48 Hours - Cold case: Who killed Amy Gellert

Episode Date: June 18, 2017

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to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Real people. Real crimes. Real life drama this was a very shocking case

for someone to come into somebody's house stab two people and kill someone if we want to get the bad guy. Who is this? Sammy Gellert. The Gellert case is one that's kind of haunted us for 20 years now. The biggest problem I think we have is really trying to figure out why it happened. This cold case could be solved tonight. So listen carefully. Detectives need more evidence. And it could come solved tonight. So listen carefully. Detectives need more evidence,

and it could come from you. Maybe you know some of the suspects, or maybe you'll just notice a vital clue to this brutal murder that investigators somehow missed. It was spring break. The town was full of people. The weather was awesome.

Well, March 20, 1994, Amy Geller and her parents attended a church service in Merritt Island. I see Amy at church. And she says, I'll be home soon. We go home and we're early. The parents returned home. Unknown to them, there was an intruder in the residence. I see the man step into the room, and he's completely disguised. And then I saw that he had a dagger and a gun.

Basically, we had to crawl through here on our hands and knees. And he took us to this area right here. He was pacing. He was constantly pacing. He was going out this door here. They had offered money. They had offered cars.

They made all these offerings just to kind of get rid of him. Why remain there? Why keep looking out? I sensed, and Bob sensed, that he was waiting for a ride. And I saw the lights coming down the driveway. He panicked. Something switched in him, and he just lost it. First he slices me across here.

He stabbed me here. And he starts stabbing me in my neck. And it's going in so deep, I can feel the bones crunching. That sound of my bones. To this day, 20 years later, I can feel the bones crunching. That sound of my bones. To this day, 20 years later, I can hear those bones crunch. Do you think he thought he had killed you? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

As soon as the lights hit, man, he came down with a knife in the back of my head as hard as he could. If I don't get to the front door and start screaming, no one's going to get out of that house alive. 911 emergency. My name is Bob Layton. What's the problem, sir?

It's an ambulance. We've been stood at multiple times on one. You're bleeding very badly. I'm bleeding badly. And what happened to the intruder? He fled on foot. At that moment, Bob, you think the only two people who are hurt are you and Bunny. Exactly. The suspect came across Amy who was standing in the driveway behind her car. And of course, without warning, she was stabbed.

I remember getting to the hospital, a pastor that I knew coming in and saying to me, Amy didn't make it. No, no, this can't be happening. Any case that's open, we want to close. It's the only closure you get for the family. I'm Erin Moriarty. Tonight on 48 Hours, Cold Case. Who killed Amy Gellert?

In the upcoming episode of Killer Psyche, we will be diving deep into the unfolding case of accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann. Follow Killer Psyche wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Killer Psyche and more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror.

But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder. I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. There's no day more difficult for Bonnie Layton than March 20th. Just a bad day all the way around.

The anniversary of her daughter's murder. I always think about tomorrow. Life will be better. bunny hasn't let fear force her out of her home but continues to grieve along with her husband bob and her two sons amy's older brothers mark and ryan it just doesn't end, man. It keeps on going. It's been tough, and I think it's just changed us all profoundly as a family and individually. It's hard to think about it right now. That's it.

When you first started on this case, did you think it would be solved right away? We always think that. Back in 1994, Todd Goodyear was one of the investigators called to the crime scene. You've got a well-respected family that is living in a nice house in a quiet area. And all of a sudden, somebody breaks in, and then something sets them off him off and he starts to stab them and it's a blitz attack. Goodyear says when Amy's stepfather ran out to get help, his attacker followed. Bob didn't see Amy standing by her car, but the intruder did. He turns his attention to Amy and goes to attack her. The slash marks on her backpack indicate a struggle with her killer. Amy actually runs across the street toward an apartment complex,

and she actually collapses in that parking lot and dies. Fire at Route 2. Yes, could I have an ambulance, please? What's the problem? Someone's been stabbed. Probably the prevailing view when we first got it is we're going to figure out real quickly what the motive is, and it's going to lead us to a person, and we're going to find that person, and they're going to confess, and we're going to be done.

But more than 20 years later, Major Goodyear was still trying to solve Amy Gellert's murder. There was a lot of pressure put on to solve it, and a lot of people were upset about it, and still are to this day. We asked Goodyear and his cold case team, Lieutenant Carlos Reyes and Detectives Marlon Buggs and Wayne Simock, to explain one of the most baffling cases they've ever encountered. I've never worked a case like this with this many possibilities that have been out there. This is what investigators do know. The weapons. The intruder was armed with an unusual gun and a knife. He's not cursing and he's not screaming at us.

And then all of a sudden he's just stabbing the living daylights out of me. The Laytons say the knife was a dagger resembling this police sketch. Because the intruder was holding it, all they could see was the ornate hilt. And that was very unusual because it was a gold chain that was basically, you know, interwound or twisted together. The dagger has never been found. And have you ever been able to find one that seemed to match? Not with the hilt like that, no. We always have to put out a thing. The knife may not look exactly like that.

But if someone knows of somebody that has one like that, that would be really important. As for the gun, it turned out not to be a lethal weapon at all. Investigators were able to identify it when a magazine was found at the scene. It's actually a prop made by Brixia. It fires blanks and is used in the theater and movies. It sure looks real. If you had that put in your face, you'd believe it was a gun. made by Brixia. It fires blanks and is used in the theater and movies. It sure looks real.

If you had that put in your face, you'd believe it was a gun. But isn't that a good clue? You would think it would be. Everybody goes, oh, Cocoa Beach Theater. Boom. This is going to be soft. And then you go there, oh, no, we're not missing one. No reports of anyone stealing the gun like that. So, yeah, that ended up being pretty much, for us, a dead end at the time which was very deflating the intruder he had a black ski mask on bob and bunny were interviewed by investigators 12 days after being attacked he had had on a black top, black pants, white tennis shoes,

and those gloves that have the leather on the hands. A black ski mask and gloves, items that would not be easy to obtain in Cocoa Beach, Florida, during spring break. If you're going to kill them, you don't need the mask, because they're not going to be able to identify you anyway. So is it someone they knew, or is it somebody from the area that somebody might recognize if they saw them?

The intruders' characteristics. The Laytons couldn't identify their assailant, but they could remember a few features. He was Caucasian. I think I picked that up on the contrast between the ski mask and his eyes. He was in his 20s, which would put him in his 40s now. Did the voice seem familiar in any way that you had ever heard it before? But Bunny says what she was struck by was his accent. I was very familiar with, you know, Maryland, Pennsylvania kind of area because that's what he sounded like to me.

Another clue. I'm told to lay over him like this. The intruder forced Bunny and Bob to lay on the ground in this position. When he put me on my stomach, I could not move. I was stuck. Investigators say it's a technique used to control captives and suggest the intruder may have had some kind of military training. Or police background.

Police background, could have gone to an academy, could have been a security guard. As for forensic evidence, DNA was found on the gun's magazine, but it may not be from the intruder. Part of the problem you have is that we know the intruder was wearing gloves. So if there's DNA, it could belong to whoever handed him that item. Could be someone that had owned the item beforehand or someone that had used it with them. But the biggest question looming for investigators is why?

Does anybody know at this table why that intruder came into the home on March 20, 1994? A specific motive? No. And without answering that question, it makes it really tough to get to the right person. They all agree the evidence points to a targeted attack. Could it be money? How many of you believe that the purpose of this was a burglary?

You're not sure? No. While the house is near the beach and one of the nicest on the block, investigators say that a burglar would have just stolen property and fled, and this intruder stayed. Strangers still, the Laytons say money seemed almost an afterthought to him. He took just a small amount of cash and some credit cards and seemed even less interested in valuables. My wife had over $5,000 of a juryione right in front of me. Then investigators wondered if Bunny and Bob, both therapists, had been targeted by an angry patient. But there was little evidence to support that.

If you're going to hurt the couple that's there, why wait? Why not take care of business ahead of time and then leave? Why does he wait until Amy shows up? And that leaves Amy. Do you think then Amy was a target or the reason why that intruder was in the house? Today I do. This case is ongoing.

It keeps developing. So ask me again in six months, I might have a different answer. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of them.

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The consensus tends to be that Amy's the catalyst. There's something there with Amy that probably caused this to happen. What was it about Amy that would make her the target? At the time of her murder, she had just turned 21. And what were you thinking on that birthday? She's happy. We're happy. This is good. Her whole life seemed ahead of her. Amy was living at home with her mother and stepfather.

Passionate about music, she got a job at the church her parents attended, working as a sound engineer in Calvary Chapel's recording studio. She had always wanted to be a roadie for a rock and roll band. God sends the humor, she ended up being a roadie for the Calvary Chapel's rock and roll Christian praise band. Did you think all the problems were over? Yeah, I did. I did. Amy had been through a lot in her 21 years. She was three when her parents divorced. Amy and her two older brothers live with their mother in Cocoa Beach, Florida. And how close were Mark, Ryan, and Amy? They were

thick as thieves. There wasn't anything they didn't share and they stayed that way always. She was just an incredibly good person. Amy's brother Ryan says whatever he and Mark did she wanted to do. Even skydiving. Gutsy? Yeah. Feisty? Could be. She had a lot of life in her. She was kind of the perfect friend, perfect sister. Amy was five when her mom married Bob Layton. And then, not long after, her life changed when she became seriously ill with encephalitis

that left her with learning disabilities. Oh, she struggled so much, and she was held back a year, and that changed a lot of things in her life. By her freshman year in high school, she met Andrea O'Dell. They became best friends. She was the most special person I've ever met. She had an essence about her, a presence about her. Amy was also a typical teenager, rebelling against her mom.

Bunny wanted kind of a girly girl, and Amy was not a girly girl. And I think Amy kind of wanted to flaunt any rebelliousness in her mother's face, and to push it even. And like so many of her classmates, Amy was experimenting with drugs. She was smoking pot. A lot? I'd say more than was healthy. She was not a weekend warrior, somebody who just smoked some dope on the weekends. She was somebody who would sell her soul for pot, and that's how she got in trouble.

soul for pot, and that's how she got in trouble. Bonnie put Amy in a tough, controversial rehab program known as STRAIGHT. There was no swimming pool, nice lounge kind of drug rehab. She didn't go to rehab by choice. She blame your mother? Oh, yeah. Yeah. In 1992, Amy returned home, seemingly a new person. Had she changed any? She still seemed like Amy, but she had a better head on her shoulders,

definitely. It refocused her and had her start thinking about what she wanted to do thereafter. She had a new group of friends from church. I think there were really good influences on her, and I think she actually really enjoyed them. In the days leading up to Amy's murder, in March of 1994, spring break crowds were descending up and down the Florida coast. Ryan was also home from college. Overall, what I remember from that week is her being in a pretty good state of mind and just seemingly doing as well

as I'd seen her do in a really long time. Sometime after 7.30 on the night of the murder, Amy headed to church, where she saw her parents for the last time. There was no premonition that anything was wrong. Nothing like that. I get a phone call, said that my sister had been murdered.

That my parents were in the hospital. I didn't look too good. What was your first thought, Ryan? My first thought was I just couldn't believe it. It just didn't make sense. And 20 years later, with the investigators renewed focus on the case, the family hopes to finally have some answers. I think it's solvable. I just think that it's going to take the right piece of evidence

and the right person to be willing to talk about it. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, The most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop.

Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. I mean, when this happened in Cocoa Beach, people were numb. They couldn't believe it. I remember there was a lot of press from it. It was on the news.

The county also called in FDLE and the FBI. When 21-year-old Amy Geller was brutally murdered in March of 1994, Marlon Buggs was the same age and a cadet at the police academy. So to hear about someone being stabbed to death in this big murder scene, that was a big deal. It never occurred to him that more than 20 years later, he'd be asked to use fresh eyes to finally solve the case that has stymied so many of his colleagues. I read through this case on a daily basis.

Major, you got a minute? I run it by my partners. It's a discussion at lunch that we have. We just wanted to get a brand new perspective on it. This case, there's so many questions. And over the years, so many suspects. There's a lot. Most cases, you may have one primary suspect, maybe a couple peripheral suspects,

but in this one, there's many possibilities. Like Jeffrey Andersonerson a burglar currently in prison he was involved in a police chase the day after amy was murdered when he was caught he was in a stolen car and later when bunny layton's credit cards were found on the side of the road in the vicinity he became a suspect passed a polygraph wasn't picked out in the vicinity, he became a suspect. Passed a polygraph, wasn't picked out in the voice lineup. Can't totally say 100%, but you feel more likely than not he wouldn't be the guy. And police couldn't link him to those credit cards. And there was Hugh Popple. At one time, he had a romantic relationship with Amy. He didn't become a suspect until 2013,

relationship with Amy. He didn't become a suspect until 2013, almost 19 years after the crime, when a tip came in to Crimeline. Hugh Popple had been killed in a hit-and-run accident. There was a comment made that it was karma for what he had done to Amy Gellert. While there's no physical evidence connecting him to Amy's murder, Popple remains on the list of suspects. And there are others much higher on Marlon Bugg's list that he and Wayne Simak want to track down and re-interview. That's Dominic Canuca. His name keeps popping up. Around the time of Amy's death, Dominic Canuca was a 22-year-old short order cook from Pennsylvania who had recently moved to Cocoa Beach with his high school girlfriend, Julie Flounders. But investigators didn't learn about Canuca until more than a year later

when they got a tip from someone who worked with Julie. She overheard Dominic's girlfriend saying that he was possibly involved with that homicide. She overheard Dominic's girlfriend saying that he was possibly involved with that homicide. Investigators then learned Kanuka had stolen a car and left the area the day after Amy's murder. He later moved back to Pennsylvania, where investigators tracked him down. And he told them a startling story. Dominic puts himself at the scene. Kanuka claimed that he was coming home from work when he drove past Amy's house. He sees all the lights and the cop cars and the fire

trucks and he actually stops, pulls over and walks up to see what's going on. He was just being a concerned citizen, just happened to be driving by their stops and assisted deputy and putting up the crime scene tape, which is, I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm saying it's unheard of. And his story didn't check out when investigators went to the restaurant where Kanuka worked. They pulled his time card from Gatsby's and he didn't work that night. Suddenly, they had another person on their list. That kind of put him as a very important person of interest at that time. And Kanuka kept looking better and better.

He had just moved down here from Pennsylvania, only been in the area for maybe a couple months at the most. So Kanuka would be one of the few people in Cocoa Beach who could have cold weather gear, like masks and gloves. And so I believe he had those items with him. And coming from Pennsylvania, he had that mid-Atlantic accent that Amy's mom described hearing. I was very familiar with, you know, Maryland, Pennsylvania kind of area because that's what he sounded like to me.

For reasons that aren't clear, a voice lineup was never done, but he was given a polygraph, and Kanuka failed it. Still. Investigators couldn't connect Kanuka either to Amy or her murder. They couldn't find any mutual friends, and there wasn't any physical evidence

that put him inside the house. And so the trail went cold. Until 2014. It's game time. This was the driver's license that he had most currently after the incident. Now the new team, Marlon Buggs and Wayne Simak, are retracing steps made by earlier investigators and have gone to Pennsylvania hoping to question Dominic Kanuka. It's hard to get your hopes up, right, that you might have the right suspect because there have been other suspects in the past that looked really good in this case. This right now is probably the strongest one. But before they take their chances with Kanuka, they decide to make a surprise stop at

the home of that old girlfriend who allegedly had been overheard talking about Kanuka. They decide to make a surprise stop at the home of that old girlfriend who allegedly had been overheard talking about Kanuka's involvement in Amy's murder, Julie Flounders. I'm hoping she's been waiting to get this off her chest and when we show up at the door, that's her opportunity. Originally, she denied saying it, but Marlon hopes that Julie, now married with children, may have additional information that will help. So we want to take a shot at her. And much to their surprise, she invites them in and is more than willing to talk about

Kanuka. How did Julie describe him? Didn't she describe him as crazy? She said he could go both. He could go both ways. Nice guy, not nice guy. But that fits. Oh, absolutely. That fits this intruder.

He's also a convicted thief. And when you talk about the thievery part of it, would Dominic steal from somebody or break into a home? Well, on that case, yeah. She also did say that he had a propensity to have knives. And there's his military training. Now, Dominic Kanuka was in the Marine Corps boot camp just previous to this,

and, you know, one of the things he learned how to do was fight with a knife. But unfortunately, after two decades, Julie's memories about that specific March night have faded. The key information I needed from her, she couldn't remember. When first questioned, Kanuka told investigators he was driving Julie's Jeep on the night of the murder. She can't remember if he had the Jeep or not. And said he'd told Julie about being at the crime scene.

said he'd told Julie about being at the crime scene. Did she remember him saying that he had been at this scene of a horrific murder? That she doesn't remember. She doesn't remember that. And what about her comment that her boyfriend may have been involved in Amy Gellert's murder? For years, Julie denied saying it. For years, Julie denied saying it, but she told these investigators that she might have said it in jest, but still denies Canuca ever confessed to murder.

We also wanted to talk with Julie Flounders, and she agreed to sit down and tell us what she knew about Canuca back in Cocoa Beach in 1994. But in the end, all we got was an empty chair. Billy Flounder says she's too afraid of him. Next stop is 280 miles away in Marionville, Pennsylvania, where Dominic Canuca is serving time for drug possession and robbery. At the moment we still don't know. How's he going to receive us?

What's he going to say? We've just got some high hopes right now that he's going to talk to us. You don't want to say the wrong thing. You don't want him to shut down. So, yeah, I got some butterflies. There's a lot riding on this trip to Marionville, Pennsylvania. Wayne Simog and Marlon Buggs need to convince Dominic Kanuka to talk about Amy Gellert's murder. Might be our last shot at having an opportunity to talk to him.

As it turns out, Kanuka agrees to talk, but he has nothing new to say. He had this strange confidence about him. He still puts himself at the scene, but he continually claims that he has no involvement. He says, how could I do that? He says, I'm just an addict. Kanuka is now in prison for robbing a pharmacy. As long as we let him just ramble on about what he wanted to tell us, he was real comfortable. When we started asking questions about the case, he got real defensive. After three hours, the investigators head home to Florida, disappointed. You know, it'd be great to come up here and try to clear this up, but right now I think we're leaving with more questions than answers.

But they're not through with Kanuka yet. They wonder if he may be somehow connected to the man who has topped their suspect list for more than 20 years. Who is the number one suspect? In my mind here. That's Scott Manley. Back in 1994? Back in 1994.

Scott Manley, a friend of Amy's, became a suspect within hours of her murder. When you start looking for that motive, you know, you start thinking, who had access to her home? Scott Manley. On the evening of March 20th, Manley stopped by Amy's house. Scott Manley was probably the last one of her friends to be in her home. Manley told police he had plans to go out with Amy later that night, after she got home from church.

But he never made it. He left this message on Amy's answering machine. Just 30 minutes after she'd been stabbed to death. We all like to say there's no coincidence in homicide investigation. It's kind of strange. All of a sudden, just after she's killed, there's a phone message from him saying, hey, it's too late to go out. There's a lot of things that make him very interesting.

By all accounts, Scott Manley was a handsome bad boy. People described him even back then as a con artist. And a serious cocaine addict. Amy met him in rehab. Two and a half years older, he was also from Cocoa Beach, and when they both left the straight program, they tried to stay clean. I don't think he was successful. He was still a drug addict. There were more attempts at rehab in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When he returned home in the fall of 1993, Manley started using crack cocaine again. He also reconnected with Amy, which greatly concerned her brother Ryan. I knew Scott wasn't a great influence for her. That wasn't a relationship I was very happy about. Was she completely clean when she returned back to you?

She was smoking pot again. I knew that she had some people from straight that she was getting it from. As investigators discovered, Amy felt caught between two worlds, her new friends at church and the wilder crowd she once hung out with in Cocoa Beach. I think she was trying to make good for herself. It's almost like the angel and the devil on each side, you know, one side pulling her one way and one side pulling her the other way. Just days before she was killed, Amy asked her brother Ryan to drive with her

to the apartment complex where Manley lived with his parents. She needed to get something from him. The whole thing just didn't make me feel very comfortable. Why is she hanging out with this guy? Why is she asking me to go over there and do this? What's going on here? This just doesn't feel right. Marlon Buggs wonders if Amy brought her brother because she was afraid of Manley. She has friends that say that Scott actually owed her money because they put their money together to purchase drugs. And even Scott Manley himself talks about owing Amy money.

The morning after Amy was killed, Manley showed up at the Cocoa Beach police station to explain why he left that phone message canceling his date with Amy. At the time, it really was no reason to suspect anything. But the more Manley talked, the more lies investigators uncovered. He told them the reason he stopped by Amy's house was to pay her back $30. His father not only drove him there, he gave Manley the cash. But it wasn't the whole story.

Later on, he admits that he pocketed the money, that he didn't give the money to Amy, that it was a ploy. A scam to get money from his father to buy drugs. Manley says he then spent the evening alone driving around smoking crack cocaine. And then there was Manley's claim that he and Amy were going out that night. And then there was Manley's claim that he and Amy were going out that night. But Amy's best friend, Andre Odell, disputes that. We had plans the night she died. We had plans to go for a walk on the beach.

Does it make sense that she would have said something to Scott that she'd also meet him later? No. He continually lies. Everything is a lie. Still, Manley claimed to have an alibi. He said he was home before 9 p.m. and his parents backed him. What's more, none of Amy or her parents' blood was found in Manley's car.

If that had been Scott and he stabbed somebody, wouldn't there have to be blood in that car? You would think so. And these photos of his hands show no signs of a struggle. You say you can't get Scott Manley out of your head. Why has he never been arrested? There's no hardcore evidence that we can just link to Scott Manley. So that makes it difficult. Manley couldn't stay out of trouble. In 1995, after another failed rehab in Colorado, Manley was accused of

kidnapping his girlfriend's young child, all to get money for drugs. Brevard County detectives traveled there in 1996 to question him about Amy Gellert's murder. It hurts me to think that I'm even considered to know something, you know?

And he agreed to take this polygraph. Regarding the death of Amy Gellert, you know for sure whose dad murdered? No. Did you participate in planning a burglary at Amy Gellert's house that eventually led to her death? No. And he doesn't do so well on it. But then again, he keeps changing the story. In fact, Manley failed the polygraph.

By 2005, he was in trouble again. This time in Florida for robbery. He remains on the top of the list of possible killers of Amy Gellert. There is something that I feel that he's connected with this somehow, whether he told somebody the layout of the house, or the fact that Amy's parents weren't home, the fact that she comes from money. Now these investigators are wondering if perhaps Manley had an accomplice, which brings them back to Dominic Kanuka. On the night Amy was killed, Manley said he was driving around looking to buy crack cocaine from a white guy with a northern accent named Nick.

Could Nick be Dominic? Nick? Could Nick be Dominic? Could you find any connection between Scott Manley and Dominic Canuck? In the more than

20 years that investigators have struggled to find Amy's killer, two names keep coming up. I keep coming back to Scott Manley and Dominic Kanuka. One theory is that both men were involved. Did Amy have something they wanted? Money or drugs? You know, what if Scott came across Dominic at some point and taught Dominic into doing this? They're both having this addiction to drugs. They're both needing money.

Remember, Dominic Canuca places himself at the scene, and investigators have wondered if the plan was for Canuca to break into the house while Scott Manley drove the getaway car. Did Dominic get dropped off by Scott Manley and then Scott was going to circle out and pick him back up? When Bunny and Bob came home from church early, the plan may have fallen apart. Could Manley have abandoned Kanuka, leaving him in the lurch? That would fit with the Layton latent description of the masked intruder. He seemed nervous. He was just pacing the room.

He acted like he was waiting for a ride. That the person had left him high and dry, and he was waiting for that person to come back. Each man denies knowing the other. But investigators uncovered a possible link. Gatsby's restaurant, where Dominic worked as a cook, and where Scott, according to his dad, had a job interview. They eventually tracked down a waitress there who identified Manley's photo. She picked Scott Manley out as being someone she thought came in looking for Dominic at one point. That's the closest connection you can make between these two men.

As of right now, yes. And then there's Scott Manley's own admission to police that the night of the murder, he was looking for a drug dealer named Nick. But Kanuka's former girlfriend, Julie, says that Dominic went by the nickname Dom, not Nick. We reached out to Scott Manley and he agreed to an interview. But as we were heading to the prison where he was being held on that robbery charge, he suddenly backed out. Still, we have letters Scott Manley wrote, one in which he says,

Please, please find whoever's responsible for Amy's death. But it's what he didn't say in these letters that caught investigators' attention. He never really denies involvement. We asked Major Todd Goodyear to look at Manley's letters with an analysis technique used by law enforcement. You can't file charges on Scott Manley based on anything in these letters. How does it help? Well, it's an investigative tool. Manley writes, the fact that anyone thought it possible that I could be part of such a horrible crime nauseated me. Most people would say, I find it reprehensible,

I find it unbelievable that anyone thinks that I could kill her. Yes. Because I didn't. That would be a very strong statement that says, I didn't do it. And instead? This is not an I didn't do it. This is a, I can't believe anybody thinks I could be part of this. Goodyear is also intrigued by this line,

that Manley and Amy planned to go out when she returned home from church. To me, it kind of signifies we're going to go out on some type of a social or semi-date. And then later on in the letter, he talks about he was supposed to go there for a meeting. Had I not canceled our meeting, could I have helped or saved Amy? That word meeting means something to you because it could lead to motive. Could, because a meeting is business. That's why Goodyear wonders if that meeting involved drugs. I've always thought that he was involved. But suspicion isn't enough. Suspicion isn't enough.

DNA found on the Guns magazine doesn't match Scott Manley, Dominic Kanuka, or any other known suspect. It's still a track. It's not one of our suspects, but it's somebody that's linked to them. It's still a good thing. Is Dominic Kanuka still a suspect? I would say, yeah, he's still a suspect because we can't clear him out. And Scott Manley is still a suspect? We can't connect him definitively to it, and then again, we can't clear him.

Investigators concede that Amy's killer could be someone who's not even on their radar. But there's no statute of limitations for murder. So they hope scientific technology or some new tip will be key to solving this case. In cases like this, anything can be important. We know this case is solvable. I think that people are holding on to information. They don't think it's significant, but it is. It means everything to us. Amy means everything to us. I'm not into vengeance. I'm into justice. I want justice to be served.

If you have information about Amy Gellert's murder, please contact the Brevard County Homicide Unit, majorcrimes at bcso.us, or call the Central Florida Crime Line, 1-800-423-TIPS. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.