Bloodline Detectives - Episode 16 - A Life Stolen | Forensic Files

Tonight, a traumatic case in Utah where a grandmother surprised in her home by an intruder
and bludgeoned to death. It's October 7, 2011. Tooele City PD in Utah get an emergency call.
It was overkill. I mean, 14 times to a 69-year-old lady. NANCY GRACE: The victim is a beloved grandmother,
and her brutal murder rocks the small Utah community. I think people were a little--
a little nervous and a little scared. GARY SEARLE: People wanted to go to bed at night safe,
and you'd had a violent murder. And people just didn't feel safe. NANCY GRACE: A large scale investigation is launched
and forensic evidence uncovers a number of leads. Early on we were just taking DNA samples from anybody
that would consent to one. SUZANNE MILES: You know, it makes you scratch your head
that a person who was capable of committing such a heinous act wasn't in the system yet.
NANCY GRACE: Years pass and fears grow the case will never be solved. But determined detectives keep testing new methods.
Any time someone called, they would follow that lead, but those leads were becoming fewer and fewer and fewer.
All we had was an unknown male's DNA. This is the story of the senseless murder of Evelynne
Derricott and how her killer eventually becomes another successful target of investigators, investigators using ground
breaking forensic science. I'm Nancy Grace. This is the "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
It's October 7, 2011. Tooele City PD in Utah get an emergency call. There was a distraught lady.
When she opened the front door, she was able to see Ms. Derricott's body. It was kind of blocking the front door so it wouldn't open
all the way and on the stairs. NANCY GRACE: Patrol officers soon arrive at the two-story residential home.
CHRIS THOMPSON: It's a little bit older of a neighborhood. The house is probably built in the '70s.
Most of the homes are split entry homes. So you walk into a landing and you can either
go downstairs or upstairs. She was kind of in the fetal position at the base of the stairs.
LONNIE COLLINGS: They observed some blood and some signs that made them believe that this may have been something
of a suspicious nature. And they backed out and got hold of the investigations division.
NANCY GRACE: The scene is cordoned off and detectives and crime scene investigators
began a walk through. We started looking for any type of evidence that could answer as to why this woman was deceased
at the bottom of the stairs. We didn't know if maybe she fell down the stairs, hit her head.
Obviously, we thought things looked suspicious. GARY SEARLE: They began to take pictures.
They began to look if things were disturbed, if things obviously were missing. Things out of the ordinary moved from dust, you know.
There might have been something sitting there in the dust around or would show that it had been moved.
Because they didn't know exactly what they were looking for. The forensics teams start to sweep of the house
while detectives contact the victim's family. I was at my husband's work, and the phone
rang at his office. And he answered it. And I could tell something was off. And I just sat there and was looking at him.
And I whispered, it's about my mom, isn't it? And he just shook his head yes. And I said, she's dead, isn't she?
And he just shook his head yes. I remember I didn't even cry at the time. But then when I went home to get ready, I just felt lost.
I didn't even know where to start to how to pack a bag to go to Tooele to talk to the police or anything.
I just was numb. CANDICE SLAUGH: Actually, I called my husband and told him what happened when school got
out and headed home to get him. We met my sister and her husband in Tooele. Well, when we got to Tooele, we were supposed
to go to the police station. So we did. And then they said that we couldn't go to the house.
NANCY GRACE: The medical examiner's team arrives at the home and undertakes an examination of the body before moving it for autopsy.
GARY SEARLE: Her body was handled in a manner that was respectful to her but also preserved the evidence.
What evidence there might be in order to move forward with the prosecution. Her hands, her feet were bagged.
They took great care to not really move her in order to not lose any evidence that might be on her body.
LONNIE COLLINGS: And then the body was removed and sent to the medical examiner's office.
NANCY GRACE: Despite all the clutter, forensics gather crucial evidence in their initial sweep
of the home. There wasn't a lot of blood on the scene, but her hoodie was soaked in blood.
GARY SEARLE: They located a hammer, a ball-peen hammer at the top of the stairs.
And one of the officers noticed that it appeared to have blood on it. So that obviously was photographed
and immediately taken into custody, bagged correctly so that it would preserve that evidence.
And they found that her vehicle and her cell phone were missing. CANDICE SLAUGH: We asked them if there is anything that we could
help them do because they had to go back into the house and dust for fingerprints
and collect evidence. And they had told us that we could try and go to the phone
carrier and try and find out what we could about her phone, her cell phone. CHRIS THOMPSON: Initially, I thought that maybe somebody had
tried to break in, you know, Ms. Derricott had walked up on whoever it was breaking the house, whether she came home
and they were in the house. And that's what startled the intruder, and then that's when she was killed.
LONNIE COLLINGS: At the time, they believed that this person had entered through the back
sliding door in the kitchen. CHRIS THOMPSON: It was unlocked so we believe that's how
he came into the house. NANCY GRACE: Knowing the killer is likely an intruder, detectives need to quickly determine if Evelynne
was a targeted victim. GARY SEARLE: He didn't want to be caught, and he grabbed a hammer the way that we believe was laying
at the top of the stairs. And he put an end to her being able to recognize him. I always wondered if she just surprised somebody
and they panicked. There are so many unanswered questions. Did the victim know her killer?
Did he target her? Next, "Bloodline Detectives" began the painstaking search for Evelynne Derricott's killer.
[MUSIC PLAYING] October 2011, police in Tooele, Utah investigate the gruesome murder of the grandmother
Evelynne Derricott. CANDICE SLAUGH: My dad passed away in '97, so she'd been a widow for quite a while.
NANCY GRACE: So who was Evelynne? And could she have crossed paths with her killer?
She loved to crochet. She loved her cats. Growing up, we raised Persian cats. And so she absolutely loved Persian cats.
She was a caring person. She did, you know, she did care for people. She didn't-- she wasn't somebody who would just hide, you know.
She did interact with people. She liked to help people. She liked to be able to do things for other people.
And they always remembered who she was. There was one boy that lives-- he's not a boy anymore.
He's older than I am. But he lived around the corner and called her mom for years.
GARY SEARLE: She had very few friends, but the friends she had were close to her.
Never any complaints, never any police calls, never any issues with the neighbors.
The neighbors all seem to like her. She was quiet. She just was a very sweet typical elderly lady.
SCOTT BROADHEAD: The daughters had already been married, lived outside of the area.
I was very close to my mom. She was my best friend. NANCY GRACE: As investigators interview the family,
the autopsy is carried out. Two of our officers attended the autopsy. The results were that she died from blunt force trauma.
So they shaved her head where we are able to see the number and the kind of severity of the injuries.
They cut back the scalp to check the skull. We're able to see multiple skull fractures.
CATHLYNN GARDINER: She had a jacket on that had a hood, and the hood had been pulled over her head
because there was holes in the hood that would coincide with the spots on her head.
CHRIS THOMPSON: It was soaked. That's why there wasn't much blood on the scene because all the blood had actually ended
up soaking into the sweatshirt. GARY SEARLE: I don't believe she fought back, because I believe
and I think the police believe she was surprised. She was caught off guard. And probably the first hit would have rendered her unconscious.
SCOTT BROADHEAD: The only thing you could think of is the possibilities where someone is either very vicious
or someone who was scared to death [CHUCKLES] and just was out of control, because it was completely--
I guess the best way to say it, it was overkill. I mean, 14 times to a 69-year-old lady.
GARY SEARLE: These were horrible wounds. They were delivered with such force that her skull was cracked open.
Not just where the hammer hit, but the skull was cracked open from the base of the skull towards the top.
It was violent. It was vicious. NANCY GRACE: Given Evelynne's age and the fact the attack
happened in her home, there is deep shock and concern in the community. CHRIS THOMPSON: That's a pretty quiet
small town, 35,000 people. LONNIE COLLINGS: It's a working class community, mostly.
A bedroom community. We have a large amount of our population drives into Salt Lake for work.
GARY SEARLE: I think it's a safe place. It's a nice place to raise your children.
It's quiet. It's peaceful. There are not a lot of murders. Prior to right now in the 22 years
I've been a prosecutor there, I think I've handled five or six. CHRIS THOMPSON: To have somebody killed, especially somebody
that was at home minding their own business, just an elderly lady home alone, I think people were a little
nervous and a little scared. NANCY GRACE: Under pressure to catch a killer quickly,
detectives canvassed the area, searching for Evelynne's stolen car. Investigators initially canvassed
the area, the neighborhood, where 410 Havasu is. They spoke with as many people as they could.
They checked for local video surveillance. The police could not find Ms. Derricott's cell phone.
They tried calling it. There was no response. It was not located in the home. It was not located in the garage.
So they obtained a warrant, and they began to get triangulations on the cell phone
to tell them where the cell phone was at. The cell phone was pinged to an area in the Western Salt Lake
Valley. So they began to canvas the area. They were calling the phone randomly. And they were being very judicious
about that because they figured the phone was sitting out in the open, in the elements.
It had been a few days, so you didn't want to lose the battery. So they weren't just calling it and calling it and calling it
because they were fearful that the phone might die, and they might not find it. CHRIS THOMPSON: Fortunately, the phone battery
was a pretty robust battery. So every so often we'd make a phone call to the phone number
to see if we could hear ringing. And ultimately, that's how we found it. Somebody thrown it in some bushes and left it there.
It was submitted into evidence, and nothing of any type of evidentiary value was found on the phone.
NANCY GRACE: With the phone a dead end, police make another important discovery.
When we got the area where the cell phone was last located, ultimately, that's how we found the car.
Her car was parked next to a home in the area, was parked on a street to the side of the home
where there a fence. So the homeowner wouldn't have been concerned. It wasn't parked in front of somebody's home.
CHRIS THOMPSON: There was some shoe prints on the scene that were of small size shoe.
We found some matching shoe prints on the hood of the car. The seat was slid really close to the steering wheel, which
kind of matched our theory, because this small size of the shoes, we believe it was a juvenile, somebody
maybe 13 or 14 years old. The officers take the car and evidence and process it and so forth.
And they take the-- they take the steering wheel off the car and send it into the crime lab to see if they get any DNA
matches off the steering wheel. There was a male DNA that was found on the hammer,
and there was male DNA that was found on the steering wheel. So we had a male profile.
NANCY GRACE: As detectives check juvenile records, the forensic report arrives with the results from the hammer.
The hammer head the blood was a single source and typed and matched the victim. The hammer handle was a mixture of two individuals.
They had DNA from Evelynne, and then the only other they could pull out was a male.
JAY HENRY: The profile was entered into CODIS. And typically, this unfortunately happens
sometimes, where it just stops. You know, there's no match. There's no association.
CODIS is a database administered by the FBI. It's a national DNA database system that takes crime scene
profiles and takes known profiles from offenders and puts them into one repository
that states can search against. SUZANNE MILES: It's curious, you know. It makes you scratch your head that a person who
was capable of committing such a heinous act wasn't in the system yet, hadn't committed or been caught
and had been caught for any other crime. So it was-- it had me scratching my head a little bit.
NANCY GRACE: With no leads from the database, officers start a mass swab campaign.
GARY SEARLE: They began to put together a list of individuals who may have committed crimes in the past, such as burglaries
or violent crimes, individuals who had recently been released from prison who may have committed crimes
similar to this, not so much the murder but burglaries or breaking and entering, those type of things.
They took those samples from those individuals, immediately sent them to the crime lab.
The crime lab immediately processed those because we're dealing, again, with a heinous murder.
SCOTT BROADHEAD: They really very much shooting in the dark because they really didn't have really any leads.
And as I kept talking to individuals, nobody seemed to know really what happened.
So they would hope they talked to one person who had maybe heard something from somebody else
and had started giving them some leads as to where to take the case. But they just kept hitting dead ends.
For now, disappointment for investigators. The killer evades detection. But next, "Bloodline Detectives" break open
the case with new groundbreaking forensic science. SCOTT BROADHEAD: We have finally got a pool of people
to look at. It's like we've narrowed down this mass of suspect pool to a small pool.
And I thought, well, if they've got somebody, then we have something we can do now.
I mean, we have somewhere to search. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: By 2014, Tooele police in Utah
exhaust all the leads and the murder of a 69-year-old grandmother, Evelynne Derricott, beaten dead with a hammer three years earlier.
She was coming out a little set of stairs. And he was at the top of the stairs, and she had a jacket with a hood on.
And he pulled the hood over her head and started hitting her with a hammer. This wasn't just one blow to the head and run.
This was repeated 14 times. And it was quite vicious. NANCY GRACE: Looking for a new approach,
investigators learned of an advanced crime-solving technique, familial DNA searching.
It was just a bit of luck, I guess. I was at a training where some of the analysts that work
at the crime lab were there. And I happened to be familiar with one of them, went
to college with one of them. Him and his colleagues were talking and thought that this case might be one
that they would be able to use this new forensic familial DNA for. SCOTT BROADHEAD: It was kind of one
of those things where you're like, well, maybe that'll work. And so we contacted the state crime lab
and asked about to get more information on it and whether it would be possible for them
to do a familial DNA search. The way DNA works as you get a crime scene sample and you get a comparison sample, and they match.
The difference with familial test is that you take the crime scene sample and now you're saying,
we don't have a sample. Doesn't match the victim, doesn't match consent partners.
So it's just this unknown sample. Is there more information there that we can get?
And the question is, potentially, if you take that sample and searched against a known database of samples, for me,
it was sort of the next step in the evolution of DNA testing to be able to provide not just a resolution
to the case, but if the case hadn't been resolved, to be able to provide some forensic intelligence
to the investigators. GARY SEARLE: Familial DNA had not been used in Utah to this point.
The crime lab was very concerned about the legalities of it. They were very concerned about Fourth Amendment searches
and conducting this random search into a database. They were very concerned about the privacy
rights of the person it would have matched familial to. We sat down in the crime lab with the crime lab individuals,
the police department, myself, and worked through how this would happen and the steps we would
take to ensure that this DNA could be used in the future and that we weren't going to create bad loss, so to speak.
NANCY GRACE: With legalities resolved, a familial search run on the database and immediately comes up with a hit
SCOTT BROADHEAD: There was someone in the system that had a familial DNA match to our suspect.
LONNIE COLLINGS: They provided us with a name, a name of a relative to our suspect.
JAY HENRY: That's kind of the idea that familial test is to kind of just jumpstart the investigation and get them to find
another potential lead for us to take DNA samples from and potentially link up. GARY SEARLE: They told us, the name we're about to give you is
within one or two generations from the person you are looking for. SCOTT BROADHEAD: We have finally got a pool of people
to look at. I mean, it's like we've narrowed down this mass of suspect pool to a small pool.
And we thought, well, if they've got somebody, then we have something we can do now.
I mean, we have somewhere to search and have some direction. And that was just really--
that was just really exciting. Officers now start to build out the family tree to identify a suspect.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] It hit to a very close family member. And then further down the list, to another close family member.
And then a little further down, another. So now they've got the last name. They needed to take this individual,
and they needed to create a family tree. And that family tree had to be complete.
It was either going to be a brother. It was going to be a father. It was going to be a grandfather.
It was going to be an uncle or possibly a cousin, but that's as far out as they really needed
to look from this individual. So it took some time. It took a lot of investigation in order to put
this family tree together. And they just started building the case and building the case so they could
substantiate who it is that they would need to get DNA from. GARY SEARLE: So they had narrowed it down.
And they narrowed it down to an individual who they had researched, who they'd investigated,
looked on social media. This personal was smaller. This person fit the physical profile as far as the shoe
prints, as far as the things they were looking for, this person fit that. They didn't have a DNA sample.
So now they get to go after that. NANCY GRACE: With the suspect identified, investigators now need clearance from the DA
to retrieve further confirmation he's the killer. GARY SEARLE: We didn't have at that moment probable cause
to get a warrant to just go take his DNA. We decided and they decided it would be best to try and get
a profile off of something he would have left behind, something he had used, touched, where
the right to privacy, the expectation of privacy no longer existed. The process is grab some discarded DNA from your suspect
and bring that DNA sample to us. We'll do the test. If it matches, then we'll take those DNA samples
and you can write a search warrant and get us a blood sample or a saliva sample from your suspect.
And we'll test it and match it up against the crime scene sample. Unable to get a warrant, "Bloodline Detectives"
don't give up. As we see next, they use stealth methods to get the DNA they need desperately.
2014 and at Tooele, Utah, "Bloodline Detectives" have a dilemma. They need DNA evidence from a suspect brought
to light by familial DNA. But they don't have enough evidence for a warrant. There just might be a way, however,
to get that DNA from the suspect more discreetly. We needed to actually develop probable cause to get a warrant
from real regular police work. CHRIS THOMPSON: We set up some traffic stops to try to get, you know, citation science
if we get a DNA off of [INAUDIBLE].. LONNIE COLLINGS: We surveilled his home or the places
he was staying for many weeks. CHRIS THOMPSON: was a tattoo artist so we would talk to him about getting tattoos
or what kind of work he does. LONNIE COLLINGS: Some of the detectives or myself would
dress as if we were homeless and had sat outside the apartment complex he was known to frequent.
We commonly used attractive females so that guys are more willing to talk. We followed him to local restaurants.
CHRIS THOMPSON: We had a person that was going to go meet with him and talk to him about tattoos
and hopefully have lunch or coffee or something like that so that we could obtain a drink straw, or a cup, or a utensil,
or something like that that would have a high probability of DNA. We had some detectives that followed him from his house
to a job site. He was working masonry works. LONNIE COLLINGS: Some of the detectives
met with the manager of the apartment complex and asked if we could use an empty apartment, one
that faced where the wall was being constructed. We're able to watch his actions as he spent the day working.
GARY SEARLE: They were just hoping, right, were just waiting to get that DNA sample that's legal.
He left for lunch one day. And when he left for lunch, he discarded his gloves under a tree.
He went over to his work truck. And he had a Rockstar energy drink. And he took that drink, and he was drinking it
as he walked over to the truck. And when he got to the truck, he took that one last swallow that you take at the end
of a canned beverage. And he set that down next to his truck. So when he drove off, we went and picked up the can.
GARY SEARLE: Once he abandons it, it's in a public place. It's a free for all. This was the holy grail to us.
He's come into a lab right away. That's the first thing they want in us. We need this tested.
And so they would brought it to us. We were checking into the evidence, run the test.
Called them back probably the same day. They were able to verify and confirm that the DNA on the can
was the same that was on the hammer and the steering wheel of Mr. Derricott's car.
JAY HENRY: Anytime you have new technology, they're always a wonder. There's always saying in the back of your mind is like,
will this work? You know, will we be able to provide that? And so the first thing I thought, well, wow.
It worked. NANCY GRACE: So who is this suspected killer investigators have identified?
LONNIE COLLINGS: His name is Rogelio Diaz Jr. People described him as being someone
who was kind of a wannabe gang member but never really a gang member. GARY SEARLE: He had a girlfriend and kids.
A young man that is very small in stature. He claims to be 5 foot. His information from jail records
has him listed at 4 foot 11". His father and a couple of his brothers had been deported back to Mexico,
but he was actually born in the States. But his older siblings and parents were from Mexico.
We could never get any type of real history, work history from him. It appeared that he would work for temporary agencies that
would give him temporary work. At the time of the homicide, lived with another sister
here in Tooele. He'd gone from job to job, didn't really have a steady job, so just kind of bounced
around, stayed with friends. Police must ensure that Rogelio Diaz Jr. doesn't flee,
and they start planning his arrest. GARY SEARLE: Across the street from his home is a grocery
store where he and the individual who is with him stopped, we assume, to either get breakfast
or to get lunch for the day. When they stopped at that grocery store, West Valley City Police made a stop upon him.
The Tooele City detectives then came in and took custody of him. CHRIS THOMPSON: We let him know that he
needed to come in and talk to us regarding a case. He was 4 and 1/2 years after it happened
before he was even arrested. We were not in Tooele City police cars. And none of our police stuff that we were wearing indicated
Tooele city at the time. They didn't want him knowing that it was Tooele. The element of surprise is still there,
because he didn't know at that moment when he was put in the police car that it concerned Ms. Derricott.
He didn't know that until he got to the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office. NANCY GRACE: So did Diaz know Evelynne Derricott?
And if so, why did he kill her? He told us that on one occasion, he had gone over
and asked her if he could help her with her groceries out of her car and she declined.
So I believe when she looked at him and he looked at her, he panicked. To look at him, he looked like he was, I guess you'd say,
gang related, but they didn't say he was gang related. Police have a prime suspect in Evelynne
Derricott's murder in custody, but can they make the case stick? That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
[MUSIC PLAYING] In May 2016, Tooele PD finally have Rogelio Diaz in custody for the vicious murder of 69-year-old Evelynne
Derricott in 2011. Their interview with him is crucial. Can they get a confession?
He never freaked out. He never, at that point, got angry. He never showed his hand.
He was very calm. And they began with asking him about his relationships in Tooele, if he had any reason to be in Tooele.
And these are answers they already knew. They asked him if he had ever done any work inside
of anyone's home in Tooele, if he would have any reason to be in anyone's home in Tooele.
And he said he didn't and there was no reason he would have been in anyone's home in Tooele.
We wanted to eliminate any alibis he might have for being in her house. At that point, they pull out the photographs.
They pull out photograph of Ms. Derricott. GARY SEARLE: They then begin to present
him with the DNA evidence. GARY SEARLE: They tell him that we have your DNA at the scene.
You knew he is setting himself up, and they had-- they had him, and he didn't know it.
SCOTT BROADHEAD: You had very much the attitude of, you know, of, you can't get me,
'you don't have anything on me' type of attitude. As I was watching him, he was in that room
alone while the police were talking amongst ourselves. And he just sat there stoic for a couple of minutes.
And to me, it was defeat. They've got me. I'm not walking away from this. You could see it just from common human behavior.
We charged him with murder. We charged him with aggravated burglary, being the fact that he entered someone's home,
and there was a death caused by him in that home. NANCY GRACE: From evidence from the crime scene,
detectives pieced together the events of that fateful night. I believe he had watched her.
I believe he knew she lived alone. I believe he knew she was elderly, knew her comings
and goings. I believed when he went into that home, he was there to burglarize the home.
I believe that he came in through that back sliding door and Ms. Derricott was downstairs.
She heard a noise or a disturbance upstairs, came to see what it was and confronted Rogelio
on the stairs leading upstairs. And that's when the altercation occurred. And he used the hammer and hit her on the head.
Tooele PD and the prosecution start prepping for trial. But on the Eve of trial, Diaz's attorney makes an announcement.
I get notice from his attorney on Friday. The trial's starting Monday, and he's going
to take the plea agreement. The plea agreement would be that he pleads guilty to aggravated burglary, which carries a lifetime
sentence at the Utah State Prison and that he would be willing to plead to manslaughter, which carries a 15-year sentence
at the Utah State Prison. CATHLYNN GARDINER: I wanted him to go to trial to have it done,
but I didn't know if I could sit through a whole week. I think when you're in those type situations,
I think one of things you're looking for when you're a victim is someone just at least to say they're sorry.
And he didn't give any of that, nothing at all. NANCY GRACE: Rogelio Diaz is finally behind bars.
But what kind of a person is he? I don't even know if I have words to describe him.
My sister said "lost" and I kind of agree. He's got to be lost. I would describe him as a young man
that has little man syndrome. He's very antagonistic and kind of aggressive. And I believe he probably developed
those attributes for having-- out of self-preservation growing up in a rough area
and being as small as he is. NANCY GRACE: Officers that worked tirelessly to solve the murder can finally close
the case after nearly a decade. GARY SEARLE: Was I personally satisfied? Absolutely.
The hard work of the police department had paid off. The hard work of the crime lab had paid off.
The hard work on behalf of this family had paid off. There was relief it was over.
You like to say you can block things off, but you don't. You carry these type of things with you.
I know officers do and prosecutors do. You carry this stuff. And it was so much relief to feel like we had done it well.
We had done it right. We had done it the right way. We felt relieved that it was over,
that we were able to provide some closure to the Derricott family. Absolutely honored.
NANCY GRACE: Would Rogelio have committed another crime in the future? Who knows.
But forensics caught up with him before he ever had a chance. We had been chasing a ghost.
We had nothing to go on. We were taking shots in the dark, hoping that we would at some point
stumble across our suspect that had the same match, same DNA. GARY SEARLE: Without that familial DNA,
I, as the prosecutor, do not believe this case would have been solved. NANCY GRACE: Justice has been served.
But for Evelynne Derricott's family, there is no justice. They must live with her loss for the rest of their lives.
CANDICE SLAUGH: a way people are like well you've got closure. I'm like, well, we do to a point,
but it's just a new chapter that's been opened up. It's not really the end of the book.
I won't do me any good to hold a grudge. To an extent, I probably could say that it's not something
that rules every day of my life, but it's not going to be, you know-- it's always going to be there.
I guess as much closure as you can have, but it's never going to go away. When I hugged them, I told them your closure
can start to begin. Whether that ever fully happens, I don't know. But I believe--
I believe, I hope and pray that they started to heal. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Brief Summary

The episode details the murder of Evelynne Derricott and the investigation leading to Rogelio Diaz Jr.'s arrest through advanced forensic techniques.

Key points

A Gruesome Murder. Evelynne Derricott, a beloved grandmother, is brutally murdered in her home.
Investigation Launched. Tooele City PD begins a large-scale investigation into the murder.
Familial DNA Search. Investigators turn to familial DNA searching to find Evelynne's killer.
Breakthrough in the Case. A familial DNA match leads detectives closer to identifying the suspect.
Building the Family Tree. Officers start to build out the family tree to identify a suspect.
The DNA Breakthrough. Investigators find a crucial DNA sample from a discarded drink can.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was just really exciting.

Detectives feeling hopeful after narrowing down suspects.

2:19WatchApr 1, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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