainly hung on to that theory for a long time that it was Rammel Broome who committed the crime.

Speaker 1 So, you know,

Speaker 1 really,

Speaker 1 I can't think of other cases in which

Speaker 1 this happened, at least nothing that I've covered, in which you have Yvonne writing letters to a guy that certainly could have been her daughter's killer.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 and he's in prison and he's going to be executed. And

Speaker 1 she's trying to get him to essentially confess, to unburden himself. And then finally, almost at the moment of

Speaker 3 his scheduled execution he does write back yeah he wrote her back and he said i didn't kill your daughter and you know and you should keep looking right and at that point

Speaker 3 you kind of

Speaker 3 want to believe him why lie at that point why he's got no he's got no reason to lie yeah and even though she she really didn't believe it was him but

Speaker 3 She wanted to be sure. She just wanted that answer from him.

Speaker 1 Romel's execution was scheduled and then at the last minute postponed because

Speaker 1 something went wrong. I think they couldn't find a vein to

Speaker 1 inject the poison into it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, spotched execution.

Speaker 1 Was he eventually executed? Oh,

Speaker 3 you stumped me on that one.

Speaker 3 I need to go over to Google and find that one out.

Speaker 4 I actually don't know.

Speaker 3 But you know who responds to me within like seconds?

Speaker 3 Is Yvonne.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 3 I'm going to ask her right now.

Speaker 3 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate. And believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 1 I'm Gabe Leidman.

Speaker 7 I'm Max Silvestri. And we've been friends for 20 years.
And we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 1 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 7 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 3 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 1 My landlord plays the trombone and I can't ask him to stop.

Speaker 3 You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

Speaker 1 I need you, girl.

Speaker 6 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 6 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.
There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 6 Check out Zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 6 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 4 Did you know 39% of teen drivers admit to texting while driving? Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights. Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway.

Speaker 4 As a parent, you can't always be in the car, but you can stay connected to their safety with Greenlight Infinity's driving reports.

Speaker 4 Monitor their driving habits, see if they're using their phone, speeding, and more. These reports provide real data for meaningful conversations about safety.

Speaker 4 Plus, with weekly updates, you can track their progress over time. Help keep your team safe.
Sign up for Greenlight Infinity at greenlight.com/slash podcast.

Speaker 3 So Yvonne just wrote back and said that Ramel Broome

Speaker 3 died in prison.

Speaker 1 Before he could be executed.

Speaker 3 He, he, yeah, botched execution and then they didn't try again. He just ended up dying.

Speaker 1 You know, one of the things we talk about is, you know, cold cases are solved through a couple of things. Changes in circumstance, and the other is changes in technology.

Speaker 1 And this case is changes in technology.

Speaker 1 Now, first of all,

Speaker 1 you've got to give all props to the crime scene techs back in 1984,

Speaker 1 who preserved all that evidence,

Speaker 1 not knowing what changes in technology were going to come down the road. Because without all that stuff and without that work and without being as careful as they were,

Speaker 1 probably no one's locked up for this.

Speaker 3 It's amazing that, yes, that they had the DNA and technology wasn't there.

Speaker 3 So they couldn't get a full profile. But to their credit, every time there'd be advances in technology, they would try again and again until they finally got that profile.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So let me ask you something that occurred to me

Speaker 1 while I was watching this. And I think it's going to occur to

Speaker 1 viewers and podcast listeners too, which is, you know,

Speaker 1 Rommel's locked up. So he, I think, as an inmate cannot refuse a DNA sample.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 how was DNA not excluding him a lot sooner? And the answer is there was some problem with the DNA, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah, at one point,

Speaker 3 they

Speaker 3 had accidentally had the sample contaminated by an analyst, like by a crime scene person.

Speaker 1 And so, the profile comes back to the technician and not the bad guy.

Speaker 3 Right. And so, they were going down the wrong road there with the wrong profile.

Speaker 3 What happened was eventually they cut another piece of cloth out of her clothes and had that tested. And that's when they got a full profile.

Speaker 3 So yeah, there was a little hiccup along the way. And before that, it had been, it just wasn't a full profile.

Speaker 3 So it was tricky because so many years went by and we're talking about 1980s. Like we know DNA was not a big thing then.
I mean, they wanted it to be, but it wasn't there yet.

Speaker 1 Is that why there wasn't a hit on Hernandez Warren early on?

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, they just didn't have enough with their profile. So they were putting it into the databases, but they weren't getting a hit.

Speaker 3 Eventually, once they had that full profile, they did a direct comparison to Hernandez, and that was a match.

Speaker 1 But you get the feeling that they weren't as confident about this DNA hit as maybe they would be, you know, on some other cases in which there isn't any question about the DNA or it ever being contaminated or not having enough of a sample.

Speaker 1 Because, you know, a lot of times you and I have both covered cases like this in which

Speaker 1 they get a DNA hit and then they're like, okay, Mr. Smith, you are under arrest.
We don't need to talk to you about it. It's your DNA on the victim.

Speaker 1 But in this case, they really tried to get him to confess.

Speaker 3 Well, so much time had passed, as we know,

Speaker 3 that I think that they were concerned about how old this DNA was, all the problems that they'd run into with the DNA.

Speaker 3 And I think they felt like, let's go the confession route first and see if we can get a confession because then, you know, we're in good shape. So I think that was the logic behind that because,

Speaker 3 I mean, I love how long DNA lasts. It's really incredible that

Speaker 1 it can survive all those years,

Speaker 3 but not without its challenges because of the age of the case.

Speaker 1 Once the finger is finally pointed at Hernandez Warren, this was a name that wasn't on anybody's radar, right? I mean, even though he lived nearby and he also had a sheet.

Speaker 3 Nobody had seen him that day or, you know, he, he hadn't been harassing Gloria or anything to suggest that it could have been him.

Speaker 1 It seems as if Hernandez running into her that day was chance?

Speaker 1 Like he just happened to be there as she was coming down that alley on the way to school.

Speaker 3 You know, no, I don't know that anyone knows except for him, but it was a strange time though that it happened. I mean, so early in the morning during a snowstorm and you take someone down outside

Speaker 3 down the stairs toward a basement. I mean, this all happened outside.
I, you know, I don't know the answer to that question, but I did find it really bizarre.

Speaker 3 I would think the one time you would be safe is during a blizzard, you know, that who's going to want to carry out a crime like that in the frigid temperatures? It was, I found it very bizarre.

Speaker 1 Traditionally, during bad weather, And I think this is true in a lot of jurisdictions, crime goes down.

Speaker 1 You know, I know like here in LA, when it's uh on the rare occasions when it's pouring rain like crime goes down a little bit people stay in it was very odd odd timing you know

Speaker 1 the thing that i keep coming back to is yvonne's sort of incredible reservoir of not just hope but also forgiveness because I mean, she's ready to not forget, but to forgive. Yes.

Speaker 1 And that comes from some place in her. And she doesn't just say it.

Speaker 3 She does it. She does.
And she did go to see Hernandez Warren. You know, I said, was he, did you feel like he was sorry for what he did? And she said, no.

Speaker 3 She said that he spent his time crying, unable to talk. She felt that his tears were for himself and his not wanting to spend his life in prison.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 Hernandez Warren is not the only murderer that Yvonne has visited in prison.

Speaker 3 Yeah, she goes into prisons to talk to killers and criminals, and

Speaker 3 she tries to help them

Speaker 3 understand

Speaker 3 what they've done and how their actions have affected people. And in fact, Yvonne has is writing a play about a tale of two mothers,

Speaker 3 the mother of the victim and the mother of the killer, and the loss on both sides.

Speaker 3 So this is a play that she plans to put on, possibly at the Performing Arts Center that she just opened in Africa in Gloria's name.

Speaker 1 Pretty amazing. Since her daughter's murder, Yvonne has gone on to do all these other things that I think she probably never thought she would do.

Speaker 1 And I think probably she wouldn't have done if Gloria were still alive.

Speaker 3 I totally agree.

Speaker 1 Midnight basketball.

Speaker 3 I love midnight basketball. I love it.
Yeah. Who knows how.

Speaker 1 Who knows how many crimes that prevented or how many lives that saved. Kids that didn't go down the wrong way.

Speaker 3 Yep.

Speaker 1 Getting them off the street giving them a place to go giving them an activity um i mean that that midnight basketball was such a great idea we talk i i i talk about here and and elsewhere i talk about the ripple effect of murder about the effects it has on people that didn't even know the victim you know the kids who were not allowed to go to the mall um because

Speaker 1 mom's aunt went to the mall and got killed.

Speaker 1 The parents who were too strict because their sister, something happened to her. And so this is a story, not just of that, but it's a story of the ripple effect

Speaker 1 that turned out to be something good. Something very good.

Speaker 1 Her daughter's death transformed Yvonne into

Speaker 1 something she wasn't and maybe wouldn't have been if Gloria had lived.

Speaker 3 She was essentially a housewife in Cleveland, and now she's been on Oprah. She's been to the White House.
She's been to Africa countless times. Her life was just completely transformed.

Speaker 3 And I know she would trade all of it to have Gloria back, but she's not getting Gloria back. And this is now how she allows her daughter to live on.

Speaker 1 Andrea, thank you. Thank you for bringing us this story.

Speaker 3 Thank you. This is the good part of the job when you get to meet inspirational people who just want to make the world better.

Speaker 1 I agree. Makes it all worthwhile.
It's great.

Speaker 1 That's it for Talking Dateline. Thanks for joining us.
See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.

Speaker 1 This time of year, many are checking off their holiday gift lists. But identity thieves have lists too, and your personal information might be on them.
Protect your identity with LifeLock.

Speaker 1 LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second and alerts you to threats you could miss. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock will fix it guaranteed or your money back.

Speaker 1 Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com slash dateline. Terms apply.