Bloodline Detectives - Episode 1 - Deadly Desire | Forensic Files

I'm Nancy Grace, and this is "Bloodline Detectives." Every family tree tells a story.
With the recent popularity in ancestry, you can easily mail in your saliva and uncover your roots.
For Joseph James DeAngelo, his family tree told a more sinister story. After decades of hiding in plain sight,
he was identified as the Golden State Killer. From a seemingly harmless genealogy test,
relatives unknowingly betrayed a barren branch of their family tree. These developments lead to the capture
of this notorious serial killer 30 years later. This was a wake-up call for law enforcement.
While genetic genealogy can trace your great, great, great grandfather, it's also a cold case cracking tool
that is bringing justice and closure to families faster than ever before. We have a name for the police using this groundbreaking
technology, the bloodline detectives, and maybe their new lead is in your family tree.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Valentine's day 2007, police in Carlsbad, California
are called to a murder scene. The victim is 39-year-old Jodine Serrin, and her parents have happened upon a horrifying discovery.
The parents went into the bedroom, opened the door, and saw Jodine on the bed with a man on top of her.
Feeling embarrassed for himself and for her, he closes the door. He says, I'm sorry.
I'll be waiting out here. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Unaware their daughter has been
violently murdered, Jodine's parents wait for the pair to come out of the room, but the killer has fled.
ERIC KOVANDA: That's another strange twist in the case. One minute, he's there. The next minute, he's gone.
And then, now, you know, the hunt is on for who did it. We're dealing with a sick, sick mind,
and we're dealing with a sick, sick crime. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): As the search for the killer goes on,
the investigation hits a wall. The Carlsbad Police kept in touch with us for over 10 years.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police finally break the case using forensic genealogy.
They didn't know who it was, but what they did have is they had DNA. I run my software, looking for matches
in the genetic genealogy databases, and the match will give me a probable last name
for the killer. The likelihood of there being a false positive was 1 in 64 quintillion.
That's one with-- I think it's 10 zeros behind it. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): This is the tragic story of the murder
of Jodine Serrin, how police made extensive efforts to solve the mystery of her death, and how advances in DNA technology
finally cracked the case. Once we started that process, I knew right then there who
was responsible for this crime. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Carlsbad, San
Diego County, California, a small, quiet, and highly affluent city. But on Valentine's night 2007, the peace of this city
is shattered. The Carlsbad Police department received a 911 call from the parents of Jodine Serrin, who
stated that they had found their daughter unresponsive, cold to the touch. Police rushed to the scene to find that they
were performing CPR on her as instructed by the police dispatch. The Serrins, Art and Lois, had gone to the movies that night.
It was Valentine's Day. And a good husband, he took his wife to the theater. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The Serrin's daughter
Jodine has special needs, and Lois is concerned she has not heard from her. This was very unusual.
So finally, in the evening, around 10:00, they went over to Jodine's apartment to check on her.
And they knocked on the door, and there was no answer. Well, they had a pass key to get into the house.
They opened up the door, and the chain was latched to the door. They could not get inside.
And that was an ominous sign, so Art became very, very frightened. That's not like his daughter.
He broke the door down. [MUSIC PLAYING] ANTHONY JOHNSON: Mr. Serrin noticed that the bedroom
door was closed. He went into the bedroom, opened the door, and he saw his daughter Jodine on the bed with a man
on top of her. NERISSA KNIGHT: He was taken aback. He thought it was two people consensually having sex
and that he imposed on a private, intimate moment of a couple. When he saw the man on top of his daughter,
he told him to get up and put his clothes on, and then he exited the room. He wanted to shield that scene from his wife,
so he took his wife around the corner, into a different area of the condo where there wasn't really a direct line
of sight to the bedroom door. The parents are now just waiting for this man and Jodine
to come out from the bedroom. After five minutes or so, Mr. Serrin goes back to the room,
and he finds that the man is gone and that his daughter is still laying there. So he goes to check on her.
She's cold to the touch. She has obvious signs of trauma and violence. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The Serrins immediately
contact Carlsbad Police. The 911 operator said to move her off of the bed and onto the floor, to give her CPR,
because she wasn't breathing. It was far too late to breathe life into Jodine. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The officers call for backup,
and the scene is immediately sealed off. ERIC KOVANDA: The police found, when they got to the residence,
was two frantic and distraught parents. They found a horrific crime scene that was evident
that there was violence that had occurred, and they knew that they had a problem.
They knew that this was gonna be a difficult case to work. For the most part, all the common living areas
seemed to be well intact, normal, lived in, didn't look out of place, but as they made their way
through to the bedroom, they found the room had been in disarray. They found Jodine lying there on the floor and a large amount
of blood throughout the room, the bathroom, the walls, and then all across the linens.
GREG KORAN: The window had been covered by the bedding, looks like in an effort to maintain 100% privacy.
No one would be able to see inside that room, what was going on. ERIC KOVANDA: You can see that a full length
mirror had been placed so that he could see what he was doing. The amount of time that this individual spent setting up
things the way he wanted them, covering the windows, moving the mirror, is an aspect to this crime
that was alarming. It was very methodical and calculating in terms of nobody's coming to check on me.
I can take my time with this. I can do whatever I want to do, and the evidence of what it was that he wanted to do was disgusting.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The crime scene yields some clues. GREG KORAN: The evidence techs are gonna
take pictures of everything. With a brutal homicide like this, there is blood at the scene, and so they're going to document
everything as they found it. BRIAN OXMAN: We know that when the victim struggles,
the victim will scratch the assailant. And therefore, you're going to get skin underneath the nails.
What the police will then do is they will bag the hand and cordon it off with a rubber band
so that that skin will not escape or be disturbed. If it does, it will fall into the bag,
and they will not lose the DNA tissue sample. You find blood in various rooms throughout the place.
So this is after bloodshed. He's moving around, um, when she's not. You have a bloody footprint where
his foot is saturated in blood. We found blood in various rooms, fingerprints all
over the linens. GREG KORAN: The other thing that we found was, Jodine would have everybody that came over,
take their shoes off, and leave them by the door. When the subject left in the hurry that he did,
he left his shoes at the scene, so the shoes were still by the front door when we got there.
And obviously, when we take pictures and we collect evidence and find out about what should be there
and what shouldn't, the shoes really stood out. The key part of the investigation
was the DNA that we collected that was attributed to the offender. So, the DNA that was taken from Jodine's body
was able to provide us with that offender's sample that went into CODIS. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): CODIS, or Combined DNA Index Systems,
is the US national database for DNA collected from criminals and from crime scenes.
On a case like this where you have an unidentified male that is now in the wind and nobody knows who this is,
you're-- you're sort of depending on that known sample from the offender that's in CODIS to help you be able
to match that to a suspect. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): But unfortunately for the police,
there is no hit on CODIS. Police know they have to move fast. NERISSA KNIGHT: There was no sign that anyone
forced their way in. Whoever was in there, seemingly, was let in by Jodine. That's another strange twist in the case, you know?
One minute, he's there. The next minute, he's gone. And then, now, you know, the hunt is on for who did it.
And for the bloodline detectives, it will be a long hunt, one in which they rely upon determination and the use
of new forensic weapons. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): In mid-february 2007, Carlsbad,
California police are searching for a killer. The victim had been brutally assaulted.
Her name was Jodine Serrin. NERISSA KNIGHT: Jodine Serrin was 39 years old. She was the daughter of Art and Lois Serrin,
and while she suffered from mental disabilities, she was high functioning. LOIS SERRIN: Jodine had a very thoughtful, loving, sweet
nature about her. She loved going to the beach. She loved ice skating. She-- she loved a lot of things.
She loved the-- her family, is very close with her sisters. Well, Jodine had an affinity for horses.
We tried to keep that up when we moved here from Ohio. She was still dependent on her parents for many things
like rides to all of her appointments, but she lived on her own and had her own apartment
that she kept up very well. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): As the investigation progresses,
circumstances around Jodine's murder began to become more clear. An autopsy was conducted two days later
at the medical examiner's office in San Diego. The ME listed the cause of death as a blunt force trauma
to the head with a contributing factor of strangulation. ERIC KOVANDA: Externally, she had a lot of bruising.
There was definite signs of violence and a horrific struggle. There were also defense wounds on her
where she was trying to put up a fight. ANTHONY JOHNSON: In addition to the signs of a beating,
there were some cuts in Jodine that looked like they were made after Jordan was incapacitated.
The one particular injury was a cut across the throat, which was not enough to cause death.
It looks almost like it was postmortem. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The most horrifying aspect of the case is revealed in autopsy.
BRIAN OXMAN: The Serrin parents arrived at 10 o'clock in the evening on the night of the murder.
The coroner had determined that the death occurred sometime around noon. It had been a long, long time since Jodine had died.
The consequences of that are absolutely chilling. That means that when Art and his wife
walked in on this crime scene, she's been dead for 10 hours. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The killer had
sex with Jodine's dead body. What kind of macabre, horrendous mental disturbance
are we dealing with here? We're dealing with a sick, sick mind, and we're dealing with a sick, sick crime.
Necrophilia is a well-known psychological syndrome of very disturbed, very sick people
who have mental breakdowns going back years and years in their life. Even if the woman was alive, it would disturb me.
But, you know, the fact that Jodine was disabled, the fact that she was dead and he was not, you know-- that--
that was going on, it makes it even worse. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): During questioning,
Jodine's parents give more information. They suggest a suspect. When police questioned Jodine's father, who
got a good look at the suspect, he described him as being 5 foot 8 to 6 feet tall and being chubby,
and he said he thinks he knows who it is. He thought it was a man by the name of Robert Burns,
also developmentally mentally-disabled man whom Jodine was in contact with. He often would be at the bus stop.
They would see each other at their developmentally-disabled activities. ANTHONY JOHNSON: The police spent the first day
of the investigation trying to track down Robert Burns, believing he was the suspect.
They actually put surveillance on his house until the next day when they finally caught
him coming out of the house. They arrested him, brought him down to the station.
Mr. Burns denied any responsibility for the murder. He gave an account of his day, which put him nowhere
near the crime scene, and interestingly enough, they actually found footage of Mr. Burns on a bus in Escondido
at the same time the murder was occurring. We see this in law enforcement a lot.
When somebody is under a tremendous amount of stress and things don't make sense, I think
the mind wants to help you make sense, and so it kind of fills in the blanks. And when we looked into it, we were
able to determine that it was, in fact, not him, and then we're back to square one.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): But police are confident. They do have evidence to go on.
ERIC KOVANDA: One of the curious aspects of the case was a pair of shoes that were left by the front door.
Now, it's customary for Jodine to have her guests take their shoes off at the front door.
There's no forced entry to the condominium. So you have somebody who comes in, takes off their shoes,
and leaves them by the front door, and that would indicate to us that he was welcome.
There was evidence in there that there had been some sort of maybe a meal shared,
that they had maybe spent some time in the living room together. So, you start off with a contact that seems amicable and then
eventually turns horrific. I think when he went in he had ideas of what he wanted,
and there really wasn't anything he was going to be stopped by. BRIAN OXMAN: The police had a description from Mr. Serrin.
They compiled a composite photograph of the assailant. It wasn't all that accurate, but then again,
it was the best they had. We did put that out, hoping someone would be able to say, that looks like somebody I know,
and provide that information to us to give us additional leads. We talked about some of the social circles
that Jodine was in. Obviously, we're gonna look at those people as well. So there were multiple leads that take a lot of time
and effort and resources to go down and not just to see if they're involved, but to prove that they aren't involved
so that we can continue to move forward with the investigation. We received hundreds of tips and people
suggesting that it might be certain individuals, and we followed up on those. And ultimately, all those roads led to nowhere.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): As time goes on, detectives continue to take DNA samples
from potential suspects. BRIAN OXMAN: They didn't know who it was, but what they did have is, they had DNA.
And what you do with that is you go then throughout the community and see if you
can get DNA samples from anyone and everyone who you can get your hands on. Chances are not great that you're
going to find the assailant. What you might find is you might find a relative, a parent,
a child, some kind of familial match with the DNA, which then will lead to the assailant.
GREG KORAN: There were about 60 people that were interviewed and swabbed, and the Carlsbad Police department
took those swabs to a private company to have the testing done. A lot of the initial results just really
didn't allow us to connect any of those samples we took, so this did go on for years.
All of those efforts turned out to be futile. That becomes really frustrating for--
certainly for the family but obviously for us as well. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Despite the very
best efforts of Carlsbad Police, the case eventually goes cold. As the days go by and as the weeks go by
and we don't have a follow up report to say, hey, we've got our guy, we've made an arrest,
there was some distress among the public. They knew that there was a killer on the loose.
The case was highly publicized, and-- and we didn't have results that we wanted to produce to everybody.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police now fear they'll never find the killer of Jodine Serrin.
GREG KORAN: It starts to weigh on you that this might take a lot more time and effort.
And when it starts to go into years, you want to make sure that you keep that hope alive for the family.
This kind of crime in Carlsbad left a horrendous, horrendous impact on the entire community,
and the police couldn't solve it. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] 10 years after her murder, police in Southern California
believed they'd never catch the killer of 39-year-old Jodine Serrin, who was brutally murdered in her Carlsbad
condominium in February 2007. Horrifyingly, it appeared the killer had sex with Jodine's
body after her death. When first responders arrived and they saw the evidence, they determined that Jodine had long been dead.
When her parents walked in and her father thought there was an intimate moment of consensual sex,
Jodine, at that time, have been dead 10 hours or so. This was an act of necrophilia.
ERIC KOVANDA: This case became infamous in San Diego County. You couldn't have a Valentine's Day in San Diego County
without hearing about the unsolved murder of Jodine Serrin. It was an anniversary piece in the news almost yearly.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Over the following decade, using the male DNA found at the scene of Jodine's murder,
police continuously exhaust the national database CODIS but never get a hit. LOIS SERRIN: The Carlsbad Police were outstanding.
They kept in touch with us all the time. And, of course, Art was probably on that phone
every week, kind of making sure they were doing what they should be doing for over 10 years.
They never gave up, and it was important for us to be able to constantly show them that we hadn't given up
either and that we were either working on that or had considered this. We're trying something new.
RYAN OPEKA: Any time you see an act like that, it's tough. It's tough for the officers who are responding.
It's tough for the investigators who have to follow up on the case. And what makes it really difficult
is for the investigators who maintain a relationship with the family, and they end
up feeling that family's pain. ERIC KOVANDA: There were periods of time where it became really difficult to have to tell them,
hey, we have nothing new here. We have exhausted all those leads. We've looked into all those things, you know?
We're-- we're now in a position where we're waiting for technology to advance. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives now decide
on an alternative approach. NERISSA KNIGHT: They needed something. They needed to bring answers and results to their community.
The technology advanced to open up this new possibility for us. So then, it became my job to try to figure out, OK,
how do we capitalize on this opportunity to successfully resolve this case? Some of our detectives attended a conference
and became aware of Parabon NanoLabs and some of the technology that they were rolling out with regards
to analyzing offender DNA and coming up with the suspect profile. It was a company who could do phenotyping,
and what phenotype is basically is, you can determine additional information about your suspect
from the evidence at the scene. And interestingly enough, you can actually generate a picture
of what the person looks like. It's not an exact photo, but it's a likeness. This is extraordinary.
They take the phenotype, which is different from the genotype. The genotype is the structure of the DNA.
The phenotype of the DNA is the result, the hair color, the eye color, the structure of the face.
The computer takes the DNA off of the chromosome, and they do a statistical analysis
of thousands of DNA samples. Each time that this particular allele is present, the person has blonde hair, and then they
go to a different allele on the chromosome. When this allele is present, they have dark skin
or they have green eyes or they have red hair. When you do this statistically, you
can come up with a description of the assailant. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The analysis comes up
with some possibilities. ERIC KOVANDA: What it's able to do for us is it's able to tell us, OK, listen.
Your offender is going to have a fair complexion. Your offenders are going to have light colored eyes favoring
the green, the blue range. Your offender is going to have dirty blond hair and freckles.
Parabon was able to give us a narrow field of potential offenders and gave us a list of about seven or eight names
based upon the DNA profile. One of those names was David Mabrito. His last name indicated that he was from more
of a Mediterranean area by descent and that he likely wasn't of Northern European descent,
and therefore, we can put him at a lower priority on the list. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators here
about Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick, who practices a different method of DNA analysis.
She has developed a methodology where she can look at Y-STR DNA, which is the male side of the DNA.
COLLEEN FITZPATRICK: What I wanted to find was the killer's last name. I have proprietary software that I can put
that [INAUDIBLE] profile into. It's like a numbers game. It's like a bingo game, and I take that.
I run my software against, looking for matches in the genetic genealogy Y-STR databases.
She tested our material and came up with the possible last name of a Miracle or Markelle
or something similar to that. So we found a number of subjects that matched that name, but none of them were lining up
with the timeline of our crime. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Another disappointment leads
investigators to wonder, will they ever get the break they're waiting for? In April of 2018, when the Golden State Killer
case was solved, that changed the landscape for law enforcement. That created a brand new opportunity for us.
Barbara Rae-Venter was the genealogist that helped that team. Once we started that process with her,
it was literally a matter of weeks until we were in a position to know who was responsible for this crime.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Barbara Rae-Venter uploads the killer's DNA onto an ancestry website called
GEDmatch with the name Miracle, and through complex analysis, narrows down the list to one person.
ERIC KOVANDA: I was at my desk working, and I got a call from her. And she said, you're never going to believe it.
I found a match. Barbara was a miracle worker in that she came up with the name David Mabrito.
If you remember, you've heard David Mabrito before, but it was put on the back burner
because it didn't sound Northern European. What Barbara found that others hadn't found at this stage was
that there were several adoptions that took place in the Miracle family, and whenever
you have adoptions taking place, last names change. The DNA doesn't change. So even though there were-- the names were different,
the DNA remain the same. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police now need to know just who is David Mabrito.
David Mabrito was a Meth-addicted transient who lived in the North County area, and he had
relatives in the Carlsbad area. He was known to law enforcement, and he was actually
suspected in other crimes. He seemed to basically be a drifter. He was not a particularly productive man.
He spent a lot of time, I guess, surfing, going to the beach, just hanging out. ERIC KOVANDA: He had this ongoing battle with addiction
to methamphetamines and, you know, maybe some other lower level drugs. Anytime that you have an addiction
and then you have a lack of structure, that creates opportunity for you to be pulled in the direction of, you know,
whatever darkness is occurring in your life, and I think that that's, you know, kind of where we ended up here with him,
at that stage of his life. Why would anybody first, you know, rape and kill a woman--
that's the first question-- but also a disabled woman, you know, a woman like that who probably could
not defend herself that well? Why would he do that? [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police now
believe they have their man. We began to close in very quickly on confirming that our offender was, in fact, David Mabrito's DNA,
and that represented the challenge for us. We were cautiously optimistic, but we
still needed to verify it. So we needed to find out or get Mabrito's DNA sample.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): But David Mabrito turns out to be beyond the reach of law enforcement.
ANTHONY JOHNSON: Unfortunately, he had committed suicide in 2011, so he was no longer available to test.
We had a medical examiner's report that we reviewed, and it showed that he had overdosed
on drugs during a weekend when his family was out of town. The medical examiner's office no longer
had a sample to work with. So now, you're trying to get comparisons that you can use for that confirmation.
It's one more frustrating development for the bloodline detectives, but neither this development
nor the many years that have passed will stop them. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]
In 2017, following an investigation of nearly a decade, police in Carlsbad, California,
investigating the Valentine's Day 2007 murder of a 39-year-old Jodine Serrin, finally
believed they had their man. Using revolutionary DNA techniques, investigators have identified David Mabrito as the killer.
NERISSA KNIGHT: Police start looking for this David Mabrito. They realized he's dead.
He was a transient who killed himself in 2011. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Once again, genetic genealogy will
give them the break they need. So whenever you're working with forensic genealogy,
you not only look up the family tree, but you also want to look down the family tree.
And we found that David Mabrito had committed suicide in 2011. However, he still had some relatives that
were living and in the area. So we decided to reach out to those relatives to see if they could cooperate with our investigation.
We said, we're here investigating this case. We think that the offender is a relative,
and we would like to get your DNA to see if we can either include or exclude this line of the family as being involved.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Mabrito's relatives are understandably shocked. They were horrified at the thought
that any of their family members might be involved in it, and they're willing to do whatever we asked them to do.
I knew right then and there that we were getting close to successfully resolving this case.
They found that, in fact, this child whose name was Mabrito was in fact a familial match of the father, David Mabrito
and now, they had hit pay dirt. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police are now able to finally piece together the tragic events
of Valentine's Day 2007. ERIC KOVANDA: My belief is that while he was there, he used methamphetamines.
And then, he went into this sexual deviance, and he ended up committing this murder.
And then, he continued with the sexual deviance and carried out these fantasies of his
or whatever the case may have been, feeling like he had all the time in the world
to do whatever he wanted. BRIAN OXMAN: The psychological syndrome of necrophilia
is so disturbing, and the individuals who engage in that kind of conduct are so defective in their mental and psychological makeup.
It's hard to tell whether or not this was a spur-of-the-moment killing, or it was premeditated.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): And an incredible twist, detectives will soon learn why Mabrito took his own life.
He had matched the description of a suspect in another crime, completely unrelated.
ERIC KOVANDA: The officer, using good proactive police work, said, you know, you matched the description of the suspect
in a bulletin. Would you mind, you know, giving me your DNA? And he said, yes. So the officer swabbed him, took some pictures of him,
and let him go on his way. It was almost unbelievable that that series of events
would happen because that's-- it just-- it's not an everyday traffic stop or contact to take DNA from someone.
David was ruled out as a suspect for the bank robbery, and that sample that the patrol officer from Oceanside
collected never made its way into the CODIS database. That then rang bells in the investigators.
Where is that DNA sample? Does it still exist? Bells are ringing for the bloodline detectives.
Are they going to find the elusive sample and finally prove the identity of Jodine Serrin's killer?
[MUSIC PLAYING] In 2017, Carlsbad Police discovered that their lead suspect for the 2007 murder of Jodine Serrin, David Mabrito,
had been swabbed by another police department shortly before his death. ERIC KOVANDA: I contacted that agency,
and I found that they still had the swab, and we were able to take that down to the lab for confirmation.
And so, when you have that known sample from your offender and you're comparing that to the known offender's sample
from a crime scene, then that's the best case scenario. They analyzed it and, by gum, that DNA sample
was a complete, perfect match to the DNA which had been left at the crime scene by way of blood,
by way of semen. The likelihood of there being a false positive here, that there being a mistake was 1 in 64 quintillion.
That's one with-- I think it's 10 zeros behind it. They had found their man, and this match was as good as gold.
We'd known we were close, and we'd known that David was the killer. But we didn't have that last confirmation that
says we can now tell this family, we know who did this to your daughter. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives visit Art and Lois
Serrin to give them the news they've waited for for a decade. When they came over to our house,
it was like, no, this can't be. It's been going on so long, and we thought it was just
impossible to solve the case. So we were just overwhelmed, and it really took a couple of days
before it really settled in. They gave us a name. They showed us a picture, but it was just--
it was just almost too much to handle at that time. It just-- it just took a while to really understand
that they really found the person that did this horrific crime. I felt an anger that it took this long,
but I was relieved that this is finally identified. That was a good feeling. We felt that this finally solved the case.
It was mixed emotion. You could see that they were-- they were happy that they had
an answer, but I think it brought back a lot of the pain that they had been feeling over the last 11 years.
GREG KORAN: Once they heard the whole story about what the investigation entailed, their first question
was, how's Dylan? Because they knew that it would affect him. To see the humanity in the Serrin's at a time
of telling them, we know who killed your daughter, was very emotional. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The horror of his crime
shattered two families. ANTHONY JOHNSON: Marisa is a very nice lady, and she was appalled, I think, that someone
she knew, that had been married to could do such a crime. She had also kind of blamed herself maybe
over the years for David's suicide, thinking that it was something she did. It was kind of a relief for her to finally know
that the reason that he killed himself had nothing to do with her, but it was rather
something that he had done. I think, about a week after the mouth swab was taken,
David killed himself. ERIC KOVANDA: The timing of that for us is very telling, because you had years of an unsolved investigation that was
constantly in the media on Valentine's Day, which he couldn't have missed. He had to know that we were still looking.
And now, we have his DNA, and so, for me, that picture became very clear that he knew the jig was up.
[MUSIC PLAYING] ANTHONY JOHNSON: The moment that stands out for me was the willingness of the Mabrito's, Dylan
and Marisa, to help us out on this case even though, in essence, what they were doing
is they were identifying Dylan's dad is a stone cold murderer. The courage that Marisa and Dylan displayed and saying
that they wanted to meet the Serrin's and they wanted to apologize and that they wanted
to be a part of their lives as well was really powerful, really moving. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): For the investigators,
the case has become a very emotional experience. RYAN OPEKA: Dylan and Marisa remind
me a lot of me and my mom, so-- so to see them dealing with a lot of this, it's, uh, it's just been impressive to see them handle
themselves the way that they have and to see a single mom and a young man conduct themselves this way.
It's-- it's been pretty remarkable. That kind of reinvigorates my faith in humanity,
that there's people still out there that can do the right thing even though it may be to their detriment.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): This case is a testament to the extraordinary dedication
of all the officers involved. NERISSA KNIGHT: I think it's remarkable that the investigators never gave up.
They stayed on this for the family. They cared about the pain that that father and mother went
through knowing what was going on inside that bedroom of their little girl. [MUSIC PLAYING]
GREG KORAN: It's not that we closed the case. It's that we provided the best possible outcome for the family
that we could. First, I have a picture of her in our living room that I-- I talk to her every day, and I think about--
well, she did so many beautiful things, so many wonderful memories, that she used to write letters or send cards to family or friends.
And she'd always add a poem that she would make up, and it always started out with, roses are red.
Violets are blue. And it could be sugar is sweet, and God is always with you, something like that, which
I thought was just endearing. And that was-- that was Jody, sweet. Genetic genealogy solved the Jodine Serrin's murder.
And as horrible as that was, in this case, it did something else. It brought together two families,
the Serrins and the Mabritos. They were bridged by an atrocity, yet they spent a moment together bonding in their own humanity.
Perhaps, this was an even bigger triumph for the "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]

Brief Summary

Jodine Serrin's murder was solved through genetic genealogy, identifying David Mabrito as the killer after a decade-long investigation.

Key points

The Golden State Killer Identified. Joseph James DeAngelo was identified as the Golden State Killer after decades of hiding.
Jodine Serrin's Murder. On Valentine's Day 2007, Jodine Serrin was found murdered in her apartment.
A Chilling Discovery. Jodine's parents unknowingly walked in on the aftermath of her murder.
The Crime Scene. The police found a horrific crime scene with signs of violence and a methodical killer.
The Case Goes Cold. Despite efforts, the investigation into Jodine's murder eventually goes cold.
The DNA Breakthrough. Investigators narrow down suspects using advanced DNA analysis, leading to David Mabrito.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

We're dealing with a sick, sick mind.

2:10WatchApr 1, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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