Murder From 1969 Finally Solved | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: San Diego, California, 1969. The body of Mary Scott, a lovely 23-year-old mother of two,
is found by a friend after Mary fails to show up for work one day. What they saw must have been horrific for them.
Mary was basically spread-eagled on her back in the living room floor, nude from the waist down,
legs and arms spread in what we call the classic rape murder position. NANCY GRACE: Police pieced together details
about what happened that night. Somebody broke down her door. They broke her jaw, they ripped off her dress, they raped her,
and they strangled her until she was dead. NANCY GRACE: Investigators failed to establish any leads.
Mary Scott's case goes cold for decades. There's not a moment I don't think about her.
I just wish I had known her. I remember her. NANCY GRACE: This is the story of how a new forensic tool,
genetic genealogy, could give Mary Scott's family the peace they deserve after 50 long years.
I'm Nancy Grace. This is Bloodline Detectives. [THEME MUSIC] San Diego, California, in 1969 it was a very different city
than it is today. They used to call San Diego, it was a small big town. In other words, it was large in population for its time,
but it really was a tiny town. It had a small downtown area, large suburban area,
entirely different than it is today. San Diego was involved in the middle of the Vietnam War.
There was a build-up of the military installation. Huge sums of money were being expended both on the navy
shipyard and on Miramar Air Station, which was the Navy central location for its aviation.
This was one of the closest places in the United States to Vietnam. All of the men personnel and military equipment,
it all came through San Diego. NANCY GRACE: One of the many military personnel stationed
in San Diego at the time is Mary Scott's former husband, Patrick Wyble. I joined the Navy in 1962.
And I was stationed in San Diego. Good friend of mine didn't have a vehicle and I did.
And one weekend, he asked me to give him a ride with his date. So when I picked him up, Mary happened
to be with them because she knew the girl that he was dating. She jumped in the front seat and they sat in the back
and we started talking. And the next weekend, she brought me to the beach. I had never been to a beach.
I'm just an old country boy. While we're at the beach, I asked her to marry me. And she said, well, first, let's go have some pizza, which
I hadn't never had that either. So she brought me to this pizza house. We had pizza, and she said, yeah, I'll marry you.
NANCY GRACE: The young couple moves to Louisiana and share a home with Patrick's parents.
Two little girls, Christine and Donna, same come along but Mary misses the lifestyle
in Southern California and decides to return to San Diego. One day she said she had to go back to California.
And I said, well, you're not taking the girls. No, she said, I know they are-- your mother loves them so much.
They will be well taken care of. So I put her on the bus and never saw her again.
NANCY GRACE: It's apparent, Mary Scott is a free spirit. Back in San Diego, she finds a job
working as a dancer in a club named the Star & Garter. In the early hours November 20, 1969,
Mary Scott leaves the club for the last time. She took a taxi cab home that night driven by Tom Giaquinto
who was driving taxi cabs at the time while he waited to get on with the San Diego Police Department.
This would give me an opportunity to learn about the streets and the different areas of town.
Well, we chatted, of course. And she was always very personable, very sweet woman.
You have to put it into perspective that even though I have gray hair today, she and I were approximately
the same age back in 1969. Mary Scott got home that morning. She had just gotten off from a long night of work.
She was in the bathroom, taking off her makeup. There came some kind of noise at the door
at 2:00 AM in the morning. She opened up the door, which had a chain latch on it.
Now, the police know that she opened up the door because there was no indication that the door was forced when
it was closed but rather it was forced after it was made ajar so that she could look to see
who was knocking on the door. At that point, there was a slam against the door. The door bolted open with tremendous force.
The chain was ripped from the wall. This man who attacked her, hit her in the jaw.
It broke her jaw to the point she started bleeding on the floor. She lost consciousness, or at least was horribly dazed.
That's when the sexual assault took place. He ripped her clothes off, he sexually assaulted her,
he strangled her, and she was dead. NANCY GRACE: When Mary Scott is a no-show at work, her best friend, Dottie Christofferson, gets worried.
Dottie and her boyfriend go to Mary's apartment. What they saw must have been horrific for them.
Mary was basically spread-eagled on her back in the living room floor, nude from the waist down,
legs and arms spread in what we call the classic rape murder position. That's where if someone were to rape and murder a woman,
that's probably the position that they would be left in if they didn't move the body post-mortem.
So that's what we see time and time again as that position when we look at rape murders.
She screamed. She didn't know what to do. She called 911. She sat down. She had a drink and she smoked a cigarette, which people respond
very strangely in the midst of this kind of horrific criminal scene. So she had a cigarette and a drink until the police arrived.
She had told the uniformed patrol officers that she had moved some stuff, that she
covered her up while she lay on the ground and that she made a drink. They wanted me to take her back inside
and have her put everything back exactly like it was so that the other detectives and the evidence technician
could properly record everything inside the room. NANCY GRACE: In so many cases just like this one,
neighbors hear trouble but they're afraid to get involved. That's exactly what happened here.
Mary Scott's neighbors tell investigators they hear a disturbance coming from Mary's apartment
in the early hours that morning, but nobody, not one of them called police for help.
The neighbors reported that at about 2:15 in the morning, they heard screams and a crash.
But the neighbors didn't do anything. This is something that, unfortunately, is very common for people to witness crimes
to hear potential crimes and not call the police because many of them just don't want to get involved.
They don't want the police getting into their lives and many people will witness crimes and not report them.
NANCY GRACE: Word spreads throughout San Diego about Mary Scott's brutal murder.
Young women working in the city's clubs now living in fear. You have to understand this a very small circle of people.
So the dancers that work at one club know the dancers that work in another. So the word gets out very quickly.
The dancers came forward with information on people that had followed them home on some occasions,
stalked them on some occasions. NANCY GRACE: In 1969, San Diego Police don't have much to go on.
They gather what little evidence they can find and use what few forensic tools they have to try to find solid clues
about Mary Scott's murder. That's next on Bloodline Detectives. [AUDIO LOGO] November 1969, San Diego, California.
The body of a 23-year-old dancer, Mary Scott, found by a friend when Mary doesn't show up for work.
Mary, the victim of a vicious rape and murder. The San Diego community now on edge,
especially women who work as dancers in the city's clubs. A deputy from the San Diego coroner's office
is the first to examine the crime scene. Assailant always leaves their mark. No matter what it is, there is some kind of trace evidence.
There was blood on the floor. They couldn't be sure if that was the assailant's blood
or if that was Mary's blood. They collected everything that they thought had any value
for evidence examination. There was the door casing, the broken chain, everything that
could be used to lift fingerprints or any other kind of evidence, and it was all gathered up and impounded.
NANCY GRACE: Now, investigators pin their hopes on the results of Mary Scott's autopsy,
hoping for meaningful clues. The autopsy was done by a deputy coroner, and he'd reached two opinions.
One is the cause of death and also the second one would be the manner of death. And the cause of death he found was asphyxiation.
Her airway was compromised not only by her broken jaw but by someone either strangling her or covering
her mouth until she could no longer breathe and she passed away. The manner of death was classified as homicide.
NANCY GRACE: It's a huge disappointment when Mary's autopsy does not reveal very much
about who the killer could be. In a case like this, detectives begin looking into the victim's
background, interviewing her family, her friends, her coworkers. The majority of violent crimes and murder
are perpetrated by someone the victim knows. They're typically a significant other,
a potential family member. So in Mary's case, the first people that the police wanted to speak to and look into
were those closest to Mary. They sent two detectives from California talk to me to make sure where I was.
They found information in her belongings related, you know, that came back to me.
Dotty was never a suspect. However, Dotty's husband or ex-husband was a suspect.
Word got back to the detectives that Dotty's husband was upset at the tight relationship that Dotty had formed with Mary
and he blamed Mary for the breakup of his marriage. Another suspect that they looked at
was an ex-boyfriend of Mary's who was a pilot. There was also a current boyfriend
and Mary had who was in Las Vegas, who had some dubious ties. Several other suspects were examined
but ultimately they couldn't make a case on any of them. NANCY GRACE: Investigators get a big break
from an alert newspaper reader. The last person to see Mary Scott alive is a part-time taxi driver and soon to be police
officer named Tom Giaquinto. He reads about Mary's murder and immediately goes to police with a first-hand account
of Mary Scott's last ride home. I was interviewed by the Sergeant from the homicide team, who ironically became my superior
when I was in homicide. So I ended up working for the same fellow that interviewed me.
They asked me if I would voluntarily take a polygraph examination and, of course,
I immediately said yes, which was a great investigative technique for no other reason
than to eliminate me as one of the people that may be a suspect. NANCY GRACE: San Diego Police grind down
every available lead, but get no closer to identifying a suspect. Mary Scott's murder goes cold for investigators
but it's rekindled by her own family. Remember, Mary left behind two little girls
with her former husband's family back in Louisiana? The girls are very close to each other
and very close to their grandmother who's raising them. Grandma never told them anything about their mom's and murder.
Then one of Mary Scott's daughters finds a newspaper article inside a wooden chest
in grandma's bedroom. She finally told us the truth when we found out everything.
And we didn't understand like the rape and the strangulation. We were young, we were 11 and 12 years old.
You don't hear about things like that at that age, and we were raised in the country.
And she told us the truth and she says she just protected us because she didn't want whoever murdered my mom
to come and get her girls. She called us her girls. NANCY GRACE: For Donna and Christine Wyble,
another 10 years go by without any progress in their mother's murder case. Then tragedy strikes this close knit family yet again.
On the night of December 20, 1989, two decades after the murder of Mary Scott, Mary's daughter, Christine, never makes it home.
At the time, I was living at my grandmother's. Christine's kids were there, too.
So we kind of made a little pallet on the floor and I was sleeping with the kids.
And my grandmother was on the couch. And I remember my grandfather waking my grandmother up
and he said, Christine got in a wreck. She didn't make it. And she just fell. She just-- I couldn't remember the exact moment.
She got off real late from work and it was actually sleeting and it was icy roads that night.
And her car flipped like six times. NANCY GRACE: After Christine's death, her sister, Donna, becomes more and more
focused on the murder of their mother 20 years before. She contacted San Diego detectives looking for updates
on her mom's investigation. I called the police in 1998. And I talked to Sergeant Ron Thiel.
And he said it just so happens they working on my mom's case. NANCY GRACE: A daughter joins the search for answers
about her mother's murder. Can the very latest forensic science deliver answers?
That's next on Bloodline Detectives. [AUDIO LOGO] San Diego, 2020, 50 long years have
passed since the brutal murder of 23-year-old mother of two, Mary Scott. Now, Mary's determined daughter and new DNA technology
offer investigators hope. Hope that somehow they will find Mary's killer. Crime scene personnel will recover great physical evidence
at a scene, whether it be at the scene itself or in a rape kit exam. And what we find now is we locate
and discover suspect DNA. In order for us to know who that DNA belongs to, that suspect needs to already be in the database,
which is CODIS. So many times, suspects are in CODIS because in order to be in CODIS, you
have to fit a very specific guideline that is closely monitored for obvious reasons is very important to only put
people in there that need to be in there if we find ourselves investigating cases
that we have the bad guy's DNA where we just don't know who the bad guy is. The Mary Scott case tells a story
when you look at the crime scene, you can tell that the victim has been raped. You know what happened there.
It's not a mystery. And what was left behind on and inside her body tells us who did the crime.
So we had the answer but we just didn't know who that DNA profile belonged to. NANCY GRACE: Police now have a very strong DNA sample
from the original crime scene. Unfortunately, there's no match in the CODIS database.
Investigators now turn their attention to a new technique, achieving remarkable success in solving cold cases--
forensic genetic genealogy. The best way I can describe it is this. If you go to 23andMe, for example, just
as one of the many companies, and you give them your DNA, they will process your DNA and they
will compare your DNA to the DNA of all the other people in their database. And based on how much DNA you share,
they can predict roughly what your relationship is with these people, whether you're a first cousin
or a second cousin, et cetera. Well, what we do in law enforcement now is we take the DNA left behind by the suspect
at a crime scene. We put that DNA into the system and we get a list of the offender's relatives.
And then based on just good old-fashioned computer work and knocking on doors, we try to deduce
who the bad guy is based on the relationship with his relatives. That's just as simple as it is.
NANCY GRACE: Mary Scott's only surviving daughter, Donna, develops a close bond with San Diego cold case investigators
who are trying desperately to solve her mother's murder. Totally, he's like non-stop.
He will dig and dig and he'll find things out. I mean, he's just-- that's his passion.
And he's a great guy and so is the DA Chris. The DA is just incredible. And I am so amazed because I met the actual taxicab
driver that would bring my mom home every night. His name was Tom. He's so nice, just super nice guy,
and he was telling me about my mom, too, how she was so selfless. And she'd get in the cab at night and he'd bring her home
and she asked him how his day was. And she was a big tipper, he said. She'd leave him $0.75.
And back then, he said, that's a big tip. So I thought that was sweet over. NANCY GRACE: The cold case investigators
have solid evidence from Mary's murder. The original investigative team in 1969 was meticulous in how they collected
and recorded everything they discovered at the crime scene. One of the reasons I say that no single person can solve
a homicide is because there's so many people involved and one of the biggest parts of our system,
and they don't get much recognition, is the workers in the property room. And if you could imagine saving that evidence for 51, 52 years,
keeping it refrigerated, keeping it organized, and remember we moved in 1986 from an old station to a new station
and bring it all that property over, sorting it, tracking it, it's an incredible job.
I'm constantly impressed with what they do. NANCY GRACE: Detectives re-examine the original evidence from the investigation.
The first step in any case is to review it and read it and make sure that you're
familiar with the material. And then you try to plan a course of action as far as the investigation.
Which way am I going to go? Is there a likely path to success? And in this particular case, it was obvious
that the semen left behind on Mary's body was from the offender based on the way her body was found.
So basically, the trick was can we identify whose semen this is? And we took that semen and entered into a database
and came up with a list of possible people that might be the offender. NANCY GRACE: Forensic genealogists
began the painstaking task, slowly building the killer's reverse family tree. Generation by generation, the evidence moves
detectives closer to a suspect. Who we're looking for depends on how close the match is.
Let's say we get a match of a first cousin. Well, first cousins share grandparents.
So in other words, if you and I are first cousins, we're going to share one set of grandparents.
So in that case, the only thing you have to do is go back as far as the grandparents level,
and in theory, if your numbers are right, then you're going to work back down and you found out who your offender is.
So for second cousins and third cousins, you have to go back much, much further.
In this particular case, we were lucky we got a fairly close hit and we didn't have to go back that far.
NANCY GRACE: The discovery of a person believed to be a first cousin of Mary's killer
is a major breakthrough for Bloodline Detectives. The net is beginning to close.
Basically built a tree, and we use things like obituaries, marriage notices, birth notices, newspaper articles, computer
databases, and it was able to really fairly easily put together the family tree and figure out
who several possible offenders were. We came up with a list of possible offenders
and understanding, of course, that this genealogy predicts only probabilities but not certainties.
When we reviewed the list, we saw that really nobody had any connection to San Diego except one person,
and that person was John Sipos. We now have our first real lead. And it's not just a little lead, this is big time.
We probably have our perpetrator, but we've got to prove it. What do we do? Well, they look for him, and oh my goodness,
he's in Pennsylvania. They started doing an investigation of him in Pennsylvania and his background.
Lo and behold, in 1969, he lived in San Diego, 2.3 miles away from Mary. He was a former military man.
He was in the Navy. After being discharged right about the time that Mary was killed, shortly after her death,
he moved away to Pennsylvania. NANCY GRACE: Anthony Johnson, the lead cold case investigator, shares the news of a possible breakthrough
with Tom Giaquinto. Remember him? The taxi driver turned policeman who drove Mary Scott home
the night she was murdered. He told me that they had a suspect. He told me the suspect's name, where the suspect was located,
and that they still had some more work to do on it before they could make an arrest
but he wanted me to know. This was a case I had lived with since the day it occurred
because I had worked it, because I was the last person to see her alive besides the murderer.
The case never left my mind. So to think that wow, finally, and I'm alive to see it,
it made me feel wonderful. NANCY GRACE: Investigators now have a name. This is a remarkable lead in the investigation.
A name by itself, however, is still not enough. Investigators must tie that name,
that person to hard evidence from the crime scene. When we get a name, what we believe
to be the suspect in a case, such as this case being John Sipos, that is considered
an investigative lead. It is on the responsibility of the investigators to then get a current DNA sample from that person to compare
it to the DNA from the case. They need to get conclusive evidence, and that's what they set out to do.
NANCY GRACE: The Bloodline Detectives are so close to cracking a 50-year-old murder.
As we see next, they are one DNA match away from catching a killer. [AUDIO LOGO]
San Diego, California, 2020, some 50 years after the savage rape and murder of a young San Diego mother.
Police now closing in on a suspect. His name, John Sipos. As soon as the San Diego Police got a hit
through genetic genealogy, the next step that they needed to do was to make sure
that John Sipos was their guy. And the deeper they looked into it, investigators discovered that Sipos lived in San Diego
around the time of Mary's murder. They also discovered that he was now married, living
in Pennsylvania with his wife. It's necessary to get DNA from the suspect. You could try to knock on their door and ask them for DNA
but a lot of people would say no in that situation. So oftentimes, investigators will look for discarded trash.
And they'll take DNA off a discarded trash item. Maybe it's a straw and a soda cup, maybe it's a cigarette,
maybe it's a bottle, something that the suspect would have touched and left their DNA on.
They'll gather that, they'll do DNA testing. It's called a secondary reference in the DNA world.
And they'll see if that's secondary reference from the suspect matches the crime scene DNA.
The United States Supreme Court has said that once you put things in your trash can
out on the curb, that's anybody's game. You can search it, you can seize it. You do not need a warrant because the person has said
openly and figuratively, I no longer have any expectation of privacy. So the police wait till trash day,
people put their trash out at the curb. They go and they search that trash. NANCY GRACE: After collecting John Sipos's trash,
police finally get that break they've been waiting for. In this case, law enforcement officials from Pennsylvania
were able to retrieve a Band-Aid from Sipos's garbage bag which later was compared to the case and the DNA
from the crime scene, which proved to be a match. NANCY GRACE: This case, however, is far from over.
Police must still arrest the suspect and extradite Sipos from Pennsylvania all the way back to California.
First thing we do is we write an arrest warrant affidavit. It's signed by a judge so the judge signs off on the fact
that we do have enough to charge this person. Formal charges are filed here in San Diego, California.
And then we reach out to try to get the local law enforcement agency to actually make the arrest for us
because we don't have law enforcement powers in Pennsylvania. And of course, they were more than happy to do that.
He did not put up any type of fight. He was taken in without incident. Following that is an extradition, which is simply
an agreement between the governors of the United States that they will ship their guy from Pennsylvania
to here to court in San Diego. NANCY GRACE: John Sipos is extradited, brought from Pennsylvania back to San Diego
for homicide detectives finally began to question him. During the initial interview, Sipos
makes a very strange comment, one that intrigues investigators. That's next on Bloodline Detectives.
[AUDIO LOGO] San Diego, California, 2022. Detectives interview John Sipos, the prime suspect
in the 1969 murder of a 23-year-old mom, Mary Scott. Investigators surprised by Sipos comments
which may tie him to the crime. Sipos was a pretty cagey character. It was 51 years after Mary's death
that the police were able to interview him. He said, I don't remember Mary. I don't know anything about it.
But then out of the blue, did she get what she wanted? He asked. Then the police, what do you mean?
What do you mean? Nothing, nothing. He wouldn't answer thing any more. I don't know, I don't know Mary.
But the statement, did she get what she wanted? In the mind of the police, this guy knew her.
This guy knew her well. This guy probably stopped her, planned the attack, and then 50 years later said, did she get what she wanted?
The police were pretty certain they had their man. I just feel like if I would meet with him,
he would slip or say something ugly, just like when they put the crime scene photos in front of him
and he acts, Tony, if she got what she needed. Who does that? If you didn't do it, wouldn't you
be having a little bit of sympathy for these pictures and like who would do that?
He had none. If she got what she needed, who says that? Not a normal human being.
I mean, this man has no soul. NANCY GRACE: Detectives take a DNA sample from Sipos,
it's a 100% match to semen left at the crime scene. John Sipos is indicted and he goes to trial.
Investigators began calling a long list of family and investigators to update them on the case.
People that never gave up on catching a killer. In this particular case, we had a lot
of people that were invested in the case, that had worked the case, for example,
Jim Sing, Tom Giaquinto. The family was also involved as the process went on. So I had a list of about 15 people to call.
I was at home when I got a call, and it was Tony Johnson, who was an officer that I had worked around when I was on the police department.
And he told me that he was currently a detective in the cold case unit of the San Diego
district attorney's office. I said, OK, so why are you calling me? And he said, well, we solved one of your cold cases.
And I said Mary Ellen Scott, 36, and University, East San Diego. And he said, oh, wow, you remember.
And I said, it was my only unsolved case. October of 2020, Tony texted me. He said, Donna, we now have the man in custody that murdered
your mom, John Jay Sipos. He was a hospital administrator. Who does that, brutally rapes a woman and then
hospital administrator? I mean, it just doesn't make sense. I don't know the mind of a killer.
NANCY GRACE: March 2022, the trial of John Sipos for the 1969 murder of Mary Scott begins.
It's an interesting case for a juror. Not only is it a murder case but also it's a very old murder case.
So I think the jurors were interested not only to understand the facts of the case
but understand why it had been solved after so long and how we are going to show who did it.
Mr. Sipos was charged with murder. The statute of limitations had run on the rape charge,
so we were no longer able to charge him with rape. Even though it was clear from the evidence
that this had been a rape and a murder. NANCY GRACE: A key witness in the trial is the person who first discovers Mary's body,
it's Mary Scott's best friend, Dottie Christofferson. The most powerful witness by far was the victim's
friend, Dottie Christofferson. Even after all of these years, it still affected her emotionally.
This is a very traumatic event for a young woman to see her friend's body in that way.
When the trial came up and when we presented it, when she had to testify, it all came back to her.
The jury was very interested in what she had to say. In my closing argument, I told the jury
that the crime scene, Mary's body, told us what had happened to her, that she'd been raped and murdered.
And that the evidence the offender left behind on her body told us who did it. That this was clearly a crime of violence.
It was a crime of sexual violence. And that the DNA, to exclusion of everyone else
on the face of the Earth, said that it was John Sipos who did the crime. NANCY GRACE: The jury finds John Sipos
guilty of first degree murder because of overwhelming DNA evidence. When it comes to sentencing Sipos,
the judge is bound by the law. Well, the interesting thing about sentencing in this case
is we are governed by the law as it was in 1969. And 1969 law was very different than it is today.
It's been 50 years, of course, it's going to be different. And the punishment for murder at that time
was seven years to life. So that was what we were going by in this case. We were bound by the laws as they existed back in 1969.
So the most that Mr. Sipos could be sentenced to was seven years to life in state prison.
For years, Sipos must have thought that he would have never been caught. He moved out of San Diego, he moved to Pennsylvania,
he got married. He essentially moved on with his life for nearly five decades. So at a point, he must have thought that he was never
going to get caught for this. NANCY GRACE: The conviction of John Sipos is based on thousands of hours of police work
over five decades. The last word in court still belongs to Mary Scott's only remaining daughter, Donna.
I got up to the judge and I said, judge, I said, my name is Donna Wyble, I said, I am the daughter
of Mary Ellen Scott. And I said, I want John Sipos, and I was the only one called him out.
Nobody else would. And I called his name out loud in the courtroom. And I said I want John Sipos to know that he has taken
everything away from my sister and I. We will never know anything. And I mean, you could hear a pin drop in that courtroom.
It was terrible. It was scary. It was like a relief but it was horrible. And him just sitting there and just--
it's hard to explain. NANCY GRACE: There are others who have seen the case through from the beginning like the taxi driver who,
except for the killer, is the last person to see Mary Scott alive. She got out of my cab and I received a radio call
to go pick up another fare. And I pulled away. I always thought, wow, what if I had only
been there another three or four or five minutes or 10 minutes, I might have heard something.
I could have maybe saved her life. I could have done something. I always felt bad.
Rationally, I said, you know, you couldn't do anything. You receive the radio call so of course you had to leave.
But sure, I always felt terrible that I knew such a nice person and that she had been tragically murdered in the manner she was.
And that I might have, maybe had the opportunity to save her. There's not a moment I don't think about her.
I just wish I had known her. I remember her. I kind of felt eventually she would come back, you know.
I really did. I always felt that eventually she may come back still up until today.
NANCY GRACE: The successful prosecution of John Sipos also demonstrates to the community the determination
of San Diego law enforcement to find Mary Scott's killer and bring him to justice.
Mary's case was a very big deal for the local San Diego community as well as nationwide.
This was a five-decade-old cold case that remained unsolved. We're very proud of the work the team did on this case.
It's always a team effort. And it's great that we look at old cases that they're not forgotten, that the investigation continues,
and that we fight every day to try to bring justice to victims and their families whose crimes may have been long forgotten
but are still very deserving of justice. NANCY GRACE: The justice that Mary Scott's family
and countless investigators finally achieved is only possible because of groundbreaking developments
in forensic genetic genealogy. I can't tell you what a game-changer this genealogy
is now for law enforcement. Every day, you read about a new case that's been solved.
Some cases where have been worked for 30, 40 years. It's the best tool I think we've gotten since DNA itself
or since fingerprints. I mean, we're still just opening the door on it. NANCY GRACE: Mary Scott's murder case
proves many things, the miracle of modern day forensic science, the determination of investigators,
but maybe most of all, the undeniable strength of family. Mary Scott's only living daughter Donna barely
knew her mother when she was growing up, but that unshakeable bond of mother and child
could not prevent her from remembering her mother. Those memories gave her the strength to find justice,
yanking it from the jaws of tragedy. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us here on Bloodline Detectives.
[AUDIO LOGO] [THEME MUSIC]

San Diego, 1969, a friend of 23-year-old Mary Scott discovers a gruesome crime scene while checking on her friend. Mary Scott had been brutally killed and sexually assaulted. For 51 years the killer goes undetected, until forensic genetic genealogy identifies the perpetrator.

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.

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Brief Summary

Mary Scott's 1969 murder in San Diego is solved using genetic genealogy, leading to the arrest of John Sipos decades later.

Key points

The Brutal Murder of Mary Scott. Mary Scott, a 23-year-old mother, is found murdered in her home, shocking the community.
Cold Case Reopened. After decades, Mary Scott's family seeks justice using new forensic techniques.
A Breakthrough in the Case. Investigators identify a potential suspect through forensic genealogy, narrowing the search.
Breakthrough in Cold Case. Investigators announce a suspect in the 50-year-old murder case of Mary Scott.
DNA Match Confirms Suspect. Police retrieve DNA evidence from a suspect's trash, leading to a match with the crime scene.
Emotional Testimony. Mary Scott's best friend testifies in court, revealing the lasting impact of the crime.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She called us her girls.

Mary Scott's daughter recalls her mother's love.

15:28WatchMay 3, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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