20/20 - The After Show: Cold Cases - Baby Holly and Yogurt Shop Murders

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

Deborah Roberts spoke with former Assistant Texas Attorney General Mindy Montford to reveal how she helped find answers in some of the biggest cold cases.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Harvey Guienne and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday, I'm cutting the lights and telling you a bedtime story. Except these stories are all real. We're talking brazen heist, devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Guillen every Monday. Hi there, everybody. Welcome to 2020 The After Show. I'm Deborah Roberts. And as always, it is a pleasure to have you here with us. As you know, we often dig deeply into some of the episodes we've covered on 2020. And many times, somebody surfaces from those episodes who just really leaves us thinking and wanting to know more. I mean, if you've ever wondered what it takes to solve some of the country's most notorious cold cases, well, today we're going to tell you a little bit more about that because we've got one of the keenest minds. here with us. Mindy Montfort, who has dedicated her career to delivering justice to crime victims and

their families, and she's here to tell us a little bit about her work. She founded the cold case and missing persons unit in the Texas Attorney General's office and has been a big part of some of the most talked about 2020 stories over the years, including Baby Holly, that investigation you may remember, most recently the yogurt shop murders. She's going to talk to us a little bit about how she zeroes in on all of those cases and what she's learned along the way. So Mindy, I I don't want to hear any of that. Oh, Shucks kind of Southern thing. And we're both Southern gals, but honey, you have, you have.

I was going to just say, go on. Go on. Okay, go on some more. Go on some more. Why not? Why not? Well, clearly, clearly you find satisfaction as difficult as it can be. You find great satisfaction in your work.

And you're one of, you know, a few women around the country who does what you do. Give me a sense, first of all, as, as a woman, and you've been on both sides of the aisle, you've been a prosecutor, you've been a defense lawyer, you've seen. sort of, you know, the court system from every angle and also detective work from every angle. What is it that just motivates you to keep going when you are sometimes dealing with very gruesome, brutal situations? You know, I think I got into the area of prosecution because I always felt that there were people who needed someone to represent them and to walk them through this very scary system and to be their voice, especially in a sexual assault case or a murder case.

where the victim just has a hard time or can't speak for themselves. And I wanted to be that voice and I wanted to be able to make sure that we're safe. I think I just had that instilled in me. When I got into the cold case work, it was more about injustice. That, wait a minute, somebody got away with this and they were never held accountable. And these families deserve answers. And I would want those answers. That's kind of what led me to really have a passion for the cold case work.

And to kind of motivate you. Well, as I said, you have worked with us on some of the cold cases that we've covered. As I said, the case of Holly Marie, who was called the Baby Holly story because the case goes back to when she was a child. And she had been missing for about 40 years. It was suspected, tell me, take us back to that case because it was suspected that her parents, Dean and Tina Klaus, were murdered. And it was just a very intense story. My colleague David Muir covered the story. And people were talking about it for a very, very long time.

What still sticks with you from that particular story in case? Being able to be there when we gave Holly her identity in person, you know, right there at that moment, that's just, you can never relive that. And that was just an amazing moment. And I think that's why you keep doing the work you do. You mentioned, well, it's so heinous in the crime scenes. They weigh on you and the trials. Yes. But then you have those moments.

And then going and talking to the families and yogurt shop and delivering the information they've wanted and waited on for so long and bringing that, you know, maybe not justice, but it's answers, maybe it's peace. They'll tell you it's not closure. Yeah. But it's something. It's an answer. And you know, the other thing is I think that people just want to know you haven't forgotten them, that you're working the case. So that was what was amazing about Holly is she didn't even know we were working on the case. case. She just knew she had this, right, this story that was a question in her mind. And when we

showed her the photo of her parents, because she asked to see it, that moment was amazing, the look on her face. And that's when she's teared up and got emotional. Yeah, I remember that. You raise a very good point, though, and I'm reluctant to say closure in our stories, because every family member has said to me, they never have closure. Maybe they're able to sort of move forward a little bit because they do have some answers, but they never do have closure. Give me a sense of when you're talking about cold cases, I mean, there's so many out there. What leads you to sort of pick and choose cases and what draws you to them? There's no place to just, you know, throwing a dart and starting.

I think the cases sort of find you. These families come to you, you know, especially in the Attorney General's office, they would come and say, look, you know, we know that this police department has done a great job, but they're just sort of in a holding pattern. Do you all think there's something else you could do with it? And, you know, we definitely don't come in and try to grade papers, you know, of the detectives that were there before because a lot of them have done incredible police work. It's just they're at a dead end. And so, you know, I think what we can do is offer resources. A lot of these departments don't have full-time cold case investigators. They definitely don't have the money to do DNA testing. And so when you have a bigger agency that has access to state funding and then also grant. funding, we're able to pass that on and help these agencies with their cases. Yeah, yeah, because you can bring in so much more. And sometimes when you're thinking about modern technology, those things are very pricey. You're right. And you're talking small towns oftentimes, right?

And small police departments. Well, do you typically start off where they left off? Or do you often just sort of start from scratch? Like, let's go back to the beginning? Or I'm assuming that it depends on what case you're looking at? It does, but I've always been. And again, I'm not an investigator, I'm, you know, an attorney, but in dealing with the investigators, I think the good ones take it from page one. And we actually tell our investigators to not really go and have in-depth conversations with the previous investigators because we want them to come in fresh, not with tunnel vision. That's right. And start from page one. And they usually start and they go through the entire report before they make any conclusions. And then they'll do an evidence chart,

an evidence log, which is painful. They hate doing them, but they're so important because you've got to figure out what do you have left, you know, that you can test in today's world that you couldn't back then. And that's another great point. I think you've got to remember that a lot of these cases, you know, we'll catch ourselves saying, well, I mean, why didn't they just call somebody with a cell phone? Right, right. Back then, that wasn't part of the technology deal.

Right. You're going to need a pay phone or you're going to need a landline. And so you have to really put yourself into the year. and remember what that year was like when you start reviewing a case. Yeah, when we're working on our stories for 2020, as you know, we often have to go back and sort of, you know, visualize that for people and remind you that there was a pay phone involved or the conveniences that we look at now just were not possible in the 1990s and so forth.

So you have to transport yourself in some ways. Mindy, don't go anywhere because I want to talk more about that. We'll be right back. The best answers from across the globe are about. to join me for the audition of a lifetime. ABC July 13th. Do they have what it takes to compete and be the next Dancing with the Stars Pro?

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I'm Saruti. And every week on Red Handed, we break down a different, fascinating case. From the most recent US trials everyone is obsessing over, like Brendan Banfield, Karen Reid and Ellen Greenberg, to the most unbelievable stories from around the world. There's nothing we love more than digging into every detail of the cases we cover, getting beyond a basic analysis and cutting to the heart of the story. Red Handed has over 400 episodes, ready to binge right now.

Plus, be sure to check out our weekly sister show, shorthand, where we unpack everything, from the Black Death to Area 51. If you're looking for smart, detailed true crime with personality, check out Red-Handed wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 2020 The After Show. I am joined today by Mindy Montfort, who founded the Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit

in the Texas Attorney General's Office, and she's giving us a lot of detail about how they do their work. I'm really curious about what kind of a total. it takes because, you know, when you think about immersing yourself in these cases, and as I said, you know, they're difficult cases. Sometimes you work on them for many, many years. You're dealing with family members who are also heartbroken and maybe sometimes skeptical of the system. I know it takes a toll on them, but what about on you when you're working these cases? You know, Deborah, I do not think I slept a full night without thinking about yogurt shop until we got the news about

Robert Marathson. Really, since you took the case on? Yeah, I think there's all, and if it maybe, maybe it wouldn't be about yogurt, but I go to bed and think, what are we missing on this one? Or, you know, there'd be a case that I had just been reviewing and I'm thinking at night, there's got to be something we need to be testing or what should we do tomorrow, you know, because you just, you live and breathe these cases. You really, they do become, people say, well, what do you read for pleasure? I don't, I, you know, I'm reading police reports. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When do you have, I want to go watch 2020. Well, we know you watch 2020.

That is the one thing you do make time for. Well, you mentioned the yogurt shop murders. You had worked exclusively with us on this story. It was a heartbreaking story of four teenage girls who were viciously, horrendously, you know, murdered. And then their bodies set on fire as somebody tried to, you know, cover their tracks here. It was a case that stretched on for more than 30 years. It seemed to be unsolvable. police had done a lot of work, but tell me a little bit about that case. And when you're looking at

cold cases, what was that moment that finally sort of helped crack the case? Well, I have to give complete props to Dan Jackson with the Austin Police Department because really it was his great detective work. I mean, obviously over the years, we all work as a team and everybody contributes. And I don't think we would be here where we are today if, you know, there hadn't been one piece of the puzzle that somebody put together and contributed. But, But Dan is the one who said, we're going to reenter our 380 shell casing because technology has improved. Let's reenter this in the national database system and see if we might get a hit.

And he had it within hours. He uploaded that. And then within hours, we had this hit to this Kentucky case. It was unbelievable. So it was the first big moment. And then it just sort of snowballed from there because it was all hands-on deck at that point. It was we want to test everything. You know, we had been holding back a lot of the evidence waiting for technology to improve

or, you know, knowing that that might be our last ditch effort. But once we finally had the word that Brechers actually matched to our, you know, infamous unknown male profile that we'd had for years, we had that piece of evidence. Then it was Dan's call to say, let's go for broke. Let's send everything now to the private lab, get it tested. and let's do it on a rush. Yeah. And so within a few days, we had even more DNA from Robert Brissier's under the fingernails of Amy Ayers. And it paid off.

What did you learn from that case that you've been able to apply to other cases? I'm sure you build on different things that you learn that you can maybe take to something else. Absolutely. You know, I think every time we do one of these cases, we learn something more about DNA. It's so confusing. It's mind-boggling. But the labs are so patient with you because they'll say, no, no, no, there's a lot. There's no such thing as a stupid question.

Ask it again. So I think you do that enough times you realize what questions you need to be asking. And then you also know which labs you can use and that are going to have good results and they're accredited and you build those relationships. Relationships with other agencies. You know, we couldn't have put all these pieces together without talking to, you know, all these police departments and working together to figure out different crimes. I mean, I can say that about any of our cases.

Yeah, you talk about that a lot, that it's not obviously. just you alone, you work with others to try to put all of this together. In fact, you collaborate with like forensic genealogists sometimes and even psychics, is that right? Somebody, a little birdie told me. I made the comment that we will take what, when you were at a dead end, you will listen to anybody. If it sounds somewhat credible, you'll listen. You'll listen. I've heard that in other stories that I've covered. Oftentimes psychics will weigh in and call police departments and sometimes they do have an idea about something that actually leads you in a direction that might help get you someplace. Mindy, I want to dig a little bit more. I want you to just stay with this. We're going to have to take a quick break, so don't go anywhere. Three decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in her bedroom in Idaho Falls.

It was probably the worst case I've ever seen. It is the one that sticks with me. Police zero in on a suspect and put a man behind bars. I don't know what the hell you guys want. Do you think we'd be wasting our time and wasting your time if we didn't think you're involved? But as the years pass, doubts emerge about whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades-long mission to uncover the truth. 23 years I've been trying to put this puzzle together and the center's missing. I've always been told the truth will come out. You can't hide the truth.

Listen to the snare. a new series from ABC Audio. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app, and add free on Amazon Music. Welcome back to 2020 The After Show. I'm talking with Mindy Montford, who is a former assistant, Texas Attorney General. She founded the Missing Persons and Cold Case Unit, and she's been at work with our team here at 2020 on a lot of our most talked about investigations. When you're talking about finding justice for the families, Mindy, and justice isn't always, you know, neat.

and tidy. As you said in the case of the yogurt shop murders, the killer was eventually was dead by the time you actually were able to find him. Justice is kind of different for everybody. I mean, is that what you're going for? Do you feel like you're finding justice? Or are there times where you feel like it's solved and there's an answer, but it's not really justice? You know, justice, at least when the families I've talked to say, look, at least you haven't forgotten our family member, the fact that you, it's not collecting. dust on a shelf that you're actually looking in 2026 at new things to do on this case, they do feel that that's some justice.

I think justice to me is trying to find the answer. Again, you know, yes, you're right. You may never prosecute that person and you may never get 50 years or life sentence or anything like that or restitution, but you're going to at least know maybe what happened to your loved one. I can't even imagine losing a loved one to a horrible. to a horrible, violent crime and then not having the extra, you know, punch in the gut that you don't even know who did it. Yeah, you just have to write it off over the years.

Before I let you go, so many of these cases that we cover involve young women. And it's never lost on me that it impacts young women in a big way when they hear about these stories. Have you, do you, any lessons you might impart or any thoughts when you've looked at violent crime and things that have happened around the country? and, you know, oftentimes it is, you know, women who are the victims here. Any advice for young women who might be targeted in these cases or just, I don't know, any thoughts for women who might be listening to this? You know, I think we do. As women, we have to be observant of our surroundings.

And someone said this to me the other day on a case. You know, it tells you to trust your gut. And I think if your gut is telling you something's not right, you know, don't be afraid to call the police or to call a friend. or to, you know, turn the light on or to get the heck out of there, whatever it is, whatever situation you're in. But I think we've got to trust our intuition and our gut, but to mainly be observant of your surroundings. I think we just sort of take it for granted sometimes that people aren't watching.

And it's scary. I think we have to live like that. And, you know, when you see the shows and the stories and the cases we do, it's very, my son always makes fun of me. Like, mom, you know, God, I'm just going to the store. Yeah. Yeah, I do the same thing. But, you know, you have the, you just see these fact patterns. I feel like I'm living in a police report sometimes. So, you know, it doesn't happen as often as we think it does. Yeah. And, you know, it really doesn't. And you can still trust people, of course. But just to be vigilant and to know your surroundings and I think to travel in pairs, I think that's always a good, a good piece of advice. A good piece of advice. And I think to your point, just like really trusting if something doesn't feel right, you know, chances are it's not and to speak.

up and to speak out. Well, hopefully this will be helpful to folks out there. And also, too, just thank you so much for the work that you do, Mindy. It is such a pleasure to get a chance to talk to you and learn more about how you've been able to help families around this country and also find some satisfaction yourself in doing work that makes a difference. Well, thank you, Debra, and thanks again for the show and for putting that word out there to everybody. Absolutely. Well, we'll be talking to you sooner than later because we'll be teaming up on something. Mindy, thank you for being with us. And thank you for joining us for this podcast. episode. And of course, you can find 2020 on Friday nights on ABC and stream episodes like this one

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