The "Unsolvable" Murder of Roxanne Wood | Sneak peek | Forensic Files

foreign [Music] Niles has this brutal Savage murder there are kids that grew up locking
their doors and being scared when they went to bed at night just because of this case
Roxanne wood in 1987 was married to Terry Wood Roxanne and Terry went to the bowling
alley and arrived in separate cars Roxanne left earlier than Terry he just wanted to keep with the fun he was
having and Roxanne wanted to get home and go to bed Terry arrives home and notices Roxanne
laying in the kitchen he notices a pool of blood on the floor she was bleeding profusely from her neck
oh my God my wife has been murdered my wife has been murdered I answered the phone and I could tell something was bad
wrong he just broke down he just said someone murdered your sister Iraq being the rock of the family
she didn't have an enemy out there who just randomly breaks in and does this to someone
she was sexually assaulted the assailant left his DNA but in terms of the essential evidence based on what was
there this went cold fairly quickly did it not based off of what they had to go on yeah the DNA technology wasn't there
to really to follow up and go through on and there was absolutely not a lot more
to go off how frustrating was it that no one had been arrested no Beyond frustrating
foreign starting to lose hope Dr Ashland Kirsten and I had been talking about involving the students at
Western in a Cold Case project when we first got the file it was just an amazing amount of data
it just looked overwhelming some of the documents are older than I am then we would have to sort through if it was
relevant information or not hours upon hours to scan all this stuff they were able to organize that report
where we were able to put a key word in and search across that entire document 3500 Pages how important was that hugely
important I was hopeful that we would be able to solve the case or move the case
forward or that someone who came after us would the first thing that I did was I
requested access to the case File it was very easy to read through quite quickly
due to the work of the students Gabriella Vargas is a genetic genealogist probably one of the best in
the country if not the world but I'm also a pink haired tattooed mom from California
who enjoys woodworking and gardening describe the size of the DNA material that you had to work with it was 28
picograms so small that you could never see it with the the naked eye just a speck of a speck of a speck very very
very small amount of DNA it was deemed unsolvable prior to my involvement Roxanne Woods family was my motivation
for working as hard and as fast as I did they never gave up hope that one day Justice would be served
they have a Facebook page Janet Wood had made a post on the page one day Rock one day and I screamed out
at the top of my lungs no today's your day Rock today's your day

How a DNA “detective,” an undercover cop and a cast-off cigarette butt helped catch a killer. "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports Saturday, November 12 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

For video licensing inquiries, contact: licensing@veritone.com

Brief Summary

Roxanne Wood's 1987 murder case highlights the challenges of cold cases and the impact of genetic genealogy in solving crimes.

Key points

The Discovery of a Murder. Terry finds his wife Roxanne brutally murdered in their home.
A Cold Case Revived. Students at Western get involved in solving Roxanne's cold case.
Hope for Justice. Gabriella Vargas works tirelessly to solve the case, motivated by Roxanne's family.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Oh my God, my wife has been murdered!

Terry discovers Roxanne's body.

0:53WatchNov 10, 2022

More from 48 Hours

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.