Cold Case Files - A Killer's Dream

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

For over 20 years, Kirsten was haunted by the unsolved murder of her mother when she was eight years old. And while Kirsten's nightmare drove her to keep working with Cold Case detectives and never stop believing her mother's case would be solved, it was someone else's dream - a dream with eerie similarities to the scene of the murder - that would eventually help solve the case. Check out our great sponsors! Calibrate: Go to JoinCalibrate.com and use code CCF to get $50 off your one-year membership! Purple: Get 10% off any order of $200 or more at Purple.com/coldcase10 and use promo code "coldcase10" - Terms apply. Madison Reed: Find your perfect shade at Madison-Reed.com to get 10% off plus FREE SHIPPING on your first Color Kit with code CCF

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. An A&E original podcast. Have you ever woken up from a dream and gotten lost for a few seconds in that place between asleep and awake? You're not sure if the dream is reality or if you're still sleeping? Usually it's pretty easy to shake yourself awake and the line between dreams and reality becomes clear. But in San Antonio, Texas in 1983, that line seemed to blur, and one man's dream seemed a little too close to reality. He dreamt of a murder. Actually, he dreamt of a crime scene where a woman was assaulted and

murdered. And the crime scene he dreamed up looked a lot like a real-life murder, where a woman named Rachel Kossub was raped and strangled to death. For Rachel's daughter Kristen, who was eight at the time, every day was a waking nightmare. Not only was her mother taken from her, but the murderer was also still out there somewhere, like a boogeyman waiting in the shadows. She lived with the trauma for over 20 years

until a resourceful cold case detective and a very organized DNA analyst helped bring her nightmare to an end. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. I'm Brooke, and this story, adapted from a classic episode of Cold Case Files, is told by the luminous Bill Curtis. I knew she was killed, I knew she had died, and I knew that someone had choked her. Kirsten Newcomb is 28 years old. In 1983, she was eight when her mom, Rachel Kossum, was murdered.

And that's all I needed to know at age eight. But as you get older, you do start to wonder. And I've always loved cold case shows, and I just knew one day that it would be solved. I prayed every day that it would be solved. This is my office. This is where I go through my cold cases. George Sadler is a cold case detective with the San Antonio Police Department.

As you can see, we have several files behind us. This is just one case sitting here of a young 11-year-old girl that came up missing and found dead. These are where I keep my stats because I have so many cases going on. In 2003, Sadler's phone rings. At the other end of the line is Kirsten Newcomb. I had reached out to Detective Sadler and just begged him, is there anything that we can do, one last-ditch effort? The attitude when she calls me, she's not calling me to blame anybody. She's not trying to blame the police department or the system. She called looking for honest help.

This is Marcia with the San Antonio Police Department. Happy to help you. Sadler agrees to take a look at the case, one that began 20 years earlier with a call to the San Antonio Police Department. About 9-21, I had the San Antonio Police Department Dispatcher Number 5 call our office and request that we make the scene. In 1983, Frank Tovar works as a medical investigator. On June 6th, he is called out to an interior design shop in northeast San Antonio. I walked to the rear and I saw a Hispanic female lying face down on a carpet surface, partially nude. Rachel Kossub lies dead on the floor, her pantyhose cinched around her neck. And the fact that her clothes has been torn off, she's nude from her waist down mostly,

there's a strong possibility she was sexually assaulted. Seaman is recovered from the body, confirming Tovar's suspicions. Meanwhile, detectives work the scene. There was no indication of forced entry. So it's someone who either she knew or she let in under, he came in under false pretenses or whatever. Investigators check out locals and known sex offenders, but fail to turn up a viable suspect.

One year later, however, they get a break in the form of another victim. Well, we had in this area, we'd had a rape that occurred universal city which our neighboring city gary hopper is a detective in the city of live oak about 12 miles outside san antonio in 1984 he is working a string of sexual assaults we definitely knew it was something serious we want to get on top of right away. I interviewed both of the ladies, and they were able to prepare a composite sketch for me of the suspect that attacked them. Hopper runs the sketch on the evening news and waits for tips. I received a call that morning that I knew sounded very promising.

It was a gentleman. He owned a business. He told me that his secretary could identify this person. The secretary says the man in the sketch often loiters around her shop and seems like he is up to no good. She was frightened enough of this individual that one day as he went to the car and got into the car, she wrote his license plate down, kept it, and that's what she gave to us that morning. Hopper runs the plate.

It comes back Mike Dossett, a local Little League coach with no criminal record. Hopper tracks down Dossett at his home. When he came and saw us, and we looked at our composite and looked at him, it was almost right there in my mind. I said, we've got the guy. This is him. Dossett is confronted about the two assaults.

Almost immediately, he confesses. He seemed like a lot of pressure was off of his back. He seemed like, you know, I'm glad this is all over with. He then told me, he said, you know, I really got something else I need to tell you. Thus it tells Hopper he's been haunted by a recurring dream and a possible murder. As he started talking about this dream, he told me that, you know, I'm in this building, I'm on this staircase, so I'm looking down, He said, there's this lady. He said, I know she's dead. I know I have something to do with it. As Dossett talks, Hopper remembers the Rachel Kossum murder just

one year earlier. At that point, just simply, you know, coincidence hit. You know, this was, to me, I knew what it was. It was the murder of Rachel Kossop at Sandra Murphy Design, because I'd been in the business before. I had been on that staircase. I knew at that point, right then and there, that, you know, this is the man that murdered Rachel Kossop.

Hopper's suspicions are confirmed when he gets a look at the crime scene photos. This was what he was describing to me. This is what he was telling me about. And I knew right then and there, you know, this wasn't in a newspaper. It wasn't reported. There was only one way he knew about that, and that was he had to have been there on the day of that crime.

San Antonio has jurisdiction over the cause of murder. When Dossett sits down with their investigators, however, he refuses to talk. Maybe he got down there and really realized at that point, now I'm in big trouble, you know. These guys got me for something, a rape. Now they've got me for something here that could, you know, put me in the death chamber or in life in prison.

Dossett pleads guilty to sexual assault and robbery, but is not charged with the Kossub murder. I tell you, it probably was a thing that ate on me more than anything in my career. Just thinking that this guy was going to be back out on the streets, you know, he was coming back to San Antonio, he was going to be twice the threat he was before. In December of 1992, Mike Dossett is released on parole. A decade after that, Detective Sadler promises Kirsten Newcomb

he will take a look at her mother's case. When Sadler pulls the file from storage, everyone involved is in for a surprise. He said that we don't have a case file, we have a piece of microfiche. And I thought, wow, everything has been destroyed. We'll never get this case solved. 20 years after her mother's murder, Kristen Newcomb had finally found a ray of hope in the form of a cold case detective, George Sadler.

But the investigation wasn't off to a great start. The one likely suspect had slipped through law enforcement's fingers a decade ago, and any hope of a resolution seemed to be slipping further and further out of reach. But the investigation hadn't even reached its biggest roadblock yet. That would come when Detective Sadler began a search for Rachel's case file. As the detective will explain, older case files often only exist on paper, in physical folders. And unfortunately for Rachel's case, her folder seemed to have vanished. The only thing left from her case was a piece of microfiche, basically a piece of film containing a few small photos of newspaper clippings and case

documents from the original investigation. The case seemed hopeless, and even Kristen began to believe her mother's murder would never be solved. But Detective Sadler was determined and resourceful, and he refused to let a missing case file bring down the investigation. A working file usually looks something like this in the green, and this is usually what we start out with when we start looking. Detective George Sadler is looking for a cold file, the 1983 murder of Rachel Cossack. By the time we get done with our cases, if they're finished cases, like this one here takes up three file folders. So I was expecting to find something

like that, and we had two or three pieces of paper in a file folder, and we couldn't find any files. He said that we don't have a case file, we have a piece of microfiche. And I thought, wow, everything has been destroyed. We'll never get this case solved. Kirsten Newcomb is Rachel Cossub's daughter. After learning her mom's file is missing, Kirsten is at first discouraged. Then she offers Sadler a lead. Then she calls me, you know, and then she tells me she's got the name. And she says, well, are you aware of the fact that this guy Mike Dossett is a suspect?

Mike Dossett is a convicted sex offender, free on parole. In 1984, he became a suspect after he told police he had dreams about a dead woman. He had a dream. And in his dream, he's describing what happens or what he does to a woman. Dossett's dream tracks reality, painting a vivid picture of Rachel Kossub's murder scene. A dream, however, is no substitute for hard evidence. This was going to be one of my tougher ones, yes. The detective believes he has a viable suspect.

Without a case file, however, his options are limited. Once I started looking into it and talking to all the retired detectives and stuff, there was so much out there, and I realized, you know, everything they're telling me is just missing pieces of paper. That could be recreated, and that's what I started doing. I started reinterviewing witnesses, getting statements from them, and again started searching for the physical evidence that I knew was still in the property room or out at the lab. His paper file recreated, Sadler heads to the police property room looking for the Kassab rape kit. Over the

years, we've had three different crime labs. Somewhere in the shuffle, switching over, some of the evidence has gotten lost I really hadn't almost given up hope and was just totally frustrated with the fact that we couldn't find evidence after weeks of searching Sadler heads back to the crime lab for one less ditch effort if he finds nothing there this cold case investigation could be over before it starts. This is the Bear County Crime Lab and Morgue. On April 17th, Sadler walks into the county crime lab.

In the hallway, he meets Dr. DeMaio, chief medical examiner. And then you began to ask me about uh rape kids seedler tells de mayo about the missing evidence i said rape kids i've got them all you never threw them away i know you could have knocked me over with a feather we kept fell over uh i kept every rape kit from 1981 when I arrived until 1988 when, after that, all the evidence went directly to the crime lab. DeMaio leads Sadler down the hallway. This is the toxicology laboratory. And if you look in the freezer, it goes all the way in the back, on the right-hand side, on the floor, a large brown cardboard box with all the unanalyzed rape cases from 1981

to 1988, which we had been storing. On the floor of the county freezer, Detective Sadler finds the evidence he has been looking for. The clerk pulled it out here for us. She opened the top, and they were lined up in rows. And the very first one, because I knew the name and the case number already, was sitting right there on top. In fact, in my excitement, I wanted to reach down and grab it.

I said, okay, I need this to go to DNA. And they had to stop me and say, no, no, there's a procedure for getting it from there to the other side of the building. And I'm like, well, I don't care how it's done, but I want this tested. Swabs from Rachel Kossub's body are rushed to DNA analyst Lonnie Ginsberg for testing. The actual swabs that we tested were in very, very bad condition. There appeared to be mold growing on these swabs, which is very, very detrimental for DNA analysis.

Despite the long odds, a genetic profile is generated and compared to Mike Dossett. Dr. Bonnie Ginsberg paged me and told me that they had got a match and that it was Dossett's DNA. Mr. Dossett, do you have anything to say? On June 26th, Dossett is arrested and charged with murder. In January of 2005, Mike Dossett stands trial for killing Rachel Cossum 21 years earlier. Rita Spiegel prosecutes for the state.

We had that physical evidence, that last piece, and yes, it was the DNA that was the deciding factor. In addition to DNA evidence, Spiegel presents Dossett's dream statements to the court. I do recall seeing myself standing by a banister that curves and looking out a window. I don't know if this is at the interior decorating place on Randolph Boulevard or not.

And there is your curved banister. It's a wooden banister about 2 or 3 inches wide, and there it is again, just the way he describes it. I remember seeing a picture of a girl laying naked all tied up, and I could see that she was dead. I could not see her face. And there she is, the bottom, with the banister, and you can't see her face.

Thus, its statements put the case over the top. After seven days of trial, the jury is back with a verdict. Guilty of murder in the first degree at sentencing dosett receives a term of 40 years and kirsten gets a chance to speak to the man who killed her mom i think the hardest thing i've ever had to do was to face the defendant and tell him what I felt. Today, I want you to know you have not only raped my mother, you have raped my father, my family, myself, and my son. I felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders after all of these years.

You raped my son, my grandmother. You will never know. Someone who would love him dearly and would worship the ground he walks on. And I knew that it was finally over. Closure was near, and I was going to be able to hopefully move on with my life and finally put it behind me.

I don't think he expected your mother there that day. Also in the courtroom that day, Detective George Sadler. I mean, the look on her face and talking to her, this is not about me, not me about an investigator. It's about the families of these victims that are left behind. I'm so thankful to Detective Sadler. If it wasn't for him, I don't think this case would be solved. His persistence and just the care that he showed, you know, in this case was just incredible.

He's a great man. After 21 years, Kirsten Newcomb finally has answers and justice for her mom. The day after the verdict and he was sentenced, I brought a huge bouquet of yellow roses out for her. She always loved yellow roses, her favorite color. So I brought a huge spray for her and put it there and told her that she could rest in peace now. And I really think she is able to. The resolution of this case provided more than a peaceful rest for Rachel. It offered closure for the surviving victims of this crime. It gave peace of mind to Kristen and the countless other members of her family and community who were affected by the murder. Kristen is right. Her son will never know his grandmother.

While there's no possible way to make up for that fact, at least she can rest easier knowing that he will grow up free from the nightmare that she was forced to endure. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn, Scott Brody, and Steve Delamater. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. We're distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and presented by Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at aetv.com and by downloading the A&E app.