Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 12 - The Knifepoint Rapist - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: August 1995, San Diego, California, a young woman out jogging
is brutally sex attacked. She thought she was gonna die. The suspect at the time was described as a large man,
large muscular build, wearing a ski mask over his face, wearing gloves, and having a large kitchen knife.
NANCY GRACE: In October, just two months later, another woman sex assaulted, this time in her home.
The following month, two more women victims attacked in their own homes. The attacks don't stop.
Police now under enormous pressure, but they cannot catch the predator. From 1995 to 2004, the suspect was raping people
and leaving his DNA behind. We knew, we had the profile of who did this. No question.
We just had no one to match it up with. NANCY GRACE: This is a story of a cold case team that will not
quit until they ID a serial rapist who has remained on the loose almost 25 years.
I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]
San Diego, California, 2019, nearly 25 years after a woman jogger's raped in a quiet San Diego neighborhood.
The hunt is on to ID the man who assaults her and five more women at least over the next 10 years.
It's a surprise these crimes have gone unsolved, especially since San Diego is regarded as one of the safest
big cities in America. JOHN SULLIVAN: It's a very community-oriented feel where every community and neighborhood has their own culture and kind
of their own vibe so to speak, and, you know, the officers and working and getting experience
at different neighborhoods throughout the city, we became really well acquainted with the different cultures
that are associated with the different neighborhoods. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: 2019, Detective Sergeant Ron Bailiff
gets a call about a series of sex attacks that take place between 1995 and 2004.
RONALD BAILIFF: I received a telephone call from a husband of one of the victims.
He told me that his wife, she still has so much trauma over the case and so that he would make phone calls
every few years to try and inspire a detective in order to restart this case up, to rework the case.
JOHN SULLIVAN: My neighbor was my boss at the time named Ron Bailiff. Being nosy, I'm a detective and here my boss answer the phone,
so kind of prick my ear up and I hear him talking to somebody. After the phone call, I walk over to him,
and for some reason, it was relatively kind of a low case load at that time. And I go, hey, sarge, you know, what was that about.
And, you know, he hands me a piece of paper. He's like, hey, Sully and-- everyone
calls me Sully at work. Hey, Sully, would you mind going to the file room and pulling this case out and let's take a look at this.
So I take the paper, and I go back to our little archive file room. I find a couple of boxes where these old cases were kept.
And seeing what awful things were done to these women really pissed me off. RONALD BAILIFF: I knew what I was asking John
and that was he was about to embark in a very serious case. It was going to be an exceptional amount of work,
and I knew that he was going to be the right person to do it. I just buried my head in these books
and reviewed all the, you know, crime scene photos and the cases and going through everything.
RONALD BAILIFF: It was as if God had his hand in this whole case because from that point on, it was seemingly
like things just matched up. It was kind of perfection in terms of how things were
linking, the people that were coming within our path on this investigation. NANCY GRACE: Detective John Sullivan and his team dive
into each case, all of which are linked to the same perp, the first attack way back in August 1995.
In that incident, the victim who we'll call Jane Doe 1, went out for a jog in the Clairemont Mesa neighborhood.
She approached this kind of shrub area right off the path. She was running. The suspect jumped out and surprised her.
The suspect at the time was described as a large man, large muscular build, wearing a ski mask over his face,
wearing gloves, and having a large kitchen knife. Being shocked, surprised, scared,
the Jane Doe 1 just decided-- she thought she was going to die. And the suspect at the time ordered her to accompany him
off the sidewalk into the ground where it was secluded from the rest of the public eye, and that's where he sexually
assaulted her at knife point. The victim went to survival mode. She did exactly as she was told because she
believed that if she didn't that he was going to kill her. Jane Doe 1 returned home to where her father was,
and she was very, very emotionally distraught. She and him called 9-1-1 and notified San Diego Police
Department that she was just raped at knifepoint by a stranger. And the officers who made contact with Jane Doe 1
described the victim as catatonic where she has been crying but she was in shock.
And at that point, the officers who were on scene accompanied Jane Doe 1 in their police car
back to the crime scene to try to locate exactly where the assault took place, but she was able to point out
where it occurred. Investigators were called to the scene to locate evidence, and witness checks
and, I mean, good, good, old fashioned police work was done. I mean, everything-- every I was dotted, every T was crossed,
and unfortunately as far as the crime scene goes, it didn't yield any evidence. NANCY GRACE: Investigators obtain
as much biological evidence as they can from the victim. In all sexual assault cases, what we really want is DNA,
fingerprints, any type of item left behind from a suspect. We would encourage a victim to do a sexual assault kit.
What we call here in San Diego is a SART exam. We encourage victims to do that so that we can get DNA.
As a woman I could only imagine what it would be like to not only be sexually assaulted than to have
to go through a SART exam and then the next day go to your job, go to the grocery store,
walk the same streets. For those victims, it's a daily battle to get up in the morning
and to know that your attacker is still out there. NANCY GRACE: Then just two months later, police
called to another sex attack less than 10 miles from where the original Jane Doe was attacked.
When Jane Doe two walked into her home and in the hallway, she was confronted by the suspect.
The suspect was described as a large male, ski mask over his face, and he had a large kitchen knife.
At the initial confrontation, it took the victim by surprise, and she was very scared.
And she described the suspect as being very calm and in control. And the suspect made several statements to the victim
to look at my knife. You see this knife. I will kill you if you don't do what I say and ordered her
to disrobe at which point he proceeded to sexually assault the victim inside of her own home.
NANCY GRACE: The police arrive. Jane Doe 2 agrees to be interviewed by detectives
and gives a horrific account of the attack. JOHN SULLIVAN: During the assault the suspect bound and gagged the victim,
so she was incapacitated as far as me able to move. He ordered her to stay on the ground
and threatened to kill her if she made a sound. At that point, the suspect we believe just
exited through the front door. The victim untied herself and put some clothing on
and ran to the living room, which she grabbed her phone to call 9-1-1. Right when she's on the phone with 911,
her boyfriend got to the house, in a matter of minutes, seconds, missed the assault and missed the suspect
running out the front door. NANCY GRACE: The police are called to a third crime scene just one month later.
They're virtually certain a serial rapist is loose in their community. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
[MUSIC PLAYING] November 14, 1995, San Diego detectives already investigating two serious and brutal sex assaults
when they're called to yet another. They know they're dealing with a serial sex predator.
JOHN SULLIVAN: In the third incident, which is very similar to the second incident, the victim,
she heard some noise, and she kind of thought, oh, my boyfriend's here because he-- you know,
they're at a point in their relationship where he would let himself in the front door.
Upon not seeing anybody, she went to the window to look outside because that's where
her boyfriend would park when he would come to her house. She didn't see his car.
And there was a suspect standing in the middle of her living room. MEGHAN BUCKNER: He tells her to be quiet
or he was going to kill her. He then drags her into a bedroom. He throws her on the ground, and he forcibly
rapes her at knifepoint. He then tells her to lay on the ground and don't move, and he escapes out of the house.
And we don't know how he got out of the house in that case because her doors were locked.
We can only think that it was out of a window. Investigators were called to the scene.
Crime scene personnel responded and processed the scene. Again, the suspect was wearing gloves and wearing ski mask,
so a canvas was done in search that maybe he discarded these types of evidence or the knife he had.
The victim did not believe that the knife he used was her knife, so we believe that the suspect
brought his own knife. This being another residential sexual assault, I think we are pretty confident that we have
a very violent rapist out there, you know, terrorizing the community. NANCY GRACE: Then just three days later,
a fourth attack reported. MEGHAN BUCKNER: The perpetrator had a knife, the exact same modus operandi.
Before she could say anything, he put his hand over her mouth, pulled out the knife and said if you scream I will kill you,
dragged her into the bedroom, and forcibly sexually assaulted her. NANCY GRACE: Investigators now certain all four attacks
committed by the same perp. They send semen samples for testing and confirmation.
MARTIN DOYLE: When this first started, there were four separate detectives looking
at four separate assaults. Ultimately, you know, when they got together and they looked at the commonality of them,
they proposed that it was a series and that it was the same perpetrator. That would later be confirmed by the DNA evidence linking
all four of the assaults. NANCY GRACE: Detectives believe the attacker is targeting
a particular type of victim-- young, very pretty, and mostly blond. The DNA analysis confirms the same predators
responsible for all four sex attacks. Investigators upload the sample to CODIS, the national database that tracks DNA of convicted felons.
CODIS is our national database for DNA. Every felon, at least in California, is swabbed every time they are arrested for their DNA,
and that is uploaded into CODIS. So we have a bank of DNA, at least in California.
I know every other state is different. So we have our local CODIS database and then the national one.
That was put into CODIS, and there was-- there were no matches at the time. MARTIN DOYLE: We knew that it was
the same perpetrator because we had that matching profile. But you can run that profile as many times as you want.
If you have no known person to match it up against, you're not going to be able to identify the perpetrator,
and that's the situation that detectives faced in the many years they tried to solve this series.
NANCY GRACE: The police set up roadblocks and increased their presence in the community, but they
don't capture the rapist. JOHN SULLIVAN: We had a lot of undercover officers positioned throughout the city.
We had a high uniformed presence, and we were all hands on deck. And the sex crimes unit who had the case,
I know all the detectives were-- they were canvassing area. There were crimestopper notifications that
gone out to the local media. And we were fielding phone calls from people with potential tips.
At this point, given that the description across the board was a fit, strong, white male, calm, cool,
collect, in control, there was-- yeah, we started looking at military personnel 'cause being in San Diego, we have a large military presence
here, a lot of Marines, a lot of sailors, and that kind of fit the mold, general mold, of maybe a combat
veteran. And we started looking down that path. They contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
at one point in an attempt to put together a profile and do a geographical study to link them.
Then ultimately they were left with very few leads. NANCY GRACE: San Diego rapist remains at large.
Police cannot identify him even though they've got DNA, and then suddenly the attacks stop.
As we see next on "Bloodline Detectives," the cases go cold until seven years later.
[MUSIC PLAYING] San Diego, 2002, it's seven years since the rapes of four women go unsolved.
The case is now cold. Then there's a sex attack with the very same MO as the ones from back in 1995 but this time
in northeast San Diego. MARTIN DOYLE: She put her daughter to bed, and when she left her daughter's room,
the perpetrator was masked with a knife waiting for her. The suspect threatened to harm the young daughter
if the victim didn't comply. She wasn't gonna let anything happened to her baby girl,
and she submitted and survived a horrible attack inside of her home. He told her to wait until calling the police
and give a certain period of time or that he would return and attack her and her daughter.
JOHN SULLIVAN: Given that it was a hot prowl residential sexual assault, that DNA recovered
from the Riverside case, which is we'll call the case number five, was uploaded into CODIS.
There is a match to the four San Diego cases. So the Riverside investigators, you know,
it kind of gave them a little something extra to work with knowing that, you know,
there are four San Diego cases that took place in 1995. And, again, like the San Diego cases,
you have the suspect's DNA profile, we just don't know who it belongs to. NANCY GRACE: The sex predator still walks free,
and then he attacks again two years later, November 2004. MARTIN DOYLE: That was nearby Palm Desert,
California, also in Riverside County, also in the Coachella Valley. A woman had come home from her boyfriend's house.
JOHN SULLIVAN: She returned to an empty home with her daughter confronted by the suspect and, you know,
again, the description across the board-- calm, cool, collect, in control. He never yelled.
He-- part of what he his commands were was to make sure the victim saw the knife.
He'd say look at the knife. Look at it. And then once they looked at it, he would give them
their commands and what to do. Jane Doe number 6 was sexually assaulted at knifepoint and similarly survival mode.
I mean, these women just-- they want to live. You know, they have a lot of will to live.
They have their daughters in the house with them while this is happening, and they're
going to do whatever it takes. And in this case, my hat goes off 'cause they did it.
They survived. They protected their daughters, and they came out of it-- I mean, sustained trauma, but they came out alive.
NANCY GRACE: There's yet another huge complication for investigators. The statute of limitations in California
for rape without the ID of the perp is just 10 years. That could mean this attacker can escape
justice for the 1995 assaults. What a miscarriage of justice. So Riverside prosecutors made the decision
to file a criminal complaint against the DNA profile itself. And when they did that, they were able to generate a warrant
for that person's arrest. And in California and many states, the courts have held that charging a DNA profile
is sufficient to identify a person for statute of limitations purposes, and so Riverside decided to do that.
NANCY GRACE: By 2019, the cold case team knows the rapist is still not registered in CODIS.
MARTIN DOYLE: We knew we had the profile of who did this. We just had no one to match it up with.
And so CODIS, which is a database that has offender profiles from all over the nation,
was constantly being run against this known profile from all six cases. And we just could never get a hit because the known offender
was not in that database. And the detectives worked many years. They kept running it and running it and going back,
and still that person's profile was not in the database. NANCY GRACE: The detectives need a break, a way
to shake up the investigation. The answer, a brand new crime solving forensic tool.
So, you know, being in a big city detective, I like to stay up on and current on what's going on, especially
in the state of California. And learning that the technique in order to catch the Golden State Killer used forensic genealogy.
So I'd go back to my little dingy desk and I'd jump on my desk phone and I called the FBI.
I go, OK, here's your San Diego office. So I introduce myself to him, and I go, hey,
if you could point-- stir me to the right direction to the special agents that worked
on the Golden State Killer case, can you have them call me? I'd really like to talk to them because I have a case that
would really benefit from utilizing that same technique and utilizing some of your resources.
I mean, I'm talking, like, two minutes, I got a call on my cell phone from a guy named Steve Busch.
He introduced himself and let me know that, you know, it was his team that worked on the Golden State Killer,
and he wanted a briefing on the series that I have. So, you know, spent about 10 minutes on the phone
letting him know, you know, hey, it's a very violent series. You know, these women need some closure.
STEVE BUSCH: John Sullivan at the San Diego Police Department says, hey, I've got this guy's DNA all over the place.
I don't know who he is. Can we use the same process that you guys used in the Golden
State Killer case? Can we use that and try to determine who this serial rapist is?
And we said absolutely. We would love-- we would love to help you out with that.
Let's take his DNA and let's send it off to a private laboratory and let's get the SNP profile that we need so we can get started.
MEGHAN BUCKNER: What I knew about genetic genealogy was what I would see on TV, that it would be someone's DNA
is in the system, we would get a hit to it, and then we would have to more or less build up a family
tree of close relatives. I truly didn't know a whole lot of it until I was assigned this case when I had to really
investigate it and learn. RONALD BAILIFF: When we're talking to Steve, we both could read each other's minds
and say this is the technique that we need to use in order to solve this case because I had a serious amount of doubt
as to whether we were going to be able to solve it. Evidence hadn't changed, technology hadn't changed up
until that point, and the amount of evidence that we had, there was nothing that we were going
to be able to do that wasn't any different than previous detectives had done when they reopened these cases.
So it was that genetic genealogy that was our hope. JOHN SULLIVAN: How I explain investigative genealogy
or forensic genealogy is that you have a mystery person's DNA. I mean, we don't know who it belongs to,
but we have their DNA. And what we're going to do is we are going to upload this DNA profile into an open source DNA
database. You think of 23andMe. You think of know Family Tree DNA. You think of all these really cool services out there, I'm--
personally I'm a customer. I think they're really neat. And what you do is you throw the mystery person's DNA
up into this, and it's going to cast a wide net as far as capturing who relatives are.
And you with DNA, it's very-- it's a precise science. So, you know, there are specific ranges of DNA
in common that ancestors will have each other. So ideally when you throw this DNA up
and you try to get a relative, you want to get a close relative because it makes the work a little easier.
So the more distant the relative, the more difficult and tedious the work is. We had lots of options in order to get the SNP profile,
and so we decided to go with Gene by Gene laboratory in Houston, Texas. They utilized a microarray in this case
in order to get the SNP, and once they got that, that SNP was uploaded into GEDmatch and into FT DNA
to see who the folks that are going to be related to this unknown SNP profile. NANCY GRACE: Genetic genealogy appears to be working.
More hits from distant relatives come in. Is it just a matter of time before "Bloodline
Detectives" can reveal the suspect's identity. That's next. [MUSIC PLAYING] 2019, San Diego cold case detectives
investigating six heinous rapes that took place between 1995 and 2004. They've got the suspect's DNA, and now they
turn to a revolutionary new crime-solving tool, forensic genetic genealogy. JOHN SULLIVAN: Steve Busch's team
with the FBI, along with their crime analysts, some agents working on there, I mean, they worked hours
and hours and hours and hours and hours trying to build this family tree so that we could
identify the possible suspect. What entails is you have to build this family tree using
census data, birth records, marriage certificates, baptismal certificates in some cases.
STEVE BUSCH: We started building family trees and trying to connect people. We got some matches back, and they were decent matches.
They were, you know, second or third cousin matches. Those are matches that we can typically work with.
Once we started making connections, things started to become a little bit more clear as it
always does, and we were able to narrow down the connections to a couple of particular families.
And at that point, things started to become a little more clear to us that we might be looking
at a particular one or two different men as a possible suspect. NANCY GRACE: The detectives are slowly building a family tree
based on DNA, and now that tree is finally yielding fruit, solid hits. The suspect's DNA matches two brothers
who actually live nearby in Palm Springs, California. JOHN SULLIVAN: Now we have a couple of names to work with.
So I do a whole back-- you know, from social media to Facebook to Instagram to LinkedIn to
and all the law enforcement databases that I have access to. In '95, both brothers lived in San Diego.
In 2000s, they both live in the Palm Desert area. These two brothers in particular were very different.
They led very different lifestyles and which is-- you can tell through their socials they're just different.
You know, one is like a super devout family man and very religious, and the other
was a little more transient. I knew at the time he was married, and he had a child.
We found wedding photographs and social media of he and his wife. And his wife was just remarkably close in appearance
to all of the victims. STEVE BUSCH: When we examined the physical descriptions given
by the victims and then we examined the physical natures of Chris VanBuskirk, there was a pattern of similarities that
led us to believe he could potentially be the person, it's always difficult with these traumatic events
though because sometimes the victims-- the descriptions are all over the place. One might say he's taller and one says he's shorter
and one says he's heavier. One says he's thinner. In this case, the physical descriptions
were pretty accurate. NANCY GRACE: Investigators now focus all efforts on Chris VanBuskirk, who lives in Arizona.
RONALD BAILIFF: The FBI agent who was responsible for the team out in Phoenix-- his name's Wyatt Storm--
And he very, very spectacular individual who's absolutely so helpful, and he ran the Violent Crimes
Task Force that's out there. And so we asked him, hey, can you please do surveillance
on this individual and we're going to need a surreptitious DNA. He and his team started watching Christopher VanBuskirk
and saw that he was actually a manager at a restaurant. JOHN SULLIVAN: This team made a decision, OK, you know.
We're going to go in undercover and just pose as customers. So they end up going in and just eating
at the restaurant like everybody else, and just coincidentally, the suspect end up taking a lunch break.
One of the undercover operators kind of befriended him, sat next to him, started talking with him
and, hey, this is a great restaurant and you do great work and kind of made small talk.
RONALD BAILIFF: That particular restaurant had like bar tables, and so this FBI agent just sat right across from Christopher
VanBuskirk, started up a conversation until the point that Mr. VanBuskirk had to go back to work.
And so he said let me get your plate for you, and so he-- I'll go throw it away.
And so as he's going to the door in order to throw away the tray, he grabs the fork with a napkin--
JOHN SULLIVAN: Threw it in a bag and sealed it and, hey, Sully-- everyone calls me Sully at work-- hey, Sully,
we got what you need. When can you meet? I drive about eight hours to get a fork, and I drive back.
And, you know, the lab working on this case is also very excited because we-- you know,
they know exactly what I'm working, and I told them, hey, I'm coming. I'm coming.
This needs to be tested ASAP. And so I submitted the fork for testing that morning,
first thing that morning. About two hours later, we got a-- I got a phone call from the criminalist lab
saying, yep, that's him. It's a match. It's your bad guy. You know, at this point, as a-- as a detective I go, oh,
OK, you know, what do I do now. Like, OK, now I know who the bad guy is. He's out of state, and kind my head starts swimming as far as,
like, what are the next steps. RONALD BAILIFF: We knew one thing. We can't let a very dangerous individual
stay out on the streets when we know who he is. And so that was our goal. Get him into custody as fast as we possibly can.
NANCY GRACE: Detectives immediately create a plan to lure VanBuskirk into custody.
RONALD BAILIFF: We get a warrant for his arrest, and we include Wyatt Storm's team in Phoenix
to be able to on their end get a search warrant for the individual's house. And then we were going to mete out there in Phoenix with him,
and we were going to serve the arrest warrant and serve the search warrant at the same time.
JOHN SULLIVAN: We got there very early, and he was already gone. We check a lot of areas that he frequents,
and we couldn't find him. So the decision was made by the supervisor out in Phoenix
to ruse the suspect. RONALD BAILIFF: Christopher VanBuskirk was a witness and a credit card fraud case that happened years
before, and so we brainstormed that and decided let's use that as a ruse in order
to try and pull him out. NANCY GRACE: After nearly 25 years, San Diego investigators are closing
in on a brutal serial rapist. As we see next on "Bloodline Detectives," all they have to do now is actually catch him.
[MUSIC PLAYING] San Diego, 2019, San Diego cold cases close in on Chris VanBuskirk, a serial rapist whose attacks date all
the way back to August 1995. JOHN SULLIVAN: So ruse is done saying, hey, hey, you know,
here's detective so-and-so. We're investigating this fraud case that you filed. Hey, can you meet us?
Here's some pictures of a suspect we want you to look at. We knew we were kind of baiting him into a specific area.
So we were already all set up. Our undercover car's throughout the parking lot. That plan was made.
He parked, he got out, and seeing him at a distance, he's a big guy. And he was walking toward the meeting spot.
The supervisor on scene called out the signal, and we jumped out and took him down at gunpoint,
put him on the ground, and arrested him without incident. Shortly after handcuffing him and standing him up,
I walk up to him, I put my hand on my shoulder, and I go, hey, you have a lot of questions as to what's
going on right now. All this is happening because of me. Like, I'd like to talk to you a little further,
but, you know, we gotta get through this real quick. But I want to answer all your questions.
And he looked at me, and he just kind of took a big [SIGHING HEAVILY] and kind of just
sighed and shook his head. He didn't ask one question about what's going on. He didn't seem surprised.
He didn't cause a commotion. He was just-- he saw this day coming a long time. And I think that he's almost relieved in a sense
to be caught. MARTIN DOYLE: The detectives from San Diego actually tried to interview him, and he did not
give a statement at that time. He invoked his right to an attorney, so they were precluded from, you know,
speaking with him about the case. NANCY GRACE: Chris VanBuskirk tries to impress detectives when he's extradited to San Diego.
JOHN SULLIVAN: Sergeant Bailiff and I met the deputies at a local airport where he turned over custody to us.
And, you know, we were just taking a detective car, a big Ford Taurus. So I sat in the back seat with the suspect,
and Sergeant Bailiff drove. And, you know, obviously when, you know, a suspect, you know,
asks for a lawyer, we're not gonna talk about the case. It's just the legalities that we can't do.
But he was very chatty, just very, very chatty, and you could tell by how he's kind of, like,
trying to be friendly, it was very manipulative. He wanted us to like him, and he wanted to kind of impress
this with sports memorabilia he had and different jobs he's had and, you know, professional athletes that he knows and all this stuff.
And we found it kind of odd, you know, kind of with the trip down to San Diego jail.
I didn't see a lot of remorse. I can tell you that. I didn't see concern. I didn't see much going on in his verbal or nonverbal
communication. NANCY GRACE: The investigative work is finally over, but now John Sullivan performs a detective's last act, informing
six victims of the news. He took it upon himself to notify the victims to let them
know that after decades of not knowing who their attacker was, where he was, that he was finally
going to be brought to justice. And I know that it was one of those things that after knowing Detective Sullivan for as long as I did,
he truly was the right person for the job for that. MARTIN DOYLE: They were-- all reacted differently,
which is absolutely normal. Some were relieved. Some were somewhat indifferent. Some were-- just broke down in front of him.
Most of them were really happy to have this chapter of their life closed. JOHN SULLIVAN: There is one victim who's Jane Doe
2 who didn't answer the phone. I left a message, and I even tried texting the phone number I had and I didn't get a response.
I knew this was-- the media was going to cover this case, and I just did not want this poor victim
to see on the morning news what happened without her not hearing it from me. I ended up driving out to Jane Doe 2's residence
to notify her in person. I can honestly say this is probably one of the most memorable experiences
I've ever had I mean as a cop and as just a person. So I show up and I get out my badge on a chain
and on my ID and I knock on the door. I hear somebody from inside say who is it.
And I asked Jane Doe by name. Hey, I need to speak to Jane Doe specifically. Are you her?
And I confirmed her identity to make sure it is who I need to speak to and she's like yes.
And I go, you know, I'm here to give you news on the case what happened to you in 1995.
And I let her know. I go I've identified him and I have arrested him and he'll never get out jail.
And she collapsed, sobbing, crying, apologizing to me because she wanted to come give me a hug
but she's scared of men. And it broke my heart. It was so-- I mean, it was pretty emotionally driven.
And I sat with her. I sat down next to the door. I said, hey, keep the door locked.
You don't have to open the door for me. I go, hey, I'm just happy I could be here with you.
I'm so blessed to be able to give you this news, and I'm just happy that I'm able to do this.
And she's crying and just thanking me and calling me you're my angel, and it was just really sweet.
And I told her I want to come back and I'll bring my female partner if you're OK with that.
I'd like to sit and talk with you, but I want to make sure you're comfortable because, again, I'm
respectful of what's going on here. And then she said yes. So I arranged for my female partners
to go back the next day, and she made us coffee and brownies. And it was super sweet, and we got to--
she got to give me that big old hug she wanted to give me. And it was very endearing, but I can say that was one of--
that was one of the most memorable experiences ever-- from this case, like, I really take away
that in-person notification I gave. NANCY GRACE: Prosecutors filed multiple challenges to stop
rapist Chris VanBuskirk. I made sure that we had all of our ducks in a row, that when he was brought back to San Diego
we could jump on it right away. We came up with forcible rape of all of the women.
We also charged rape in the course of a robbery, and then we also charged the multiple victims
allegation which then allows for a life sentence. NANCY GRACE: Then Chris VanBuskirk switches strategy
and shocks the courtroom with a guilty plea. JOHN SULLIVAN: He pled guilty to all six
cases, which is a sentence of 50 years to life in prison. RONALD BAILIFF: He was being heard
through a box where he could hear us and we can hear him, but he was a coward. And he stayed in the very back of the room.
He gave an apology, but it was-- it was insincere. It was-- it was a joke. JOHN SULLIVAN: I think VanBuskirk was looking out
for VanBuskirk, and he just wanted to save face as best as he could with his child
and maybe his wife, too. But, you know, the second we went to a preliminary hearing,
I would have been on the witness stand disclosing all kinds of details of these assaults,
and that would have been out for the whole world to see and hear. And I think that he just decided to plead
guilty so that would still remain his deep dark secret. RONALD BAILIFF: This selfish part of me,
I wanted this to go to trial. I wanted genetic genealogy to be blossomed in the public.
I wanted the public to see how valuable this technique is. I wanted it to go through that court process.
But then the mercy that the Lord showed for the victims is what was important because by not having to go through that trial
by VanBuskirk admitting guilt and simply being sentenced, they didn't have to suffer through those trials,
which would have been a horrible experience for them. NANCY GRACE: The case of Chris VanBuskirk
highlights the power of genetic genealogy. RONALD BAILIFF: This is the way to go.
This is something that not is only going to solve these old cases, this is something
that we can use right now in order to solve cases that we can't just readily solve.
I think that genetic genealogy can explode as to something just unbelievable in law enforcement.
STEVE BUSCH: It is so effective. It exonerates the innocent, and it identifies the guilty
as quickly and as efficiently as law enforcement can possibly do. So I think that's something that the public needs to start
to understand that genealogy is actually a lot less invasive than traditional investigative methods,
it's much more efficient, and it's always right. MEGHAN BUCKNER: What this case did
for me was it reminded me that even when it's dark, there's always hope. NANCY GRACE: Six women, six victims
of the same brutal crime, six survivors who wait years for justice. Thanks to "Bloodline Detectives,"
they finally get that, justice. In the privacy of their own thoughts, they still endure pain but possibly rest
just a little easier tonight knowing the man who tormented them has been put away behind bars.
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us on "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]
[CLOSING THEME PLAYING]

A young woman out jogging is attacked and viciously raped at knifepoint. The perpetrator continues his reign of terror by raping another five times over the next nine years.

A compelling new True Crime series, hosted by preeminent legal analyst and renowned former prosecutor Nancy Grace, that explores the advanced form of familial DNA testing.

Brief Summary

Detectives identify and arrest serial rapist Chris VanBuskirk using forensic genetic genealogy after 25 years of unsolved cases in San Diego.

Key points

The Unsolved Attacks. From 1995 to 2004, a serial rapist terrorized San Diego, leaving DNA but no leads.
A Breakthrough in Forensics. Detectives turn to forensic genealogy to finally identify the elusive rapist.
Detectives Utilize Genetic Genealogy. San Diego cold case detectives turn to forensic genetic genealogy to solve a series of rapes.
Arrest of Chris VanBuskirk. After years of investigation, detectives arrest the suspected serial rapist Chris VanBuskirk.
Guilty Plea and Sentencing. Chris VanBuskirk pleads guilty to multiple charges, receiving a sentence of 50 years to life.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She thought she was gonna die.

Victim's emotional state during the attack.

0:22WatchJun 1, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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