Cold Case Files - A Deadly Affair

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

When a bank cashier is brutally murdered in his own bed, initial evidence points to a bank robbery plot. But as investigators follow the trail, they discover that the perpetrator might be much closer to home. Check out our great sponsors! Jenny Life: Ladies! Go to JennyLife.com/coldcase to get a FREE life insruance quote right now! Madison Reed: Go to Madison-Reed.com and use code CCF to get 10% off plus free shipping on your first color kit! NetSuite: Let NetSuite help your business with a FREE Product Tour at NetSuite.com/ccf  Pluto: Check out all your favorite Cold Case Files episodes on Pluto TV! Drop In. Watch Free.

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. This episode contains descriptions of violence. Use your best judgment. David and Melinda Harmon lived in a duplex in Olathe, Kansas, in 1982. He was 25 and she was 24. David worked as a cashier at a local bank. His co-workers described him as easygoing. His friends said he was active in church. Gail Bergstrom lived with her husband on the other side of the Harmon's duplex. The two families shared a wall. On February 27th, Gail heard loud noises coming from the Harmon's home around 2.30 a.m. This is Gail Bergstrom. I mean, this was the kind of a loud

noise that just wakes you from a deep sleep. You sit up in the bed, just pulled upright, and you just look at each other and say, what was that? I told my husband, I said, I'm going to call the police. And he said, well, what are you going to tell them that you heard thumping in our neighbor's duplex? And I said, oh, you're right. You know, I can't do that. But I said, I'm going to put my ear on the wall and if I hear one more thing, I'm calling.

The noises stopped and the Bergstrans went back to sleep until they heard someone banging on their door it was their neighbor Melinda Harmon she said I think Dave is dead I think Dave could be dead and she didn't know that definitively the loud noises Gail had heard were the sounds of David Harmon being murdered. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. That information basically was there had been an attack in the residence, and her husband had been severely injured. So in that type of scenario, you go code 3, lights and sirens,

to the residence to get there as quickly and safely as you can. I went into the bedroom, the master bedroom, and that's when I first saw David on the bed. That was Officer Larrick, the first investigator to arrive at the crime scene. David's face had been beaten with a blunt object, repeatedly. I don't think David's mother would have recognized him as he lay there on the bed. Assistant District Attorney Paul Morrison arrived at the scene shortly after Officer Larrick. You could not tell if he was 8 or 80. You could not tell if he was 8 or 80.

You could not tell if he was a man or a woman. There was blood, brain matter, slung, not spattered, but slung on the ceiling, on all the walls from what was obviously a bludgeoning that had occurred. Detective Larrick interviewed Melinda. He hoped she would be able to provide him with some clue as to who had killed her husband. Here's Officer Larrick again. When I asked her what happened, she said that she was awakened by the sounds of thuds

as she lay in bed next to David. She was then grabbed by the arm and pulled out of the bed and told to show them, the intruders, where the keys to the bank were. She said she went downstairs, showed them where the keys to the bank were, and then she was struck. Melinda said that she had been hit so hard that she had blacked out. Sometime later, she woke up and she ran next door and pounded on the door of the Bergstrom's to ask for help. Officer Larrick asked Melinda Harmon to come make a statement at the detective's bureau to help further the investigation. Melinda agreed,

and Detective Joe Pruitt took her statement. She said that she was picked from the bed by her hair and led downstairs, and the two suspects who said they were probably black males, she could tell that from their voice, demanded the keys to the bank where David was employed. This bruise on her left cheek was about the size of a dime. If she'd been knocked unconscious, she would still have been woozy. She would have been disorientated. She was able to answer our questions. She was not overly upset. Detective Pruitt might have mental health qualifications that I'm unaware of. If he does, however, he'll know that people grieve and react to trauma in many different ways.

There's no right way to react to trauma. If a person appears overly upset, or not, after a loved one is murdered, their reactions shouldn't be interpreted as suspicious. However, Detective Pruitt had another reason to be suspicious of Melinda Harmon. Life makes it fast and easy for women to know their families will be taken care of with life insurance that's uniquely built for your needs. Before Jenny Life, if a pregnant woman wanted life insurance, she'd have to use her pregnancy weight, and that means higher rates. They ask five simple questions, curate plans from dozens of A-rated insurance carriers, and give you a personalized, budget-friendly life insurance quote in seconds. For example, a healthy 32-year-old woman can get half a million dollars in coverage

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The real thing that stuck in our mind was what would anybody accomplish by taking the keys and breaking into the bank in the middle of the night, knowing full well that there's a time lock on the vault. I mean, you get, what, office chairs, a check protector. That's about it. A.D.A. Morrison also believed that Melinda's story was questionable, especially since no one attempted to break into the bank.

For the first few hours, everybody subscribed to this home invasion story. And we spent considerable time chasing those leads down. For the first few hours, everybody subscribed to this home invasion story. And we spent considerable time chasing those leads down. Surveillance was set up at the bank, waiting for these bad guys to show up. As the hours went by, though, nobody showed up at the bank. We began to sort of assess her statement and how impractical and improbable we felt that statement was. So as the morning went into the afternoon, I think everybody felt, this story stinks. The detectives started to look into Melinda and a friend of hers that had shown up at the crime scene, Mark Mangelsdorf.

Here's Detective Pruitt again. Officer Larrick pointed out that even though it was around five o'clock in the morning, Mr. Mangelsdorf's hair was wet, and I don't mean moist like you'd run a comb through it, a wet comb, but it was wet like he had taken a shower. I had not taken a shower, and I didn't think that he had had time to shower either. The investigators believed that there was something more than friendship between Melinda Harmon and Mark Mangelsdorf. A search of Mangelsdorf's house seemed to support their suspicion. One of the things discovered was a collection of letters and greeting cards from Mrs. Harmon to Mr. Mangelsdorf.

Some of those were signed, love, Melinda. They were very personal, more so than what you would think of friends. What we found out was that there was a very close relationship between Mrs. Harmon and Mark. In fact, Mr. Bergstrand, the next-door neighbor, later testified that he had seen them in a neighborhood pool, standing nose-to-nose in the pool in a very intimate embrace. The investigators felt like an affair between Melinda and Mark

could have been motive for David's murder. But they didn't have any physical evidence. Melinda's family started to become more protective of her. This is A.D.A. Morrison again. And her family sort of descended around her, circled the wagons around her right after this crime happened. Her dad became, within a fairly short period of time, really pretty uncooperative with the police. You're picking on my daughter, and how dare you ask her, and very controlling.

She was then taken away back to Ohio within about two days of the homicide happening, never to return to that house. In the end, the investigators decided against making any arrests. Here's Detective Pruitt again. Well, the bottom line is that we think they're involved, and we thought from the very beginning that there was enough information to arrest both of them for David's murder. But we never thought for one minute there was enough information to convict them,

so we did not make an arrest. In 2001, 19 years after David Harmon was murdered, cold case detectives Steve James and Bill Wall took another look at the case. The detectives looked through the file to familiarize themselves with the evidence. This is Detective Wall. We are in one of the rooms in the basement the Investigations Bureau that we use to look at evidence. After reading through the case file, the cold case detectives believed that the original investigators had been on the right track. This is Detective James. When you read this thing, it reads like, hey, it was either Melinda or Mark. It had to have been

one of them or both of them, probably both. You know, after you read this thing, you have to prove it. And then you go back and you start pulling out all this evidence. This item here is the pink nightgown that Melinda Harmon was wearing the night of the murder. The bottom of Melinda's nightgown was splattered in blood, but the top was perfectly clean. Detective Wall believed he had found a clue. Melinda's story is that she woke up in the middle of the night to someone beating her husband, and she was pulled out of bed. Well, if you look at the crime scene, you would see that she should have had a lot more blood on this nightgown. Just reaffirmed everything that we were reading in the case file,

and now the physical evidence is starting to support that. Detective James and Detective Wall decided they needed to find and question Melinda Harmon about what really happened the night her husband was murdered. She probably hasn't spoken to anybody about this since she went back to Ohio. I would imagine that, from the best we can tell, she put this behind her and never spoke of it again. The next step was just going up and seeing if Melinda would talk to us. In December of 2001, the detectives found Melinda Harmon, now Melinda Rash, in Delaware, Ohio.

At 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, the detectives rang Melinda's doorbell. Here's Detective Wall. Obviously, we caught her off guard. She'd just gotten out of the shower. She's in a robe, and her hair's wrapped Wall. Obviously, we caught her off guard. She'd just gotten out of the shower. She's in a robe, and her hair's wrapped in a towel. So she wasn't ready for us. I said, hey, we're detectives from Olathe, Kansas. We'd like to talk to you about your late husband, David Harmon.

And she said, sure, how can I help you? Melinda invited the detectives in, and they all sat at her kitchen table while she recounted what had happened the night that David was murdered. Well, her story now is that she was awakened by these terrible thuds of someone striking her husband. Detective James also noticed some inconsistencies in Melinda's story. She got up on her own and went to the bathroom. There was a masked shadowy figure beating her husband. In her original story, there were two men. But in the new version, there was only one. The different versions of Melinda's story

seemed to support the detective's theory. Well, right away we realized, hey, what about the two black guys that broke in demanding the bank keys? What about one guy saying to the other, I think you hit him too hard, you may have killed him? There wasn't any of that. Steve and I both remember looking at each other across the table going, wow, we're on to something here.

The detectives took Melinda to the Delaware police station to be officially interviewed. Here's some audio from that interview. The story you later said, two black men, bank keys. Well, two dark figures. Two dark figures, bank keys. Why did you tell the cops that story? At the time, I didn't know it was a story. Detective Wall attempted to make Melinda confess that she had lied back in 1982.

You know it wasn't true. Right? This is where this secret is. This is where I think we need to go. Indirectly, Melinda confessed that she hadn't told the truth during the original investigation. The interrogation questions then transitioned to Mark Mangelsdorf. I think that I am guilty of encouraging and perhaps flirting in a way that I shouldn't have done. Had we met at a, you know, different time. Time. And lie.

You could have been an item. Yeah. He never came out and blatantly said, I'm going to take care of him. No. He's in our way and I will fix it. No. But the more time that went on, I sensed some stronger feelings. Detective Wall was convinced that he would get a confession from Melinda.

We're convinced that she's into this up to her neck, so now all I've got to do is just keep her rolling. I've got to keep her talking, and usually good things happen when people keep talking. I had a sense that something bad might happen. Detective Wall continued to ask questions, trying to get Melinda to open up about what had happened that night. In my heart, I knew it was him. In my heart, I knew it was him.

I mean, basically what she's saying is, yeah, I know it's him. But if I play word games like I know in my heart it was him, I haven't actually come out and said I knew it was him. So that's a good statement for us because I know that we're getting somewhere, and now I need to get her over that next hurdle. Deep down, I still think there's more. It's just too weird the way you're saying it. That's where I want to go then. I want to go deep down with you.

Here's my big hang-up. Okay. Tell me your big hang-up. That you didn't have knowledge of this prior to it. Prior knowledge is Wall's way of suggesting that Melinda and Mark stage the break-in and plan the murder together. And he didn't talk to me. He hit me. Would he have talked to you about that prior then? No, I don't know. You're crazy and smart enough to figure all this out on his own,

that he's not going to tell you anything so you have no guilt. And then just assume, just assume that you're going forward with this story. How do you know you were gonna make up a story that wasn't true? There was some talking about how we were gonna get away with this. We need to know. You need to know?

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Melinda never admitted to planning or committing murder, but the investigators believe that she had said enough to incriminate herself. This is A.D.A. Morrison again. The mistakes that she made was to admit the relationship, which is a big deal, was to admit that she lied. That was massive. And then to try to negotiate some sort of a deal. Innocent people don't negotiate deals, and that kind of stuff just kills you if you're a defendant.

You can't watch that tape and not absolutely believe that she is up to her neck in that deal. Unlike Melinda, who invited the investigators into her home, Mark Mangelsdorf refused to talk with them. Both Mark and Melinda were indicted for murder. Melinda was tried first. Mark Mangelsdorf was one of the star witnesses at her trial. Mr. Mangelsdorf, were you having an affair with Melinda? No, I absolutely was not. Were you romantically involved with her? No. Let me be very clear. I was not in love with Melinda Harmon.

I did not have a romantic or sexual or physical relationship with her. In 1982, Mark Mangelsdorf said that he and Melinda had stopped by his apartment the day of the murder. But at Melinda's trial in 2005, he contradicted himself. What do you call somebody that doesn't tell the truth? What's the word for that? I reviewed the... What's the word for that,

Mr. Mangelsdorf? I reviewed the events... What's the word for somebody who doesn't tell the truth? Forgetful. What else? What's another word? It starts with an L.

I don't know. Well, that's convenient, isn't it? ADA Morrison believed Mangelsdorf's testimony had been harmful to the defense's case. It comes across a lot better if the witness just says, you know what, I was freaked out, I didn't tell the truth or whatever. But he wouldn't give anything up. Melinda chose not to testify at her trial. But the jury did see a video from her interrogation. The jury got to see her firsthand, how she reacted. And anybody with life experiences

that watches this tape will see that this woman is up to this, to her neck. She is guilty. She conspired with this Mark Mangelsdorf to kill her husband. Randy Spector was the jury foreman during Melinda's trial. For us as a jury, it was the issue of how the stories had changed. You know, the original story she told, seeing the things that she was involved in. If your husband had been brutally killed, why would you tell a different story than what really happened to the detectives? You'd want to find out who did it, why it happened, and bring that person to justice. So as a group, it was very hard for us to try to figure out a reason why that would be. The jury based their verdict on the changing stories. On count one, we the jury find the defendant guilty of murder. On count two, guilty

of conspiracy to commit murder. Mullenda's conviction was only half of what ADA Morrison had hoped to accomplish. The last thing we wanted to see happen was for her to get a life term of confinement and nothing to happen to him. And that was a very real possibility. I had three jurors that summer contact me independently of each other and say, what are you going to do about Mangelsdorf? Are you going to be able to get her to help you? I know that in the eyes of the law, they're both equally guilty of the crime. But the fact that Mark was actually the one that committed the murder, I honestly was more worried about him getting a conviction.

A.D.A. Morrison met with Melinda's attorneys to make a deal. Melinda's conviction would be set aside, and she could plead guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder, but only if she agreed to testify about Mangelsdorf. When Mangelsdorf's attorneys heard about the deal, they made a strategic legal decision. At this time in the round, the defendant, Mr. Mangelsdorf's attorneys heard about the deal, they made a strategic legal decision. At this time in the round, the defendant, Mr. Mangelsdorf, wishes to withdraw his plea of not guilty and his election for trial. And we will be entering a plea to a substitute information. Mark Mangelsdorf also pled guilty to second-degree murder.

Some people believe that it was wrong for ADA Morrison to offer plea deals. But John Harmon, David's father, wasn't one of them. I think what Paul Morrison did was the only way that he could have achieved closure. Paul said he wanted to do the right thing, so he went ahead and did it. So to his credit, he didn't get it. It's something. After the sentencing hearing for Mangelsdorf, John Harmon got to speak to his son's killer directly.

I waited for 24 years to talk to you in just this setting. You wear many hats. You're not only a murderer, you're also a thief. You took our one and only child in a vicious, a vicious attack, an act of violence. But I'm filled with sadness for you, Mark. You've destroyed yourself. What a waste. What a complete waste of a human life.

When John Harmon was finished, Mengelsdorf took the stand. Mr. Harmon, I can't begin to imagine the grief and the sorrow that you and your family, your wife, experienced. What I can say is I'm truly, truly sorry for David's death and for the loss of the time that you've experienced not being able to spend time with him. What I do know is that I have pled guilty to this.

I've acknowledged my involvement, and I hope that in some small way that that helps. I have tried to do the right things throughout my life, and especially for the last 24 years. And that's genuine. It's not an act. The judge sentenced Mark Mangelsdorf to the maximum sentence allowed at the time. I'm going to impose the call of sentence to be remanded in the state of Kansas for a period of not less than 10 or more than 20 years. Melinda also addressed the Harmon family at our sentencing hearing.

To the Harmon family, I'm really sorry. Words do not adequately express the things that kill my heart. Just words are not enough. And I would love to have better words. I just don't. I'm very, very remorseful. I would in no way ever expect any amount of time to make up for this. Melinda was also sentenced to 10 to 20 years. And as part of her plea deal, she told detectives the details of her affair and how it led to David Harmon's murder. Here's A.D.A. Morrison.

She and Mark Mangelsdorf went for a walk that afternoon. She said during that walk that Mark told her, it's imminent. I bought a crowbar and it's imminent. That night it happened. Then, after Mangelsdorf had killed her husband, according to Melinda, he turned on her to make the break-in story more believable. He then does hit her in the side of the face and says, sorry to do this to you, sweetie. I think that was a quote. Ironically, Melinda and Mark never saw each other again after the murder.

Detective Wall explains. She said, you know, when I'm standing there watching Mark Mangelsdorf beat my husband to death, I knew at that time that I could never be with this man. I knew at that time that this was a big mistake. So they never hooked up afterwards. Mark Mangelsdorf is now 60 years old. He was released from the Kansas Department of Corrections in 2016. Melinda Rash was released in 2015.

She's now 62 years old. Cold Case Files the podcast is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our associate producer is Julie McGruder. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me at Brooke Giddings on Twitter and at Brooke the Podcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at aetv.com slash real crime.