Cold Case Files - A Man Scorned / The Dungeon

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Police suspect a gay man murdered a woman because she became too friendly with his boy friend. And a man goes on a monstrous crime spree, abducting five women over 15 years and forcing each t...o spend months and even years as his sex slaveAcorns - Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $20 bonus investment. Just head to acorns.com/COLDCASE or download the Acorns app to get started.Hers: Start your free online visit at forhers.com/CCF for your personalized weight loss treatment options.Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.SmileSet - Go to Smileset.com/coldcase for your additional 35% discount and get the smile of you dreams for under $1300!Thrive Market: Go to ThriveMarket.com/coldcase for $30 off your first two orders!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. In the fall of 1994 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, a woman named Elizabeth Harrington arrives in town, anxious to put her own past aside,
Starting point is 00:00:34 and fashion a new beginning. Neva Harrington is Elizabeth. mother. I was very proud of her. I was scared and concerned, but I was so proud of her, the kind of courage it took for her to do that. Elizabeth Harrington has suffered from alcoholism and depression for years. In Fredericksburg, she finds a home at River Place, a halfway house specializing in mental health problems. Every day, Elizabeth gets a visit from one of her social workers, Don Brissetti. Well, I remember her, she was very pleasant, very independent. She didn't need a lot of supervision, and she kept her apartment really neat and tidy.
Starting point is 00:01:16 It looked really good for her. She could have done really well on her own. One morning in November, Brissetti is on her daily rounds, and at a little after 8 a.m., she finds Elizabeth's front door unlocked and slightly ajar. Inside, she finds no sign of Elizabeth, and the apartment is in shambles. Bressetti begins to walk upstairs. Walked up calling her name as I'm going up the steps. Elizabeth, come on, let's get up.
Starting point is 00:01:43 It's time to go and got to the top of the stairs. I called her name probably two more times. Brissetti finds Elizabeth face down on her bed. Her head bloodied and a ligature wrapped around her neck. The ligature appeared to be a scarf of some kind that had been wrapped around the victim's neck and tightened. crime scene analyst John Lippincott is one of the initial detectives on the scene. His first thoughts are that a struggle occurred downstairs, then a likely sexual assault and murder upstairs.
Starting point is 00:02:17 The body was positioned and it appeared that she had been assaulted from the back, from the way the body was laying and the pants being pulled down and so forth. The body is autopsied, but no evidence of seaman. is found. Investigators then send the victim's clothes and bedding to the state crime lab, hoping forensics can isolate and identify some trace of the killer's bodily fluids. Meanwhile, in Fredericksburg, a small town with few murders, the hunt is on. Waverly Musselman is assigned to the case as lead detective and begins by reconstructing the final moments of Elizabeth Harrington's life. On the night she was killed, the victim was at a
Starting point is 00:03:03 bar called Merrimands with a local named Matt. I think she was counseling him trying to help him through some of the questions that he had at the time, some of the things that he perceived as problems. Musselman questions Matt, who claims that after he and Elizabeth left the bar, they sat in his car and talked. Matt contends he bid Harrington goodnight just after 10 p.m. I had several interviews with Matt because I felt like Matt didn't know. more about this case than he was given up.
Starting point is 00:03:37 Musselman, however, has no evidence tying Matt to the murder. About this time, detectives hear back from the crime lab. Tests on the victim's clothing and betting are negative. Strangely enough, there was no sign of any body fluids that would be deposited at a crime scene, a sexual crime scene like this. So that was kind of an unusual situation. It kind of had us scratching our heads. Faced with this report, detectives shift their thinking.
Starting point is 00:04:07 Perhaps the killer never raped Harrington. Perhaps he, or she, staged the scene to look like a sexual assault. Whatever the case, detectives have a dearth of physical evidence. And a burgeoning suspect list in addition to Matt. It includes almost everyone who lived with Harrington at River Place, an institution that housed, among others, registered sex offenders and individuals suffering from bipolar and manic depressive disorders. Some of these people would get upset about not having a cigarette given to them or lent to them
Starting point is 00:04:43 when they needed it. Something that's very mundane for you and I is very important to them. Musselman works his way through the roster of guests at River Place, finding many who could have killed Harrington, but none who have significant evidentiary links to the case. Within a few months, the trail grows cold and Waverly Musselman begins to believe his killer has escaped, until one day when a man walks into his office with a story to tell. Archie Talley is homeless and calls the hard pavement under a bridge home.
Starting point is 00:05:20 One day he makes his way through the streets of Fredericksburg to the local police station and eventually to the desk of Lieutenant Musselman. Talley has a story to tell about a man and woman. woman who confronted him under the bridge and threatened to kill him because he was gay. And especially the white female had been very verbal in telling him that they were going to do the same thing to him that they did to the woman down on Sophia Street. Sophia Street is where Elizabeth Harrington lived. Talley tells Musselman the two bragged about killing Harrington because they mistakenly thought she was a lesbian.
Starting point is 00:06:01 Tell me that one or both of them said something about the murder. She said she knew that she was a dyke. And dikes are homosexualed and that's there. No purpose it is. The girl was almost said something that they had tied around her neck. Tate me back around her neck. Musselman investigates the tip, but can find no connection between Harrington and the two people mentioned by Talley. The lead is shuffled to.
Starting point is 00:06:31 the back of the pack, and Musselman continues to work the case. One year later, however, the investigator has nothing to show for his efforts, and the investigation goes cold. Musselman meets again with Elizabeth Harrington's mother. After two and a half years in the case still being unsawed, she was probably the only person that could have been any more frustrated than I was. I don't know, I never gave up hope because the police department didn't. You know, they were, they always indicated that the file was enormous and they weren't giving up. Fredericksburg police don't give up, but they don't get very far either. Two years later, the investigation is picked up by Detective Doug Perkins.
Starting point is 00:07:19 He's never worked a homicide, much less a cold case. I started hinting to my supervisors that I would like to take over that case, Although I didn't really have any experience in homicide investigation, I just felt that I could take the case and run with it. Perkins reviews the Harrington file and takes stock of evidence collected at the scene. One item in particular catches his attention. It was item number 45. I still remember the item number 45A.
Starting point is 00:07:47 It was a characteristically hair. And that hair was found under the body of Elizabeth Harrington on a red dress. The finding of a black person's hair surprises Perkins, since all of the suspects mentioned in the case file are white. Perkins sends the hair to the state's DNA lab for forensic testing. Bob Scanlon is a DNA analyst with the Virginia State Crime Lab. By the spring of 1999, technology has evolved to the point where it is possible to extract DNA from a single root of human hair. Scanlan takes a look at Exhibit 45A from the Hairing. case and believes it to be a perfect candidate for profiling.
Starting point is 00:08:31 The tissue was in very good shape. I removed the root portion of the hair with the tissue and put it in a test tube and did my extractions and got some DNA out of it. The DNA sequence belongs to a male. Scanlan enters it into a computer database for state felony offenders. This is the computer terminal that I can utilize to to search DNA profiles through the combined DNA index system, CODIS, for short. Within a minute, CODIS returns a full genetic match.
Starting point is 00:09:07 It's always fun after all the work in the lab to then pick up the phone and call the investigator with the information, hey, I've got a great lead for you. You need to chase this down. When Mr. Scanlan told me that he had received his DNA data bank kid, I was very excited. And when he told me who the contributor was, I'll have to say I was very puzzled. Kodis has matched the strand of hair to an ex-convict named Archie Talley. The same man who four years earlier told police he knew the names of the man and woman who had killed Harrington. At the time, Talley's tip was dismissed as groundless. Now, his hair has been found in Harrington's bed, a surprising development given the fact that Talley says he's.
Starting point is 00:09:54 gay. He's very flamboyant, I would say it would be a correct word to use to describe him. He's very vocal and outgoing. Perkins doesn't believe Archie Talley is his killer and can't understand how his hair wound up in a woman's bed. Perkins decides to track down Talley and get to the bottom of things. On April 10, 2000, Perkins sits down with Archie Talley at the county lockup, where Talley is awaiting trial on an unrelated crime.
Starting point is 00:10:25 I approached Mr. Talley by just laying it out to him. I told him that his DNA was at the crime scene, and I remember him vividly telling me, not mine, not me, and things of that nature. He was asking me, did I know her? How did I know her? It's over and over and over. I'm saying, your DNA.
Starting point is 00:10:48 He's at that crime scene? I don't know. Hell no. Hell no. Y'all won't get me from a fucking mother. Not me. Archie could just find you to make how in the world is your DNA. You understand that all the way.
Starting point is 00:11:05 Ain't no way. Archie underlines what has been troubling Detective Perkins all along, that Talley is gay and would want nothing to do with Harrington or any other woman. Man, if I started telling him of men I've slept with, You wouldn't even believe it. I changed, man, like I changed my underwear, 24-5. Perkins presents Talley with a search warrant for his blood to verify the DNA match. It is at this point that Talley becomes combative.
Starting point is 00:11:43 And he told me it would take, I believe, in his own words, four or five people to hold him down, and we would have to physically fight him before he would submit to a blood sample. Have I trusted the police? Hell no. You're dealing with Mayberry and Andy Griffin detectives. Eventually, Talley calms down and goes with Perkins to a Fredericksburg hospital for the blood draw. In the waiting room, Archie Talley moves from confrontation to cooperation. At this point, I got one of my best leads in this case.
Starting point is 00:12:19 I said, well, do you know anybody that you associate with that knows? Elizabeth Harrington. And Mr. Talley told me, yes, he was friends with Matthew. Investigators knew Matthew as the man who had dinner with Elizabeth Harrington on the night she was killed. Now, Talley claims, at the time of the murder, Matthew was also Talley's lover. Detective Perkins isn't sure if it's true, but if it is, Archie Talley has unwittingly provided a motive for why he might want Harrington dead.
Starting point is 00:12:52 Of course, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, possibly we had a, I have a motive. Maybe he saw Matthew with Elizabeth Harrington at Merriman's restaurant the night she was murdered and became jealous. The cops was trying to make ideas as a hate, jealous, enraged, boo. Detective Perkins tracks down Matthew, who confirms he and Archie were once lovers. lending credence to the notion that Archie Talley killed Elizabeth Harrington in a jealous rage. With the investigation beginning to gain traction, Perkins meets with Deputy Commonwealth Attorney Philip Fines, who spots a rather large hole in the detective's theory. Archie Talley says he often rode in Matthew's car. On the night of the murder, Elizabeth Harrington rode in that same car with Matthew,
Starting point is 00:13:46 allowing Archie possibly to claim his hair was transferred from the car to Harrington's dress and eventually into her bed. We wanted to pursue the connection and go further. We were also looking for other evidence of a less mobile nature, I guess I should say, something that couldn't be explained away as having been brought into the scene on a piece of clothing or by someone else. Fines and Perkins decide to submit more evidence for DNA testing. Around this time, Perkins gets a call out of the blue from yet another boyfriend of Talley, who claims Archie is talking murder.
Starting point is 00:14:29 He said something about this girl was messing with his man, and he said he caught the bitch down at Club Merriman's one time. For a long time, investing felt like something I'd get to when I had more money, more time, and a much better idea of what I was doing. Then I realized I didn't have to know everything to get started. I just had to give my money the opportunity to grow. That's why I like acorns. It's easy to sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money,
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Starting point is 00:16:10 Acorns.com slash cold case. I had braces when I was younger, but like so many people I know, I never wore my retainer as much as I should have. Now my teeth have shifted, not all the way back, but far enough that I can see few places that I would love to just be a little bit straighter. That's why Smile Set caught my attention. You can straighten your smile at home for under $1,300, less than half the cost of traditional braces. It starts with an at-home impression kit, then a licensed doctor reviews your case and creates a custom treatment plan. Your aligners arrive at your door and you can track your progress through the Smile Set app with Dr. Check-in's available whenever you need them. There are even nighttime-only aligners, so you can straighten your teeth while you sleep.
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Starting point is 00:17:49 single hair found in the bed of murder victim Elizabeth Harrington is forensically matched to a man named Archie Talley and points cold case detectives towards a possible crime of passion. There is, however, one inconsistency. Talley is gay and the last person anyone would expect to find in a woman's bed. Then a man comes forward and tells police about a love triangle gone wrong with Elizabeth Harrington as the odd woman out. Archie Talley once lived under a bridge. Seven years later, in 2002, he now lives in a second story flat he shares with his latest boyfriend. Trouble, however, is brewing in the Talley household.
Starting point is 00:18:31 The boyfriend is scared, telling police Archie has been toying with the idea of killing him in his sleep. He said so many times, you just don't know how lucky you are. I sit there and watch you lay in their bed sleeping and stuff. and so many times I thought about setting gasoline to you and killing you. According to Talley's lover, Archie is not only threatening to kill him, but bragging he has killed before. Detective Garrett calls me and says, you're not going to believe this.
Starting point is 00:19:01 My informant has told me that Archie Talley on a previous night had talked about killing a woman over a man. Detective Perkins decides to set a trap for Talley. He sends the suspect's boyfriend back to the apartment wearing a police wire. Then Perkins feeds a story about the Harrington murder to a local reporter. So on the following day, she comes out with an article, cop to kill her, give up now. Perkins heads over to Archie's apartment, shows in the headline, and lets Archie know he hasn't forgotten about the case. As soon as Perkins leaves, Archie's boyfriend begins to press tally about Harrington.
Starting point is 00:19:43 I was like, what is all this, Archie, what's going on and stuff about this woman? And he's like, oh, they're trying to pin something on me, but then bitches, they're stupid and stuff. Despite his bluster, Talley takes a misstep. When the boyfriend asks how he knows Elizabeth Harrington, at, um, Maryland, I met at one time there. I need her because I was there, and my husband is there, whatever I am. To me, he's just confirmed the motive. He called his ex with this one.
Starting point is 00:20:13 woman. So now he is going to go confront her, either to confront him thinking maybe he is there at the apartment with her, or he's just going to confront her about being with his lover. Perkins believes his theory to be sound. His physical evidence tying tally to the murder is a single strand of human hair. The investigation needs more and shifts back to the crime lab, where the rest of the Harrington evidence is about to get a second look. During the assault that took her life, Elizabeth Harrington suffered several wounds to the head and face. At the time, blood found at the scene was assumed to be hers and not tested for a second possible source. Now, DNA analyst Bob Scanlan is asked to do exactly that and focuses on items of evidence
Starting point is 00:21:03 that speak directly to the murder. Chief among them, a silk scarf found wrapped around the victim's neck. And I'm thinking, wow, to go back and try and find a foreign DNA type, foreign blood on that is going to be just like painstaking because it was saturated with blood. This was a 22-inch long scarf and it just read from one end to the other. Where do I select a sample from? Scanlan takes a sample from every inch of the scarf. Most have just the victim's DNA. A few, however, contain something more. Sure enough, came up with a couple of samples, showed mixture consistent with Francis,
Starting point is 00:21:48 Elizabeth Harrington's type, and Archie Talley's. And there was one area that I tested that actually was his DNA type alone. I was very happy because I knew that now we had some good solid evidence that Mr. Talley wasn't going to be able to explain the way. Fines is ready to move forward with a forensic, link that ties Talley to the murder. The following month, detectives bring their suspect in for questioning.
Starting point is 00:22:16 Today is your understand what I'm saying? I'll let this whole case out to you and tell you the evidence against you. All right? Mm-hmm. It's been two years since investigators spoke to Talley about the murder. Then they had DNA from a single strand of hair. Now they have his blood. Detective suspect Archie injured himself at some point during the struggle. You know, do you want to read it? You know. All when I see the judge looking for, a damn mistake over the hand. He was very defensive and just would say that you did that, not me. Basically, I felt blaming the police for setting him up in some way.
Starting point is 00:23:15 If they found all this shit at her crib, wouldn't they came and locked my ass up years ago? If I killed any body, you think I would stay in this white town? Do you really think I would stay here? But Archie Talley never does go before a jury. Instead, he takes an Alford plea. While he does not admit guilt, Talley concedes the state has enough evidence to convict him and receives a sentence of 80 years in prison.
Starting point is 00:24:01 The same sentence Talley likely would have received had he actually pled guilty. In the summer of 2004, Cold Case Files sits down with Archie Talley at the Rappahannock County Lock. talk-up. Talley still insists on his innocence and claims he never understood his plea agreement. I ain't killed nobody. Nobody. When I took the alpha plea or being co-hosted by my attorney, I had no knowledge what the alpha plea was. A judge rejected Talley's attempt to withdraw his plea.
Starting point is 00:24:34 When asked about his blood on the victim, Talley claims that, just before the murder, he was beaten by a gang of skinheads at a bar. and Elizabeth Harrington came to his aid. This took place eight years ago at Merriman's Club. When the skinheads rushed my ass inside of Merriman's, was kicking my ass. She was one of the ones that came to my rescue and getting those bastards off me.
Starting point is 00:24:58 My ass was towed out from the frame. Police say there are no reports or witnesses to back up Talley's story in that it seems an unlikely explanation for the presence of his blood on Harrington's scarf. In other words, according to police, Archie Talley is right where he belongs, in prison for the rest of his life. Elizabeth Harrington's mother agrees. I guess I have compassion for him.
Starting point is 00:25:24 But again, I think he's very dangerous. And I'm very happy that the case is completed, very happy. I'm very proud of the detective work and pleased with it and grateful for it. It's May 11, 2001, Friday night in downtown Syracuse, New York. For a young woman named Jen, the weekend is well underway. She's had a couple of drinks and walks down Getty Street to meet a friend. I mean, it was late at night, and it was kind of rainy, and there was a group of young kids behind me, kind of saying stuff, and so I got nervous.
Starting point is 00:26:14 Jen quickens her pace, hoping to put some distance between herself and the kids. And then a few minutes later, this old white guy pulls up and asks if I want to ride. You know, I'm thinking, if anything, I can take this guy. Jen accepts the stranger's offer. The two drive out of the city and head toward Jen's home in the suburbs, or so she thinks. I thought he was bringing me home. It kind of looks the same the way that he was going from the city. So I didn't start to get nervous until he pulled into this driveway, and I'm like, where the hell are we?
Starting point is 00:26:48 The next thing Jen remembers is waking up inside a dark bunker, apparently underground. And I woke up and I was naked and my ankle was chained to like this steel grate. And I just remember it was cold and wet. And I just was like, where the hell am I? After a while, the old man who picked up Jen crawls into the hole and explains the ground rules for staying alive. He told me that I had to have sex with him every day that I was there and that if I didn't, it would add on another day that I had to spend down there. The assaults become a daily occurrence inside the bunker.
Starting point is 00:27:30 Meanwhile, above ground, Detective Jack Schmidt investigates Jen's disappearance, wondering if there's foul play involved, or merely a young woman who decided to leave town. Well, at the time, it's difficult. I've had a couple of missing adults who were missing because they wanted to be missing. This theory gains traction when Jen's family receives a letter, apparently from the missing girl,
Starting point is 00:27:55 and postmarked Rochester, New York. All of them were read and examined by the family members, and the family all said that it was her handwriting and was her vocabulary, and they weren't suspicious at all that it was anything other than her writing. He basically told me to write a letter stating that I was in a drug rehab and I was okay.
Starting point is 00:28:14 I was going to be coming home, but I didn't know when. And I think he did that to throw the cops off. The ruse works, and Jen's family accepts that the letters are real. So from a standpoint of us as investigating a missing person case, it was closed. The case was closed. For police, the case is filed away and forgotten. But for Jen, the rape and torture continues.
Starting point is 00:28:40 I was on my knees every day, praying to God. Every day, that's how I dealt with it. You know, please don't let me die down here, please, please, you know. For 56 days, Jen's world is dark, never knowing when or if her nightmare would end. And then one night he just came down, threw me the clothes I had on, and said, oh, come on, you're going home. And I was like, no way. No. I thought he just wanted to take me out of there to kill me.
Starting point is 00:29:10 Jen is handcuffed, blindfolded, and ordered to wear a hooded sweatshirt backwards. He drove me to my mother's house and clipped the handcuffs, took off the sweatshirt, and told me to get out. I got out and I started thanking God. Nearly two months after she first disappeared, Jen knocks on her parents' front door. Two hours later, she is at the local hospital, undergoing a rape kit examination. It had been several days since the last assault and no usable forensic evidence can be collected. At the Syracuse Police Department, Jen tells the story. of her days inside the bunker.
Starting point is 00:29:48 Part of me is sitting there going, and part of me is going, this just can't be true. Jen gives Schmidt a description of her attacker, but cannot offer a name nor any clue as to where she was held. The only specific detail she can remember is the car her captor drove. A 1974 orange comet. Detective Schmidt runs a search for any 74 comet in the state of New York. and finds one upstate. And it was checked, and it wasn't an orange car.
Starting point is 00:30:21 She was so specific about, it was a 74 Mercury County colored orange. I saw it. He showed me the registration. That's what I went with, you know. But we had nothing. Basically, they didn't believe me. All because of the letter that I wrote about the druggery had,
Starting point is 00:30:41 I thought I was just making up some story or something. Nothing is adding up like a typical investigation would. Nothing is making any sense. Detective Schmidt has no leads to follow and no way to locate the underground bunker Jen describes, or the man who held her captive. In time, the case goes cold. If you've been waiting for the right time to focus on your weight loss goals, this could be it. Hers makes access to FDA-approved GLP-1 medications simple and affordable,
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Starting point is 00:34:08 Somewhere near Syracuse, New York, a woman named Jen is held captive in an underground prison. She is raped daily for almost two months, then suddenly and mysteriously set free. Jen shares her story with police. It seems so unfathomable. And other detectives were going, ah, it can't be, can't be it. Without a hard lead, the investigation quickly goes cold and stays that way for more than a year. until a second bizarre story surfaces. In the fall of 2002, Angela Wilson is worried.
Starting point is 00:34:49 Her sister, a woman will call Jane, has gone missing. She sometimes would go and stay over a friend's house and would call us like the next morning or, oh, I fell asleep or something like that. But a call does not come, not for days nor for weeks. And Jane's family begins to believe the 16-year-old has run. away. Then, six months after her sister's disappearance, Angela Wilson's cell phone rings. She said, hi Angie. She said, do you know who this is? And I said, yeah, this sounds like my sister. Where are you? I said, we've been looking all over for you. Jane whispers into the phone and
Starting point is 00:35:32 Angela strains to listen. She hears enough to know her sister is in trouble. She said that the guy she was with was a rapist. Now she whispered that, and I barely could make that out. And she told me, and then after she said it, she said, can you hear me? And I said, yeah, I did hear you. The call ends abruptly. Angela checks her caller ID and sees FM returnables, a bottle return business and manliest New York, 15 miles away. So I called and a nice lady named Terry answered the phone and I said, can I speak to the young lady that just got off this phone? And she said, oh, Mika, she just left. And I said, Mika. The woman explains that Mika was with a local named John, and the two were on their way
Starting point is 00:36:26 to a pet store down the street. I told her that John was a rapist and that he was holding my sister against her will and that she had been missing for six months. And she said, are you serious? Are you talking to me the truth? I'm like, yes, I'm dead. serious. The woman at FM Returnables calls a co-worker, Keith Alexander, who happens to be working at the pet store that morning. Just as she finishes telling Keith about the possible abduction and rape, John himself walks into the store.
Starting point is 00:36:58 Then John said he wanted me to meet his friend, so he went back out to the car and brought this girl in. And when she came in, she was young. She looked very young, looking down at the ground. withdrawn and I knew I'm just like this is true. As the two leave the store, Keith Dials 911. Meanwhile, Angela races to the bottle exchange. The police are there and they are taking statements and at that point my sister calls my
Starting point is 00:37:28 cell phone. An officer takes the phone and traces the call to a nearby Dodge dealership. In moments, police swarm the dealership and arrest John Jamelsky. Angela listens over the police radio as Jane is rescued. We got her. We hear we got her. We got him. We got both of them.
Starting point is 00:37:48 Angela Wilson is reunited with her little sister. Meanwhile, a team of police prepares to execute a search warrant on John Jamelski's home. Twelve miles west of Syracuse in the small town of DeWitt sits an unassuming ranch house. Hundreds of motorists pass by the home, unaware of what is taking place just to few steps away in John Jamelsky's basement. Detective Jack Schmidt approaches the suspect's home. I think everybody had a weapon either out or unsnapped, knocked on the door, announced ourselves, no response, and then we forced entry. The home is empty, except for a tangle of odds and ends, cracking open the door to the cellar at first police find more miscellaneous junk. He kept everything. The man kept
Starting point is 00:38:38 newspapers, magazines, beer bottles, beer cans, receipts from stores that have been closed for 20 years. Beyond the bottles, they come upon a small steel door. Behind that, a tunnel, eight feet long. With flashlights in hand, they crawl through and drop down into a bunker. When I went down into the room, there's a bathtub on a table. And there's a toilet over a five-gallon. bucket and a peace sign painted on the wall and a New York skyline painted on the wall and the words
Starting point is 00:39:14 wall of thugs painted on the wall. Two years ago, Detective Jack Schmidt took a statement from a Syracuse woman named Jen. She described being held hostage and raped repeatedly in an underground hole. Schmidt might have been skeptical then, but as he tours John Jamelski's basement, he quickly becomes a believer. I said, this is the dungeon. This is the place. But I knew immediately that I had to get out of there and that I had to go find this person and do two things. Tell her, we got the guy, okay? And tell her, I'm sorry. So the next thing you know, he's knocking at the door, and he goes, what was on the wall down there, John? And I knew exactly what he was talking about. He said, wall thugs. He goes, we got him. We got him.
Starting point is 00:40:03 Teams of officers descend on Jemelski's home to work what is quickly becoming a major crime scene. Inside the basement, investigators use an alternative light source to scam for evidence, not visible to the naked eye. Sometimes the light source, different things will fluoresce, i.e. semen. So we were trying to do a complete examination of the bunker for any evidence of sexual assaults. And in that process, numerous names fluoresce that were had... been painted over. The names on the walls form a roll call of sorts, women who had somehow found their way into John Jamelsky's dungeon. Nearby, letters and diaries bear witness to the daily routine of rape and torture. Then there is the wall calendar, where Jamelsky kept track of what he
Starting point is 00:40:53 did and when. District attorney Bill Fitzpatrick would later prosecute Jamelsky. On the calendar, he would describe certain things, certain things. mundane things, but you would also describe what the sex act was performed with the victim on that day. The evidence appears to detail a routine of torture that spans 15 years and involves at least five different women held for months and in one case three years. I'm thinking that it can't possibly be true. And then as we sit down over the course of the next several days and sift through the evidence, it becomes painfully obvious that it's all true. As the world learns of John Jamelsky's basement,
Starting point is 00:41:38 his victims begin to come forward. Within two weeks, investigators have statements from five women, each of whom was taken off the streets by Jamelsky, locked up and tortured. All five of these women are different races. One woman is Caucasian, one is Hispanic, one is African American, one is Asian, and one is Native American. I don't believe that's a coincidence.
Starting point is 00:42:04 I believe that in his distorted mind, this was another form of collection. A collection, 15 years in the making. It begs the question, how in the world could one man get away with such torture? According to Fitzpatrick, it was all in the selection of his victims. Jamelsky prayed on the weakest people in our society, people that weren't even missed by their own families, in some cases, people that didn't even report it to the police agencies, they just figured, well, nobody would believe me. And those that did report it, there was some, in all candor, there was some skepticism on the part of the police agencies about what had occurred to them.
Starting point is 00:42:46 So he was very, very clever about who he picked. John Jemalski is charged and pleads guilty to five counts of kidnapping in the first degree. In July of 2003, a crowd packs the Onondaga County Quarer. room for the sentencing of John Jamelsky. The admitted kidnapper addresses the court. I'm just truly sorry for what I did. I've been a lot of time to think about it. And I'm just very sorry for what I did.
Starting point is 00:43:18 And for all of us affected everyone. God bless all of them. I think that he's a gunbag. God is going to get him for what he did. The judge delivers the state's punishment to John Jamels. Your reign of terror is over. You have forever changed their life in such a brutal and permanent way that you should spend the rest of your life in prison. Jamelski receives 18 years to life and is currently serving his sentence at the Mohawk Correctional Facility in New York.
Starting point is 00:43:52 Jamelsky has appeared in front of a parole board twice since his incarceration and been denied both times. You know, they may look at this pathetic. 86-year-old man and say, you know, let's spring him. Or they may say, you know, the heck with this guy. Let's throw him back to the dungeon that he created for himself. Quite frankly, John Jemelsky is probably going to come out of prison in a pine box. Welcome to Pluto foe. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see,
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