Free Roaming Predator /// Part 1 /// 939 | Forensic Files

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>> In 1990, a homicide occurred that would not stay neatly contained within the boundaries of a single town, a single
police department, or even a single state. At the time, it was simply an unsolved
killing. Another case file opened, another life lost, another set of questions that did not yet have answers.
No one looking at that one case in 1990 could have easily predicted that the story it belonged to would stretch
across multiple jurisdictions, span roughly a decade, and remain relevant all the way into this year. To
understand why this kind of case can slip across borders and years, [music] it helps to start with a broader idea.
Free roaming predators. In North America, the phrase often brings to mind adaptable native carnivores. Animals
that can travel far and survive in changing environments. The number one free roaming predator in
the United States, measured not by how intimidating it looks, but by the scale of its impact, is the domestic and feral
cat. Ecologists estimate that free roaming cats kill up to 4 billion birds and up to 22 billion mammals every year
in the United States. That amount of predation repeated day after day across neighborhoods, fields, and woodlines
makes cats the leading cause of unnatural wildlife mortality. Now, consider the white-tailed deer.
They're beautiful and peaceful. They're not known for attacking people. Yet deer
are estimated to be responsible for 150 to upwards of 400 human deaths annually in the United States. Deaths that are
almost exclusively the result of motor vehicle collisions. Finally, this idea lands where true crime always lands when
it gets honest. The most dangerous predator of humans in the United States is not an animal at all. It is man.
The majority of homicides in the United States are caused by men. And while wildlife statistics can be staggering
and deer collisions can be deadly, nothing compares to the deliberate violence people can inflict on each
other. Especially when the person doing the harm is mobile, opportunistic, and capable of disappearing into the
ordinary flow of life. This is the unsettling bridge between free roaming predators in nature and the kind that
appear in criminal case files. Individuals who move across communities, cross state lines, and leave
consequences that different agencies may not immediately connect. Even so, there
is one piece of good news. According to preliminary FBI estimates for 2025, approximately 14,000 homicides occurred
nationwide in the United States. That figure represents a historic year-over-year decrease of roughly 18%
or more from 2024, marking the largest single-year drop in murders since 1937. Those national numbers matter because
they tell one kind of story. But the case that began in 1990 tells a different kind of story. One that
doesn't move in smooth lines. It moves in fragments. An incident here, a report there, a victim in one place, a suspect
or no suspect in another. It moves through the gaps between departments and the limits of what any single
jurisdiction can see on its own. The violence was not confined to one town. But that recognition would not come
right away. It would take until 2006 when the Greenville, South Carolina Police Department announced that it had
connected one of its unsolved homicides from 1990 to two unsolved homicides that
occurred hundreds of miles away in Portageville, Missouri. This meant that investigators were not dealing with
isolated unrelated crimes. They were dealing with a linked series, events connected by a single source, a single
method, a single offender who traveled. Yet, the announcement came with a crucial limitation. They did not know
the identity of the killer, but they knew the nature of the threat. They were dealing with a serial rapist
and serial murderer. One man, one offender responsible for hurting, harming, and killing several women and
girls across multiple jurisdictions spread out over multiple states over the span of one decade. The idea of the free
roaming predator is more than a metaphor. It is a practical description of how some criminals operate, moving
through the open spaces between agencies. slipping past the invisible fences of jurisdiction and leaving behind a trail
that only becomes visible when distant dots are finally connected. This is True Crime Garage.
[music] Greenville, South Carolina sits in a stretch of land in the southeast roughly
equidistant between Atlanta, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina with Colombia,
the capital of South Carolina, about a 100 miles to the southeast of Greenville. In the late 1980s, it was
the kind of place where people moved for work, found their routines, and if they
were lucky, they found their people. For Genevieve R. Zutri, known to everyone as
Jenny, Greenville quickly became that kind of place. Jenny was 28 years old. She was born in 1961
and grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. People who loved her described her as magnetic,
someone with momentum. Her brother Philillip would later call her a force of nature and a firecracker, saying that
she was a bundle of energy that didn't fade into the background. Jenny loved fishing and softball. She loved her
family and she loved the Cleveland Browns enough so that she joined the Browns backers club once she was in
Greenville as if she would carry a piece of home with her into her new city. In June of 1988, Jenny and her husband
moved to Greenville sometime after the marriage ended. And Jenny was recently divorced by 1990, stepping into a
version of adulthood that was both newly independent and newly social. She worked
as a systems programmer analyst. So this is a described as a computer programmer
in the payroll department at Michelin at their North America headquarters which is located in Greenville.
>> Sounds like a fancy title. She played softball for the Michelin company team and she taught at a local school. This
as like a hobby, donating some of her time to teach at this local school. She lived alone at the Hidden Lake
Apartments. This is an apartment complex described as being filled with young professionals. So, this is people that
worked hard through the week and then looked forward to the weekend, socializing, night life, and there were
plenty of pool days, swimming pool days, when the weather turned warm. >> Nothing better than getting a box of
lemon heads after a cold dip in the pool. Jenny's unit was apartment number 227 at Hidden Lakes Apartments located
at 15 Villa Road. So, the sliding glass door at the back of her apartment faced the complex's swimming pool. Now, that
detail will matter later, but at the time it was simply just part of the lifestyle,
>> right? >> There were pool parties frequently, friends dropping by, people drifting in
and out of the apartment. Jenny was extremely outgoing and extremely well-liked. She was the kind of resident
that would even open up her door during these pool parties so that guests could use the restroom so they wouldn't have
to walk all the way back to their apartments or if they were guest of people that lived in the apartment
complex, they could just simply use her restroom which was located right by the pool.
>> Yeah. No thanks. I'm not letting you drip on my carpet. She had a wide circle
of friends, acquaintances. You know, some of these are people that she knew from local bars, socializing. These are
also people that are involved in different teams and departments at work and at church. She attended the Buncom
Street United Methodist Church. So to very many people at work, at the apartment complex, at church, and
socializing in the evenings, on the weekends, she was a familiar face. And so it was a
full life, busy and bright. And it made the events of early April 1990 all the more jarring because what happened did
not resemble the kind of violence that the city of Greenville was used to. Investigators would later describe most
local homicides as personal and domestic, often involving people who knew each other. Jenny's murder. Her
killing was personal in another way. It was intimate, invasive, brutal, and baffling. Let's get to some of the
events leading up to the night in question. On April 3rd, 1990, Jenny had something ordinary and happy
on the horizon. and she was going to be in a wedding that coming weekend on April 7th. And she had already prepared
for it the way that people do when they're excited for something that they're looking forward to. Her dress
had already been freshly dry cleananed and it was laid out and draped over a chair in the living room of her
apartment waiting there like a a promise of the coming weekend. That evening on April 3rd, she didn't go out on the
town. Instead, she spent time in a nearby apartment inside the same complex, gathered with some of the
wedding party friends. So, they had a couple drinks. They talked about the upcoming wedding. The energy was good.
It's just a small get together, the kind of weekn night socializing that feels like a reward after the workday.
Sometime around midnight, Captain, moving from late April 3rd into the early early hours of April 4th. This is
just before midnight. Jenny left that nearby apartment. She walked home. It's just a short walk,
>> right? >> This is a quiet complex. It's a safe complex. And she goes into her
apartment. She locks the door behind her. Now, once she's home, she did have one more thing that she wanted to do
before going to bed before turning in for the night. She called a girlfriend and the two talked for about 30 minutes.
The girlfriend says it was a normal call. Everything sounded fine. The kind of just the kind of call that rounds off
a night, >> right? >> And at the end, Jenny said she was going to go to bed and she hangs up the phone.
Now, that call unfortunately was the last time anyone would hear from her alive. Now, there's a bit of gap in time
here. So, April 4th to April 6th, we have more than a day that passes in which Jenny is unaccounted for. That gap
became one of the first grim measurements of this case. The space between the last known moment she was
alive and well and the moment that she would later be found. So concerns started because Jenny was very reliable,
very dependable, and something happened that was out of character. She did not show up for work.
>> Yeah. >> It was the kind of absence that makes people pause, then you worry. Then
somebody picks up a phone and makes a phone call. >> Yeah. When there's a no call, no show
when somebody is a responsible employee, that's always a giant red flag. >> Yeah. She's Yes, she's in her 20s, but
she's 28. She's a college graduate and she has a highlevel position. She This is not a job. She has a career with a
with a very reputable company and a actually a company that's known around the world. On April 6th, this would be a
Friday, maintenance workers at the Hidden Lake Apartments entered Jenny's unit. This is after receiving phone
calls to attempt to check on her, and they found what no one was prepared to see. This is Jenny's lifeless body in
the bathtub of the apartment. The bathtub was filled with water. >> Jenny was in it and she had been killed
very violently. The way that her body was positioned struck investigators immediately. Reports described her as
floating in the tub placed so that the water from the spout ran between her legs. It was and it doesn't seem to have
been an accidental posture. It looked arranged >> almost like maybe they're trying to
clean off the body. >> Yeah. Well, there's a lot going on here at the scene. So, this this scene
there's very much of it that feels intentional. someone doing something after the death, not merely leaving the
body where the attack occurred, just going above and beyond and in a grotesque way. So, investigators believe
that Jenny was beaten in her bedroom and then dragged to the bathroom. So, they have a trail of blood that ran
from the bedroom to the bathroom. This is about 20 feet away, >> right? And the killer had used panty
hose tied around her neck knotted to provide a a grip to pull her through the apartment. So the act of dragging the
body left its I mean for detectives this is going to leave its own kind of message not only of violence but also of
effort, time and control. The water, as you're talking about here, Captain, matters, too, because authorities
believe that Jenny's body had been submerged in water in an attempt to cover up physical evidence. Yeah. Which
will make the investigation a lot more difficult. >> The running water in the bathtub wasn't
the only water in the apartment to be concerned with. Jenny's purse had been dumped into the sink and its contents
had been emptied out. And then that sink was also full of water covering all of the spilled items,
>> right? >> And then there were signs that felt like they belonged to a different category of
evidence altogether. There was something written and something placed and all of
this very much meant to be seen. Okay, so someone had taken a permanent marker and wrote on a mirror, don't [ __ ] with
my family. Now the something placed was a book was also found near the bed. >> Now [clears throat] it's been said that
it was either dropped there or placed there. You listen to and read the detectives words. They all seem to think
that this was placed there intentionally. Investigators described the book as having a title that is
suggestive in a way that made them think that it was intentionally positioned by
the killer. Well, when you have the body put in a position, some form of staging,
then you have this message written on the mirror, it's not out of realm of possibilities that there's other things
in the apartment that are staged as well. Yeah, we have the purse and I don't know exactly where in relation to
the bed that this book was found because when when I first reviewed the crime scene and what information had been
released publicly, my first thought was I mean how many of us have read been reading in bed and we you just kind of
sometimes you doze off and drop the book. >> Yeah. The worst is when you drop it on
your face. >> Yeah. And the book title, I believe, going off of memory here because I
didn't put this in my notes, I believe the book title had had the word [ __ ] in
it or something to that nature. And I think that the investigators believe that the killer had found the book
someplace else in the apartment and purposely put it near the bed. as look a lot of this is done to not just cover up
evidence but also to further degrade the victim even after death. >> Yeah. But also possibly to point law
enforcement into other directions. >> Yes, that could be the situation as well. So what we do learn is that the
marker that was used to write that message on the mirror belonged to the victim. This is confirmed by detectives.
Detectives also confirmed that the book that was found near the bed belonged to Jenny. So, these were both items used
and moved by the killer, but not brought to the scene by the killer. >> Right. >> This would seem odd to me in the moment
as we would learn that nothing obvious appeared to have been stolen from the home. So, there it's noted that jewelry,
expensive jewelry was found in plain view where anybody could have have found it. It's still sitting there when
detectives are going through the scene. The apartment, they say, did not look like a typical burglary scene where a
person ransacks for valuables and then flees. They said that it looked instead like a staged aftermath. Water turned
on, items arranged, surfaces wiped, and that message left behind on the mirror. >> Yeah. Not to jump to conclusions, but if
I'm law enforcement and I find a victim in the bathtub, I'm assuming that maybe the motive is sexual. So, the the back
sliding glass door had been pried open. So, we have forced entry here and police
believed that a pry bar or crowbar had been used to pry this sliding glass door open. This is that sliding door that
faced the pool, the place where, you know, people gather for these pool parties and where Jenny was often at
these pool parties. What investigators were saying about this case early on is that they said that they started to form
a theory that the person who entered did not stumble into the wrong apartment, >> right? They said that they believe that
the killer knew who lived there or at the very least knew that a woman lived there. And I think that's key to pay
attention to here because they're they're they're kind of stating like we think that the killer knew that a woman
lived there alone, >> right? >> But necessarily didn't know Jenny. Yeah. Well, and that's one of the problems
with these apartment complex pools is you normally are allowed to bring guest. So, there's a lot of people at these
pools that don't belong to the apartment complex. >> Yes. And then with this too, I mean, if
you were looking and you said sexually motivated homicide, sexually motivated sexual assault motivated breakin, one
could watch the pool. Yeah. >> area during these pool parties and pick out a victim. That was a lot of thought
that that went into this investigation and who they could be looking at here. Detectives concluded that it was likely
that Jenny was attacked while still sleeping. This based off of blood found on the wall near the head of her bed.
Blood splatter that suggested the first violence happened there. And then this idea is both terrifying and grim, but
it's all but in a way it might be a little bit of mercy here, right? I She likely did not wake up and she didn't
even know what had happened. >> Right >> now, the coroner determined that Jenny died from strangulation and blunt force
injuries to her head and face. Investigators later learned that she had also been sexually assaulted. An autopsy
would describe six blows to the head inflicted with what was suggested to be a large screwdriver or a tire tool.
Police theorized that the same instrument used to pry open the back door may have been used as the murder
weapon. >> Right. But so that murder weapon is brought by the murderer, but it's not
left at the scene. >> Correct. So the way that this would go down is killer breaks in using that
sliding glass door. Same instrument is then used as the murder weapon. After the killing, the killer moved the body,
dragging her from the bedroom to the bathroom with panty hose around her neck. Then the body is placed into the
bathtub. Water is turned on and then the killer did not hurry in a way that suggested fear of being caught. Instead,
he he lingered. The killer the killer lingered there. He stayed long enough to do more to the crime scene to dump her
purse in the sink to fill the sink with water right on the mirror, wipe down the
bathroom surfaces. >> Yeah. >> And that was one of the most striking parts of this to the crime scene
technicians. Okay. So, they had said that they they were checking the apartment for Prince.
Look, Jenny lived there. The apartment was lived in obviously guests had been there in an apartment like that occupied
especially by a social individual a used apartment people in and out. Investigators expected to find
fingerprints on doorork knobs, counters, bathroom surfaces, furniture, mirrors, everything.
>> Yeah. You think the problem is going to be too much information. >> Exactly. Instead, they get no
fingerprints, surfaces wiped down. This suggests that somebody systematically erased not only their own prince but the
prince of everyone else including Jenny's. >> Right? >> So to detectives that indicated
forethought, time and a certain amount of coldness. A person who could commit a brutal and violent murder and then slow
down enough to clean up the scene. Now, on April 8th, this is just a two days later, police returned to Jenny's
apartment to collect and seek out additional evidence. The during this time, Captain the forced entry through
the rear sliding door was reaffirmed. The blood evidence still told the same story. The attack likely began in the
bed, right? >> Blood on the wall near the headboard suggested heavy blows delivered where
she was lying when she was sleeping. Detective Steve Bis of the Greenville Police Department assigned to the case
described the struggle in a way that implied how quickly it unfolded. He said if she fought it was minimal. So
that's the implication that she never had the chance either because she was asleep because she was overwhelmed
immediately or because the assault was too sudden and too violent. Well, these attackers have this this aggression and
this rage inside them that I think it's really hard for the common individual to
even wrap their heads around. >> Well, and one thing to be clear here as we try to speak and live in the moment,
the at the time some of this information was not made public. Okay. So, the the wiping down of the surfaces or at least
as they believed the the lack of fingerprints suggests that that was not made public. The other thing that was
the additional pieces of evidence left behind by the killer, items that would not be fully described publicly at the
time. Those items were would be the mirror message, don't f with my family, and that book that was found near the
bed. They kept that as hold back information. and investigators were left with a scene that felt both loud and
silent all at the same time. Loud in its violence, silent in its lack of clear motive or clear amount of evidence. One
problem for this investigation early on would be that when this investigation begins, there were too many names and
really just not enough answers. >> [music] >> This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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the air. Cheers to you, Colonel. Cheers to you captain and cheers to the people in the back.
>> One of the things you were saying earlier was [music] that this is a level of violence that this community is not.
It's not a normaly. So I would think that would hinder the investigation because what are the investigators
normally looking for? Somebody in the inner circle, not a crime that is stranger on stranger.
>> Yeah. So really something that's going to overload the detectives here and this is
really from the beginning of the investigation. They had a problem that was also once part of Jenny's charm. She
knew a lot of people. She almost knew too many people for the investigator. So the police started with the most common
path that you would in a homicide case. They first started trying to look at people that knew Jenny and knew her the
best. Now, her wide social net meant a wide suspect net, >> right? >> Officers ran criminal background checks
on people that live near her. The wedding party, all the wedding party people were heavily scrutinized. A lot
of people were asked to take lie detector tests. Jenny's ex-husband was interviewed and described as extremely
cooperative, and he was cleared relatively quickly in this investigation. Well, that makes it more
difficult because as we know, the husband normally did it. But the way I see this going down is like you were
saying, we have this apartment right by the pool. We have strangers to the apartment community coming in, coming
and going. But think about this. If this sick individual saw her, that at some point later, maybe it's months later, I
can drop by my buddy's house. I could stay there for a little bit, but hey, I'll see you later. And when I leave
now, I go to the victim's place. >> Yep. And what do we always say here? When if someone is actively going out
and looking for a victim, especially if they're looking for a victim to attack at a later time and date or later
location, >> what are they looking for? They're looking for the three abilities that
killers always look for when they're looking for prey. Desiraability, vulnerability, and availability. And so
you could spy on some women at the pool or in a social setting in this apartment
complex and find someone that you think is desirable. And if you can watch them and learn that they live alone, well
then now you have their both their vulnerability and then their accessibility, especially in the middle
of the night during a work week. right >> now. So, while all this is going on, the
early stages of looking at people that knew her the best, of course, they're going to be looking for that murder
weapon, and they used divers to search the nearby lake. So, there was a there was a a lake that is right by the
apartment complex. This this would be a really cool, highly desirable complex to
live in if especially if you're like Jenny, a young single professional. That's what that's who filled this
apartment complex. And that's what was probably so cool about it. It was you didn't have to go out on the town to
have a night out. You could just gather with people that were all about the same
age and all working as young professionals in that area right there in your apartment complex. So, they're
attempting to look for this tire tool, crowbar, pryar, whatever it may have been, the heavy object that was used to
kill the victim and also break into the apartment. They look in the lake. They don't find it in the lake. They don't
find it on the grounds, but they were also trying to interpret what the killer had done at the scene after the killing,
>> right? And at some point they begin to speak of this in a way that that you and
I would be picking up on the word staging. So they were trying to figure out and discussing behind closed doors
the staging raised questions that would split the case into competing theories. Right? So was the water in the bathtub a
practical attempt to destroy evidence including evidence of a sexual assault? Was it psychological?
An act meant to cleanse, to humiliate, to display control? Was dumping the purse into a sink full of water and
attempt to ruin contents, to hide something, to destroy possible trace evidence? Or was that possibly symbolic,
another violation layered on top of the physical one? And some of these thoughts
and theories and questions that detectives have in this investigation would make their way to the public and
to the newspapers. Now, the message on the mirror, don't f with my family, added another dimension to this.
Detectives didn't know what it meant, right? Was this a warning? Was it a grievance? Was it revenge?
>> Yeah. Or is this just to build confusion? Right. So, now we have the the crime scene, which is the bed. Now
we have another part of the crime scene being the bathtub. Then we have all the stuff going on in the bathroom. We have
this weird message that implies that this killer is it's very personable to the killer. And then we have these books
and other things again maybe staging to look like a a burglary. So disguising the motive of
the crime or again maybe it's just the concept was let's just add confusion and chaos to the crime scene
>> right and that's I think where maybe their minds were going after a while because looking into Jenny and looking
into her life >> right >> her life didn't pres present any obvious scenario where that message would fit
neat and cleanly into her world at all >> but we all have skeletons in our closet,
my friend. >> So now they're they're thinking is look, if this if this message is real, then
what family is being referenced here? But if it were made up and just simply staged,
why did the killer choose that particular phrase? And so they consult a whole bunch of experts on this case. And
what turns out here is that the experts, even the experts did not agree or could
not come to a full agreement on what the crime scene and the murder suggested to
them as far as psychological makeup of the perpetrator. So, investigators consulted specialists from across the
country, about two dozen of them, according to later reporting. A couple of these people were professors. One
professor suggested that the killer was male. Another suggested that the killer was female,
>> right? >> So they some of the the experts couldn't even agree on the gender of the killer.
Some experts advised that the signs left behind were deliberate misdirection for
the investigation. Others argued that the signs meant something deeply personal and pointed toward motive.
Yeah, it's odd here because I guess I'd lean towards statistically that it's a male, but also like they said, there's a
brutality here. And then they also said if she put up a struggle, it wasn't for long. Okay. Is it more likely that she'd
be overtaken quickly by a male or a female? >> Right. And I think the thought and
theory, the theorizing that maybe it was a female was a lack of understanding of
the murder and the crime scene. So >> yeah, >> like this kind of went under the rug
here a little bit in our reporting and it did everywhere else as well, but as I had said earlier, it was later learned
by the detectives that she had also been sexually assaulted. So, when they're presenting their crime scene evidence
and autopsy information to these experts, uh, some of them were with the FBI, some of them were professors and
such. They're they weren't armed with that confirmation of sexual assault at that time.
>> But, you know, there was one detective after they get this information that thought it was a female. After this
information, they're sticking to their guns. Nope. I don't care what the evidence tells me. This crime was done
by a woman. >> Jenny's obituary captured the official outline of who she was and how she was
known to those who loved her and to those that she socialized with in Greenville. Genevieve R. Zatriki, only
age 28, better known as Jenny of Hidden Lakes Apartment, died April 5th, 1990. She was a graduate of Youngstown State
University and a systems programmer analyst for Michelin Tire Corporation. She was a member of the Michelin
softball team and the Browns Backers Club of Greenville. And she attended the Methodist church.
She was survived by her parents Edward and Rosemary Dickinson who were still living in Ohio and her brother
Philillip. And the family said that memorials could be made to the Jenny Zawiki Memorial Fund in care of the
Brownsbackers Club of Greenville. I can't get past the idea that she was going to be involved in this wedding.
And when you think of weddings, you think about one family merging with the other family. And I know that she wasn't
a family member, right? She was just a friend. But the message on the mirror makes it feel like it is connected to
this wedding. But I guess there's a possibility that if somebody was stalking their prey that they knew about
this and that was the additive of confusion. >> Yeah. It's it's a confusing crime scene.
>> Yeah. >> I think again it goes to Yeah, she knew a lot of people, but she did she didn't
it's not like she grew up in the area. one, and two, she's she's only been there a couple years, which I think for
me would play a role in my understanding of what this message may or may not mean.
>> Yeah. And I also wonder too because a lot of these killers have this fascination with crime and these old
detective comic books and and unsolved mysteries. And I think sometimes, and I'm not
saying that this is the case here, but I think with some crimes, they're, oh, I have to have a signature. I have to have
this. I have to do these things. The It's like this serial killer folklore. >> Well, yeah. I mean, Detective Magazine
was a was a big deal, especially to uh a lot of these serial offenders. Let's fast forward to November of 1991.
So, now we we still the murder is still unsolved. The city still waiting. The police are still searching,
>> right? >> This is approximately a year and a half later. The Greenville News published a
lengthy Sunday article about the case written by staff writer Toby Moore. The headline described what the police and
the public were still living with. It says 1990 slaying that left Greenville police looking for answers. The article
included a diagram of the crime scene, Jenny's apartment. The story described Jenny as a young divorce a celebrating
independence, a social person with a busy life on Greenville's east side. And it recounted the last ordinary details.
The gathering that night, the wedding dress draped over a chair, the short walk home around midnight, the 30 minute
phone call, then the quiet act of going to bed. This article also repeated the horrific discovery two days later. the
maintenance worker finding her in the bathtub, water positioned to run between her legs. The article emphasized how
brutal and baffling the crime remained even a year and a half later. Now, by this time, police said that they had
interviewed hundreds of people. They had fingerprinted more than 150 people, >> right? They had circulated descriptions
of the crime across the country and Crimestoppers had reenacted the slaying on television and Jenny's family offered
up their own reward for information in the case and still there's no suspect, no murder weapon, no clear motive.
Detective Steve Bis, still close to the center of the investigation, said the case fascinated and frustrated not only
detectives but behavioral scientists. Sergeant Tim Conroy. >> Does that mean they reached out to
Quantico? >> They did. Yeah. They had at least three profilers that had taken a look at this
case in this year and a half time period. >> Tell me Wrestler was one of them. I do
not know what who >> they never state that. Okay. >> Who took a look at it. They those names
were not uh provided. Sergeant Tim Conroy of the Greenville Police expressed a belief that it wasn't
random, that Jenny was targeted, likely because of her visibility at the poolside apartment and her outgoing
trusting nature. Others other officers promised they would not let the case vanish into silence. The police sergeant
who had been one of the first on the scene stated that it was a solvable case and that it would not be forgotten.
Investigators said that they wanted phone calls even if they turned out to be nothing because the smallest
recollection might matter. They they were saying basically like we we don't care if we get too many phone calls. you
know, you you we we've reviewed plenty of cases where they're like, "We we couldn't keep up with the number of tips
going in and we have to vet each one of these phone callers. We have to we have to go out and investigate each one of
these leads and these tips and it becomes overwhelming." They're saying the opposite. They're like, "We don't
care if we're overwhelmed or inundated with a crazy amount of tips. We we want tips to come in. Please call. Please
call." And in fact, the detective here is saying, I think that we got enough evidence that if the right name comes
across my desk, I'm going to recognize this as the person being responsible. >> Well, with this time passing, it makes
you start leaning towards the idea that she didn't know her killer. But I think it I think the fact that it's an
apartment complex makes it that much more difficult because you have so many more people coming and going to this
location. I think it does make it maybe easier because it was on a work day, but
maybe that's indicative of something as well. For Jenny's mother, Rosemary, the time did not erase the absence of her
daughter. You know, the not knowing became its own ongoing injury. >> Yeah. >> With no explanation as to why. And
really what was settling in here was the fear that she might die without ever learning what had happened to her
daughter and why it had happened. And in fact, in 1990, the family endured another massive blow. So 8 weeks after
Jenny's murder, Rosemary lost her husband, Jenny's father, to cancer. The 1991 November article recalled a family trip
to Las Vegas that took place in February of 1990. A trip taken because doctors had told Rosemary's husband his time was
running out. >> Yeah. >> And in that moment before April arrived and everything changed, Jenny had tried
to protect her mother from a future of loneliness. you know, she's up in Ohio and this is to show how devoted this
daughter was. She said, "Look, she told her mom, you are not going to be alone at Christmas.
We are going to go back to Vegas." She told her that while her father was running out of time. And so in February
of 1990, no one knew that Jenny herself only had six weeks left to live. >> Yeah. So what remained in this case?
Jenny's life as we've described it was full full of work, friends, sports, faith, family. The wedding that was
going to take place on April 7th. Then came the forced door open, the bedroom attack, the dragging, the water, the
wipe down surfaces, the message on the mirror. This tragedy didn't make sense to the
people of Greenville. It was true, too brutal, too deliberate, and a lot of unanswered questions. Investigators were
left with an apartment full of puzzle pieces. Some clearly connected, others possibly planted. And it was it was
truly truly a mystery, >> but also we have theories that are going in multiple directions.
>> Absolutely. Now, we need to fast forward quite a bit here, Captain. So, this is
going to take us to April 17th, 2006 when readers of the Greenville News in South Carolina opened up their
newspapers to a story by staff writer Claire Anderson. The headline was stark and unresolved,
stating, "Victim's family still seeks answers." Beneath it ran a subtitle that made the passage of time feel both heavy
and unfinished. It had been 16 years since Jenny Zatriki was found killed in her bathtub and police still hope to
solve the case. Now labeled a cold case, though never truly set aside. So this is
16 years of not knowing, but it's not necessarily 16 years of not working the case.
>> Yeah. But we all have our pet cases that we've been looking at for years. And
what is surprising to me when we started in the garage, I just thought, okay, well, we're we're both into true crime.
It'll be and it it would be an interesting conversation, but will it affect anything? Will brain
upon change? And we've seen in so many cases, whether it's covered by us or another podcast or somebody on YouTube
or somebody in the media, that these cases need people talking about them because if you make a big enough if you
shine a big enough light on the case, more information will come out. Now, that doesn't mean it's going to solve
the case, but it adds more pieces to the puzzle. for this article. Some of Jenny's family was interviewed.
One in particular is her cousin Carol Gillingham who had said that even after all of this time, even after all of
these years, she said the family was still in shock and they they simply wanted what is simple but seemed
unreachable. They wanted answers. Now, as for the case in the investigation, >> yeah,
>> it's [snorts] as said, it's a case that's called or labeled cold, but not really forgotten because in this
article, the lieutenant, police lieutenant, Mike Gambrell, explained that Zatrikey's death was technically a
cold case, but he said the word cold, however, didn't mean abandoned. And investigators, he said, had never
stopped looking for new leads. Now, there's a statistic here that underscores how rare this kind of open
case is for this area. So, of the 15 homicides that took place in the city of Greenville in 1990, as of this article,
which was 16 years later, >> Jenny Zatriky's was the only one that still remained open. In fact, after two
years in 1992, all the other homicides, 14 of them, had been closed out in just two years time, but Jenny's remained
open. The department also noted in the article that they had filed charges in 103 of the 110 homicide cases that had
taken place since 1990. in that 100 in that 16 years. I mean, only seven of them they hadn't filed charges for in 16
years. And as said, Jenny's case, the only one open from that year. But it'll also be tough to as a detective cuz like
you said, it's it's cold in nature as far as we're not getting any new information, but it's sitting on your
desk. It's something that you're pondering. It's something that when you're heading off to lunch or or
leaving for the day, it's a case that's going to cross your mind and did you miss anything? And you're constantly
running these thoughts and theories through your brain. >> So the reason why we being the public
would learn about what was, you know, so they had the hold back information of the message on the mirror,
>> right? they had to hold back information about the book. The reason why that information makes its way eventually to
the public is because of the efforts of the investigation. Okay, so they interviewed and talked to hundreds of
people. What they were doing, this is this is great detective work in my opinion here. We had said, you know, you
and I know that the crime scene was wiped down or they believe it was wiped down because they didn't find
fingerprints where they should be finding fingerprints. >> Correct. >> People they interview and the public
don't know that. So they they fingerprinted dozens and dozens of people. And somebody could look at that and go,
"Well, what the hell? You have no fingerprints. Why are you bothering to fingerprint people?" Because the person
that says, "No, I'm not going to give you my prints." or gets nervous and starts sweating bullets all of a sudden
when you ask about fingerprints, that might be an indicator that you want to keep talking to that person,
>> right? >> And so the the public doesn't know that you don't have any fingerprints. And so
they're fingerprinting the >> killer doesn't know. >> They're lied to they're they're doing
polygraph examinations on some. So, these are all maybe not necessarily tools that are
going to solve your case for you, but it's going to help you narrow down your suspect pool. Remember, we said that a
large social net makes a large suspect net here. And so, when you go, all right, well, I I'm going to talk to
person A, B, and C. And every one of them, I'm going to ask them where they were that night, how they knew Jenny,
and what was their history together, had they ever been in the apartment. Can we
take your fingerprints? Will you take a lie detector test? Oh, and if they if they're hesitant on any of those or
refusal on any of those, now you're in a different category than the people that
agree to all of that. >> Yeah. >> The other thing the reason why the message gets out to the public is
another thing that they were doing when interviewing people, especially people that they thought it was necessary to do
so, they would have them write that message down. So they were comparing handwriting analysis, looking at
handwriting analysis in this case, trying to figure out who wrote that message on the mirror. Well, and I have
some in insider information about those categories. So if somebody's not nervous
and giving their fingerprints and taking the lie detector is maybe not a piece of
[ __ ] But if they got nervous and was sweaty and was combative to everything, they put him in a category of maybe as a
piece of [ __ ] Very sophisticated labeling. The story also tracked how the investigation continued to move forward,
and stall, move forward, install. It would keep moving at times and then it would it would stop at times. And I
found these details of the investigation very intriguing. So it says four years after the killing of Jenny Zatriki,
authorities explored a possible connection between Zatriki's death and a man arrested in Charlotte, North
Carolina charged with strangling 10 women. Interesting. And they said that the lead carried a kind of grim logic
here, right, that detectives can't ignore. Detectives said there a pattern, a method, and a known suspect with
multiple victims. So that all interest detectives. The article stated that the connection did not hold. However, they
go on to say that the following year, investigators reached out again, this time to authorities in Kentucky and the
state of Kentucky after a serial killer was arrested whose victims had sometimes
been left in water. Again, the similarities sounded promising on the surface. And again, the lead didn't pan
out. And so what remained here all these years later, 16 years later, was the original question. Who had done it? And
the nagging awareness that time might be hiding the answer rather than revealing
it. One thing I did not love here, Captain, for for some mysterious reason, the article does not name these serial
killers that were interviewed by Greenville police detectives in possible connection with the Jenny Zatriki
murder. And of course, we want to know who they're talking about. Well, that's why you drop by the old true crime
garage once a week, right? Well, I'm here more than once a week, but >> yeah, I I'm a guy that does not know a
great deal about many things, but I am a guy who knows a great deal about serial
killers. >> Yeah. >> And so I had I had to figure out >> for that >> who were they talking about? And without
them naming them, I can't say with 100% certainty, but but believe you me, if you want to place a wager on these
statements, I think you're good to go. >> He's betting a Franklin again. So, I have every reason to believe that they
were referring to the Taco Bell strangler >> and the cross country killer. So, in
order, let's do a quick overview of these pieces of [ __ ] right here. So in 1994, Charlotte, North Carolina, police
arrested Henry Lewis Wallace, who is would be a serial killer, later dubbed the Taco Bell strangler, who confessed
to raping and strangling 10 women in the Charlotte area between 1992 and 1994 alongside one prior murder that took
place in South Carolina. Wallace worked at very fast various fast food restaurants. He did personally know most
of his victims, managed to blend into their lives, too. Like he he knew them through work or through an acquaintance,
through maybe running errands. And we do know that he even attended some of their
funerals before he was caught. After this 2-year killing spree, he was arrested March 13th, 1994, just as he
was planning to leave the city of Charlotte. Following his confession to the murders, he was convicted in January
of 1997 and sentenced to nine death sentences. >> Wow. He must be a cat. >> I believe that he is remains
incarcerated in North Carolina's on their death row. So, nine of these murders, nine or 10 of them took place
in the Charlotte area in that 2-year time period. So, it looks like he got nine death sentences for uh some of
these. So, for nine of the 10 murders anyway. >> Yeah. And he he said at his because he
has nine death sentences, he gets nine last meals. He wants combo number one, combo number two, combo number three,
all the way to combo number nine. He is a big boy. Uh he's not he's not missed very many meals, I'll tell you that.
Then we have the other individual that was interviewed and I believe this to be American convicted serial killer Glenn
Edward Rogers, also known as the c the crosscountry killer or the Kasanova killer. He was convicted of firstdegree
murder in two separate trials in the deaths of two women in different states. >> We talked about him
>> first. We've never done a profile on him. He's come up the Casanova killer. I
thought that was an episode. >> You're thinking of a Unfortunately, there's a different individual that
you're thinking of. [laughter] There's no shortage of these guys. Unfortunately,
>> we need to make sure that we're coming up with unique names like the Taco Bell
strangler. That's a awful name. I mean, you're sitting in prison nine death sentences. And good for you and good for
society because we gave you a shitty serial killer name. So, better known probably as the crossount killer, we
should say, Glenn Edward Rogers was first convicted in Florida in 1997 and then again in California in June of
99. Hence the uh hence the name Cross Country Killer. You can't get much further apart than California and
Florida. >> Well, isn't this the guy that they thought maybe was connected to OJ?
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, he's suspected in numerous other murders throughout the United States. He was
involved in a crime spree that began in September of 95. They were aware of who he is and who was committing these
crimes, which ultimately ended with them placing him on the FBI's 10 most wanted
fugitives list. >> Yeah. >> Rogers, Glenn Rogers was arrested in Waco, Kentucky. He was caught driving
one of his victim's cars. He was about 40 miles from Lexington. This is November of 95. And as you just said,
Captain, he is the serial killer rumored to be OJ's accomplice or the actual killer of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman
with OJ as the getaway driver. >> Hold on one second. This is kind of strange. I'm getting a a text message
right now. Breaking true crime news. OJ did it. >> Yeah. Uh, well, you know what? Let's do
a an off the record on this very soon. Um, with Glenn Rogers, we'll look at him more and
>> yeah, that'd be fascinating >> and and whatever with this OJ thing because it's it's something that we've
touched on time to time over the years because it it seems to keep coming up. So, let's let's do a real examination of
it. Now, last year, the Associated Press reported that on Thursday, May 15th, Glenn Rogers, then 62, received a lethal
injection at Florida State Prison and was pronounced deceased at 6:16 p.m. So, while they did not name these
two serial killers, who are very interesting to the story in this article, they just hinted at them. I
think that's who they were talking about here. The article really pointed to a reminder of the possibility that this
could still be solved. We have detectives, lieutenants on record in these various articles and this one too
saying this is a solvable case. And the article ends with a reminder to the public that look, we need a tip, we need
a lead here. If we get the right one, we think we will recognize it and recognize
the perpetrator rather quickly. We just need a little bit of information here. We just need one last push.
[music] [music] Thanks for being our friends. Thanks for joining us here in the garage. So much
more to get to in this true crime story. Stick around for part two. Until then, >> be good. Be kind and don't litter.
[music] >> [music] [music] >> Geigo presents a 30-cond podcast between your podcast. Today's story is shared by
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In 2006, the Greenville, South Carolina Police Department announced that they had connected one of their unsolved homicides from 1990 to two unsolved homicides that had occurred hundreds of miles away in Missouri. This meant that investigators were not dealing with isolated, unrelated crimes. They were dealing with a linked series. Events connected by a single source, a single method, a single offender who traveled. Yet, the announcement came with a crucial limitation: they did not know the identity of the killer. But they knew the nature of the threat.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved murder of Jenny Zutri in 1990, exploring the investigation and potential connections to a serial killer.

Key points

Betrayed by Bill. A listener shares a story about switching to Geico and saving $900.
Jenny's Vibrant Life. Jenny Zutri was known for her magnetic personality and love for life.
The Nature of the Crime. Jenny's murder was intimate, invasive, and baffling, unlike typical local homicides.
A Shocking Discovery. Maintenance workers find Jenny's lifeless body in her bathtub after she goes missing.
The Investigation Begins. Detectives believe the killer knew Jenny lived alone, indicating premeditation.
A Terrifying Discovery. Blood evidence suggests Jenny was attacked while sleeping, raising the stakes of the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Nothing compares to the deliberate violence people can inflict on each other.

Discussion on crime statistics

6:25WatchJun 30, 2026

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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