Finally Solved 62 Years Later! Candy Rogers | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Spokane, Washington, March 1959, nine-year-old little girl Candy Rogers
reported missing from home. JOANNE POSS: That is what haunts me at night. That's what all this brings back,
is that what did that poor girl, what horrendous things did that poor little sweetheart go through?
NANCY GRACE: For more than six long decades, police cannot identify her killer and finally
bring him to justice. For 62 years, they had people working on this case. There was never, like, a time where
they let that case go cold. Someone was constantly following leads. NANCY GRACE: But then forensic science offers
a potential breakthrough. I'm very grateful and amazed at the energy and effort we put into our cold cases.
And hopefully, with the forensic genealogy, we will be able to solve more, that this will
be the first of many other cases that will be solved in this way. NANCY GRACE: This is the remarkable story
of nine-year-old Candy Rogers and how forensic genetic genealogy cracked her case
wide open 62 years later. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
NANCY GRACE: March 6, 1959, Spokane, Washington police get a worried call from the family of a nine-year-old little girl
whose smile lit up a room. JOANNE POSS: Candy Rogers was my cousin. She was just getting ready to become a Camp Fire girl.
Bluebirds were the same as Camp Fire, but on a much younger basis because we're talking kindergarten, first, second grade.
It was just a fun time to get together with a whole bunch of little girls. JULIE HUMPREYS: She was very excited about the mint sale.
She had sold about 20 boxes the year before, and she wanted to beat that number and get to go to camp without cost.
So you had to sell a certain number of boxes to do that. And on the way home, she'd stopped at the director's home
to pick up her boxes and picked up about seven boxes and brought them home, was very excited about getting
out and starting. But she couldn't start till 4 o'clock. And she was a rule follower.
So her mother's close friend had asked, she said, I'll buy a box from you. And this was right when she got home from school.
And Candy said, no, we can't start till 4 o'clock. So she waited. She played with her dog.
She visited with her grandma, had a snack, and at 4 o'clock, went down the stairs and went to sell the candies
in her neighborhood. NANCY GRACE: It's getting dark. Little Candy Rodgers still isn't home.
Her parents become increasingly fearful. I happened to be at a Camp Fire overnighter
across the street from our house. And my mother came over and asked my twin sister and I
to come with her. And she said, Candy's missing. OK, what do you mean "missing"?
And she said they can't find her. She went out to sell Camp Fire mints. And I just assumed that the innocent age of 13,
she was lost, so they needed to find her. And she said, Dad and the boys are going to look for her.
And they took off, and they were gone for hours. And they came back, and they went out the next day.
They never found her. NANCY GRACE: Officers arrive, and they join in the search for Candy.
ZAC STORMENT: Both homes would have been checked, the grandparents' and the mother's.
She was not there. So from there, the search broadens out, looking proximate to the home and ever expanding.
The first night, it was a lot of family and police officers and interested parties, people that knew of this
and knew of her. By the next morning, it was an entire community. The news was out that this little girl had
been missing all night long, and people came out in droves to help. I don't think anybody really knows exactly what happened.
But somewhere along the way in selling candies, she was abducted, whether that was at somebody's home,
somebody pulled her in and took her from there, whether it was a car driving by.
We don't know the details, but she was kidnapped and taken against her will that night.
One of the interesting developments and very concerning developments was the discovery of mint boxes leading
down the hill toward the river. It took some time to actually reconcile the numbers with how
many she was issued, which was seven, in a cardboard container, with how many she sold,
which was one, and how many were found, which was six. When those numbers all matched up,
the concern was certainly elevated. The policemen at the time certainly knew something-- something terrible had happened.
There's notes of patrolmen talking to each other, making mention of, this does not look good.
They knew that. They mentioned that to each other and were personally concerned.
NANCY GRACE: Additional resources are called in to help search for the little girl.
They sent a helicopter on March 7, 1959. It actually landed at what is now Spokane
Falls Community College. They flew down the Spokane River gorge near what's referred to as Seven Mile.
Anyone that lives in that area knows that that area has many power lines crossing the river there,
high-tension power lines. And unfortunately, that helicopter hit a set of those high-tension power lines
and is described as exploding and falling into the river. NANCY GRACE: This is an investigation filled with one
tragedy after the next. Three people searching for Candy Rogers have died and so far no sign of the missing
nine-year-old little girl. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [SENTIMENTAL MUSIC]
NANCY GRACE: March 6, 1959, Spokane, Washington, Candy Rogers, just nine years old, declared missing
when she fails to return home. The town rallies. They searched the entire area, determined to find Candy alive
and bring her home. On March 22, 1959, two airmen from Fairchild Air Force Base,
not associated with the search at all, we're on a day off, and they had decided to go hunting
together in an area about seven miles northwest of Spokane. They made a discovery of two shoes,
matching pair, that looked like a little girl's shoes in the woods that day. And I think it was the fact the shoes looked
fairly pristine for having been in the woods and were still together. They recognized that that's unusual, and they felt,
we better call. And they actually did call with the thought of Candy Rogers in mind.
Two carloads of patrolmen were brought up. They went into the area where the shoes were found,
and within a matter of minutes, a patrolman made the comment that we don't need to look any farther.
She's right here. And what he had seen or witnessed was a little girl's knee sticking
out from a pile of brush. You can be sure that that affected every one of those,
whether officers-- whether it was the officer that actually came upon her or not,
that it affected everybody. The body was placed in an area where a giant-- a very large rock bluff and outcropping
was to the west of the body. In 1959, there wasn't a lot of sunlight. Sun sets before 6:00 PM.
So the sun wasn't on her a great deal. The ground is still cold. There's still snow in some places.
So I think her temperature was kept down. For us, this is good luck in that forensic biological evidence is being preserved.
The autopsy of Candy Rogers occurred the next day, on March 23, 1959. The cause of death was ruled to be
asphyxia through strangulation and a homicide, very obviously. She was very obviously sexually assaulted.
Semen was observed on her clothes, and that evidence was collected. Ligatures were present.
It appeared that a ligature had been on Candy's hands at one point but was no longer present.
She did have a ligature around her neck, and her feet were bound. I was on my way to church, and I had-- was going to go
with one of the neighbor girls. And we went out the door. And my mom came out and said, by the way, they found Candy,
but she's dead. Never imagined that she would be killed. That just doesn't happen to your family.
I think it must have been very, very hard for detectives. Whenever a case turns from a missing
persons case to a homicide case, the dynamics change. First of all, the hope that you will
find that person, that missing person alive is gone. There's the reality that there's a death and then the knowledge
that we have to take all these tips and find this person and figure out what happened.
It's-- It's a tough change, particularly with the grief and the hope that's gone
that she's not alive. So the investigation takes on a different flavor at that point.
ZAC STORMENT: Registered sex offenders were not quite a concept at this point. But the detectives of the time knew their people,
and they knew the likely offenders. Those were some of the first people contacted,
and those were the people they had in mind. And that would have been part of the information
sent to other agencies across the United States. Do you have someone in mind who may be capable of committing
such a crime? And they got many responses. They can't possibly work them all immediately,
and it's best just to keep gathering the tips and hope that one of them will actually be
the answer you're looking for. In so many ways, Candy represented every child and the horror of what had happened to her
and that no one was held accountable, I think, drove many people to never give up on this,
to keep looking, to say, we've got to be able to find something to solve this. NANCY GRACE: Detectives focus their attention
on a potential suspect. ZAC STORMENT: Hugh Morse emerged in the case file as an interesting, very promising lead
because he is a very interesting, and in fact, serial killer. Hugh Morse was eventually caught in Minnesota
and incarcerated there and spoke of his crimes. He had raped and murdered women across the United States,
including Spokane. He even took a polygraph on this matter. He passed it, and he stuck to his guns
that he was not responsible for Candy Rogers. He did acknowledge that he had sexually
assaulted other children. People were trying to make him fit in that hole, make the square peg fit in the round hole, so to speak.
It's easy to say now that he was given too much credence, that they should have looked elsewhere.
But that being said, even if they looked at every other name in the case file as hard as they did Hugh Morse,
nothing would have come up. NANCY GRACE: Tension spreads through the tight-knit community of Spokane, everyone knowing Candy Rogers' killer
is still on the loose. We weren't allowed out like we used to be. Our doors started to be locked.
They talked about safety. They talked about, you don't get in a car with anybody.
You don't take candy from anybody. You stay in a group. I mean, all of a sudden, all this stuff about,
you have to stay safe. And I still-- I didn't really put it all together until--
you know, after you sit and you think about it, they go, oh my gosh. We can't go out after dark anymore.
We can't go down to the malt shop and get malt. We can't play out after dark, and our doors are locked.
And it was because of Candy. So they were certainly, as a community, outraged. At the same time, they really didn't have anyone
to focus their anger toward. There wasn't an obvious suspect. There wasn't anyone to say, this is the person
we want to hold responsible. No immediate person evolved like that. Every cold case has family that's aching for news,
and updates are difficult to give when there is nothing new to report. We did have tips come in all the time,
but sadly, there's not much to report. And those are difficult conversations, that they
go on across the country. Years passed, but Candy's file is never closed. A new generation of investigators
take up a new challenge, how to solve a very old case with very new science? What stood out to me was that the police
had already done everything that could be done from traditional means. Everyone that could be talked to had been talked to.
Everyone that could be looked at as a suspect and developed into an actual defendant had been eliminated.
Traditional means were never going to solve this case. That's what became apparent.
So much work had already been done that we had to look at this from a different perspective.
A detective brought the case into the modern realm of DNA technology. She reviewed the entire case inventory,
everything we had on property as evidence and did see there is some hope for finding DNA here.
At the same time, she didn't get caught up in the enthusiasm of this new technology
and allow anything to be consumed. She and the scientists at the time-- I believe it was Lisa Turpen--
they were careful. They examined it. They found that DNA is there, and they were thoughtful in their processes as far
as what can we do with this. Lisa Turpen examined the evidence removed from Candy Rogers at the crime scene
and specifically the underwear that Candy Rogers was wearing. And it was Lisa Turpen who was able to find a semen stain
on the underwear and extract a DNA, male DNA from that semen stain. She was able to take the DNA extract and purify it,
and she was able to preserve it in a freezer for future testing. After more than six decades, can bloodline detectives
utilize new technology and finally catch a brutal child killer? We find out next.
[AUDIO LOGO] [OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 2021, Spokane, Washington, a brand-new generation of cold case detectives
investigate the 1959 unsolved rape and murder of a nine-year-old little girl, Candy Rogers.
Candy's case file never closed. But now, 60 years later, investigators pin their hopes on a new scientific technique,
forensic genetic genealogy. The Golden State Killer case and the techniques and science they used to solve that case
sent a shock wave through anyone working cold case investigations. Conversations began in about 2018 or 2019
of, how do we get involved in this? How do we understand it? And how do we make use of it?
We are essentially aware the time has arrived. The technology is here, but we don't know what to do.
I first became aware of Othram in a conversation I had with forensic scientist Brittney Wright.
She's a forensic DNA scientist with the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab in Cheney.
She got me a phone number for their company in Texas. And I submitted my number and name,
and I didn't expect to hear a response immediately. But that day, David Mittelman called me,
and I told him my concerns were really about the sample being degraded and small and that I was not
willing to risk consuming it. And this is not a concern at all to him. I can tell in his voice that we can do this.
He seemed ultra confident. But when the number actually came to light, that we're looking at about $5,000,
I felt confident in saying, yeah, do it. I knew that my chain of command would approve of that.
That's a great deal. By any measure, that is a great deal. The DNA was very degraded in this case.
I was able to locate the DNA sample in a very-- what we call a deep freeze or a deep freezer.
So it was at negative 80 degrees Celsius. And I found it in a frozen liquid form.
My plan was to do everything in my power to find a sample that could work for forensic genetic genealogy
purposes. And then that DNA sample was overnighted to the lab. The first time I heard of the Candy Rogers case,
it was right after the detective, Zac Storment, had spoken to David and Michael about the case,
and they said that they were going to send the evidence to Othram. I looked it up.
And as a mom of a nine-year-old girl at the time, I was devastated instantly. The whole community was devastated by this case,
but there was never any answer. I remember Zac Storment saying that for 62 years,
they had people working on this case. There was never, like, a time where they let that case go cold.
Someone was constantly following leads. The leads would always end up being dead ends,
and there was just never something that they could go on. And so when he heard of Othram, he just thought, you know,
we'll give it a try, but it's probably not going to work. And the DNA arrived at Othram, and we knew that there
was little evidence left. This was a sex assault, obviously, from 62 years ago, which means there was a lot of degradation,
a lot of contamination and other issues that you would have to deal with. So a DNA profile is going to be a collection,
a list of DNA markers. And so to be able to read these markers, to know what difference does exist in your DNA,
and to be able to construct that DNA profile, we use what's called a DNA sequencer.
The DNA sequencer that we use has a consumable component to it called a flow cell.
And so this flow cell is a two-dimensional surface. And what happens is, is that you're building a library,
a representation of lots of DNA fragments that make up all your DNA. You're loading it onto this glass surface,
putting it into a machine that enables you to synthesize another piece of DNA just like it
and take photos at the same time. And then you're reading it out to a file in a computer algorithm, and that
goes and takes these fragments, figures out where they go. And next thing you know, you end up with what
largely resembles a text file. It kind of looks like something you could load up into Microsoft Word.
So once you've got that profile, you can upload that profile to a genealogical database, and that database
is going to be comprised of other DNA profiles from other folks that have uploaded their DNA.
Then you can start to make comparisons. And what you're looking for is similarity across lots
and lots of markers. If the person's your sibling, you're going to share a lot of markers and therefore a lot of DNA.
If they're your second or third cousin, you'll have shared a lot less DNA. Another way to think about it is that the more markers
you share, the more recent your common ancestor was, the more recent in history the person that relates you two
existed. And-- and once you've done that, you can then start to build family trees
for the people that are known. The known matches in the database have an identity.
So you know who they are. You figure out who their parents are and their grandparents.
And if you've got enough matches that connect back to your unknown profile, you can build
family trees for those matches. And if you go back enough generations, you should eventually hit what's called the most
recent common ancestor, so the most recent point in the family tree at which those trees will
converge to a common ancestor. Once you find that, then you can find out the descendants, all of them, of the original common ancestor.
And one of those descendants is generally the person that you're looking for. We were able to take the semen DNA from Candy Rogers' crime
scene and build a high-performing DNA profile that was uploaded into the genealogical database,
as consented for law enforcement use. And David actually made the phone call to Zac Storment.
I-- it was a holiday weekend, and he called him up and said, I have information for you.
And I remember Zac called right away and said-- actually, I was right there when he made the phone call,
and he said, I know that if the CEO of the company is calling me, it's either really
good news or really bad news. And David said, it's good news. We've built a profile, and we would
like to exclude certain people. They gave me a list of three names. I went to work that night and started checking those names.
It was apparent they were all dead. It was also apparent that only one had children.
I spent some time researching the children that were alive of the oldest of the three brothers.
His name was John Reigh Hoff. From what I could tell, he had four children, who were still alive and all living
in the Spokane area. The youngest daughter of the four children-- there was-- Othram didn't find much information on her.
So she became something I had to research on my own, and that caused me to look into her
more, initially, than the other three children. From that, I found a phone number for her.
So I called her the next day. I left a message, being very vague in the message,
basically telling I'm a police officer doing a cold case investigation. I was with my daughter, and I thought, it's a joke, you know?
This is, like, on TV. I don't know anything about anything. I don't know what he's talking about.
So then my daughter Googled him, and he was real. He was really a policeman, a detective.
So then I called him back. And he just asked if I could come talk to him, or he would come talk where I was.
So I said I'll come down there. She's done nothing wrong. And she may love this person very
much that you're about to point a very cold finger at. You're going to make an accusation that
is going to change her life. And I was very cryptic in what I was talking about because I was not certain.
As great as genealogy is, as great as all this new science is, it's on me. And if they're wrong and I'm making this accusation
against the family member, it's me that's going to suffer for it. So I'm cautious, initially, and I talk about the case.
And I do get the impression that her father was alive and in the area at the time, and that was enough to--
to proceed. She also knows something I don't. Cathie knows when her father died,
and I didn't know this at that time, I don't think. Cathie knew her father died in 1970.
She knows I'm talking about a case older than that, and I did tell her I was talking about a little girl that
was murdered. And I think it evolved rather quickly, the horror that started to show on her face.
What I learned about John Reigh Hoff was that he was-- he was in trouble as a youth, not particularly
a violent person, but he always seemed to be in a little bit of trouble, stealing cars or petty theft-type things.
His parents decided they were going to do something about this and got him signed up in the army
at an early age. He entered the army when he was 17, and they had to sign for him to do this.
He was also expecting a child with his wife at the time. Military dynamic going on in Spokane at the time,
Fairchild's the primary air force base, but the army had the task of protecting Fairchild with surface-to-air missiles
that were surrounding the base. And there were a number of them. And John Reigh Hoff was a member of the army
assigned to those stations. This gave him in-depth knowledge of those back roads
in northwest Spokane because many of the bases were in that area. And in fact, one was only 2 miles from where
Candy Rogers' body was found. John was eventually kicked out of the Army in 1961, after he was declared as a deserter
for being arrested for an attack on a woman in what's known as Browne's Addition in Spokane.
That's literally across the river from West Central, Spokane. In that incident, he attacked an apartment manager
and tried to strangle her with her own clothing to the point of unconsciousness.
So there is some similarity here. In that investigation, police used a sketch artist or a sketch kit, rather, to develop
a profile of John Reigh Hoff. And that profile was put out to members of law enforcement
first, and an actual MP, a military policeman, at one of the stations associated with the base
identified him. And anybody that's worked in law enforcement or follows law enforcement stories
know that sketches don't often result in identifications like this. This is remarkable.
But this MP said, that's John Reigh Hoff. This caused detectives to contact his wife
and show her that picture, rather. And she also said, well, that looks like my husband.
Ultimately, he was arrested. He was sentenced to six months in jail, and this caused him to be discharged
from the army dishonorably. He still maintained a job throughout the rest of his life.
He sold Cutco knives door to door. He worked in a lumber yard for a period and then ultimately ended up working at a meatpacking plant.
While at the meat packing plant, he stuffed-- he suffered a chemical burn to his face
that I think Cathie and family would agree changed his life to a degree, that disfigured his face
a great deal. John Reigh Hoff ultimately shot himself in 1971. If it was my dad, I mean, I really wasn't sure.
I kind of thought it might be, just because of the way it was all happening. But they need to be accountable even if they're dead.
My uncles were all gone and my dad. I said, I suppose you'd want my DNA. And he said, well, if you're willing to give it.
And I'm like, sure, you know? Detectives take a DNA sample from Cathie, and they send it to a forensic scientist, Brittney Wright.
Is John Reigh Hoff the man who brutally raped and murdered a little girl, nine-year-old Candy
Rodgers, all those years ago? We find out next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO]
NANCY GRACE: 2021, Spokane, Washington, it's been a long road for detectives searching
for the killer of nine-year-old Candy Rogers, this beautiful little girl raped and murdered in 1959 while
out selling Camp Fire mints. For over 60 years, the trail to a suspect has gone cold.
But now bloodline detectives may have come up with a name, the name of a suspect, John Reigh Hoff.
We did the DNA collection. It's a simple process. And with that, at that moment, I'm
pretty excited to get to Cheney, to the state crime lab and get this to Brittney Wright.
I got Brittney on the phone and told her, I have something of interest to you. I gave Brittney the DNA fairly late in the day,
and my understanding is she worked on it through the night. After they get through their process,
I get the call from Brittney that we're there, that this is it. This is finally the person that's going
to shed light on this case. It's Cathie. And the number was 2.9 million to 1 that Cathie is the daughter of the person who left the semen
on Candy Roger's underpants. NANCY GRACE: To be 100% certain, the body of suspect John Reigh
Hoff must be exhumed, dug up. This case was too big to let 2.9 million to 1 be the number that resolves it.
I did not want to leave any room for anyone to cast doubt on it being one of his brothers
or an unknown brother the genealogy was not able to locate and might even be alive to this day.
We did this dig on September 23 of 2021. The weather was good, and the right people were available.
Brittney Wright, the scientist, came along. We collected the entire body, and we did
this for a couple of reasons. Most importantly was we did not know what part of the body
might actually yield DNA. Out of an abundance of caution, we felt we better take everything because we
don't want to do this again. We don't want to come back. After the body is retrieved, we were provided
with a makeshift cough and sort of a cardboard coffin by the funeral home. And we transported the body to an evidence facility,
where I placed him on, and then Brittney had some conversations with other scientists
about what was best. And I retrieved those body parts and brought them to the lab
and left them with her. Because I knew that this case was so important and because I really wanted to get
the answers to close this case, I contacted a cousin that I have in Seattle. And I asked him, because he was a dentist--
I asked him to walk me through how he performs a root canal because I knew that where the DNA is in a tooth
is where the pulp is. And so I knew that what he does daily was exactly what I needed to know to get to the DNA.
And I looked at four teeth. Three of them came back with nothing, and then one of them
came back with just enough DNA for me to do one test and get the information. And I produced a full DNA profile.
And I was able to compare that profile from the tooth that came from John Hoff, and it was a complete match
to the DNA profile from the semen from the underwear. And the match statistic that I issued
was 1 and 15 quintillion. The entire DNA section in the lab was looking over my shoulder because this
was such an exciting moment. So my first reaction was just pure excitement and joy,
and then that surreal feeling hit me again when I did realize that I was the first to know
in the world who did it. Bloodline detectives are thrilled they have identified Candy Rogers' killer
after more than 60 years. But now they want to know, what made John Reigh Hoff commit this brutal crime?
That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Spokane, Washington, 2021, incredibly,
bloodline detectives have been able to identify the rapist and killer of a nine-year-old little girl 62
years ago. While the killer is dead, his family now must grapple with his horrific crime.
At first, you have guilt with it even though you didn't-- you deal with that guilt, you know?
You feel it. You feel responsible for the pain. Then I visited his grave, and we still had his tombstone
on it and everything. And I just visited him and told him what I thought, that I hated him,
that I was disgusted, that he made me sick, that I'd never ever see him again, that he wasn't my father.
I had said that to my pastor. I had said that I had kind of wished he wasn't dead so
that he could be arrested and get put in jail and go to trial and stand and be accountable and punished.
And he just told me-- he said, trust me, Cathie. He has already stood before the one judge that matters.
He must have had horrific demons and was very selfish. And to be able to do what he did to a young girl
when he had little kids himself is just beyond comprehension. So that's what we know of him.
We know what he presented and what his family believed, and then we now know the truth.
I think he's an evil person. I think sometimes you just can't put any other label on evil.
Evil is evil, and there's no way around it. I have a very deep respect for the Spokane Police Department.
They truly care. There-- there is a heart behind it too, but it also was extremely rewarding in the end
to be able to be a part of the team that was able to deliver this information to Candy Rogers' family.
And it also had a very cathartic component to it too, seeing both-- both a lot of joy in the family getting some closure
by getting some answers, but there was also a lot of grief and a lot of pain because it dug up something very painful
for a lot of people as well as pain for the Hoff family, having to know that their dad did something so terrible.
So there was a lot of emotions, both happiness, but there was also a bit of grief to it too.
This crime was committed 62 years ago. 62 years ago, no one had any idea what DNA was, definitely
not that they would ever be using DNA in a criminal investigation. It's incredible that law enforcement had the foresight
to collect everything from the crime scene and to save it and to preserve it in a way that could be used later on.
But it was stored, and it was kept. And that stain in the underwear was enough for the lab in Washington to be able to get a DNA
extraction and for us to be able to build one of these high-performing DNA profiles.
What I've seen in this whole process is when Candy Rogers was abducted, it brought the community together collectively
to search for her, to pray for her, to lift each other up in their fear, but yet
in hope that they'd find her. And then, when her body was found, the community again came together in extreme grief,
but in resolve to find the person responsible for killing and raping a little nine-year-old girl,
and also in a collective vow to hold their children tighter and to try and protect our children more.
And then, again, 62 years later, this community came together in a collective sigh of relief when we announced
that the cold case was solved and maybe even in being able to say, finally, some form of justice or redemption or closure
has been achieved. And the community felt all those things together in all those different stages of this case.
I think that's remarkable. JOANNE POSS: She died at an early age, but good has come of it.
Hopefully, soon we will have a playground named after her which will encompass other little children
that have been taken, that have lost their lives at an early age. And I'll never ever forget her, the smile.
She lived here until her life was taken from her, and God only knows what she could have done if it
had not been taken from her. She could have been a mother. She could have had children of her own.
She could have been a great scientist. She could have been a doctor or a teacher.
All that was taken from her. Good has come. And I've met Julie Humphreys. She's been absolutely a saint.
She has put 100% behind naming this playground for Candy, the hours that she has put in to keep Candy alive.
I can't say anything but positive stuff for the people that I have met at the police station.
Without forensic genetic genealogy, this case is still unsolved and never would be.
Short of some other unimaginable technology emerging, this was the only way. John Reigh Hoff's name never appears in the case file.
They would have had to interview many hundreds of other homes to actually have gotten to his house,
if the radius of their search would have encompassed his home on Broadway. So I don't think that was realistic so
that what they did, as much as they did, as hard as they worked, it was never going to solve the case.
And that's-- that's sad. I wish there was something to say, that they were almost there or there
was this one thread that could have been pulled a little harder. But without FGG, it doesn't happen.
I hope this is the beginning of the Spokane Police Department solving many cold cases the same way.
What could be more tragic than the sex attack and murder of a precious nine-year-old girl?
It's a tragedy that even affects the killer's own family. It's also an incredible triumph for bloodline detectives.
Their use of forensic genetic genealogy after more than 60 years demonstrates that every killer, dead or alive,
can be brought to justice. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us here on "Bloodline Detectives."
[SENTIMENTAL MUSIC] [AUDIO LOGO] [THEME MUSIC]

Spokane, Washington, 1959, 9-year-old Candy Rogers is abducted, raped and killed while selling Girl Scout mints. The community is shaken as detectives fail to find the perpetrator. For 62 years the case remains cold until genetic genealogy provides a long awaited breakthrough.

Now in its third season, Bloodline Detectives is the leading true crime series that explores how police departments harness genetic genealogy to solve crimes that were once considered "unsolvable," bringing long-awaited answers to victims' families.

=============== Like, comment and subscribe if you’re ready for more true crime. Your favorite shows like World’s Most Evil Killers, Meet Marry Murder, Forensic Files, Unsolved Mysteries, Murdered At First Sight and Bloodline Detectives are all available to stream 24/7 for free via the FilmRise Streaming Network. You can access The FilmRise Streaming Network through most free App Platforms and Smart TV portals such as Amazon Fire TV, The Roku Channel, Android, iOS and many more.

Brief Summary

Forensic genealogy identifies Candy Rogers' killer 62 years after her abduction and murder in Spokane, Washington.

Key points

The Disappearance of Candy Rogers. Nine-year-old Candy Rogers goes missing while selling Camp Fire mints, sparking a community search.
Tragic Discovery. Two airmen discover shoes in the woods, leading to a devastating find.
The Shift to Homicide. The investigation changes focus after Candy's body is found, marking a tragic turn.
Forensic Breakthrough. New DNA technology offers hope in solving Candy's cold case after decades.
The DNA Match. A DNA match reveals a staggering 1 in 15 quintillion probability of guilt.
Identifying the Killer. After 62 years, detectives finally identify the killer of nine-year-old Candy Rogers.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is the remarkable story of nine-year-old Candy Rogers.

Nancy Grace introduces the case.

1:16WatchMay 10, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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