NARRATOR: On a cool Wednesday afternoon,
24-year-old Lisa Ziegert shows up
on time, as always, for work at Brittany's Card and Gift Shop.
LYNNE ROGERSON: That night, I had just popped into the store,
just to check in just to say hi, just to catch up.
We were talking about her being a teacher.
Lisa was student teaching during the day,
and then she worked at Brittany's at night.
And then we just said our cheerful, normal hug and kiss
goodbyes, and I went home.
The next morning, early in my day--
I hadn't been at work very long--
I got a phone call because Lisa had not
shown up to work at the school.
And that was highly unusual.
NARRATOR: Minutes later, Lynne's phone rings again.
It's another of Lisa's worried co-workers.
LYNNE ROGERSON: My friend worked at the same card and gift shop.
She had come for her morning shift.
And the store was found open.
Lisa's car was in the parking lot,
and her belongings were still on the counter.
My friend knew something was not right.
And that's when she called the police.
None of it made any sense.
I had just been there the night before.
Everything seemed normal.
Lynne came to my office.
And I said, oh, what are you doing here?
She said, Mom, Lisa's missing.
She didn't just leave.
She had a great rapport with kids.
She was drawing.
She was, you know, teaching.
She was happy with her boyfriend, Blair.
She loved him and was convinced
that, you know, someday, that they
would marry and have children.
She was just happy with her life.
NOAH PACK: The police officers who
responded right at the beginning knew that something very bad
had happened.
Lisa's belongings were still inside the store
under the counter.
There were no signs of a robbery.
The cash was still in the register.
Today, we might check video cameras
and surveillance in the area, but there
was no such thing at the time.
But there were some signs that a struggle
had occurred, especially in the back office area.
NOAH PACK: They checked the alley behind.
They checked businesses nearby, dumpsters nearby,
to see if there was any type of evidence that
might have been found there.
And they started talking to people
from the nearby businesses, trying to track down anyone who
might have witnessed something.
But investigators didn't find anything
at the scene to suggest where Lisa had gone
or who might have taken her.
LYNNE ROGERSON: The store was crawling with policemen.
The detectives asked, was she having trouble with anybody?
We were unaware of anybody having
any interest in harming Lisa.
DEE ZIEGERT: I kept thinking, why would anyone hurt her?
She was such a good person.
Why wouldn't they just let her go?
[sighs]
NOAH PACK: On Easter Sunday, an Agawam resident was
walking behind his property.
He saw in a clearing in the woods
a partially naked body of a female.
The Agawam police were able to immediately identify that body
as belonging to Lisa Ziegert.
Lisa is found about a mile away from Brittany's Card Shop.
NOAH PACK: The area was definitely off the beaten path.
It was on a clearing on kind of a dirt road.
Lisa had significant injuries, including at least
half a dozen knife wounds.
And there was evidence that she had been in a fight
for her life.
The investigation reveals through autopsy in particular
that Lisa's also sexually assaulted.
And there were multiple deposits of forensic evidence.
And a lot of effort went into determining
that this was a single source male DNA profile.
One of the witnesses also reported to investigators
that he had seen a suspicious person
lurking across the street before Lisa had been taken.
The guy was kind of moving back and forth in a strange way.
And he described him as a relatively tall, slender man
wearing a dark army style jacket.
I remember the night I went to visit her at the store
the Thursday before she went missing.
There was a customer in the store.
And I remember him staying for a while.
I thought it was odd that he was hovering.
I remember her saying that, you know,
he comes in sometimes to look at the collectibles,
trying to figure out which one he wants to buy someone.
So I knew that the person was somebody that she
had seen in the store before.
And I just remember him staying for a long time
and wishing he would leave.
I did tell the police about the man in the store
and his description.
I remember him being a tall, thin, dark-haired man.
He was wearing a black jacket.
NARRATOR: Kimberly's description is a near match
to the man spotted outside the gift
shop the night of the murder.
NOAH PACK: Investigators did look at Lisa's boyfriend.
That would have been a standard procedure
in any investigation that had been unsolved at that point.
When they talked to the boyfriend,
he did have an alibi.
NARRATOR: Blair claims he was with his mother
around the time Lisa was abducted,
but detectives still take a long, hard look at him.
KIMBERLY SOUDERS MURRAY: They impounded Blair's car.
They had him back and forth for questioning.
They took DNA.
NOAH PACK: There were no concerns
about domestic violence.
By all accounts, it sounded like a loving relationship.
KIMBERLY SOUDERS MURRAY: I remember Blair
went out to go look for her.
He didn't want to stop searching.
Blair just didn't want to give up.
NOAH PACK: Investigators spoke to other people
who would have been with him.
They were able to establish an alibi that
ruled him out and later obtained a DNA
profile from him that also ruled him out as a suspect.
DNA technology hadn't advanced to the point where we could
do some of the alternative testing methods
that we can do today.
So if somebody refused to provide a DNA sample,
there wasn't really much that investigators could do.
NARRATOR: There is new hope the case will be solved
when the state's youngest ever district attorney,
Anthony Gulluni, takes office.
ANTHONY GULLUNI: We thought that DNA phenotyping could provide
some characteristics of this individual, like hair color
and eye color, skin tone, that could narrow the course
of our investigation.
NARRATOR: In 2016, DA Gulluni's team
submits the killer's 24-year-old DNA sample for analysis.
A short time later, we were provided a composite sketch
of an individual.
Well, this individual was Caucasian, of European descent,
had brown or hazel eyes, dark hair, moderate skin tone.
We now knew that someone, for instance, with blond hair
and blue eyes was not the perpetrator.
Someone who was of African-American descent
or Asian descent was not the perpetrator.
So we were able to eliminate a substantial number
of individuals.
I started looking at people who had been contacted
by investigators in the past and who had refused
to provide a DNA sample.
We went back to these people and just
by explaining what we were doing,
a good percentage of them gave their DNA samples.
So at the end of that process, we were
able to identify 11 people.
And the grand jury voted to ask the court
to compel these individuals to provide that sample.
ANTHONY GULLUNI: Around 6:30, I got
a phone call that a woman had gone into a state police
barracks in Westfield and had claimed
that her boyfriend authored some documents that she
provided to the troopers.
They were a confessional and an apology
to the Ziegert family.
The essence of it was, I took Lisa from her family,
and I will never forgive myself.
He says overtly, they're going to tell you
that 25 years ago, I kidnapped, raped,
and murdered a young woman.
And it's all true.
You know, that struck me like a ton of bricks.
NOAH PACK: He wrote in the letter
that he believed that what I had was a warrant for his DNA,
and that was going to put him in jail for life,
and that either he was going to kill himself or face the music.
NARRATOR: Troopers interview the woman whose
boyfriend wrote the letters.
STEPHANIE BARRY: She described him as docile.
He just seemed like an average nice guy she would never,
in a million years, suspect would be capable of doing
something like this.
NARRATOR: He tells police her boyfriend
is 48-year-old Gary Schara.
Gary Schara was one of the 11 names
that we had taken before the grand jury.
ANTHONY GULLUNI: Gary Schara first
becomes known to investigators in the context
of Lisa Ziegert's death in March of 1993.
NOAH PACK: Gary Schara was one of dozens,
if not hundreds, of men whose name
had come up in a similar way.
His ex-wife said that he was very interested in the case.
He would always run into the room
when the news came on about this case.
She also said that she thought that he had purchased a music
box at Brittany's Card Shop within the days or weeks
before Lisa was taken.
Investigators speak to Gary Schara in 2002.
He refused to provide his DNA voluntarily at that time.
In 2008, investigators again speak with Gary Schara.
NOAH PACK: Gary appeared to be very
conscious of not providing a DNA sample,
either intentionally or accidentally.
He wouldn't touch the table, wouldn't take
water that was provided to him.
He was asked to provide a DNA sample at that time,
and he refused.
His reasoning?
He was afraid of cloning.
ANTHONY GULLUNI: There was certainly
nothing illegal about one's refusal to provide DNA.
And that didn't necessarily signal something nefarious.
NOAH PACK: But at the end of the day,
there just wasn't enough there for them
to move forward with him as a suspect at that time.
We wrote a search warrant for his house.
We seized a number of items that were
likely to have his DNA on them.
One item was his toothbrush.
Toothbrush was taken to the state police crime lab.
I remember very vividly awaiting the results.
MARK PFAU: Myself and my Lieutenant were in the office.
And my cell phone, it lit up Concord, Mass,
and that's where the lab is.
And we learned that the profile developed from Gary's
toothbrush matched the single source
male DNA profile obtained in 1992
from Lisa's Ziegert's killer.
Gary Schara was charged with aggravated kidnapping,
aggravated rape, and first degree murder.
NARRATOR: Schara pleads not guilty.
27 years after Lisa's murder, Schara
finally breaks his silence.