48 Hours - The Disappearance of Kelly Dwyer

Episode Date: November 3, 2019

A young woman vanished after a night out in Milwaukee in October 2013. Did a meeting set up on a dating app lead to the disappearance or was it someone she knew? "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

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. It was somewhat unusual for someone to just vanish out of thin air, especially on the east side of Milwaukee. Kelly Dwyer, she is a young woman that is out trying to discover herself. You see this bright-eyed, smiling, beautiful girl who really seemed to have a lot of life and vitality.

We got to spend quite a bit of time together in the yoga room. It was rare not to see her, and I had just assumed she was on an adventure of some sort. October 12, 2013, she did not show up for work. Her coworkers were absolutely the first to respond. Kelly was very tied to her cell phone, always posting on social media, always texting. When they called Kelly's cell phone, it went straight to voicemail. Kelly Dwyer is missing.

Flyers started going out. All of a sudden in the community, it was boom. Everybody knew that she was missing. There's a sense of urgency here. Absolute sense of urgency for certain. Today, authorities and volunteers hunted for clues in her disappearance. I think that people saw those images and realized, you know, this could be my daughter. This could be my best friend.

Kelly Dwyer was an acquaintance of mine. We would meet up at Allium, a local bar, and we would touch face frequently throughout the week. We learned that she was on a number of websites where one would meet men. She was bright, sweet, just kind-hearted, good person. She was on websites that could expose you to people very quickly that are strangers. Some of her friends made comments that she might be with one of those people right now. Ms. Dwyer was meeting people that could have put her in harm's way. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project.

It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now, we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder. I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was

created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. 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 avert it. It just happens to all of them. we're still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials I'll be uncovering a story of

abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique lonely pacific island to the brink of extinction listen to the pitcairn trials exclusively on Wondery Plus join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app apple podcasts or spotify It's like she vanishes. Her social media goes dead. Her debit card goes dead. The phone is dead. Like the rest of Milwaukee, Assistant District Attorney Sarah Hill found Kelly Dwyer's sudden disappearance in 2013 baffling. In an age of an electronic footprint, if you will, it's not there. It's like she just isn't anymore.

It's not there. It's like she just isn't anymore. The night of October 10th started out like any other for Kelly. She'd been on a date with a man named Chris Sacco. Kelly came to Chris's apartment building. They go to get a few drinks and have a nice night out at a place called Allium, a cute little bar that was kind of across the street from the apartment building. I remember her and I having a small conversation of, so what do you have to do tomorrow? And she goes, I actually have off.

Chanel Royston was at the bar that night. Kelly told her what she planned to do the next day. I want to wake up in the morning, I want to do yoga, I want to do laundry, and just have an easy day. They picked up a pizza from Ian's, a little pizza place that's like a block away, brought it to the bar. We were all sitting outside on this very long communal picnic bench.

We were all nibbling on the pizza. You know, they're sharing it with us. Kelly and Chris decide to call it a night. A little after two in the morning, they head back to Mr. Zacco's apartment building across the street. Kelly and Chris had been dating for about a year after being introduced through a mutual friend. Kelly had moved to Milwaukee in 2008 and gone to college. When we're in our early 20s, that's definitely a time of exploration when you're trying to find your own footing as an adult.

That's it. Biceps behind the ears. Lower your chin. She always greeted me with a hug. Kelly's journey of self-discovery had led to yoga class and instructor Ryan Hader. She was always excited to see me and excited to get her butt kicked in my class. Keep your upper back strong. And her energy was just infectious. Kelly worked part-time as a nanny and as a salesperson for an athletic apparel store where her tight-knit co-workers were the first to sound the alarm when she missed a shift. They worked together and they played together. It's like she found her tribe. When was the last time that you saw Kelly Dwyer? It was just before her birthday. She was like, something big is going to happen.

I can feel it. This feels really important to me. Kelly had just turned 27, and her relationship with 38-year-old Chris Sacco seemed to be taking on greater meaning for her. Based on what her friends said, it certainly appeared to me that she was extremely interested in him. Maybe even in love with him. Chris's mother, Joyce Fry. He was always into sports. He always had a lot of friends. He was a very good golfer.

My dad took him out to the driving ranges. I think he put a golf club in Chris's hand when he was about three. Chris graduated from Boston University with a degree in international business. But his love of sports led him to his dream job. He was a major Yankee fan. And they did hire him in their IT staff. And he just thought that there could never be anything better. And where was his office?

It was at the ballpark. At Yankee Stadium? Mm-hmm. That's where his office was? Yeah. So he was in heaven. Yeah, he really was. But Joyce says Chris left New York in search of new opportunities,

eventually landing in Milwaukee in 2009 and winding up at the relocation management company where she worked. He was the CIO, the chief information officer. I became involved in Kelly Dwyer's missing person investigation. Catherine Spano, then a detective with the Milwaukee Police Department, would learn about Kelly and Chris's relationship. She says Kelly's reasons for dating Chris were obvious. He was educated.

He was bright. He was smart. He had a job that paid him well. He had a nice car, a beautiful condo down on the east side. While some friends thought Kelly might have been in love with Chris, it seems Zacco might not have been on the same page. Chris Zacco described his relationship with Kelly Dwyer as friends with benefits. But it did seem Kelly was keeping her options open.

Mr. Zacco didn't make promises to her that he was being exclusive with her, and she also dated some other people. Royston recalls another time not long before Kelly went missing. It was a very easy night here at the bar. Chanel was out at the Allium bar when Chris and Kelly invited her back to Chris' apartment at closing time. I went across the street with him for a nightcap.

Walked out to the balcony to smoke a cigarette. Chris then joined me. He was smoking marijuana. Kelly was inside. I don't smoking marijuana. Kelly was inside. I don't know exactly what Kelly was doing. Chanel says she got a bad feeling. I just had this urge that I needed to leave. Though she'd just arrived, she told Chris and Kelly she suddenly realized how late it was and that she had to work in the morning. I looked at Kelly. I said, I need to leave. it was and that she had to work in the morning. I looked at Kelly. I said, I need to leave.

And she looked up and said, are you sure? I said, yep, it's okay. It's just late, later than I thought. I need to go home. And I walked out. What was it? What was your sixth sense telling you? I don't know. It just, you weren't supposed to be there. Bad space, bad juju. You don't need to be here. Chanel wasn't the only one to get the sense that all might not have been right in Kelly's world. Kelly, like many women her age, had been active on several dating websites. Even though she was seeing Chris,

and I'm thinking that that was the main person she was seeing, she was dating other people. There were other people and other men involved. And her friends were concerned. She made a few statements. They were usually prompted by the friends observing bruising on her wrists or her neck and wondering why she has those bruises. She told one friend she kind of laughed about these bruises on her neck and wrists

And laughed it off as a crazy night Right And changed the subject Yes As police face the daunting task of finding Kelly Would her love life provide their first clue? There are some evil people out there. 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,

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9-1-2-9, I'm 23. So on Monday, October 14th, I started my shift at 4 p.m. I learned that Kelly Dwyer, a young woman, had been reported missing and had not been seen or heard from since the previous Friday. As Kelly Dwyer's family and friends continued to search for her, Milwaukee detective Tammy Trammell McClain arrived at the scene of Kelly's last known whereabouts three days earlier, Chris Sacco's apartment building. They come right through this door and he actually holds the door open for her. You can see that on the video? Yes. You see two people that are chatting, walk past that camera, then there's another camera that catches

them turning the corner to the elevator. And you can see Kelly in her typical, I think, outgoing fashion. She's gesturing with her hands a little. They bend the corner. And then that's the last time that she is ever seen alive by anyone. alive by anyone. Now, it was time to talk to the other person in that video. Tramell McClain sat down with Zocco in his 18th floor apartment. He came off as a pretty nice guy. He said she would hang out with him a couple times a week.

He used the word party. They partied together. Somewhat shockingly, Zocco didn't hold back, telling police exactly what he meant by party, as he described how he and Kelly had ended their evening. They walk back and they do lines of cocaine. They have a couple more drinks. He says there was sex and they both passed out on opposite ends of his couch. Zacco said Kelly left around nine o'clock the next morning, adding that he heard the front door click shut behind her. There was only one problem with that. While I'm speaking with him, I get a text message from one of the other investigators who had been watching video downstairs with the manager. And he simply just says in the text,

she doesn't come out. As Tramiel McClain focused on how Kelly could have slipped out of this high security building undetected, Zacco seemed more interested in shifting focus away from himself. Well, you know, she's messing around with a lot of other guys. There's some other guy, you know, kind of trying to take the attention away from himself. That may have been Zacco's intention, but that's not what happened. In your bones, in your gut, based on your instinct and your training and experience, you felt like you were looking at a suspect? Yes.

Police needed a way to search Zacco's apartment for evidence. Because he had told Tramell McClain he'd used drugs there, they were able to get a search warrant. What'd you find? Lines of cocaine on top of a magazine, some canisters of marijuana in the refrigerator, painkillers, pills, and marijuana pipes, smoking pipes. They should tell you how cold it is in this place before they ask you.

Zacco was arrested for drug possession. During his interview, he seemed flip, even when asked routine questions about his medical history. Anxiety, nothing like that? I have anxiety. Okay, but no... I'm not taking anything for it.

Okay, no problem. But no bipolar, schizophrenia? I suppose that's all open to interpretation by somebody. Sacco's interrogation finishes abruptly. Let's call my lawyer. But while they had Zacco in custody, police get a warrant to search his cell phone, hoping to find clues in Kelly's disappearance. They were stunned to find a video of Zacco and Kelly Dwyer engaged in a sex act, where Kelly appears to be in distress.

She can't breathe. She's straining for breath. When was this video taken? That video was taken approximately three weeks before she went missing. And there was more incriminating evidence disturbing pictures of Kelly on Zocco's phone. Still photographs that are very concerning as well because she appears to be unconscious on his bed. But police could not link those images to Kelly's disappearance. And despite Zocco being a person of interest, they could only charge him with drug possession. But that search of his apartment led police

to a bizarre discovery in his bathroom. During that first search warrant, the police observe the shower curtain hooks with the torn fragments of shower curtain. Not knowing what a torn down shower curtain could mean, and concerned that Kelly is never seen exiting the building. They then bring in a canine to conduct a sniff for the odor of decomposing human remains. And that police cadaver dog, Molly, would deliver some stunning results.

There's an indication at the outside of the apartment door, in the parking garage on the level he parked his car, on the dumpster door on the 18th floor. Molly alerted on the hallway, guest bedroom, guest bathroom. She went on to the master bedroom, got up onto Chris Zacco's bed. She seemed to be sniffing vigorously on top of his bed and gives her final formal trained alert.

For police, that moment changed this case forever. They now believed Kelly was dead and her final moments had been in Chris Zocco's apartment. And if Kelly died on that bed, where did the body go? That's what we needed to find out. And Chris Zocco had those answers, and at that point, it was turning into a homicide investigation. Not having enough to charge Zocco and not knowing where Kelly's body could be,

police search Zocco's home electronics for more clues. They examined an external hard drive and some disks that were found in his spare bedroom. What's on that hard drive? That hard drive has a number of hardcore child pornography videos. Very extremely, extremely disturbing. Zocco disavowed any knowledge of the child pornography police found.

If you're an IT guy, you collect stuff. So you collect old hard drives, you collect disks, you collect, you know, you just collect IT equipment. And that particular hard drive was from his former place of work in Boston. He didn't know it was there. And you believe him? I do believe him, yeah. It had been two weeks since Kelly disappeared. Zocco was arrested again, this time for possession of child pornography.

By early November 2013, he was out on bail and awaiting trial on the drug and child porn charges. Girlfriend? No, I mean, I dated multiple people. But before Zocco had lawyered up in that first interrogation, it would turn out he'd said something that would come back to haunt him. Okay, so nobody you can say to your girlfriend right now? No, there's a couple of girls

that I would like to be my girlfriend, but it hasn't been that seriously yet. I guess, yeah. He began dating a young woman in 2009. He was living two different lives. Towards the end, there was more touching. More of the smiling towards each other. There was more affection there than there had been towards the beginning.

According to Chanel Royston, before Kelly Dwyer disappeared, it seemed her relationship with Chris Sacco was evolving. Did Kelly ever tell you that she was falling in love with Chris? She never told me, but you could tell, you know, how she would look at him, that she was looking for something more. And I think that she did love him at that point. It turns out Zocco may have been in love as well

with someone else. He was in a very serious relationship with a woman who he was dating at the time that he was seeing Kelly. And this young woman knew nothing about the relationship with Kelly. And did Kelly have any idea about this other woman? Absolutely not. And neither did investigators until this other woman's brother, after seeing Zacco arrested on the news,

reported to police that his sister Megan had been dating Zacco for more than three years. When I went to interview the long-term girlfriend, Megan, I had a lot of photographs from the search warrants with me, and I was able to have her identify different objects within the apartment. They learned that a number of things were missing. She described that guest bathroom, there should have been a shower curtain, there should have been a little rug and some matching decorative towels. All of those things were gone and she was surprised to see that. She identified the shower curtain hooks that were bent and torn, identified the fact that they were

not like that when she had last been in there. And it's in that very bathroom where the sniffer dog had alerted detecting human remains. Exactly. Megan also identified one more missing item. There had been a large travel golf bag lying in front of the TV that had been there for weeks and weeks that they literally would have to step over to get into the bathroom, and that was missing. A travel golf bag, possibly like this one, is commonly used by golfers to protect their clubs. It's all padded. Correct. Very large. Very large.

Very large. It was padded. It was silver. And she thought it was maybe two, two and a half feet wide. Detectives wondered if Zocco had a more sinister use for the bag. Could Kelly's body have fit inside that travel bag? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

But how did Zocco get that bag out of his apartment? But how did Zocco get that bag out of his apartment? There is no video of Zocco leaving on any of the 28 surveillance cameras in the building. There's no camera on the elevator, so he could take her body in the travel golf bag out of his apartment, into the elevator, down to the first floor, and out that door to the garage without being captured on any cameras. But there are cameras inside the garage, and yet no image of Zocco with that bag. The garage is the only area where the cameras would be motion activated. Some of the investigators think, hey, he just got lucky with it. It took months of painstaking work for Milwaukee PD investigators

to piece together Chris Sacco's movements on the days after his date with Kelly Dwyer. Lieutenant Eric Gobransen worked the case as both a homicide and cold case detective. At 10.06 a.m., we have Chris Zacco standing by the driver's side door. When he leaves that building, at 10.08 a.m., Kelly Dwyer's phone, it goes dead. What do you think happened to the phone at that moment? Broken, powered down, thrown in the water.

The river is very close by. Zacco is next seen back in his garage, 16 minutes later, standing by the trunk of his car. If you look closely in that image, there's a gray or silver object lying in the vehicle above the trunk level. I think that's consistent with the travel golf bag. So you believe Kelly Dwyer is in the trunk of his vehicle? I do.

Investigators believe that because the cadaver dog, Molly, told them so. The cadaver dog not only hits on all of those things in the apartment, but the dog hits on the car also, in the trunk and on the door handle and inside the vehicle. Over the next eight hours, video shows Zocco coming and going several more times, loading items into his car before finally leaving for the day at 6.16 p.m. He said he decided to take his summer sports equipment to his mother's house. On a Friday night around 6.30? Sure, yes.

He came over to drop off some golf clubs and his baseball equipment. And so there's nothing in your mind unusual when he showed up with this sporting equipment at your place? Not at all. There's a golf bag that investigators say went missing, a bag that they claim Kelly Dwyer's body was in. Did you ever see this golf bag? Never.

7.30 p.m., and Zocco is now due at his girlfriend's house for a Friday night dinner. But investigators learn he didn't arrive until about 8.45. There's time that's unaccounted for. We believe he was possibly looking for areas to dispose of the body during that time. Unfortunately, detectives weren't able to trace Zacco's movements from his phone records. Was his cell phone on or off? It was off. When Zacco did finally arrive for dinner, his girlfriend told investigators he wasn't quite himself. His girlfriend told investigators he wasn't quite himself. He was quite late, and he seemed a little bit ruffled, a little bit nervous.

He's fiddling with his phone, claiming it doesn't work. When they went to bed, she described them as being restless. She described them as sweating profusely to the point where she actually had to change the sheets. She found that very unusual. And Zocco may have had a very good reason to sweat that night. His car is parked near his girlfriend's house overnight. We believe that body is absolutely in that trunk, locked inside that golf bag.

He could not have left that body in his apartment because that's the first place everybody went to look for Kelly. The following morning, investigators say Zocco rose with the sun, still faced with a nightmare. He was desperate. By Saturday, he had to get that body out of that vehicle. One day after Kelly Dwyer disappeared, Chris Sacco left his girlfriend's apartment and hit the road. Where he went that morning would be the first in a series of clues as to what may have happened to Kelly Dwyer. Chris Zacco had gone to a place called the Mouse House.

What's the Mouse House? It's a cheese place. This is the Mouse House, 80 miles from Milwaukee near Madison, Wisconsin. One cheese shop in a state full of cheese shops. Why would he drive up toward Madison to buy cheese? It's a very good question. A very good question. Zacco says he drove 160 miles round trip to buy a half pound wedge of cheese for his girlfriend's parents.

But the investigators say that he did it to finally dispose of Kelly's body somewhere in the rural Wisconsin farmland between Madison and Milwaukee. In case he was spotted, do you believe Zocco actually went to the mouse house to create an alibi of sorts? I do. I certainly do. Police believe that after dumping Kelly's body, Zocco made his way to this shopping center on his drive back to Milwaukee. Investigators say that he walked into a sports authority and used his credit card to buy a brand new pair of sneakers. Why is he buying new sneakers?

He may have purchased those sneakers to replace ones that he used in dumping the body. Like he might have been concerned that evidence got on those sneakers, so he had to have new ones to put on. Here's the slip-up. I don't know if maybe he just had a momentary lapse of judgment, but that created a paper trail for him. That paper trail was a single credit card receipt, which gave detectives a critical piece of the timeline. We know through the investigation that he purchased the cheese at 9.55 a.m., and we know that he purchased the shoes at 12.11 p.m. and we know that he purchased the shoes at 12.11 p.m.

The distance between the Mouse House and Sports Authority is 54 miles, and it should take 47 minutes to get there, but yet we have 90 minutes unaccounted for at that time. 90 minutes, certainly enough time, detectives believed, for Zocco to locate a secluded spot off the highway. But for them to find that spot would be like finding a needle in a haystack. And without Kelly's body, there was no physical evidence of a crime to charge Zocco with. Only circumstance and suspicion.

Did you want to take it to trial then? It was tough. What was missing? What was missing was her body. Eventually, Chris Zocco did go on trial in November 2014, not for murder, but for the child pornography possession uncovered with the initial investigation search warrants. What's the result of that trial? He's convicted of all but one count.

One month later, Zocco pleaded guilty to additional drug charges and was sentenced to a total of 19 years. So are you done with Chris Zocco? Is that it? Or is the potential murder investigation still hanging over his head? It's still there. Well, we still wanted to be able to find out what actually happened with Kelly. Authorities have just identified the remains of 27-year-old Kelly Dwyer.

Detective, where are we? We are on a dead-end country road, and we are about 45 miles west of Milwaukee. And it's quite overgrown here, but this is the specific area where Kelly Dwyer's body was found. For a year and a half, Kelly Dwyer had been here. Hidden under these trees. hidden under these trees, just six miles from busy I-94, before her remains were discovered by a local man out for a walk. He catches a glint of light hitting off of something that's whitish in color.

And when he takes a closer look, he sees what appears to be a human skull. Six days later, using dental records, those remains were confirmed to be Kelly Dwyer. What could not be confirmed, though, was just how she died. There was nothing on that skeleton to tell us what the cause of death was. There was no physical evidence found at the scene either. No shower curtain, no cloth, no towel, no clothing. And no travel golf bag. But detectives say there was one clue left behind, the position of Kelly's skeleton.

Her feet and legs were more over in this area, with one of her legs completely turned, very contorted. Same thing with her left arm. It was behind her back as if she had been scrunched into some kind of a container. Like a golf travel bag. Like a golf travel bag, exactly. Exactly. It would appear that police now had enough evidence to bring Chris Sacco back to court for the death of Kelly Dwyer. It is just too much of a coincidence that her body is found somewhat near where he was shopping on the day after she goes missing. But Assistant District Attorney Hill wanted more than coincidence

to build an airtight case. We wanted to make sure that we had uncovered all of the evidence we would be able to uncover. When you have a case that's going to be largely circumstantial, it's absolutely essential you do that. And with Sacco already in prison, there was no rush. It took another two years of investigative work before the state of Wisconsin charged Chris Sacco in the death of Kelly Dwyer. And another year and a half to bring the case to trial. How strong is the evidence against Chris Sacco? Learn why investigators say Kelly's killer picked the perfect spot at 48hours.com. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This case is about a young woman named Kelly Dwyer.

Almost five years after Kelly Dwyer went missing, Chris Sacco goes on trial for her death. But surprising to some, not for murder. Chris Zocco was charged with first degree reckless homicide, hiding a corpse, and strangulation suffocation. With the media restricted behind courtroom security glass, prosecutor Sarah Hill presents the state's theory of how they believe Kelly died. You will hear evidence that the defendant, Mr. Zocco, was basically having sex with Kelly Dwyer and he winds up killing her. I think Chris Zocco enjoyed taking women to the brink of death for his own sexual gratification. In fact, investigators interviewed several women who said that Zocco engaged in this type of behavior

as far back as high school. And that it was that reckless conduct that wound up killing Kelly Dwyer. And then Mr. Zocco had to do something about it. Chris uses that shower curtain and wraps her up, puts her into the golf bag, and goes down to his parking garage. The police have no evidence to believe that Ms. Dwyer exited the apartment in either a shower curtain or a golf travel bag.

the apartment in either a shower curtain or a golf travel bag. Chris Zacco's defense attorneys, Craig Mastantuno and Rebecca Coffey, say the state has it all wrong. Someone did kill Kelly Dwyer, but it wasn't Chris Zacco. This case is more about the state wanting Mr. Zacco to be guilty than having the evidence to prove it. Is there any eyewitness to this alleged crime? There was no eyewitness, no. Is there a CSI moment, some definitive piece of DNA?

There was no DNA evidence. The prosecution contends that while the security camera video clearly shows Kelly walking into Zacco's building, she is never seen walking out. She very well could have left the building in a way that wasn't reviewed. The defense argues there is video from several cameras they never had a chance to examine because it was not preserved as evidence.

When the defense went to review all of the video evidence, that video was missing. And what about that missing travel golf bag? Police insist is in the back of Zocco's car. We've looked at that picture. There is no silver bag in his trunk. There is no video of him carrying a bag that would have been a very large bag

to fit a woman who is 5'7". There was no video of that carrying a bag that would have been a very large bag to fit a woman who is 5'7". There was no video of that because that didn't happen. The cadaver dog evidence seems significant. Canine Molly alerts on the bed in the master bedroom, and she also alerts in the garage. There's no way whatsoever to verify what the officer says this dog alerted to. It wasn't even filmed. And so it's entirely dependent on a police officer describing what she believes her dog was alerting to. And the defense also has an explanation for that video on Zocco's phone, where Kelly appears to be in distress.

The government found a video that Kelly Dwyer and Chris Zacco made together. They are calling it strangulation or suffocation. A consensual sexual act is what it depicts. That type of sex is depicted in mainstream motion pictures like Fifty Shades of Grey as being engaged in with two consensual adults. If Chris Zocco did not kill Kelly Dwyer, who did? I don't know. I don't think that we know. I think that we know that it could have been a number of other people. The defense says that's because Kelly dated men she had met online. And it's

the suggestion that she met up with one of these individuals and that that could be the cause of her disappearance. Yes. Yes. Yes. To support that theory, the defense presented a witness who says that he saw Kelly after she was reported missing. Someone who credibly said, I saw her that weekend in the car of another individual. His observation of this individual was very brief at a stoplight. I was sure that it was her. It looked exactly like her. He went to the district station and said, I saw the woman that is being looked for that's on the posters, that's on TV.

Did anyone ever follow up with you about that information? No. You think he's just mistaken? I think he's mistaken. I don't think he was trying to mislead anybody. I just truly believe he's mistaken. After nine days of argument and testimony, the case seemed to rest on one thing,

the quality of the evidence. Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant killed Kelly Dwyer. Every piece of circumstantial evidence supports that. Despite the tragedy of Ms. Dwyer's demise, it's not justice to find Chris Zagel guilty based on conjecture. It's justice to find him not guilty. All of the factors pointed to him. There's no other person that could have done it. It took the jury only three and a half hours to reach the same conclusion. We, the jury, find the defendant, Chris Zocco, guilty of first degree reckless homicide. He's charged and caught one of the...

Finally, after five years of waiting and wondering, there is justice for Kelly Dwyer. As for Chris Zacco... He did look at me when he was being removed. What did you see? He was devastated. And what was Chris's sentence? 31 years. Is that on top of the 19 years?

Yes. Chris Sacco is a person who's demonstrated that he poses a danger to society, particularly to women. And someone is dead as a result. to women, and someone is dead as a result. That someone was a vibrant and trusting young woman just beginning to find her way in the world. She was a loving person who truly cared about people and loved so much that she didn't really find much fault in anyone.

There's this sense of profound loss. Loss for her family, her friends. You see a loss of a light because of one person's selfishness. And that's a tragedy. Tragedy is the best word for it. Tragedy is the best word for it. Chris Zocco will be eligible for release in 2065.

He will be 90 years old. Zocco plans to appeal his homicide conviction. 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.