Shocking Murder of Susan Eads | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Seabrook, Texas, 1983-- 20-year-old Susan Eads, out with friends
after a long day at work. There was one man there that kept asking her either to dance
or asking her something, and she kept refusing. He left around the same time Susan left.
I believe that he probably attacked Susan in the parking lot of Jason's Club. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Susan Eads
never makes it home that night. Her body was found near the yacht basins there in Seabrook, on NASA Road 1.
She put up a fight-- that it was a struggle between her and the suspect in this case.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Years passed, but Susan's killer is never caught. BRANDON BESS: Nobody knew the suspect.
People became more and more scared. Did they have a killer running loose here that
was going to do this again? GLENN GREGORY: All logical investigative leads had been exhausted, and this was very much a true whodunit.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Eventually, incredible advances in forensic science emerged for investigators.
We were kind of at a standstill. And we decided to look into genealogy, to construct a family tree to find who this person was.
NANCY GRACE: This is the story of how incredible forensic science and advancements, along with determined police work,
combined to solve a 37-year-old murder. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives."
[THEME MUSIC] [SERENE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Seabrook, Texas, 1983-- a cozy town nestled in Galveston Bay,
just 30 minutes south of Houston. Traditionally, they call it a sleepy little fishing village.
But it's just the easiest thing to say. It's a community. It's one of the nicest, friendliest communities
that's on the water, so it has a little bit of everything. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): But the seaside town
is not immune to danger. We get the same crime as major cities, we just don't get the volume.
But we get-- you know, bad guys travel, and so we-- we get a little bit of everything.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Susan Eads-- a vibrant, beautiful young woman living and working in the area.
Susan was a young 20-year-old girl who lived with her family in Seabrook. They had moved just a few years before to Seabrook,
and Susan was, you know, a great girl. Everybody seemed to like her. DENNIS EADS: Susie was a little bitty thing, but big as a lion.
She was ferocious. I was the oldest brother. And we didn't have a dad, so I tried to cover the emergencies.
The times we had fun as a as a family was probably going to the pool at my uncle's house.
He had an almost an Olympic size swimming pool and hobby airport. And so those are some really great times
that I didn't have to worry about fixing something or solving something. That's what I remember the most, I, mean best interactions
I remember other than maybe Christmas times and things like that. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Susan is diagnosed with scoliosis,
and that impacts her life as she's growing up. It was a pretty severe s-shaped curve in her back.
And you see a noticeable height difference in her hips and the way she would stand.
I didn't realize how self-conscious she was about it at the time. I think it was pretty scary that the only medical solution
was a steel rod in your back. But that was a very risky operation and an expensive operation.
So we were trying chiropractors. I had another uncle that was helping with that.
But Susie was trying to save money to correct it as much as possible because it bothered her so much.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): August 30, 1983-- Susan Eads has a long work day ahead.
After, she's looking forward to meeting up with friends. WILL HASKETT: Susan went to work that day.
She had several jobs. One of them was at a place called The Prickly Pear Bar, where she was a waitress, sometimes DJ.
She also, after her shift at The Prickly Peark, she went to Charlie's, her second job, where she worked
till about 12:30 that night. Then her and some of the other employees from Charlie's went
to a place called Jason's Club, where they were just going to go hang out with each other after work.
From what everyone said, that there was one man there that kept asking her either to dance or asking her something,
and she kept refusing. But she left alone. When she left, most of the ones that saw her leave
said she left alone. But a few minutes afterwards, a person was seen leaving behind her.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Susan never makes it home that night. Susan was last seen, you know, in the very late night hours
of August the 30th into the early morning hours of the 31st, maybe 1 o'clock in the morning or so that she was last seen.
There was no cell phones back then, that's number one. So she had a boyfriend, the one only boyfriend I've ever really
known her to have, Bobby. And sometimes maybe she wouldn't come home, maybe stay at Bobby's.
And so I don't think that was extremely unusual so that it would alert my mother too much.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The next day, a terrible discovery. WILL HASKETT: A call was made to the Seabrook police department
by a group of younger teenagers, thought they saw what they believed at first was a mannequin.
And they got out of their vehicle, went and checked, and saw that it was a body, a human body.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The horrified teens immediately called police. WILL HASKETT: They were dispatched to a vacant lot
near a ditch right off of NASA Road 1, at the corner of Elam Street in Seabrook.
There's a boat sales building right next to this lot. They found a car parked near that building, found
a woman's shoe in the car. And a short distance away in the field, they found the body of a young woman, small in stature,
with no clothes on, laying face down in the middle of the field. BRANDON BESS: Detectives would have been called to the scene.
And they would come out and do the best they could do with what they have, and that would be photograph, that
would be obviously collect the body and anything they found around it. WILL HASKETT: They found several of her clothing items
laying near her, and saw that there was some sort of ligature around her neck with a stick
intertwined in the ligature. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives focus on a vehicle
parked near the body. They would process the car, you know, trying to even determine in those days
who this car belonged to. NONA HOLOMON: We ran the license plate on the vehicle,
and it did come back to Susan's mother. So we were pretty sure that we were probably dealing
with one of the Eads family. A lieutenant went with me, and on the way he kept telling me how we should do this.
And there's no way that you can plan in your mind that you're going to do this. You just have to pretty well go with what happens.
[SOMBER MUSIC] Once we got there, Susan's mother answered the door, Shirley, AND she identified herself.
And we asked did she have a daughter named Susan, which was traumatic to me because you can't hardly speak at that time.
You're just-- you're overwhelmed yourself. And she said, yes, and she invited us in.
We went in and we had to tell her that-- that her daughter was dead. She instantly started saying, are you sure?
You know, is that my daughter? It can't be my daughter-- you know, that sort of thing.
Denial set in. And we assured her that we were fairly certain that it was Susan, and she just crumpled and cried.
[SOMBER MUSIC] DENNIS EADS: My phone rang and it was my mother. And she was obviously upset and crying,
and told me that the police wanted to talk to me. I don't know which policeman-- it was a man, not a woman--
got on the line and told me that Susie had been strangled. I didn't know how to take that.
What do you mean, she's been strangled. Are you telling me she's been killed? He said, yes.
And so immediately, me and my wife, Karen, we packed up and drove over to my mother's house.
Of course, when I got there, it was-- it was chaos. My mother always sat in her rocking chair,
and everybody was crying. I don't know how many policemen that was there, but it was a bunch.
NONA HOLOMON: All we could do is hug her and tell her that we were going to do the best we
could do to find who did that. NANCY GRACE: The body of a beautiful young woman is found,
a family's life is changed forever, and a killer is on the loose. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): August 31, 1983--
the cozy Gulf town of Seabrook, Texas, is now a place of fear. A group of teens discover a naked body--
the body of a 20-year-old waitress, Susan Eads, left dumped in a vacant lot, her car parked nearby.
A murder investigation commences. WILL HASKETT: Police collected all the evidence.
They also collected evidence from the car. They found multiple clothing items. This was a piece of a bodysuit they found on Susan's body.
The suspect used this to tie around her neck and used the stick to tighten it. And this was found around her neck
when she was discovered by police. Susan was a very small young lady. She weighed under 100 pounds, according
to her brother and sister. This was her-- her dress. She wore at the bar she worked at.
And she was wearing this the night that-- that they found her body. It was found located in her car.
These were pantyhose found near Susan's body. This bra was found in the back of her car.
These pantyhose were also found in the backseat of her car. We found two shoes from Susan.
One was found in the back seat of her car. This shoe was found about 25 feet away from the car,
between where they found Susan's body and-- and where her car was parked. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Susan Eads'
body, brought in for autopsy. It's where the delicate work would occur, not only to determine how Susan died,
what caused her death, but also the processing of her body. You are processing that body the same way you would
a room that you come into. You're processing it for fingerprints. You're processing it for damage.
You're processing it for the what, why, and how. NONA HOLOMON: Her autopsy told us
that she had been dead for 12 hours, that she had been sexually assaulted. And we assumed that she was sexually assaulted,
but it told us that she was. And she also had bruises, abrasions, you know, on different parts of her body
that we didn't see because the body was laying face down, and that she endured quite a bit.
BRANDON BESS: They did determine that Susan had died of asphyxia as a result of the garrote that
was used on her. But she also had extensive injuries, from bruises, defensive wounds, offensive wounds.
You could tell that she put up a fight, or the doctors were able to tell us that she put up a fight,
that it was a struggle between her and the suspect in this case. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Shortly after the murder, Susan's mother
begins getting disturbing phone calls. They're from a man who says his name is Bill.
She just didn't think a whole lot about it, but they progressively got worse. They would talk to her, tell them they had pictures of Susan,
did she want to see them. They let her see them if she'd meet them somewhere. BRANDON BESS: Miss Eads was a tough lady.
She was described to me as, you know, truly Susan's mom. She was that person that, especially for her children,
she'd fight 10 bulldogs at the same time. You know, she would do anything to protect those kids.
So she winds up, you know, playing along with this guy. This person is calling and saying,
you know, terrible things to her, and saying that he has certain items that he wants to show her
or he wants to give her or whatever. We also have to keep in mind that her daughter
had been murdered by someone we knew to be a male at this point. And is this the real suspect that did it?
Why does he want to meet her? Why does he want to meet her alone? What is that about?
My first thoughts are he's trying to kill her too. He's trying to hurt or assault her also.
But she plays along. There's some technology that was put in place to record the phone
calls when they came in. There was actually a script that was developed with her to be
able to converse with this person that was calling to try to get more information.
Miss Eads played along with that. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Detectives cannot identify the mysterious caller harassing Susan's mother.
NONA HOLOMON: And it was just so heartbreaking because we could never get anything on this guy.
And he was gross. I mean, he was gross to call this mother of this victim and say the things that he did.
You know, that was just the way-- and the calls went on for a long time. I think the last call that we had-- that we
logged was in, like, 1985. And that was years after-- two years after, you know, Susan's death.
NANCY GRACE: Remember, in the 1980s, detectives do not have the investigative tools they've got today.
Forensic science is in its infancy, and surveillance cameras simply are not widely in use.
Police are forced to rely on old school police methods to try and catch a vicious killer.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] WILL HASKETT: In 1983, they didn't have the technology we have nowadays.
The tools they had at their disposal were fingerprints, blood typing. There weren't surveillance videos,
so they would have to go canvas neighborhoods, talk to employees at businesses. In 1983, at the beginning of the investigation,
police went and interviewed all of Susan's coworkers that worked with her that night at her two jobs
at Charlie's and Prickly Pear. They went interviewed employees at Jason's Club, which
was the last place Susan was seen that night, and any friend she was with who had seen her at Jason's Club.
After talking to witnesses and Susan's friends at Jason's Club, police learned that a man with a beard and a cowboy hat
had asked Susan to dance several times that night. Susan turned him down, did not want to dance with him,
and he seemed to be fairly annoyed with Susan. Police created the sketch and put out the sketch
to the community, and received several calls with different suspects. One of the calls they received was for a man
named Travis Scoggins. NONA HOLOMON: Travis Scoggins, he was described as being in the vicinity where
Susan was when she was killed. He was described as being at the bar that she worked, being at Jason's, and being in the area.
WILL HASKETT: He had a beard and wore a cowboy hat a lot, and he was also charged with the sexual assault of a female
in a neighboring county. He had strangled his victim in that case. BRANDON BESS: Travis Scoggins did confess to the crime,
wrote a statement, the whole nine yards. He did every bit of that. NONA HOLOMON: He wanted to go around and show
us where the murder had taken place and how it had taken place. They did the blood type from the FEMA that they got.
He was not the blood type. That's eventually why it was dropped. BRANDON BESS: I don't know why he made the confession.
I don't know what he thought he would get out of it. Obviously, there was something there
that he thought was for him. But it was a long time ago, and Travis died in prison eventually.
After police were ruled out Travis Scoggins, the case went cold. NANCY GRACE: Believe it or not, a murder confession
turns out to be a fake. That leaves a murder investigation on its head, at a complete dead end.
34 long years go by until an infamous serial killer emerges as a possible link. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): August 30, 1983, Seabrook, Texas--
20-year-old Susan Eads, out with friends. Witnesses report seeing her speaking with a man who is angered when Susan refuses to dance with him.
The next day, her brutalized body discovered in a ditch. After a false confession, the case goes cold for decades.
Fast forward 34 years, now 2017. Detectives believe an infamous serial killer from the 1980s may be behind Susan's brutal murder.
DENNIS EADS: Anthony Allen Shore is a Texas convict from the Houston area who worked in the telephone
industry, a blue collar guy. He was convicted of numerous sexual assaults and homicides,
and was eventually sentenced to death and sent to Texas Death Row in Huntsville.
So Anthony Allen Shore's mode of operation was that he abducted young women, very small women,
and would sexually assault them, sexually abuse them, and then strangle them. WILL HASKETT: At the time, he had killed three
women that police knew about. He was called the Tourniquet Killer because he always wrapped
something around their throat, similar to the way Susan was killed. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators
are convinced serial killer Anthony Shore is the new prime suspect. And now they need evidence to prove it.
I would describe DNA as a biological blueprint. It helps determine who we are and what we look like.
About 99% of it is going to be the same from each person, which is why our noses are where they are, our ears and our eyes
are where they are. And that's something that we can use in the forensic field to help identify people who've left DNA behind at crime scenes.
NANCY GRACE: The evidence from 1983 is reexamined 34 years later. Detectives have new and amazing forensic science as a weapon.
First, they need a DNA sample from the crime scene-- a sample they hope will match their suspect.
On December 11, 2017, I examined the bodysuit. And there is where I identified a possible bloodstain
and a semen stain on the crotch of the bodysuit. TANYA DEAN: In order to identify sperm cells--
and we have to look at them under a microscope-- we're going to take a small cutting of that item.
We're going to put it in some water for a little bit, spin down that cellular debris, dry it on a microscope slide.
We have specific staining that we use that helps us to visualize those sperm cells under the microscope.
So on the bodysuit, Amanda Domer was able to isolate and find one sperm cell on that bodysuit, which indicated to us we have
the potential at this point to get a male profile from that item of evidence. So that was-- that was pretty exciting for us.
AMANDA DOMER: It was very exciting. And at that point, we didn't know whose that was
or if we were going to be able to get a DNA profile because it was just one sperm cell.
Typically, we need a couple dozen in order to obtain a DNA profile with the technology that we use.
So I was hopeful, but I did not want to hold my breath just yet until we got the DNA results later on.
NANCY GRACE: Investigators are fighting the clock. Anthony Shore is scheduled to be executed.
Before that happens, detectives must compare the DNA sample from Susan Eads' brutalized body to Anthony Shore's DNA
to determine will there be a DNA match. BRANDON BESS: We've got a guy that potentially committed
a crime, committed a horrendous crime, who's going to be executed. And getting an execution stopped takes the act
of a governor at minimum. They just don't stop those things. It is a really big deal.
It's a-- it is a legal process that is way above a field Ranger who's doing a homicide investigation.
So time was of the essence. TANYA DEAN: There was a request to rush this case, because we spoke with the Rangers and Seabrook PD
in November of 2017, and Anthony Shore was scheduled to be executed in January of 2018.
So we wanted to see if we could make any comparisons to Anthony Shore before his execution date.
BRANDON BESS: I get his DNA and I drive it straight to the crime lab, getting there, you know, 8:30 or 9 o'clock is
my recollection, turning that over to my partner, Tanya Dean, at the crime lab. I think she stayed up processing that all night
long, which never happens. I'll never forget meeting with Tanya, her walking out of the crime lab looking very dejected,
dragging her feet and saying, not him, he's not our guy, when we were just absolutely convinced.
Where we went after that was Anthony saying, well, you know, I basically told y'all that it wasn't me.
But if you really want proof-- in this part is sickening to even say this day-- but Anthony said, if you really want proof, look at my victims.
Look at what my victims looked like. I like children. I like the way little girls look.
Susan was, though a petite gal, she didn't look like what I like. I'm not turned on by somebody like that.
And again, I say that to say that's a very sick thing for me to even have to repeat.
After he said that and the DNA, we knew he wasn't our guy. I saw the reason that the death penalty exists in Anthony Allen
Shore's eyes, up to and including walking Anthony Shore from his cell to the death chamber
to be strapped down and executed. Never once-- never one sense of remorse, never
one sense of sadness, not a sense of relief. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Anthony Shore, the so-called Tourniquet
Killer, is officially ruled out as a suspect in Susan Eads' murder. The detectives try a new approach.
They upload the DNA from the murder scene into the CODIS database. WILL HASKETT: CODIS, the Combined
Offender DNA Index System. It's used to store all DNA profiles from everyone that goes
to prison, convicted felons. So anybody who has ever committed a crime similar to this and been caught, their DNA
would be in the system. Once we had our profile, we ran it through CODIS and there was no match.
We were kind of at a standstill. TANYA DEAN: We were extremely disappointed with not
being able to identify who this DNA belonged to. BRANDON BESS: We did a lot of things.
In this case to make sure we had crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's with CODIS, with everything
we had, to no avail. Another prime suspect ruled out by that CODIS search, and investigators now facing another dead end.
When we come back, will new forensic science finally close the murder of Susan Eads?
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): 2018, Texas Rangers, Seabrook Police,
and the FBI reinvestigating the 1983 rape and murder of 20-year-old Susan Eads. For 35 years, all the promising leads are bust.
But now detectives try new ground breaking forensic science. Forensic genetic genealogy became our next step.
Who do we reach out to? How do we do that? What is forensic genetic genealogy? Forensic genetic genealogy is a method that has been
around for a very long time. Originally called genetic genealogy, it was used by hobbyists, by individuals who were
researching their family trees. And what it does is it combines direct to consumer DNA
testing with more traditional genealogy tools such as public records, census records,
marriage licenses, obituaries. And you take the DNA test, and when you upload it to the database, you have
what we call genetic relatives. There are individuals in the database who are matches,
who are somehow related to you. The database, through its algorithm, will assign a predicted relationship between individuals
who are related to each other. It could be a first cousin. It could be a second cousin.
It could be aunt, uncle, different relationships. But by knowing that you match, you are related to an individual
in the database, you can take their information and you can start searching public records
and see if you can find them and merge the two pieces of data together to continue to build family trees.
BRANDON BESS: Using GEDmatch, using that law enforcement database from folks who have voluntarily given their DNA
to build a family tree, there are now databases that people enter because they want to help solve crimes.
They-- literally people, including myself, put their selves in those databases to build other databases stronger
that law enforcement can use to help solve these violent crimes. So we did that in this case.
Three-- we didn't really understand how it worked or how it was going to work for us,
or even if it was going to be legally accepted as a tool. Forensic genetic genealogy is a tip that says,
here's a place to start. Let's start here. At the very end of 2018, but primarily into 2019,
was when we really started having activity with the genetics part of the case. BRANDON BESS: We started building that family tree using
GEDmatch, using the FBI, using a lot of different people at the time to help us build towards who
our suspect actually was. GLENN GREGORY: We took samples from approximately eight
or nine different people to try to narrow down the family tree. I can tell you, though, when the genealogist would identify
potential people for us to collect from in some instances, in one particular instance--
I think it was the first lead that Brandon and I went on together-- the individual let us know that they
had been born out of wedlock. So it was not going to fit what we needed. They were happy to give us a profile,
but we knew at that point, OK, that happens. Sometimes when the genealogists are looking at existing family
trees to try to see if someone's a suitable sample, it won't indicate an adoption.
It won't indicate born out of wedlock or something like that. So it can-- it can make it challenging,
and sometimes we go down sort of rabbit holes on some of these leads to get to finally where we need to be.
But in this case, it got narrowed down pretty quickly because-- really, because of the work of the genealogists.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): After months of tedious research, DNA genealogists finally have a lead.
In 2020, the genealogy company contacted the Rangers, who contacted us to let us know that they
had a potential suspect named. BRANDON BESS: Arthur Raymond Davis-- name had never popped up anywhere,
never heard of this guy. Will, poring through the case files over and over and over again, had never
heard of this guy, nothing. He was absolutely a person that was not on our radar, that had been identified
through forensic genetic genealogy. It's a person, to date, that I haven't found anyone in Seabrook, Texas, that knew who he was.
When I first saw a picture of Arthur Davis and compared it to the sketch that was done in the '80s, it was obvious that it
was a very, very close match. NONA HOLOMON: It was unreal. It was totally unreal at the closeness of it.
And I looked at it and I thought, oh, my gosh, this can't be. And I looked at it and I thought, oh, no, come on.
Somebody just took a sketch of this and then put it-- but it was for real. I mean, Davis was so much like that composite.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Bloodline detectives believe they finally know who murdered
Susan Eads 37 years ago. That's until they run up against another roadblock, next.
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Seabrook, Texas, 2020--
37 years after the brutal rape and murder of 20-year-old Susan Eads. But now, detectives believe they've solved
the case until a bombshell. Frustrating news. We've all. homicide detectives have cases that our suspect
dies at some point in time. However, for cold cases, and one going back this far
being unusual to even be able to get a solve with a team on it, we discovered that Arthur Raymond
Davis had been killed in a car wreck driving a stolen Corvette. About December time frame I believe he was in the wreck,
stayed in the hospital for quite some time, and eventually did pass away in January of 1984.
And again, he was in a stolen car, and I'm about 60% convinced that Arthur Davis committed suicide.
Based on the accident investigation, based on the small amount-- very small information that we have,
there was nothing about that wreck that was normal. I believe that Arthur Davis killed himself via car wreck.
So the detectives that were working the case in the day, number one, would have had no reason to look
for this guy, and number two, he was dead while they were still working the case.
So even-- even more difficult a case to try and solve-- an unknown person who was dead
that you're trying to find. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators are determined to confirm Arthur Davis raped and murdered
Susan Eads in 1983. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] Agent Gregory and the FBI were able to reach out to contacts
and actually locate a son of Arthur Raymond Davis, who was very cooperative and submitted
a sample of his DNA. Within a day or two, we had that sample delivered to Tanya Dean at our lab.
TANYA DEAN: Y-STR testing, or paternal testing, is going to look at the Y chromosome that is passed down
during the paternal lineage. So the son, the father, the grandfather are all going to have the same Y-STR profile, pending
any mutations or any other biological processes that may interrupt that. So it's not as identifying as the autosomal STR analysis
that we typically perform, because it only points to a lineage. But it can be used for exclusionary purposes.
And for this case, it at least gave the investigators an idea that this was the paternal lineage
that they needed to look at. They just needed to look at the external factors, such as the location and the timing of the events,
to see who may have been in the area and who could have been a suspect in this case.
We were able to confirm that the Y-STR profile from the son was consistent with the Y-STR profile
from our crime scene evidence. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): 37 years after Susan's murder,
investigators can finally ID her killer. BRANDON BESS: April 24th of 2020 is the day that
we had a solve in this case. And that is the day that we had the confirmation based
on all the genealogy work that had been done, based on the background work, based on everything
that the FBI, Tanya Dean, the DPS Crime Lab put together. Confirmation was received on that date
that Arthur Raymond Davis would have been the person that would have left that DNA on Susan's clothing and the DNA that
was found on the ligature garotte that was used to kill her. TANYA DEAN: Exhumation of Arthur Ray Davis was a thought,
and it was discussed. DPS, the Rangers, Seabrook PD, the district attorney's office all met.
And at that point, an extensive amount of research had been done on Arthur Davis, his whereabouts,
where he had lived, his life. And after everybody talked everything through-- the DNA results, the genealogy results, the criminal history,
all of those things-- everybody was quite certain and confident that Arthur Davis was
the perpetrator in this crime, and an exhumation was probably going to cause more harm than good.
And they felt confident closing the case at that point. The feeling in the lab was that everybody
was just super excited. Again, these cases tend to not be successful, and we tend to not get answers the majority of the time.
So on the occasion that we are successful with these cold cases, again, it just kind of aligns us.
It reminds us why we're here, reminds us what we're doing, and makes us feel really good about the job
that we do every day. WILL HASKETT: The only reason we were able to solve this case,
and I believe this case never would have been solved without forensic genetic genealogy.
BRANDON BESS: There's never closure. When you lose a loved one like that. There's not.
There's answers. We hope to provide an explanation about why this may have happened.
Arthur Davis was actually in the Coast Guard, served in Vietnam in a patrol-type boat, patrolling
the shores of Vietnam. Vietnam did a lot of strange things to a lot of veterans.
And I don't know what he went through. I know his family's broke up. He had a broken family.
He had kids of his own. I can't imagine that he would set out to go kill a girl,
but then you never know. Arthur Davis probably left the bar, sat outside the bar waiting
on Susan to leave, followed Susan, somehow got her to pull over-- flashed his lights, did something,
got her to pull over-- assaulted, sexually assaulted, and then killed her. NONA HOLOMON: They're never going
to get over Susan's death and the way she died or was murdered. But they have some closure on who did it.
BRANDON BESS: Susan was indeed a person who was-- she was that sister you would want.
Dennis, her brother, described her to me as a wildcat, as a tomcat, as a bulldog, as just this person that
loved life, that loved people. Susan Eads was just truly a good person. DENNIS EADS: You can dwell on it, it can eat you up,
or you can try to pick up the pieces and do the best with the cards you're dealt.
I think that's what I tried to do. NANCY GRACE: By the time she's just 20, Susan Eads has already faced the incredible challenge
of a potentially crippling disease. But still, her incredible outlook on life inspires her family and her friends.
It's all the more tragic that a senseless act of violence ends Susan's life so early on, much too soon.
I'm Nancy Grace, and I want to thank you for joining us here on "Bloodline Detectives."
[OMINOUS CHORDS] [OMINOUS CHORDS] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]

In 1983, the Seabrook, Texas community is shaken when 20-year-old waitress Susan Eads is found murdered. Decades later, can modern forensic techniques finally find the perpetrator?

Now in its fifth 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.

Brief Summary

Susan Eads' 1983 murder is solved 37 years later through genetic genealogy, identifying Arthur Raymond Davis as her killer.

Key points

The Disappearance of Susan Eads. In 1983, 20-year-old Susan Eads goes missing after a night out with friends.
A Gruesome Discovery. The next day, a group of teens discovers Susan's body in a vacant lot.
A False Confession. A suspect confesses to Susan's murder, but later, it's revealed to be a fake.
Arthur Davis Identified. Forensic genetic genealogy leads to the identification of Arthur Raymond Davis as the suspect.
The DNA Breakthrough. In 2020, investigators finally identify a suspect in Susan Eads' murder after decades of searching.
Closure for Susan's Family. After years of uncertainty, Susan Eads' family finds some closure with the identification of her killer.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Susan Eads never makes it home that night.

Nancy Grace's voiceover about Susan's disappearance.

0:37WatchJun 1, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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