Anatomy of Murder - On Base

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

Will the results of a computer search conducted on a military base, turn up evidence that leads to a hunt for a sadistic killer? For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/. Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

Before we get started, we wanted to let you know that today's story had some graphic, disturbing content about the violence, but also sexual assault. With that, here we go. So tell me the story. So you walked into her house in the wild. And I jumped out and I covered her mouth before she could start screaming. And I told her I'd tear her up with half the cord. I was afraid for a while they might never find who did it. Because this is not television. These things don't happen overnight. She tried to fire you?

She finally passes out. Just because they passed out don't mean they're dead. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder. Today's case takes us behind the walls of a highly fortified military base and straight into an NCIS investigation. It's a rare view into the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. And for today's story, I spoke with Cynthia Snell,

who herself served honorably in the U.S. Marine Corps. But it's the death of her daughter, Amanda, a petty officer with the U.S. Navy, that would have NCIS investigators scrambling for answers. In 2009, Amanda Snell was 20 years old. She had been born on a Marine base to a military family. She was the brightest, sweetest young lady that you would probably know. She wanted to help everybody. She didn't have to know you to love you. She loved you. And was giving of everything. If she could do it for you, she'd do it. She'd literally, like they say, give you the shirt off her back.

And life for the military children is a little different. And by 2009, Amanda had entered the military herself and was a petty officer in the Navy, second class. I was proud. It doesn't really matter what branch of the service you go into. I think everybody should go in the military for at least one tour because you give back. And she felt the same way. You have to give back. In 2009, Amanda was assigned to work under the chief of naval operations at the Pentagon,

and she worked in a highly classified world of military intelligence. I thought that was the most awesome thing in the world because I would have loved to have worked there when I was in the military and I never got the chance. And so I thought, you are doing good. You are in a prime position as long as you do everything you're supposed to do and you maintain yourself and you've got it made as long as you do everything you're supposed to do and you maintain yourself and you've got it made as long as you don't mess it up. And she was living very close to work at the Pentagon. She was living at Fort Myers Henderson Hall, which was basically a dorm-style facility right across the street from Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

At the time, Cynthia was already retired from the service and living in Las Vegas. Between having to fly cross-country, we all know how expensive that is, finances were tight, so the two didn't get to see each other as often as they would have liked, but they remained close by other means. But on May 13, 2009, that all changed.

There was a knock at my door. I lived on the ninth floor of this building in Las Vegas, and I looked through the peephole, and there were two gentlemen in uniform. And my heart just sank, because having been in the military, I know what that means. That there's something horribly wrong. I let them in, and they notified me that they were from the local casualty assistance office. Casualty assistance office. It's exactly what it sounds like.

Think about every movie you've ever seen where there is that slow, ominous knock at the door and a military family is about to get bad news. They are the ones that deliver the news and offer literally any assistance those loved ones might need. I basically just kind of froze. I don't even think I cried till after they left that day. When Amanda fails to show up at her shift at the Pentagon on the night of Sunday, July 12, 2009, that raised concerns. She hadn't reported for work, so they tried to contact her. So then they had to make the visit to her barracks room to see where she was at. They knock at the door and they quickly realize that it is unlocked. And that was the first signal.

They had gotten into the room and searched it. As they enter the room, there's no sign of Amanda. But as investigators began to check further, they noticed that her purse and ID are in plain sight. And they find that bizarre, considering that these are items that a 20-year-old would not leave behind. They also begin to notice a foul smell upon entering the room, and their eyes make their way to three lockers situated across the wall in the room.

They begin to open each one, and they immediately see Amanda's motionless body jammed into the middle locker. Although they were still in the technical process of identification, they were fairly certain that it was her that had been discovered in her wall locker in her barracks room. It's incredibly hard for anyone to hear that their daughter is dead, let alone to hear that she was stuffed in a locker.

But it gets worse than that. A pillowcase is twisted over her head, and she's wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Her knees are pressed into her torso, and her feet are pressed against a dresser. So of course the first thing investigators do is start to look around the room to see what else they can find, to get clues about what led her to be so horrifically positioned and dead in that locker.

We say wall lockers, but it's a wardrobe type of thing. But not made out of wood necessarily or anything like that. Usually double doors, but it's lockable. They see that her bed was made, as any military officer's bed would be expected to be. But there was only a fitted sheet and a comforter. The top sheet was missing, and that right away caught their attention,

but they didn't know what to make of it, but it struck them as a bit strange. Her room was clean, and we're not talking about a huge room. It's literally, if you picture a dorm room, that's really what this was. It was a co-ed barracks, but she had a room to herself. Her room had a built-in bathroom and shower and everything like that. So the next step for investigators is to have her body transported to the medical examiner's office to make a determination or a manner or cause of death. The amount of rigor mortis and decomposition coupled with the temperature inside Amanda's

room made it difficult to determine precise time of death. And as you know, they don't normally know to the moment of when that is. The ME theorized that she likely died between 24 to 36 hours before she was discovered. And investigators were focused on determining her cause of death and if foul play was involved. While the autopsy revealed she died of suffocation, they are focusing on several pieces of conflicting evidence. And while there's no outstanding marks or bruising around her neck,

there are post-mortem abrasions on both of Amanda's knees that are consistent with being dragged across the room or perhaps by the body being positioned inside the locker. So really, this is leaving a lot of question marks, because while you think about a body curled up inside of a locker, you obviously right away go to homicide. Crazier things have happened that would lead to it be a different result. And investigators need to look at all possibilities. She had probably been suffocated with that pillowcase, but was that something she had done to herself or that was done to her? She liked life too much. Nothing is ever so bad that living isn't better. I know she probably didn't tell me everything that was going on in her life. You know, and once you move out of home and everything like that, you don't always know them the way you used to.

But I can't imagine things changing so bad that she would want to do that. And I can't think of any of her friends that ever said they would have thought that either. And here's a couple things about Amanda. She suffered from migraines and would be known to even curl up in a dark place at times to try to stop the pounding in her head. She also had had trouble finding her niche with friends since joining the military and entering these new barracks. She was known to be a bit of a loner. So was it that her disassociation from others had led her down a path that ultimately led her to have such anxiety or maybe even depression that she would take her own life? Again, another possibility that had to be considered. Now, speaking to her family, they made it very clear that while these other things may have been part of her life,

that there was no way that she would have taken her own. But to NCIS, who had to explore all these possibilities, they weren't so sure. The ME also found that there was no clear indication of a sexual assault. And while the ME related to the investigators, it was unclear if she was met with foul play or if the death was possibly an accident, which really doesn't seem extremely realistic. When I got the autopsy report, it still said undetermined. I never got anything other than that to say any different. Remember what she did for work. I mean, she was a Navy intelligence specialist at the Pentagon. They obviously deal with lots of

classified, sensitive information. Could it be that what led her to be literally killed in that closet, if that's the case, had something to do with her work? While that sounds a bit clandestine, again, crazier things have happened, and NCIS needed to figure out where this was. Was it something caused by her own hands, or was this done to her? And if so, why? Remember, this is a military base with all of the high security measures in place getting on and off the base. So the real question was raised, if this was murder, could the killer be one of their own? So going down those paths, investigators decided to go back and re-examine Amanda's belongings.

For me, when they came and picked up her stuff again, if they still are thinking it's a suicide, there's no way that they're going to want to come and reclaim her personal effects and go back over them again. I was pretty sure that they had a pretty good idea what had happened, but maybe just not who yet. But what they found when they looked at her items in her room more closely was interesting to investigators. Her laptop, her cell phone, and the cord, they'd all been removed from her room. And when they looked around the locker that she was found in, they did see a shoe print found on the floor. And it came back to a type of sneaker, Michael Jordan Air Force Ones, that seemed larger in size than Amanda's. But again, beyond that, they didn't know who or what she was allowed to have people in her room on the barracks. I was afraid for a while they might never find who did

it because this is not television. These things don't happen overnight. But we've all seen the cases that last 20 or 30 years that get an answer. I just knew in my heart that we would get an answer someday. I was just hoping it wasn't going to take forever. But they actually went to a step that is a little less usual. They decided to autopsy her again because while this had been classified as undetermined, one group of investigators clearly felt that this was murder and they wanted to see if they looked at the body again more closely what they could find. Because one thing they find with suffocation is that very often if someone compresses the neck

that you have evidence of that. Some of the tiny bones in your neck are broken or there is hemorrhaging in the eyes, none of which they found. But they went back to those bruises on her knees that suggested not so much that it was from being jammed in that locker, which is, of course, a possibility, that it seemed to them much more likely that she was dragged to that closet after she was dead. So they wanted a second opinion. And when they got that second opinion, the result was different. They tweaked the terminology a little bit from suffocation to asphyxiation. Now, you can still asphyxiate at the hands of death by suicide, literally of hanging or something. But in this case, they started to really look at how she died with a much more sinister lens.

I had no idea who could have done it. Could have been anyone. I did automatically think it had to have been someone in the military because it would have been harder for a non-military person to get into the barracks to do something to her than it would have for somebody

on base. I think investigators were taking the right steps here and the determination of murder was clear. But after that, while they moved forward a bit, the investigation stalled for a bit. It had been like about six months after all this and I go, I'm not getting any word on anything, period. I'm a mother. I'm also a Marine. And what's going on? The mom's side of Cynthia began to get some answers and they were horrified. So while investigators are trying to figure out how Amanda died and are going much more down the path of homicide, none of that is really helping Cynthia coping with that loss, thinking about all the things her daughter could have been.

I think she had a calling that she was going to go into the ministry, been a youth minister in some church somewhere, watching over and loving a bunch of kids, maybe being married and having a couple of kids of her own. And whatever she was doing, she'd have been the best dad that she could be. As most of you realize, the majority of the cases that we cover involve either police departments or sheriff's offices or, you know, most law enforcement agencies that you'd find in your city or town or your state. But this is the NCIS, which clearly you probably know that acronym from television.

And it is a fascinating look for us to go in and to see how they operate and how they would proceed with this homicide investigation. Because there really is that clandestine aspect about it. They are much more confidential, much more secure in the investigation and for obvious reasons that are needed.

Because of perhaps national security reasons or things like that, they have to be a little more closed mouth in a military investigation about things. So at this point, everything is on the table about potential suspects. I can't think of a person that I knew that didn't like her. So while investigators are working hard, the investigation doesn't move very far ahead. It's pretty much stagnant because there's nothing personal known with animosity against Amanda that they could find. Everyone I met said she was bright and personal, volunteerful and a hard worker. She had a few pretty good friends.

I never actually had her tell me that she was dating anyone or anything like that. There was one young man I think that she was interested in, but it didn't work out because from what I understand, he wanted more than she was going to give. And she said, well, goodbye. So while Naval investigators were developing a potential list of suspects on base, off base, there were some incidents which caught their eye. Attacks on women with some similarities. Fast forward now to almost eight to nine months later, to February 10th, 2010.

And on that day, they find out that not too far away, a 26-year-old woman was walking to her boyfriend's house. And all of a sudden, she's approached by a man, a man who has a gun, and tells her to keep walking. She offers her purse or anything that she has, and he says no. And he forces her to get into his van, a tan Dodge Durango. He threatens her at knife point, makes her get into that car. But as she drops her bag, she's able to escape and run away. She calls the police and tells them about that ordeal.

And so why are we telling you about that, this seemingly unrelated case? Well, the one thing they know is that if it's homicide with respect to Amanda, that they couldn't think of anything personal, any personal problems she'd be having. So if she's killed that way, it may likely be random. And same thing with this now second person in a vicinity not too far away. So are

these two connected? Investigators needed to find out. Fast forward to another two weeks later. Supposedly there had been another young lady similar in age that had been assaulted. There's an eerily similar event also in Arlington County. February 27, 2010, two young grad students after a night out on the town are walking home. And as they do, a man now jumps out from behind a parked car. He shows a gun and he demands their wallets. He literally forces them inside their home and ties them up with cord. One of them is able to grab her phone and start to call 911 as the man walks into the other room. He comes back, sees the phone, snatches it, and literally throws it into a wall and smashes

it. He then takes one of those two women out of the home and places her inside his tan Dodge Durango. He leaves with her, sexually assaults her repeatedly, takes her to a secluded location. He then chokes her with her own scarf and leaves her for dead. But she didn't die. She regains consciousness and is found by a couple of passerbys who see this young woman stumbling. She's taken away in an ambulance to then relive and recount this story for investigators. They thought maybe there was a serial person. Even as traumatic as those events were, the victims were able to give investigators a

solid description of the suspect. He is short and he's stocky. And of the vehicle. Those that had seen him with his car or that were forced into it all describe it as a tan Dodge Durango. And putting that together with the events that occurred on base, police really, really want to know, is it all connected?

And look at what else. The young woman who had been one of the two grad students, she was choked. Remember, Amanda was choked. Remember, Amanda was choked. But here's the next thing. When they start to look for this car, because of course that is the one most specific thing they have, well, a patrolman remembers that car and takes this case much, much farther than it had gone up until then.

Weeks before, a Kenai patrol officer noticed that the vehicle was sitting in a place and the occupant was watching people walking in and out of bars, which happened to be very close to where these women were attacked. He took the license plate down, he ran it on his computer, and then nothing else happened on that day. Fast forward to when these attacks occurred, he remembered that description. He went back to his system to see the license plate that he had ran weeks before, and then... They had a name, Jorge Avila Torres. Now, Avila Torres was a 22-year-old who drove a tan Dodge Durango. He was from the Chicago area, and he was a Marine. And he told me he was a Marine, which crushed me in a way, too, because that's like having a member

of your family. And I'm like, no way, a Marine wouldn't do that. And you know what else? He lived in the same barracks as Amanda. Now, clearly, this is a huge lead. The question was, if he shows a propensity of violence off base, is it likely he would do the same on base? And could Amanda be one of his victims? And it's more than propensity here. I mean, we're talking M.O., modus operandi. They're starting to look at these attacks. Are they so similar? Are there such specifics that they can tie from one to the next that they're able to actually put all these attacks by one person? And is that person a

villatoris? But this investigation is still in its infancy when it comes to directly tying him to Amanda's murder. And it's a frustrating reality for Amanda's family. And at this point, the only closure they've received so far came from her funeral. So we took her back home to sleep in the Garden of Memories, which is one of the two cemeteries there. And they had a military honor guard from her Pentagon unit. But it was so gray and cloudy and gloomy until the moment we started carrying her out to the hearse to take her to the cemetery, and then the sunlight broke out. Like she was saying, it's going to be okay. I'm happy now. After they now have this name of Avila Torres,

together with the other information they have, they go back to the victims, and he is actually identified by one of the survivors, who says very clearly and quickly, that's him. So he's arrested for one of those attacks. His SUV is searched, and the sexual assault victim's identification is in his Dodge Durango, one of her earrings, the cords that the young women had been bound with, and a stun gun. And then they go back to his room in the barracks, they search it, and inside his room, they find a pistol. And even more importantly, and even more disturbing, they look at his computer

and there is a search for sexual assault porn. And he's also looking at what to do with chloroform. So they bring him in, sit him down, and they want to question him. He would only say that he really didn't know Amanda and he never went into her room. And then he lawyers up, but not before providing a DNA sample, which will provide the biggest twist in this case yet. But it's not the one you think. So when they run Torres' DNA through the system, they come back with a hit. But it is a hit that takes them now to Zion, Illinois. Torres is from Zion, Illinois. May 8th, going back to 2005,

some years before, two little girls, eight and nine, were sexually assaulted and murdered. There were the two little girls that he had been alleged to have kidnapped and raped and murdered. One of them was stabbed numerous times. The other, there was clear evidence of sexual assault. There had never been a DNA match before now.

Torres is now connected to two horrific crimes. So why is it that they still can't connect him to Amanda's homicide? What else do they need? I think they were doing their best for as full a disclosure as they could give during an ongoing investigation. This was a huge turning point in the Amanda Snell murder investigation. Investigators needed to go back and redouble their look at the crime scene, even reprocess portions of it. Remember, there's still nothing directly connecting him to Amanda's murder. So when they go back, one of the things they do is they get a search warrant for his phone. And when they look at Torres' phone, they see that he is a guy that is very active on that phone.

But on the night Amanda was killed, he was on his phone up until 2.25 a.m. But then there was no activity again until 4.40 p.m., and those hours of silence are right around the time she was believed to have been killed. I think that's when it started cementing it for me. And at that point in time, I stopped thinking of him as a Marine. And I know they say once a Marine, always a Marine, but I stopped thinking of him as that. We often talk about digital forensics, right, Anna Seeg? I mean, that's one of our favorite pieces of evidence. And you're assuming certain things, but if it's a pattern and a practice of what someone normally does and that is changed, then that is an open question that needs to be resolved.

And again, these are all tiny pieces continuing to point in his direction. But as the prosecutor, I say that's still not enough to get you into the courtroom for her murder. So now let's go back to those shoes. Remember the shoes that they had found, the footprints outside of the locker she was found in? Well, when they looked at his shoes, his footprints, they found that those shoes would be consistent with shoes he had, but they couldn't make it a definitive match. They also had no other evidence yet that he had ever been into her room. So outside of any forensic or scientific evidence, investigators would have to take a different approach, talk to the people that are familiar with Titoris.

Had he talked about Amanda? Had anyone seen them together? Is there any surveillance video on base that shows them walking together or even knowing each other? Because certainly if evidence could come forward that they're seen together on a surveillance tape, then Taurus is saying that he didn't know Amanda would be detrimental to his defense. I passed through to my family that they had a suspect and everybody starts pulling everything up online. I said, stop showing me these things. I don't want to see these things. I don't want you guys spreading word back and forth about what you think did or didn't happen. I was yelling and I was screaming and I was asking God and everyone else,

why? Why can't this just be over? Why can't I know? I just want to know and have it be over. The one big thing they have going for them now is that they have this name, which is their person of interest, their true focus.

And while they can't put blinders on and just decide it's him because they don't have that evidence yet, they can really now start to see if they look at him and around him and at connections, if any, between him and Amanda. At least now they can focus their search differently and kind of reprocess it, Scott, you know, exactly like you're talking about, to see if it gives them that evidence. And that's much, much more than they had before. Clearly circumstantial. I think so. I think there's a lot of evidence to suggest that what he was saying was not truthful.

But, you know, there's a big bar to cross over here, Anastasia. Is that correct? A hundred percent. I mean, to me, there is not enough evidence at this point to charge him. While things are pointing in the direction and he seems like he definitely should and may likely be the guy based on all the horrors he has now been identified for against other victims and survivors, but there just isn't enough to tie him yet definitively to Amanda's murder. So they keep looking and then a piece of evidence comes out from actually behind those prison walls.

This is a very forward-leaning section of the investigation. While Torres was in jail awaiting trial on the assault cases, in Virginia, investigators had a plan. Because local investigators suspected Torres was planning to threaten or intimidate witnesses in the Arlington case, they arranged for a federal inmate to act as a confidential informant and record conversations between the two of them, multiple recordings that would lead to some shocking revelations. All right, so tell me this story. So you walked into her house and then what? She couldn't believe her own eyes.

When investigators go back and listen to the recordings between this inmate and Torres, it is more than just disturbing. All right, so tell me the story.. You tied up her hands? her up with half the cord. You tied up her hands? Yeah, with half her laptop cord. And then everything else after that, I was just dumbfounded. I told her I'd tie her up with half the cord. You tied up her hands?

Yeah, with half her laptop cord. You can't let her go because you recognize her. No. I put the other half of the cord around her neck and I choked her off. up her hands? Torres confesses to strangling Amanda Snell, proudly stating he bound her hands with her own laptop cord, the same cord he used to strangle her and sexually assault her. Hearing his words,

each one more horrible than the one before, but there's even more that I find even more disturbing, which is not only what he talks about he did, it's the way he talks about it. He describes how it was the perfect crime, according to him, and explains how he collected whatever items he could that may have his fingerprints or his DNA, her laptop, the power cord, her iPod, cell phone. Torres stated that he placed the items into her pillowcases and proceeded to vacuum her room and make her bed. He searched the room for bleach, but only found a can of Raid and sprayed all of the surfaces that he touched. Torres told the jailhouse informant how he left Amanda's bedroom just as the sun came up at about 5.52 a.m.

Going back to some of what he said, Scott, you know, let's go back to those sheets. Because those sheets, when we start to think about what we know about those guys and the other crimes, I mean, right away, where does your head go to the sheets, the ones that are there and the one that's missing? To me, clearly his statement says that he had done everything he thought he could do to remove any DNA that was possibly in the room. But you know, going back to the room and reprocessing that bed, trying to determine if any evidence, any DNA or serological evidence could be found on the remaining part of that bed would be a really important move. And that is exactly what investigators did. So when they analyzed the sheets that they had collected

that were still there in Amanda's bed, they were literally combing through the fibers and they found some evidence of semen. And through that, they were able to come up with a conclusive unknown male DNA profile. And when they compared that against Torres, it was a match. I didn't know until the trial that they had found some of his fluids on her sheets. It was so hard, and I had to rant and rave and yell and scream. On May 26, 2011, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Torres with one count of first-degree murder of Amanda Snow. You know,

think about that moment, Scott, what it must have been like for Cynthia to hear that there was now a suspect and they were bringing him to trial. I don't want him tried at the court of public opinion. I want him tried by the facts and convicted by the facts, and I don't want there to be any doubt if and when he's convicted that he did it. Three long years before she got any information from investigators about what happened to her daughter. I went, and if he did do it, I hope he gets the death sentence. I wanted to prosecute it to the full extent of the law because at that point in time, I also did not know about the other things that he had done.

And when it came to Torres, there was going to be multiple trials here. There was the trial for Amanda's murder. There was the sexual assault in Arlington. And there were the two young girls in Zion. Amanda's case went to trial. The sexual assault survivor's case went to trial. The Zion murders, Torres pled guilty. As for Amanda's trial, Cynthia decided that for her, being a part of that process and sitting in that courtroom was too much for her to bear. They had the informant from the prison, and I think that's when I broke more than anything.

I actually started crying a little in the courtroom because he was talking about it. It would not have done me any good and would not have done my mom any good to sit through that. But when he was convicted for Amanda's homicide, there was now a sentencing phase because the sentence prosecutors were seeking was the death penalty. And even sitting through that was almost more than she could take. Three trials, three sentences. For Amanda's trial, Torres got the death sentence. For the sexual assault case in Virginia, five life sentences. And for the murders in Zion, Illinois, a hundred years was the sentence. Now, speaking of that case, one of the girl's fathers had been put in jail. In fact, he was in jail for five years until that DNA hit that came back to Torres cleared him.

And that is something Cynthia takes some solace in. I've always said that we all are in this world and we have a mission in life and we cannot leave until we've accomplished that mission. And as sad as it may be, it was actually the only thing for a long time that helped me through all this. That was her mission, to get justice for those little girls. I miss her so much sometimes. I miss hearing her laugh. You know, most of the time, when I think of her, I think of the look in her eyes, but I miss hearing her laugh and going,

Mom, in that long-suffering sigh, only a teenager can give you. Cynthia told me she believes Amanda was born to serve, to serve her country and to serve her God. Her spirituality kept her happy, a spirit that no evil could take away. She has all these nieces and nephews now, and all the other people in the world that she could have gotten to know they're not going to get to know her and they're not going to get to experience what she could have done for them and for the world and when i think about amanda it is really something her mom said that stays with me and makes me smile even when

I'm thinking of it now. It brings me peace to know that she's at peace and I know I will see her again someday. I've been running after her the day she was born and now I'm still chasing after her. So I won't see her again until I'm done doing what I need to do and I'm still chasing after her. Tune in next Wednesday when we'll dissect another new case on Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original, a Weinberger Media and Forseti Media production. Sumit David is executive producer.