good afternoon and welcome to true crime mysteries if you're new the channel hello
and welcome and if you're returning welcome back today we are discussing four cold cases that were
solved recently with new dna evidence let's get into it number one stacy and jacob falcom dewey
in the early morning hours of october 28th 1994 a seattle times newspaper delivery person started
their route in renton king county washington it was around 3 30 a.m when they saw something
that didn't look right down a small dead end road lined with trees they saw a vehicle with its doors
open and next to the vehicle there was something on the road they stopped and discovered the bodies
of a young woman and a young child and called 9-1-1 officers arrived and were able to identify
the woman as 23 year old stacey falcondewi and they later identified the child as her
three-year-old son jacob dewey both had multiple gunshot wounds which was the cause of their death
initially it was thought to have been a robbery gone wrong the contents of stacy's purse had been
strewn both inside and outside of her 84 buick century but further evidence suggested that there
may have been a darker motive behind the crime packing tape that appeared to have been used to
bind stacy was found on the passenger side of the vehicle stacy's belt was undone and several
buttons from her shirt were found in the vehicle the medical examiner also suggested that jacob
may have been killed facing stacy or she might have been holding him when he was killed
the two fatal shots that had killed jacob had gone through his body and hit stacy in the arm and
shoulder then she was killed with two shots to the back of the head stacy had been covered in bruises
including around her neck and a significant head wound from what was assumed to have been a blow
from the back of the gun stacy's clothing had also been caked with mud whereas jacob had been
completely clean indicating that she might have tried to run away before being wrestled back
into the car the bodies were moved into the middle of the road and it was presumed the killer
had intended to drive off in the car but the keys had fallen between the driver's door and the seat
and had only been found when the seats had been fully removed officers suspected that
when the killer couldn't find the keys he then fled on foot away from the crime scene
neighbors who lived in the area reported hearing gunshots at around 2 10 a.m giving law enforcement
an estimated time of the death of the two victims earlier that evening stacy had dropped jacob
off with a babysitter a friend who lived in an apartment complex that stacy had recently moved
out of stacy and jacob had recently moved into an apartment four miles away and she lived with
her boyfriend jacob was with a babysitter because stacy was going out to celebrate her birthday with
friends and family and had returned to pick up her son around 1 45 am witnesses said they saw her get
into her vehicle and drive off and it should have been a short journey home only a few minutes drive
away her boyfriend was reported to have been at home at the time of the murders and he had
expected them to return but he didn't notice they hadn't until officers knocked on the door
because he'd fallen asleep officers extensively investigated the brutal murders for several years
several suspects had been ruled out which had included stacy's boyfriend and ex-husband
but eventually the case went cold in 2001 several advances in dna technology had been made
and it was this case that was reopened to look at for new leads
that year several samples that have been collected from the autopsy were tested for dna
and they found male dna under her fingernails in 2002 the washington state patrol crime lab got a
match from the incarcerated inmate jerome frank jones who was in federal prison in california
for a murder he committed in 1995. they flew to california to interview him who when shown photos
of stacy denied having known her in 2002 they also interviewed the building manager of stacy's old
apartment the one that her friend had lived in and he confirmed that a man named jerome jones
lived there in 1994. no other connection between stacy and jones was found and in 2002 due to what
was described as delays budget cuts and other procedural hiccups the case fell between the
cracks for nearly a decade a podcast highlighted the case in 2019 and it was only because of that
coverage that the family had been alerted of the dna connection when they hadn't known about
it before they then pushed law enforcement to answer why that evidence hadn't produced an arrest
in 2021 the case was officially reopened several more advances in dna had occurred since 2002
and investigators wanted to see if there was anything else from that crime scene that could
be new for the case in december 2021 additional dna evidence was found this time on the sleeve
of jacob's coat this dna connected jerome jones directly to the crime scene on february 18 2022
the now 51 year old jerome jones was charged in the 1994 murder of stacy falcon dewey as
well as the murder of jacob dewey he has also been charged with robbery and sexual assault
jones had been scheduled for release in 2030 from his previous convictions but if convicted
of these charges he will likely be sentenced to multiple life sentences without the possibility
of parole jerome jones currently sentenced to 56 years in a california prison for a different
murder but investigators with renton police say he is the key to solving this double murder mystery
so thanks for joining us for your news at 10 i'm david rose and i'm jamie tompkins here's
the really amazing part of that story it all began with this letter we're going to give you a closer
look right now it is a handwritten note delivered to us here at fox 13 news written by vayne falcon
stacy's mother and jacob's grandmother asking us to look into this case this after two decades
of searching for justice and that note says it all she never gave up hope fighting for charges
to be brought against jones for more than two years now in fox 13 jennifer lee is live in kent
tonight at the courthouse he will be making his first court appearance at and jen this is really
another amazing example of the power of dnaf dna evidence and detectives who refuse to give up
yeah very true that suspect jerome jones will be making his first appearance here now in
less than two weeks and that's for two counts of aggravated murder in the first degree the family
has been waiting for these charges since 1994 and with that dna evidence coming to light about
20 years ago they questioned why this didn't happen sooner
i've been at my breaking point for a very long time vayne falcon says her daughter stacy was
a great mother and her grandson jacob was a spontaneous boy all of these years she's kept
them close in her heart since their brutal murder in renton back in 1994. it wasn't until 2016 that
she requested a copy of the medical examiner's report had i known about the dna match in 2002
i'd have never sent for that report i'd never read any of it so i blame them for me having this
small my small smile is gone according to court documents the washington state patrol crime lab
detected dna evidence on stacy through an oral swab and fingernail clippings that matched a man
named jerome jones falcon says she didn't know dna evidence existed until many years later in 2019
through a local seattle times journalist we were flabbergasted we i just couldn't believe it that
they had all that time to get a hold of any one of us and let us know and they hadn't contacted
anybody the 51 year old suspect is currently behind bars in a california state prison for
shooting a man to death in march of 1995 which is just months after allegedly killing stacy and
jacob in washington state court documents say a number of additional evidence items were submitted
and resubmitted over the years given advances in dna identification because it's pretty
embarrassing for them to have sat on this dna for 18 years and not done anything in december 2021
investigators learned dna evidence was also found on the jacket of falcon's three-year-old grandson
i'm so embarrassed when i go up to the gravesite i told her i'd have good news for her
well that was like 15 20 years ago and now i do have good news for her
jones will be extradited from california and face a judge here in washington state his first
appearance is scheduled for february 28th for now reporting live in kent jennifer lee fox 13 news
number two patricia barnes
26 years after patricia barnes a 61-year-old seattle washington resident's body was discovered
in olalo washington her case had been solved thanks to the advanced dna testing in 1995
patricia barnes was last seen by acquaintances three days before her body was discovered in a
ditch she was found nude in a sleeping bag with several gunshot wounds to her head her social
circle was very small which made the case more difficult to solve during the investigation the
kitsap county detectives collected and documented over 130 pieces of evidence the evidence included
the sleeping bag evidence from her body and cigarette butts found at the crime scene
however after a large amount of follow-up they could not identify a suspect for some time it
was suspected that patricia was the victim of robert lee yates also known as the spokane serial
murderer even though her profile did not match those of yates's previous victims detectives
later proved that gates was stationed in alabama at the time of patricia's murder eliminating him
as a suspect in 2018 the kitsap county sheriff's office reopened patricia's case according to an
interview with detective mike grant he and another detective decided to submit evidence they felt
would be significant to finding the murderer to the washington state patrol crime lab the crime
lab developed an unknown mail profile using the evidence submitted which would be the first solid
break in the case in decades however there was no match after ending the dna profile into codis yet
another roadblock in the case but the detectives were determined to find justice for patricia
barnes with the help of the attorney general's office the detectives were given several private
labs to submit the evidence to for processing one of those labs was ortham labs out of the woodlands
texas scientists were able to build a male genetic profile according to detective grant ortham
labs had identified a first or second cousin which led them to a name douglas keith crone
detectives tracked crone to nogales arizona in 2016 and learned that crone had died at his home
during an electrical accident the pima county medical examiner conducted an autopsy and sent
blood samples to detective in kitsap county they then in turn sent them to the state crime lab for
dna testing two weeks later they confirmed that douglas crohn's dna matched evidence collected
from the crime scene using a cigarette butt left at the scene and it was concluded that crone had
been the killer realistically this case was solved in 1995 and it was just a matter of waiting for
forensic science and the uh the advent of genetic genealogy to evolve and it was just a case waiting
to be solved how they came to meet nobody knows douglas isn't mentioned in any of the reports
as an acquaintance or a witness or person of interest i went through all of the tip logs
and no one mentioned his name so it was just a complete random encounter i would suspect
number three mary london mary london was a sweet and friendly 17 year old teenager who lived in
sacramento california she was a sophomore at the local high school and her family described
her as being developmentally disabled on january 14 1981 mary was reported missing by her family
after she wasn't on her scheduled bus ride to the sacramento high school the following
day mary's body was found by a passerby on a stretch of the san juan road a local rural area
she was stabbed several times and sexually assaulted according to mary's friends and family
mary grew up in foster care her daily routine was the same every week detectives determined that she
was in school the day before she went missing after school mary went to a friend's house the
friend told detectives that mary had left her home to go and visit someone in downtown sacramento
that friend saw her get on a city bus detectives also had a witness who saw mary get off the bus
in downtown sacramento at 8th and k streets this was the last confirmed sighting of mary
in the 1980s there wasn't technology like we had today detectives talked to everyone who knew mary
and collected evidence carefully from the scene including dna from mary's body when dna procedures
advance the dna collected from the crime scene was resubmitted in the early 2000s to try and find a
match for a suspect unfortunately there were no dna matches in codis so the case went cold again
after 35 years the case was reopened in 2016 by the sacramento police department detectives
according to a posting on their facebook page the detectives were asking for a community to
help in finding a man named daryl he was a known friend of mary's however he was not considered
a suspect at the time after submitting his dna to codis it was determined that daryl did not murder
mary forty years after mary's murder detectives announced that they had found who murdered mary
detectives named vernon parker as mary's killer they had identified him using genetic genealogy
and advanced dna practices detectives learned during their investigation that parker was
involved in sex trafficking and a prostitution ring according to detectives parker had been
murdered in downtown sacramento about a block from where mary had went missing and they knew that was
not a coincidence as he was known to hang out in that area while justice cannot be served the
determination and persistence of the sacramento police department have given mary's family closure
kirsten we first told you about this story last night the sacramento police department will make
the official announcement today ending a 39-year-old cold case sacramento county
district attorney anne marie schubert says the breakthrough came with the use of new dna
technology sacpd investigators worked closely with the district attorney's office to use the new tool
and traditional dna testing to link a man named vernon parker to the brutal murder
of mary london i mean remember we're in the midst of a crisis but it's not going to stop
us from solving crime prosecuting crime and doing what we have to do every day it may look a little
differently and you might do a lot more zoom meetings or whatever it is but at the end of the
day we're still the criminal justice system goes on mary's half-sister esther snyder says mary was
a developmentally disabled 10th grade student at sacramento high she was living with foster
parents and never came home on january 14 1981 her body was found the next morning on this then
rural stretch of san juan road in north sacramento she'd been sexually assaulted and stabbed several
times it turns out mary's killer was murdered in 1982 a little more than a year after her death and
now schneider wants to thank investigators for their tireless work thank god you know
i'm real happy they found somebody coming up on late news tonight the detective who first
worked the case meets mary's families the former 90-year-old detective says not even a
global pandemic would keep him from celebrating this moment well that is it for this video as
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you