Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack - Season 11, Episode 2 - Full Episode | Forensic Files

tonight on unsolved mysteries two seemingly unrelated murder investigations lay dormant in the files
of neighboring Virginia police departments until a routine review of DNA evidence proves that two cases of a
common suspect and the hunt is now on for a serial killer a factory in New Hampshire an isolated security guard and
a mysterious fire elements of a baffling night deceased Curtis bhishan vanish without a trace a Texas woman was robbed
and murdered in her own driveway these were few in the case soon grew cold now more than a decade later detective Robin
Totten is in hot pursuit hopefuls akha rias's ruthless killer a 21 year old Louisiana college student disappears
after a night of partying in Shreveport who are the two men with whom she was reportedly last seen could her
ex-boyfriend have been involved where is Wendy Elizabeth lon join me for these stories and more perhaps you may be the
one to solve a mystery [Applause] [Music] [Music] December 6 a workers surveying and
out-of-the-way wooded property in Fairfax County Virginia makes a gruesome discovery the partially clothed body of
a young woman lay sprawled in a clearing she has been shot and it appears she has
been sexually assaulted her jeans purse and red shoes are piled neatly nearby once the police arrived on the scene
they began cordoning off the area as he was stretching the crime scene tape and walking the area they discovered a
second body nearby the young man has been shot once in the head execution-style like the woman he
carries no identification the victims will soon be identified as 22 year old college sweethearts rachel raver and
warren fulton the baffling murders have remained unsolved for more than a decade
but recently dramatic advances in forensic science and an incredible connection to a previous unsolved
mystery story produced a major break in the case warned Fulton was a captain of the George Washington University
baseball team and hope to one day play in the major leagues Rachel raver was a voracious well-liked
recent graduate of George Washington who was planning to go to law school she and
Warren had met at a local hangout and had been dating for several months on [Music]
December 3rd Rachel and Warren met friends for drinks at a Washington DC bar 12:30 a.m. they called it a night
and were last seen walking to their car it's my belief that they probably encountered someone near their car or on
their way to the car investigators theorize that Rachel and Warren were probably abducted at gunpoint and forced
to drive from Washington into the Virginia suburbs west of the city just tell us where you want to go
and when we get out the cards its history the terrifying ride would have covered a distance of about 20 miles
once at the obscure wooded site police believe the gunman apparently wasted no time one was probably killed as soon as
they got into the woods Rachel would have seen that we think probably at that point she ran
after mortally wounding Rachel the killer then sexually assaulted her police believe the assailant fled in
Rachel's car but he unknowingly left clues to his identity semen recovered from Rachel's body contains his DNA a
single hair retrieved at autopsy reveals the killer's race african-american and his choice of location for the murder
scene told investigators he was probably familiar with the surroundings the area
where the bodies was found was very close to the the Dulles Toll Road a major road that runs from interstate
highway to Dulles Airport however the area where the bodies were specifically is is very secluded and you would not
have known about that area if you weren't familiar with this particular area two days after the bodies were
found the Fulton and Raver families have their worst fears confirmed in time Rachel's mother Veronica would channel
her grief into action I didn't feel angry for several months and then one day I got up and I got mad and my
attitude was who the hell does he think he is and that's when I started healing and
looking for him along with Rachel's sister DeeDee Veronica became obsessed with seeing
that Rachel and horns killer was caught the ravers immersed themselves in every detail of the case oh there's an article
here about a suspect who killed a young girl no rape the date was roughed up he wasn't killed
so it's not the same thing yeah I know I know we'll get it we'll do it believing
that Rachel's missing car was the key to solving the case the ravers focused their search on finding it and even
though she lived in suburban New York City veronica raver spent her free time driving the streets and highways around
Washington looking for that car going down to DC I would stop you know at those wayside rest areas and I'd go
through every parking all the way down to DC all the way back on the other side of the highway I was
obsessed justice hopes were dwindling six weeks after the murders there was a major break in the case from an unlikely
source I came home from work when I took the mail from you don't the motor vehicle for tickets
and when I opened it up I thought whoa Oh God gnorm it's the car Rachele ravers missing Toyota sedan had
been ticketed for illegal parking on a street in Queens New York the date on the ticket was the day after the murders
and two days before the bodies were discovered the car was sitting unattended on a New York City Street so
you can imagine what happened to it by the time it was recovered there wasn't much left of it the car was taken to a
garage in New York City where it was processed extensively and a number of latent fingerprints were developed and
we weren't able to identify anyone so basically we came away with with no clues from the car despite the latest
setback Veronica raver refused to give up almost a full year after the murders an episode
of unsolved mysteries caught her attention on May 10th 1988 the body of an unknown young woman was found in an
Arlington Virginia schoolyard she had been sexually assaulted and shot once at point-blank range
the victim was subsequently identified as 24 year old Tina Jefferson a newcomer to the Washington DC area one good
suspect admitted that he had seen her the day that she was killed and he was able to describe her all the way down to
her red shoes unsolved mysteries came on about this young woman who had been shot
and I don't know what attracted me I think it was the date the date was also Rachel's birthday that got my attention
it's something about it I called up my daughter Dede and asked her to check on this that you know something about it it
bothered me when I spoke to the detective about it he told me that he had looked into the case too because it
bothered him a lot but the case was so different and her killer seemed to know her and we assumed that in Rachel's case
said it was a stranger the discrepancies between the cases were significant Rachael raver was white while Tina
Jefferson was african-american Rachel was in the company of her boyfriend Tina was alone and what investigators
believe Tina knew her killer it was suspected that the attack on Rachel and Warren had been random
years would pass and both murder investigations would grow cold until one day in the spring of 2000 a technician
at biotech to Virginia's state DNA lab was routinely running comparisons on samples submitted by law enforcement
agencies she was able to develop the most vital lead either of these cases that had to that date and also prove
Aronica ravers instincts were on the mark I received a phone call from the serologist at our lab and she says I've
got good news and I've got bad news the good news is we got a hit on your case and the Virginia Data Bank the bad news
is the hit is on another unsolved homicide that other unsolved homicide was a murder of Tina Jefferson it was
now a scientifically proven rachel raver and warren fulton were murdered by the same person who killed Tina
investigators also now had confirmation that a serial killer was on the loose my
husband got a phone call from the detectives and they told him that they had a Cole DNA hit and it matched
another case that was seven months after our daughter Tina and it was the Fulton
in the ravers case and shortly afterwards Dedra wherever got in touch with us when I met The Jeffersons it was as if I
had known them for years and we feel as though we've been greeting together for the last 12 years
on Rachel's birthday their daughter was murdered and for the last 12 years we've
been grieving on the very same day the ravers and Jeffersons now had hopes that this new development would lead to a
successful resolution of their cases once we make the DNA link here between these murders and then we can go back
and we can closer examine these murders we start to see some small similarities [Music]
the red shoes I think are fascinating I think it's probably more than coincidental though that they were both
wearing red shoes in the Arlington County case they have a composite drawing of a suspect they have
a face to go with the DNA and we never had that before witnesses described him as a clean-cut bodybuilder type an
african-american approximately six foot three inches tall and weighing 170 pounds Tina Jefferson was last seen
alive in his presence the ravers and The Jeffersons have been revitalized by the
DNA link and are now more hopeful than ever that the killer of their loved ones will be caught I won't rest until he's
found I really won't have any peace until he's found he's an evil predator an evil perverted predator he's
dangerous I like for him to go through the pain and the hurt that I have gone through
for 13 years hours I would like to see him face to face [Music] Seabrook New Hampshire 142 a.m. the
unexpected disrupts the normally tedious graveyard shift of security guard Curtis
fish on his car is inexplicably burst into flames [Music] [Music] okay Kurtis a former police officer
informs a fire department that he has no idea how his car caught on fire the firefighters noticed that under the
circumstances he seems curiously subdued two hours after the firefighters leave the scene the mystery deepens curtis
abruptly disappears without a trace the holdest parents is confusing the car fire is confusing because even without
the car fire there's no clues here this is a worst nightmare for any investigator because there's not that
tangible weed to go on and and an entire family that wants answers and deserves answers and hasn't been able to get them
what happened at Curtis push on every possibility considered by investigators led to a dead end they thought Curtis
might have purposely destroyed his car before engineering his own disappearance but they found no other way for him to
leave the remote factory where he worked they considered suicide but where was his body they also believed Curtis could
have been abducted but there was no evidence supporting that conclusion for 10 years Curtis Pishon cherished his
career as a police officer then he was stricken with multiple sclerosis a painful muscular disorder that severely
limited his mobility the disease progressed to the point where he could no longer accurately fire his gun he had
no choice but to turn in his badge I've never seen Curtis so devastated in my life his personality changed he became
sort of a quieter and I don't think giving up to the time of his disappearance he really knew what he was
gonna do the rest of his life how you doing how are you according to his family Curtis became depressed and
withdrawn after taking on a frustrating series of odd jobs he found a new sense of satisfaction as a factory security
guard the jobs physical requirements were less stringent than those of a police officer and he was not required
to carry a gun the night he vanished began like every other at midnight two and a half hours into his shift all was
normal at 142 a.m. Seabrook firefighters responded to curtis's called for help he
pretty much said that he saw a bunch of smoke and some flame and then he went to
find a fire extinguisher and then went to put the fire out one fire extinguisher is not going to have much
effect but we did notice that he did try to put out the fire there have been cases where security
guards Building superintendents and things like that intentionally set fires and put them out just to get recognition
but I don't have any idea or gut feeling how how the fire started or or why the case ended up the way it did when the
firefighters arrived on scene they had conversation with him and they found him to be totally accepting almost it was he
was not in the least upset with or did not appear to be upset Curtis a stoic behavior was all the more curious
because his car as always had been cluttered with many of his possessions his family said he had the odd habit of
using it to store what he treasured most Curtis his reaction to the fire I find surprising I would think that if he had
seen his car on fire with his belongings in it then he would have been very upset
I would think he would have been almost in tears and in shame and I can't believe he was quiet timid
two and a half hours after the fire was extinguished the factory security supervisor checked on Curtis he left
Curtis at 3:25 a.m. 20 minutes later 3:45 a factory worker was a first to notice that Curtis was
missing [Music] an exhaustive search of the factory and the surrounding area turned up nothing
our very first thoughts about what happened to Kurt was that he could have taken his own life he could have
wandered off or he could have been abducted one thing that we thought of in terms of trying to flush out that the
suicide scenario was the fact that he had purchased this pistol just I guess a few days prior to his disappearance
curtis bought the 9-millimeter gun from his father Nicolas suicide was a possibility with somebody in curtis's
condition with ms he had lost a job that he wanted all his life but his mood when
he on the weekend that he did pick up the gun and everything seemed to be more happy more pleased with himself suicide
seemed a likely solution however could as his gun could not be found police could find no trace of it in his car or
in his apartment then as curtisha's family cleaned out his cluttered residence they made a
surprising discovery once I discovered the the weapon I think that we eliminated the likelihood that Kurt had
taken his own life now we had narrowed it down to I believe one of two things one that Kurt broke
down mentally and had wandered off and then the other one was of course a much more a much darker scenario where Kurt
was abducted and probably murdered the first possibility the Curtis had suffered a mental collapse prompted
investigators to focus once again on the mysterious fire they believe Curtis might have accidentally started it then
became so despondent over losing his prized possessions that he simply walked away there is absolutely no way that
Curtis would have or even could have wandered off by himself under these circumstances Curtis was a smoker
smokers don't leave cigarettes you don't go anywhere without your cigarettes doesn't happen so he didn't just walk
off and he had deteriorated enough that he probably physically couldn't probably
walk two miles let alone want to do it there are histories of individuals who we do not anticipate can travel any
extended distance who in fact are located several miles away from their original starting point I would tend to
doubt it but it is possible the possibility remained that Curtis called for a taxi or hitched a ride on a truck
leaving the factory but investigators discovered that no cabs or company trucks left the plant during Curtis
shift one disturbing possibility remained the Curtis was abducted and murdered I think Curtis went to work
like he always did that night and I think that he probably been carrying out his duties saw something that he
shouldn't have and he probably carried out his his true duty of either getting ready to report it or call it in and he
was attacked and he couldn't defend himself investigators exploring the possibility
of foul play found that a door and two vending machines have been damaged during
curtis's shift but who caused the damage remains unknown with regard to criminal
activity that Curtis may have encountered anything is possible one individual that we spoke with took note
about three thirty of two vehicles departing the premises my best guess is somebody abducted them and did him in
and disposed of the body such a way that hasn't shown up yet I don't have much hope that Curtis is
alive I think if he was alive he would have reached out already and he never would have put us through this it'd be
very difficult if he'd been killed at a plane garage but not having no idea of what happened to him could even what
different oh I miss my brother I miss Curtis I was his best friend and I miss him I miss him very much
[Music] kurtis Pichon is five foot nine and weighs 165 pounds he has brown eyes and
graying brown hair [Music] 8 a.m. Houston Texas 64 year-old opal Zacharias left her home for work she had
no idea that two men were lying in wait in her garage [Music] who are you good easy lady yes the plan
may have been to simply Robert but there was a struggling sadly Opel Sakurai's lost your life
after being victimized by two cold blooded assailants story like this happen in the United States far more
often than we'd like to believe but what makes this case unique is that it currently rests in the expert hands of
one of the most successful cold-case investigators in the country her name is Robin Talton and she's one of this
nation's toughest female cops over the years the veteran detective has proven herself time and again in an arena
dominated by men June 2000 a machine shop in Houston Texas plainclothes Harris County sheriff's
detective Taunton and her partner responded to a tip that a wanted felon was on the premises we were told he had
escaped three different times so he was a known rabbit and we figured that he would run from us
the manager there was very cooperative he he actually agreed to point the guy out
although detective talk knew she'd been injured she was determined a concealer condition until the arrest was made the
detective that was with me kept after the defendant and he did get him and I did not want this crook to know that I
was hurt we walked it down to where the unit was are you okay I'm hurt bad can you make it back to the car yeah
apparently a burst of adrenaline masked the severity of Robin Cotton's injury she was stunned when doctors told her
she chipped her left kneecap and fractured the lower leg in two places this arrest would change her life well
detective Taunton recovered from her broken leg she was assigned of the newly created cold warrant unit what we'd like
to do is get you two working on a computer and see if we can find some new sources of information where we can find
these guys and maybe weaker new unit was set up the trace and apprehend Harris counties wanted felons many of these
criminals have been on the lam for more than a decade the dramatic sudden shift in career might have shed her anyone
else in Robins shoes but the thought never crossed her mind from the start she was driven to turn tragedy into
triumph a desk job was not going to hamper her effectiveness the veteran investigator with more than ten years as
a street detective under her belt would now need to get accustomed to a couple of new partners a computer and the
Internet detective talked enough out her solve armed with faded warrants and often obsolete information however she
quickly proved to have a talent for tracking down long-lost fugitives it's kind of like a game of you know catch me
if you can sometimes I start with just a name an age range in an old address and
I put together past acquaintances family members trying to find somebody that could fit
it's like putting the pieces together to see if it's gonna make sense by the time
I get the warrant it's old enough that I feel like these guys have settled down and they think they're safe the KO
warrant unit is a little bit deceptive it's it's it's not a band of detectives it's one
detective Robin Talton and after she does her research we have about an 80 percent rate of arrests once she handles
those warrants to date detective tautness worked with a cold warrant unit has led to the arrests of
more than 400 dangerous fugitives however despite her successes she's still challenged by the cases she has
yet to crack like the 1987 ruthless murder of opal Zacharias even as opal lay wounded on her driveway the robbers
were not finished with her from what every member of the gunshot wound apparently entered the five and then
came out the back of the hip so the shot itself was not a fatal shot but they had her purse and car keys and
ended up sticking the car backing over in the South Dakota a witness reported seeing one of the men
flee the scene by scaling a fence later that day opal Zach arises abandoned car would be found however at
the time it yielded no clues that would lead to opals killers a year later tips from an informant identified the
murder suspects one of the men was apprehended living outside Houston despite the fact that the man's
fingerprints are on opal Zachariah says car authorities could not physically connect him to the murder and he was
released without charges the alleged triggerman was identified as Lance bedgood who was still at large
robbing Taunton tackled the case in 2001 while trying to locate Lance bedgood I came across some post office boxes three
in fact that are still being looked at today what we're assuming is that he's using three different post offices
basically is a mail drop so he can keep in contact [Music] detective Taunton discovered the
mailboxes are registered to three of Lance beggars relatives but paid for by a fourth well I'm glad that the
investigation hasn't been forgotten the the sad part is is that my aunt's life was taken and she didn't get to see the
family grow up and mature and that said [Music] plants bed coot stairs five foot nine
inches tall he has tattoos on his arms and legs as well as a scar over his left eye he is wanted for the murder of opal
Zacharias bedgood should be considered armed and dangerous [Music] on a Sunday spring afternoon in
coushatta Louisiana Carol and Duke long received a telephone call from a friend of their 21 year-old daughter Wendy two
days earlier on Friday the 13th of April Wendy had driven - reeport - shopping party with friends
her parents expected her home by Sunday afternoon instead they received news that his every parent's worst nightmare
Wendy had disappeared we call the police and tell them that we thought something
had happened to wind and that's where it all started somebody knows where Wendy said then we
just want to find her so bad Wendy Long's disappears as a classic missing person case because she is 21
Wendy is considered an adult until any proof of foul play is found police cannot officially consider the case an
abduction or a homicide what happened to Wendy Elizabeth long police in Wendy's parents seek your help to solve this
agonising mystery in the spring of 2001 Wendy long decided to take a semester off from college and was planning to
continue her studies in the fall during this time Wendy lived with her parents the Long's considered her strong-willed
yet very open and friendly one of her Falls may have been that she's too trusting
she thought everybody she met with her friend she was one of those people that made friends with everybody shortly
after noon on Friday Wendy left her parents home driving her own car and headed to Shreveport 50 miles mocha
shotta on the way she picked up two friends from neck adesh following an afternoon
of shopping the three picked up another friend Tommy who lived in the Shreveport
area at approximately 11:00 p.m. they arrived at a Shreveport party and there was drinking at the party and
I'm told that Wendy had quite a bit to drink that night so that when it came time for them to take Tommy back home
she didn't want to drive in fact she didn't want to go with him at all she decided to stay where she was her two
friends that she came to Shreveport with drove Tommy back to where he was staying
at the time after leaving Tommy Wendy's friends had a run-in with the law their statement is that they went to get some
food and they were stopped by a state trooper and one of the friends was arrested for DWI and taken to the Bend
jail when questioned by police Tommy explained that he was concerned that Wendy might be stranded at the
party he chose to drive his own vehicle to find Wendy and offer her a ride back home to kahshanna
Tommy says Wendy accepted the offer on the way he stopped for gas and a quart of oil when he came back out of the gas
station Wendy was talking to two young men in a black Chevy truck this is Mike and Zant's Tommy said that it appeared
that she knew them and Wendy told Tommy at that point not to worry about it that
she was gonna go with them and they were gonna get her home are you sure you know
these guys anything yes I'm sure I know these guys I will get home okay just go home what according to Tommy the last
time he saw Wendy was when she left with the two men this alleged sighting made Tommy the last person to see Wendy
before she disappeared Tommy agreed to take a polygraph test which according to police he passed
Tommy did extremely well on the polygraph the polygraph examiner himself was very impressed with him and the
details that he could remember at that point they decided that it would be beneficial to hypnotize Tommy to see
what else he could remember under hypnosis Tommy was able to provide a more detailed description of the black
Chevy pickup truck and the appearance of the two men who took Wendy away his recollection enabled a police artist to
produce these sketches of the men but no one has come forward to identify them in
further investigating Wendy's disappearance police discovered a puzzling incident on the day after Wendy
vanished her ex-boyfriend and Shreveport claims to have received a message from her on his answering machine
[Music] he said that it sounded like she was on a cell phone and he didn't hear everything that she said he did clearly
hear the words this is Wendy he said the rest of it was very staticky and he erased the message at that time he
didn't even know that wendy was missing Wendy Long's missing-persons case is filled with many more questions than
answers a key question involves another of Wendy's ex-boyfriends there are quite a
few reports that indicate that there was some physical violence in between them [Music]
the thing that concerns me about Wendy's ex-boyfriend is the fact that another girlfriend of his came up missing years
prior to this and that she was never found but Wendy's ex-boyfriend apparently has an alibi
the boyfriend cannot be placed in Shreveport anytime that Friday or Saturday I consider him to be suspect
only because of the prior things that happened for one knee Long's parents the nightmare that began with a single phone
call continues we've had people call and said that they've been praying for us and praying for Wendy I'm just trusting
God to answer our prayers and to lead us to wherever Wendy might be and I did still believe in miracles
and I believe it still be a miracle that when he could be alive update eight months after Wendy's disappearance
Thomas his real name is Robert Stewart was arrested for check fraud police began to requestion him about
inconsistencies in the story he told about the last time he saw Wendy long according to investigators Stewart
eventually broke down fest to the murder and pinpointed the location of Wendy's body
[Music] [Applause] [Music] now a special bulletin we ask you to pay close attention to this story about a
young woman who is missing perhaps you may be able to help authorities determine what happened the day Rachel
cook disappeared on the morning of January 10th 2002 19 year old Rachel cook went jogging in her Georgetown
Texas neighborhood she left her house at approximately 9:30 a.m. wearing a green
sports bra grey shorts a gray shirt tied around her waist white running shoes and
a bright yellow armband Walkman witnesses spotted her at various points along her route that morning at 11 a.m.
near the end of her run she was approximately 200 yards from her home in the North Lake subdivision of Georgetown
and that was the last known sighting of Rachel she is 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs about a hundred and twenty pounds
her hair is blonde with dark auburn streaks in it she has hazel eyes Rachel also has
multiple piercings in both ears - heart-shaped cherry tattoos on her left shoulder and a black star tattoo on our
left foot hundreds of cases like those who have seen have been solved with the help of our viewers
join me next time perhaps you will solve a mystery [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] [Music]

Brief Summary

DNA links murders of Rachel Raver and Warren Fulton to Tina Jefferson; Curtis Pichon and Opal Zacharias cases remain unsolved.

Key points

The Unsolved Murders of Rachel and Warren. College sweethearts Rachel Raver and Warren Fulton were murdered over a decade ago, and their case remains unsolved until new DNA evidence links it to another murder.
Curtis Pichon's Mysterious Disappearance. Security guard Curtis Pichon vanishes after his car mysteriously catches fire, leaving investigators puzzled.
Detective Robin Taunton's Tenacity. Detective Robin Taunton, a tough female cop, faces challenges in solving cold cases, including the murder of Opal Zacharias.
Detective Taunton's Career Shift. After a life-changing arrest, Detective Taunton transitioned to a cold warrant unit, proving her effectiveness.
Wendy Long's Disappearance. Wendy Long vanished after a party, leading to a desperate search by her parents.
Mystery of Rachel Cook. Rachel Cook disappeared while jogging, leaving behind a community searching for answers.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I didn’t feel angry for several months and then one day I got mad.

Veronica Raver reflects on her grief and determination to find her daughter's killer.

6:19WatchMay 23, 2019

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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