(light upbeat music)
- You're watching another episode of In Studio,
I'm Brian Porreca and today we're joined with
Derrick Levasseur and Kris Mohandie
of Investigation Discovery's Breaking Homicide.
That was mouthful but--
- Thanks for having us. - Thanks for coming in,
thanks for coming, how are you guys doing?
- Great, thanks for having us.
- Now for those who haven't,
I guess, watched the series yet,
can you kind of talk us through it and kind of explain
like what your backgrounds are that make you qualified
to open up the cases again and reexamine them?
- Sure, I'm a clinical police and forensic psychologist,
I've been doing this kind of work for over 25 years
and I've interviewed hundreds of offenders,
who've killed a lot of people
and I've interviewed a lot of victims,
and looked at a lot of crime scenes
and I've testified in all kinds of murder cases
and regularly consult to investigations
throughout my career.
- I was an investigator for 13 years.
I spent time in the Patrol Division, Investigative Division,
Special Investigations Unit,
I was undercover for three years,
had the opportunity to supervise
a couple of different task force, worked with the FBI, DEA,
Secret Service, ATF, yeah, it was a good experience.
A lot of the advanced training,
interview and interrogation tactics as well.
- That's great.
Now in terms of Breaking Homicide,
how did you guys go about like
which cases you would reexamine?
I know the first one for you was a personal one,
can you talk about that? - That was a, yeah,
that was a no brainer, yeah,
the first one was going back to my hometown
and working on a case, that I've known about for years
and just taking a fresh look at it with Kris,
after doing the OJ series together.
I'll let you explain the other ones.
- Yeah, what happened was,
we were in the car on the OJ case and Derrick said,
"I've got a case you absolutely have to see,"
and it was the Michelle Norris case
and so even before this show was even conceived,
it was already on Derrick's mind
and both of us have the commitment to doing cases
that speak to, you know, the average person's experience,
as opposed to something that's, you know,
some super high profile, you know,
celebrity type case, if you will
and what ended up happening as the OJ series rolled out
was a number of people reached out to us
and that led us to start taking in cases,
that, you know, viewers were experiencing,
that they'd had unresolved
and that was how this series was born.
- Yeah, and as far as selecting, we wanted to go with cases,
that we felt there was some solvability there,
something we could do with the advancement
of technology and science, that maybe had differed
from what was done, when it originally occurred.
So we went through the list,
we picked a eclectic group of cases to try to show a range
and we wish we could've done more,
but you know, we went with six for the first season.
- Now, in the Michelle Norris case,
you talk about how her mother, Julie,
had reached out to you both about looking
into this case again. - Yeah.
- In terms of the other cases though,
what were the challenges of getting people
to reopen these wounds, talk about these cases again?
- Well the idea of reopening-- - And being filmed.
- Yeah, the idea of reopening wounds,
these victims' families live with this
every single day of their lives,
this is not something that goes away,
it may be on a back burner of a police department,
not because they don't wanna solve it,
but because there's nothing new to help them solve it
and maybe they need a fresh perspective, maybe.
But, for the victims, for the families,
that are wondering what happened,
they're living with it everyday
and so they were very interested in getting some answers
and that's how it happened, you know.
It was, some people may not wanna go on camera
and talk about it and that's understandable
and that's certainly respected,
but there's a lot of people that say, you know,
"We've tried other things, let's see what happens."
- And you will see with all the cases, as you saw,
you're gonna talk about Hawaii a little bit,
that for most of these cases, they wanted our help,
so we went there knowing that,
this is something they wanted to happen,
they wanted to bring a new level of exposure
to their loved one's case,
so it wasn't too hard to speak with them at all,
- No. - and for the most part.
- Were there any cases,
that you weren't able to kind of reexamine,
because people didn't wanna be involved and be filmed or?
- No, I mean, honestly, we wouldn't have taken a case on,
that didn't want our help. - Okay.
- It wasn't something where we were like,
hey listen, we're just gonna highlight this case
and hope we can help without their permission.
Either a friend or family member or a community member
reached out to us, and said,
"Listen, we really think there's something here,
"will you help?"
And that's kind of what this is.
Investigation Discovery's been receiving calls
from their audiences and emails from their audiences
for years saying, "Will you help us?
"We relate to your shows, because we've had
"similar situations happen to us, will you help?"
And we think Breaking Homicide is the start
to answering those calls for help.
- Now in terms of the Honolulu Strangler,
what was it about that case,
that got you to want to reexamine it?
- Well, it's the first and I believe,
only serial homicide case in Hawaii.
There may have been another one,
but this is kind of the first one, it was unsolved
and it affected that community significantly
and it was never solved.
Interestingly, it came up on the heels
and the time period of the Green River Killing case,
which was in Seattle in the Pacific Northwest,
but you know, paradise,
a place that you're supposed to go to feel safe
and here you have, you know, a number of people,
that have turned up dead, murdered
and it needed to be answered.
I've done a lot of work in Hawaii throughout the years,
I have family there, and I had friends,
that worked at the police department,
one of whom I reached out to, and--
- 'Cause the police didn't cooperate,
in terms of this case?
- Well, I wouldn't say that,
I'd say the police were very cooperative.
- They didn't give you the files though.
- They didn't give us files,
but I will say it didn't make the episode,
but, we actually did sit down
with the active Chief of Police,
at the Honolulu Police Department
and she was amazing and she told us some things,
that we kind of have known from our own investigation,
but she basically said to us, "Hey listen,"
like all the departments said,
"Hey listen, this is an open investigation,
"we can't divulge information to anyone.
"However, if you have something that's compelling,
"that may lead us in a certain direction,
"that could help close this, we're all ears,"
as they should be, so I think as far as openness,
nobody ever obstructed our ability to investigate
- No. - in any of the cases
and that's all you can ask for.
- And you know, I had several friends,
that I've known through the years
at Honolulu Police Department, former detectives,
they were fantastic - Yeah.
- and they opened up as much as they could,
I felt like, you know, we got the aloha spirit
as we were doing our investigation there,
they wanted answers
and it's not just the families of the victims,
that suffer with this being unresolved
and not having the questions answered,
but it's, as you'll see,
the detectives themselves carry this burden
of wanting to be able to share this information.
- Yeah and you worked with Peter Carlisle,
that's his name, correct?
- Yeah. - Yeah, Peter Carlisle.
- And you and him come up with a conclusion,
of who you believe to have done it, who is also passed away,
what was this conversation? - Yeah,
we didn't even come up to that conclusion collectively,
we wanted the answers to certain hard questions
and I'll be honest, going into it,
I had spoken to Kris off camera
and said, this guy was a politician,
he was the Mayor of Honolulu for a while,
he's gonna be polished, he's gonna give us
the politically correct answers, he's not gonna say anything
and then we asked the big question,
do you think this individual did it?
And he looked us right in the face and said, "Yes,"
and you could see the emotion he felt from that,
knowing that he wasn't able to really
put the nail in the coffin, so to speak, on this case,
but I was so impressed with his candor
and his willingness to go on camera and say what he did,
because I can tell you right now,
a lot of the families involved with this,
you know, the victims' families,
I think they'll really respect that, I really, really do.
- He didn't pull any punches, - No.
- he was direct, he didn't equivocate,
it was, "Here's what I think," and it was very emotional.
Our primary homicide investigator,
who pursued this initially, had the original task force,
similarly fantastic human being,
but he had been carrying the weight of this
for all these years. - He's still there though.
- Yeah.
- In terms of reexamining these cases,
how troubling is it to you, that these cases are unsolved
and these cases, back then, they weren't, I guess,
investigated in the same way you guys were looking into it?
For the Honolulu case, I think Derrick, you said,
"I don't think this case will ever be classified as cold,"
like-- - Solved.
Well, the reason I would say that
is because in this situation,
our primary person of interest is deceased,
so the bottom line is this,
you can't consider a case closed,
because there's never gonna be a conviction,
but as far as it being solved
with the conclusion of this show
and the chance that we gave Detective Louis Souza
to speak to one of the victim's brothers
and actually tell him right out who did it,
why he thought he did it, I could tell from the reaction,
we wanted to give him that respect and let him do it,
'cause he'd been wanting to do it for years
and you could tell by Regina Sakamoto's brother's reaction,
that was what he's been waiting for
all this time. - For all these years.
- So I said to him, hey, listen,
this case may never be classified as closed,
but in our opinion, it's solved.
- Yeah.
- And we wanted him to have his, you know,
his day and his opportunity to do that,
this is a man, that worked very hard, Louis Souza,
- Yeah.
- To get answers.
There's a misunderstanding sometimes
that law enforcement isn't motivated to resolve these cases
- No, of course. - and while in some cases,
that may be, I haven't seen it yet in any of ours,
these professionals want these cases solved
and sometimes there's an impasse, because of technology,
a lot of times it's because people aren't coming forward,
maybe at the time, they didn't think
their information was important and you know,
going in and you know, getting a fresh perspective,
talking to people anew,
reexamining crime scenes and data afresh,
that ends up, you know, kind of uncovering things
that need to be uncovered.
- Obviously the Michelle Norris case is personal to you,
it became personal for you. - Right.
- How do you seperate that?
- Well, when we say personal, when I say personal,
I mean that I'm allowing myself
to feel and empathize with the experience, you know,
of the losses that these people,
Julie, Nate, Billy,
the community have experienced and I don't think
that that should necessarily cloud your objectivity,
in fact, it should enhance your objectivity,
because what you're doing is saying,
I am now even more motivated, apart from this being
some anonymous case number in a file someplace,
this is a human being, who meant something
to all these people, who should not be forgotten
and we owe it to the community
and especially to this family to get answers,
so to make it personal means I'm not gonna distance myself
from my responsibility to do the best job that I can
and I'm not interested in getting it wrong.
- Right-- - You said,
you guys don't have tunnel vision,
like you don't go into it - No.
- No, we don't. - thinking
you know what it is. - I want the truth,
I want the truth.
- When it comes to trying to decipher fact from fiction,
you're not swayed by your emotions,
but what we're saying is
you're raising the level of expectation,
so if this were someone I cared about, if it involved me,
what type of investigation would I want,
these detectives to conduct,
how far would I want them to go?
- Am I all in?
- Yeah, am I all in and that's when you put
that level of expectation on yourself,
- You have to be. - You do
and when you put that level of expectation,
as if it was my daughter or my son or my wife,
what would I do, what lengths would I go to
within the confines of the law?
You go all the way
and that's what we tried to do for these families.
- Now in terms of this season finale,
the Michelle O'Keefe case, - Yeah.
- could you talk with that
and how it was first presented to you?
- You know, it's funny,
'cause the show is called Breaking Homicide, right,
but you also have to remember that there are cases,
where people are wrongfully convicted of a crime
they didn't commit and in this situation,
you have an individual, who did 11 years in prison
and was ultimately found factually innocent,
so what we always look at it,
as all investigators should look at it this way
is I'd rather see 100 guilty men go free,
than one innocent man go to jail
for something he didn't do,
so there's two stories here, there's two real, great stories
about someone who, there's two victims here,
you have an individual who did 11 years in prison
for something he didn't do and you have someone,
who is still walking the streets today,
who committed a heinous act
and we're trying to bring light to both situations,
because there are still a lot of people out there,
who believe this individual, who was found
factually innocent is guilty, so we look into that,
as well as the other avenues
as far as who may have possibly done it.
- Michelle O'Keefe's story has so many
important aspects to it,
not the least of which is making sure you get it right
and that there's enough integrity within the system
to admit when it's made a mistake
and now you have the problem of who did it
and that's what we investigate and delve into.
- What other cases out there would you wanna reexamine,
something that you - Oh my gosh.
- come across over the years, that you've said?
- We've had so many different cases,
that have been presented to us
by individuals across our country,
there are thousands of unsolved cases
and part of what we want to accomplish in this series,
in our efforts is to inspire those,
who's cases we may not take
to not give up and to still have hope.
I've got a couple of in mind, there's one in Ohio,
that I'm very much into, as is Derrick.
- Can you talk about it?
- Not yet, not yet. - I don't want to.
- 'cause we wanna solve it. - We wanna solve it
and then there's one here in Los Angeles,
that I'm very interested in, in which a boy's body
was found in a chimney many years ago,
after he'd been murdered
and I'm very interested in that case as well.
- Right, but like he said, he nailed it, you know,
the main focus here is to know
we're gonna take the cases as far as we can,
we also want you, the viewers to know
that society today allows for you to have a voice
and as far as we're gonna take it,
you can take it even further, you have a voice,
if you see something, say something
and if you feel that there's an injustice here
or someone, you know, should be looked into further,
use that voice, there are movements happening every day
for people that really stand behind certain causes,
let's get together and do that,
let's hold the judicial system accountable
and also understand that if you have something
that you've been personally affected by,
no matter how many years has passed,
there's always a chance that it could be solved
and people like us are out there, it's not just me and him
and you never know, we may be coming or calling you next.
- Now, are there any updates you can provide
on some of these cases, you can share?
- So every case that we work, we complete a letter,
we turn it over to the police department,
in some cases, we show them the footage prior to it
and at that point, it goes from being our investigation
to their investigation, because it's a partnership,
it's a collaboration and we wanna solve these cases
and those other individuals,
who have the opportunity to do that,
so we are not going to divulge what we know now
for the integrity of the case, but if there's an update,
if or when there's an arrest in any of these cases,
we will 100% make sure that everyone knows
the status of that investigation.
- Breaking Homicide: Final Theory and ID GO
is the place to get those kinds of updates,
but I'll tell you this, - Okay.
- we've done a number of these interviews
and after one of the first interviews we did,
Derrick gets a text from somebody watching that show,
that had additional information about our first case
and that has been turned over, so what I'll tell you is,
while we take these investigations forward,
that momentum has been propped up and accelerated
by other people out there watching this,
that have actually done the right thing and called out.
- Before we go, is there anything you wanna say?
- No, I just hope people check out the show
and again, if you have something
that could help the case go further,
use your voice, let's make it a movement,
let's get these cases solved for these individuals,
that's what it's about.
A lot of shows you watch out there,
there's already an ending,
you're just watching the show and there's a conclusion,
that's not always gonna be the case in this,
it's up to you to get there
and we're gonna help as much as we can,
but let's give these families the justice they deserve.
- You are part of this
and it's partnerships, that solve cases today.
- Thanks for watching.
- Thank you guys.
- Thank you. - Thank you.