The Murder of Mary Davis | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Lexington, North Carolina, 1987-- 29-year-old mom of two, Mary Davis, goes
to lunch with her boyfriend. But afterwards, she's never seen alive again. WILLIAM SCARBORO: They actually got
together and then went to the Pit Stop and got some pizza. MATHEW EFFINGER: After having lunch with Rodney Lee Michael,
Mary was never seen alive again. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): A search begins, and Mary's brutalized body found the next day.
DESTINIE DENNY: Her body was covered heavily by leaves and branches. She had visible marks around her neck,
and she also had gunshot wounds to her extremities. RENEE ANDERSON: We heard Lisa start screaming, she's dead.
She's dead. Mary's dead. My grandma hit the floor, and she just started rolling.
And she was like, my baby. My baby. Mary can't be dead. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Lexington Police
turn over every single lead. But still, the case goes cold. Decades later, can groundbreaking forensic science
reveal the identity of Mary's killer? KRISTEN MITTELMAN: I think forensic genetic genealogy is
going to lead to a world where criminals are caught the first time they commit a crime,
and there are no more unidentified victims. This is the story of a 36-year-long search for a killer--
a search that only amazing science will help solve. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives."
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Lexington, North Carolina-- a small town one hour Northeast of Charlotte.
DESTINIE DENNY: I would describe Lexington as a small-town-type feel. You walk through downtown, and you can still
see the mom and pop shops. Everyone is very friendly. It's just your quintessential Southern town.
Whenever you hear Lexington, you do not think of major violent crimes. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): One of Lexington's residents
is 29-year-old mom of two, Mary Davis. ROBBY RUMMAGE: She had two children. She was married.
She was one of 10 children. Very tight knit family-- all lived in this general area in Lexington.
LISA YATES: Mary was a beautiful person. She was beautiful inside and out. She loved her family.
She loved her children. She loved people. Mary was just loving and caring. She had a magnetic personality.
People were drawn to Mary because she was just very friendly. She was a lot of fun.
She was just always bubbly. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Mary and husband Richard are having marital problems.
Around the same time, she meets a guy at work named Rodney Lee. She really wanted to be with him, but Mary was a pleaser,
and my grandmother didn't believe in divorce. And she didn't want to go through that.
She didn't want the kids to go through that. ROBBY RUMMAGE: My understanding in reading reports and talking
to people, they had what many would call an open relationship. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): May 30, 1987, is just
another day for Mary Davis. She heads to a local hardware store where she's a clerk.
ROBBY RUMMAGE: So her husband reported that he had spoke to her that morning around 8:45 or so, as she
was going to go to work. WILLIAM SCARBORO: First thing that morning is she met with her boyfriend.
She met him, and then they agreed to meet for lunch at the park. At lunchtime, she punched out.
She went to the park. They actually got together and then went to the pit stop and got some pizza.
Went back to the park and ate it. Talked for a while, and then she left to come back to work
and he went home. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Mary's husband Richard becomes worried
when Mary doesn't return home. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: Mary Mathis Davis's husband came
back from his sister's house. He had gone swimming, fell asleep, woke up, and his wife had not returned home yet.
So he became concerned-- drove down to the hardware store where she worked for the last couple of weeks.
ROBBY RUMMAGE: He went by Lanier near hardware where she worked-- had been working there for a few weeks.
And they had said that she had never returned from lunch, and they found the car there.
KRISTEN MITTELMAN: He saw her car there. He became increasingly concerned, reported her missing,
contacted her brother, and continued to look for her. ROBBY RUMMAGE: The investigators--
when they arrived on the scene, they secured the vehicle. They were able to raise the windows,
lock the doors to secure it in that fashion. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators
searched through the night. Mary is nowhere to be found. The next day, her brother and sister
continued the search for Mary. WILLIAM SCARBORO: And they ended up near her house
and turned around there in the church parking lot across the road from where they were living.
And they noticed an old roadbed that went down through the woods. And they said it looked like there was some tire tracks
or like the weeds had been knocked down. So they decided to just get out and walk down through there
and look. And while they were walking, he walked up on a body. And he said he pretty much knew in his heart
that was probably his sister. So they backed out and called the police. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The way Mary's dead body is concealed
shows the great lengths to which the killer goes to hide the heinous crime. DESTINIE DENNY: Her body was covered
heavily by leaves and branches. Her body was only partially clothed at that point,
and she had visible injuries. WILLIAM SCARBORO: The injuries that were reported by the officers there at the scene
were what they initially thought was maybe cigarette burns or something on the skin and some possible bullet
holes in the body itself. DESTINIE DENNY: She had visible marks around her neck,
and she also had gunshot wounds to her extremities. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police must
now tell the rest of Mary's large family her body has been found. RENEE ANDERSON: Me and my grandma
was in the house and my cousin Katie. And about that time, we heard Lisa start screaming,
she's dead. She's dead. Mary's dead. I went into shock. I was in the middle of the road screaming, crying.
I fell to my knees and, in a fetal position, just screaming and crying. And my mom heard me screaming and crying.
RENEE ANDERSON: My grandma hit the floor and she just started rolling. And she was like, my baby. My baby.
Not my baby. No, Mary can't be dead. And I was on the floor holding my grandma just so she
wouldn't hurt herself because she didn't know what she was doing. She was just in a shock, and she just
kept rolling back and forth. LISA YATES: She was starting to have some breathing problems,
so my niece Renee had called the ambulance to pick my mom up. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): As soon as the news
of Mary's murder breaks, the community goes on high alert. ROBBY RUMMAGE: You have a missing female
who has been found the next day killed in what obviously was a violent manner and left
in the woods behind a business. I could tell you, knowing this community over the years
and knowing it now, that that would definitely cause some concern in the community without question.
NANCY GRACE: A community wrapped in fear-- police believe they need to act fast before the killer can
strike again. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Lexington, North Carolina,
May 31, 1987-- the body of 29-year-old mom of two, Mary Davis, discovered the day after she disappears.
Police arrive at what is now a crime scene. WILLIAM SCARBORO: That specific spot where her body was located
was a noted place where if you lived in that area, you knew you could pull back there and be out of sight,
out of mind. And people would dump things. You might find some old tires that somebody
was wanting to get rid of or some construction debris. So from time to time, people would just drive back there
and throw things out of the back of the truck and then drive off. There was multiple tire prints.
Most crime scenes, you're going to start larger. They would have basically just roped that area off
and positioned officers there at Revco and maybe up at the church to try to keep anybody
else from coming in so that they could start looking for any evidence. MATHEW EFFINGER: A wide array of things were collected.
Best practice is to fan out and gather anything that might deem pertinent to the crime scene--
clothing, things that were close to the crime scene, such as shoes, any kind of things
that seem like they may have fallen off somebody or seemed unnatural in the environment.
Mary had on the same thing that Richard, her husband, described her as leaving for work the previous day on,
which was a jean overall, a white t-shirt, and some white shoes. They're going to look for anything that they visibly see,
mark it, photograph it, measure it out for sketches before it's meticulously collected
and bagged properly. And then the body would have been placed onto a white sheet
and covered up so that if any evidence is on the body-- falls away from the body, they still have it there intact.
Once the body is removed, they would go back through that crime scene again using metal detectors to see if they
find any shell casings, or somebody would have dropped anything-- just doing a foot grid search, a neighborhood
canvas of any residences-- just knocking on doors to see if anybody's seen or heard anything.
DESTINIE DENNY: Her shirt was there, her bra, her bib overalls, her shoes, and also her personal
affects as far as her pocketbook was also located. They did an incredible job in 1987
to preserve and collect everything that they located there-- all the way down to the tree branches were collected.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): There is one piece of crucial evidence at the crime scene
that is nowhere to be found. WILLIAM SCARBORO: There was no shell casings found.
There was no gun ever found either. ROBBY RUMMAGE: There was a gun that we had seized at one point.
But no, there was never any determination that that was the gun. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police--
extremely disappointed. Neither a gun nor shell casings discovered at the crime scene.
They can only hope Mary Davis's autopsy will give them an important lead. WILLIAM SCARBORO: They have the training and the skills
to see things that we're not going to be able to see with the naked eye. For instance, what the officers thought were cigarette burns
ended up being bites from bugs where her body had laid there overnight. DESTINIE DENNY: She had signs of strangulation around her neck,
and then she had gunshot wounds to her legs and arms. WILLIAM SCARBORO: They had the training to be able to go in
and determine cause of death. We may think, OK, someone is shot. So they were killed by being shot.
And she had been shot. But that's not what took her life. ROBBY RUMMAGE: The autopsy revealed that that
was a postmortem wound. She ended up dying of asphyxiation. She choked. MATHEW EFFINGER: You could tell there was some kind of struggle
just based on how her body was positioned and the markings she would have on her arms.
WILLIAM SCARBORO: Why, after she is deceased, would someone shoot her four times in non-fatal areas?
It didn't make any sense. If you wanted to make it look like she was shot and killed,
then you would shoot her somewhere in the torso or in the head area, not in the arms and legs.
That's not going to do anything, especially with a small caliber handgun. The wounds also appear to be basically contact wounds.
The gun was strategically placed before the trigger was pulled, almost as to minimize the amount of damage.
MATHEW EFFINGER: The only thing that would point to postmortem wounds would be a very personal vendetta,
or somewhat a crime of passion, which speaks to no intent. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): An autopsy is performed
as well as a sex assault exam. MATHEW EFFINGER: Her body would have been transported
to the hospital, and they would do a sexual assault kit, which is standard procedure
for us on a case like this. And then it's properly packaged and put in evidence.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police ask Mary's mother to formally identify her murdered daughter.
LISA YATES: When my mother left the house, the ambulance took her to the hospital.
When she arrived, they had Mary in a body bag. And my mom saw that, and she was just really upset.
And so she went into the emergency room. They checked her out, and then they asked her if she would identify the body of her daughter.
And so my mother and my cousin was the ones that identified her. NANCY GRACE: Once the post-mortem exams are complete,
Mary's family have a closed-casket funeral for Mary. Many of Mary's loved ones find it
very difficult to say goodbye. LISA YATES: The funeral was very hard. I think I was still in shock.
There was a lot of officers there undercover. There was family. There was friends.
ROBBY RUMMAGE: A lot of times, you go there to support a family. In a community like this, we go sometimes to support the family.
But there is other things there. We want to see who's there, see the lay of the land, who shows up.
Is there anybody that looks suspicious? Is there anybody that the family observes and be like, hmm, that
seems odd where they're here. You just don't know. But you got to be there and be observant, just in case.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Meanwhile, police continue the investigation. ROBBY RUMMAGE: There was a couple different individuals
that that was of interest. Obviously, knowing that there was a boyfriend at the time
and a husband at the time, that gives you a few things to look at. We started getting information, tips and things that the husband
was involved, boyfriend was involved, perhaps even a brother was involved. The boyfriend was interviewed.
MATHEW EFFINGER: Rodney Lee Michael was very, very emotional during the interview.
He explained his day as meeting up with Mary for lunch. ROBBY RUMMAGE: He said that they had been talking for a while.
They had worked together, I think, previously at another place where they met. He says that he came to Lanier's that morning
and spoke with her before she went to work. They agreed to meet at lunch. They met at lunch.
They went and got something to eat, went back to the park, spent a little bit more time there eating, talking.
MATHEW EFFINGER: He described the last time he saw Mary around 1:30. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Next, police question
Mary Davis's husband, Richard. MATHEW EFFINGER: So Richard came in for an interview
here at the Lexington Police Department. He was forthcoming with his DNA, which was something that
definitely needed to be collected from him, given a sexual assault kit-- he'd been done.
WILLIAM SCARBORO: He gave them a statement about what happened that day, and I'm sure at some point later
on, they probably pressured him more to see if he was still telling the same story, asking him
if he had any involvement in her death, what exactly was going on. And then at some point during their speaking with him,
he got upset. MATHEW EFFINGER: Richard realized that he was a suspect early on, I believe,
and requested a lawyer. WILLIAM SCARBORO: They did offer him a polygraph test. He took it, and he did not pass.
MATHEW EFFINGER: The family shifted their main focus on the husband, Richard Davis for the old saying
that if someone passes away, the husband did it. But I know that Mary and Richard did have a rocky relationship,
and so a lot of the focus was on Richard. Mary's family remained suspicious of husband Richard,
even though police have no evidence implicating him. Then Mary's boyfriend, Rodney Lee,
offers investigators a potential lead. MATHEW EFFINGER: Mary's boyfriend stated that he noticed Russell Woods' truck
near the parking deck entrance as he picked Mary up for lunch. WILLIAM SCARBORO: Mr. Michaels knew Russell from school
and from around town. And when he came to see Mary that morning to discuss meeting at lunch, he observed
Russell's father's truck. It was a distinctive vehicle, an older blue truck. And he noticed Russell was driving it.
So he just made a mental note of it. He remembered it. He then told law enforcement later during an interview
that while he was there, he did see Russell. So, of course, anybody that we could identify as having been
at Lanier's or around Lanier's, and we had a name, then it was somebody we needed to absolutely talk
to to see what they had seen. He was interviewed, I think, by a couple of detectives.
He said he had some knowledge of Mary, but really didn't know her personally-- knew the family.
He had grown up a few blocks away from them on another street. So he knew of her, but he stated he
didn't really have a personal relationship with her-- didn't know her personally.
ROBBY RUMMAGE: Russell Wood had mentioned that he had been at Lanier Hardware, but he was only
there for five or six minutes. So that did put him there. There was no other evidence at the time.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police cannot link Russell Wood to the crime scene long enough for him
to become a prime suspect. Now they must look for new leads. DESTINIE DENNY: They luminoled Mary's vehicle,
and there was blood found on the rear of the vehicle. At that time, they did not have access to the DNA technology
that we do now. They did some very critical interviews, including witnesses at her workplace.
MATHEW EFFINGER: Near Lanier's, near the parking deck, there was a tip that-- a woman called her saying that she
did hear some screaming coming from the top of the parking deck. ROBBY RUMMAGE: The police responded
there was nothing to be found at the time that could be followed up on. This was a time when you didn't have cameras on every corner.
You didn't have all kinds of stuff around, so there was nothing to go on. WILLIAM SCARBORO: We got a lot of tips and a lot of them
were dead ends, or what we call a dead end. But we were very appreciative of anything that was given.
After you work a case for so long, you just run out of fresh ideas. It's monotonous.
You're going over and over and over. You go back and interview the same person for the second time,
third time, fourth time. And I'm sure they may get tired of it. You have to keep it fresh in the minds of the public,
hoping that you finally get that piece of information that you need. ROBBY RUMMAGE: After a few years,
everything was being pointed to the husband. There was no tangible evidence, really.
You could say it went cold in the sense that there wasn't a lot of new leads coming in.
But that doesn't mean that we shelved it. We'd never close our cases, particularly unsolved homicides.
We do not close unsolved homicides. NANCY GRACE: Mary Davis's murder stays cold 33 years.
When we return to "Bloodline Detectives," we find out whether a new forensic science can finally give police and Mary's family answers.
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Lexington, North Carolina, 2020-- a new team of investigators planned to look at the 1987
murder and rape of a 29-year-old mom, Mary Davis, the mother of two, brutally murdered
and left in a wooded area. Mary's family never gives up hope her case will one day be solved.
LISA YATES: My mother mourned for so many years. She would always tell me, Lisa, whatever you do,
don't ever give up. Don't ever give up trying to find out who did this to our Mary.
And I promised her I would never, ever give up. WILLIAM SCARBORO: She was the driving force behind not
letting the case get cold. I think that Lisa was so interested in the case. And the old saying, the squeaky wheel gets the oil--
she was not going to let this case go, and she didn't. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The persistence of Mary Davis's
family begins to pay off. Police take a DNA sample preserved from the crime scene,
and they enter it into the criminal DNA database known as CODIS. DESTINIE DENNY: CODIS is a national database
where offenders' DNA-- their DNA is collected and then placed into the CODIS database
so that whenever we do have a crime where DNA is located, they can run it. As long as it's CODIS eligible, they can run it against CODIS
and see if there's a hit. NANCY GRACE: Mary Davis's murderer has never been arrested, so his DNA
is not in the CODIS database. Police seem to hit another dead end until Detective
Mathew Effinger joins the case. MATHEW EFFINGER: I was assigned the case in 2020,
making headway on it in 2021. DESTINIE DENNY: Detective Effinger with the Lexington
Police Department did an amazing job with finding this evidence that had never been tested.
He advised that it was from a sexual assault kit and it was going to be a sperm sample.
And at that point, we contacted the lab to find out the quality of the DNA. MATHEW EFFINGER: Special Agent Denny with the North Carolina
SBI, Special Bureau of Investigations, had a connection with Othram Labs in Texas who specialize in DNA and forensic genealogy.
And that is how the connection took place between the Lexington Police Department and Othram Labs.
KRISTEN MITTELMAN: Othram is the first lab in the world that's purpose built to identify victims and perpetrators
from crime scenes. Prior to Othram, people were using medical testing and consumer testing--
genomic testing to try to build profiles that were more comprehensive than the traditional forensic testing
profiles that you have. But unfortunately, when you use medical testing or consumer
testing, that's built for fresh DNA, single-source DNA, DNA that is stored in pristine condition in the right temperature taken
from lab to lab and then tested. That's very different from the type of evidence
that you see when you go to a crime scene. You almost always have mixtures of perpetrator and victim.
You almost always have contamination. So what we did is we built a lab that created
forensic-grade genome sequencing in order to be able to get the most information from the perpetrator or victim
profile left at a crime scene so that you can truly ascertain their identity. Even if the matches in the database
were very few, very remote, you'd still be able to see those relationships and be able to build back and infer their identity.
COLBY LASYONE: We want to know, once we have the evidence in house, if we feel reasonably confident,
we can build a DNA profile that will help to resolve the case. In the case of Mary Mathis Davis,
Othram received a DNA extract. That DNA extract was from a sexual assault kit. We developed a DNA profile from that DNA extract
for a male individual. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Once a DNA sample is developed, Othram begins the revolutionary process of genetic genealogy.
COLBY LASYONE: In forensic genetic genealogy, after a DNA profile is built, and it's been developed in the laboratory,
that profile is uploaded into databases. And in this particular case, the DNA profile
was uploaded into the database and Othram's forensic genetic genealogy team went to work to build a family
tree for this individual. And so what we're looking for is relatives-- genetic relatives.
These aren't necessarily people that you know or people that you would associate with,
but these are people that in some way you're related-- maybe a fifth cousin, a fourth cousin,
a great-great-great grandparent, something like that. And so in this particular case, we
worked to provide new leads to investigators that helped to point them in a direction so that they can talk
to potential relatives of the person responsible for the murder and rape of Mary Mathis Davis.
MATHEW EFFINGER: What they did was they provided lists of targets that they wanted for us to collect DNA.
So it started out as a list of first cousins, half cousins. And what we would do is try to speak to somebody on this list
and have them consent to give their DNA. DESTINIE DENNY: The first list of people
would have been further out matches. At that point, we located one of them who previously was a police officer at the Lexington Police
Department. That would have been who we initially tested on the list. So at that point, we collected his DNA,
and we sent that to Othram. NANCY GRACE: The bloodline detectives worked through the perpetrator's family tree,
and finally, a breakthrough. They recognized a name from the original investigation
back in 1987. DESTINIE DENNY: After we submitted his DNA, they returned back with another batch of people.
And those would have been potential cousins as well. At that point, I began building those family trees.
Whenever I started building their family trees, each one, I located the name Russell Grant Wood.
MATHEW EFFINGER: Once she saw it on the list that Othram had provided, she contacted me right away,
and we began to look back through the case file, looked back through the supplements, and it all started
to fall together at that point. DESTINIE DENNY: So he began looking at his case file.
I began looking at mine. And he was all over the case file. They had initially spoken to him,
and he was always one of the suspects in the case. NANCY GRACE: Remember, police interviewed Russell Wood
shortly after Mary's murder. Mary's boyfriend saw him in a blue truck in the parking lot
the day Mary is killed. At the time, police did not have enough evidence to link him to her murder.
DESTINIE DENNY: In his police interview, he did say that he was at Mary Davis's work
that morning, which would have been Lanier's Hardware. He said he was only there for a couple minutes, though.
He said that he knew Mary Davis's father, but did not know Mary. MATHEW EFFINGER: I think that would ultimately be what did it
for me and Special Agent Denny is when he denied knowing her at all. NANCY GRACE: Police want to know,
who exactly is Russell Wood? MATHEW EFFINGER: Russell grew up here in Lexington,
went to high school here, and actually worked for the city of Lexington here, I guess, until he retired.
He worked a long time, just over 20 some years. I knew Russell, not real well, but in attending
certain city functions was around him, had spoken with him in the past. To me, he was an introvert type of a person.
Quiet. He always seemed a little uneasy around me. DESTINIE DENNY: Russell Woods had a girlfriend at the time.
Whenever he was spoken to by police, he did talk about falling off of a pallet at work,
and he had sustained some injuries and broken his glasses at the time. And he also drove a truck that was
suspected to be in the area, which would have been his father's truck. So we found evidence that would lead us to believe that he
was definitely in the area. After 36 years, police finally have a break in Mary's case.
Now they need solid proof Russell Wood is, in fact, Mary Davis's murderer. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Lexington, North Carolina, 2022-- the bloodline detectives have a suspect
in the 1987 murder of a 29-year-old young woman, a mother of two-- Mary Davis. His name-- Russell Wood.
Police are sure he murdered Mary in cold blood, leaving her body alone, abandoned,
hidden in a small wooded area at the edge of town. But now they need to find Russell Wood.
They want to notify Mary's family first. MATHEW EFFINGER: We purposely waited to notify family just because nobody
wants to get their hopes up. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Investigators are wise to be cautious with a murder case 36 years old.
They come up against one more obstacle. We were not able to interview Russell Woods because he died in 2013.
It is always hard when you find out that the perpetrator of a crime like this will never be brought to justice because they're deceased.
KRISTEN MITTELMAN: He died of pancreatic cancer in 2013. His family had said it was pretty
painful and difficult death. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Russell Wood is now deceased,
but police still need that DNA sample to prove he is, in fact, Mary Davis's killer.
He had been cremated. He had no biological children. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: Cremation leads
to most DNA being destroyed. But sometimes there's bone fragments left. From those, we are sometimes able to get DNA.
There wasn't a need to get DNA from his ashes, because you could confirm his identity
by testing close relatives and using kinship. And that's exactly what we did. DESTINIE DENNY: So we were told to obtain
a sample from his nephew. MATHEW EFFINGER: The nephew was very open with us. We explained in detail, somewhat, the investigation,
and just that we were curious, and that this could either rule the suspect out if he wanted to consent
to providing his DNA. The nephew was very open and said that he would be shocked if it was his uncle.
DESTINIE DENNY: Once we obtained the sample from the nephew, we then had to go obtain a sample from a cousin
on the other side of the family to confirm that it was Russell Woods as the perpetrator.
NANCY GRACE: 36 long years of uncertainty, confusion. Countless hours of determined police work have passed.
Finally, Mary Davis's family and police get the answers they've waited for so very long.
DESTINIE DENNY: We were absolutely elated because they said that the probability was 95%
that Russell Woods was our guy. It was a moment that you'll never forget. Whenever I looked at Mary in the case file,
as a young mother myself, you connect with her on a different level. And you cannot imagine what she went through
in her final moments on Earth. ROBBY RUMMAGE: Our investigators came to me and says,
we know who killed her. I'm like, OK. And they started telling me, I'm like, I know that name.
I know that name. And so they started explaining more to me. MATHEW EFFINGER: So once I notified the chief of police,
we came up with a when and where we would notify the family. We drove personally out to the home of Lisa Yates
and spoke to her personally in her living room about it. LISA YATES: I heard a knock at my door,
and it's Sergeant Effinger and Rummage. They told me that they were closing Mary's case.
And I get really defensive with them because I was like, why? Why are you closing her case?
And they said that they had solved it. I was in shock. They were going through everything from step
to step on what had happened and what procedure and everything that they took. And they said that Mary had been raped.
And I just broke down and started crying because I never knew she had been raped.
By looking at the autopsies and stuff like that, I never knew. | was so emotional.
And I was just asking all these questions about, where did this guy live? Who is this guy?
Did they have any information about that? And then I started thinking about my family.
DESTINIE DENNY: It was a somber moment. You're very excited to bring closure to the family,
but you're very aware of the weight of that on the family. They're going to relive everything that they've
went through since 1987. And then Russell Wood's family is also going to grieve the fact that their family member
committed such a heinous crime. NANCY GRACE: The bloodline detectives are sure they have
IDed Mary Davis's murderer. When we come back, loose ends are tied up once and for all.
Lexington, North Carolina, 2023-- the bloodline detectives finally link a suspect to the murder
of Mary Davis 36 years earlier. Sadly, that suspect now deceased. But they finally share the news with investigators
who worked so hard on the case over three decades before. MATHEW EFFINGER: We notified the previous investigators
and people that were actually close to the case, even patrol. And it was all a big light bulb moment.
A lot of people would have never thought Russell was the suspect. So it was a lot of shock and awe that day.
WILLIAM SCARBORO: He always seemed a little uneasy around me. Maybe it explains it.
It makes sense now. It didn't make sense then. I just thought that was the type of person he was.
He was a big burly guy, just quiet and unassuming. Now, I think some of the uneasiness--
to me, it starts to make sense of why he was acting like that. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police meet
with the district attorney's office to show them the evidence. And finally, they put a name to Mary Davis's killer.
MATHEW EFFINGER: So the DA, Gary Frank, sat down with us as I presented the case
as a whole in presentation and laid out elements of crime to see what fit. ROBBY RUMMAGE: Our staff put together
a very good presentation and said, look, we have all this information. Here's the evidence we got.
And in meeting with the district attorney, Gary Frank, he acknowledged even documenting in writing that should Russell
Wood be alive at that time, he would have been charged, even indicted for murder, which allowed us
to publicly state who it was. DESTINIE DENNY: The DA made sure that he made it public
that if Russell Grant Wood was alive, that he would be prosecuted for first degree murder.
NANCY GRACE: Mary Davis's murder could never have been solved without the incredible efforts
by the original investigators to preserve evidence in 1987. Those efforts before the emergence of DNA science
are critical to the success now enjoyed by bloodline detectives. DESTINIE DENNY: I actually was surprised
that they took the time to do what they did in 1987. Because DNA was not prevalent then,
it really showed their forward thinking of this may be important in the future. WILLIAM SCARBORO: My father-in-law likes to say
once it's gone, it's gone. That's a true statement. Evidence can be contaminated if it's not handled properly,
but they handled it properly with the technology that they had back then. They preserved it, and it ended up solving the case.
NANCY GRACE: Mary Davis's family can finally move forward after 36 years of uncertainty, and they can focus
on celebrating Mary's memory. LISA YATES: She was a social butterfly. She was charming.
She never met a stranger. She was always kind to people. She would always want to be there for people.
I mean, she would give you the shirt off her back if she had to. RENEE ANDERSON: She has watched over me
since the day she passed. Sweetest, kindest, selfless person you could ever meet,
and beautiful. NANCY GRACE: This case would never have been solved without the tenacity and pioneer
work of genetic genealogists plus incredible forensic science. DESTINIE DENNY: I do not believe this case would have ever
been solved without forensic investigative genetic genealogy because there is no hope for a CODIS profile hit
if the offender is no longer alive and continuing to commit crime. So there is no way to identify them through CODIS
unless you have their DNA. I'm hopeful in the future that more cases like Mary Davis
will also get closure because of the impact that forensic investigative genetic genealogy
is going to have on our career. Russell Wood dies-- 2013. If alive, he would be charged with first-degree murder,
first-degree kidnapping, and first-degree rape by the district attorney there in North Carolina.
If he were still alive, he would certainly be behind bars for Mary Davis's murder.
Instead, he's in another kind of hell forever. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here on "Bloodline Detectives."
[THEME MUSIC]

Lexington, North Carolina, 1987, when mother-of-two Mary Davis is found murdered, an investigation begins that spans decades. Cutting edge forensics could at last provide answers.

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

Forensic genealogy solves the 1987 murder of Mary Davis, identifying Russell Wood as her killer, who died in 2013.

Key points

The Disappearance of Mary Davis. Mary Davis, a 29-year-old mother, goes missing after lunch with her boyfriend.
Mary's Body is Discovered. Mary's body is found brutally concealed in the woods, shocking her family and community.
The Community's Fear. The discovery of Mary's murder sends shockwaves through her small town, raising fears of a killer on the loose.
The Cold Case. Mary Davis's murder remains unsolved for over three decades, leaving her family in anguish.
A New Hope. In 2020, a new team of investigators reopens the case, reigniting hope for justice.
DNA Evidence Leads to Closure. Detectives confirm a 95% probability that Russell Woods was the murderer, bringing relief to the family.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Mary can't be dead.

A family member's disbelief upon hearing the news of Mary's death.

0:58WatchJun 20, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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