The Huntington Beach Jane Doe | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

[INTENSE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Huntington Beach, California, 1968-- schoolboys stumble across what they believe is a scarecrow.
The reality is far worse. JOAN RENNER: When the boys came on this, it was a horrific scene.
She had died an awful death. EARL ROBITAILLE: It was violent. She had bruises all about her face.
Her clothing was in total disarray. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): It's a double mystery
about an unidentified murder victim and her unknown killer, a mystery that takes 52 long years to solve.
DIANE BAUGHMAN: We knew that this was probably going to be solved using DNA. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Finally,
a remarkable breakthrough-- a new tool that's unlocking seemingly impossible cases,
investigative genetic genealogy. DAVID DIERKING: I felt that this is really, really special.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): This is the story of how one brutal criminal hid in the shadows for years
and ultimately discovers there is no escaping the science of his own family's DNA.
I'm Nancy Grace, and this is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] Huntington Beach on California's beautiful Pacific Coast
has long been a hangout for surfers and celebrities alike. Huntington beach in the late '60s was a typical
Southern California beach town. There wasn't much crime there. It was mostly oil derricks.
A lot of oil was there, and it was just a scruffy little beach town. But it had character, and it had soul.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): March 14, 1968-- this beach town is shaken by a discovery
at one of those oil fields. EARL ROBITAILLE: There's a couple young guys, were on their way to school, and they saw the body--
went and notified somebody who called the fire department. Fire department responded, thinking it was somebody
that was sick or injured. And once they discovered what they had, they notified the PD.
DAVID DIERKING: The first officer that responded for the police department was officer Tom Quick.
He arrived at the scene at about 4:10 PM. He saw the deceased face down in this drainage ditch that
was about 450 feet south of Yorktown, in the area of Yorktown and Newland. She had this jacket which was an imitation leather jacket.
She was wearing a flowered blouse that had two ripped off buttons. She had a ripped open bra.
She had purple capri pants, and she had black loafered shoes on. And on her left ring finger, she had a birth stone.
It was a square stone, and it was aquamarine or light blue in color. She was described as a female Caucasian
or Hispanic, 20 to 30 years old. EARL ROBITAILLE: At the time, I was a detective bureau commander.
The detectives called in and let me know what was going on. And that's when I made the pass out there.
Her throat slashed open. She had bruises all about her face. Her clothing was in total disarray.
DAVID DIERKING: There were tire marks that were clearly visible. And they went onto the field from Yorktown,
and they made a complete circle. And it was apparent that the car stopped near the location of where the Jane Doe was found.
And it was apparent by the drag marks that she was pulled or dragged from that passenger
side of that car down to the location where she was at. She had been the victim of a violent assault.
ANTHONY PHAM: There were quite a few items of evidence. One that actually jumps out is a cigarette butt that
was right next to the body. At that time, DNA wasn't even on the radar. So the fact that officers at that time
decided to collect that evidence, that was huge. And it would obviously play a role
later in the investigation. JOAN RENNER: At the time in '68, they were looking for blood evidence because you
could prove blood type. But they were very careful about collecting evidence. They collected anything that looked
like it could have been dropped by the killer, it could belong to the victim. They tagged and bagged everything
because they were very thorough in their investigation. DAVID DIERKING: They located one of the torn blouse buttons.
They took soil and dirt samples. They made plaster castings of the tire tread marks
and what they believed to be knee impressions near the Jane Doe. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators
have no witnesses and very, very little crime scene evidence. They hope an autopsy can advance their investigation.
ANTHONY PHAM: After the coroner conducted the autopsy, the manner of death was, she basically bled to death
and bled out. There was seminal fluid in the pubic region of the victim. EARL ROBITAILLE: One of our sketch artists
had made a sketch from the body itself at the coroner's office. And that was circulated.
And many people called in saying they thought they had seen her with somebody else that they knew, and they had a name.
And that happened a number of times, a number of times. And a lot of people are just trying to be helpful.
DAVID DIERKING: She was kept at the morgue because she was not identified. She was considered a Jane Doe for over 10 months.
And it was estimated that nearly 3,000 people viewed her body. And no identification was made.
JOAN RENNER: They buried Jane Doe in an unmarked grave in Newport Beach. And the reason for that is because they wanted
to be able to dig her up if they had to at some point, if there was some evidence that they
could match to her, anything. So they're always thinking to the future a little bit.
One thing about detectives, they always sort of have one eye toward the future. What will that future hold for investigators?
We find out next on "Bloodline Detectives." [INTENSE STINGER] [INTENSE STINGER] [INTENSE MUSIC]
Huntington Beach, California, 1968-- the scene of a brutal murder, the body of a mutilated, unknown female victim,
discovered by children near one of the town's oil wells. EARL ROBITAILLE: They went out almost
two or three miles in every direction, went door to door. We put 20 to 30 guys on the street immediately,
canvassing all the houses, stopping all the passing cars to see at what time of day they passed through that area.
If it was a regular thing, that they might have been in the area at the time and seen something.
They did a tremendous, intense investigation. Over 1,100 residences were contacted.
In addition, every beer bar, cocktail lounge, business establishment in the city of Huntington Beach
was contacted. An excess of 225 personal contacts were made with individuals who were either suspects or persons
who possibly had information. All efforts to identify the victim, either through fingerprints, dental charts,
or the one piece of available jewelry that is identifiable, have all been met with negative results,
indicating the possibility that the victim is completely unknown in this area and may have been brought to this area
from some distant point. And that is reflective of the efforts that continued throughout the years.
So they worked every single lead in an effort to identify her in the suspect. JOAN RENNER: So that leaves them with a limited avenue
for their investigation. They have to do the best they can. They can bring in people.
Because it was a sexual assault, they can bring in people, known sex offenders, and question them, find out where they were, if they could
have committed this homicide, that kind of thing, but with very little evidence, and no identification of her.
They've got a huge problem with their investigation. EARL ROBITAILLE: A cold case is a case that's
reached a dead end, where you have no more information to work on, no more suspects
to find and interrogate. There is a point in time when you say you've got to go to the cold case guys.
And you have specialty investigators that work nothing but cold cases. And they're usually the bulldog investigative type,
the guys that never give up. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Brand-new scientific advances
are helping transform investigators into cold case detectives. EARL ROBITAILLE: The scientific community
was stepping in and helping. As time goes by, the technology improves. And that's exactly what happened here.
ANTHONY PHAM: Back in 2001, Detective Mack submitted evidence from the investigation
to the Orange County Crime Lab. They were able to come up with a DNA profile. And at that time, they plugged it into the numerous databases
that we have. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Of these, the single largest emerging DNA database is CODIS.
CODIS is the Combined DNA Index System. It is operated by the FBI, and it's a network of local state
and national DNA databases. It consists of DNA profiles from convicted offenders, arrestees,
crime scene evidence samples, which are known as forensic unknowns. JOAN RENNER: The limitation is that not everyone
enters the information. The database is only as good as the information entered into it.
So it's not like when you watch crime shows on TV, and they bring up this wonderful color screen
and they do a few keystrokes and they've suddenly got the face of a killer in front of them.
It doesn't work like that. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): By 2001, DNA is becoming an increasingly powerful investigative tool.
The suspect whose DNA profile is found on CODIS matches the partial single source
male DNA profile from the cigarette butt, found at the crime scene. In 2001, there was a single source DNA suspect profile
located from seminal fluid from the swab that was taken from her body, and also from the cigarette butt.
That profile was uploaded into CODIS in 2001, and there's never been a hit. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Then the cold case team
tries a new approach, a familial DNA test of the killer's bodily fluids. The California Department of Justice Laboratory
conducts familial searching against the state DNA index. And it's a step that's taken after all investigative leads
have been exhausted, and there are no hits in CODIS. So what you ideally want to do is find a relative
on your paternal side. So you have your unknown. You want to find a paternal and a maternal relative--
ideally, hopefully, close, because it's much easier to solve. When you get to third, fourth, fifth cousins,
it's really hard. But once you've found those matches that are related to your unknown, then you need to build back to what's called
a most recent common ancestor. The descendants of that most recent common ancestor
then is where your suspect pool is. ANNA DADHANIA: Familial searching was conducted in this case on the suspect profile
at least four times against the Cal DOJ database. However we had no good leads with familial searching.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Years pass. And cold case detectives see the remarkable story of the Golden
State Killer, who's finally caught by investigative genetic genealogy. Could this technique be applied to the Huntington Beach Killer?
DAVID DIERKING: As they watched and participated in this trial, they saw the value in that he would have never been caught
had not IGG or FGG been involved. They realized the value of having a tool like that.
And the Orange County DA's office has always been on the forefront of using whatever new DNA
tool that might be out there to solve violent crimes and to identify people that have not been identified.
DIANE BAUGHMAN: Forensic investigative genetic genealogy is an amazing thing that has done so much
for the world of crime solving. And it's basically-- what we're doing is looking at that DNA.
And instead of putting it into the system where we have the criminals, we're putting it into public systems where
people agree to put their DNA. And that opens up a whole new world of amount of connects
that we can have to that DNA. And in this case, we did it with both our suspect's DNA
and our Jane Doe. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators call in a specialist, Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick,
a world-renowned forensic genealogist with an incredible track record in cracking cold cases.
ANTHONY PHAM: She was able to work with CAP Sergeant Dierking, and they were able to spend a significant amount
of time building a family tree. There wasn't enough material to send out for SNP
testing regarding the Jane Doe. DIANE BAUGHMAN: Once investigative genetic genealogy
came around, we had a list of different cases. Most of them were ones that we had done the familial searching
on that didn't have matches. And now it was an opportunity to open it with IGG. And as long as there was DNA still
that we could achieve and get the right DNA that we needed, we were able to do that.
And luckily we could exhume her body and get even better DNA than they had with the other samples.
DAVID DIERKING: In April of 2019, Jane Doe's body was exhumed. After they exhumed the body, they still
couldn't get a full profile from her remains. So they actually sent a bone of hers, a femur,
to the International Commission on Missing Persons Lab in the Netherlands. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): While investigators
wait for results to come back, they focus on the suspect's DNA. DAVID DIERKING: Once the profile is obtained, it's uploaded.
The DA's office only uses law enforcement forensic databases that allow us to enter it into their public database
as a law enforcement sample. And it is only compared against those people that have opted in to law enforcement comparisons.
Once that comparison is made, a match list is provided. And then the family trees are then worked.
ANNA DADHANIA: She went to the IGG war room and wrote down the surnames of all the great-grandparents
from the family trees that we had built. There were two sides that we had focused on,
so all the surnames from the great-grandparents and any of their descendants were written down.
At that point, when we were analyzing those two lists, we noticed that there was a marriage
between the last name on one list and the last name of another list. And that last name was also in our Y chromosome surname list.
And that last name was Chrisco. After over half a century, investigators have a crucial lead and a potential family name--
Chrisco. Can they finally identify the Huntington Beach Killer? That's next on Bloodline Detectives.
[INTENSE STINGER] [INTENSE STINGER] [INTENSE MUSIC] Huntington Beach, California, 2020--
52 years since the discovery of a mutilated lady murder victim. Both the victim and her killer remain unidentified.
But now investigative genetic genealogists can name four brothers, one of which they believe
is the killer. ANNA DADHANIA: I remember when we first suspected the brothers. We immediately went down the hall
and looked for investigator Dierking, but he was nowhere to be found. He just happened to be in court that day.
So I immediately texted him, hot lead, exclamation point. And we told him the four brothers that we
suspected for this case. This was the first time he was seeing investigative genetic genealogy playing out, so he wasn't sure.
I was not a believer at this time in IGG, to be very honest with you. In looking at the four sons, they
were all in their 20s in 1968. Three of the four were deceased. Not only were they deceased, they had been cremated.
There was one living son, and he very well could be the suspect. ANNA DADHANIA: When we first were able to connect the family
trees that led to these four brothers, it was our first time doing IGG on a case.
So we weren't even sure, were we on the right track? Everything looked like it connected.
DAVID DIERKING: We called Huntington Beach, and we briefed them on what the tree showed
and the belief that one of these four boys was the killer. And they only had one living son.
And Huntington Beach Police Department elected to immediately seek out evidence that
would either prove him, the living son, to be the suspect or not. They drove hundreds of miles, collected discarded trash
items, which were then immediately provided to our office, which has a rapid instrument,
and profiles were obtained. And I was called at 3:00 in the morning from my supervisor
who said, we got good DNA profiles from the items. He's not the suspect. Then my heart went down.
And he goes, but he is the brother. It was at that moment that I go, wow, this is pretty incredible.
To think, after all these years, that this actually works-- that was the first real time that I felt that this
is really, really special. It is a heart-stopping moment for "Bloodline Detectives."
Their surviving Chrisco brother is innocent. But investigators are positive one of his three dead brothers
is a killer and a rapist. ANNA DADHANIA: We knew that we were in the right family.
And the genetic genealogy led us to the right family, and we just have to figure out which of the other three
brothers could be our suspect. We were able to obtain an autopsy sample. It was not a match.
And the other brother was in the military at the time, so he was not in the area.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Which leaves just one brother, Johnny Chrisco. DIANE BAUGHMAN: Johnny Chrisco had a lot of things that
pointed in his direction-- his history being somewhat violent, things like that that led us in his direction.
Unfortunately he had no living children. When he died, he was cremated, and there was no autopsy done.
So in order to identify him, one of the thoughts that I had is, as a cancer survivor myself, I saw
that he had died, in part at least, to having lung cancer. And if someone is diagnosed with cancer,
they have to have had a biopsy. So in that, I thought, well, there's got to be biopsy tissue somewhere.
And I ran into a lot of brick walls. I left a lot of messages. I got transferred a lot.
And there wasn't much that was coming out of it. I sent an official letter, and I received
back a notice of, sorry, you can't have what you're asking for. And I thought I might be dead in the water at that point.
However, a few days later, some records showed up in the mail. So one of my phone calls must have helped in some way.
And with those records, I was able to see that he did at least have a biopsy. I located the fact that the hospital has a contract lab.
So I called again a number of places and found a way into that lab, where I was actually talking
to a person who was inside the lab, and was actually very surprised that I got to her.
How did you even get here? I said, I don't know. I just made this call and I got hold of you.
Here's what I need. She did tell me that if they had any records, they couldn't look them up by name
or anything about the patient. All they had were numbers, and I'd have to provide her a number.
She also told me that if it was a biopsy tissue, it was only kept for 10 years. When I saw that he had the biopsy in 2007,
again I thought we might be out of luck because we were past that 10 years. Luckily, once we found a number to provide to her
and had her look it up, she was able to tell us that they were a little behind on destroying their tissues,
and they still had that one. And just in two days we had it in our office. And I think it was about 10 days for our lab
to get through the processing and actually tell us for sure that the DNA from that biopsy matched our killer, Johnny
Monroe Chrisco. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): So, what more do we know about Johnny Chrisco?
Johnny Chrisco was-- I think he was just bad pretty much right from the beginning.
I'm not sure why. Sometimes you just don't know. He was involved in a statutory rape case at 17.
He seems not to have gotten much better after that. He went into the army. And I suspect that he went into the army-- especially
in those days, in the '60s-- a judge probably said, you know what, Johnny? You're going to be in a whole world of trouble.
I suggest maybe you go into the service, make a man of you kind of thing. Because that happened a lot.
You were given that choice if you were a guy-- army, jail. He moved around. He married three times.
He had two children, both of whom predeceased him. DAVID DIERKING: His first son was born in 1961.
His second son was born in 1962 in North Carolina and died just 20 days later-- very suspicious circumstances, as we look back.
It was due to a gastric infection and rupture. The military, rather than deal with the mother's claim
that he had killed the baby-- and their own psychological evaluation turned up all kinds of negative stuff.
JOAN RENNER: He failed miserably. He was determined to be somebody who was very aggressive,
someone who felt the world was against him. He had all these issues. And curiously or not, the same mental state,
the same characteristics, are similar to a rapist. They share a lot of those same characteristics.
So they just gave him a discharge and got him out. Which is a shame because, you know,
later on, had that conviction taken place, had we been able to put a few of those pieces together
and identified him as that kind of individual, there might have been a speedier conclusion to the case.
He died of throat cancer, which I thought was kind of appropriate. Almost as good as a regular death sentence.
But you know, if there is justice in this world, maybe that was his. It sounds like a terrible way to go.
I think it was fitting because he slit Jane Doe's throat, and his own throat failed him with cancer.
I don't know if people believe in karma or what, but I think sometimes you commit a bad act,
and it comes back at you a thousand-fold. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The identification
of Johnny Chrisco is a remarkable breakthrough. But a central piece of the case is still missing--
who's the victim? We find out next on "Bloodline Detectives." [INTENSE STINGER] [INTENSE STINGER]
[INTENSE MUSIC] Huntington Beach, California, 2020-- detectives now have the name of a killer, a man who
they believe killed a still unidentified lady murder victim, 1968. She was mutilated and sex-assaulted
near an oil field. 52 years later, investigative genetic genealogists finally name her killer, Johnny Chrisco.
But Chrisco died of cancer five years before. Now, bloodline detectives try their best
to identify the unidentified female victim they call Jane Doe. DAVID DIERKING: We had identified Johnny Chrisco.
But obviously the focus now was to put a name to Jane Doe. And through the investigation, we
were not able to identify her through anything that we had learned about Johnny Chrisco.
So there was a request for the Orange County Crime Lab to do DNA testing again on the victim's bloody clothing.
And fortunately this resulted in a DNA profile that we could say was hers because it was
consistent with the partial profile that had been obtained from DOJ. So with that, we had enough material
to send out to do SNP testing. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): S-N-P, or "snip" testing,
is a recent forensic technique that allows investigators to identify people with common ancestors,
using biological markers found in their DNA. We put her DNA into those systems that we used and found connections and worked trees.
So we're just pulling all sorts of relatives with all sorts of connections and trying to find a place
where this person might fit. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The hunt for Jane Doe's identity
is led by Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick, with the help of Orange County District attorney's investigators.
Fitzpatrick is a forensic genealogist who specializes in cracking cold cases. DAVID DIERKING: I received a call from her.
She suggested-- she said, we've reached the point in our investigation that we need to reach out
to an extended family member. At that time, Colleen also predicted that Jane Doe was from the East Coast,
and specifically mentioned Maine. She had identified a gentleman by the name of Steve Sabo
that she could tell based on the public databases that he was quite interested in building family trees,
and he was loosely connected. So we called Steve Sabo. I introduced her, and for the next two hours
talked about family. The very next day I received a call from Colleen, and she had received a 2016 obituary for a distant family
member from Steve Sabo for a Constance Saucier, who passed away in Maine. JOAN RENNER: There was an obituary that
talked about the passing of a whole group of them, and a final little mention about Jane Doe, who had disappeared.
DAVID DIERKING: And in the obituary, it made a reference to a missing sister since 1970 named Anita Piteau.
And I have to admit, I was rather skeptical, even though it sounded promising-- 1970 was not the date that we were really looking for.
It was 1968. And so late at night, we called several what we believe to be family members of Anita and Constance.
And after making the second round of calls, I believe it was after 10 o'clock their time, we spoke to Ann Lavoie Piteau, and explained--
you know, asked about her missing sister. And she said, oh, it wasn't 1970. It was 1968.
And we've been looking for her ever since. And she said the last contact we actually had from her
was in February of 1968 when she sent a letter. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): While investigators believe
Jane Doe may be Anita Piteau, missing from Maine since 1968, they still need DNA samples from her relatives
for definitive proof. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." [INTENSE STINGER] [INTENSE STINGER]
[INTENSE MUSIC] It's been 52 years since an unidentified young woman found raped, mutilated, and murdered in Huntington
Beach, California. Bloodline detectives finally identify her killer. Now they believe they have a name for her--
Anita Piteau. ANNA DADHANIA: Investigator Dierking was able to obtain buccal swab samples
from her siblings, who were Raymond Piteau and Ann Lavoie. Both those samples were shipped to our Orange County Crime
Lab, who did the DNA testing. Once we obtained the DNA profiles, I did a kinship calculation to see
if the Jane Doe could be a potential sibling of both of these individuals. Doing this kinship calculation, I could say with confidence
that Jane Doe could not be excluded as the full sibling of Raymond Piteau and Ann Lavoie.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): After over 50-plus years, the woman's body in an oil field is no longer just a Jane Doe.
Her name is Anita Piteau, and now investigators can learn more about Anita. DIANE BAUGHMAN: She came from Maine.
And she wanted to see Hollywood, so she went with two friends who were traveling
also to the West Coast. She was not going to stay permanently. JOAN RENNER: She was really interested in Hollywood.
I don't know that she wanted to be an actress or anything, but she wanted to see, how does this work?
How do things work? And she wrote to her family frequently. She was a good correspondent.
She would write, and she told them that she'd gone on one of those tours of the movie stars homes.
And she was very excited about it. It was the kind of thing that she really enjoyed.
But she did mention that she was going to be returning to Maine. So it was very out of character for her
when the letters stopped, and the family could not get in contact with her. And in the research, we did find that the family had actually
contacted the last place they knew she lived, which was Whittier, and contacted the Whittier Police Department to do a check on her.
And unfortunately they did a check and said, there's no one here. And that kind of just ended at that point,
even though the family did continue to think about her and try to locate her every way they could.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Still, the details of Anita Piteau's horrible death remain a mystery.
JOAN RENNER: Now, with him deceased, that's the part of the story that we don't get to find out.
We don't know. We don't know what he said to her, how she got in that car, why she got in that car, where
she was going-- none of that. We don't get to find that out because he's gone. Not that he necessarily would have told people anyway,
but there was at least that opportunity now, lost forever. In 1968, young people hitchhiked quite
a bit, even women on their own. She could have been trying to get somewhere. He saw her on the road and offered her a ride.
And if he didn't seem suspicious or creepy, she would have taken it. That's just how things work in the late '60s.
According to her letter, she did reference that she was working in a restaurant nearby.
Johnny, based on the information we had, was working in La Habra at the time. La Habra is very close to Whittier.
And it appeared to me, based on the way she was dressed, that it very well could have been a date.
And he drove her down and, you know, attacked her. And obviously she didn't want to do what he wanted to do,
and ultimately killed her to eliminate any accountability. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): After waiting 52 years,
Anita Piteau's family can finally bring Anita home. Her niece, Laurie Quirion, just eight years old
when her aunt goes missing. She still keeps her letters and has never given up hope of finding her.
DIANE BAUGHMAN: I would say that almost everyone who worked on this case would probably tell you
the same thing, that the most fulfilling part of this whole case was bringing Anita
Piteau back to her family. She was reburied in Maine, finally. I understand about 20 family members
and our detectives, the guys from the DA's office, showed up. JOAN RENNER: I think that there is a way through these rituals,
the ritual of grieving, the ritual of having someplace to visit the person that you love--
and I think that goes a long way to help the survivors put that person back in their lives in some way.
Because she's never going to be back. She's always missing. The children that came after her are never
going to know her as an aunt. They're never going to know-- she never got to have kids of her own.
All those things were denied to her. So I always think of it-- just you look at the family picture.
And there's always a missing place. There's a missing place at the table. There's a missing place at the holidays always.
But at least when you have the remains returned, there's something you can do to soothe your heart a little bit.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): 52 years after the murder case was opened, the file is finally closed.
Why? Because of the determination of three generations of investigators. DAVID DIERKING: I really was just a small part of this.
The foundation and the work and keeping this going was done by all the lineage of all
these hard-working detectives. EARL ROBITAILLE: I think when you see the tenacity,
the bulldog pushing of the case, never giving up, that's the key right there. That's it.
That's what you have to have. You have to have-- and the cold case guys come, work, may not make it, the next guy
comes in and takes over. But each one of them adds a bit and a piece here and there.
And in the end, you get a solution to your case. Never give up-- never. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Anita Piteau's murder
is solved, thanks to a new tool that's cracking the coldest of the cold cases. In this case, investigative genetic genealogy
not only reveals a killer's identity but also allows a victim to finally come home to her family.
ANNA DADHANIA: DNA was used in this case throughout the years many, many times in an effort to solve the case for both the suspect
and to identify Jane Doe. And it was just-- you know, every time that there was new technology was tested,
however no new leads were obtained. But it wasn't until investigative genetic genealogy
came around that we were actually able to solve it. So it's exciting to see, given that in 1968 DNA was not even
a thought, to all the way in 2019 and 2020, when this newest DNA technology exists, that we're actually
able to solve a case that is so old, and that the DNA sample still remained that we were able to do this.
BRETT WILLIAMS: That's the beauty of investigative genetic genealogy. It cannot make a false positive.
And what I mean by that is, a false positive mean falsely accusing someone. Because if those profiles don't match,
you've got the wrong person. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): It takes three generations
of detectives, and the remarkable science of investigative genetic genealogy to crack the case of Anita Piteau.
In so doing, the bloodline detectives do more than solve a cold case. A family is finally given the answers they have desperately
waited 52 years to hear. I'm Nancy Grace. Thanks for joining us here on "Bloodline Detectives."
[INTENSE STINGER] [INTENSE STINGER] [THEME MUSIC]

Huntington Beach, 1968; boys on their way to school discover the brutalized body of a young woman in an oil field. Police are unable to identify her or her killer. It will take 52 years before DNA science is able to solve this double mystery.

Now in its fourth 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

Investigators use genetic genealogy to identify Anita Piteau's killer, Johnny Chrisco, 52 years after her murder in Huntington Beach.

Key points

A Brutal Discovery. In 1968, schoolboys stumble upon a horrific murder scene in Huntington Beach.
The Mystery Unfolds. A double mystery of an unidentified victim and her killer takes 52 years to solve.
Breakthrough in Cold Case. Investigators utilize investigative genetic genealogy to finally identify the killer.
Familial DNA Testing. Cold case detectives explore familial DNA testing after exhausting all leads.
Identifying the Killer. Investigators pinpoint a family name linked to the suspect after decades of searching.
Anita Piteau Identified. After 52 years, investigators believe they have identified the victim as Anita Piteau.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was a horrific scene.

Joan Renner describes the discovery of the victim.

0:26WatchJun 7, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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