on a lazy summer afternoon a love struck
couple drive into the woods of rural
washington looking for the perfect
hideaway a secluded spot to carry out
their secret romance
what they find
is horror
they came across a log that was across
the road
when they got out of the vehicle to move
the log
they saw a body line approximately 15
feet beyond that log
she was on her back
she was wearing a pair of bikini style
underwear
wearing a pair of knee-length socks a
pair of boots and nothing else
her blue jeans and clothing had been
kind of strewn about
she had a wound to the right side of her
head and she's breathing but she's not
saying anything
the man sits her in the passenger seat
of his little two-seater sports car and
the woman
held her head up
to keep her airway open
when they got to the hospital it
appeared that she was still alive
but by the time they were able to start
examining her she was deceased
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she didn't have any id on her no purse
no driver's license no identification
card so they didn't know who they had
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earlier that afternoon before this grim
discovery 20-year-old jody loomis had
jumped on her bike headed for the stable
and a ride on her horse saudi
it was a beautiful day
back in 1972 i'm 12. i took off down the
road to meet my girlfriend
jody decided she was going to go to
sadie
and be back before dark
and she pedaled off
i was on my way home when i got a page
there was a suspicious death at stevens
memorial
the duty nurse directed me back to a
locked room where the body was
that was a troubling sight to have her
laying there with just shoes and her
glasses were a skew on her face and she
had a bullet hole in her head
we could see that there was dirt the
leaves were stuffed in her underwear
her boots would have been
put on after the underwear was pulled
back up
i observed what appeared to be seminal
fluid
in the crotch of the underwear
it was obviously some kind of a sexually
motivated homicide she was able to put
her panties back on
she put her right shoe on but she was
apparently tying her left shoe
when the killer shot her in the head
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jody's killer
is still out there and people fear he
might strike again
that fear turns to panic when other
young women begin to vanish
an individual was abducting young women
off the streets
it wasn't any particular profile other
than there were women and they were
young and they were
pretty
there was a serial killer killing
college aids girls in the pacific
northwest the individual that
police believed responsible for that was
a guy named ted bundy
the similarities between jody's case and
the bundy murders were that she was the
right age group
college aids and probably the right
hairstyle
a lot of them had their hair parted down
the center
jody parted her hair down the center
people in snohomish fear this notorious
killer had struck again
yet investigators realize that jody's
murder doesn't match up with ted bundy's
mo
ted bundy would put his arm in a sling
or
carry a crutch or
do something as a ruse to get a college
student to help him
they had been seen getting into a
vehicle willingly with somebody
well this isn't the same thing
she was riding a bicycle
they were bludgeoned
in jody's case she was shot
it just didn't fit right
investigators eliminate ted bundy
leaving them with no solid suspects in
jody's murder
the case of the young woman who went out
at a bike ride and never came back
goes as cold as the winter winds that
blow down from canada
as time progressed there were no more
leads
and there was
nothing there was just silence
for years and years and years and then
decades
i really felt that nobody cared
jody's murder and other unsolved cases
get a fresh look from a new
investigative unit
everyone realized that there was real
need to have
a designated team of detectives doing
cold cases
case fit the criteria
that the cold case team was looking at
it was a homicide sexually motivated
homicide and he could tell she was a
completely innocent victim one of the
best tools that we had as a cold case
detective was dna
with jody's case
intact spermatozoa had been taken from
the vaginal swabs at autopsy
so everything that they would need
appear to be present in this case
we knew that we could go get these
vaginal swabs the slides that had been
sent to the hospital
and we were going to get a dna profile
and upload it to codis and solve this
case right away
justice for jody hangs on a dna sample
from her crime scene evidence
but investigators again hit a major
obstacle
then we found out that there was
no dna evidence anywhere
we
couldn't find it all were missing
you know we were just flabbergasted
and it was just
devastating when we realized that those
things had been lost
so investigators search for another
sample
but we had jodie's shirt
her bra
jeans
and both of her boots
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i sent all those items to the state
patrol crime lab to see if they could
find any dna evidence that might have
been missed or left on another article
of clothing
i got a phone call from the forensic
analyst at the state patrol crime lab
telling me that he found a spot of dna
evidence on jody loomis's left boot
we were so excited about it that we
drove to the crime lab and went back to
his workstation and he showed us the
slide
and i counted 25 spermatozoa on it
and it was like
yeah
we we actually do have
what we need to solve this case it was
wonderful
you now have a dna profile and if you
can't match that up with anybody you
don't have anybody to pursue
no suspect no one being handcuffed no
one being charged
and no hope of that occurring anytime in
the near future
i didn't know if i'd ever see the face
of who murdered my sister
for 10 long years
there's not much to hold on to
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that all changes with one forensic
advance
detective scharf became aware
of a new use of technology called
forensic genealogy
using a suspect's dna a genetic
genealogist searches for partial matches
in public dna databases those partial
matches
lead to a family tree
someone in that tree
could end up being an exact match
the dna information was sent to a
genetic genealogist
and actually she spent 58 hours over a
three-day period to come up with a son
of jacquetta and albert miller
jacquetta and albert miller had six sons
and one daughter
so now law enforcement had
six males
that one of them was likely the donor of
that dna
one had sexual criminal history
and that was terence
a miller of years after jody's murder he
was arrested for
statutory rape and child molestation
but he got a deferred prosecution for
going through counseling so terry didn't
go to prison
so now that we knew that he was a sex
offender we started following terence
miller around
they've got to get a known sample of dna
from the suspect
surreptitiously so you're not alerting
him
and then compare that to the original
dna sample
the only way this groundbreaking
technology pays off is if undercover
officers could get a sample of terence
miller's dna
we asked them to follow terry around
until they could get anything that
touched his lips because we wanted a
saliva sample that's your best evidence
to test for dna
so they followed him to a casino
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they watched him buy a cup of coffee
and then discard that cup in a garbage
can seconds after that coffee cup was
thrown in the garbage detectives secured
it put it into a plastic bag
they brought me the cup i booked it into
evidence and took it to the crime lab
and cross my fingers
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just over a week later the crime lab
contacted
sharp
it was a match to jody loomis's case so
at that point we finally identified a
killer after what 46 years
it was
it was a real high point
miller was ultimately charged with one
count of first degree murder so
premeditated murder when mr miller was
in jail he made a number of phone calls
to his wife
every phone call is recorded
he had made comments to the effect that
you know i'm going to jail they've got
me they got the dna
the accused killer's trial finally
begins
monday morning i was at my desk and
about 9 30
we received a phone call from patrol
they were at the miller house terrence
miller had apparently
committed suicide that morning we were
told the jury had not been informed that
they were continuing to deliberate
then they came back a little bit later
on said all right everybody to the
courtroom and
the jury announces
that he's guilty
oh thank goodness
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there was no justice when that trigger
was pulled i wanted him to go to prison
because i pretty much knew what was
going to happen to him in prison and it
was not going to be pretty
i wanted them to see him
be handcuffed and led from the courtroom
he took that from them
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you