23 year old deborah shepherd a senior at
southern illinois university had
returned to her apartment for the night
to get ready for a family visit the next
day for the easter holiday
there deborah's boyfriend randy asked
her to go see a movie but in
anticipation of her
parents and sisters coming down she
decided she needed to go home and clean
up the place
for their visit
randy he knew she was busy but he
decided to stop in and see deborah just
to talk to her briefly
he noticed that the
the um
note she had on the door of her
apartment
said to knock hard i'm in the shower
so he went inside
called out her name
she didn't answer
and he walks into her bedroom and that's
when he observed her nude body on the
floor and she was lifeless
when the crime scene investigators and
detectives arrived on the scene they
were confused as to what might have
happened
it was apparent to the paramedics that
deborah shepard was deceased
but there was no visible injuries
on debra's body
and when
the officer went in
she observed that the phone had been cut
the officer also noticed that the glass
part of the window was off and actually
on the ground
and that appeared to be maybe the point
of entry my dad looked me in my eye and
told me bridget
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your sister deborah passed away
she died
deborah was
such a warm spirited loving person she
was
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loved by everyone
deborah was like a mom to me
she was not only a sister
my father loved his family his daughters
you know
would do anything um was no mountain
high enough
but my father felt helpless
we all felt helpless
but especially him
it was apparent that debra had taken a
shower
and also noticed that there was some mud
in the bathtub which was out of place
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as the ambulance service rolled debra
shepard's body over
some of the fluid from her mouth
actually dripped onto the t-shirt that
was
next to her body
later that purple t-shirt was collected
as evidence for analysis
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investigators looked at
deborah's friend randy
his reaction and finding her his
emotions seemed consistent with him
truly being surprised when he found her
there was no evidence that they had had
any issues
his story seemed to check out there was
just nothing to link him
to her death
a rape kit is taken
but in 1982 the use of rape kits is
still in its infancy police departments
back then in the late 70s early 80s they
did not have the technology that we have
today
and they thought that it might have been
a situation where she had a medical
episode
the coroner really wasn't sure
you know she was never sick she was
never
you know she was always full of life she
was not ill the lack of evidence
discovered in the initial autopsy led to
a press release that no foul play was
suspected
he was angry
he most definitely felt that they were
sweeping it under the rug
possibly because of her being
african-american
as well as they didn't want the
publicity
but i know that my father
was definitely trying to investigate
to help find out what happened
to her
my father knew
he
decided to have her body brought to
chicago and had a second autopsy that
second autopsy conducted by dr stein
revealed deep bruising in the tissues of
debra's neck which had not been
seen during the first autopsy also by
that time the results came back from the
rape kit
and there was evidence of sperm
recovered from the oral swabs
dr stein was convinced that she had been
strangled carbondale police department
released a
press release announcing that deborah
shepard's death was being investigated
as a homicide
if he had not gone down to bring the do
the second autopsy and bring her body
back there would be no
investigation and he did it all because
of the love he has
for his daughter
after two years of active investigation
the case goes cold
what carbondale authorities don't know
is that 50 miles away
detectives in cape girardeau missouri
had been dealing with their own
unexplained murders it was a normal day
for margie call
after leaving work she went out that
evening with some of her friends
when margie fails to show up for work
the next morning
concerned co-workers call margie's
brother
he entered through the carport door
leading into the residence
went back to the bedroom and found
margie
lying face down on the bed apparently
deceased
margie's hands are bound behind her back
with a leather cord
detectives find another piece of cord in
the bathroom they also find two hairs
not belonging to margie they collected
those hair samples and forwarded the
hair samples to the laboratory but we
had no dna dna was years away at that
time
the autopsy report revealed that mrs
call was strangled
and had been sexually assaulted
cape girardeau detectives are called to
another brutal discovery
mildred wallace is found dead she's 65
years old she's blindfolded she's tied
up and sexually assaulted and really
just
gruesome fashion
it's also very close to where margie
call live detectives investigating the
margie call murder immediately notice
similarities with the mildred wallace
crime scene very similar point of entry
into the residence both bathroom windows
both were found deceased in their
bedrooms with hands tied behind her back
but one particular thing stood out
mrs call was strangled to death and
mildred wallace was shot in the head
with a 38 caliber handgun
investigators felt that both murders
were probably connected
and police issued warnings to the public
they said a psychotic killer might be
responsible for these
everybody was wondering what was going
on who was killing these women
and there were no answers in 2006
i was at the illinois state police crime
lab in carbondale
sitting with the dna expert suzanne kidd
being interviewed by code case files
about another case i mentioned to
suzanne that i had another case
that i wanted her to take a look at it
was the 1982 murder of deborah shepard
i explained to her that i had some
things i'd like for her to look at
so she suggested that i bring that over
and she would take a look at it
after my conversation with suzanne
i went back to my boss and said hey you
know i'd like to
reopen from a forensic level
deborah shepard's murder case
several weeks after i dropped off a few
items that had been collected from
deborah's crime scene including a purple
shirt which had been recovered from the
bedroom floor
i met with suzanne kidd who told me that
she had had some success
and had actually found a
tiny
speck
of semen
on the purple shirt
it was a seminal fluid that actually by
accident had been collected it fell out
of debra shepherd's mouth onto a shirt
sleeve
that tiny speck revealed nine of the
genetic codes needed to enter that into
the dna database on a state level
this one piece of evidence had been
overlooked the whole time
there was a dna match
63 year old timothy wayne
cricher
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timothy cricher was definitely a dr
jekyll and mr hyde kind of personality
i pulled a report that had been
investigated in 1979 where tim kreicher
had been arrested for indecent liberties
with the child
by the fall of 1979 he was sent back to
prison and he became the first person
ever in the history of jackson county to
be certified as a sexually dangerous
person which required him to
attend counseling he was released from
prison in june of 1981
and returned back to carbondale to live
if you can help us out with something
what are you talking about
he immediately was on defense this
girl's name was deborah shepard does
that mean anything to you
we know you did it
that's the wrong person
the next day i had a voicemail and it
was lieutenant schuler from the big
muddy correctional center saying that
tim wanted us to come back he wanted to
confess
just simply did you kill driver yes
he was a
sexual himself
something clicked when i heard murder
case 1982
and solved after all these years the dna
they
found at the
wallace residence
matched that of timothy cricher but this
was only the beginning of his list of
cold-blooded crimes
detectives were about to uncover a reign
of terror that stretched across four
states
for the most part timothy kreicher would
stalk women in parking lots
follow them home
peep through the windows and would see
is there a man around
then a week or two later he would just
come back and would jump out of the
shower or a closet
and attack him
timothy cretcher also admits to over 20
unsolved sexual assaults home burglaries
and an attempted murder case that led to
a wrongful conviction in 1981
you realize that
you finally have resolved what so many
people have worked so hard to resolve
but yet
you know there's still the devastation
that one person has
done to so many people
at least we can make sure he never gets
out of prison and can never victimize
anybody else
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