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This half hour Oxygen Channel TV true-crime series that puts women at the center of solving fascinating mysteries. Each episode of Captured opens with a shocking event - an unexplained disappearance, a violent and unprovoked assault, or cold-blooded murder. Some feature twists and turns so amazing it boggles the mind. Many episodes end with an America's Most Wanted type scenario asking for help with an unsolved case.| # | Description |
| 101 | Who Killed Judy Johnson? - June 6, 1998, an intruder broke into the home of Judy Johnson and assaulted her and her six-year-old granddaughter, Brooke. Though Brooke survived the attack, Judy didn't. When questioned by police, the little girl claimed that her uncle, Clarence Elkins, was their attacker. The next morning, police descended upon the Elkins home. Officers broke the news to Melinda Elkins that her mother had been murdered just as they arrested her husband, Clarence, for the crime. On the strength of Brooke's testimony, Clarence was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Melinda was convinced her husband was innocent, but she knew the only way to prove it would be to find the identity of the real killer. Melinda started making suspect lists and secretly collecting DNA in the hope that she could one day find a match with the DNA found at the crime scene. After a number of disappointments and denied appeals, Melinda read an article in a local newspaper about a sex offender named Earl Mann who had a history of violence and had lived near her mom at the time of the crime. Unbelievably, he was serving time in the same prison pod as her husband. Melinda shared the news with Clarence, and together they hatched a plan to collect Mann's DNA from inside the prison. Clarence was able to retrieve a cigarette butt discarded from Mann and send it to his attorney. With help from the Innocence Project, an organization to help free wrongly convicted citizens, the butt was tested against evidence found at the crime scene. The DNA was a match. Melinda had finally found her mother's killer and provided enough evidence to free her husband. After seven years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, in December of 2005, Clarence Elkins was released from prison. Earl Mann has been charged with the murder of Judy Johnson and the attempted murder of Brooke Sutton. He is currently awaiting trial./Unsolved - Freweini "Winnie" Gebremicael (34) The last time anyone saw Winnie alive was when she dropped her oldest child, 17-year-old Rutta, off at school on the morning of May 5, 2006. After that she was thought to be heading to The City Coffee Shop. Winnie was reported missing later that day. On May 7, 2006, her body was found among the trash and underbrush on the bank of a creek along Whitsett Road. She'd been shot once in the head, then her body had been set on fire. 10/7/07 |
| 102 | The Oregon City Girls - Winter 2002, 12-year-old Ashley Pond disappeared on her way to school in Oregon City, Oregon. Two months later, Ashley's friend and neighbor, 13-year-old Miranda Gaddis, also vanished. But police had few leads. Linda O'Neal, a relative of Ashley's and licensed private investigator, began her own investigation. After talking extensively to Ashley's friends and family, the name Ward Weaver came up. Weaver was a man who lived in the same neighborhood, and whose daughter was a friend of Ashley's. He was one of many people police had questioned during their investigation, but Linda's instinct told her to dig deeper. She learned that Weaver had a violent history toward women, and had even served time for attacking a young girl in California. Even more shocking, she found that his father was on death row for murder. She took the information to the FBI, but they dismissed her theories. Frustrated, O'Neal convinced Portland Tribune reporter Jim Redden to release what she had found out about Weaver. He even managed to interview Weaver, who told the reporter he was the FBI's prime suspect. The article ran on the front page the next day. Weaver had now become a prime suspect in the public eye. But police still didn't have probable cause to obtain a warrant to search Weaver's home. That is until Weaver sexually assaulted his son's girlfriend and she went to police. The assault finally gave the authorities probable cause to search Weaver's home. Investigators found Ashley's remains under a concrete slab in Weaver's backyard, and Miranda's remains in a shed nearby. Weaver pled guilty to both murders and was sentenced to life in prison./Unsolved - Tara Baker (23) On the last day anyone saw her alive, January 18, 2001, Tara was seen buying groceries at a local supermarket. She went to the law school library to study, then went home for the night. The next morning, a neighbor called 911 to report flames coming from Tara's home. Firefighters were able to put out the blaze, but inside they found Tara. She was dead, and it was clear from wounds found on her body, that she hadn't died from the fire. 10/14/07 |
| 103 | The Wrong Man - January 10, 1991, 34-year-old Lisa Hopewell was found dead in an upscale condo in Cupertino, California. A Princeton grad whose life had been on a downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse, she'd been suffocated and stabbed to death. Police immediately suspected her ex-boyfriend, Rick Walker, but he steadfastly maintained his innocence. When investigators checked his prints against those found at the scene, they did not match. But the fingerprints did match those of drug dealer Rahsson Bowers, who was an acquaintance of both Rick and Lisa's. Upon questioning, Bowers told police a troubling tale. He claimed that he had, indeed, played a role in killing Lisa, but according to Bowers, he had done it with Rick Walker. The police offered him a reduced sentence if he would agree to testify against Walker. Walker was convicted for the murder and sentenced to life in prison. But, his mother refused to believe he was guilty. She approached a friend's daughter, 3rd year law student, Alison Tucher, for help. Though Alison was still in school, she was intrigued by the case and by the lack of evidence against Walker. As she went to school by day, she read the case files by night. The law firm she eventually went to work for, Morrison and Foerster, agreed to let her take Rick's case pro bono. Alison's first step was to go to the DA's office, point to the weak evidence that had convicted Walker, and try to get them to reopen the investigation. But the DA refused. Tucher knew that the only way to free Rick Walker was to find the real killer. She began her own investigation into the murder. In her off hours, she criss-crossed California interviewing potential witnesses. She eventually located five men who claimed they knew what had really happened the night of the murder. Two of the witnesses had come forward even before Rick Walker's trial, but since investigators were focused on Walker, they had discounted their claims. All five witnesses implicated the same person in the crime, and it wasn't Rick Walker. It was Bowers' friend, Mark Swanson. Tucher went back to the DA's office with her evidence and let them know that she planned to continue pursuing the case. By then, there was a new supervising prosecutor, Karyn Sinunu. Sinunu agreed to reopen the investigation, and sent a cigarette butt from the crime scene off for DNA testing. The results confirmed Tucher's assertion-it was Swanson, not Rick Walker, who had helped Bower commit the murder. The state overturned Rick Walker's conviction. Eleven years after his wrongful conviction, Rick Walker was exonerated of the crime and freed from prison. Swanson was convicted in 2004/Unsolved - Suzanne Jovin (21) On the night of December 4, 1998, Suzanne attended a party she'd helped organize for people with disabilities. Between 8:30 and 9pm, she returned keys she'd needed for the party to the campus police station. She was last seen walking away from the station. About an hour later, Suzanne's body was found in New Haven's wealthy East Rock neighborhood. She had been stabbed 17 times in the back and neck and was bleeding to death. That neighborhood was more than a mile away from where Suzanne was last seen. 10/21/07 |
| 104 | The Black Camaro - December 3, 2001, 19-year-old Demetria Hill stepped out the front door of her Atlanta house and walked to a local gas station to meet her friend for a Coke. A kind, trusting girl, Demetria said she'd be back in a few minutes. When Demetria didn't return for three days, her mother, Sharon Williams, filed a missing persons report, but police had few leads. Demetria's friend said that a guy with a black Camaro and North Carolina plates had taken them to lunch and then left with Demetria to go to his apartment. Sharon scoured the area for a car fitting the description. She came up with only dead ends. Several weeks later, though, a family friend spotted a black Camaro with NC plates in his housing complex. Sharon gave the license plate numbers to the police, who identified the owner of the vehicle as a woman. Frustrated, Sharon drove to the apartment and asked the woman if anyone else ever drove her car. She said yes, her fiancé sometimes drove it. His name was Joseph Brown. At Sharon's insistence, detectives brought Brown in for questioning. In the interrogation room, Brown admitted that he had picked up Demetria the afternoon she disappeared, but had dropped her off at home. Brown refused to admit any wrongdoing. With no body and no evidence, the police had to release him. Then, in the fall of 2002, Demetria's remains were found behind an Atlanta church. Unfortunately, the body was too decomposed to yield any DNA evidence that could help identify her killer. The investigation again came to a halt. Then, just weeks later, Brown assaulted another woman. But this time the woman survived. The victim was Brown's girlfriend, Chinella Ross. As soon as Sharon learned of the attack, she met with Chinella and convinced her to testify. The girlfriend's testimony eventually caused Brown to admit that he'd assaulted Demetria, too. Though there wasn't enough evidence to prove Brown had murdered her, a jury convicted him of kidnapping and assault and sentenced him to 25 years/Unsolved - J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett - On July 31, 1999, incoming high school seniors were celebrating J.B.'s 17th birthday by driving to a party near their homes in Dothan, Alabama. But without proper directions, the girls got lost and stopped for help at a convenience store in Ozark. The girls got directions from someone at the store who saw them pull out of the parking lot toward the highway. It was the last time they were seen alive. After the girls drove off, someone forced them into a remote location. Police say the killer performed sexual acts on one of the girls before shooting both teenagers in the head. J.B. and Tracie were found dead in the trunk of J.B.'s car on August 1st, not far from the convenience store where they were last seen. 10/28/07 |
| 105 | The Undercover Twin - August 11, 1996, Lisa Seabolt dropped her two young daughters off with her twin sister, Teresa, for a couple of days while she finalized her divorce and tried to find a new apartment. Five days later, Lisa still hadn't called or come by to pick up the girls and no one had been able to reach her. Teresa's intuition told her that something was wrong. She decided to do some of her own investigating. While Lisa's estranged husband, Bryce Thomas, was out of town, Teresa broke into his apartment and found a mattress with a large bloodstain on it. She reported it to police, who obtained a search warrant, and collected DNA for testing. As she waited for the results to come back, Teresa started to doubt her suspicions about Bryce. He was adamant that he was innocent, and had even set up a toll-free number for people to call in tips about Lisa. But, who else could be responsible? Lisa knew police were aware that Lisa had recently been involved in drugs, and that investigators had questioned people in the drug underworld. But she also knew it was unlikely that those people would confide in the cops. She did believe they would talk to Lisa, though. So Teresa dressed like her sister and hung out in all the old haunts her sister had frequented, making small talk with dangerous thugs. It paid off. She finally met someone who said Lisa had met a well-known drug dealer the night before she disappeared. Teresa set up a meeting with the man. His house was surrounded by bodyguards and security monitors, and his coffee table had a bowl filled with bullets that had names written on them. The dealer told Teresa a story that pointed right back to Bryce. The dealer said he and Lisa and Bryce had done drugs at Bryce's home the night she disappeared. He said Bryce had a gun, which was unusual. Teresa took the information she got from the dealer to police. Days later, police confirmed that the blood found in Bryce Thomas's apartment matched that of Lisa Seabolt. Bryce was tried and convicted. But, Teresa hadn't heard the last of him. From jail, he put a hit on Teresa, only to find that his hit man was an undercover cop. His sentence was extended by 12 years for solicitation to commit murder/Unsolved - Patrice Tamber-Endres (38) disappeared on April 15, 2004 from her beauty salon in Cumming, GA, near Atlanta. Patrice finished her last morning appointment around 11:30 a.m. Around noon, Patrice's next client arrived at Tamber's Trim-N-Tan Salon and found it deserted. Patrice's car was in the parking lot. Her purse was still there, and her meal was left uncooked in the microwave. But there was no sign of Patrice. The customer became alarmed and called police. On December 6, 2005, Patrice's remains were found behind Lebanon Baptist Church in Dawsonville, GA, less than eight miles from where she vanished. 11/4/07 |
| 106 | The Dream - July 1966, 11-year-old Brenda Sue Brown walked her little sister, Patricia, to a Head Start program in Shelby, NC. But Brenda Sue never made it back home. She was found beaten to death under a bush. Near her body, police found a shoe with a bloody handprint. It was the only clue to the brutal murder. Two years later, a local teenager, Robert Roseboro, was charged and convicted of the murder of a woman whose body was found in similar circumstances. Police became convinced that Roseboro was also Brenda Sue's killer, but couldn't come up with enough evidence to prove it. As time wore on, the case went cold, and appeared to be forgotten. But, Brenda Sue's two sisters, Patricia Buff and Mary McSwain, hadn't forgotten. As decades passed, they hounded police to reopen the case. Then one morning in 2005, the sisters called each other-they had both had the same dream on the same night. It was Brenda Sue, telling them not to give up. Together the sisters went to the police, again asking them to reopen the investigation. But as it turned out, the case file had been lost. Undeterred, Patricia and Mary went to the local paper and convinced a writer to do a series of articles on the case, including the information about how police had lost the case file. Embarrassed by the publicity, the police station was turned upside down and the file was found in a box with information from the Roseboro case. Inside the file was a photo of the handprint on the shoe. That week, a woman who'd read the newspaper articles called police with a tip. She said her grandfather, Earl Parker, had confessed to her that he and a friend of his named Thurman 'Soupy' Price, had killed Brenda Sue. Incredibly, the story she relayed perfectly matched how the crime scene was found, and included details that had never been released. When police looked into Parker's background, they discovered that Parker and Price had been convicted together of the rape of a 12-year-old girl ten years before Brenda Sue's murder. Parker had died in 2002, but the 77-year-old Price was still alive, and in early 2007, he was indicted for first-degree murder. Price is awaiting trial as investigators exhume Earl Parker's body, which is buried right across from Brenda Sue's grave, to compare his handprint to the photograph of the murder scene. Whether or not there is a match, investigators believe they have enough evidence to convict Thurman Price/Unsolved - Agnes Ziemlewski (26) She frequently enjoyed going for a walk at the West Hartford, CT, reservoir. Agnes' body was found on a walking trail at the reservoir on September 24, 1998. She had been shot to death. 11/11/07 |
| 107 | The Pacific Beach Rapist - August 1993, Kim Caldwell was lying in bed asleep in her Pacific Beach home when she was awakened by a noise. Terrified, she saw a man in her dark bedroom wearing a ski mask. He assaulted her, then fled. Later that evening, upon giving her report to the San Diego Police, she was horrified to learn that she was the seventh woman in her area to be assaulted. Police collected evidence from the crime scene and gathered DNA samples as they had for the other victims, but acknowledged that, thus far, they had been unable to find a match. Kim became determined to take matters into her own hands. If police couldn't find the rapist, she would. Kim took a leave of absence from her job and spent her nights walking the streets with her sister, looking for men that fit the same height and build as her attacker. Then one night, Kim returned home to find that the rapist had been back and had left a note. Police keyed in on the new lead. They were soon able to focus their investigation on one man: Kenneth Bogard. Bogard fit the description of the rapist and appeared suspicious under initial questioning. A popular local musician, Bogard had a band that played several local events, including some in Pacific Beach. A sample of Bogard's DNA came back from the lab. It was a match with DNA found at one of the crime scenes. The San Diego Police finally had their man. At trial, with the help of testimony from Kim and the other victims, Kenneth Bogard was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. 11/18/07 |
| 108 | The Secret Life of John Smith - September 28, 1991, Fran Gladden-Smith was planning on spending a quiet day at her Princeton, NJ condo. She'd just had hip surgery and was still getting around slowly. But, when her husband, John Smith, came home from work that evening, she wasn't there. By the next morning, there was still no sign of her. Though John hadn't been concerned, Fran's sister Sherrie knew something was wrong. John said Fran had likely decided to take a trip to see her daughter, but Sherrie was extremely close to her sister, and Sherrie knew it was out of character for Fran to leave without letting anyone know. When Fran never showed up at her daughter's house, Sherrie's instincts proved correct. With the help of Fran's daughter, Dedy, Sherrie began her own investigation into her sister's disappearance. They started digging into John's past, even traveling cross-country to interview people who knew John before he married Fran. What Sherrie and Dedy found was shocking. John had always said that his marriage to Fran was his first. But they discovered that John had been married once before, to a woman named Janice Hartman. Not only that, Janice had also vanished. Her decomposed and dismembered remains had been found on the side of the road years after her disappearance. But police had never made an arrest. And in 1999, Sherrie and Dedy discovered that John had married a third time. The two women told what they knew to the authorities, and were able to get word to his new wife about his past. Working closely with police, Sherrie and Dedy delivered essential clues that eventually lead to John Smith's arrest and conviction in the murder of his first wife-a crime that had gone unsolved for two decades. And although he has not been charged in Fran's murder, Sherrie's investigation allowed the family to sue and win a wrongful death lawsuit against John in 2001. 1/6/08 |
| 109 | The Final Ride - In 2000, Jill Behrman was an outgoing college freshman just starting her summer break from school. An avid bike rider, she left out one May morning for a long ride, but she would never return. Initially police thought she might have been hit by a passing vehicle, but when her bike turned up days later in Bloomington, there was no sign of Jill. Her parents, Eric and Marilyn, vowed to find out the truth. They drove miles of roads searching for any clues. They organized search crews. Then, a tip came in from a local woman who was serving time for drug and robbery charges. She confessed that she and two friends had hit Jill with their truck, then panicked and killed her and left her body in a nearby creek. Desperate to find their daughter, the Behrmans collected money to have the creek drained. Searchers found items in the pond consistent with the inmate's story, but they found no sign of Jill. Then, three years after she vanished, Jill Behrman's remains were found by hunters in a wooded area outside of Bloomington, more than 25 miles away from the creek where investigators had been searching. Jill's parents held a press conference desperately urging anyone with information to come forward. Finally, they got the breakthrough they'd been waiting for. A local woman named Betty Swafford saw the Behrmans on the news and told police that she might have information on the case. She claimed that her grandson, John Myers, had come to her and told her he worried he might be a suspect in Jill's disappearance. He also lived very close to where Jill's body was found. As police began investigating Myers further, they gathered enough evidence for an arrest. When the case went to trial in 2006, a jury deliberated for less than an hour before finding Myers guilty of murder. He received the maximum sentence of 65 years in prison. 1/13/08 |
| 110 | Wrongly Convicted - April 3, 1993, ski instructor Ginger Gauger received a phone call with devastating news. Her mother and father had been murdered at the family's Illinois farm, and Ginger's twin brother Gary was the main suspect. Gary was eventually tried and convicted of patricide. At the sentencing, Ginger told the court that her brother had been wrongly convicted and that the real murderer was still free. Despite her pleas, Gary was sentenced to death. Ginger immediately began a campaign to prove his innocence. She wrote to newspapers and begged magazines and TV shows to cover Gary's story. She and a friend wrote to Larry Marshall, a professor at Northwestern Law School, about the case. Marshall agreed to help, and won a new trial that would exclude a "hypothetical" confession police had elicited from Gary. Without that confession, the case wasn't strong enough to uphold the conviction. Gary was exonerated and released from jail. Ginger was relieved, but she couldn't rest until the real killer was behind bars. In a turn of luck, federal authorities had been running a separate investigation of a motorcycle gang in the area. An undercover informant had overheard two men discussing the murder of Gary and Ginger's parents. One of the gang members confessed to committing the crime during an attempted robbery and explained how he and another gang member had gotten away with it. Two years after her brother's exoneration, Ginger watched as her parents' real killers were convicted. Gary was pardoned by the Illinois governor in 2002, and has since returned to his family farm. 1/20/08 |
| 111 | In Broad Daylight - May, 2001, Sara Ylen pulled her van into a crowded department store parking lot in Port Huron, Michigan. But, when she opened her door to get out, a man grabbed her. He forced her into the back of the van behind its darkly tinted windows, then hit Sara until she passed out. When she regained consciousness, he was gone. Bleeding and bruised, she drove home, locked herself in the bathroom and showered with scalding hot water. The next day, Sara and her husband Jim reported the assault to the authorities. Three days went by before she finally told her husband the truth: she had been raped. He took her to the ER, where doctors informed her it was too late to collect forensic evidence. For months, Sara struggled to come to terms with the attack. Then, one day while she was driving, Sara became terrified when she saw a man in another vehicle who resembled her attacker. She knew she had to do something. She went back to the police. The cops had no evidence to work from, but Sara was determined. She spent hours at her computer going through the Michigan sexual-offenders' registry. When that failed, she went to the police station in October 2002 and sat down with mug shot books. More than four days and 10,000 faces later, Sara broke into tears. She'd found the face she was looking for: James Eugene Grissom, a department store employee, had molested a six-year-old child two months before Sara was raped. The police arranged a lineup. Grissom arrived with a shaved head and beard and Sara was unable to identify him. But, when Sara remembered a lost detail from the rape - a skull tattoo that matched Grissom's, he was arrested on March 22, 2003. At trial, Grissom's attorney tried, and failed, to suppress evidence of the tattoo. Then, Sara took the stand herself and during twenty hours of testimony, she detailed what she remembered from the attack. Grissom was found guilty. At sentencing, the judge sentenced Grissom to fifteen to thirty-five years, the maximum the law allowed/Unsolved - Jennifer Kesse (24) In January 2006, Jennifer had just returned from a weekend trip to the Virgin Islands with her boyfriend. That night, she talked with her family, and with her boyfriend, who lived in South Florida, before going to bed. That's the last time anyone heard from her. 3/9/08 |
| 112 | The Angel of Death - The VA Medical Center in Northampton, Massachusetts is considered an excellent hospital with top doctors. But, between 1990 and 1996, the hospital was hit with a rash of unexplained deaths. People who had been admitted for minor health problems were suddenly going into cardiac arrest. Nurse Renee Skwirz had noticed the rise in "code blue" emergencies, and suspected one of her co-workers might be responsible. Kristen Gilbert was an unlikely suspect, though. She was bright and thoughtful; the kind of person other nurses looked up to. But, all of the victims who died mysteriously had been under Kristen's care. Renee, with the help of two other nurses, John Wall and Kathy Rix, began secretly investigating Gilbert. They went to the nursing manager with their concerns, and federal investigators were called in. Upon analyzing the patient records, they realized that approximately 150 deaths were suspect, and all had been under Kristen's care. Then, Kristen took a leave of absence from her job. Shortly after, the hospital began receiving a series of mysterious bomb threats. The phone calls were linked to three pay phones in the area, and police watching the phones were able to catch Kristen Gilbert in the act of making a threatening call to the hospital. Kristen was arrested and charged with making the threats and eventually with murder. Investigators were able to determine that she was using a heart stimulant, epinephrine, to send her patients into cardiac arrest. In 2001, she was convicted and sentenced to serve four consecutive life terms plus twenty years with no possibility of parole. 3/16/08 |
| 113 | Deadly Slumber - February 1st, 1988, when Barbara Stager placed an urgent call to 911. She said there had been a terrible accident: her husband Russel, who she claimed slept with a gun under his pillow, had been shot in the head. But Russ's former wife, who'd remained friends with her ex, was suspicious of the story. Just days before his death, Russell told Jo Lynn Snow that if anything happened to him, she needed to make sure detectives took a good look at Barbara. With the help of Russell's mother, Doris Stager, Jo Lynn set out to prove Russell's death was no accident. Working together to talk with people who knew the couple, they uncovered several key clues. The women told detectives that Barbara's first husband had also died from an accidental gunshot wound. They also learned Barbara had been having extra-marital affairs, and had been hiding an impending financial meltdown from Russell, a meltdown that could be avoided by getting his life insurance settlement. Jo Lynn and Doris poured through boxes of receipts and bills. Their hard work uncovered a large check on which Barbara had forged Russell's signature. With the help of the evidence collected by the two women, detectives arrested Barbara Stager and charged her with her husband's murder. She was convicted and is now serving life in prison. In addition, detectives have reopened the investigation into Barbara's first husband's death. 3/23/08 |
| 114 | Fatal Fall - When 16-year-old Cindy Band came home from a party late on the evening of August 24th, 1980, she walked straight into a nightmare. Police cars surrounded her parents' upscale Long Island home. Inside, her mother Florence lay dead at the bottom of the stairs, apparently the victim of a tragic accident. Cindy's father, Howard, informed the police that Florence had gone downstairs to put leftovers in a basement freezer and had apparently fallen down the stairs. Officially the cause of death was ruled undetermined. But, Cindy became suspicious when, only a few days after the funeral, her father started acting far less grief stricken. He introduced her to a woman named Florence Bierman. Soon the new woman started staying over, sleeping in the same bed Howard once shared with his wife of twenty years. Cindy learned from her sister that Florence Bierman had been dating her father for years, long before their mother passed away. Cindy shared the story with police and discovered that the lead detective on the case also harbored doubts. Slowly, Cindy and the detective began building a case against Howard Band. After three years of working undercover in her own home, Cindy's efforts finally paid off when police arrested her father for her mother's murder. By the time the case went to trial, prosecutors had also tracked down three different men who claimed Howard had inquired about finding a hit man for "a friend." Howard Band was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years to life. He died in prison in 1993. 3/30/08 |
| 115 | The Friendly Stranger - 44-year-old Mary Ellen Renard was determined to make a fresh start. Recently divorced, she'd just moved into an apartment in Elmwood Park, New Jersey. On a warm August night in 1987, she made plans to meet a friend at a singles dance, but her friend had to cancel at the last minute. Mary Ellen decided to go on her own and, toward the end of the night, started up a conversation with a handsome young man almost twenty years her junior. He introduced himself as Ned Snelgrove and told her he was a recent graduate of Rutgers and was now an executive at HP. As flattered as she was by his advances, Mary Ellen decided to call it a night. But when her car wouldn't start, the young man reappeared in the parking lot, got it started, and offered to follow her home to make sure she made it safely. When they arrived, he asked if he could use her bathroom before he left for home. Mary Ellen was apprehensive, but agreed. It was a decision she'd soon come to regret. Once he made it into her apartment, he sexually assaulted her and attacked her with a knife, stabbing her several times. But, Mary Ellen fought back ferociously, and somehow managed to escape into the apartment below hers. Miraculously, she survived the attack and was able to help police identify and apprehend Snelgrove. It wasn't long before the cops got word from a detective in Middlesex County that Snelgrove had been the primary suspect in another murder five years earlier: that of a Rutgers student who'd been attacked in much the same way. But, unlike Mary Ellen, she had not survived. Snelgrove eventually pled guilty to both crimes in exchange for 20 years in prison. But the story was far from over. More than a decade later, Mary Ellen received a visit from two detectives. Snelgrove had been released early for good behavior, and had been arrested for another murder. This time, there would be no deals. Snelgrove was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison - without the possibility of parole. 5/25/08 |
| 116 | The Missing Hunters - A weekend hunting trip turns deadly for two hunters/Unsolved - Janet Abaroa (25) April 26, 2005, her life came to a tragic end. That Tuesday afternoon she picked up Kaiden at day care and went with her husband to drop off her car for repairs. The Abaroas then met with a church member at their home before Raven left the house to play in an indoor soccer game in nearby Morrisville. When he returned a few hours later, Raven found Janet upstairs, dead. She had been stabbed repeatedly. Kaiden was found in his crib uninjured. 6/1/08 |
| 117 | A Mother's Intuition - A mother sets out to prove her daughter's death was not an accident. 6/8/08 |
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