Bloodline Detectives - Episode 4 - Ice Cold Murder | Forensic Files

In 1992 the family and friends of a murdered elementary school teacher lost a warm ray of sunshine in their lives.
In a tight-knit community, this was like a meteor impact, leaving a hole in their hearts.
The woman was attacked by a stranger on her doorstep in broad daylight, and dragged into her home,
beaten, raped, and murdered. In a crime this shocking, even those people who seem close to the victim can be a lead.
A friend and a colleague became a suspect and endured grueling interrogation. As time went on and no answers were found,
the pain grew for some who loved the victim while others tried to forget. But it was the persistence of investigators
and the new tools like genetic genealogy that made the impossible possible. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): December 1992,
Lampeter, Pennsylvania, police are called to a crime scene, a young woman found dead in her own home,
the victim of a brutal attack. The dead woman is Christy Mirack, a beloved local teacher.
Her death rocks the entire community. Things like that don't happen in Lancaster.
We were all scared. What did that mean? Was there a killer out there? Where was this person?
Why did they do this? NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): A major murder investigation is launched, but despite multiple lines of inquiry
the case goes cold. They interrogated probably 125 people. There was DNA taken away from the scene.
No hits came back. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): This is the story of the tragic and violent death of Christy MIrack,
the dedicated investigation into her murder and how after 27 years DNA and the bloodline detectives
trace her killer and bring him to justice. We never give up hope. Because in what we do, we keep pushing.
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): December 21, 1992, a one dispatcher in Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania gets a call from a man in the East Lampeter Township area. He's discovered his colleague dead.
Harry Goodman, who was the principal at [INAUDIBLE] Elementary School, had gone to the residents of one of his
teachers, Christy Mirack, and he had found the door slightly ajar. He had knocked.
No one answered. He went in, and he found the teacher Christy on the floor. I was in total shock.
It was an unimaginable feeling. I ran out the door, and I remember running from townhouse to townhouse.
And I was staggering, and I'm pounding on doors, pleading for somebody to let me in.
And finally somebody did, and I called 9-1-1. On the call, he said that it appears that Christy Mirack
has been raped and murdered. Local police were dispatched to the residence. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The East Lampeter police
soon arrive at the scene. But in his hurry to leave, the principal has closed the door on his departure.
The first two officers that arrive on scene, they have to force entry into the residence.
So they kick in the Door to their left was a living room. In that living room, they observed
the body of Christy Mirack. Her pants, underwear, and shoes were removed and were
placed close to her body. There was very deep bruising around her neck. Clearly she had been savagely assaulted,
raped, and strangled. Unfortunately, murders are never nice. And it would have been a very disturbing
scene that they walked into, the type of force that was used. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The Lancaster County coroner
and a forensic team from Pennsylvania State Police are called to the scene. Coroner is called very quickly to the scene.
It's obviously a homicide. The crime took place a few days before the Christmas vacation.
And Christy had purchased gifts for all of the children in her class. And they were books, and she had written a message on them.
Those gifts were strewn around like there had been a struggle. There were scuff marks inside the front door.
There was a footprint at the top of the doorway, the sense of that being that there had been quite a struggle,
and it could have been that she was lifted up during the struggle and her foot hit the top of the doorway.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Officers remove evidence for future analysis. There are a number of items of evidence that were taken.
There was a swatch from the carpet that was taken. There was a swatch of the carpet from underneath
Christy that was taken. There would have been fingerprints, and certainly items that would have been touched
or somehow involved in what happened that morning were taken away. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): From observing the evidence
in the house, detectives can tell how the attack has likely played out. I think the assault happened very quickly.
And we're taking into account a number of different things. Where Christy's body was eventually found,
there was no signs of any kind of a struggle. There was a coffee table next to her head.
There were magazines still stacked neatly on top of the coffee table. The coffee table had been picked up and moved slightly.
There were little droplets of blood that we found on the coffee table, but there was no indication that there was a grand struggle
within the residence. The only indication of any kind of a struggle was right in the foyer.
So that led investigators to believe at the time, and we agreed, that it was a blitz style attack.
It happened very quickly. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives speak with Christy's roommate and are
able to establish a timeline. And she had told police that Christy had woken up at about 5:30, had breakfast, and then went back
upstairs to get ready for work. Christy's roommates all leave at various times. Her last roommate, Mary Lasko, leaves at 7:00 in the morning.
So when she leaves, her last contact with Christy is speaking to her through the bathroom door.
Christy is still getting ready. So Christy was preparing to leave for work very shortly after Mary had left, because she
had to be at school by 8:00. Christy is dressed as it appears as though she's leaving for work.
She has a winter coat on. She has her sweater on, her pants, her shoes, gloves. She has packages in her hands.
It appeared as though Christy was walking or at least standing at the front door of her residents,
getting ready to leave for the day. It appeared as though when she opened the door
the actor was right there. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The question police need to answer is, did Christy Mirack know her killer,
or was this a random attack? On December 21, 1992, East Lampeter Township police
are investigating the murder of 25-year-old Christy Mirack, who's been found sexually assaulted
and strangled in her own home. Police start looking into where the victim lives and into the people she's been in contact with.
With any homicide investigation, you begin with victimology. So learning everything that we can
about the victim, everything about their lifestyle. Not only where they work, but where they hang out,
where they get their dry cleaning done. Everything that we can possibly find out about the victim.
Christy was from a small coal town called Shamokin. The people are blue collar. They're the salt of the earth.
They're people that have tremendous work ethics. And Christy was just like that.
That's how I would describe her background. She had a sister, and a brother, and two parents.
She had a very close relationship with her mother. Christy's big dream was to become a schoolteacher.
I mean, she had the personality for it. She was very talkative. Any room she went into she just lit up.
She was genuine. She was kind. She was caring. She was enthusiastic. She had a smile which just radiated throughout the room.
And she was like a magnet towards the kids. What would you look at? Emily? I remember her taking the time to get to know us.
I remember her taking me out on the playground and making sure I was OK, when I was having an awful day.
And I just remember her being this teacher that everybody loved. This was very shocking for the community.
They had never dealt with anything like this before. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Lancaster County
is the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country, surrounded by farms. Things like that don't happen, so the community
was in total shock. I think that there was shock about the crime because of some
of the factors around it. Here is a lovely young woman who was very loved by her students and her friends, just starting
out in her teaching career. And she's brutally murdered in her own home just a few days before Christmas.
It's your worst nightmare. I mean, she's in her place of security. She's at her house.
She's getting ready to go into her job. She's carrying things that she has put together
for her students that year, and that is in a second just stopped. Just stopped, and not only is she killed, but she's raped,
and it's violent, and it's gory. It's awful. I went to college with Christy. I knew her well.
She was fun-loving, very popular, full of life. I remember when this happened being shocked.
And not only myself, but other people that knew her, and other people that had gone to school with her.
I mean, how often does it happen that somebody you know personally is murdered? NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives
attend Christy's autopsy at the Lancaster County Coroner's Office. She had some teeth that were knocked out.
Her jaw was broken. She had some bruising about the top of her head and her face.
She was strangled with hands, but then also with her own scarf. The medical examiner ruled Christy
Mirack was sexually assaulted. The cause of death was severe strangulation, mechanical and manual.
During the autopsy, lots of swabs were taken from Christy's body. The swabs were packaged and sent to the state
laboratory for DNA analysis. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The investigation into Christy's
murder gathers pace. There were a number of people that needed to be interviewed--
friends, family, ex-boyfriends, co-workers. So at the beginning, it's very labor intensive.
Within the first few days of the investigation, over 26 individuals were questioned.
So some were polygraphed. Some had given their blood to be compared against that of the killer's.
Because we had DNA of our actor, we had to obtain DNA samples from a lot of these people,
and send it to our lab and compare it. Neighbors had said that they had seen a white man who was quite muscular driving a white car.
And that was either a Dodge or a Toyota. Police were looking for a man of that description,
because he had parked his car opposite her house and got out and walked towards it.
There was a 31-year-old man who had fit that description, and they had taken blood and hair samples from him,
but he was cleared. There were many men that they were looking at only because they knew Christy.
They may have known her very well. They may have known her as an acquaintance very casually.
There was a lot of suspicion around a man who was 20 years Christy's senior, and he had turned up
at the school the day after she was murdered with flowers and hadn't heard about her being killed.
She was involved in a relationship of several years, and it was a relationship that her family did not know about.
The person she was involved in was a much older man who was married. And her very close-knit group of friends knew about him,
but her family did not. Nor did her co-workers. When he found out about her death, he went to the police.
He gave a full interview and DNA sample. And later he was cleared. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): But police
can not rule out anyone from the investigation, even those close to Christy. About two days after the incident, they called me up
and they said that they would like to talk to me about Christy, her friends, her teaching ability,
and those kinds of things. So I drive down to the police department. Now, granted I am still in shock.
I walk into the police department, thinking I'm going to be answering questions about Christy's teaching.
As soon as I walk in, they fingerprint me. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The focus of the investigation moves to the man who
alerted police to the crime. I couldn't believe it. It was like, they think I did this.
It seems as if police have their man, but sometimes familiarity can be confused with popularity.
When we return, we'll see that the bloodline detectives have to separate those two things.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): 25-year-old teacher Christy Mirack is sexually assaulted and strangled
in her home December 1992. Suspicion falls on her colleague, Principal Harry Goodman who discovers her body and is
now being questioned by police. I thought that the principal could have been responsible for this, because he had
never given his blood to be compared for blood typing or DNA. His story is, Christy does not show up for work.
He becomes concerned. So I called her apartment about five times. Nothing. I called her mother, and she said,
yes, she was home over the weekend, and she had seen her the day before, which was a Sunday.
I said, I'll tell you what I'll do. I said I'll take a drive down near where her place is, because undoubtedly
she has a flat tire. I set out with the idea, I'm going down to change a tire. I kept driving and driving.
And it was along the interstate. I'm looking at both sides of the road. I don't see Christy.
I pull up to her apartment. I saw her car there. It was iced over, and I began to panic.
I knew something was wrong. When he arrives, he finds the front door ajar. No obvious signs of any kind of forced entry.
I rang the doorbell a number of times, and I'm screaming her name. And nothing. He enters, and he sees Christy deceased.
They estimated that Christy was probably-- her life was taken from her probably between 7:30 and 8:00.
And our school was probably 20 minutes from Christy's place. And I was in a meeting at 8:00, and I verified that I was
there, but it didn't matter. They-- still they were accusatory. They were insinuating things, such as "did
you think Christy was pretty?" "Were you attracted to Christy?" "Did you have sexual relationships with Christy?"
Those were the types of questions that I had to deal with. Principal Goodman was cooperative at the beginning.
However, later on he became uncooperative. There was a point in time where we wanted to collect a DNA sample from him, and he refused.
So again, the question is, OK, well, why would he refuse? I mean, people have various reasons for why
they may not want to cooperate. But one thing you have to guard against, and I think it happened in this case just like any cases,
sometimes there's rabbit holes. His behavior in driving to the scene, personally I didn't see that as being that odd or that awkward.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Harry Goodman proves to be a false lead and is eventually
removed from the suspects list. I had screaming nightmares for years and years. I had intense therapy for years.
I had to learn how to compartmentalize my life. I didn't want this to define who Harry Goodman was.
Police spoke to and interviewed over 1,500 people, and they had scores of potential suspects,
probably 60 or 70 of them. They swabbed every one of those suspects and none of them
came back as a DNA match. The killer never appeared on CODIS, which is the DNA statewide database.
He had either not committed another crime or he hadn't been caught for another crime.
Either way, this killer was still out there. We never give up hope. Because in what we do, we keep pushing.
We keep-- if there's anything that we can do with a case, we keep working it. But it had been such a long time.
Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years. And the case eventually went cold.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Despite thousands of man hours, police still cannot establish who killed Christy.
So I grow up. I get into TV news. And you know, a lot of TV news is not only dealing with news of the day but also
always keeping your mind open to past stories that might become a story again. And I always thought about her unsolved murder
as being one of those stories that maybe someday there could be a break in. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): As the years roll on,
Christy's family becomes increasingly frustrated. There was a $10,000 reward put up for any information
leading to the arrest. Somebody else put signs around the elementary school one year, because it was just so important to keep it
in the headlines. I had met her mother on a couple of occasions. I think the thing that always struck me about her mother
is how this changed her life, how grieving she was constantly, not only the death of a daughter
but in such a senseless way. And over time, you could really see the toll that this was taking on her.
I suppose everyone thought that this case was never going to be solved, but police never gave up.
They kept going. They kept interviewing people. They kept checking CODIS. We essentially always knew who our killer was.
It was that of that DNA sample. It was just, who did that DNA belong to? NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): To connect this DNA to the killer,
the police need a new stunning forensic technology. The DA's office realized that DNA techniques and technology
had advanced drastically over the past 20 something years since Christy's death.
So they wanted to take the new technology and apply it to her case and see what would happen.
When the Parabon first came in the picture and the DNA profiling, that was when it really revved up again.
Parabon would take DNA that we gave them from a particular case, evidence, and it would be a DNA extraction.
They would put together a photo or a sketch of what our actor would look like based on their DNA.
They have an artist that works with the DNA folks. And they had hair. They had ears, things like that.
So it may not always be 100% accurate. However, in this photo, I believe the photo
we received was a male in his maybe early to mid 20s, darker skin complexion, maybe darker hair.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): November 1, 2017, the Lancaster County District attorney
releases the phenotyping snapshot image to the public. I was so hoping that when I saw it and when everyone
saw it, it might be "ah-hah. We know who that is" and we can identify them, that didn't happen.
The face looked like a regular face you might pass 100 times a day. So there wasn't that immediate, OK, based on this
we know exactly who it is. But it certainly let people be ruled out. Maybe it put other people on the radar.
Maybe people looked at it and thought, you know, I can see how that might look like somebody.
We did facial recognition that was done on that image, and we would go out and do interviews
of those approximately 30 people. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): But once again, detectives hit a dead end and the killer
avoids detection. As we work through the list, we're still not getting our-- not getting our actor.
But Parabon has another tool they think can move the investigation forward. Amazing science and pure human determination
to solve Christy Mirack's murder are now merging. We'll understand exactly how when the "Bloodline
Detectives" returns. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): In 2018, detectives investigating the December 1992 brutal sexual assault and murder
of beloved teacher Christy Mirack get a call about new technology. Tom Shaw of Parabon Nanolabs contacted the police
and said that they had a different offering, which was based on Ancestry DNA. And they said that they could take the DNA
and turn that into some type of lead. Basically, the way it was explained was, the genealogist would take the DNA profile
and do what a lot of these ancestry websites do, which is doing all the research to put together family trees.
They were taking this sample, and they were putting it into almost a hand-drawn database, essentially,
of people, and saying, let's follow the trail and see who this ends up being connected to.
And we now know that it gets a hit. So the company then basically make a big circle
and include anybody who could be around the same age as the suspect, who was in the same area at the same time.
They put all these factors in, and then they go through hundreds of profiles and narrow it down until they have a name.
The search on GenMatch showed two second cousins who were linked to the suspect.
CeCe Moore took the GenMatch search results, and she started to build out the family tree,
starting from the great-grandparents down throughout the rest of the family. So basically she's trying to find
the right person and the right place with the right ancestral mix. She was able to narrow it down to a family in Lancaster who
had Northern European descent as well as some Puerto Rican ancestry. From there she started researching local newspapers
in Lancaster, looking for any information about those families. Trooper Roberts called me on my phone.
And I was in Orlando, Florida. And he told me, hey. He said we have a hit. He said we have a DNA match to our actor.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Can police finally identify the killer, and will it be someone she knew?
This was one name that never came up, not even remotely. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The DNA matches that of local celebrity
Raymond Rowe, also known as DJ Freeze. DJ Freeze was a local celebrity. So he was well-known to people in the area.
DJ Freeze was a very popular DJ in, not only Lancaster County but Philadelphia and New York City,
all over the Northeast. He even did some international travel. He was more than just a DJ that you might see at a wedding.
He was sometimes a house DJ for local clubs and dance clubs. He would go on radio stations.
He was certainly a name that people knew in Lancaster County. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Now police must find evidence
to link the suspect with a crime that happened almost 30 years ago. They need a sample of Raymond Rowe's DNA.
Ray at the time when he was DJing, he was very cognizant about cleaning up after himself.
He would collect his own garbage. He was he would bring his own water and garbage can to his events.
So it was going to be very difficult to get DNA from him. So a plan was put together to put surveillance on Ray
with the intent of hopefully getting a surreptitious sample of DNA. We put together an operations plan, along with photos of Ray,
his vehicles, his house, with the instructions of hey, this is what we need. And ideally a water bottle, a piece of gum, something that he
drank out of or something with some sort of bodily fluid exchange would be the ultimate DNA sample
that we would like to collect. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): May 31, 2018, investigators are watching DJ Freeze's home
and follow him when he leaves the house. We saw him leaving his house, and he went to--
took his daughter to end of school dance. It was maybe around 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon.
So he left his residence, and he drove to his daughter's elementary school, where he was DJing an event.
We had a female trooper who was dressed very nicely. As the night wore on, our undercover officer
made contact with Ray, spoke with Ray, purporting to be a mother of a child. And it was later on in the evening,
and I was getting pretty anxious because I was hopeful that they were going to get a sample.
And next thing you know, I get a photo, a text message, a water bottle, a up, and a piece of gum.
I was ecstatic. Trooper Roberts got on a plane and flew the items of evidence from Lancaster out to PSP
Greensburg, where our lab is. Our DNA lab was fantastic and gave us the results that we'd been waiting for, for years
and years within two days. He said, in a nutshell, Ray Rowe is your guy. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators finally
get their man, but police now have to arrest DJ Freeze and get a conviction. At the end of the day, we want to preserve evidence.
At the end of the day, we don't want to give Ray any kind of indication that he's a subject,
give him the ability to flee or run, or do something even more harmful. So we had to be careful.
It was a very tense day. There were a lot of chiefs, so to speak. Everybody wanted to do it their way.
Eventually, we had a Lancaster City and the Pennsylvania State Police patrol units converge on the house when he
came outside to mow his lawn. And we made the decision to have our patrol unit drive up and get out and take Ray into custody.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The sudden nature of the arrest leaves Rowe startled. He appeared surprised.
He appeared shocked. He was notified at the time that he was under arrest for the murder of Christy Mirack.
And his comment was, "who's that?" He was then taken to Lancaster City Police Department, where
they set up an interview room, could be watched by the rest of the investigators.
Thanks to incredible forensic science, the bloodline detectives finally have Christy's killer in custody.
But will he admit to the crime? It's June 2018. Lancaster police are speaking with Raymond Rowe, also known
as local celebrity DJ Freeze after arrested for the 1992 rape and murder of much loved
teacher Christy Mirack. He's intelligent. He appeared manipulative. He wanted to control the interview.
At no point did he admit to anything. He was told at some point in the interview,
later on in the interview, that we had his DNA. When the evidence was presented to him,
he denied it being him that killed Christy Mirack. They stopped interviewing him, and he was taken to a judge
to be arraigned. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Once Raymond Rowe is arraigned, police call a press conference.
I was sitting at a news meeting, and I was sitting there next to the managing editor for news,
and the phones went off that the DA had announced a press conference. And the managing editor and I looked at each other.
At the very same time, we said "Christy Mirack." And what we learned was that an arrest had been made
in the case, that they were able to trace the DNA to someone who had been living in our community in a very
high profile way for all these many years, and that was quite shocking. First it was, wow, they caught someone.
But then not too far into the press conference, Craig Stedman says, "Raymond Rowe, known as DJ Freeze,"
or something to that effect. And it was, wait, What? Hang on. It's one thing to know who killed her,
but now we know DJ Freeze is the name connected to it? That was mind blowing. Reporters in our newsroom did a lot of investigating.
They talked to former girlfriends. He had been married and divorced three times,
and married a fourth time. And we got the image of this certainly very public man.
But when you dig a little deeper, you hear things like, you know, very focused on his work, personally a very controlling man.
My first thought was just anger. It was confusion and anger. For so long police had been searching for her killer,
and here he was in plain sight, literally broadcasting his name on a daily basis.
There he was, right there. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): With everyone in the community
bracing themselves for the trial, Raymond Rowe changes his plea. Ultimately, Ray Rowe ended up taking a plea deal.
I'm not sure why. He was willing to take a plea of life, and potentially because the death penalty was in play.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Christy Mirack's family are in court on the first day of the trial.
When he made his formal plea of guilty, we were all in the courtroom, including all of Christy's friends and family that are still with us.
It was a short cookie cutter statement. I do not believe he showed any remorse at any point
during any of this. Raymond Rowe had no real care for the loss to the Mirack family or friends.
Her father tried to get up and speak but was unable to from his emotion. Her friends did get a chance to speak to him,
and they talked about how wonderful a person she was, how wonderful Christy's life was,
and how they wanted-- and wanted to have her around for the rest of their lives,
but how he had stolen that life. At no point has he ever acknowledged that he is responsible for her murder.
Raymond Rowe was sentenced to life plus 60 to 120 years. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Despite the murder finally
being solved, it leaves an indelible impact on the community. I don't think they'll ever forget about this case.
I mean, it is notorious. It is infamous. People will always remember this case and always talk about it.
There are victims are always on multiple sides of these kinds of situations. You know, Ray's family was under the belief
that Ray was this successful DJ who had created his own business and who had risen out of nothing.
And now suddenly their whole belief system is just destroyed. Because here they are now confronted with the fact
that he is a rapist and a murderer. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Although Rowe is behind bars
and will never walk free again, he has maintained his silence, leaving Christy's family and the community troubled
with many unanswered questions. I believe the community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
somewhat healed after this case had been solved, but not fully. Because you can never bring Christy back.
We do have justice now. This guy is off the streets. He's behind bars. He took away our friend and our colleague,
and he will never see the light of day. There is no justice in the fact that a very bright, beautiful, young woman had
her life taken away from her. And we can't get that back. That there is a feeling that somehow, some way people
should know why he did this. I think there would be-- I think that would be full closure and a sense
of full justice here. I don't think any explanation that he could give is going to make--
I mean certainly it's not going to make it OK, but I think that there are answers that people deserve
that they may never get. I want to know why, and I want to know how could you. Everyone does. Why?
Why her? Why her? NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Once again, the power of forensics is highlighted in solving what seemed
to be an unsolvable case. Without the DNA, without Parabon, without CeCe Moore, this case would not have been solved.
That's real game changer for us. Because no longer-- if we have DNA in the past,
we were dependent on a person having been arrested and having had to submit their DNA.
Well, now, if there's another database that's available of of folks that maybe haven't been arrested,
that maybe we can get a hit on, I mean, that opens up a whole other door. And I want to be clear, genealogists
are doing what they're trained to do and put together family trees. And we receive essentially what amounts to a tip.
It's just like somebody's calling in a tip to our Crime Stoppers and saying, hey, if I were you,
you may want to look at this family. However, we still have to do the police work.
We still have to go out and connect those people to the crime. I think the police worked very hard on this.
And I know from talking to law enforcement that was close to the case, this is one of those cases that really
haunted them, and that they wanted desperately to solve the case. At the end of the day, Christy is gone.
You know, she's never-- she's not coming back. But hopefully-- yeah, hopefully people can move forward.
The bloodline detectives bring a killer to justice, but the most devastating piece of this crime
remains unanswered. Why did Raymond Rowe do it? His plea, and the guaranteed silence
that goes with that plea, prevents us from ever knowing the true answer. Perhaps, like his career as DJ Freeze,
Christy was something he lusted for control over. Maybe she refused him at some other place and time.
This could have pushed him over the edge. While Raymond Rowe rots in jail, the mystery
of why he killed Christy Mirack continues to haunt her family and friends. [THEME MUSIC]

Brief Summary

The episode recounts Christy Mirack's murder and the DNA breakthrough that identified her killer, Raymond Rowe, decades later.

Key points

The Murder of Christy Mirack. In December 1992, beloved teacher Christy Mirack is brutally murdered, shocking her community.
Investigation Goes Cold. Despite extensive investigation, the case goes cold for 27 years until new DNA technology emerges.
New Forensic Technology. In 2018, detectives receive a breakthrough call about new DNA technology that could help solve the case.
DNA Match to DJ Freeze. Investigators discover that the DNA matches local celebrity Raymond Rowe, known as DJ Freeze.
The Arrest of DJ Freeze. Police arrest DJ Freeze, leaving him shocked and surprised by the charges against him.
Raymond Rowe's Guilty Plea. Raymond Rowe takes a plea deal for the murder of Christy Mirack, shocking the community.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was an unimaginable feeling.

The principal's reaction upon discovering the body.

3:15WatchApr 1, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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