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I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt.
And the story I have for you today is the shiny example of why you should never give up hope.
And why you should never jump to conclusions.
Because in the span of multiple decades after a young girl's death, A number of people come on police's radar who you would think just have to be the guy.
But it turns out, The guy was hiding right under their noses all along.
This is the story of Wendy Jerome. It's about 8 p.m., November 22nd, 1984, when 30-year-old Marlene Jerome just like jolts awake from a post-Thanksgiving dinner nap on the couch.
She doesn't know what it is that woke her, but immediately she senses that something is wrong.
And being a mother, her mind immediately goes to her kids, specifically her 14-year-old daughter, Wendy.
And so she kind of like pops off the couch, and starts looking all over the house for her.
Like she just needs to lay eyes on her and then everything will be okay.
But Wendy isn't home. Marlene's husband, Wayne, tells her that Wendy went to her friend's house a couple of blocks away to deliver a birthday card.
Her name's Sue. But that was over an hour ago and she has now missed her 8 p.m. curfew and she's about to miss having pumpkin pie, which is her favorite. and they'd all planned to eat it together after Marlene's nap.
Now listen, she's only missed curfew by a few minutes at this point, but Marlene is just like getting progressively more worried.
So she calls Sue's house. Though that doesn't exactly help settle her fears because nobody answers over there.
So then she tries other friends who live nearby, but no one has seen Wendy.
Now, despite her gut instinct, Marlene told our reporter that she was clinging to the hope that maybe Wendy had gone somewhere with Sue's family.
And it's a thought that she holds onto for hours as she tries telling herself not to overreact.
I mean, in 1984, it is wait it out or call the police.
Not a whole lot in between. But that last shred of hope that she had is torn to pieces at 11.30 p.m. when Marlene finally gets a hold of Sue's mom.
Yes, Wendy had come by, but way earlier.
And no, she hadn't been with them like she left their house at about 7.30.
And Sue's mother must kind of get a rush of the type of fear that has been building in Marlene for hours because...
She knew something that she didn't want to tell Marlene over the phone.
On her way home, she had driven by a bunch of police and like commotion. on the local school grounds.
So as she's like having this realization, all she can bring herself to say to Marlene was, you need to hang up and call the police immediately.
Which Marlene does, and she said police were at her door within minutes.
Now, she wanted to show the officer a picture of her daughter that was missing so he knew who to look for.
But she said that he couldn't even bring himself to look at it.
All he said was Wendy had an accident. And even in that moment, her mom is looking for all the explanations that aren't the worst one.
She said she remembered thinking, oh, like maybe she got hypnotized.
And you can almost pinpoint the moment in her story when the real trauma happened and how she felt.
Marlene's brain started trying to protect her from it because the actual words that came out of the officer's mouth are fuzzy to her now.
But she says that she just remembers he said something like she came across a bad person and somehow she was told that Wendy was dead.
And to hear Marlene talk about it even 40 years later, like it will rip you apart.
Right after she said that, her eyes just kind of drifted up and over and I could. tell in that moment she was right back in 1984 she has probably spent so much time in that memory But before she let it consume her, she physically in our interview had to like shake it off and keep going.
Now Marlene wanted to go to her baby. She wanted to be the one to identify her, but the police wouldn't allow it.
And she was furious. She said she had this image of Wendy, like naked, beaten, sprawled out in the snow, and she couldn't stand the thought of all these There with her little girl, like she was the mother who brought her into this world.
She was the one who celebrated Wendy's birthday with her just a couple of weeks before.
And now she was just gone. And when she's imagining this, were they giving her details about what had happened?
Not really. I mean, truthfully, they're still trying to figure out what happened at School 33.
But the picture Marlene was developing in her head wasn't actually the one police were dealing with.
And don't get me wrong, it was brutal. Wendy had been beaten so badly you couldn't ID her from her face.
It was actually her school ID in her pocket that helped them get there.
Two of her teeth were found on the ground next to her, and the ME would later determine that she died from blunt force trauma to the head. with multiple skull fractures and cerebral contusions.
And she also had numerous cuts and contusions to her face, lots of defensive wounds on both of her hands.
And there was a laceration to her neck that looked like it came from a knife.
Now, it's not a deep, huge wound like I've seen reported in this case, but a cut nonetheless.
Blood had also pooled around her head. But the thing that I'll say is really different from what Marlene was picturing is she actually wasn't naked.
Though it was clear that she had been at some point and then had redressed because she was wearing unzipped jeans and a sweater.
But her bra and coat were found kind of strewn about.
Though someone must have been ashamed of what they'd done because they used her T-shirt and pink hoodie to cover her face.
And in all this, could they tell if she had redressed herself or if someone had like put her clothes back on her ass?
Afterwards, yeah. So we spoke to Sergeant Gus Venosa of the Rochester Major Crimes Unit, and he says that they believe she was allowed to get dressed after being sexually assaulted.
And they're basing this off of the blood patterns that they have.
And speaking of, so about 45 feet from Wendy, there were some blood droplets.
So the theory is that Wendy might have been taken to the secluded part of School 33.
She was attacked. At some point, she sat up in the spot where those blood droplets were.
And then the blood is like dripping from her having been beaten.
And then afterwards, she started getting redressed and then her attacker began beating her again.
Possibly they have a theory that maybe she even tried to run away.
And like was that the plan all along? Did she say something that made him realize he would get caught if he let her go?
Like they don't know that part yet. Well, and I'm thinking, like, was he lying in wait for her?
Did he take her there? Like, how did this all even...
This is what's interesting. So the school isn't on the way to or from Sue's house where we know she was going.
I mean, did she go to this school? No, her 10-year-old brother did, though.
And it was really close by to her house, Sue's house, everything.
So, I mean, I know she was familiar with it.
Most likely, the killer grabbed her or lured her from somewhere else.
But this whole area, again, everything is within close proximity.
I think wherever he took her from, he had this place in mind to bring her though, because this whole area. is pretty residential, like even where she was found was close to a street, but The one particular spot of the school where she was is kind of like this alcove of an unlit courtyard that's protected by some brick knee-high walls and a fence.
So this plus the darkness at night can give it a sense of seclusion despite, like I said, I mean, it's only a couple hundred feet from the street.
Well, and knowing all that, I have to think it was a little more premeditated than not.
It's this guy like took her to this place that was...
Not well lit behind a wall. Like he knew that this place was here and he had a knife to cut her.
I was going to say, I mean, that's what he could have threatened her with to get her to that alcove area with him.
But, I mean, you have to think that someone who is willing to do that would also be willing to use it, right?
Yeah. But speaking of the knife, they don't find any kind of weapon at the scene or any clothing or personal effects from the attacker. there were some cigarette butts and a lighter, according to the Democrat and Chronicle.
Though they're not totally convinced these are necessarily connected to their killer because apparently...
This is an area where people would regularly kind of just stand around and smoke.
But that is not to say he didn't leave real clues behind. biggest of which is his DNA, which they end up retrieving from a sexual assault kit.
But they had a couple of things that were a little more tangible that they could actually do something with in 1984.
The 80s. Right. Right. So like they had some foreign hairs, including pubic hairs and a physical trail of blood that showed them which direction their killer took off in.
About 300 feet from where Wendy was laying, blood droplets are found on the sidewalk by the school, on like the side that runs along a street called Rosewood Terrace.
And then a few hundred feet from that, there was a single drop of blood on the corner of Rosewood Terrace and Schaefer.
How do they know it's from whoever did this and not from Wendy, like, trying to run away or something?
I don't think they definitively know that it wasn't, but it would mean that Wendy ran several hundred feet and then would have been like dragged all the way back to where her body was found, which doesn't seem likely because There would be like more evidence of that.
Right. We have a single drop on a corner.
I also feel like someone would have heard or seen something more.
We don't get anything like that from witnesses.
And now listen, they end up typing the blood out and it is the same blood type as Wendy's.
So again, theoretically, yes, maybe it could be hers.
I think that seems like the least likely.
It could also be blood dripping from a murder weapon like a knife.
But Sergeant Venosa doesn't think that's likely.
He always believed that their killer most likely cut themselves during the attack.
And has the same blood type as Wendy. Yeah, that was the theory at the time.
But again, I mean, we also know the attack was very bloody, so they do not know for sure.
They just know which way they believe this guy ran.
But did he get in a car and drive away? Did he walk another 1, 5, 20 miles after leaving that final drop at the corner of Rosewood Terrace and Schaefer?
And when they look for their guy, there are two people they already have on their list before the scene is even going to happen. even cleared.
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In Wendy's pocket, along with her school ID, detectives also found a note that read, I love Joey in like bubble letters.
Now, Joey was the top of their list to speak with, but first up was the 24-year-old man who actually had found Wendy's body in this alcove in the first place.
This guy's name is Craig and he tells police that he had gone to a nearby bar that night, but he didn't want to pay the cover charge.
So he left. headed towards his friend's house instead, cutting through the school property to get there.
And he says at first he just saw someone laying down in the distance and thought it was somebody who was probably passed out drunk.
But when he got closer and saw all of the blood, he freaked out, ran to his friend's house, asked them to come back with him and make sure what he was seeing was real.
And the two of them ended up going to a neighbor's house and calling police together.
Now, it's pretty easy to check this guy's story, the bar, the cover charge.
They even interview the friend that he was with.
Well, and even despite all that, that would have meant that Craig called the police on himself, which wouldn't have made a lot of sense.
Right. Police quickly realized that Craig's most likely not their guy.
Now, they don't know who Joey even is yet, but they figure Sue might.
And since Sue was likely the last person to interact with Wendy before she met her killer, they want to get in front of her.
Now, she tells police that Wendy popped by a little after 7 p.m.
They chatted for a little bit about sleepovers and birthday parties, like normal 14 year old girl stuff.
And Wendy mentioned to her that she didn't have to be home until 8.30.
And though she didn't say that she she was going to go anywhere specific before heading home, Sue kind of wondered if Wendy could have decided to go to their friend Amy's house.
She was another girl who lived in the neighborhood.
And interestingly, the route to Amy's house might have put her near the school depending on which street she would have taken.
Well, and I'm also imagining their age, like she's there at seven.
She doesn't have to be back till 830. Like when we were that age, like that means we were walking through the door at 829. with like 30 seconds to go.
Absolutely. And like totally willing to ask for more time next time.
Yeah. And listen, Sergeant Venosa and Marlene kind of agree.
She was probably headed to Amy's house or another friend's house.
Like she was probably going to squeeze out.
Taking her time. Yes. Because nobody reports seeing her.
Her friends also tell police that her death makes no sense, like she's just a typical teenager who loves to babysit.
Listen to Journey and dream about owning a salon one day.
No one has a problem with her. She's not stirring up trouble.
And by the way, even Joey is kind of a nothing burger.
I mean, not him as like a person, but like whatever they had, no one. knows anything salacious about Joey, but they do point detectives to the one that Wendy would have been talking about in that note.
It's a 15-year-old who went to the same school as she did And he ends up telling police that, yes, they went on a couple of dates, like nothing serious.
And the last time he saw Wendy was when they walked to the bus together on Friday.
Wednesday, before school let out for Thanksgiving break, he says he spent Thanksgiving at home, which his mother confirms.
So they end up scratching Joey off from the list, too.
Meaning that their killer is still out there and they have no idea who he is.
And he could strike again, maybe even to the same family.
This is when harassing and threatening phone calls start rolling in on the Jerome family house line.
On one call, someone said to Marlene, quote, I know when your husband's gone, and you better keep an eye on your son.
Now, police try putting a tap on the family's phone, thinking that this could be their biggest and best lead. but they are never able to pin this guy down.
They think basically he was moving from like phone booth to phone booth to place these calls.
And in any of these calls, is he asking for something or saying why he did this or anything?
Yeah. No, I don't even think he says anything in the calls taking responsibility for Wendy's murder.
I mean, this might be totally unrelated and just some sick person out there coming after an already traumatized family.
So even though no one knows who's making these calls, this is still a place where everyone seems to know everyone.
And everyone has a close pulse on what's happening in the neighborhood.
So it's no surprise that police are quick to make a connection between Wendy's case and that of another call that officers responded to on the night of the murder.
You see, there was this guy who we're going to call Dale at the request of Sergeant Venosa.
And the night of Thanksgiving, this 29-year-old showed up to the emergency room, covered in blood and cuts.
Now, Dale's story to doctors and then to police when the doctors called them in was that he was attacked by a couple of guys while walking down the street.
Except when they try to dig into the details of Dale's claim, which should be pretty easy to verify based on where and when he said it happened.
They can't find anyone who witnessed this attack.
They can't find any sign that it took place on the street, he said it did.
And Dale also keeps changing his story. So the police start getting suspicious, thinking that Okay, maybe Dale isn't the victim in this scenario.
Maybe he's our suspect. And while he wasn't necessarily staying with her at the time, it is very interesting when they learn that Dale's mother lived on land.
Rosewood Terrace, just a block from the school.
Same street that the Blood Trails found her.
Yeah. And I told you, this is a close-knit community.
And what's interesting is Marlene told us that she knew this Dale guy, kind of like tangentially.
So at some point, police corner Dale. They tell him they know that he's full of it and he breaks.
He finally admits he lied, but the confession that comes out of his mouth is not at all what they were expecting.
Dale doesn't confess to Wendy's murder. Instead, he said that his story can't be corroborated because there were no other men who jumped him.
The injuries he had were self-inflicted with a razor blade so that he could get sympathy from his girlfriend.
Can that be fact-checked, please? And also, like, who is this poor girlfriend?
Is she okay? Please tell me she's not, like... with Dale because that's not okay.
It's unhinged. Yeah. Ladies and gents, some red flags are small and Some are the size of a house and the color of crimson.
That one. Yes, this is one of those. Someone does something like that, you...
Because that is some master manipulation.
Yeah. So, OK, if this is all for her, like, did the girlfriend end up finding out?
I want to do an entire story on this because I don't know any follow-up on this.
Nobody seems to know what happens with these two afterwards.
I have all the same questions. I assume she found out everything because, like, You think they would have talked to her.
I don't know. know if she got looped in when all was said and done or if he just went home and was like, oh, honey, they can't find the guys who mugged me.
And I was wrongly suspected of a murder.
If he wanted attention. Dude, I know. My biggest question is, did they stay together?
And I don't know the answer. I mean, whenever you say stuff like that, I'm always like, well, we're It's on an episode now.
Will she hear it? Oh, my God. If she does, absolutely.
She needs to call us. But even though I think Dale is was a bad dude, he is not Wendy's murderer.
He is able to point police to the razor blade that he used.
Apparently he ditched it on the street. They're actually able to locate it, confirming this weird and wild story of his.
I mean, I assume they're also not just like taking that for what it is.
Do they do a comparison of some of the physical evidence?
Yes. all the boxes. Right. It's not just the razor blade.
Again, no DNA to work with yet, but they do take hair samples and blood samples from Dale just to make sure.
And of everything they collected, there was nothing to suggest that he was their guy.
Mostly because Dale is a white guy and the hairs that they have from the crime scene suggest that the person who attacked Wendy was black.
But this gets police thinking. It wasn't just the hospital visit that placed Dale on their suspect list.
While they were deep looking into him, they actually talked to a local 18-year-old named Michael Ross, who told police that while outside a bar a few days after the murder, He heard an intoxicated Dale say that he was going to get Wendy.
Wait, timing wise, this is after she's already been murdered.
Yeah, that part didn't seem to trip them up much early on.
But like, it doesn't make sense, right? And now that Dale is kind of a no-go, what they're basically wondering is like, oh.
Could this Michael Ross guy, who is black and would theoretically be a better match for Harris found, could he maybe have made up this whole story?
And why make up a story unless you yourself have something to hide?
Right. And like insert yourself into the investigation that way.
And I mean on another note Michael was known to be a violent guy who carried a knife.
So when they go ask him where he was on the night of the murder, he's like, oh, I was just home watching TV.
However, he did admit that he saw Wendy at an outdoor party near the school two days before her murder.
So he knew her. or at least knows of her from the neighborhood, but he swears he didn't have anything to do with her murder.
Now, police start canvassing the neighborhood, asking around about Michael.
And a pair of neighbors tell police that Michael could get violent and often wanted to fight.
Another neighbor, specifically this guy Timothy, tells police that Michael was sneaky and he was someone that couldn't be trusted.
Someone else talks about Michael chasing after a woman with a club once, and yet another tells police that Michael tried to burn down a house.
They find another woman who lives nearby who tells police that she and several of her friends feared Michael.
And by the way, Michael's own mother pokes holes in his alibi, saying that he went out at 7 p.m. on the night of the murder, so he wasn't just at home watching TV.
And once they know the alibi is BS, investigators haul Michael back in and surprise, surprise, he changes his story.
He now says that he went to a restaurant and a pool hall known as the Greasy Spoon at around 7 p.m. before leaving to go home at about 9.45 p.m.
And since they're thinking whatever happened to Wendy happened closer to like 7.30, in theory, this could clear him, right?
But when police talk to the manager of the greasy spoon and show him a picture of Michael, he's like, nope, dude wasn't here.
And what's so strange is like they don't ever seem to get a real story from Michael about where he was that night.
Or at least there isn't one that has survived old record keeping.
But they did get hair samples from him. Also something that didn't survive record keeping.
So like, did they compare those hairs? What were the results?
I don't know. Yeah. But whatever they did or had wasn't enough to prove anything because while he remained a person of interest... they didn't have enough to prove that he was involved or to actually arrest him.
So whether it was Michael or someone else who committed this murder, police were going to need more.
They were going to need a witness, a confession, a murder weapon.
And over the next few months, they have moments where they think they're close to one or more of those.
A time where a knife was found in the middle of the street a mile from the school, but it ends up not being the knife. a time where a man comes forward and says that he witnessed six Black men committing the murder, but The guy admits to being under the influence the night that he saw it, and he had just been arrested for possession of stolen property when he offered up this information.
So you could have just been looking to get a break with some made up stuff.
Making a deal. Essentially, that doesn't lead anywhere either.
And this, Brett, is kind of what police are dealing with.
One step forward, two steps back. Every tip leads to more nothings.
And even those phone calls that the family were getting, one day those just stop.
And police never determined who was making them.
So over the following months and years, it becomes clear that the only way they're going to solve this is through advancements in technology.
Talk of DNA is just a whisper in the mid-80s, and a whisper that probably wasn't even making its way to this little corner of America.
So it's not until 1999 that police have the tools and the know-how to really make something happen.
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Using swabs from Wendy's sexual assault kit, lab techs are able to pull a full male DNA profile. one that is good enough to enter into the earliest form of the CODIS national database.
But unfortunately, it wouldn't be that easy.
There were no matches. So whoever this is has never been arrested after Wendy's murder in a state that collects DNA. or at least they hadn't been swabbed and entered.
I mean, there were a lot of cracks in the system early days, as we've talked about in plenty of other episodes.
This wasn't a total loss though. I mean, this DNA does help police rule out a few people that we've talked about, like Dale. and Michael, who by that point is in prison for a sex crime.
Which I'm sure just made them even more suspicious of him, like, over all the years.
Yeah. And honestly, I mean, sometimes there are these cases that remind you why you need a really strong case before putting someone away for murder.
Even when it seems like all the signs are pointing to one person, like you get a situation like this.
Michael Ross is a rapist. He's a bad guy.
But he didn't do anything to Wendy Jerome.
And what about the guy who found her? Did they ever go back and check him like just to officially rule him out for sure?
They actually did. So the Democrat and Chronicle had reported that by this point he'd actually passed away.
It was like sometime in the decade or so since Wendy's murder.
But they had his DNA on file after he took his own life because they had to do an autopsy.
So they took it at that point. He ends up not being a match either.
So 15 years since the murder, one DNA profile, and not a single suspect left on their list.
Marlene explained to us what an emotional toll Wendy's murder took on their family over the years.
Wendy's brother, Bill, still had to go to school 33 where Wendy was found.
Marlene and Wendy's father Wayne, I mean, they really struggled emotionally after her death.
It got so bad that Wendy's name wasn't even mentioned in the home.
I mean, eventually it became so much that Wayne and Marlene ended up divorcing.
And Marlene moved out of state. She tried... to start over.
I mean, it was like the only way she knew how to survive.
But that's not to say she was... like putting her old life behind her.
She still wanted to fight for her baby girl, but it was hard when police kept her at arm's length.
It's not like they had a bad relationship, but they weren't giving her the kind of case details that she wanted.
And the more time that went on, as she kind of gathered bits and pieces from what newspaper outlets were reporting...
And in the absence of facts that she had, like this already gruesome image she had of her daughter laying beaten and naked in the snow just kind of got worse and worse over time.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure she had, like, worst-case scenario images in her mind.
She told us that she believed that Wendy's throat had been slashed open from like ear to ear.
And listen, for many people, they might say that not knowing is better.
But for someone like Marlene, like when you don't know... then everything under the sun is possible, right?
Like when you know the facts, you can at least try to deal with like the one thing.
Right. And not the millions of things that could be possible.
And like you almost go, what's worse, what's worse, what's worse.
So again, she's like always asking. And finally, she gets to this point where one day she's back home visiting Rochester.
And she goes into the police station and she's like, no excuses.
It's been years. I want to see her file.
I want to see the photos. And the police actually let her, like crime scene photos, autopsy photos, all of it.
They probably thought they were protecting her from the details all those years.
But this is what she needed. This is what finally brought her even like a small sense of peace. because it wasn't until now in this moment while she's looking at the pictures, this is when she learned that Wendy had been found clothed that night.
This is when she learned that the cut on her neck wasn't ear to ear.
It was much smaller than anything she'd been picturing.
But it was also in this moment that she learned that her daughter fought back, that she might have had time to cry out for help.
And it makes you think back to when Marlene was woken up on her couch that Thanksgiving day.
Did she somehow, on the most instinctual of levels, know that her daughter was calling out for her?
Like this moment in the police station, like it heals and then it hurts all over again.
But at least now Marlene feels like she's in control, like she advocated for herself.
And I don't think she ever gave up hope.
But in almost every family I've ever spoken with who lives with an unsolved case, they have moments where they Try and reckon with the unknown, right?
Like they try to make peace with what they can, come to terms with the possibility that there might never be answers. else do you survive you don't give up but you figure out how to keep going fully aware that this might be the only reality you will ever get to know Because it's not like seeing the file sparked anything new for her and it didn't do anything for police.
Right. So another, call it 17 more years passes, putting this case over the 30-year mark without any more significant breakthroughs.
But sometimes you just need the right person to latch on to a case at the right time.
And in 2016, that right person was Sergeant Venosa. told us that when he finally got assigned to cold cases, he went to the area known as the vault room where they keep all their cold case files.
And one of the files he started to look through was Wendy's.
And he said the details gripped him. Immediately.
So much so that he didn't like take this file back to his desk.
He literally in the vault room just starts like. pouring through everything.
He couldn't even bring himself to like look away for a second.
And it was the very next day that he called Wendy's mom to tell her he is now her new point person.
He gives her his cell phone number so she could call him day or night.
And he promised Marlene that he was going to solve this case.
And she believed him. as evidenced by the massive amount of work that he put on Wendy's case following that call.
I mean, he starts reinterviewing people, relooking at old tips.
And at the same time, he's sending off whatever he can to be tested. like the swabs of blood from the drops found by Rosewood Terrace.
But those turned out to be too deteriorated to obtain usable DNA samples.
So strike out there. And knowing his suspect isn't in CODIS, he starts thinking, OK, maybe this guy is dead.
And like, that's why he hasn't hit their radar all these years.
So how do you find a dead guy that you didn't even know the name of in life?
Well, Sergeant Venosa started planning a way to compile a list of like age appropriate black men. male homicide victims since 1984.
Like, maybe he'll just work backwards. And by the way, now that they have DNA and it's advanced so much, like all the testing, they are able to confirm what the hairs were suggesting early on.
Their perpetrator was a black male. But according to Sergeant Venosa, before he can even get this list going, something happens that changes the course of the investigation. and makes things a whole heck of a lot easier on him.
In 2017, a new tool was added to the Rochester PD's arsenal.
I think I know where this is going. Well, maybe, maybe not.
So New York State approves the use of familial DNA testing. meaning they can use DNA from a suspect to identify potential relatives in CODIS.
Okay. Right? Like they might not be able to get a hit on the suspect, but they can get a hit.
They can get close. Right. But one step forward, two steps back, like always, they learn that they can't actually use the profile they already have that's in CODIS.
So like... Again, so much has developed, changed over the years.
They have to basically submit a new profile, like a better profile is what they need.
And when the state lab comes back after nine months, it's bad news.
The profile that they are able to produce has 15 alleles.
And the rule was you needed 16 to do the search.
So the profile gets rejected. Now, luckily, Venosa sees the writing on the wall, right?
He is advised by texts. and scientists that the testing is getting better and better every day.
So he doesn't have to go back to making his list of dead men. and checking it twice like some grim Santa Claus, they say, listen, just give it a couple of years.
They still had more samples to work with, right?
Like they hadn't like used up everything.
Give it a couple of years, the sample will give you answers.
And sure enough, they were right. In April 2019, they send a new sample off.
This one takes even longer than the first to come back, but in July of 2020... investigators are informed that, yes, you have a good sample.
Yes, we put it in CODIS. And there aren't just one. but two hits from men in CODIS who are related to your unknown suspect.
According to court documents, one of the hits came back to a man named Arthur Williams, who I repeat is not the suspect.
Hmm. He was related to their suspect, though they don't know how.
So they have to do some backtracking and...
It's kind of wild, a little convoluted, but I'll do my like crime junkie best and give you like the need to know cliff notes.
So when looking into Arthur, investigators discovered that at one point he was pulled over for like a traffic stop and he gave police the name of a cousin.
Instead of his real name to try to avoid getting in trouble because his own license was suspended.
Like he gets pulled over. He shouldn't be driving.
So he gives them the name of one of his cousins.
Mm-hmm. Police see stuff like this all the time.
Basically, like, in an attempt to squirm out of trouble, you use the name of a relative or...
And then whatever charge lands on them. Right.
And you pick someone that's close in age instead of your own, whatever.
So that's not what stands out to them. What stands out is that the cousin's name that he gave, they recognized that name. which we've been asked not to use.
So I'm just going to refer to him as the cousin.
But Venosa had seen that name in the case file that he has read backwards and forwards time and time again.
Now, the name isn't there a lot, mind you, but back in November of 1984...
A tip had come in that accused this cousin of bragging about the murder.
Now, it's unclear if that was ever followed up on at the time, but this obviously cannot be a coincidence.
So police look into this cousin and they discover that back in 1984, he lived on... drumroll please...
Rosewood Terrace, just five houses away from the school and only three houses away from where that last blood drop was found.
Okay, just to confirm, this cousin isn't the other relative that popped up, right?
Like, this one hit is from Arthur, and this cousin gets mentioned, and...
And then the second... Like, I don't really even know a ton about the second connection in CODIS because everything kind of like spawns from what they look at in Arthur, right?
So... This cousin was not in CODIS, which means it is looking more and more like It could actually be him because we know our perp isn't in CODIS.
So this guy never did anything that would have gotten his DNA put in the database.
But now they got to find a way to get this guy's DNA like surreptitiously.
So they put this guy under surveillance for a week.
They watch his house. They watch him get coffee from a Speedway gas station every day.
They follow him to his security job at a hotel.
I'm sorry, security job? Eventually, Sergeant Venosa is able to snatch one of this guy's coffee cups from the hotel lobby trash can.
It takes... two days to directly compare and guess what it's not him how I know Listen, it is not the guy, but this is still helping build a picture.
Uh-huh. Right. We know our killer is related to Arthur.
We know Arthur has a cousin who lives near the crime scene.
Like this cousin didn't do it. But like that's.
We have a family. Right. We're in the same family.
So all of this is relevant. It's just like a bad game of hot and cold.
And right now they're warm. Mm-hmm. So what they do is they go back to Arthur.
They start looking at Arthur to see if there are any other men that he is related to that might fit.
Now, they discover that Arthur's father died back in 1963, and his obituary only listed his children as Arthur and him having two sisters.
But that's weird, because when investigators reviewed a log of who had been visiting Arthur while he was in prison...
They show someone who comes to see him who lists themselves as Arthur's brother.
And guess freaking what? It is another name that Sergeant Venosa recognizes from the case file.
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The name is Timothy Williams. This is Arthur's brother and I don't know if Timothy sounds familiar but Way back at the beginning of our story, in 1984, when police were canvassing the neighborhood asking others about Michael Ross...
Timothy is the one who called Michael sneaky and someone who couldn't be trusted.
Oh, and is he actually Arthur's brother?
He is, yeah. Then wait, why wasn't he listed in the obituary?
Oh, he wasn't in the obituary because Timothy's mother was actually pregnant when his dad died.
And he's like born seven months afterwards.
So he wasn't there to be listed. Right. Now, when they start looking at Timothy's background, he checks a lot of boxes.
He would have been 20 years old at the time of Wendy's murder.
So like old enough to have committed a crime like this.
Guess what? He was living with that cousin on Rosewood Terrace, just a few houses from the scene.
So see, it's like all connected. Yeah. And he too hasn't done anything that would have gotten his DNA put in CODIS.
So they can't rule him in or out without a direct comparison sample.
And it is a long shot, but Venosa sees a potential easy way to get one.
I've heard that before. It never ends up being an easy win.
Rarely, but you gotta try, right? Sometimes it pays off.
So when they were looking at Timothy and looking at his background or whatever, Sergeant Venosa said that he had some priors for things like possession, resisting arrest.
But there was also a sexual assault report filed by an ex-girlfriend of his in 1992.
Now, he's never charged for this. It sounds like the ex didn't want to move forward.
But at the time, a sexual assault kit was done.
Now, to your point about things never being easy, Venosa felt like the odds of finding this assault kit after all of these years for a case that didn't move forward were ridiculous. really, really low.
Especially because the evidence room had undergone multiple revamps over time and things were purged, whatever.
Mm-hmm. But they are going to look anyways.
They go down to the basement evidence storage room.
And we're not talking like just a room with neatly piled boxes.
Everything is in this place. Like it is a hoarder's garage full of stuff like bikes from the 60s, a bunch of doors that were even in evidence.
You name it. But get this, they find this sexual assault kit and not just find it, but it is perfectly preserved and sealed.
Which, like, who were these people and why weren't they running every evidence closet ever?
I know. This never happens. So on August 11th, 2020, this gets sent off for testing for comparison.
Fingers crossed. Investigators wait. Another two days go by, which like, by the way, don't tell me DNA can't be done fast.
Like we're turning things around over here.
And just like that, it's solved. Timothy's sperm matches the DNA recovered from Wendy's underwear.
They have their guy after all of these years.
But... They need to do more of like a direct one-for-one sample, right?
Like, I mean, they don't want anyone arguing anything in court.
Especially because like this... Came from like another case.
That had... been tried exactly it's like very likely him but without that ruling right no they're like let's get a sample from him right now that we know is his directly right Well, what they have to do is actually to tap the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for help, because in the years since the murder, Timothy had moved down to Florida and. made this low-key, unassuming life for himself.
The now 56-year-old was married to a woman named Barbara.
They had a couple of kids. They're doing normal family stuff like, you know.
He's a he's a working dad. He's working.
He's mowing. He's taking out the recycling.
That is where FDLE pulled two bottles from to directly compare.
One of them does match the sample taken from Wendy, and there is zero doubt now.
So, okay, how did any of this happen? Like, did Wendy know him?
No. So this is what is so wild. Once they like had him in their sights, they even went back and re-interviewed some of her old friends.
They were showing him old photos of Timothy, right?
Not even the new ones. Back in the day, no one is pointing this guy out of a lineup.
Zero recollection of him. So Sergeant Venosa believes that the only way this like probably would have happened is that Wendy ran into Timothy in front of the school. somewhere around Rosewood Terrace, and this was just a random crime of opportunity.
So on September 8th, 2020, Sergeant Venosa, along with two investigators who had been helping with the case, this guy named John Brennan and Gary Goleta, they head down to Florida immediately. to finally make this arrest.
Gary Goleta had actually been among the very first to respond to the scene back in 1984.
And now here he was almost 36 years later, taking part in the arrest of Wendy's killer.
And that's like about as full circle as it gets.
Truly. And Sergeant Venosa told us about like the night before the arrest, like when the team is plotting this, planning this, they were. all sitting on this hotel balcony, smoking cigars, drinking bourbon.
And they were trying to plant, like, we need... This is more than just going and putting handcuffs on this guy.
They had the opportunity to really like paint him into a corner.
And Sergeant Venosa and John Brennan basically came up with this idea that the two of them would approach his home. while Gary hung back in the car, keeping a perimeter with the local police.
And the hope was to get Timothy caught in a lie.
They wanted him to say that he had never seen Wendy before, which considering the DNA evidence they had, like they would know that's not, like they know that's not true already but like then you're like okay there's no excuse of like oh we could have had a relationship or anything yeah which we know they didn't have And listen, this dude fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
So the next day, September 9th, they show up at his door.
And not wanting to tip their hand, what they did is they're like, hey, we're investigating this cold case.
And we're looking at the guy that you said was so sus all those years ago.
Remember Michael Ross? Like, let's talk about Michael.
Yeah, let's talk about him and get your guard down.
Right. So Timothy is like, no, I don't even know, Michael.
And I don't know what you're talking about.
I didn't even live in Rochester in 1984.
Right. Which is like almost a bigger, better lie than what they were hoping to get in the first place.
And it's just downhill from there for Timothy.
Eventually, he acknowledges like, oh, yes, I did, in fact, live in Rochester at the time.
He also admits, oh, yes, I had heard about Wendy's murder.
But he still denies knowing her after they show him a photo.
And that is all Sergeant Venosa and co. need.
They place Timothy under arrest, and while he can protest all he wants, which he does, they know that they've got their man.
Whenever the suspect is someone like this, I always like wonder what their families knew or thought.
Like, what does his wife think? Totally blindsided.
Oh, my God. And Timothy clammed up once he was arrested, but Barbara was like a pretty open book with police.
She tells investigators, They got married in 1998.
This is roughly like nine years after Wendy's murder.
She had no clue about any of this. The Timothy that they're describing to her, she says, is not the man that she knew all these years.
She said he was never violent. He was never physical with her.
She's like in complete shock. And you know who else is shocked?
Marlene. Sergeant Venosa and his team still had to tell her about the arrest.
Now, the plan always was to like do this in person.
So all the investigators go straight to her house, like right from the airport.
And it is there, on her porch, through tears, that Sergeant Venosa gives her the news that I think she feared would never come.
And Marlene becomes so overwhelmed at one point that she briefly collapses and her son Bill has to like catch her.
Which I don't always like know or even think about what order all this happens, but she had no clue this arrest was even coming.
No, they had no clue at all. She knew that they were like tracking down leads and working like they had been for decades, right?
Yeah. But she thought they were coming over because they did tell her they were coming over.
But she thought she was just getting some kind of update.
Like there is no hint to her of something.
Oh, my God. Now, heartbreakingly, the one person who isn't with Marlene when Sergeant Venosa delivers the news was Wendy's dad, Wayne.
He had died from cancer back in 2011. All those years of guilt that Wayne carried for allowing Wendy to go out that night, like you can only imagine. what he would have thought of this.
And you know Marlene and him actually had gotten back together by the way.
So like those two were able to work out you know their relationship and everything in his final years.
Now, this feels like the end from the outside.
Bad guy arrested, family gets answers, but it is so far from over.
I think families spend so much time thinking about knowing the who and they think about the investigation leading up to that, that there isn't a ton of thought about what the. day to day is like after that and all the work that has to come after.
I mean, true crime shows are partly to blame, right?
Like they got the guy the end. But there is a whole second wave of trauma that families have to go through if a case goes to trial.
And unfortunately, Wendy's family was not spared of that.
They had to do it twice. First in November of 2023, but then just a little over a week in, a mistrial was declared.
And we don't have a ton on this. The specific details have never been made public, but essentially, juror misconduct was the cause.
Marlene told us that the judge was furious and had instructed the jury members not to discuss the case.
And she thinks this mistrial had something to do with them not following those instructions.
But either way this was devastating. The family was so upset.
There was so much crying. And partly because according to Rochester First, at that point in the trial, crime scene photos, autopsy photos had already been shown.
And now the DA had to break it to Wendy's family that they're going to have to relive all of that again.
The second trial kicked off in February 2024.
Enter one of the things that we probably don't think about, What happens when your daughter's killer wants to take the stand and lie about your kid?
In this trial, Timothy does exactly that.
According to 13WHAM ABC, he says that, He met Wendy outside a store in September 1984, and at some point, they began a sexual relationship Of course, he's like, I had no idea she was 14.
She told me she was 16. He continued to claim that on Thanksgiving, the day of the murder.
Wendy stopped by his place sometime after 7pm.
They had sex without a condom and then she left and he says he has no idea what happened to her after that.
That's the last time he saw her. There is no evidence of Wendy having any sexual relationship with anyone, by the way.
This was just Timothy's attempt to explain away how his DNA works. ended up everywhere.
And thankfully, the jury didn't buy it. On March 8th of 2024, they found him guilty of all three counts of second-degree murder, and it was the first conviction in New York State using familial DNA.
Marlene told us she was so elated hearing the verdict that she had to restrain herself from like jumping out of her seat.
And so a month later, Timothy was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Following the conviction, Sergeant Venosa asked Marlene for permission to get a tattoo with Wendy's initials. her date of birth and her date of death in honor of her, a request that moved Marlene to tears.
And Britt, if things can't get any more emotional, it was so sweet.
Sergeant Venosa also gave Marlene the handcuffs that he used. to take Timothy Williams into custody.
He even had them engraved for her. And we've got pictures of all of this stuff that we're going to post in the blog.
But I think this shows not only Sergeant Venosa's dedication to this case, but how much of a bond can form between investigators and victims' families.
When it is done right. Right is not easy, but it goes a long way.
Sergeant Venosa had begun to think of Wendy as a little sister, even though they had never met.
And he said that solving Wendy's case was one of the most satisfying points of his career.
That's all so incredible. I know. We don't get it a lot.
We get a lot of stories about like rifts between I mean again it's so easy for that relationship to go so sideways and like it's really wonderful to see a family feel like they got the support that And for the investigator to like identify and connect to a case like that deeply.
I know. And through all this, Timothy, did he ever take accountability or explain himself in any way, like even after the conviction?
No. And this is interesting because according to Sergeant Venosa, in the years since Wendy's murder, Timothy has become born again.
Yet apparently, he didn't feel close enough to God to unburden himself of his ultimate sin or at the very least even apologize for it.
But apology or not, Marlene now has the closure she sought.
Her years since have been about keeping Wendy's memory alive.
She said that she... feels as long as people are talking about Wendy, like we're doing right now, it means that Wendy is still alive in some way and that she hasn't been forgotten.
When our reporter asked Marlene what she wanted people to remember most about her daughter, she said this.
She had dreams. She had her life all planned out and she was working, even in grammar school, towards getting where she wanted to be when she grew up.
She was a good friend, a really good friend, so I'm told.
She was a beautiful soul. Beautiful soul and a loving daughter, loving sister.
She's missed every day. Wendy's story is a perfect example of how justice can prevail, no matter how long it takes.
And hopefully it will serve as an inspiration for all those families out there still waiting for their own justice.
There is still hope and their time will come.
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode, but we're bringing you a little bit of the good.
Britt has brought something and we're going to do it early this month.
Let's do it. you Thanks for watching! This segment of The Good is brought to you by T-Mobile 5G Home Internet.
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Okay, this one I'm so excited to tell you because I also, I'm going to show you something and we'll have it like online and everything, but there's visuals.
So this is from Zuzana. Hi, Ashley and Brett.
Have you ever wondered what true crime and oil paint have in common and whether art could actually help find missing persons?
I'm guessing probably not, but regardless, I'm here to answer those questions.
My name is Susanna, and I'm a crime junkie from Poland.
Oh, my Polish crime junkies. I graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.
And as you can imagine, painting involves a lot of long questions.
Perfect for listening to podcasts. Crime Junkie, for instance.
Back in 2019, listening to one of your episodes, a question popped into my head.
Is there a way I could get involved in missing person cases myself?
Yes. The answer is yes. Always the answer is yes.
This is so good. These kinds of cases are something very personal to me.
Years ago, a close family member, my brother, went missing.
It was only for a dozen or so hours, but those hours were filled with fear and helplessness I'll never forget.
That experience, combined with the stories I heard on your podcast, led to an idea.
What if a painted portrait of a missing person could reach people in a different, deeper way than a poster ever could?
I reached out to the Ataka Foundation, Poland's largest NGO focused on missing persons, and proposed a collaboration.
That's how this project was born. The goal was to highlight four real cases of missing people in Poland, not just by retelling their stories, but by capturing them in paint in the last places they were seen.
I visited those places myself to better understand the people behind the names."
The result is a series of paintings that aims not only to give visibility to the missing and their families, but also to spark reflection on what disappearance really means.
The emptiness, the uncertainty, the unanswered questions.
I don't know if these paintings will help solve any of these cases, but I do believe the stories matter.
Raising awareness matters. And anyone can do that, even a painter from Poland.
If you're curious to see these paintings... Yes.
Immediately, yes. Sorry, go on. If you're curious to see the paintings, I've attached some documentation of the project, and you can also find more on my Instagram, which... she links to.
And we will too, because I know everyone else is going to want to see this.
And if you ever feel like crossing the ocean, an exhibition will be on display in Krakow from August 14th to 30th.
You are more than just invited. And if you're ever interested in covering another case from Poland, I volunteer to be your personal crime junkie, helping however I can.
Thank you for everything you do. Your crime junkie from Poland, Susanna.
And you brought, I assume, examples. I brought some of the pictures that she painted.
They are, I thought they were photographs.
Oh my gosh. They are incredible. And I spent so much time on the exhibition's website, her Instagram.
It is fascinating. She is an incredible... incredibly talented artist.
Wow. And I just love that she listened to our episodes, said what we hope all of our listeners say, like, what can I do to make a difference in these cases?
Yeah, I like to remind people it's like very it feels very professional and put together these days, but Before Crime Junkie, like, this is what I was.
Like, I was a crime junkie who was like, I want to use whatever it is I can do to help.
And I would say like, even in your corporate job, you said, these are the skills I have.
This is how I can help. Like, what can I do to help your organization?
Zuzana said, these are the skills I have.
I'm an artist. What can I do to help your organization?
And it's happening. Yeah, you guys. don't have to all held in the same way doesn't have to fit into this box and like what is it that you're great at what is it that you're passionate about because that passion will translate this is incredible I hope everyone listening will find their way to get involved.
This is beautiful. All right, we'll link to it so you guys can see too.
Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.
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The podcast Park Predators explores true stories of people who encounter danger where they least expected it. deep in forests, along remote trails, or while camping under the stars.
This episode examines a different case with the same careful research and storytelling you get here on Crime Junkie.
You can start listening to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts.
