Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 5 - Left for Dead in Logan County - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Huntsville, Ohio, 1993, a 19-year-old young woman, kidnapped and sex-assaulted
on her way to work. PHIL BAILEY: Probably the most violent sexual assault case I've ever worked.
JEFF ANSPACH: Placed his arms around her like in a bear hug, and then took a knife and slit her throat.
NANCY GRACE: The investigation begins detectives then discover similar sex attacks
in neighboring counties. TOM WATSON: Suspect descriptions are very consistent. ERIC STEWART: They felt they had a serial rapist on their hand,
and they were trying desperately to find who was doing this. NANCY GRACE: Investigators working
overtime to find the offender. But before they can catch him, decades will pass.
We still didn't have any suspects. PHIL BAILEY: I finally got to a point where there's no more testing that the crime lab could do.
NANCY GRACE: This is the story of survivors-- survivors of a violent sex predator, his brutal attacks,
and how the very latest developments in forensic science help investigators catch a serial rapist.
I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] July 31, 1993, Huntsville, Ohio.
Police get a call. A woman's been kidnapped and stabbed in the neck, but miraculously, she's still alive.
JEFF ANSPACH: When I arrived at the scene, the medics were already at the scene.
RANDALL DODDS: We did observe that she was bleeding about the neck, and thought it was
about a 3-inch-long, maybe close to 1/2 of an inch, cut in her throat. NANCY GRACE: The survivor, who we call Anita,
recounts her story of the attack. I was working at a plastics factory called [INAUDIBLE] I worked third shift, so I would--
slept during the day. I always went to the little Tastee Freez in Degraff, and would get a pop out of the pop machine.
It was the cheapest place to get a pop. So I always went and got my Mountain Dew.
They were working on a bridge at the time, so they had-- the road that I normally take, I couldn't get through it.
But I could go around and catch it at the end of it, and go on to work. I headed back towards Quincy onto 35
to hit the side road that would get me out and around the bridge that was closed.
From a distance, I could see somebody else turning off on that little road. I got to 47, which is the next road, and stopped,
and this person was right behind me. Their lights were blinding. I crossed over 47 and went to the next stop sign,
and that's when this truck passed me, and stopped in front of me, and blocked the road.
So I had to stop. This guy gets out, and he comes walking back, and I see the barrel of this gun in the crack of my window.
And he tried to open my door, but I had the doors locked. And told me to open it.
It's like, I'm on my way to work. I really don't-- I don't have time for this, and that's what
I said, you know. And he said, well, you will, or I'll put a hold on you. ERIC STEWART: She jumps over into the next seat.
He gets in the car, he pulls her car off to the side of the road, and then he orders her to get out
at gunpoint, get in his truck. He tosses her keys to her car into the grass, and then he takes her from there.
ANITA: He made me keep my head down and proceeded to drive, and we ended up stopping.
It was back in a wooded area. He told me to take-- take my clothes off, and so I didn't want to die, you know.
I did what he told me to do. I wasn't doing it fast enough, so he told me to hurry up.
He got out and come around to the passenger side and got in, pulled his pants down, and made
me perform oral sex on him. When it was over, I motioned to the door so I could spit,
and he seemed, you know, upset by that. It's just kind of like he was all, you know.
But I opened up the door and I spit. I remember wiping my mouth with my shirt. I'm sitting up at this point, you know.
I don't have to get back on the ground or the floor of the truck. When we went to the end of that road,
I realized where I was at. My mom always would say, you know, if somebody tried to get you, don't worry.
They'd bring you back. Well, I am thinking, he's takin' me back to my car. He drove and drove and drove, and next thing I know,
we're stopped beside a cemetery in Huntsville, waiting to cross over Interstate 33.
And that's when I realized, he wasn't taking me back to my car. And he kept driving, kept driving,
and finally, he pulled over to-- pulled off the side of the road, and he said he needed to use the bathroom.
He got out, and then he came around to my side and opened up a truck door, and told me to get out.
And he said, you're not going to tell. And he put his arms, like, around me from behind,
and pulled me down to the ground, and cut my throat, and rolled me over, and kind of pushed me out of the way
and drove off. ERIC STEWART: He must have thought she was dead or dying, because he got back in his truck,
and he left the area. Anita, you know, her survival instincts had kicked in. She knew she was severely wounded,
but she had the wherewithal to play dead and pretend that she was dead, and so he left.
Something told me, you know, this was not-- this was not supposed to be how my life was going to end.
I got up and started to go down the road the opposite way of what he went. And I noticed, you know, lights coming back.
So I just turned right into the woods, you know, to hide until he went back by. And I seen-- after I seen the truck go by,
I got back out on the road, and I started running. And I thought to myself, well, you dingbat, the more you run,
the faster everything was going to pump. And so I slowed down, and I thought, I can't--
I can't walk through here. You know, there's nothing out there. It's dark. There's no lights.
It's just summer sounds, crickets. And my mom was an EMT, paramedic, and I used to help her study for tests.
And I think that's what made me remember, you know, to put pressure on it. So I took my shirt off, and I tied it around my neck,
and I took off, took off running. NANCY GRACE: After the brutal attack, Anita runs to the nearest house, seeking help.
I went to-- stopped at a house first. It was-- nobody was there. Nobody was home.
The next one on up, they had a porch light. And when I got there, and I'm knocking on the door,
and I hear a dog barking. So I told myself, that dog's not going to quit barking until I
quit knocking, and I'm not quitting knocking until somebody, you know, comes to the door.
I see this lady and her husband. They opened the door just a little bit, and they're leery,
and I was like, I need help. Can you call someone? And they just still were like, you know, what is going on?
And finally, I just let my shirt down, and I was like, I need help. I need you to call someone.
ERIC STEWART: So she let her in, she took care of her, she got her a towel to put up to her neck, she called for help.
I mean, she was just a tremendous help. NANCY GRACE: Emergency medical services rush Anita to the hospital.
JEFF ANSPACH: When I got to the hospital, she was back in one of the emergency rooms.
She was being treated at that time, and the doctor was treating the wound that was on her neck,
and it was a sizable cut on the side of her neck. If this would have been just a hair deeper,
you know, it would have been a-- would have been fatal to her. ERIC STEWART: The doctor said the knife had cut
through the skin tissue, had cut through the muscle tissue, had exposed the carotid artery, and had come
millimeters from cutting that. And if that carotid artery had been hit, she would have died at the scene.
NANCY GRACE: The victim Anita undergoes an invasive rape kit exam. I can't really put myself in their shoes.
I really sympathize with them. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but it is critical for us
in gathering evidence. ANITA: It was just one more thing that evening, you know.
NANCY GRACE: While Anita receives the medical attention she desperately needs, investigators
wait to speak with her again. JEFF ANSPACH: To do the violent act to an individual
is just a very, very sick individual. Find him. Something. You know, fix it. Find him.
Fix it. Those are the pleas of victims violently assaulted. As we see next, those very words drive the bloodline detectives
to never give up. The survivor of a violent rape stabbing is, believe it or not,
alive and stable. Investigators from Ohio's Logan County Sheriff's Office continue to collect evidence.
They speak with the victim about the details of her attacker. RANDALL DODDS: They would have followed up with the victim
at the hospital. They would have gotten a report. They would have taken any clothing that they
had that she may have had on. He did ejaculate, and she spit it out, and it was on his clothing, so they took those items.
She also gave a description of the suspect, and ended up doing a composite drawing
for the police department. I give 'em the description of the man I saw. He was wearing a ball cap.
He had dark hair, mustache. He was wearing a T-shirt and some ball shorts, and some tennis shoes.
Gave 'em a description of the truck. On the dash, it said XLT Lariat, you know. There was something hanging from the rearview mirror that
had the word, river, on it. I did-- I did the best I could do. Anita had said the first two digits of the plate were NM.
TOM WATSON: At that time, many pickup trucks had the first two digits, Nora Mary, or NM, at the time.
RANDALL DODDS: She did a very good job of keeping and paying attention to detail.
The trauma that she was going through and the description she was able to give was more than we would probably get from most locations.
'Cause you would have a tendency to think that they're going to block these things out.
But she was remarkable in what she came up for us to at least a description of the vehicle.
NANCY GRACE: A full on investigation now underway, investigators send the survivor's
clothes for forensic testing. ERIC STEWART: Clothing was put in evidence. They submitted it to the crime lab.
They were also able to find semen on her shirt. But back then, the DNA technology just wasn't there.
They actually had sent samples from the shirt to some private DNA companies, and they
were able to do a little bit with it, but just not-- still weren't able to develop a full DNA profile.
And one of the problems was that it was a mixture, a mixture of her DNA and the suspect's DNA.
NANCY GRACE: Investigators also issue appeals to the public for information. ERIC STEWART: There were press releases.
There were posters that were made of the composite sketch. Posters were made of description of the person they were
looking for and the vehicle. And there were a number of tips that came in. They looked at 'em, but nothing really viable at the time.
NANCY GRACE: Many, many tips, but no solid leads or suspects. Fear spreads through the community.
JEFF ANSPACH: It is a very small community, and this is very unusual for something like this
to happen in our community. I think in the small village that the victim lived in, yeah,
I think there was some concern. This isn't something that would happen every day back then.
This is something that really shook the community, and would have made people fearful
and think twice about where they were going. They contacted the state patrol to help
them in their investigation. I think at one point, they may have even contacted the FBI.
So often in these investigations, detectives must look back in order to move forward.
In this case, investigators start looking at similar attacks in neighboring counties,
and they find one in 1992, just 20 miles away in Sidney County. ERIC STEWART: It was a 21-year-old girl
who had just gotten off work at Lee's Chinese Restaurant there in Sidney. And she lived there in the city.
She was on her way home. She was walking home. TOM WATSON: She went on her way, Ohio Street to Court Street,
crossed over a bridge of a river and approached an alley way behind what was then a business
called [INAUDIBLE] Sports. And in this alleyway, it's not very well-lit at the time.
But it's a quicker way to where she was living. And as she started down the alley,
a vehicle came up behind her at a high rate of speed. And so the vehicle actually splashed her as it drove
by, and cut in front of her. She thought that the person had stopped to apologize.
But unfortunately, it was a male suspect, exited his vehicle, brandished a revolver, and ordered her
into the trunk of his vehicle. She's scared to death. She doesn't know what to do, so she complies.
She gets in the trunk. He shuts the trunk, and then he takes off. TOM WATSON: And she was able to describe where she thought
that she ended up-- north of Sidney, but south of Mason Road, along a very rural part of the county,
along a set of railroad tracks on a dirt road. ERIC STEWART: She believes they probably
drove around for about 30 minutes before he finally stopped, gets out. He helps her out of the trunk.
She described the area as kind of near some railroad tracks, out-- farm field area.
And then, he sexually assaulted her. After she was sexually assaulted, the suspect went to leave the area with her
still in the vehicle, and ended up getting stuck on a set of railroad tracks. During that time, a train passed by,
and the conductor actually saw this vehicle stuck on the tracks. The conductor of this train later provided a statement
to the detectives in Sidney, and the statement described what he saw as an Oldsmobile vehicle, and he
thought, possibly a Delta 88. ERIC STEWART: He let her back in the car. He did not put her back in the trunk.
And she asked for a cigarette, and he let her have a cigarette, which, again, she described
as a Marlboro Light cigarette. TOM WATSON: That was a critical piece for us, as we saw that, or one that we saw, because our victim also
described that the suspect smoked a cigarette that they believed to be a light cigarette, possibly
a Marlboro Light. ERIC STEWART: Then he drove her back to Sidney, and he actually let her out, let her go.
She went to family and friends, and they were the ones that had contacted the police to let
them know what had happened. They took her story. They found where they believed the crime happened,
out by the railroad tracks, because there were some ruts in the ground. They had the victim go to the local hospital there.
A rape kit was done. They collected her clothing, and that was all submitted to the lab for testing.
DNA technology was just starting to become known to law enforcement agencies. They did-- they did do some work.
They found semen on her shirt, which was important, but they weren't able to fully develop a profile,
a DNA profile as we use today. NANCY GRACE: Investigators are confident they have
now discovered a serial rapist. Now, the Logan County sheriffs searches for other attacks.
These are both violent sexual assaults. I find it kind of hard that they stopped.
Now that they know a serial rapist is on the loose, bloodline detectives search for similar cases to help them catch a sex predator.
That's next. July 31, 1993, Logan County Ohio Sheriff's officers investigating the brutal rape and stabbing
of a 19-year-old young woman. The survivor has given a description. Officers have now linked her perpetrator
to another violent rape in Sidney, the neighboring county. Then, detectives become aware of an attempted
sex assault that occurred just days before the Logan rape. TOM WATSON: So this young 16-year-old lady
was sitting in her car at Tawawa Park, which is a quiet part that's heavily used there
in the City of Sidney, when a red, full-sized Ford pickup truck, as she describes, with a black cover over the bed,
pulls up behind her vehicle. A male suspect exits the vehicle and brandishes a revolver.
ERIC STEWART: And he said very similar things, that I will put a hole in you, and threatened her,
ordered her to get into his truck. This 16-year-old victim, though, she decided to run.
TOM WATSON: As she ran from the scene of where this attempted abduction was occurring, there was a pool just down the way,
that she started yelling and drew enough attention, that the suspect just fled the scene.
NANCY GRACE: Investigators are working hard to build new leads, but still, the rapist
continues to evade detection. Then, May 24, 1995, another attack reported right there in Sidney County.
She was a 22-year-old female, and a similar type thing had happened to her. A man had pulled up in a white Mustang with a black top.
TOM WATSON: The male exits the vehicle, brandishes a revolver, and orders her out of her vehicle
and into his vehicle's passenger side. He then gets into the vehicle and goes to leave with her.
She actually asks him if he's going to sexually assault her, and he says, yes. She then starts to struggle over the gun.
He regains control of the gun. She again struggles over the steering wheel. So at this time of day, as he's moving,
there's a car that happens to be behind him. He ends up just pulling over and telling her to get out.
The vehicle behind her sees the struggle that was going on inside the vehicle, pulls over with her,
picks her up, and gets her to law enforcement and to get her help. ERIC STEWART: This is the Sidney Police Department.
They've had three of these incidents now-- one that was successful and two that were unsuccessful.
But they felt they had a serial rapist on their hand, and they were trying desperately to find who was doing this,
but they weren't able to develop any suspects. NANCY GRACE: In these types of investigations,
it's inevitable. Detectives must continually review the cases, but still may come up without a suspect.
Their biggest ally becomes time and new science. 20 long years after the very first attack,
Detective Phil Bailey pushes for more modern forensic testing. ERIC STEWART: He would ask them, is
there anything new we can try? Is there any new developments in technology? And they had tried in 2014 to develop a DNA
profile from the evidence that they had, and they were unsuccessful. But they told him there was a new kit
coming online the next year. We'll try again next year. In 2015, they did, and they were successful.
They were finally able to get the DNA profile of the suspect. And once they did that, then they
could upload it into the state crime databases and see if there were any hits with any known offenders.
TOM WATSON: That was submitted to CODIS. So it's a nationwide database of known offenders
that have had their DNA submitted to it. And they found no suspect that matched.
So that told us our suspect, his DNA had not been put into that database. The one benefit that we got from that 2015 test is that they
were able to tell us that the DNA from our suspect was a match for the DNA from the suspect in Sidney in 1992
who was sexually assaulted. NANCY GRACE: Investigators can now confirm the Sidney and Logan County rapes were
committed by the same perp. But once again, they hit a dead end. TOM WATSON: So now, we concretely knew
that our two suspects, from their crime in 1992 and ours in 1993, were one and the same.
PHIL BAILEY: I finally got to a point where there's no more testing that the crime lab could do.
And at that time, you know, I knew my victim was still alive in the area somewhere, so I went to the sheriff
and asked him for some money. RANDALL DODDS: There was this new thing out called
familial DNA testing. We think we'd like to do that. Because we know we have the same DNA
in our county and same DNA from issues in Shelby and Sidney-- Shelby County or Sidney, Ohio.
But the catch is, [INAUDIBLE] it costs $6,000. And I said, we'll spend $6,000. Let's do it.
Once they develop an appropriate profile-- 'cause the DNA profile they use is actually different from what
we use in criminal work. They're trying to cast a much wider net to find who might
be related to the suspect, upload it to some public genealogy websites, and look for people that might share
some DNA with our suspect. And once they do that, then they start building out family
trees, looking for, particularly, family trees or family persons that might live in the area
where the crime occurred. And that's what happened in this case. They started building family trees,
and they found a family that lived in the area where these crimes occurred. Amanda Reno with Advance DNA, she had called the Sheriff's
Office and let them know, you might want to look at this family that lives down in the southern part
of our county. Goes by the name of Bortree. There are three brothers. Investigators are recharged when
they hear the name Bortree, and there's a good reason. Well, law enforcement, they immediately--
they knew this name. They were familiar with this family. RANDALL DODDS: I can tell you that Jeff Bortree, who
is a resident of Logan County, is in prison today because of a brutal, brutal, brutal abduction, rape of a female
that he accosted in Cincinnati, Ohio, and brought her to Logan County, Ohio, and just did things
that are-- I've seen lots of traumatic scenes over the years. I've seen lots of things.
But the video that he did-- what he did to this lady-- as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Bortree
shouldn't be alive today. NANCY GRACE: Investigators close in on a possible suspect
by first eliminating two of the three brothers. The incarcerated brother, Jeff Bortree,
committed a previous rape at his brother Walter's home. Therefore, detectives already have both Jeff
and Walter Bortree's DNA. That leaves just one brother to make a forensic match to the serial rapist.
That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." 2019, Logan County Sheriff's officers believe they finally identify a violent serial rapist
whose crimes go back 25 years. The forensic science called genetic genealogy leads finally to a suspect--
Ralph Bortree. TOM WATSON: Ralph Bortree was somebody that just wasn't familiar to us, had a very
limited criminal history-- many, many, many, years ago, for a theft offense, and that's it.
Wasn't known to us. But as we started to do some research, he was married, living here in our county, had a house,
had a job. We were able to determine a place of employment that he had worked at in Shelby County.
NANCY GRACE: Detectives carry out surveillance to learn Ralph Bortree's habits, and then gather his DNA.
PHIL BAILEY: Detective division, they found out where he was working. They watched to learn some of his habits.
They knew where he smoked, so they knew he was a smoker. So the detectives watched him.
One night, they went and cleaned the ashtray that he uses. We put lining down. And then, that day, they just watched him smoke.
And then, when he left from work, it was a public property, so we were able to go on, and detectives
collected cigarette butts. I submitted them to the crime lab the following morning,
and the following day, we got a hit, saying it was Ralph Bortree. RANDALL DODDS: Revelation.
We got him. We got him. We discussed, well, what more evidence could we collect in this case?
And we were looking for, potentially, a weapon that was used or maybe any souvenirs or keepsakes
that he might have kept. So the Sheriff's Office, they drafted a search warrant for his house.
They drafted a search warrant also to collect his saliva, in-person collection of his DNA,
took it to a judge, judge reviewed it, signed off on it, and then they immediately went out.
NANCY GRACE: Police head to Ralph Bortree's home to arrest him and to find the evidence that will link
him to the brutal sex attacks. PHIL BAILEY: We executed a search warrant at his house
the same day. We collected lots and lots of pictures, and we were able to go through the pictures
and match some of the cars in the pictures to some of the descriptions that were given.
That was part of the sheriff's investigation, was to look for vehicles that matched
the vehicle descriptions given by the victims. And surprisingly, they were able to find
a Ford F-150 registration-- came back to him. They found a white Mustang convertible that was registered
to his wife at the time. And they also found a Delta 88 that was registered to, I believe, his wife at the time.
NANCY GRACE: Investigators began interviewing Ralph Bortree, but he denies any and all involvement.
ERIC STEWART: Put him in the interview room. They conducted a recorded interview with him,
and they started-- they would confront him with, hey, do you do know this girl? And they'd show him pictures of these victims
from the '92, '93 cases, and asked him if he knew these women. And he denied. He said, no, I didn't--
I don't know these people. Don't know these women. And then, they confronted him with the fact, well,
your DNA was found. These are rape victims, and your DNA was recovered. And he still denied it, said it wasn't him,
said they'd gotten the wrong guy. His emotions were just blank. There was no signs of emotion.
There was no sign of guilt, no sign of remorse. PHIL BAILEY: He denied having any involvement in it.
His DNA was one in a trillion, and he said he was the trillion, and it was not him.
NANCY GRACE: Despite his denials, forensic science identifies Ralph Bortree as the attacker.
But now, bloodline detectives have a new and bigger problem-- Ohio's statute of limitations.
It's hard to believe, but according to the law, it looks like Ralph Bortree cannot be prosecuted for crimes
he clearly committed. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." Logan County, Ohio, 2019, 26 years
after a suspect's DNA is clearly linked to a series of sex attacks, investigators
facing a huge dilemma-- Ohio's statute of limitation might just let this suspect get away.
We were also concerned about a statute of limitations on the crime, you know, on rape.
At that time, it was way past when our victim had it, where he tried to kill her, cut her throat,
and attempted murder. We charged him with attempted aggravated murder of Anita. I think there should be no statute of limitations
on certain crimes like that. I did a lot more time than he has. NANCY GRACE: Ralph Bortree cannot be tried for the alleged
rapes and assaults. Still, Eric Stewart fights to have evidence from those crimes
allowed in court. This was him. His identity had been confirmed not just in Logan County,
but also in Shelby County. The judge allowed us to use one of the cases from Sidney.
He would not allow us to use the other cases, but the one from Sidney, where his DNA matched, he allowed us
to use, because it helped show that two different police departments working separate cases and two completely
independent labs came up with the same result. We've never done a genealogist before, so trying to figure out
how to present that to a jury in a way that would make sense to them and that they would understand
how they solved this case-- that was a challenge. While so much of this case now revolves around the statute
of limitations and forensic science, there is still one uniquely human factor for this jury to consider--
the words of a victim. That courtroom falls silent when Anita testifies, describing
the horrific details of her attack and the stabbing in her neck. ERIC STEWART: So it was very quiet.
Everyone wanted to hear what she had to say. She has a very vivid memory of what happened to her.
I mean, that's ingrained. And she recalled those details, and she told the jury what had happened to her.
I didn't want him to get to sit there and watch again, more or less, get the satisfaction of hearing me talk about it,
and he not have to say anything. It was not easy for her to talk about, but she described it.
You know, she's had to tell nurses and doctors what happened. She had to tell law enforcement what happened multiple times,
and she had to meet with prosecutors and tell them what happened. But it still wasn't easy to talk about.
NANCY GRACE: The defense tries to poke holes in the prosecution's case, but the DNA
evidence is damning. ERIC STEWART: Their strategy appeared to be just to challenge the state's evidence,
and that seemed to be their strategy, is just to try and throw some doubt in there--
was the case worked properly? NANCY GRACE: After just one hour of deliberations,
the jury hands down a verdict. Um, they found him guilty. ERIC STEWART: I felt relieved, very relieved.
You know, we got the guy, and justice had been done. ANITA: I would like to have seen that all four of the women--
they didn't get-- they didn't get anything, as far as what everyone considers justice.
I mean, yes, I'm glad that they found him. I'm glad he's in jail. But I thought we were going by the laws
back then, so 25 years was better to me. To me, that was my safety net, you know.
I knew that, OK, I'm not ever going to have to worry about him again. And then, two days before sentencing,
they called me in to tell me, well, that's not the case anymore. 3 to 11. And it's just like a smack in the face.
ERIC STEWART: Back in 1993, the penalties for attempted aggravated murder, the judge would have picked
a minimum sentence between 5 and 10 years, and then there would have been an indefinite sentence
also added on up to 25 years. So he really could have got punished and sent away for a long time.
Unfortunately, the law changed, really, just a few years ago, and the Ohio Supreme Court handed down a decision saying
that if the legislature had changed the penalty, then we also have to go by the newer penalty.
And now, the penalty for attempted aggravated murder is only 11 years. NANCY GRACE: Shocked by the sentence,
can there be any closure for Anita? No. That-- what-- what is that word? What does that word mean?
Because one of these days, I'm going to be in the grocery store, and he's going to walk right by me,
and that's got to be OK. There's nothing I can do about it. It's like a ticking clock for me.
RANDALL DODDS: There's closure in the fact that we brought justice. ERIC STEWART: Everyone wishes that there
was more punishment for this, but we now know who did it. There's some closure just to have that knowledge.
But I still think everyone wishes a little more justice could have been done. I think a guy like that should be castrated.
And I don't even know he has the right to live today, for what he did to her. But at least he's held accountable.
Whether you agree with what the court did with him or not, he's held accountable, and that's
the way our system works. NANCY GRACE: Ralph Bortree evades capture for 20 years.
For bloodline detectives, genetic genealogy was the tool that finally brought justice
to Ralph Bortree's victims. ERIC STEWART: Amanda Reno, she was the genealogist in this case.
She's the hero. A case that had gone unsolved for 25, 26 years, she solved in less than 24 hours.
It was just amazing. RANDALL DODDS: It is a game changer. It truly is. It's another tool for law enforcement
to have under their belt. Justice is not always perfect. We know that. For the victims, their relatives,
and for investigators who fight so hard to obtain it, this is one of those cases.
But for Anita and the bloodline detectives, the truth still won. Thanks to their spirit, their determination,
and to spectacular advances in forensic science, justice is finally served. I'm Nancy Grace.
Thank you for joining us here on "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]

In 1993, a 19-year-old woman is kidnapped and raped. A private forensic genealogy company is able to track down the suspect.

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

A survivor's story leads to the capture of a serial rapist after decades, highlighting forensic advancements and legal challenges.

Key points

The Brutal Attack. A 19-year-old woman is kidnapped and brutally assaulted on her way to work.
Anita's Miraculous Survival. Despite severe injuries, Anita manages to escape and seek help.
The Community in Fear. The violent crime shakes the small community, spreading fear among residents.
DNA Technology Advances. After decades, modern forensic science helps link the attacks to a serial rapist.
Familial DNA Testing Proposal. Detectives propose a new DNA testing method to find the suspect.
The Cost of Justice. Investigators face a $6,000 price tag for DNA profiling, but they decide to proceed.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is the story of survivors.

Nancy Grace introduces the episode.

1:08WatchJun 1, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.