Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 9 - Montana Creek Murders - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: December 24, 1984, a body discovered in a shallow grave, Missoula, Montana.
STEVE BUNCH: The skeletal remains that they found had one unique piece to them and that is that she--
the unknown female-- had two .32 caliber bullets that were fired into the back of her head.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police launch a full investigation, but they cannot identify the victim.
SUSAN LANE: When remains are found, then basically, you're going to look for who
was reported missing and they couldn't find anyone that matched. NANCY GRACE: When another dead body turns up,
police fear a serial killer on the loose. ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: Another unsolved female homicide
east of Missoula. DAVID CONWAY: It was quite shocking for the community. It was quite shocking for everyone
involved to realize that there was a serial killer among us. When they searched his home, they
begin to find items of interest and evidence that linked him to many of the missing and unidentified
remains. NANCY GRACE: This is the story of how two victims are left unidentified
and without justice for decades. It's also, the story of how newly invented DNA technology gives victims' families the closure
they so long deserved. I'm Nancy Grace and this is "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]
Christmas Eve, 1984. A woman's body discovered near Deer Creek, Missoula, Montana.
ANGELA MARSHALL: A photographer was walking along at Deer Creek Road in East Missoula, when the photographer
came across a body. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police rush to the scene. ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: The ground was frozen solid.
They brought in some heaters and tried to thaw the soil around, enough that they could extract
this body from the ground. Eventually, they were able to get it out. It turned out to be a woman--
a young woman. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators carefully examine the body.
ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: Her hair was still there. Her hair was unique in that it had been dyed a couple of times
and so, there were several layers of coloring in this hair. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives search the crime
scene for more evidence. DAVID CONWAY: They searched the area all around-- grid search, searched it with metal detectors,
sifted through the dirt in the immediate burial and the shallow grave area and nothing was found.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives are unable to identify the victim so they give her the case name, Debbie Deer Creek.
DAVID CONWAY: She was officially listed as a Jane Doe, but because she was on Deer Creek and, at the time,
we there were several Jane Doe's so they were given nicknames and she was nicknamed Debbie Deer Creek.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The body, taken away for autopsy. Investigators have lots of questions and very few answers.
DAVID CONWAY: It's impossible to give an exact time frame of how long it would take to decompose
and how long it would have taken to have gotten her into that state, but presumably, a couple of years.
STEVE BUNCH: The skeletal remains that they found had one unique piece to them and that is that she--
the unknown female-- had two .32 caliber bullets that were fired into the back of her head.
And so, that's an obvious to a trained investigator-- or even, maybe, an untrained investigator-- that's not
a person who committed suicide. That's clearly somebody who was murdered. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police beg the public for information,
but Debbie Deer Creek goes unidentified. Then, nine months later, another body discovered.
On September 9, 1985, there was a bear hunter out in Missoula County and he shot a bear
and was tracking the bear and he came across human remains. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators race
to the remote area and they determine the victim has been dead for some time. ANGELA MARSHALL: They named her Christy Crystal Creek, based
off of where she was found. She was found along Crystal Creek Road and Crystal Creek
runs into the Clark Fork River, which then runs next to a small town, called Truro, which is
about southeast of Missoula . ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: Crystal Creek is a drainage that runs down out of the mountains 2 miles east
of Deer Creek, where Debbie Deer Creek was found and this one, the body had obviously
been there for a while because all that was left was the skeleton. SUSAN LANE: The bones were scattered about.
They were concentrated in, kind of, a covert area, which might have been covered by some brush for a shallow grave,
but just, not necessarily in a hole that's been dug, but just covered up. Often, you will find some of the bones
might have been spread away from the original site, taken by predators. So most of her bones--
a few were not recovered, but most were found in that area. So the initial investigation was going to the site
and retrieving all the human remains and also, then, using the metal detector because she had been shot in the head.
So it was looking in that scene for any personal effects, any of the bullet casings, anything
and they found nothing. DAVID CONWAY: In the '80s, the tools that were used to identify remains
were tremendously limited in comparison to what we have today. It was pre-DNA. There was blood typing that could be done to determine
if the blood type matched one another, but that's not very conclusive and, in this case,
they were skeletal remains so we couldn't even do that. There were databases at the time to be able to enter missing
persons and compare that to found remains, but they were difficult to use and they
didn't provide a whole lot of avenues for investigation or resources. There was obviously dental or odontology comparisons
that could be done, but you had to have something to compare it to. When remains are found, then basically, you're going to look
for, who was reported missing? And so they started, who was reported missing locally, who
was reported missing in the state, and then, going regionally and nationally and they couldn't find anyone that matched.
You can tell from bones, the height of someone so that, kind of, narrowed it down.
In this particular case, in Christy Crystal Creek, she was between 4' 11" and 5' 1".
And you can also determine age so she was between the ages of, like, 23 and 29. NANCY GRACE: Local police now have two unsolved murders
on their hands and the sinking feeling, a serial killer on the loose. That's next, on "Bloodline Detectives."
[MUSIC PLAYING] 1985. The Missoula County Sheriff's Office working two brutal homicide cases,
both victims shot in the head. Very troubling for investigators? Both victims remain unidentified.
SUSAN LANE: Both sets of remains had been shot in the head and they were skeletonized.
They were found without any personal effects or clothing. One-- the one in September-- was found near Crystal Creek
and so she was named Christy Crystal Creek. The other was found near Deer Creek Road
and so she was Debbie Deer Creek, while she was unidentified. During the time, they did a facial reconstruction using
some of the early methodology and so, they put out pictures and flyers-- again, here's unidentified remains--
and try to get public awareness. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): But the public appeals do
not generate any solid leads. Both cases go completely cold over two decades, until April 2006.
Derek Bachmann had been looking for his sister, who had ran away, for many years.
ANGELA MARSHALL: He had spent much of his life searching for his sister. When Marci Bachmann was about 16 years old,
she ran away from her home in Vancouver, Washington, mostly due to family troubles.
DAVID CONWAY: He feared that she may have been a victim of the Green River Killer
so during the course of that investigation, he contacted those investigators. SUSAN LANE: They had been trying to identify additional victims
of the Green River Killer and so, they asked Derek to submit his DNA and that would be compared
to any of the DNA from the unidentified remains cases that they have. He submitted his DNA and while it didn't match any
of the Green River Killer suspected victims, Derek Bachmann's DNA was a familial match to one
of the cases that the Missoula County Sheriff's Office had put into CODIS and that was for Debbie Deer Creek.
So it turned out, Debbie Deer Creek was identified as Derek Bachmann's sister, Marcella
Bachmann, known as Marci. NANCY GRACE: By going to police, Derek Bachmann tragically,
finds his sister, Marci. His information and his DNA reveals she is Debbie Deer Creek, but how did she end up in Montana?
Then, police show Derek a photo of an unidentified woman named, Robin, last seen with a local serial killer, Wayne Nance.
SUSAN LANE: They showed the photos to Derek, who said, that's my sister. DAVID CONWAY: When Marci Bachmann was 16, in 1984,
she ran away from her home in Washington and hitchhiked her way here, to Missoula, Montana.
We presume that she came in contact with Wayne Nance at the Cabin Bar in East Missoula, where
he was a doorman or a bouncer. They developed a relationship and she was known as his girlfriend for a short period of time
and stayed with him there. He told everyone that her name was Robin and that she was from Texas.
SUSAN LANE: People had met her or met them at the Cabin Bar and he told people that she had gone back home
or gone off traveling so no one really-- there was no one in Missoula that listed her as a missing person.
She wasn't from Missoula, she didn't have family in Missoula, and really had only been there for a few weeks,
and was living, kind of, a traveling lifestyle so the fact that she moved on didn't
seem suspicious to anyone. Marcella, or Marci, had a relationship or the last person
she had been seen with was Wayne Nance, who ended up essentially, being a serial killer.
Wayne went to the home of Doug and Kris Wells. Kris Wells was the manager of Conlin's Furniture
Store and Wayne had developed a crush-- more like an infatuation-- with Kris. He had been known to send her flowers, give her cards.
The night of September 3, 1986, he went to the home of Doug and Kris Wells. ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: And at pistol point,
he has Kristen tie Doug in the basement, with his hands behind his back and Doug is left seated.
He then marches Kris back up the stairs, down the hall to the master bedroom. After he had tied up Kris, he went back to the basement
to check on Doug, where he had beat him with a club. ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: And according to the Wells's, like,
he's going into some kind of a trance. He's speaking to himself about how he's got to be careful.
He can't make any mistakes. And he's back and forth, back and forth between Kristen
and Doug, two or three times. He goes down there and he looks at Doug and he takes his knife
and he goes over to him and he stabs him in the heart. [SMACK] And Doug says, he pulled a knife out and he looked at it
and he saw that there was some blood on him and he rather, nonchalantly wipes the blood on the knife
off on Doug's pant leg. Now, here's Doug tied to this post. He's been stabbed in the chest.
He knows that this guy is back and forth and he's headed back up the stairs to his wife
and he doesn't know what's going on up there. Eventually, through this entire ordeal,
when Wayne wasn't around Doug, Doug was able to get out of his ties. And Doug was a gunsmith and so, in the basement
is where he kept all of his equipment for work. ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: And he looks around the room
and over in the corner, he sees an old rifle propped up in the corner. He staggers over and he gets the rifle
and he looks around for a bullet and all he could find is one bullet. [LOADING GUN]
SUSAN LANE: He didn't think he could make it up the stairs so he made a bunch of noise to draw Nance's attention so Nance
came back to the top of the stairs to see what was going on and Doug shot him and hit him in the side.
[GUNSHOT] ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: But Wayne doesn't go down. He's still standing there so Doug, somehow, summons up
superhuman strength, grabs the gun by the barrel, and goes up the stairs and he starts wailing
on Wayne with the stock-- the butt-- of the rifle and Wayne starts doing a crab walk back down the hallway
towards the master bedroom. Wayne pulls out of the bag that he had, his pistol and he shoots and he shoots Doug in the leg.
So now, Doug has had been stabbed in the chest and shot in the leg, but he doesn't give up.
He keeps wailing away at Wayne. And finally, they get back into the master bedroom
where Kristen is tied on the bed spread eagle. Kristen has somehow managed to get one of her hands free
and she's trying to hit Wayne and Doug's yelling, out of the way! Out of the way!
And he's hitting him. Another shot goes off and then, the room goes blank. [GUNSHOT]
Wayne Nance has been shot in the head with his own gun. Doug collapsed. It turns out later, that the stab to his chest
did not actually enter the heart, but Doug's bleeding profusely and he's seriously injured.
Kristen calls 911, the sheriff responds, and Wayne is dead. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Incredibly, Doug Wells
survives the horrific ordeal. Now, investigators need to learn more about Wayne Nance.
ANGELA MARSHALL: Wayne was born in October of 1955. He grew up in the Missoula, East Missoula areas.
He went to elementary school at Bonner Elementary School, which is just a few miles from the town of East Missoula,
and he was known to be, during elementary school, quite a rulely kid, kind of, a troublemaker of sorts.
And in my research, Detective Marta Timmons, with the Missoula County Sheriff's Office,
had interviewed neighbors of Wayne Nance and his family from when he was growing up in the neighborhood as a child.
And he would often, kidnap cats, put them in mailboxes, and then blow them up. He went onto high school in Missoula and he was quite,
the loner, kind of, a recluse, had very few friends, and was often, seen drawing pictures in a notebook.
He was quite an avid drawer and some of the pictures in the notebook that he would draw would almost
represent the occult. So, kind of, a liking for witchcraft or sorcery, drawings included pentagrams, bloodied
knives, demons with horns and blood and skulls. SUSAN LANE: I don't know if he suffered trauma as a child.
There was a lot of strange things going on, besides his carving pentagrams into his arm.
It's hard to say what's rumor or what's true. ANGELA MARSHALL: Oddly enough, he was a really good student.
His teachers would say he was a good student in class, he earned well over a 3.0 GPA, and he
ended up graduating from Semmel High School in 1974. SUSAN LANE: His mother, she had a troubled life.
She died in a single car accident on Deer Creek Road so in that same area is where his mother had died.
He apparently told a couple of people that was his favorite place to hang out. There was an old car and one of those
that he liked to just sit and watch. He loved going out in that area at the time.
It was just, pretty much, a rural road, but that was one of his favorite areas to hang out
and he used to go there and he would take women on dates there. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives learned Wayne Nance
was a suspect in the 1974 murder of 39-year-old Donna Pounds, but police couldn't gather enough evidence
to charge him at the time. What authorities had found was a woman who had been gagged, bound in a chair,
and found in the basement of her home. Donna Pounds had been shot five times in the back of the head
and what was really odd and slightly disturbing about this crime scene is they were able to find the murder
weapon, which was a .22 caliber Luger and the reason why they could identify that so well is because the murder
weapon was on the scene. It was actually found in between Donna's legs, with the shaft shoved up her vagina.
Wayne was friends with Donna's son, Ken, and he had also been spotted by witnesses in the neighborhood.
Other witnesses, who didn't necessarily identify Wayne on the scene, had mentioned seeing somebody
with a black backpack or somebody carrying a black bag of sorts. And authorities did question Wayne about his whereabouts
during the time of Donna's murder and Wayne said that he wasn't in school that day,
but he was also walking around the wilderness or the woods by his home, looking for Indian artifacts for a class.
But what was interesting about that is the class that he was searching these artifacts for had actually
ended the previous fall. So authorities did gather a search warrant. They searched his bedroom.
They did find a black backpack. They also found a pair of women's bloodied underwear.
They decided to have Wayne take a polygraph test, of which he passed. Now, in trying to build a case around Wayne in order
to make arrest for him in Donna Pounds murder, they weren't able to do so because all of the evidence
that they had was circumstantial. And so, essentially, they weren't able to charge
Wayne with Donna's murder. NANCY GRACE: Missoula County sheriffs decide to search Wayne Nance's home.
What they find will link him to more murders. Could the search yield clues about Christy Crystal Creek--
the other unidentified Jane Doe? That's next, on "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]
2006, Missoula County sheriff's investigating the murders of two unidentified women in the 1980s.
Investigators successfully ID one of the victims as Marci Bachmann, using familial DNA.
Investigators confident Marci Bachmann was the victim of a suspected serial killer, Wayne Nance.
Wayne Nance was a serial killer during that time frame here in Missoula. He was responsible for a number of deaths.
He, himself, was killed during a home invasion. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): During a search of Wayne Nance's home
after his death in 1986, police find evidence of an unsolved double murder that went down December 12, 1985.
SUSAN LANE: Teresa and Michael Shook were killed in their home and they were tied up, killed, and then,
the house was set on fire with the children still inside. Luckily, the house was shut up and locked up in such a way
that the fire went out, but people were able to come to the house and break in and rescue the children, who survived,
but the Shook's had been killed. ANGELA MARSHALL: Authorities were able to connect Wayne,
eventually, to the Shook murders, following Wayne's death because also in Wayne's bedroom
were some belongings of the Shook's that family had identified as missing from the house following
the fire and their murders. And two of those prominent articles were a cast iron statue of an elk bugling
and another one was a Kelgin knife that Mike had actually been given to, by a family member.
SUSAN LANE: And one of the police officers says, I think I saw that in Wayne Nance's room
and so they went back and they recovered some items and the father was able to identify
and provide a receipt of the actual purchase of the knife. And so, they used that to basically,
connect Wayne Nance to that double homicide, as well. ROBERT DESCHAMPS III: He probably, would be a fairly
stereotypical serial killer. Most of all of these people have been methodical and careful
with their crimes. They're difficult to catch. They have many similarities, in that all of them
tend to be very careful. They have peculiar habits. For example, Wayne Nance slept on rubber sheets.
He kept his room darkened with black plastic so light didn't come in. He was meticulous and had clothes laid out
in a certain order and folded in a certain way, which seems to be stereotypical of a lot of these people.
He certainly had an interest in the occult, in stuff that made him different from your average person.
That doesn't mean that everybody that has an interest in the occult is a serial killer or even
a killer, but there are similarities that certainly exist between him and, what I understand,
exist with other serial killers. The real question is, what creates these people?
What is it that goes on with them that leads them to this kind of behavior? I do know that Wayne was obviously,
a sociopath because he took a lie detector and he passed it with flying colors. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police are still
anxious to ID the remains of the unidentified victim they have called, Christy Crystal Creek.
DAVID CONWAY: We had a reserve deputy, Marta Timmons. She was heavily invested in getting Christy Crystal
Creek back to her family. She researched and worked with the anthropology department,
researched every available avenue at the time. She spent countless numbers of hours on that investigation,
trying to get resolved to it. SUSAN LANE: Her bones were sent to the University of North
Texas Center for Human Identification and they were able to extract the DNA that went into CODIS.
The forensic odontologist looked at her dental work and said that she had an actual screw
post in her jaw, which was not common, he said, at that time in the US or Europe.
ANGELA MARSHALL: The teeth that remained had fillings, which could only have been
done from overseas, in places like China or Korea or even, Thailand. SUSAN LANE: So based on the forensic anthropology
and the odontology, the best guess at that time was that she was an Asian female, which was what she was
listed as in all of the unidentified remains databases, as an Asian female. NANCY GRACE: Next on "Bloodline Detectives," a cold case unit
is set up, but will it lead investigators to even more crimes serial killer Wayne Nance has left behind?
[MUSIC PLAYING] 2018. Missoula County sheriff's investigating unidentified remains of a young woman.
Her case name? Christy Crystal Creek. They suspect she was murdered by serial killer, Wayne Nance,
and they send her case to their newly established cold case unit. ANGELA MARSHALL: Missoula County Sheriff's Office
was able to develop a cold case squad and it's a team of three former federal agents
who are currently retired. And so, they volunteer their time, as well as their professional resources, in investigating cold cases,
particularly for the Missoula County Sheriff's Office and Christy Crystal Creek's case has
been one that's been hanging over the department ever since her remains were found, back in 1985.
It was important to us because we were so busy with current cases-- with cases that we're actively working--
we really don't have time to go back and look at cases that have grown cold so this was a great opportunity to establish
an unit who had the time and ability and skills to go back and look at those cold cases
and use new technology to solve them. The cold case unit presented the idea of using forensic genealogy to determine the identity
of Christy Crystal Creek. Her DNA, by that point, had already been tested and entered
into CODIS, with no results. STEVE BUNCH: I initially got involved with the Christy
Crystal Creek case when Sue Lane, up at Missoula County, called and asked if the FBI would
help her out with another case. You'll find that when you work forensic genetic genealogy
cases, there is a lot of work to be done. The building of the family trees in these cases
can take weeks or months and the more manpower that you have, the better. And so, I think, Sue just needed some additional assistance
and so she reached out and I was happy to jump in and help. SUSAN LANE: In order to do forensic genetic genealogy,
you have to have a new DNA sample. You can't use the CODIS profile because it's,
kind of, apples and oranges. So we had to check to see if anyone had any of her DNA sample from when they did the CODIS--
the extract-- that we could use to further amplify and they didn't so then, we had to send
her bones to a laboratory to try to do the extraction. STEVE BUNCH: Bode is a fantastic lab at doing extractions
from bones and Bode was able to extract a large amount of DNA from these bones, but the quality was so bad
that the array wouldn't run. And so, when you have that type of a situation, sequencing is the way to go and what we had determined
was if you have bones-- skeletal remains that have been in the elements, contaminated,
bacteria, over time, Othram was the best place to go in order to get a viable snip through sequencing,
in this case. NANCY GRACE: A SNP profile, abbreviated SNP, stands for single nucleotide polymorphisms.
Put simply, it's a generic variation among people that "Bloodline Detectives" can use
to hone in on a victim's ancestry, helping to pinpoint their identity. SUSAN LANE: In January of 2021, we
submitted the Christy Crystal Creek to Othram to do the whole genome sequencing.
DAVID CONWAY: The profile that we received from Othram Labs was entered into two open sourced genealogy platforms.
One gave a distant match, one gave a much closer match-- in fact, a first cousin.
STEVE BUNCH: We got the matches back and we started building trees and the idea with all
of these-- the goal in the beginning-- is always to connect matches. And once you start connecting matches, what I like to see--
as the person doing the genealogy-- is we know that every human being has a mom and every human
being has a dad and so, you want to find DNA that's going to come in through mom's line
and find DNA that comes in through dad's line. And once you do that, once you find the DNA coming
in from both sides of the equation, that's when you know you're in a very, very good spot.
Sue and I were working together. It was actually late at night. I was working from home-- which is where a lot
of the genealogy work gets done, is after hours at night on my laptop-- and Sue and I were working together one night
and we just-- she's a bulldog. She does not stop. I mean, she just wants to work all night long--
and it was late one night and we just, were on the phone, plowing back and forth, and we were
able to find the DNA coming in from both sides of the victim's family. And it was at that point, we knew
we had narrowed it down to a very, very small pool of potential candidates. NANCY GRACE: Finally after 35 years,
investigators closed in on identifying a victim they named, Christy Crystal Creek.
That's next, on "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING] May 2021. Missoula County sheriff's cold case unit
identifies the likely family tree of an unidentified victim, Christy Crystal Creek,
through genetic genealogy. Her body was discovered back in 1985. She was shot and buried in a shallow grave.
SUSAN LANE: We had this family tree circle and then when we got the family Tree DNA hit--
which was a good hit-- we were able to build out their family tree. And when we overlay those two trees,
we saw that there was a maternal line here that crossed a paternal line here and it was that husband and wife,
we looked at all of their children because that's where the DNA would match. And so we were able to find a number of siblings and amongst
those was Janet Lucas and there was no record of her past 1983. So she became, kind of, our focus.
Let's look at her and be able to include or exclude her as Christy Crystal Creek.
STEVE BUNCH: Janet was the one that we just couldn't find any info on. She just wasn't anywhere in any of the databases
and so, it's tough to prove a negative. It's tough to prove that she doesn't exist right now, today,
in current times, but one of the resources that genealogists and investigators in this field find very,
very helpful is a website called newspapers.com and newspapers.com is fantastic for going
back in time and looking through old newspaper clippings-- I mean, really old newspaper clippings that have articles
posted about different things. And through newspapers, we were able to find a posting in one
of the papers that was notifying the public, saying, hey, we don't know where the mother of Janet's son
is currently located. It was a posting that was saying that custody of her son was going to go to these two other folks in her family.
And it was at that point, we realized that you wouldn't post something like that shortly after she went missing,
unless you didn't know where she was and, for me, that was the aha moment when, hey, this is the person who
we're really looking to find. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The cold case team finds a first cousin who is a match
and asks him for information about Janet Lucas and her whereabouts. He quickly confirms their suspicions.
He had a relative, Janet Lucas, who had gone missing in the mid-'80s. He also told us that Janet had a brother
and provided contact information for the brother. So we reached out to the brother to contact him,
to see if he had additional information about Janet-- was she, in fact, missing?
When was the last time he had seen her? And it turned out that he actually was with all of the siblings.
They were at a sibling reunion and so all of Janet's brothers and sisters were there and they were able to provide us
with information indicating the last time they had seen her was in March of 1983.
They were able to get DNA samples from her son and close relatives for a direct comparison match.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators get that DNA result from the lab and confirm Christy Crystal
Creek is, indeed, Janet Lucas. SUSAN LANE: She had finally been identified and it was emotional for all of her siblings, for everyone,
for her son, in particular. He had been looking for her for decades, since he became a parent, himself.
And he actually said that he had come across the Christy Crystal Creek profile on NamUs, but she was listed as an Asian female
so he discounted it. They went through a lot of the grief because they didn't know she was dead
so basically, we did a death notification. For us, it was identifying remains in a positive way.
For them, it was a death notification so it was hard because I think they had all held out some hope.
A number of them flew to Missoula after that notification and asked to go see where her body had been found so the detectives,
the captain of detectives, the chaplain took the family out to show where her body had been found.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives speak to Janet's family members and trace the circumstances
of her disappearance. The family had last seen her in March of 1983. Prior to that, she had been living with her brother--
her twin brother, Jimmy-- and his family, along with her son, as a single mother.
SUSAN LANE: She had not come home for a few days so he went to go find her and he found her at a bar drinking
with some friends and he had a confrontation, saying she needed to come home and be with her son.
And he left, thinking-- they had an argument, but he left thinking that she would be coming home--
she basically, assured him of that-- and then, she never came home and he never heard from her again after that and that was in March of 1983.
DAVID CONWAY: We knew that she had a boyfriend who lived in Northern Idaho. Years later, after she became missing,
he told extended family of hers that they had been hitchhiking together to Montana.
They got into an argument along the way and she got a ride and he didn't. Coincidentally, Wayne Nance and Janet Lucas
had the same month and day for date of birth. We know that Wayne Nance was a doorman at the Cabin
Bar in East Missoula. It was a common place for hitchhikers to wander into. SUSAN LANE: So if she's 21 at the time, she goes to the bar,
she gets carded, hears the bouncer-- hey, that's my same birth date. They might have established rapport right then.
We interviewed everyone from that time frame and no one could recognize Janet, had ever seen
Nance with Janet so there's no proof of that. As I say, it's hypothesizing a theory of the crime,
but the fact that she was found less than 2 miles away, same time frame, same manner of death, same manner of arrival
into Missoula that it leads us, more likely than not, the last friend she was seen with has passed away.
There was no evidence indicating that he had been there, that he had ever confessed to it,
that they were seen together. It just seems, more likely than not, she did hitchhike
and that's where she encountered Wayne Nance. DAVID CONWAY: There was never any specific item of evidence,
nor has there been yet, a specific item of evidence that linked Wayne Nance to Christy Crystal Creek.
However, because of the location of the body dump, because of the time frame that it occurred,
it's presumed that Christy Crystal Creek was an additional victim of Wayne Nance.
The nature of the death of these victims was extremely violent. We'll never know the full details or circumstances that
led up to the moments before their death, but we are glad to be able to finally get Janet's remains
back to her family to give them some closure and so that she can rest in peace. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators,
thankful to finally lay this case to rest. SUSAN LANE: Forensic genetic genealogy, in this case,
brought that closure, brought that identification and she never would have been identified.
We had nothing. We had no perpetrator DNA. We had her DNA already in the existing system.
There was no personal effects. There was no casings. There were no missing persons.
There was nothing. We had followed every lead and Marta Timmons had dedicated probably, the last two
decades of her career to trying to identify Christy Crystal Creek DAVID CONWAY: Tragically, Marta Timmons
never got to see the result and the fruits of her labor. She passed away, just before we were able to positively
identify Janet Lucas. NANCY GRACE: There are so many times an investigation is never really finished
for "Bloodline Detectives." In the cases of Marci Bachmann and Janet Lucas, the Missoula County sheriff's cold case unit
did an incredible job identifying the two victims. Still, these dedicated professionals
want to know everything. Did the victims fight back? Did Wayne Nance claim other victims, who
identities still remain lost? They will continue to ask those questions and by doing so,
try to come to terms with the cases they take on. I'm Nancy Grace Thanks for joining us,
on "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]

When a woman is found dead in her home, detectives are left with more questions than answers.

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

Two unidentified women in Montana are linked to serial killer Wayne Nance, with DNA technology finally revealing their identities decades later.

Key points

The Discovery of Debbie Deer Creek. A woman's body is found in a shallow grave, leading to fears of a serial killer.
Familial DNA Breakthrough. Derek Bachmann's DNA leads to the identification of his sister as Debbie Deer Creek.
Wayne Nance's Dark Past. Investigators uncover Wayne Nance's history of violence and possible connections to multiple murders.
The Mystery of Christy Crystal Creek. Investigators delve into the case of Christy Crystal Creek, a victim of serial killer Wayne Nance.
A Breakthrough After Decades. In May 2021, the cold case unit identifies Christy Crystal Creek through genetic genealogy.
Closure for Janet Lucas's Family. The identification of Janet Lucas brings emotional closure to her family after decades of searching.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's also the story of how newly invented DNA technology gives victims' families closure.

Nancy Grace discussing the impact of DNA technology on solving cold cases.

1:27WatchJun 1, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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