It's a classic case of how precious life is.
Here's a guy that's going to call his wife.
He's been separated from his military assignment from her.
He's probably looking so forward to making that call.
She's looking forward to receiving that.
To then how tragic that situation becomes.
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation.
Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murders.
Today's story takes us to the Caribbean, to the island of St.
Thomas to tell you the story of a cold case that was ultimately solved with the help of a surprising star witness the victim himself.
The brutal 1993 murder of Navy Lieutenant Dana Bartlett, along with the assault on two fellow sailors, went unsolved by local police for nearly 18 months before the veteran agents of the NCIS, also known as Naval Criminal Investigative Service, stepped in and joined the hunt for his killer.
And not only did this team ultimately deliver justice for the victims, but it would help write the playbook for newly formed cold case squads nationwide.
31-year-old Lieutenant Dana Bartlett was a Navy helicopter pilot attached to the USS Yorktown, a guided missile ship cruiser out of Norfolk Virginia.
And in June of 1993, the ship had just pulled into port on St.
Thomas, one of the three main U.S.
Virgin Islands, so sailors on board could enjoy a weekend of shore leave.
U.S.
Navy sailors can often be at sea for weeks and even months at a time.
So you can imagine how much they look forward to shore leave, as it's called, opportunities for a little RR, and typically Many servicemen and women head straight for the bars, restaurants and tourist attractions that dot the island paradise like St.
Thomas.
But on the night of June 15 1993, Lieutenant Bartlett chose not to go on Liberty but rather headed straight for a public payphone located at the end of the pier where the Yorktown was docked.
He'd promised to call his wife, and he intended to keep that promise.
Dana was a naval officer.
He was a helicopter pilot.
He was assigned to the USS Yorktown.
You know, by all accounts, Dana Bartlett was just an American patriot serving his country.
He was married to a beautiful young lady, and it was Gail Bartlett.
And he was just the quintessential naval aviator.
And everybody could say nothing but great things about him.
That's Special Agent Joe Kennedy, who at the time was an investigator in the Special Operations Division of the NCIS.
According to Joe, Dana left the ship at sunset and walked about the 500 yards to a telephone booth located next to some public tennis courts.
He took his place in a line behind a couple other servicemen who had also had the same idea and waited for his turn to call home.
Third class damage control man, Michael Nentz, was in the telephone booth at the time talking to his wife, and sitting next to Bartlett was Lieutenant Patrick Gardella, a member of the US.
Coast Guard assigned to the Yorktown for drug enforcement operations.
But before he had his chance, at the phone booth, Dana noticed a small black car slow down as it passed the end of the dock.
It had made some erratic movements, you know, as it passed them and almost as you know, they were being stalked as it turned around.
It drove by them and then turned around a second time.
Sensing something was wrong, Dana told Gardella they should leave the area.
So they walked to the phone booth to retrieve Nance and head back towards the ship.
You know, interestingly, the area that would not be considered, you know, a high crime area.
It's an industrial setting and it's an old pier that was part of an old U.S. submarine base.
But it was somewhat isolated initially.
And Dana's caution was rooted in reality.
Robberies were not uncommon in the islands.
Despite its reputation as a tropical paradise, St.
Thomas also had its fair share of poverty and crime.
And U.S. servicemen on leave were frequent targets.
So when Dana noticed three men exit the black car and approach them, it was clear to him that they were looking for trouble.
They are saying, hey, this is a robbery.
Give me your money.
Give me your valuables.
One of them was wielding a bat that had some nails driven through the end of it.
The other two men were armed with handguns, and what happened over the next matter of seconds would change and shatter the lives of the three servicemen and their loved ones.
One of the gunmen demanded money and, as Dana was in the process of handing over his wallet, the man with the studded baseball bat struck Michael Nentz.
As he raised an arm to deflect the blow, one of the gunmen opened fire, striking him in the back at point-blank range.
At that point, the man with the nail-studded baseball bat attacked both Dana Bartlett and Patrick Gardella, knocking both to the ground.
Now on his knees.
Dana looked up and saw one of the attackers standing over him with a gun pointed at his head.
He heard the hammer on the gun fall as the gunman attempted to shoot him.
But the gun misfired.
He calls up into a fetal position, anticipating that shot, and then the second shot goes off.
This time the bullet struck Dana in the head, and at that point the attackers flee the scene, and someone on the ship who heard the gunshots did manage to call an ambulance.
All three men were seriously wounded.
Two had sustained gunshot wounds.
But incredibly, Dana was still alive.
And as the ambulance arrived.
Here is where the story of this attack on three uniformed US servicemen also becomes an incredible story of survival and courage.
One of the detectives from the Virgin Islands actually gets into the ambulance and rides to the local hospital on St
Thomas with Dana Bartlett.
And he's telling him, he's interviewing him.
You know it's like OK, I've been hit in the head with this bat.
I've been shot.
But he's coherent and he's providing the story as to what happened to the detective.
He's been hit in the head with a bat.
He's been shot.
You know, that's right.
Dana Bartlett, with a bullet lodged in his skull, is providing local police on the scene with eyewitness testimony to his own attempted murder.
But then, only a few hours later, Dana lost consciousness, before being then flown to the VA hospital in Puerto Rico, where he died from his wounds nine days later.
The two other victims, Michael Nance and Patrick Gardella, would both ultimately survive, but with life-altering injuries Michael still with a bullet in his back and Patrick with permanent hearing loss.
The Saturday night special.
You know 22s 25s, you know those things get in and just travel through circles around the skullcap.
You know, the most dangerous weapon is those, and that's what happened to him.
Just think, he was able to tell the story to someone before he died.
Which, as you can imagine, must have been an incredible gift to the agents that were working this case, tasked with finding his attackers and solving what was now a homicide case.
When you hear something like this, it is definitely not what happens every day.
Sure, we do have complainant accounts when you expect them to survive.
But when someone ultimately dies with a gunshot wound, I mean Scott, how rare is it to hear that that person is able to self-report the crime?
It happens, but it is very rare.
Arriving on the scene of something where the victim is likely to die, you have to assess the situation fairly quickly.
You always attempt to get as much information as possible.
And you hear a victim who was lucid here, had no trouble communicating with the agents.
You know, that is invaluable information, firsthand information from your victim.
Back in Florida, Dana's wife would receive word about the attack and was able to fly to be by her husband's side.
While he lay in the hospital even prior to his death there on St.
Thomas.
A local investigation into the soon-to-become fatal attack on Dana Bartlett and his fellow servicemen became top priority of the small island police force.
It generated a tremendous amount of press coverage and media attention.
And I think the reason is, you know, here you have a naval officer, that is, two of his co-workers, that are attacked in that so-called American paradise.
What we have to keep in mind here is this isn't just a single incident.
I mean you go back.
There were several incidents of prior ship visits where sailors in uniform were targeted and identified clearly from the display of the uniform as they were at ATM machines.
In response to Dana's murder and the increasing violence against its sailors, the US Navy officially canceled all port visits to St
Thomas, and this was quickly becoming an international incident.
So obviously, there was a lot of pressure on local authorities to solve this case.
Armed with the descriptions of the suspects that had been provided by Dana Bartlett and the other two victims, local police began to comb the island.
They gave some general descriptions, height, weight, hair length, eye color.
I mean, it was just the basic stuff, nothing that was extremely significant in terms of identifying them.
These guys were all in their late teens, early 20s, and that's a huge population in St.
Thomas.
So even having eyewitness descriptions of the three attackers, police couldn't really narrow down their search at all.
They hoped they would have better luck tracking down the car used by the assailants, but they quickly ran into a similar problem.
The victims had reported seeing this small black.
You know, which would be the equivalent to a Suzuki Jeep, that a tourist would come and you know rent at an airport to drive around the sands on the beaches.
Not only was this a very common car on the island police didn't even have a tag number or knowledge of any distinguishing marks on the car.
So that search was hitting another dead end.
There's a lot of hope still that the information that Dana and the other two victims were able to give them would lead to more information.
So, you know, they would do the normal things, right?
Canvas, stop other vehicles, try to get information.
So while police were basically checking off all the boxes of doing the investigative work they hope might lead them to somewhere, they also had to deal with the fact that the area was remote.
They weren't getting anywhere with anyone being witnesses or at least no one was talking.
And all the while, the clock was ticking.
The case wasn't neglected.
When it first happened, there was a surge of investigative resources, like you'll see with most homicides.
And then you know, with the passage of time you see that some of that effort trailed off because now you have competing priorities, right?
You have other fresh cases coming in.
They had pursued certain suspects, potential suspects.
They had tried to interview a lot of witnesses.
They do neighborhood canvassing.
You know the typical things we would see done in a homicide.
It just was not there in terms of getting it over the hump.
But, as the saying goes, the US military leaves no man behind, and reports about the unsolved murder of a US sailor began to make its way up the chain of command.
The director of the NCIS decides to refocus efforts and assigns a six-person task force led by veteran NCIS agent Joe Kennedy.
The Navy Criminal Investigative Service is the federal law enforcement agency dedicated to solving crimes committed by and against US servicemen at home and abroad.
An NCIS agent is very similar to a city detective.
We investigated a myriad of crimes, you know, whether sexual assaults or embezzlement, or fraud, physical assaults rapes homicides, you name it.
And so you know, during the course of my career I had been exposed to all types of violent crime and had worked in a lot of different jurisdictions, you know, because we travel all over the world.
It was only a matter of days before Joe had booked a flight to St.
Thomas.
I made a trip down to the Virgin Islands, met up with the local detectives, met up with the local FBI agent.
The US attorney basically just formulated a game plan that hey, right after the first of the year we'll bring a team and then we'll partner with the local detectives here and see if we can't get some resolution on this.
Joe had been to St.
Thomas once before, but in a very different capacity.
Ironically, my wife and I honeymooned on St.
Thomas.
And during the time he's now spent on the island, Joe would get to know St.
Thomas much more intimately than just the beaches and resort life he'd experienced on his previous trip.
You know, it's important to remember that St.
Thomas is United States territory, so that NCIS is going to have to share jurisdiction with the local police.
And that means that there's always going to be that risk of being maybe perceived as outsiders, and tensions between locals and the federal authorities can sometimes definitely be pretty intense.
And that can also risk jeopardizing any investigation.
But on St.
Thomas during this investigation, that was not the case.
When we got on the ground, we immediately had a great interaction with the local detectives.
They were fantastic.
I mean, they had worked hard.
They had developed some good stuff that we were able to build upon.
Joe would lead a joint task force with members of NCIS and the local police.
Yeah, there's 12 of us, and it was five Virgin Islands police officers, a U.S.
Marshal, and then six NCIS agents.
Keeping in mind that NCIS is a federal agency, it also brings with it the full resources of the US government, which meant that they had all sorts of tools and resources at their disposal that the authorities on St.
Thomas didn't have.
And not only that, as Joe described it, it was really an A-team of workaholic investigators.
They had an interrogation expert, a forensic expert, an undercover guy, an expert with polygraph all experienced professionals dedicated to bringing Dana's killer, or killers, to justice.
You know, we decided, OK, if we're going to solve this, it's going to take constant focus.
This is all we're going to do.
We're not going to do other cases and we're going to try to resolve it.
But at this point more than a year had passed since Dana's homicide and the brutal attack on two of his fellow servicemen.
So for Joe Kennedy, there was only one place to start back at the beginning.
For me, it's going back through the file and you've got to get the file to talk to you.
I spent goodness, inordinate amount of time I would say probably close to a week and a half just reading the file.
And that's so important when working a cold case.
Because if you don't understand the file, if you don't understand what happened that first time, there's no way you can advance that case.
Right.
And so that's what I did to start with is, OK, what needs to be done?
Who needs to be interviewed?
Can we send some evidence back to a lab?
Is there something that was not done from a forensic angle that we could do today?
Kind of go from there.
There are definitely some hurdles to overcome when coming to a case which has brought no leads, whether it's months or years.
And, you know, we talk about a fresh pair of eyes all the time, and that's a good thing.
But the investigation did have one really big hurdle for the agent's side of this task force as they were working on the island of St
Thomas.
Which, you know, local police knew their jurisdiction and knew their people.
But when you're an agent coming into a brand new environment like an island, you have to be able to blend in.
You have to really be able to gain sources within those communities.
And that's why the hand-in-hand approach with local police on the task force was so critical.
And so, as Joe began to familiarize himself with the case which for him meant starting with the file he pretty quickly zeroed in on what to him was the most important physical piece of evidence they had, which was expended rounds found at the crime scene, as well as the 22 caliber bullet that had been found lodged in Dana Bartlett's skull.
And while they haven't recovered a murder weapon, the bullet and expended rounds do tell a harrowing story that these attackers came armed with lethal force, prepared to kill.
They also chose an isolated location with few tourists and even fewer witnesses.
It made pretty clear this wasn't just some random stick-up.
It was an ambush by well-armed attackers who must have staked the perfect spot, and then, we know, struck with deadly force.
And let's not forget that even after the shooter's gun misfired, he re-cocked the gun, aimed it at a helpless victim that posed no immediate threat and just shot him.
That not only shows a depraved callousness, it shows intentionality.
These were not amateurs.
They were killers.
In the search for Dana Bartlett's killers, Joe Kennedy was determined to leave no stone unturned.
And that meant scrutinizing each and every bit of information collected in the case file, including every tip called in to St.
Thomas police in the frantic hours after the murder.
One in particular caught Joe's attention.
There was a Crimestoppers-type call made where they were claiming they didn't know who did it.
He says, I watched the shooting.
According to this witness, he had parked his car right near the dock and actually watched the crime unfold.
He even claimed he could identify the shooters by name.
He had named three members of a local gang known for carjacking, robberies and all sorts of violent crimes.
Suspects that certainly fit the profile for the attackers.
Now, while the tip had previously been investigated by St.
Thomas Police.
They hadn't been able to place any of these named suspects at the scene at the night of the murder.
But any lead worth investigating once just might be worth investigating again.
That individual was tracked down.
And when we interviewed him, when we went back down, you know, he said hey, I was standing up here on this cliff above the tennis courts and the phone booth, and here's what I saw happen.
The tipster showed police his clear line of sight from where he claimed to witness the attack.
But rather than take his word for it, Joe decided to reenact the crime.
At the same time of day it occurred to test whether or not the witness could be telling the truth.
There's no way.
When we went back and reenacted it and looked at the lighting, you know, because that's critical.
It's at night.
There's no way this guy saw what he says he saw.
After making this realization, investigators invited the man back to the station to try and press him for the truth.
But it soon became clear, through his body language and certain inconsistencies in what he was saying, that he had been making the entire story up.
So here's a question.
Why would someone be making it up?
Why would a witness be making up information about a murder?
Well, one word, money.
St.
Thomas PD had offered a reward for information about the attack, and this was one of dozens of supposed tipsters that attempted to cash in.
And just a side note, the issue was not restricted just to the island of St.
Thomas.
All over the US.
Early when tip lines were established, they were overrun by people thinking that just by calling and giving a tip they would get money.
But clearly police had other intentions and the requirement to receive money from tips changed to arrested and convicted before the tipster would be paid.
There were also other leads that Joe re-examined as well.
For example, there was the anonymous letter sent from a local jail to Dana Bartlett's military command in Florida.
In it, the author, who identified himself only as John Doe number five, claimed to know the identity of Dana's killer.
They spent tons of man hours trying to analyze the handwriting, examining prison visitor logs and trying to identify the John Doe of the letter.
But this, too, ended up just being another dead end.
Definitely a blow, in a sense, to the investigation.
Now, while asking the community for help can be so material and vital at times to investigation.
This is one of the downsides, especially when you're offering a reward.
It can also generate those false leads that can almost, in this case, completely overwhelm an investigation.
And remember, once a tip comes in, police need to track it down.
Just imagine Scott, what the defense would do if they had just let those leads sit there with no answer along the way.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean it's a lead you must follow because you never want to be in that position to look back at trial potentially and say oh, I didn't have the time to go down that road because I didn't think it was valuable.
Giving your own personal opinion as an investigator agent, deputy police officer whatever, without any real evidence that it's not valuable.
So every lead has to be followed personally.
People are just throwing out memes.
People will brag about it and try to take credit for it to, you know, be the tough guy.
But Joe Kennedy and his task force, which became known as the Virgin Islands Task Force, remained undaunted.
We weren't there to get any accolades.
You know, we just wanted to figure out who in the hell did this thing and hold them accountable and move on.
So they circle back to the best account they have so far of the night of the murder, the statements by the surviving victims and specifically the description of that getaway car.
The car was certainly the linchpin.
So we thought, okay, on this island, there can only be so many Suzuki Jeep Samurais.
Oh my goodness, were we wrong.
We didn't realize that's what everybody, you know, it's like a Ford Escort.
It's like Oh my goodness.
And then it was black.
And then we thought, well, there'd only be a few of those.
And then it turned out to be a lot of those.
But to narrow down their search, Joe and his team applied something called geographical profiling.
What it's based on is the premise that suspects typically will commit crimes close to where they work and live.
I'm so big on geography.
I learned that geography is so critical to solving cases that they had to live or play close to where this murder happened.
And that enabled them to pinpoint only Jeep owners that live and work close to the crime scene.
Soon they have identified a Jeep owner that just happens to also have a criminal record.
That's not the be-all, end-all type of lead, but it's a start.
We realized that he constantly hung out in this.
It was called a Pueblo supermarket, kind of like an IGA supermarket very close to the crime scene.
And a search of his black Jeep turned up something quite interesting inside.
When we searched that car, we came up with some shell casings.
So then you think, OK, here's the car.
And 18 months later, there's 22 bullets that were in the armrest.
Of course, without a murder weapon there is no way to match the bullets in the car to the gun that killed Dana Bartlett.
But the coincidence of finding ammo of the same caliber in the Jeep is circumstantial evidence.
Is it indeed, could it be the getaway car?
And then we started seeing the folks, right, that he was associating with.
Then we started doing a lot of not only mobile, but static surveillances.
Okay, who are they hanging out with?
Where are they going?
And from that is where we developed this confidential informant.
You know, there's always this interesting thing about confidential informants.
And no matter where people come out on them, whether they believe in using them or not, it's like well, where do they come from?
And Scott, we know they come to us in all different ways.
You know whether it's that they have been previously arrested and they get to know law enforcement, whether they just work and walk and live and befriend people that end up committing crimes.
There are so many ways that law enforcement and prosecutors come into contact with people, but it usually are these long-term relationships that are slowly formed.
This is one of our favorite topics to talk about, because investigators spend a lot of time in the field developing CIs, never knowing if they ever get a chance to use them for a homicide case.
Unlike anything else, there are really good ones and there are really bad ones.
And you have to weigh the information.
It's always based on why.
And what I mean by that is why are they talking and why is it important for them to deliver information to you?
Because information from confidential informants is rarely free.
And I really thought that it was interesting in this particular case is that they knew about this guy who was friendly with this group, like Joe talked about.
But he wasn't in any way ever thought to be involved or even have any sort of like criminal past, at least not from what I've read.
But he certainly walked amongst them.
So he just might be the one to have that crucial information that investigators have been lacking.
They felt like, hey, that kid is not a bad kid.
He's on the fringes of all stuff.
We can trust him.
Let's talk to him.
And then we gained his cooperation.
Now Scott, just in general, I mean, obviously a confidential informant is going to be nervous that if they give this information that they might be putting themselves at risk.
So obviously when a CI gives information, there is a risk in their mind that their name will become public.
They may have to testify in court.
You know so many cases where people just don't want to talk because they fear for their own life.
And if a CI is giving information about potential gang activity, then you know they're taking a risk on their own.
And why would they do that?
And what's the reason why they would come forward?
So I can easily see them being nervous.
Not only testifying or giving information, or is what could the retribution be for coming forward?
And here we're not just talking about someone potentially getting lost in the sea of a big city, but rather the sea of an island.
So that type of news is going to potentially travel very fast of a place like this that is small and close-knit.
And Joe's CI is hesitant to meet anywhere he could be seen by anybody he knows.
So investigators convince him to meet at a safe spot where they'll know they'll be alone a local cemetery at night.
And then, as we started interacting with that confidential informant, we were tasking him okay, see what else you can come up with.
And this guy did eventually give the names of three guys that he said had attacked Dana Bartlett and his fellow servicemen.
He named them as Ansel Cialto, Nepta Peterson, and a juvenile whose name has been withheld.
He's also able to link the three men with a black Suzuki Samurai Jeep, a car which he says they had borrowed from its owner on the day of the murder.
Investigators, of course, ran the three names had been given and quickly discovered that one of the men, Ansel Cialto, had had many previous contacts with the criminal justice system, including a violent assault.
But it was the second name that would prove to be the key to closing this case.
And then that's when, at one point, he comes back and says hey look, the one suspect Peterson.
He is having nightmares over this.
It is said between investigators that nightmares are often indicative of a guilty conscience.
And if I'm Joe, that gives me confidence that this is not another false lead.
There's one of three ways you solve a murder, right?
You got to have some physical evidence.
You got to have some witnesses or you got to get them to tell you the truth.
Get them to confess the suspects.
What I saw in this case is there weren't any real viable witnesses.
We didn't have any physical evidence.
So if we could get on the right trail, right, then it's going to come down to a confession.
And his best chance at a statement was likely going to be the suspect with the nightmares.
Those sleepless nights just might give investigators the opening they needed to finally crack this case.
On the island of St.
Thomas.
NCIS agent Joe Kennedy and a task force of local police think they have identified three solid suspects in the murder of Dana Bartlett.
Named by a confidential informant.
The suspects were said to have borrowed a Jeep similar to the one spotted by Dana Bartlett himself at the crime scene.
Remember, before he succumbed to his injuries, he was able to give police a description.
And not only that, but according to the informant, one of the three men, Nepta Peterson, had reportedly been having bad dreams about his participation in the crime, which is exactly the type of information that can give investigators an edge as they strategize their interview.
I knew from prior experience that there may be a weakness there.
If he's having nightmares over having participated in this, that could be our weak link.
Joe's task force initiates an around-the-clock surveillance on the three suspects.
Not only do they want to keep eyes on them, they know, as you'll hear, that everything they learn will pay off in the interview room.
They also want to ensure that when they do pick them up, they do it all at once.
On an island.
This small word travels fast, and that could mean losing your suspects or losing your chances of getting a statement.
You know that's the key I have found with most homicides and it's the element of surprise in that interview room.
Good cold case detectives.
They knock on the door of the suspect and the suspect has no idea they were coming.
They might have suspected it and they're always looking over their shoulder but they didn't realize.
Oh my gosh, y'all were here 20 years later, you know, five years later, 18 months later, whatever that might be.
And to me, that's the key element.
And on the morning of January 31st 1995, just one month after the NCIS arrived on the island, Joe's task force makes their move.
Once we do that simultaneous roundup of Ansel Cielto Netfa, Peterson and the juvenile.
You know we separated them in different offices at the judicial center there in Charlotte Mali.
So our goal was to allow them to see each other but not be able to talk to each other in any way.
One suspect sees the other suspects with the different agent or detective, they're thinking, who?
And then it was just, you know, it came down to the good old skills in an interview running.
Can we get one of these guys to tell what he knows?
The three suspects were each brought to a different interview room.
Now remember they had all seen one another, so undoubtedly that is playing on their minds and it just might be the thing that sparks one or more of them to talk.
Just think of that mindset of okay, let me help myself, or at least put my own spin on this before one of the others does.
Peterson appeared to be probably the tougher of the three in terms of physicality and his physical appearance.
He was a pretty stout young man.
He was over six foot tall.
Ansel Cielto had some unique physical features to him.
In his face, he had a scar.
You know, he was the typical, I don't know anything, I didn't see anything, I didn't hear anything.
He had had a more extensive criminal history than the others.
He was more street smart than the other two, for sure.
Let's just say it as it is.
Agents really don't have a lot of hard evidence against these three suspects.
They really just have some circumstantial evidence and the word of their CI.
And they don't have a ton of leverage for sure.
So getting a statement could be easier said than done.
But as always, Joe has a plan.
Okay, here's what we've got to do.
We've got to gain the rapport of these folks.
We've got to get them to talk to us.
These are going to be lengthy, long interrogations.
But we're going to convince them we know how it happened.
And then they're going to tell us.
This wasn't anything fancy.
This is gumshoe detective work.
And knowing what they do about one of the suspects, Nefta Peterson, they do have one advantage.
What we did is we.
You know strategically, our goal going into the interview was hey, we've got.
Peterson is having nightmares, right.
We've learned that from the informant.
So would he be the weak link?
You know, he was very standoffish.
He had the typical noncompliant body language, but he wanted to know what we knew.
You know, he was curious.
We gave him a couple of the facts, right?
Not what happened at the scene, but what had been going on in his life.
And he's like, oh, my God, how did you know that?
You know, we're the police.
We know everything.
Now Scott, we have talked about this before, but obviously it is vital to taking a statement, or certainly your best chance of success, to know as much about the suspect you're about to sit down with before you get into that room.
Yeah, the most effective interview with a person of interest comes with an investigator armed with knowledge, knowing the answers to the questions before you even ask them and effectively drawing the picture.
So the person of interest clearly begins to see that they're not driving the conversation you are.
And once they realize that you're armed with actual facts, there's a much better chance that if they're not being truthful, they begin to be.
And beyond just knowing the case, it's also getting to know the person, because the more you know about them, the more you know how to talk with them.
And the more you can talk with them.
That is that rapport building that makes them less likely to shut down, which gives investigators more likely that that person is going to either maybe confess or maybe give at least a partial truth or at least give their own version of events.
Yet that's why often in these interviews, you ask open-ended questions.
We've called it before open-faced questions, where you're fishing a bit.
You're asking questions that you probably know more information than they realize you know.
But once they start going down a road and they start not being truthful, and you know that right there, that's when you turn up the pressure.
And I think you know what happens in a lot of interview rooms is the investigators are a lot of things to talk about because they don't have enough information about the suspects.
And I'll tell you that we spent days and weeks.
We knew everything.
These suspects, we know what they wore.
We knew what they ate.
We know where they like to hang out.
We knew what they drank.
I mean, we knew.
So when they showed up, we could say, hey, here's what's going on.
Right.
And this right here is where Dana's eyewitness account of his own murder plays a crucial role.
One of the key things that we were able to do and I'm a big proponent of this is if you can tell someone how the crime happened, they're more likely to confess.
And so we went back to that initial interview that Dana Bartlett did with the detectives.
His name was Granville Christopher.
So Granville had gotten in the back of the ambulance with him.
And as they're driving, you know, to get him some treatment, he tells them, hey, what happened?
And he tells them hey look, after I get hit in the head, in the back, the guy comes over, leans over me to shoot me in the head and the gun, you know it clicks.
So there's a misfire.
So then he racks the gun and then, as he goes to shoot me in the head, I call up in a fetal position and then the guy shoots me in the head.
We knew all these intimate details, which you don't get in a lot of murder cases, right?
They're dead.
Where are you going to get that kind of info from a victim?
And so we used that.
And so he knew, oh my gosh, these guys, it's like they were there.
And when he's confronted...
With the fact that hey, the gun misfired, the victim went into a fetal position, and then you shot him in the head.
That's when you could see he dropped his head, you know, and his eyes tear up.
Nefter Peterson's nightmares about getting caught for murder were beginning to be realized.
Also about the same time, we've gained some rapport with the juvenile and his mother and he has, you know, said yes okay, I was involved, and here's how it happened.
Peterson and the juvenile both confessed to their roles in the attack on Dana and his two fellow servicemen Michael Nance and Patrick Gardella.
I don't think you should ever have to lie to a suspect in an interview, right?
You know, I mean, we can use trickery to see, and that works, you know, in some cases.
And I'm not going to say I haven't used that in the past, because I certainly have, like many other detectives.
But over time, I can tell you that the thing is getting a good scene.
And creating a rapport with people.
You know, here's the thing about getting people to confess, and I'm a firm believer.
It's about creating intimacy with the suspect.
And a lot of people think, what?
Yes, because many suspects have not had intimacy with people, right?
They've not had positive role models.
They've not had people to just show them dignity or respect.
As for Ansel Cialto, the one suspect with a long criminal record and experience facing off against cops, he claims he was nowhere near the crime scene and it's a story he is sticking to.
We never got Ansel Cialto to come off of his story, and he never cooperated with us.
We had enough from the other two witnesses to cooperate the crime and prove they had done it.
One of those witnesses had actually lent them his car on the night of the crime.
The owner of the car was willing to testify that he gave him the car that night.
When he brought it back, he was acting strange.
Made some not really tacit admissions, but he could clearly see something was going on.
And then the two confessions of Netfa Peterson and the juvenile, they both put him at the scene.
They described him being the one attacking with a bat.
The stories that they told us were very consistent with how the crime unfolded.
In other words, they would have had to have been there to provide that specific information.
It was very consistent with what the victims had told the living victims, as well as Dana Bartlett, before he died.
How they were approached, where they parked the car, what was said during the altercation.
The sequence of events was correct.
And that's where we knew not only have they confessed, but this is absolutely in the right group of suspects because they have cooperated to what witnesses previously provided in this case,
The three men were charged with various counts of murder, assault with a deadly weapon and armed robbery, and they were scheduled to stand trial in St
Thomas.
Now, I know you talked about the fact that there's a lot of circumstantial evidence here, and I know that's a type of evidence you like to use in court.
How do you feel about their case at this point?
You know, they had obviously Dana's eyewitness testimony before he passed away.
But what about all the other information?
Are you feeling confident for them in this case?
I don't know that prosecutors ever feel confident until the jury tells us they've given us that answer, which is the hopeful guilty verdict after trial.
But I definitely would be more than comfortable walking into the courtroom because yes, it starts with the descriptions that Dana, Patrick and Michael were able to give.
But it gets so much stronger from there.
They have the car.
They have the same type of bullet around in the car.
They have the witnesses.
They have the informant who was friends with these guys that can talk about admissions they've made.
They have the guy who actually lent them the car that talks about lending them the car.
Remember, they already had the description of the car that was used.
And you start to pile these things one on top of the other, now also with statistics, several statements from at least two of the suspects, and you have a pretty strong case going into court.
But is it a case of premeditation?
You don't need premeditation when it comes to felony murder.
So basically, when you have a robbery, then someone's killed, depending on the jurisdiction.
If someone is just killed during the course of multiple felonies and robbery is one of them well that, right there, equals murder, because it is reasonable to foresee that when you're committing certain types of crimes, that someone could die.
Now, if you intentionally kill someone during that crime, we're here again.
They'd already beaten them with bats and they literally are standing over dana and shooting him in the head with a gun.
Well, that's pretty intentional, right there, and You know so many people think that intentional crimes mean premeditated, but it doesn't.
Intent can be formed within seconds.
Pulling back the hammer of a gun right there.
Your intent is to use the gun and pointing it at the head of someone and firing.
Well, that's intentional murder.
Right there.
Done.
So what is stronger evidence of intent than having a weapon that misfires, re-cocking that weapon and re-pointing that weapon at your victim and firing.
That is intent.
And I think you said it perfectly Scott, because while one is enough and I'd be happy to go into court just with one shot that worked, like you said, it was over and over to make very sure that their objective, which was to kill, was realized.
We did prove that.
The few days before the ship pulled in, they were sitting on their front porch and they were reading about that the ship was coming to make a visit.
This was a very planned robbery incident.
And so really, what prosecutors need to prove is that they were acting in concert, that were helping one another when they committed this robbery.
And they had this great piece of evidence that, days before the crime, that these guys are literally reading the newspaper about the ship coming into town and planning how that would be the perfect scenario for a robbery of one or more of the servicemen.
So now, when they go there with guns and then use the guns well, that is pretty strong evidence of the robbery element and that equals felony murder.
It does appear that perhaps the assailants did not think that victims were complying like handing over their wallets and this kind of thing quick enough.
And that's when they started hitting them.
Now, the things that I found most interesting in this case, they hit Dana in the head.
And of course, you know, he's down.
He's been hit with a baseball bat.
So that's a significant subdural hematoma, skull fracture, bleeding on the brain, all that stuff.
But he is then shot in the head.
In other words, he was already beaten and subdued before the shooter aimed his weapon.
And, as I mentioned before, the shooter had plenty of time to reconsider his actions, and that shows intentionality and a complete lack of mercy.
Ultimately, all three suspects pled guilty and received lengthy prison sentences in exchange for their admissions of guilt.
And after those excruciating 18 months, Dana Bartlett's family would finally at least have the knowledge that someone in this case three people were being held accountable for his murder.
Joe Kennedy and his NCIS task force had executed a nearly flawless cold case investigation and the NCIS brass agreed.
We were high-fiving, dancing when we saw, I mean, this is just another case.
We had no idea it would turn out to be the start of our cold case squad.
But you know it's just us at the time.
Hey okay, we've done a good job, we've solved the case.
Let's get the hell out of here.
Go back to another case, right?
This case was Joe Kennedy's first cold case and he would go on to form the NCIS Cold Case Unit and, using his account of the Bartlett homicide investigation, would quite literally help write the book on cold case techniques and strategy.
And Scott, of course, we have to talk about this book right here that Joe has written recently.
It's called Solving Cold Cases, Investigation Techniques and Protocols.
It really gives you insight into how Joe's mind works, but also how just the mind of cold case investigators work.
And yes, we're giving him the plug here, but you can find his book on Amazon.
We'll put a link on the website.
But just as you listen to him recount how he works on this case and the ideology that he employs when it comes to his cases,
It really is worth the read, both for the various accounts and yes, Dana Bartlett and this case is part of it but also just the insight he has about cold cases in general.
This was the prototype.
This was the case that when I got back to Washington, I sat down with our director, Roy Nedrow, and my boss, Jerry Nance.
They said, hey, what do you think?
You want to try to solve some more cases?
And of course, that was a silly question.
Damn right we're going to.
We got to try, right?
When I think about this case, I think about Dana Bartlett, who was devoted to his wife, Gail.
And virtually everyone who knew him described him as a religious man who was super dependable.
But he was also a man of great integrity.
These were men who were targeted because they had something the killers wanted, money.
They were in the process of using a payphone to reach their loved ones while deployed serving their country.
Dana Bartlett came from a military family.
His own father himself, a lieutenant commander in the U.S.
Navy.
You know, in speaking to Joe about this case, one thing he made very clear is that this was a true team effort and that, while he has worked with many task force during the 28 years of his NCIS career, that it was the Virgin Islands Task Force that will always hold a special place in his heart.
You know, I was reading this article which talked about this ceremony that they had basically acknowledging the work done by these investigators.
And a letter came in from Dana Bartlett's family that really talks to me about what their work, the investigators did for them.
And they talked about how they had been basically hopeless, that this case would never be solved and that it was this team, all of them, that made sure that Dana got justice.
And near the end of their letter they wrote, and I'm quoting It's ironic that during this ceremony it's occurring at Lancom, which is an Atlantic command, and that when Dana was very young, we are attending the Armed Forces Staff College next door.
Dana used to come through the fence in the morning to serve as an altar boy at morning mass at the base chapel.
I think that's when he first considered becoming a naval officer.
I'm sure he is very proud of what the team and the Navy has done to solve this crime.
And the letter was signed by Dana's wife, his parents, three sisters and the wife's family.
And two weeks later this large plant was delivered to the investigator's office, and with it was a note from the Bartlett family which read
May God bless you, your investigators and staff.
Your work has allowed peace in our lives again.
Thank you with all our hearts.
And all I could think about when I read that portion of their letter was the NCIS cold case motto, which comes from the French philosopher Voltaire, which is to the living we owe respect, to the dead we owe the truth.
So, what do you think, Chuck?
Do you approve?
No!
