20/20 - True Crime Vault: The Woman in the Suitcase

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

A serial rapist was on the loose for years before an abandoned suitcase put a stop to his crimes. Originally broadcast April 5, 2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Picture this. You're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and boom, you realize you're missing a part. It's okay, because you know whatever it is, it's on eBay. They've got everything. Brakes, headlights, cold air intakes, whatever you need. And it's guaranteed to fit, which means no more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need, at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. eBay. Things. People. Love. Welcome to the True Crime Vault, home to 2020's most chilling stories. This young lady vanished into thin air. So that was the intriguing part. That was the piece of the puzzle that you had to solve first.

It's the last we see of her. Pretty much somebody dumped her out there. To die? Yes. The memory was not clear because I was in pain, in too much pain. My head was not working. This woman had a horrific assault.

She has no clue what the heck happened to her. Were you thinking at any point that this case is just unsolvable? You take whatever clue you have might take you to a dead end might take you a blind alley But it might take you to the promised land Ken Brennan picks up on this one little piece of information That everyone else missed This was the defining moment in the whole case right here. This is a pretty bizarre theory. They're looking at me like,

what the hell kind of an investigator are you? I tried to bring myself back into the accident and see if I can remember something else. Wow. Wow is right. You've got to be kidding me. Right now the temperatures as cool as Homestead at 70 and as warm as 74 in Mikasuki. Should be a very good beach day.

Sun's up at 651. This was one of those cases that just sort of grabs you by the throat. It's just a complete mystery. It's about 815, 830 in the morning. The sun's starting to come up. You've got a Florida Power and Light worker driving up the street. And he notices what he thinks is a body. White female, blonde hair, nude, battered up, unconscious, lying on the side of the

road. She was dumped out and left for dead. This mystery woman who's just sort of turned up out of nowhere, clearly a crime has happened and they don't know what to make of this at this point in the game. The woman was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Rider Trauma Center in critical condition. Miami-Dade detective Alan Foote was the one who got this case. She had cuts on her face. She has swollen jaws, bruises on her body.

She was unconscious for almost 24 straight hours. I started out by going out and knocking door to door in the area. I didn't see anything or heard anything. There's no clothing or anything that would distinguish who she is. We've got no identification. I've got a Jane Doe on my hands. I'm running into nothing.

And now the big question for investigators, who is this woman and what happened to her? A day passed as investigators waited to see if she was gonna regain consciousness. I remember voices around me. Somebody asked me what was my name. I um, I had a lot of pain. I was in pain. Very, very, very painful.

At first it's almost impossible for her to speak, but she can write. When she came to, I get a phone call telling me that she's written some things down on a piece of paper. Her name is Ina Butnitskaya. She's Ukrainian. She wasn't particularly adept with English. Ina had been working for a cruise ship line. I wanted to have an occupation in my life. I want to be someone.

But I guess... it's all change. One of the things she writes down is, my attorney's name is this and a phone number. Why did she write attorney? Did she need an attorney? Had she done something? What was that all about? So that was kind of the mystery number one.

I did not know whether she was involved in something civil or something criminal. But for someone to ask for an attorney as a victim right off the bat, does throw a red flag. I didn't know nobody. I was alone up here. So the only one person who I knew, that was my attorney. She was trying to reconstruct the events of probably the most horrific thing that can happen to anybody, much less a visitor to a strange country.

Her attorney basically tells me she has a civil lawsuit from an injury she sustained while working for the cruise line. My finger was caught and I was signed off of the ship for the medical treatment. She was recovering from this injury and the cruise ship line had put her up in the hotel where she was just biding her time until the wound healed. The first break Detective Foote has in this case is that the hotel where she is staying has a rather sophisticated extensive surveillance camera system. We have 16 cameras covering the whole perimeter of the hotel including parking lot, the entrance, the exits, the lobby, the restaurant, the

lobby bar, the front desk, the back exits. Those cameras have a motion sensor detector. And then we have two security guards at night on duty. So we can see anybody or anything that happens in the perimeter of the hotel. So Detective Foote starts to look at the cameras. Now, where's the guard shack up here? It's here.

Frame by frame to see if he can capture his victim and also anybody else that might have interacted with her inside the hotel. There's no video cameras in the hallways. They don't do that for privacy of your guests. There's no video cam in the elevator. So all you have to rely on is the exterior and the interior lobby.

In the hospital, slowly Ina is beginning to fill in a few blanks about what happened to her on the night of the attack. I left in the hotel. I went outside with my friend for dinner. Had fun. We stayed there a while. Had some drinks. We were able to place her coming back to the hotel at approximately 1130 midnight. There's no mistake in her. The security cameras catch her leaving again at 333 a.m. in a red jacket and then returning at 340. Did that strike you as odd that she's going and coming in the middle of the night? I mean, she could explain that.

I went to the gas station to buy a phone card. I'm very close with my mother. I used to call her very often back in Ukraine. I love her and I miss her. She misses me. After running her errands, Ina returns to the hotel lobby at about 3 41 a.m. and she's never seen by those cameras again. It's the last we see of her so that's how we believe she was attacked in the hotel. The only chance that you have of sorting out what happened to her is when she starts

talking. The memory was not clear because I was in pain, in too much pain. My head was not working absolutely. I was in shock. I couldn't stand up and I could not walk. It was very cold, if I remember. It was very, very cold and dark and cold. The fragments of memory that she had didn't add up in any significant way.

The biggest mystery, of course, is how did she get out of the hotel? Do you come up with any theories? I was looking for anything. I'm looking in her room over the balcony. I'm looking in the bushes to see if a body was thrown over and there was a body imprint or maybe she was lowered by rope. But all of the possible explanations didn't check out. The effort to find out who had done this to her was really hung up on the question of

how had she ended up eight miles away in the weeds? They just have questions here, very few answers. Is she somehow involved in this? Is there something in her life that wasn't revealed? Somebody she knows? Is it somehow tied to the hotel? This investigation is yielding nothing. Investigators are still trying to figure out who would have attacked this woman and left her for dead in a field.

Detective Alan Foote is becoming frustrated. I start following other leads, suspects in the case. Investigators identify the person that she was out with the night she disappeared. Peter Demoulias, who's a Greek national, and he also works on a cruise ship. The police, they ask me what happened with Inna. He told me that they went out to the Coconut Grove area, where they went bar hopping, they had quite a few drinks, and eventually, about 10 o'clock that night, they caught a cab back to his apartment.

He gets out, and then she takes the cab to her hotel room. Why I have to worry, I don't worry. I know I am not on the crime. Police look into Peter's background. They realize that several months prior, Peter was actually arrested for a dispute between the two of them at a nightclub in Miami. Peter felt that there were some unsavory characters there

and wanted her to leave. So she did not want to leave. And he kind of grabbed her by the arm and they got into a little argument. And an officer working security arrested him for domestic violence. Did that make him a suspect in your mind? Partially.

But then there are people in the hotel that they're also looking at. There is the night manager, George Perez. What does he know? The very first time I met George Perez, he looked at me and said, oh my God, I hate cops. Pretty blunt, pretty honest. Oh yeah, I'm used to it. Was I nervous? Absolutely, I would have every right to be.

So they're taking a good look at George Perez because first of all, he has this hostile attitude. He doesn't like cops. He's made that very clear. But then there's video tape of him talking to Ina. You can see her arm in this surveillance camera where clearly she's had conversations with him. He left the front desk unattended

and went into the elevator with the victim and was gone for approximately 15 minutes and then came back down alone. I asked him why he was going in the elevator with Ina and he told me she was a little intoxicated. George has a master key to every room in the hotel. And so it was important to sort of timeline him the night she disappeared.

She had had a few drinks out with her friends. And I could tell that she was a little bit intoxicated. So I escorted her, made sure she got into the room safely, came back down to my post. Does she look intoxicated on the tape to you? No, no. So with that, he became my second suspect. By now in the investigation, the police realized

that not only was she severely beaten, but she was also raped. And so now they believe they have the DNA of a suspect. So now investigators go back to that friend and the hotel manager to get their DNA, see if it was a match. They had asked me if I would be subject to a DNA sample, which I voluntarily agreed to without a problem. Also I don't afraid about that.

And then, finally, they think they might actually have a little bit of a break here. Ina is beginning to remember. Fragments of that night are starting to come into focus. I saw dreams. I saw nightmares. For me, it was very difficult to realize what was the reality, what was not the reality. What did she say about who she thought had assaulted her? There were two white gentlemen.

I don't think she could give me an age. They were either Hispanic or European accents. I remember I guess at least two other people. I don't remember the faces. I remember like a noise. And I remember a person like standing over here, putting like a pillow or something. And then it's dark, you know,

it's just like a feeling that you cannot breathe. Ina's memory was very iffy, and she kept coming up with slightly different versions of what she thought might have happened. So they did try hypnotism. They tried everything they could think of. One memory she has is of being taken down the back stairs of the hotel,

out the door, and put into a car. I remember that something is going down, down, and down, like somebody cares you. And like you're going down, down, down, down. It's like a flush, it's a small flush of the memory. She also said that she had vague memories of being sexually assaulted in a car. I remember a laugh, somebody was laughing at this point. The problem is there are surveillance cameras at this back door that doesn't capture any of this. The cameras work properly so we reached a dead end on that point it just

didn't fit. For every step forward they get a couple steps backward because her memory is all over the place then she's certain she remembers something happening in her room. So her story is changing how much of a red flag was that to you? For me it wasn't a giant red flag. She had some head trauma some serious head trauma and I was giving the benefit of the doubt that that's pretty much what was causing the lack of memory. Investigators obviously are wide open

to look at any potential lead and search in his room to see if there's any evidence of an attack there. I'm expecting furniture to be flipped, dressers to be knocked over, bed mattresses all over. I found it as a typical room, undisturbed. No sign of a fight or assault? No, beds unmade. I found beer bottles. I found clothes hanging in the bathroom, but nothing to indicate that there had been any kind of a struggle. What's hard for the detectives is that Ina is a victim, of course, but they're beginning to think

that there's more to her story than either she is willing to tell them or maybe she can tell them. Investigators are frustrated, and so they go back and look as much as they can at Ina's movements. And it helps them that the hotel has a swipe key card system so they'll be able to go back and see exactly when she went into a room. They notice that Ina is coming back into the hotel getting on the elevator and it's 3 41 a.m. but then when she gets back to her room and she's got that key to swipe

that tells what time it's 3 58 that's 17 minutes that to swipe that tells what time. It's 3.58. That's 17 minutes. That's a big gap. What happened? Police then have to look at a kind of unsavory theory. Could she be a prostitute? Could she have possibly gone to meet somebody, maybe a John, at his room? They didn't tell me exactly, are you prostitute? All right?

But the questions were like, you know, if I ever had a sex for money. And this kind of question, it was emotionally difficult, very, very, very difficult. Talking to employees at the hotel, security guards outside, even talking to her, I'm picking up absolutely zilch, nothing to indicate that she was a prostitute. On the contrary, everybody thought very highly of her, very quiet, very private girl.

So that left you kind of at a dead end at that point. Right. The case seems to be going nowhere and then somebody else enters the picture. An unlikely character who has a pretty unlikely theory. I could feel it. I knew this was the guy. Picture this. You're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and boom, you realize you're missing a part. It's okay, because you know whatever it is, it's on eBay.

They've got everything. Brakes, headlights, cold air intakes, whatever you need. And it's guaranteed to fit, which means no more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. eBay. Things people love. Picture this. You're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and boom you realize you're missing a part. It's okay because you know whatever it is, it's on eBay. They've got everything.

Brakes, headlights, cold air intakes, whatever you need. And it's guaranteed to fit, which means no more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. eBay. Things people love. ["Spring Day in the City"] ["Spring Day in the City"] ["Spring Day in the City"]

Ken Brennan is a private eye who's kind of right out of central casting. I mean, if you've ever met him, you remember Ken Brennan. He wears gold chains and rings on his fingers, and he rides a motorcycle. He speaks with a New York, Long Island accent, filled with profanity. He is funny, blunt, smart. If he's on a case, he's gonna solve it. What is it about this kind of work that attracts you? It doesn't like catching bad guys.

Something I've always, you know, enjoyed doing, even when I was a youngster. I've been working in law enforcement since 1975. I was in law enforcement before I was a youngster. I've been working in law enforcement since 1975. I was in law enforcement before I was a police officer before, as well as, you know, being a federal agent. Is it true that you've never taken a sick day? No, I really haven't. You enjoy what you're doing, it never seems like a job then.

So when the Miami case dropped into your lap, what did you think? Me, the fact that nobody knew how she got out of the hotel. That she just kind of vanished. And especially because it involved a sexual assault. This is a guy who feels determined to get justice in cases that involve sexual predators. In fact, he told us that he carries around the arrest file of the very first sexual predator whom he interrogated. They're the worst crimes, I feel, of all of them. And there's too many of them out there that aren't solved.

One of the big challenges in sexual assault cases is that it's typically not funded as much as robbery and homicide. And so what happens is that sexual assault investigators get overwhelmed. And these cases aren't easy to solve. As weeks turn to months, now nine months in the investigation, and they still have no idea

who attacked her. Were you thinking at any point that this case is just unsolvable? I don't like to think that and I really didn't think that. I always kept hope that something would eventually solve the case. I don't like to give up. By now, Enos filed a lawsuit against the hotel, alleging negligence in the security that they had that allowed this to happen.

We felt they could have had better security. They weren't monitoring the security cameras correctly. They let an assailant onto the grounds of the hotel. Why and how somebody would get into your room without the key. How? The hotel is denying any wrongdoing, so that's where Ken Brennan comes in. When a hotel gets sued in a big case like this, they will typically hire their own investigator to determine the facts as best they can.

We have to clear the responsibility of the hotel. What happened in our hotel can happen in the best hotel in the world. The biggest glaring thing was that nobody really knew how it occurred. Everybody loves a good mystery. Everybody wants to be the ability to solve something that somebody wasn't able to do before.

Of course, that would be rewarding. What did you think of Ken Brennan when you first laid eyes on him? This guy's going to drive me nuts. Most police officers don't like PIs. How'd you get him to accept and to trust you? They said, hey, listen, Alan, I'm not going to mess up your case.

I'm not going to screw it up. If we're going to solve this thing, we're going to be a team. We're going to work it together. You don't like PIs, but yet you trusted him. Why? There was just something about him that was honest. I really felt that he was going to do what he said. One of the first things that Detective Foot

shares with private investigator Ken Brennan is that the DNA doesn't match Peter DeMullius or George Perez. Those two guys are eliminated, but now Ken Brennan's trying to figure out what did happen. Then he begins to share with the detectives his suspicions about Ina. Could there be more to the story? Could there be more about her? So he begins knocking on doors around the neighborhood where she was found.

I know she can remember about that thing. Where exactly were they across the street? I bothered to take the time and to surveil her activities while she was still in the neighborhood. And there was nothing indicative of her being a prostitute. So you ruled that out? So I ruled that out pretty readily in the very beginning of the investigation.

I was very, very upset about this. Very, very upset. I knew who I was. I know who I am. Another mystery. The tape shows the victim entering the elevator at 3 41 AM. And then her room key swipe is

showing recording at 358 so how did you explain those missing 17 minutes? There seemed to have been a problem they thought that maybe she might have went to another room one saw somebody I said well listen did anybody bother to take the time to find out if the time stamp on the security cameras, if that matched the time stamp on the card access system, which nobody ever did. And it turns out when we did do that, there was a 17 minute lapse. So that mysterious gap in time wasn't really a mystery at all, just a clock that was 17 minutes off.

I knew immediately that after she was on that elevator she went up directly to a room. One of the theories that occurred to Ken was because Ina had asked for a lawyer right at the beginning there was some thought that this was some sort of Eastern European organized crime con. I thought that in this particular case that it might have been a possibility. The whole purpose was to try to obtain money from either the insurance company or from the hotel itself. It happens all over the world. Because she was filing a lawsuit against the hotel, a big lawsuit. Exactly. And she didn't make a very good witness.

Because she flip-flopped on a lot of the statements that she had given to police. It just made me laugh. I mean, I don't know from where did they take this and who came up with this idea? I believe that no matter what happened, it was going to be in the videotape. How much footage were you going to have to comb through? Because there were a lot of cameras in the hotel, right? Hours upon hours upon hours upon hours. It was extensive. That's something that you have to go through almost frame by frame.

Frame by frame. It was countless amount of hours. Ken has a very deliberate way of looking at the cases that he takes. He knew she had to have left the hotel, and he believed from everything he understood about the way the camera systems worked, that that had to have been recorded. You had to watch each and every frame on every video because we originally looking for possibly an employee that might have moved one of the cameras out of the location was originally at and maybe possibly snuck the victim past that way. Slowly but

surely Brennan has begun to eliminate pretty much everybody they've looked at except one guy. She goes out on the video. She goes out of the hotel early in the morning, which returns. There's a big, large black man standing with her. And she just has a quick conversation with him. They get onto the elevator together. Trying to look to see, do they look like they know each other?

Because again, I'm thinking this could still possibly be a scam or something like that. And after you keep reviewing it, it doesn't look like they have any kind of familiarity. He's just offering her to walk in front. She's not acknowledging him like she knows him. So Brendan has kind of given up on this whole conspiracy theory idea. It appeared in the video that this was just a chance meeting and that it was nothing. It was staged.

And it didn't appear to be staged at all. Now he's moved on to something else. He's looking at this one guy on the elevator. But that seems like it's a stretch as well. Later on during the video, he's seen exiting the elevator. So we follow him to another camera, and he goes off the property. While I'm watching the video of this person coming off

the elevator, and I went through this frame at a time. Sometimes the smallest details ultimately end up cracking a case. This was the defining moment in the whole case right here. This young lady vanished into thin air. That was the intriguing part. That was the piece of the puzzle that you had to solve first. Ken Brennan is now fixated on this guy that he saw on the surveillance camera walking into the hotel. You first see him at that elevator entering it with Ina at about 3.41 a.m. and then you

see him leaving with a suitcase at 5.28. About an hour later, he comes back and he re-enters the hotel but he doesn't have the suitcase with him. Does that register something right away in your mind? As soon as he comes back without the suitcase, now he becomes a person of interest to me. He was the only one that had the time and the opportunity to commit the crime and come back to the scene. Many people would look at this video and just think, okay, a guy's wheeling a suitcase out

of the elevator. Brennan sees something that nobody else would see. Ken observed that when this man pulled the suitcase out of the elevator, he had to give that little suitcase a tug to get it over the little lip between the elevator and the floor. The suspect has to reach back and grab the handles with both hands to pull that suitcase out of the crack.

I do a lot of traveling, you do a lot of traveling, I'm sure you have a lot of your clothing items in it. Was it ever so heavy you needed two hands to pull it out of the crack? No, probably not. As soon as he made the tug, as soon as he tugged that with both hands, like a light bulb went off in my head and I said, she's in that suitcase. Ken Brennan is convinced that this suitcase may well have a body in it. And the problem is he's having trouble convincing the investigators, in particular, Detective Foote, that this could be a plausible way that, you know, was taken out of the hotel.

You know, where's this guy taken out of the hotel. You know, where's this guy coming out of left field with this black male suspect? Alan Foote's reaction was that this just was not possible. The suitcase was too small. It was just an outlandish theory. But this is a small suitcase. What would lead you to even think a woman

could fit into a small suitcase? Well, the reason why I thought a woman might be able to fit in the suitcase is because this is a large guy. So our frame of reference on how large a suitcase is might be a little off. So I decided to use a measurement of the suitcase in relationship with markings on the elevator itself. With that reference point, it's pretty incredible.

Brennan's able to determine that the bag is actually 29 inches high. And if you examine this image, where we see the suitcase against the floor runner, he concludes that the bag is 19 inches wide, just like this one. Then I knew exactly how wide the suitcase was. And then you were able to really theorize that someone could fit in there. That's correct. What I did was I had a, one of the fellows that worked for me had a girlfriend who was that size.

So we got a hold of a suitcase that was the same dimensions and see if she could fit in it. She did. Because yeah, she fits fine. The theory seems so bizarre. I mean, a grown woman being stuffed into a suitcase. So we decided to conduct a little unscientific experiment just to see. We went to a gymnastic school and found a couple of women who are about Ina's size and asked if they

would help us figure this out. Our volunteer is about 5'3", Ina's size and to our shock and amazement she was actually able to fit inside this suitcase comfortably. We could zip it up and wheel her around. She was okay, but it proved Brennan's theory. So I knew that she would fit. All I was doing is basically validating what my hunch was. Brennan's theory actually fits now, the evidence and even the timeline. He's able to conclude that this guy was able

to go into the hotel, follow Ina, we see him on the elevator, somehow assault her, put her in the suitcase. We see him leaving the hotel with a suitcase, get her in his car, drive her to a location and dump her body and then come right back to the hotel with a suitcase, get her in his car, drive her to a location and dump her body and then come right back to the hotel. All the puzzles started fitting together at that particular point. And I knew I had my guy there.

Then I just had to find out who the heck he was. The real dilemma at this point for Ken Brennan is he has a person pulling the suitcase, but he has no idea who that person is. He's got to find this guy. He's got to identify this guy. It's not a job anymore. It's an obsession. I said, hell, the high water.

I know I'm right. I could feel it. I knew this was the guy. I was going to catch this guy. Whether it's a family member, friend or furry companion joining your summer road trip, enjoy the peace of mind that comes with Volvo's legendary safety. During Volvo Discover Days, enjoy limited time savings as you make plans to cruise through Muskoka or down Toronto's bustling streets.

From now until June 30th, lease the 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. Picture this. You're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and boom, you realize you're missing a part. CA for full details. crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. eBay, things people love. When Ken Brennan posed this idea that Ena had been attacked

by this large man that we see on the surveillance tape, wheeled out of the hotel in a suitcase and dumped, Detective Foote thought this was a joke. Thinking that maybe he's a little out there. Sometimes we're all out there, but it's a lead. It's not on my priority. I'm putting this lead off to the side while I pursue the leads that I have. Actually, he said, well, you know, that's a nice theory. Good luck with it.

Let me know when you get any further. Ken is persistent, and, you know, he went after that lead. He's determined. He is determined. This is a pretty bizarre theory. How does this go over with the hotel? In fact, one of the owners said, what the hell kind of an investigator are you?

He goes, you're telling me it's this big black guy. Everybody else says it's too white his back, you know. Where is this coming from? And they all started laughing. And that's what really pissed me off. And I said, hell of a high war I'm gonna find out. I'm gonna prove to these people that I'm right. I knew this was the guy and I was gonna catch this guy.

The case is pretty cold at this point. He's long gone. How do you even begin to try to find this guy? You know, I don't know if he was somebody that was staying at the hotel, that was a visitor that was just visiting. This guy just walked off the street. We didn't know, so that was the next part of the investigation.

Like so many hotels, this one actually photocopied IDs of registered guests, but you can see the pictures are barely recognizable and weren't even useful. So you go back to the tape. So you go back to the tape. So I go back to the tape. And what do you find? I was looking to see if he had any interaction with any of the other people at the hotel. And he does.

He ends up interacting with another fellow. The big question now is, who is this second man that they see on the videotape? Well, Brennan, being the eagle-eyed that he is, notices right away that the man is wearing a lanyard around his neck. Could that help them pinpoint where this guy might have worked?

I'm trying to find out why he's wearing this name tag. Problem is that they can't read it. The video simply isn't good enough to allow them to see what the name is on that land. One of the problems with surveillance cameras are that they many times are not totally crystal clear. So for example, if you have names on a nameplate, you may only capture part of it. And unfortunately, that's where Brendan is at this point. He has partial words, but he doesn't know exactly what they mean.

They even went to NASA to see if they had ways of magnifying images that would tell him what was on that ID badge. And I say, listen, I know you guys look at digital photography from light years away. Maybe you could help me out on this case that I'm working. So they couldn't do it? No, so they informed me, listen, you know, we tried,

but we're not able to get that for you. So I said, OK, fine, you know, let's go back to the tape. Later on in the video, when he's out by the hallway, you can clearly see that this says Mercury. But I just didn't. What's Mercury? That was the problem. I didn't know if it would be anything.

And on the back of his shirt, you could make Al Bailey a V and an O. And for whatever reason, I don't know. I think that says Verado. What the hell's a Verado? I said, I don't know. Let's find out. So then I went online and did a search. And I got a hit and it showed that Mercury Marine made a brand new outboard engine by the name of Verado. After I saw that and I realized that was a boat engine by the name of Verado. After I saw that and I realized that was a boat engine, I said, these guys are working at the boat show. He discovered that in fact this big boat show had been going on at the same time that this

crime occurred. And then they learned that Mercury was a major exhibitor during the vote show. Brennan is convinced that he's just about to close this case. He assumes that the guy he's looking at works with this other guy that he's seen on the tape, at Mercury. And so now the only thing he's got to do is figure out who he is. Ken would text me or send me emails of everything he's got to do is figure out who he is. Ken would text me or send me emails of everything he's doing. He tells me about the t-shirt and the Verado.

And at this point, I'm giving him the thumbs up. Good job. Berkner & Marina is actually the parent company is a company by the name of Brunswick. I ended up contacting Brunswick speaking to the head of security. And I said, listen, do you have any employees that stayed at the airport Regency Hotel? And he said, no, we didn't.

So it's a dead end? So it's a little bit of a setback. So I said, well, trust me, one of the guys there was walking around with one of those Mercury Verado shirts. Somebody was giving them out. So he goes, okay, let me get back there. So I said, okay, fine. A couple days later, he calls me back. He says, as far as we can tell, the only people that received any of the Verado shirts were employees that worked at the food court.

So another connection. So there's another connection. I said, well, let's find out who's the caterer for the Miami Boat Show. So it ends up becoming a company called Center Plate. So I ended up contacting Center Plate and they told me, listen, we'd love to be able to help you, but we hire people from all over the country. We wouldn't be able to tell you where these people stayed no matter what.

They told him that they do reimburse people for housing, but they have no idea where they might stay. They simply don't have that kind of detail. These are people who are coming in, doing contract work, and when it comes to the hotel, it's up to them where they stay. They can't say who stayed at the Regency Airport Hotel, so now he's hit another dead end. But I've come a long way, and I said, I'm not going to give up on this guy yet. I said, listen, he's hit another dead end. But I've come a long way and I said I'm not gonna give up on this guy yet.

I said listen, he's really distinctive. The guy's about six foot four. He's a black fella and he wears glasses. So I said does anybody remember working with a guy that matches that description? Sure enough about a week or so later he says nobody knows the guy's name, but one of the people that remembered seeing this fella remembers something about him being hired out of Louisiana. He believes that's where he's from. So now you've gone from Miami to Louisiana. So now I'm over in Louisiana. Brennan's search is now taking a big turn to the Big Easy.

Trying to find somebody in New Orleans is kind of like finding a needle in a haystack. I'm so far into this investigation now there's no way I'm going to let this guy go. I'm going to track this guy down. This is a case that has detectives in Miami stumped. It all starts in this hotel lobby. A petite blonde woman walking onto a hotel elevator. Was found miles away from where she was supposed to be.

No memory of what had happened to her. She had been badly beaten. You're begging for your life. And for someone, it's funny. Somebody was laser focused on this case, determined to solve it. This comes down to one particular moment where Brennan believes he's pulled the case together.

As soon as he talked that with both hands, like a light bulb went off in my head and I said, she's in that suitcase. He stuffed her in that thing, then she was a corpse. Why me? What did I do? I'm so far into this investigation now, there's no way I'm gonna let this guy go.

Brennan is now going in for the kill. He's telling me, I got the guy, this is the guy. This is gonna be your guy. The person is so casual that he acts like a person who's done this sort of thing before. You'll see, there'll be other cases start popping up. Bingo. I screamed with everything I had. On that night, her whole life changed.

It was like Jekyll and Hyde. I could just see the monster come over him. I just want you to catch this guy. I knew I had the guy. And now I just gotta find out what the hell is it. It's New Orleans. It's Mardi Gras. It is one of the biggest parties of the year. But Mardi Gras also can have a dark side. The wildness of Mardi Gras can be a problem for the police because people who are drinking that much in crowded situations sometimes are out of control and it can be it can cause real law enforcement problems.

It was here in 2000 that Captain Ernest Demme found himself in the middle of all of his mayhem trying to arrest a rowdy college kid. And it did not go well. This is 10-11 o'clock at night. I was in the process of effecting arrest and during the course of the arrest, a young college kid was able to get out of my grasp and start running down Rawl Street. And for all practical purposes, once he gets in the crowd, it's over. And out of nowhere, out of nowhere from the crowd comes this dark, imposing figure,

just like you'd see in a Batman comic book. I mean, he swooped down on this kid before the kid even knew what was going on. I happened to have been on vacation with my two boys and we were at Mardi Gras. There was a tussle and the guy broke away from him and started running through the crowd and I witnessed it and I ran the guy down. And boom, Batman comes, swoops down on him, tackles him in the street, pins him down. And by the time we got there, it was over.

I gave him the nickname Batman just because how the incident unfolded. Yeah, he called me Batman because I had a black turtleneck. And you swooped in. Black jeans on, so when I went and grabbed the guy he said I looked like Batman coming through the crowd. It was almost like we bonded together immediately. So we ended up becoming friends because of that incident and he says listen if you ever need any help in New Orleans give me a call. Well I need help in New Orleans.

So that time is now. Brennan reaches out to Captain Dema of the New Orleans Police Department for help. He called me and he said, Ernie, this is Ken Brennan. I said, who? He said, Batman. And then I knew who he was. I call him up and I say, listen, you know, I need help. Well, like I said, if he would have called me and asked me for anything, especially criminal activity, I would have filed it. So he calls him and he tells him about this big investigation about the guy with the suitcase, how he's trying to track down who this guy is and having a tough time doing it and he tells him about this

company's center plate that had employed a guy from Louisiana who fit the description of the suspect he's looking for. Ken knows that the man he's looking for was doing food concessions, and he needs somebody in New Orleans to help him find out who this person was. Center Plate handles a venue outside of New Orleans at a semi-pro baseball stadium. So I said, listen, you know, I know it's not even in your city, but do you mind sending a guy out and see if you can find a guy, a big six foot four black guy, wearing glasses?

That kind of information wouldn't really be in the computer because we were looking for someone who only fit the description of a large African American, and we really didn't have any information on him per se that I know of. It was just talking with other officers who worked at the Zephyr Field and see if they knew anybody that fit that description. This is a big deal for Brennan because he at least now has the power and authority of the New Orleans police to follow up on leads in that jurisdiction,

which he wouldn't have had otherwise. So he was good enough to send the sergeant out to that locality. And from the contacts at Zephyr Field, from the information we received, we were able to come up with a hard description on the person that he was looking for. Trying to find somebody in New Orleans

is kind of like finding a needle in a haystack because since that attack had happened, Hurricane Katrina has devastated the area. Officials estimate that 80% of New Orleans is now underwater. All of these levees had started to breach and that water was coming into the city and there was no way to stop it.

The community there had literally been scattered to the four winds. So I said, well, who knows if this guy's even if he's alive, who knows if he's living there anymore, what he's doing, what's going on. I said, I have no idea. But I said damn, I came this far, I'm not going to give up yet. Ken Brennan's friend in New Orleans actually helped him enormously by tracking down the person he was looking for. It's a big city.

There's a lot that they don't know. And yet somehow they're able to figure out that he worked at the Superdome when Katrina hit. And they get a name. It has been months and months, Brennan trying to just get a name to this video image on tape. And when he finally hears the name... I thought you gotta be kidding me. Unfortunately, it's a name we've all heard before. From Miami to Louisiana, this case

was taking private eye Ken Brennan on a multi-state manhunt. As long as I had a gasping breath on his case, I was going to make sure that I saw it to the end. This guy is exactly what you want. Obsessed, taking it personally, and unwilling to give up, even if that involves some wacky theories

that other people would say, no way, no how. Brennan's got a contact in New Orleans, and incredibly, they're actually able to find the name of the suspect. But that name isn't the break he was hoping for. They come back and tell me the guy's name is Mike Jones. I go, you gotta be kidding me. Mike Jones? Was it 10 million of them? Mike Jones. Mike Jones, that's the guy's name. I said, geez, you gotta be kidding me. Mike Jones. Was it 10 million of them? Mike Jones.

Mike Jones. That's the guy's name. I said, jeez, you know. That's as generic as you can get. Yeah, I mean, if the guy's name was like Mikhail Gorbachev or something, you know, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to track down. But a guy named Mike Jones is pretty tough. The name Mike Jones, there's nothing worse than that in terms of trying to figure out who it is. At least they've got a middle name, and that's Lee. So now they have Michael Lee Jones.

And now they've got to do some more detective work. The combination of having the middle name leads them to potentially identifying and locating this person. What I did was I took that information and I went back to the hotel registry. And lo and behold, what do I find out that there was a Michael Lee Jones Jr. that did stay at the airport Regency Hotel. That's a pretty big moment. Yeah, well that's an aha moment where you say, hey listen, at least I know I was on

the right track. And they notated on his car that he did work for Center Plate. The Mike Jones that I was looking for was the same Mike Jones that was in Miami at the Miami Boat Show, OK? That I know. And now I just got to find out, where the hell is he? Brennan is on a pretty good winning streak at this point. Now, it turns out Michael Jones no longer works for Center Plate,

but Brennan is going to roll the dice once more. One thing you have to do as an investigator is follow employment. And so now you have a suspect that works in food concessions. So the idea is, well, let's see if we can find him. I said the likelihood is that even though he doesn't work for Center Plate anymore, that he's probably going to work for one of their competitors doing the same line of work. So I asked the guy from Centerplate, I said listen, give me a list of your like, 10 top competitors in this business.

This guy is not giving up. He makes a master list of all the catering companies in the country and calls them one by one asking if they have a Michael Jones working for them. You know it gets varying levels of cooperation from various companies. The bottom of the list is a company called Ovations. It's based in Tampa. I made an appointment to go see him in person. I talked to the COO of the company and I said, listen do you have a Michael Lee Jones working for you? He says, oh, listen, I can't help you with that. He says, I can't give you any information about my employees.

You require it. I'd require a subpoena to be able to release that to you. They want a subpoena. What does that tell you? So what tells me is the guy works there. Why else ask for a subpoena? I talked to 35 other companies. Nobody had an objection to tell me that no,

that no Michael Lee Jones worked there. Brennan's now got a turn to Detective Allen Foote. He's the Miami-Dade detective who originally handled the case and let Brennan run with it. How urgent was it for you to get that subpoena? I wanted it right away. I obtained a subpoena for Michael Lee Jones' records, and as soon as I received the information,

I faxed the information to Ken. It was very important, and fortunately he was able to obtain a subpoena for me and get it faxed over to the company at Ovations, to the COO there, while I was still president. Ovations finally releases the information, and it's just as Brennan suspected. He's working for them, and he's working now at a minor league baseball park in Frederick, Maryland. It sometimes can make it really frustrating for investigators as the defender just passed through that location. And so as a result, it makes them sometimes difficult to catch.

So I said, listen, you know, we gotta get some DNA from this guy, either from voluntarily or without his knowledge. Because I have a DNA profile from the victim, and we have to match it to somebody. It's the moment Ken Brennan has been waiting for, and long last, he's about to come face to face with that mystery man with the suitcase.

You take whatever clue you have, wherever you can go, and you just keep working at it and see where that takes you. It might take you to a dead end, it might take you to a blind alley, but it might take you to the promised land. It's been more than a year since Ina Budnitska was attacked in that Miami hotel, and Ken Brennan has located that mystery man he's been searching for, Michael Jones, in Frederick, Maryland.

Frederick, Maryland is in the western part of the state, in the mountains. At this point, are you elated? You found the guy. Yeah, I'm pretty excited because I'm getting close to the end of the chains. He's telling me, this is going to be your guy. And I'm thinking, it's a theory, but I still have no indication that it's a black male. So you're not there yet? I'm not there yet.

I'm not there. And I can understand his reluctance. However, I knew I had the guy. I gotta get his ass up there and get him. So what do you tell Detective Foote? What do you need next? So I said, listen, we to get some DNA from this guy, either voluntarily or without his knowledge.

So he made arrangements with his department to be able to fly up to Frederick, Maryland, and he was able to interview the suspect at the time. Detective Alan Foote is the first to actually confront Michael Jones. He found him working at the food concession of a minor league baseball park in Frederick. What was he like when you first met him? A teddy bear. A teddy bear. A big, mild-mannered guy.

He was soft-spoken, he appeared to be educated, he was very, I thought, forthcoming. Michael Jones doesn't seem to be rattled at all. He is cool, calm, and collected while he talks to the detective. Oh, he's staying cool as a cucumber. He's just very relaxed, leaned back in the chair. No hiding or stuttering, looking for something. Jones does confirm that he was in Miami, he was working at the boat show,

and that he was indeed staying at that Regency hotel when Eno was attacked. So I'm thinking, hmm, okay. So I said, do you have any sex with European women? And he says, yes, but it was with a German woman at the boat show. So I have to throw out some more at him. Was it a Russian girl?

Was it at the hotel? And he's completely denying it and he's being totally cooperative. That's exactly what you want to do if the police or authorities are asking some very serious questions. So I came out and eventually flat out asked him, did you rape, beat, drop for dead? Did you do it? And he says, well, no, of course not.

And does he seem believable at that point? Yes, he does. And then I ask him, would you be willing to give a DNA specimen? Because I have specimens from the rape. And he said, absolutely. Jones readily gives up his DNA because he believes they can't link him to this crime.

What did that tell you, that he was so willing and... I figured the guy didn't do it. He goes, I don't know, Ken, I don't think so. I talked to him, I said, yeah, I know you talked to him. I'm telling you, it's the guy. It's gonna take a while for these DNA samples to come back. So while Brennan is waiting for the DNA to come back, he contacts senior investigator Tom Chase

with the Frederick Police Department. I informed Lieutenant Chase that I believe that he might be a person of interest for him in case something happened in one of those neighborhoods that he might be a person of interest for him in case something happened in one of those neighborhoods that he could possibly be responsible for. I utilize my contacts to keep an eye on the fact that he was still in town because I want to make sure he's available for them when they're ready to come and get him. This is the ballpark where he was working at the time and this is where he was working at the time. And this is where he was living.

If the authorities have a strong hunch that someone's responsible for a very serious crime, they can keep an eye on that person. I was more diligent in keeping track of the reports that were coming in for any type of a suspicious person or any type of sexual assaults. He had his officers going by to keep an eye on him. He was going by on his own time on his way home from work.

Brennan can't stand just sitting around waiting, waiting, waiting. So he actually gets Jones to meet him at the ballpark to talk to him. And I interviewed him for three successive days. Basically these interviews with offenders are sort of a cat and mouse game. The offender is trying to figure out what you know as the investigator, and the investigator is trying to better understand the offender. The guy is calm and collected. What does he tell you? He says, listen, I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, I was at the boat show. Yeah, I, you know, I hooked up with a couple girls while I was there. But I don't know anything about this Russian girl. Are you believing him? No. Not at all? Not for a minute. Not for a second. Because the first thing is, if he had nothing to do with it, why would he talk to me for three days? The reason why he talked to me for three days is because he knows that I know more about this case

than anybody did. So he was trying to find out for me, you know, how much he has to worry. How much of this case does this guy know? You know, how close is he to me? How could somebody who's guilty of this horrible crime be so relaxed and friendly? I mean, who but an innocent man

would willingly give up his DNA sample to a cop who he knows is looking at him for a crime? He knows what evidence he's left and what he hasn't left, and he's been, in his mind, very careful. It doesn't trouble you at all that he seems to be cooperative? Not at all. He said, let me tell you something. I know you did this. And I said, this ain't like a bad dream where you're just going wake up and it's gonna be over. So take a good look at my face.

I said, you're just gonna see this face again. I said, cause I'm coming for you. The next time Brennan sees Jones, it will be in an interrogation room. And this will be a chance to determine, is his hunch right on the money or is this gonna just blow up in his face? Since Ena was found assaulted and abandoned in that field, her memory has been foggy all over the map.

But suddenly, she's got a breakthrough. I tried to bring myself back into the accident and see if I can remember something else, small details. She came to my office and said she didn't know if she was dreaming or if it was reality, but she remembers being in the hotel room and sitting on the bed and across from her was a black male. Wow. Wow is right. So I put together a photo lineup with Michael Lee Jones in it, and I just tell her, tell me if you recognize any of them for any reason.

And I choose a person from the lineup. This is a person who basically, who raped me, I say. She goes right for Michael Lee Jones. Finally, it all seems to be coming together, and the DNA results have arrived. I called Ken up. I says, you're not gonna believe this. He goes, it's him.

I go, no kidding, yeah, I know it was him. What was that moment like? Oh, it was total elation. I was happy. So the next step would be to make an arrest. Yes. I get an arrest warrant, and I go back to Maryland. I meet up with Ken and members of the Frederick Police Department. And we go out to Michael's apartment. We're caravanning like John Wayne in a wagon train

where the Calvary's coming, because we're going to go get our guide, and we go to his apartment. We knock on a door, and he comes to the door, and he answers, and we look at each other face to face, and I said, I told you I'd be back. We already have the hit on the DNA, okay? Now it's just a question of interrogating them

to see if I can get this guy to roll on it, right? You show suspects pictures of victims because what you're trying to do is humanize the victim in the eyes of the offender. The problem is it doesn't tend to work because they don't care. Once we started to throw the fact that, you know, obviously he was under arrest for this kidnapping or rape. His story changed. Just give me your version of what went down. And you only get one chance at it. All right, I'm gonna show you.

I know the only thing he's gonna come up with is, she was a prostitute. I paid for her. She was fine when I left her. I have no idea what happened to her, okay? Jones says that he and a friend, that guy in the Mercury t-shirt, went out to a strip club that night, that when he returned to the hotel, that he did see Ina hanging out with some women in front of the hotel.

I mean, obviously they were hookers or whatever. And, you know, we were talking, they were like, you know, you want to have some fun? And then what happens next? You go to her room, you know, we want to have some fun. Then what happens then? You go to her room, she go to your room. Then to her room. You went to her room. And then, you know, she whispers in my ear, 100 bucks.

So we did it and we gave her 100 bucks and all that. The offender is trying to steer them in another direction. Yes, I'll admit I had sex with her, but you can't prove anything beyond that. He's a victim. He's a victim for everybody. He's to blame you. He's to blame. Then what happened after that, at the end of the sex life? Went back to my room.

So you don't know what happened to her. That's what you're telling me, right? Yes, sir. Unfortunately for Jones, his story doesn't match their surveillance video. True, he's with his friend. They're talking to some other women. But the problem is when you look at the surveillance video, when she leaves the hotel at 3 33 a.m., she walks out of the hotel and past these women and doesn't stop to talk to anybody. There wasn't any kind of an exchange between the two of them. It would have been indicative at all of somebody soliciting a prostitute or a prostitute soliciting a John.

And then he couldn't come up with explanations as to why did you leave the hotel when you weren't supposed to. Jones literally stayed at the hotel another full day after the attack. The question is, why would he be leaving the hotel at 5.28 in the morning without checking out, carrying a big suitcase, only to return about an hour later without it? So he put his suitcase in the trunk of the car.

But he never came back to get the suitcase. You know, I took my sh-t downstairs and put it in the trunk. I think I went to the salon or something for a soda. And then I went back. Not in the morning when you check it out. Because I didn't even show up. I wasn't going to sleep. Despite the fact that they have his DNA and he's given inconsistent statements,

there are still real challenges in this case. He has got a story, and that is that their sex was consensual. She doesn't remember exactly what happened. The key for investigators is going to be poking holes in his story. Even though he's calm and he's cool and he looks like he hasn't done a thing in the world, investigators is going to be poking holes in his story. Even though he's calm and he's cool and he looks like he hasn't done a thing in the world, it was my job to be able

to show that he's a liar. Brennan is now going in for the kill. He is focusing on that key moment, that tug of the suitcase when Jones was getting off the elevator. What stuff did you bring out here, Phil? Oh, I had one in the suitcase. I said, well, what was in the suitcase? When Brendan drills down on what exactly is in the suitcase,

Jones actually pauses, which the investigators know they've now hit a nerve. You could just see the wheels turning and he's saying, well I've got to come up with a scenario. Yeah, Xbox is in there. Anything else? Your clothes? Clothes. How many pairs of shoes? Books? You have books? They said you're an avid reader. You read all the time. What kind of books do you like?

What kind of books do you read? I have no idea. I couldn't even tell you what the name of the book was. It just took out my pocket. He reads all these books, but now this avid reader kind of has a case of amnesia. Everything you're saying doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense. What doesn't make sense? Your timeline stinks, your story stinks, the whole story stinks.

There's no doubt in Brendan's mind that Jones is lying, and he's convinced that any jury that sees this videotape will believe the same thing. Because any of the things he was talking about made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Who goes and leaves, takes their clothes out to the car before they check out? Nobody. Who's six foot four, weighs 380 pounds, has some underwear and an Xbox in a suitcase, and needs two hands to pull it out of a crack? Nobody. Doesn't make sense.

Doesn't make sense because it's all bullsh**. What is true is that he already beat this girl. He's dragging her out. He's gone for an hour because he's looking for a place to dump her because he thinks she's dead. Would you be willing to take a polygraph exam? Sure. Jones fails the polygraph test, but he continues to maintain his innocence. So what happened to her now? How did it happen to her? He played his role right to the very end.

The bitter end. Michael Jones was charged with sexual battery and kidnapping. And before the case can even go to court, it almost falls apart. And the defense gets help from, of all people, the victim. It seemed like at this point you got a slam dunk case, but it wasn't. No. I was afraid this guy was just going to get let off.

He was going to walk. Ken Brennan has spent months and months on this case trying to figure out who committed this brutal attack on Inna Brunetska in February of 2005. The big problem for him is that she just can't remember anything. It was stressful and many times upset of myself. I said, why can't I just remember? We're at 338. But Brennan finally thinks he knows what happened in that fateful meeting between Ina Budnitska and Michael D. Jones. Somewhere there's either an offer to come up to his room on the fifth floor and have a drink or something. I talked to her, started telling me something about she was disabled,

she got hurt on some cruise ship or something. So they leave the elevator, she goes to her room, and I know she went there to leave her coat because her coat was left at the scene. Brennan doesn't know whether Jones may have gone to Anna's room that night, but he is convinced that the attack did not happen there. The room was lived in, but it wasn't disturbed, which would be indicative of a crime of that nature.

But somehow or other they ended up in his room, and whatever happens, he ends up beating to the death there. He thinks she's dead, stuffs her in a suitcase, and then takes her down. But now, after almost a year of sleuthing, it looks like his investigation might come unraveled because Ina just doesn't accept Brennan's theory. And she's sticking by her original story that the attack happened in her room.

I didn't go nowhere. I didn't go to nobody's room. I remember myself going into my room. That's what I remember. But Ina's memory is all over the map. I mean, she first told police that she was attacked by two white men with Spanish accents, and then she picked Jones out of a lineup, but said that there might have been two guys who raped her. They're concerned that there are inconsistencies. They're concerned she's not going to be a good witness. That's a real issue in a case

like this. There has to be some physical evidence or corroboration to support the victims claim that it was an attack as opposed to a consensual act. Even with Brennan's bombshell surveillance theory, the case against Jones is coming up pretty thin. I don't believe that they ever found the suitcase that Jones used. And of course, hotels are cleaned every morning, so the chances of their finding any physical evidence from his room would be very small.

Jones's defense lawyer can smell the prosecution's weakness a mile away. We believe that they couldn't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The Miami-Dade Police Department, I think, detectives there believe that since they had DNA and a suspected match that he must have been the one who did the rape and the beating, but there's no evidence that he did that. Michael Lee Jones never confessed to raping or beating Ima.

His claim was that he had consensual sex with her, but that he had no part in beating her or dumping her body. For a potential jury, this isn't gonna be a slam dunk case. Yes, they've got his DNA, but he's now saying, yeah, we had sex. I paid her for sex. So we get him and get around the bucks and all that?

Prosecutor's office was uncomfortable with the fact that Ina's memory was in bits and pieces. Prosecutors decided they had a case of he said, she said. They didn't feel they could win a case if it went to trial. You don't know the way that a jury would feel. So the prosecutor's office decided to offer him a plea. It turns out Jones pleads guilty to a reduced charge. The case never even comes up before a jury.

And he gets, get this, two years. Two years. Two years. Two years. I was upset. I just told him, you can't, you can't let this guy out. I was angry. I was angry. But I couldn't do anything. I'm not familiar with the justice system. But I was upset and sorry. Yes, I was upset. In fact, everyone involved in the case is upset. Everyone, that is, except Ken Brennan. See, that didn't bother me either. I said, hey, listen, don't worry about it.

The dogged investigator has yet another hunch. This wasn't his first time at the rodeo here. He's done this before. And the hotel security cameras are about to give up one final secret about Michael Jones. Newport Beach, California sits just south of Los Angeles. It's 2012, and the owner of a marijuana dispensary has been kidnapped, tortured and left for dead in the Mojave Desert.

It began a decade-long game of cat and mouse between investigators and a perpetrator, a mastermind of escape. He's a psychopath. Oh my God, they let Hannibal Lecter out? Devil in the Desert is out now. All gaps, no breaks, that's my vibe. Ready to find some love. But it wouldn't be paradise without surprises along the way. These kids need to learn. That's right. Your favorite Golden alums are crashing the beach. We bringin' a party, baby.

Bachelor in Paradise premieres Monday, July 7th at 8-7 Central on ABC. And stream on Hulu. Now remember, Michael Jones works for a company that sends him all over the country. He's never in one place for very long. You could say it's kind of a serial rapist ideal job. This is a perfect gig for this guy. They pay you to move around the country, stay for a couple of weeks, you work there and then you move on you somewhere else. What better occupation could a serial rapist have?

So when Detective Foote tells Brennan that Jones copped a plea, a two-year sentence for his attack on Ina, Brennan is ready to play his final ace. Ken Brennan knew that he was dealing with a serial rapist, and he was proved right. The FBI has a system called CODIS, which is a DNA database. It's a central repository of all of the records

that police submit to the FBI. I said, make sure you put his DNA into CODIS, and you'll see, there'll be other cases start popping up because I'm sure this isn't his first time. And once detectives entered Jones's DNA into that CODIS system, bingo. I was notified that they had DNA that had matched my case. Turns out Detective Terry Thrumston

had a cold case up in Colorado Springs. At that time, Jones was working at the Colorado Springs World Arena. He traveled all over the United States for his job and he was good at being a rapist. The Colorado victim, 41-year-old Jennifer Rusler, is seen here just minutes before that attack, leaving a local convenience store. On that night, her whole life changed. She was a woman alone, walking at 2.30, 3 o'clock in the morning. The man asked her if she wanted a ride. She said yes and got in his vehicle, got to her apartment.

He asked for a drink of water. When I asked him, you know, you need to leave. You know, I was gonna go to bed. And he just, he was like Jekyll and Hyde. He just, it just, I could just see the monster come over. And then he sexually assaults her at that point. You know, he wasn't nervous. He was calm. It was like we was on a date.

And I knew, Terri, I knew this happened before. I've just, I had a feeling this has happened before because he was too calm. She wanted to confront him. She wanted justice for what happened. I just want you to catch this guy. The DNA is incredibly powerful, but it still doesn't make this an open and shut case. The defense focuses on the fact that Jennifer let him into the house,

and they claim that shows this was consensual. But Thurmston refuses to let it go and takes the case to trial anyway. I kept trying to get a hold of her and couldn't get a hold of her. And I didn't find out till the beginning of December that she had passed away. It was a shock.

We had to figure out if we were even going to be able to go forward without our victim being alive. I still wanted to go forward. Detective Thrumston actually might have a DNA match to a case of another woman who might have been raped by Jones. Her story has a kind of familiar ring, a stranger in a car, a ride and an attack. I screamed with everything I had and the reality was is just there was nobody there. It was there was nobody there. This woman we're gonna call her Rachel might have been Jones's first victim. Rachel was the key to putting Michael Lee

Jones in prison for the rest of his life. It was the key to putting Michael Lee Jones in prison for the rest of his life. It was really Rachel who made a very convincing witness in court. I'm a working professional and I'm a mom. Rachel's been waiting years for this moment to be able to tell her story as best she remembers it. Most importantly to try to get justice. She was able to describe exactly what had happened to her six years later in full detail of what had happened without a doubt. At the time of the attack, Rachel helped create a composite sketch of the person who attacked her. And it looked a whole heck of a lot like Michael Lee Jones.

Seeing that sketch next to his face, it was extremely satisfying. I just felt like, yes. But is that going to be enough to sway a jury? Within a couple hours, the jury came back and said, he's guilty. Jones gets hit with a sentence of 24 years to life and in 2015 a Louisiana judge slams him with an even bigger sentence 45 years for the brutal attacks in New Orleans area

You gave almost two years of your life to this case. How did it feel to finally? See this guy brought to justice? I gave two years of my life investigatorial wise, but the victims give a hell of a lot more. They're the ones that should be commended for this, because I can only do the investigation and make an arrest, but they're the ones that put them in prison. The victims are the heroes here. They're the ones that have to get on the stand and say,

this is what this guy did to me. This is when he did it to me. This is how he did it. And I feel happy that the criminal isn't where he's supposed to be, and he never going to hurt nobody in the future. You need to go through this as painful and as traumatic and embarrassing as all of that might be.

You have to do that because you just don't, you never know how many other women may have been impacted by this person. Detective Foote has retired from the Miami-Dade Police Department, and he's got a new opinion of private investigators, at least this one. You weren't that crazy about private eyes to begin with.

Did this case change your mind at all? In respect to Ken Brennan, it did, yes. But private eyes in general, not so much. I still have the same opinion about private investigators, but I respect Ken Brennan as a person and as an investigator. I could count on him. Glad to know him. As for Ina, she settled her suit against the hotel. And even though she was the key to helping solve so many other crimes,

she doesn't really feel like a hero. She says she's just a survivor. I wish it never happened to anyone. I wish it never happened to anyone. I wish it never happened to nobody. I've been a reporter and a journalist for almost a half century, and I think this is the most remarkable piece of detective work that I've ever come across. The sheer doggedness, the creativity,

the cleverness that Ken Brennan brought to this case make it truly extraordinary. As for the man himself, Brennan, with the case closed he can treat himself to a celebratory cigar and a great sense of satisfaction. I've been doing this since 1975 and every one of the multitude of satisfaction. I've been doing this since 1975, and every one of the multitude of cases that I've done, this was by far the most rewarding. You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9 on ABC,

you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening. Sitting down with Barbara Walters, all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening. She was fearless and sometimes she got under people's skin. Oh my God! She asked the question nobody else had asked. She could talk to anyone about anything. Right now, ladies and gentlemen, Barbara Walters.