(heart beating)
- [Narrator] What is up, EWU crew?
As more cold cases continue to be solved
at a rapid pace over the last few years,
long hidden truths are brought to the light,
and families left in the dark for decades
finally receive some closure.
Today, we have the stories of three cold cases
that have already been solved in 2021.
Let's get into it.
Today's first case began back in 1988,
waiting a long 32 years to meet a conclusion,
though many attached to the case still feel
that the ending is unsatisfactory.
On October 9th, 1988
30-year-old Gayle Barrus disappeared
from Battle Creek, Michigan
leaving behind her three children
who she was raising as a single mother.
She was last seen at Speeds Coffee Shop
where she was witnessed in a confrontation
with two unidentified men.
Although she appeared only to be arguing
with one of the men,
this was the final time she was ever seen alive.
Gayle's son James who had been only 13
when his mother was murdered,
later recalled that he had spent the day that she vanished
waiting and waiting for her return,
hoping that she would just come back.
But she never did.
After 16 days of searching, Gayle's body was finally found
by hunters on October 25th
near River Road in Emmett township.
After an autopsy, it was discovered
that she had died from multiple stab wounds
and there was evidence that she had been assaulted.
The DNA of her attacker was recovered from her clothing
but because of the rudimentary DNA analysis technology
at the time, it couldn't be utilized to find her killer.
The police investigated two friends,
and though they considered both men
to be persons of interest, one became their prime suspect.
A man by the name of Roger Allen Plato.
Investigators felt sure
that Plato was involved in some way with Gayle's death
as they believed that he had been the man
she was seen arguing with.
However, the DNA testing known to be inaccurate
and unreliable at the time
had come back with the conclusion
that Plato couldn't have been her killer.
And even when his DNA was tested again,
the results stated that it was inconclusive.
The other man that the police had suspected,
Richard Compton, had also been eliminated from the case
by DNA evidence.
With these two leads ended, Gayle's case went cold.
It wasn't until years later, in 2020,
when Gayle's son James approached the police
that her case was reopened,
this time approached with new DNA technology.
James had spent the years since 2013
collecting his own research on her death,
including police records.
Even after three decades, James never lost the hope
that his mother's killer would be found.
At first, the Battle Creek homicide unit
met an immediate roadblock.
The investigators on the case decided to reevaluate
both of the original suspects in Gayle's murder,
Compton and Plato,
but Compton had died at age 59 in 2009.
In March of 2020, Compton's body was exhumed,
and his DNA was once again ruled
to not be involved in the case.
Then in June, the police tested the sample they had
for Plato's DNA.
And it was also found not to match the DNA
from Gayle's murderer.
At first, it seemed like the case was once again cold.
However, there was an issue.
The DNA the police were using for Plato
had been collected from a jacket
that they knew belonged to him,
but it had actually been a mixture
of three different people's DNA,
making the sample for Plato not strong enough
to be conclusive.
It seemed that the next logical conclusion
was that a proper DNA sample needed to be taken from Plato.
However, there was once again, another problem:
he had also died.
Shockingly, at the time of Gayle's murder
Plato had been a suspect in another assault case
and possibly several others.
He had actually died only two days
before Gayle's body was even found.
Police had closed in on him in relation to the other case,
and Plato fled the scene.
Plato then fought back against the police,
and the authorities opened fire
and their efforts to capture him
but ended up killing him on the spot.
His body was later cremated.
Though, the police wouldn't be able to get a DNA sample
from Plato's cremated body, it was later discovered
that during his autopsy,
a sample of his blood had been taken and stored.
With the latest DNA technology,
Plato's DNA was once again tested.
And this time it was found to be a match for Gayle's killer.
As the suspect has already died,
the police won't be filing any charges,
but the investigation is finally closed.
James commented that even though he's waited years
hoping for this conclusion in his mother's case,
there still isn't any real closure after all of the hurt
he and his siblings suffered after losing her.
Even so, he is able to look at the situation
with a bit of a silver lining.
He has shared: "Right now I'm just still trying
to catch my breath and exhale at the same time,"
later adding, "I think if somebody was around today,
now we've got to endure a trial,
which then creates a lot of other issues
and then we potentially don't get a conviction
and then what?
Even with a DNA match
because there's so much time has elapsed,
eyewitnesses have either passed away
or they can't be relied upon
for their statements 32 years later.
So I'm kind of glad it wound up the way it is."
Our next case took place in 2008.
In Lansing, Michigan 34-year-old Krista Robin Lueth
was a college student studying
for her second bachelor's degree in horticulture
after earning a previous degree in botany.
Known to be dedicated and studious,
she had plans to complete a graduate program
at Cornell University.
On November 11th, 2008,
following that day's classes,
Krista had arrived at the house she rented
around 5:00 PM.
There she talked to her close friend
who lived in the rooms above her.
She told him that she was worried
about being able to make her rent,
because she had just broken up with her boyfriend
and asked him to move out.
In order to pay for the rent without him,
she was going to have to sell her truck
and start to work part time as a waitress.
Krista was due to leave again for a class at 6:30
at a nearby greenhouse.
But she never showed up.
Krista's friends became worried about her
when none of them could get a hold of her.
When they called authorities,
a search of her house was conducted
and her cat Moet was found alone, locked inside.
The lights were left on
with a pan filled with food waiting on the stove,
but there was no trace of Krista.
It seemed as if she had left and expected to come back,
but never did.
Her friend reported that nothing seemed wrong with her
when they spoke
and that he hadn't heard anything suspicious
coming from her part of the house.
The investigators attention immediately turned
to Krista's ex-boyfriend, Brad Cournaya.
They had met in early 2008 and began dating.
It wasn't long before Cournaya moved in,
but the couple broke up months later.
Following the breakup, Krista had complained to her father
that Cournaya wouldn't leave her alone
and kept calling her even when she told him to stop.
In fact, it had been Cournaya
who was the last person to call Krista
before she disappeared,
and pings from his cellphone show
that he had been near her home that night.
Not only did Cournaya appear
to have taken the couple's breakup badly,
but he also had an extensive criminal record.
At only 18, Cournaya broke into an apartment
and assaulted a woman, resulting in him being sentenced
to serve 10 to 15 years.in prison in 1986.
He was released in 2000,
but almost immediately found himself in trouble again.
He assaulted one of his female relatives
and was once again in prison, this time for eight years.
Cournaya received parole in 2007,
just before he met Krista.
A sheriff's deputy later recalled
that he had seen Cournaya on the U.S. 127
on the day that Krista went missing
and helped him as his truck had broken down there.
A search of the area, only eight miles from Krista's house,
revealed that her driver's license, debit card,
and her broken cellphone
had been left by the side of the road,
resulting in her disappearance being categorized
as a homicide in 2009.
In 2014, Cournaya was declared to be the prime suspect
in Krista's presumed murder
as it was believed that he had picked her up from her home
and drove to a remote area where an argument ensued,
and he likely killed her.
But despite this theory,
there wasn't enough evidence to charge him.
Though police were sure that Cournaya was involved,
Krista's disappearance and probable death
was declared a cold case.
Her body was never found.
However, in January, 2021, the longtime suspect Cournaya
was charged with the presumed murder of Krista.
Though it isn't clear what exactly led detectives
to finally charge the now 53-year-old Cournaya,
more details will likely be released
when the case goes to trial.
He was already in prison
and serving a sentence of 17 to 40 years.
He had shown a 15-year-old girl
an inappropriate photo of himself,
as well as a video on his cellphone.
Because of this, he was charged
with the trafficking of a minor
and using a computer to commit a crime.
He is now facing an additional murder charge.
Even though Cournaya has been charged with trafficking,
he remains adamant that the photos used in his trial
don't even exist.
He also claims that he isn't guilty
of Krista's disappearance or death,
and that he is being unfairly targeted by authorities.
The prosecution of Cournaya's 2017 sentencing said
that Cournaya had, quote,
"almost no rehabilitative potential."
Many of Krista's loved ones and friends
have expressed relief
at finally having some closure with her case,
and are happy to see that the man
that they believe to be guilty
is being held accountable for the crime.
The last case we have for you today
is a chilling story filled with mystery.
On October 9th, 1994,
Katherine Janeiro, a 20-year-old mother
of a two and a half year old child
went out to party with some of her friends
at the bars in downtown Barrie, Ontario, Canada.
Katherine had left home at only 16
to move in with her then-boyfriend,
and the couple had a child together when she was 17.
But almost a year prior they had broken up
and Katherine was living alone
with her daughter, Dawn Nelson.
On the weekend of October 9th,
her daughter was spending time with her grandparents
freeing Katherine to go out and see her friends.
What happened to her
remained a mystery for almost three decades.
24 hours after going out, she was found dead by her friends
in the basement of her apartment
after being stabbed multiple times.
Investigators uncovered that while she was at the bar,
she had invited some of the people that she met
to come back to her apartment to continue the fun night.
It was this choice
that is believed to have led to her untimely death.
One of the clues the killer left behind,
or rather took with them, was Katherine's home telephone.
The phone had been completely ripped off the wall
of her apartment and wasn't found anywhere nearby.
This lead appeared significant as investigators believed
that the phone had been taken
because Katherine had saved her killer's number
on the phone's memory system.
One month later, the phone was found submerged
in a nearby creek, but intact.
Though the memory system hadn't been damaged,
it didn't reveal as much as police had hoped.
After more investigation,
including hundreds of witness statements,
police started to put together a story
about Katherine's life,
one that helped to explain how the young woman
had come to be murdered.
They believed that she had become involved
in the city's drug trade
and that she had been killed as part of a robbery.
While Katherine's case was open,
the police had identified six suspects
who they believed were involved
or had knowledge about the crime.
But even with six people in mind,
they never charged anyone with Katherine's death.
After five years investigating,
Katherine's case was handed over
to the OPP identification bureau in the hopes
that they would be able to uncover more about the crime.
But still no real leads were found.
For over a decade her case went cold.
Then in 2014, detective Rob Gravel
made a public announcement
saying that he knew the identity of Katherine's murderer
and that the police were keeping a close eye
on one person of interest.
With the help of a DNA analysis,
the six suspects were narrowed down to two.
Yet while the anxious public waited
for the saga to be brought to an end,
no arrest was ever made.
In the years to follow, Katherine's daughter Dawn
spoke publicly about the loss of her mother
at such a young age.
She even recalled a moment when she was six years old
watching TV and had inadvertently witnessed a reenactment
of her mother's death.
While stumbling across a Crime Stoppers re-enactment,
young Dawn watched a woman being stabbed in her apartment.
She shared that, "Moments later a picture of the woman
holding her child was put on the screen
and I realized at that moment that that was my mother.
I knew because this is the same picture
that was in my living room to this day.
I have never been able to get rid of the hurt and confusion
that flooded my mind that night."
In 2020, new information about Katherine's death
finally came to light.
As with many cold cases, the investigators were waiting
for that one piece of evidence
that would finally bring justice to the case,
which is exactly what happened.
On January 13th, 2021, 58-year-old Robert Bruce MacQueen,
commonly known by his alias Bruce Ellis
was arrested and charged
with the first degree murder of Katherine.
"I think he was surprised,"
shared a Barrie police services spokesperson.
"As you can appreciate, 26 years had passed.
That's a lot of looking over your shoulder,
wondering if today is the day.
Well, yesterday was the day."
Currently, it is unclear
if the suspect Detective Gravel referred to in 2014
is MacQueen, but it is believed
that Katherine knew MacQueen before she died,
though the police haven't revealed too many details
at this time, nor the exact piece of evidence
that led them to charge MacQueen.
There is a chance that DNA evidence may have played a role,
but there had also been over 350 witnesses
interviewed during the investigation,
and their statements could have been just as important.
More details will be revealed
when the murder case goes to trial.
After 26 years, Katherine's daughter can finally rest easy.
She only wishes that her grandparents were still alive
to see this hard-fought conclusion.
Barrie police chief Kimberly Greenwood has since asserted:
"The fact that today we can hold someone accountable
for the violent death of Katherine Janeiro
should serve as proof that no homicide case is ever closed
until an arrest is made."
As 2021 progresses, we can only hope to see
that even more cold cases are finally solved.
And as we are only a few months in
at the time of this video,
it seems likely that this year may set a new record
for justice being brought to many cold cases.