Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack - Season 12, Episode 8 - Updated Full Episode | Forensic Files

tonight on unsolved mysteries two seemingly unrelated cases lay dormant for years
until two veteran california criminalists employ the latest in dna profiling technology to prove an
unidentified serial rapist and an unknown serial killer are one and the same authorities now need your help to catch
a notorious murderer who has prayed on california since at least 1976. donna baldio finds a threatening note
outside the bank where she works demanding money the author of the note threatens violent
retaliation if donna does not heed the warning five weeks later a deadly fire erupts
outside of her apartment coincidence or was donna baldio the target of a vicious extortionist
an alarming number of children in a rural western town are diagnosed with leukemia
two have already lost their lives what is happening in fallon nevada to create what doctors call a
cancer cluster a well-known colorado family man responded to a call for help and never came back could the stranded
motorists who place the distress call have had anything to do with the disappearance of dale williams
join me perhaps you may be able to help solve a mystery or perhaps you may encounter one that
simply cannot be explained [Music] october 1976 an affluent suburb outside sacramento california
[Music] i remember waking up with a flashlight shining in my face [Music] and i was looking down the barrel of the
gun and he said uh don't move don't make a sound or i will kill you and within a moment's notice my life
was all of a sudden in the control of somebody else the rape victim whose identity we're not
revealing at her request is one of more than 40 women believed to have been assaulted by a man who terrorized the
sacramento area during the 1970s the mysterious attacker known to police as the east area rapist was never
identified incredibly more than 20 years later dramatic advances in law enforcement
technology determined that the same man was responsible for a series of murders in the 1980s
authorities seek your help in tracking down a suspect who's eluded police for nearly 30 years
during the 1970s the man who would defy detection for decades established himself as a unique offender with
unusual signature habits including boldly lingering in victims homes for hours i know that at some point he was out in
the living room smoking and the police felt that he maybe had gotten into my refrigerator
i think he was in the house anywhere from two and a half to three hours i lay there for what seemed like a long
period of time with no noise and then all of a sudden did you miss me i couldn't see i
couldn't move and i couldn't yell and i remember wondering is this it is this the way i'm
going to die eventually after sexually assaulting his victim the rapist would quietly sneak
away can you tell me maybe a little of what he looked like detective carol daly interviewed many of the rapists victims
a mask the east area rapist very definitely did a psychological rape along with the physical rape in the
manner in which he would threaten the victims the length of time that he stayed in the
home richard his crime was different and unique did you find anything for lieutenant
richard shelby this would become one of the most demanding cases of his career it was a high priority it had a lot of
publicity he had a lot of victims the guy's dangerous our office and city police both had
special teams working it give me an evidence back evidence recovered near two crime scenes
indicated the rapist had spied on his victims before he struck well it casts all of this too proud to
hear you he knew it well sit right here and look right in her window [Music] some of the cases he knew the victims he
knew their time their schedule they knew that of the neighbors and some were crime of opportunity they weren't
supposed to be there there they were so he took advantage of it the first 15 attacks occurred in homes
only inhabited by women and children but then the rapist became even more brazen he targeted homes in which a man
was also present when the rapist would come in he would at gunpoint order the female
to tie up the the male in the house and then he would remove the female to the other part of the house
where he would also tie her up and then he would put dishes on the husband if i hear one plate rattle i'll kill
everyone in the house while he was in the other room occupied with the sexual assault
he could hear whether or not the male was trying to get free i can't think of any other rapes that i
worked other than this one where a suspect was willing to go in and do the types of things that the east
area rapist did when there were other people in the house there was so much fear in the community
and there were so many rumors out there about what the east area rapist was doing so we were holding town hall
meetings we understand your concern they were incensed to think that a man could have been in the home
when these rapes occurred and not have done anything about it in this particular meeting a gentleman
got up and said i don't believe that could happen but if he ever comes into my house
i'm going to be ready that man and his wife would later become victims it led me to believe that the
rapist was in the audience that night and probably followed this couple home i think that he liked the excitement
of the game i think it was as much a game with the investigators as it was for what he was doing to the victims
the sadistic game being played by the rapist often extended beyond the attack itself
hello several victims reported receiving disturbing phone calls from the rapist years later who is this i
felt by what he said to me that he had been still watching me and stalking me i felt absolutely terrified i think
the phone calls were just his way of saying you're still my hostage even though i'm
not in your house psychologically you're still my hostage by the late 1970s the east area rapists
have moved west to communities in contra costa county 50 miles from sacramento authorities traced five more sexual
assaults to him there before the attacks abruptly stopped everybody speculated on where this guy
might have gone and why he went why he might have stopped and there was nowhere to go with it we had
no real physical description [Music] years passed the trail grew colder than 400 miles south at the orange county
california sheriff's department forensic scientist mary hong compared semen samples from several unsolved rape
murders in the southern california area and linked the crimes to the same perpetrator
meanwhile back in contra costa county sheriff's department criminalist paul holes ran dna profiles on semen
recovered from the east area rapist assaults in his county then in 2001 paul holes contacted mary
hong let me grab that file independently he was thinking that this guy has to be committing these
crimes somewhere else so he actually was calling these agencies and finding out if they had any cases that
fit his profile okay i've got d3 1516. i had him read me the profile that he had on this case
okay and i compared that to the profile that i had in our cases and they matched
all the way across wow looks like we've got a match at that point we knew that we had
just connected the series of sexual assaults in northern california with a series of homicides down in
southern california we felt before he left sacramento that he was ready to kill his behavior was
becoming more and more bizarre and the threats that he was making to the victims
were more severe his just his demeanor was changing the east area rapist had become a southern california killer
leaving a trail of desks in his wake charlene and lyman smith of ventura newly was keith and patty harrington of
laguna niguel with hune of irvine five years later the next murder took place on may 5th 1986.
janelle cruz also lived in irvine like the others she had been tied up sexually assaulted and bludgeoned to
death in her home larry poole of the orange county sheriff's department has headed up the
southern california investigation we don't have anything that we've linked to him after may
5th of 1986. doesn't mean that it doesn't exist doesn't mean that it's not out there for us to acquire
we're just not aware of it however based on the killer's ammo larry poole has come to believe that the
man he's pursuing also murdered two couples in santa barbara before and after the string of cases connected by
dna began i don't know of anyone like him he's a very unique offender 50 rapes that we're aware of 10 murders
that we're aware of we suspect that he's probably responsible for more rapes and murders and crimes outside of
what we've identified with a biological link to the northern california rapes confirmed
investigators now had 50 additional cases to comb through in search of new clues to the serial killer's identity
the east area rapist mo of stacking plates on the victim's partner during the assault
is believed to be particularly unique [Music] it's a signature aspect of our offender
is it possible that someone abused him and treated him the same way terrorizing him perhaps
as a boy when he grew up it's it's possible if the old police adage of serial killers do not stop unless they're
caught is true how is it possible this one hasn't been heard from since 1986. he could be dead he could be disabled
and is no longer capable of doing what he once did as a serial killer he could have moved
to another state changed his mo somewhat and has committed multiple offenses that
he's been identified for and we've just yet to link him up larry poole believes there's another
possibility that this serial killer could be incarcerated perhaps on death row for an
unrelated murder pool advocates dna testing of every death row inmate however in california investigators are
blocked by an injunction that prohibits the extraction of blood from any prisoner on death row
against his will [Music] there are approximately 600 men who are among california's most heinous
notorious criminals who do not have dna profiles compared against the data bank i think that we need to do whatever we
possibly can to identify him and to miss that opportunity i i think is is is criminal please somebody out there
has to know something about this person and if the information could come forward
will it ever bring closure to the victims only that they would feel safe that he is not
out there to attack again i don't want to end my career without having solved this and if it's not
solved by the time i retire i'll think about it till the day i die [Music] [Music]
[Applause] [Music] the chateau dijon apartments houston 3 30 a.m on february 1 2002 curtis ford awoke to
a series of strange sounds in the stairwell outside his apartment the banging that i heard sounded like a
herd of elephants running up the stairs and then i heard which was like a knock at the door
and then i heard the same right down the stairs [Applause] so i looked up and this wall of fire
just shot out my side balcony window just shot straight up and out looks like my
whole apartment lit up i couldn't believe that the amount of force that this thing had
curtis escaped the fire unscathed three of his neighbors would not be so lucky [Music]
the fire of the chateau dijo apartments was quickly ruled arson few details have been released to
exactly how the blaze started but authorities say may not have been a random act that the arsonist was
possibly trying to harm a specific resident of the building that person was donna baldw
donna baldio lived a quiet life with her 22 year old son jai l lewis and eight-year-old daughter
bunny sue terry by all accounts a family was close and had no enemies but several weeks prior to the fire a
disturbing incident may have given someone motive to attack donna donna baldio had worked at wells fargo
bank for 10 years she was currently a manager at a drive-through branch located outside of
houston on december 22nd donna was the first to arrive at work she immediately noticed an odd piece of
paper lying in front of the bank's entrance encased in a protective plastic sheath
was a note it demanded all the money from the bank and if anyone called the police they
would face dire consequences it was a well-crafted note well verbalized and specifically threatened
employees if they didn't cooperate in turning over all the banks money that day that they would be retaliated
against donna retreated to her car five minutes later another employee showed up
don't stop just follow me they drove to a nearby convenience store and contacted
the supervisor who called police i pulled up like normal uh parked the car donna had done exactly what the note
had explicitly instructed her not to do authorities found no fingerprints on the note
nor were there any clues as to who the author might be the investigation never turned up a
suspect while investigators had no evidence that pointed directly at the suspects leaving
this note for donna baldio personally she is the person who found it and in this instance donna baldio did
not comply five weeks later the blaze erupted in the stairwell at donna's apartment
building donna's unit was one of two located on the second floor two more units were downstairs
authorities speculate that donna's daughter bunny was awakened by the mysterious knock
unaware of the inferno outside she opened the door buddy stop no donna and her son jai then ran into the
flames desperate to rescue curtis ford donna's downstairs neighbor witnessed the unfolding nightmare
jai's laying there on the landing and i saw him burning and i just grabbed his ankle and pulled him down you know
and he was just like screaming at the top of his lungs like my sister's dead i mean he just couldn't
believe the fact of this going on i mean it was just horrible horrible horrible curtis saw donna repeatedly enter the
flames horrifying screams for her youngest child went unanswered the look on her face just would break
any person i mean i couldn't sleep for the next two months because of it emergency workers arrived
at the apartment complex within minutes donna and her children were the only victims of the fire
donna and jai had been critically burned over their entire bodies they barely clung to life hysterical
over bunny's fate when the smoke finally cleared the eight-year-old was found dead
in the stairwell this was absolutely one of the most horrible events i've seen in my 30 years
in the fire department because they were literally burned alive there donna and jai were rushed to the
hospital friends and family gathered around their bedsides hoping for a miraculous recovery
you couldn't even recognize him you couldn't even recognize john you couldn't even recognize donna
and so we came out we were just devastated jai was pronounced dead at 10 30 that
morning donna followed her son one half hour later an entire family was gone who would have committed such an
appalling crime and why was this the reprisal threatened by the extortionist or perhaps there is another equally
tragic explanation it has been reported that over the past three years fifteen fires are broken out of the chateau
dijon apartment complex her death and her children's death could be related to the series of arsons
in that same apartment complex including one that happened on the same stairwell
just a year before when the dust settles on this it's it's probably gonna be somebody
that she knew and i just got that feeling about that that this is more somebody got mad at her
for whatever reason no one knows why [Music] fallon nevada population 8 000 for those who moved here it seemed like
the perfect place to escape the urban sprawl and raise a family but there is something terrible
happening to the children of fallon you go it all began with dustin gross honey where'd you get
this bruise i fell off of my back when i was giving him a bath i noticed bruises on his back
in his arms and i asked him what was he doing um why did he have these bruises and he
told me he was playing with his friend on the big wheels and i thought okay that makes sense that's
where the bruises come from honey what are you doing well he's been tired all day
but then the next day my husband had noticed a lot more bruises and brought it up to my attention
i saw he had bruises all over his body his arms his legs his stomach his back and little red blood specks
on the surface of his skin and i knew that something was wrong at that point you're
going to feel all better brenda took dustin to the local hospital and he was immediately transferred to
the uc davis medical center blood was drawn a diagnosis was made the doctor told us that dustin had
leukemia i knew what leukemia was i knew it was a cancer but i didn't actually realize how severe
brenda soon learned the seriousness of dustin's condition acute lymphoblastic leukemia strikes
children usually between the ages of two and nine it causes the production of millions of
defective white blood cells destroying the immune system and can be fatal dustin immediately underwent aggressive
chemotherapy you wanna take your pills i've never went through anything like that before
in my life um not knowing good what to expect what my child's going through um seeing
him lie there so lethargic and so lifeless i think that that's probably the hardest
thing that i've ever had to deal with it was not easy dustin gross was not alone over the next
two years 14 more children contracted childhood leukemia in the fallon area an astronomical number in a community so
small two have lost their lives authorities are now convinced that the outbreak is
not a coincidence parents are in a state of panic desperate to find answers before more children become ill
and possibly die within weeks of dustin gross's diagnosis two more children came down with
childhood leukemia the cancer treatment facility at the local hospital run by rn barbara de
braga was overwhelmed even at that point i was just thinking it's just coincidence it's just a
terrible coincidence but it's a coincidence but then shortly after the third then we
got a referral for a fourth barbara de braga feared that she was looking at an abnormally high occurrence
of the disease known as a cancer cluster she contacted the state assembly person
for the fallon area and an official investigation was launched a state epidemiologist dr randall todd
prepared an all-out inquiry the devastating disease threatened a spin out of control
striking victims number five and six a couple of days after there was a seventh case diagnosed
and so this started to to kind of make the hair on the back of my neck stand up a little bit it was
it was a frightening time we have a series of questions we want to go over with you and we're going to use this
office right here okay that's okay an alarm dr todd immediately sought a common denominator shared by all the
victims that might explain the epidemic could it be an environmental toxin and uh how is the water supply to that
house is it it's a well okay so interviews with parents however produced no answers
and dr todd watched helplessly as new cases continued to appear zach beersley was a ninth child
diagnosed with childhood leukemia when i heard i was number nine in a cancer cluster
at that time my child was so ill that all i could think about was how do i get out of this mess with a healthy child
after i found my feet if you will i realized that it was important to get involved in the
investigation and that's when i found the strength and rolled my sleeves up and said well what can i do
and then you start to fight and you don't look back you know [Music] tammy beersley readily opened her house
to a phalanx of scientists search for the common denominator continued what did all these children
share that might explain their illness [Music] there was a team of people that came into our home and
vacuumed took dust samples air quality samples water samples [Music] biological testing scraped our mouths
blood tests but these tests were inconclusive perhaps the problem was not in the
children's homes but in the surrounding environment was there something unique about fallon
that could explain why a cancer cluster appeared here researchers began with the water
the one thing that that makes this community sort of stand out is that they have one of the
highest rates of naturally occurring arsenic in their water supply of any place in
the nation researchers also found mercury in a nearby lake and several irrigation
canals places where the children were known to play [Music] and there was another unusual feature
about fallon that raised red flags residential homes are freely intermixed with farmland
they have to to treat these fields with pesticides and fertilizer and this type of thing so
you're now having that very close to the living community rather than maybe in a
normal farming community where it starts on the outskirts of town radioactivity was also a possibility
underground atomic tests were conducted near fallon during the 1960s [Music] arsenic mercury pesticides
there seemed to be no shortage of toxins in the environment incredibly sad as it so far failed to
link any of them to the outbreak in fact no studies have ever demonstrated that these contaminants
play a role in contracting childhood leukemia working on this really is like trying to do
a gigantic jigsaw puzzle what we can say is that in fact we likely will not have
the complete puzzle put together at the end of this investigation there was one final possibility
fallon is located 10 miles from a major naval air station used to train fighter pilots
the jet fuel contains benzene a known carcinogen there is a pipeline which transports jet
fuel the pipe comes right through and underneath fallon and winds up at the fallon naval
air station we wondered was there fuel getting into the water supply but we didn't find any evidence that the
water had been contaminated with jet fuel perhaps the residents of fallon were inhaling the jet fuel
this theory is currently being tested on laboratory mice at the university of arizona
human trials may take place in the near future we can actually measure on a person's
expired breath remnants of of jet fuel exposure that that technology has been developed
over the last five years while authorities search for answers the parents of the children suffering from
leukemia in fallon try to remain optimistic [Music] zach beersley has been undergoing
chemotherapy for the past 17 months although he is responding well it is still too soon to know if he'll beat the
disease there's a a fear inside of me i have two other children and one on the way
and i'd like to find out what's making children become diagnosed with leukemia here
before i bring another child into the world [Music] after two years of intensive
chemotherapy dustin gross recently had an end of treatment party his cancer is currently in remission
but there is always a fear that it may one day return i am worried for my family and my other
children and for dustin still i will never give up on pushing the research to find what has caused
childhood leukemia and a cluster in this community obviously the more research and continued research is going to get
us closer and closer and i feel that we will find it but we cannot let up [Music]
[Music] sunday july 4th a family swimming at the confluence of the san miguel and dolores
rivers in western colorado made a grim discovery submerged in the muddy waters was a
pickup truck the montrose county sheriff's department responded to the scene and it quickly became apparent that this
would be more than a simple vehicle recovery operation investigators realize this might be the
break they desperately needed in a case that had captured the attention of surrounding communities
a truck belonged to a man who suddenly vanished six weeks before hopes however were quickly dashed when
no other signs of the missing man were recovered authorities need your help to solve this
baffling mystery the recovered pickup truck was registered to 42 year old dale williams
the longtime area resident was a devoted husband and daughting father of two teenage daughters
day alone and operated an auto body shop in the nearby town of nukla on the evening of may 27th dale failed
to make it home for dinner his wife diana assumed he was preoccupied with a job at the body shop
and lost track of time by bedtime however diana was concerned hi dale it's me i called the shop a couple
of times no answer okay give me a call as soon as you get in bye so i thought well maybe he just didn't
hear the phone cause using air ratchets or something you know i went to bed about 10 and i
laid there and i felt like something's wrong i tossed and turned all night woke up
several times and he still wasn't home [Music] diana looked at dawn and was horrified
to discover dale had not made it home all night as soon as she got her kids off to
school diana drove straight to dale's garage [Music] when i first walked in the shop the door
was unlocked the hood was still up on the van his tools were they were just laying around
the vehicle like you just walked away from it for a few minutes went over to my mother-in-law's and she
hadn't heard from him the day before or that morning dale often shopped at junkyards looking for spare parts to use
at the body shop when was the last time diana and her mother-in-law thought that would be a
good place to start their search when we didn't find him at the junkyard we thought we'd probably find him along
the way the road somewhere where he'd maybe ran off the road we felt like that something had happened
to him for sure but we felt like we would find him but as it happened we didn't find him
within a few hours dianna williams notified police and word of dale william's strange disappearance spread
through nuclear investigators began piecing together dale williams day they learned dale made a brief stop at
tammy lawrence's office about 12 15 that afternoon i had a windshield that i needed
repaired on a truck of ours hey joe what's up listen i stopped by to let you know that i can't do your
windshield until next wednesday that's okay i thought it was strange that dale stopped in because he didn't
have to stop and tell me he could have called me dale was in a hurry he told tammy he was
on his way to help a stranded motorist maybe he felt uneasy about who he was gonna go give a toe
i really don't know all right see you later bye that was the last time that i saw dale
williams [Music] the investigator determined that dale's friend tom ross had been with him just
before tammy saw him tom and his young son has stopped by the body shop late that morning
just getting close to the noon hour and he said i'm real busy today got a full shot but he said i got time for one game
of darts if you want to if you got time i said yeah sure hey nice job nice job hold on a second
uh phone call come in hello and they were broke down they said about three quarters of a mile east of the
bedrock colorado store just a little country store yeah yeah i think i know where that is i
was under the impression that it might have been a lady that called nothing that was actually said it
was just the way he talked and stuff yeah i know it's the other road it's the only way to go dale's shop hit auto body
repair he was not a mechanic so it was unusual for him to receive a call for roadside
help i did feel odd that they called dale for assistance sorry you guys uh i'm gonna have to take off
at the same time dale was one that was willing to go and help somebody if they were broke down
we said our goodbyes at the shop door that's the last time i ever saw dale [Music]
the citizens of nuclear responded to the emergency situation missing posters were printed up and
distributed by dale's friends and family makes me feel really great to know i'm in a small town
and everybody cares [Music] however diana would soon come to understand that not everyone in her
small town did care [Music] we had missing posters up and and i noticed i put some in the post office
and about two days later they're all gone so i put some more in there they just two or three days they disappear
that ultimately resulted in us installing a hidden camera in the post office in new
club and that led to us being able to determine who was responsible for the disappearance of those flyers
within a few weeks the camera hidden by police captured images of this man tearing down the flyers incredibly he
was ultimately identified as a former long-time family friend of dale and diana williams
the individual depicted in the photographs was questioned and he denied any involvement
in dale's disappearance he also was able to give us an alibi for the 27th of may
1999 and for the most part that alibi is consistent and has been confirmed could dale's disappearance have had
anything to do with some bad blood between the two men twelve months before dale vanished diana
and dale helped move the mystery man's ex-wife to another state without his knowledge
he was angry at dale for helping his ex-wife move and get clear out of the area and then
we wouldn't tell him where she was at or anything like that and i feel like he was really angry with
dale for that [Music] a month after helping the man's ex-wife move dale found some disturbing items
outside his auto body shop he went to work he noticed some pictures torn up there
just laying all over the ground the torn photographs had been stolen from his shop
they depicted dale and diana with her now divorced friends and happier times several 22 caliber bullets were also
scattered across the ground [Music] several days after that diana made a strange discovery in the night drop box
at the video rental store she ran a 22-caliber revolver diana and dale later discovered the gun
like the torn photos had also been stolen from dale's auto body shop i was really nervous because i didn't
know what to think and dale just told me to not worry about it things would be okay and
things will settle down whatever happened it was more to scare him he felt like than anything
police interviewed dale's former friend about the burglaries but he denied any involvement in the break-in
dale's life seemed to return to normal then 11 months after his body shop was burglarized
dale williams suddenly disappeared six weeks later dale's truck was recovered from the river
an analysis of the vehicle in its recovery site provided more clues the truck's ignition was turned on the
vehicle was in gear and the angle between the highway and the river was extremely sharp
each detail seemed to indicate that someone had deliberately steered dale williams truck
into the water once diana viewed photographs of dale's truck she was certain someone other than
her husband last drove the vehicle she took particular note of the partially open driver's side window
dale usually drove with the driver's window all the way down but never halfway always down or up
somebody put it in there to get rid of it somebody who knew the river generating further speculation police
have not located the stranded motorist dale williams went to help was a mystery caller a woman as dale's
friend surmised and why has that person never come forward go there investigators may already have that
answer the purported distress call was placed from a stolen cell phone [Music] dale williams loved ones must also face
yet another perplexing scenario there are those who claim that dale's truck was parked in this normal spot at
his body shop by 1 30 pm the day he vanished if true dale or someone else drove his
truck back into town within 90 minutes of his responding to the distress call outside of town
there were even reports from witnesses who claimed to have seen dale williams early that evening
at a market in the neighboring town of natarita i do believe that the people who saw
dale williams between five and six o'clock at the local grocery store did in fact
see dale and that they are people in the community that their word can be trusted
so what happened to dale williams and where is he now i believe dale either seen something he
shouldn't have or knew something he shouldn't have and somebody was looking to shut him up
maybe he was ready to go to the cops and tell what he knew and that was their way of shutting him
up dale williams has not been seen since may 27 1999. he stands 5 foot 7 inches tall and
has light sandy hair and blue eyes [Music] join us next time on unsolved mysteries
[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

This episode includes: California Killings, Donna on Fire & UD, Fallon Illnesses and Dale Disappeared.

Brief Summary

Three chilling cases: a serial rapist, a deadly arson, and a leukemia cluster in Fallon, Nevada.

Key points

The East Area Rapist. A series of assaults and murders linked to one unidentified man terrorized California in the 1970s.
A Deadly Fire. A fire at the Chateau Dijon Apartments leads to the tragic deaths of Donna Baldio and her children.
Leukemia Outbreak in Fallon. A small town faces a shocking increase in childhood leukemia cases, raising alarms among parents.
Cancer Cluster Investigation. A community grapples with a frightening rise in childhood leukemia cases.
Dale Williams Disappearance. A devoted father vanishes, leaving behind a mystery that captivates the community.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Is this it? Is this the way I’m going to die?

A victim's haunting thought during an assault.

4:14WatchJul 26, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

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