Cold Case Files - Burning Desire

Episode Date: August 12, 2020

A California Highway Patrol officer spots a fire in an olive orchard and pulls off to investigate. He finds a woman's body, shot and set ablaze. It doesn't take police long to develop a theory on who did it... but why, where, how, and who else all remain a mystery. Run your business with NetSuite by Oracle! Receive your FREE guide – “Seven Actions Businesses Need to Take Now” and schedule your FREE Product Tour – at www.NetSuite.com/CCF 

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. We'll see you next time. Thank you. Right now at netsuite.com slash ccf. netsuite.com slash ccf. She was still alive at the time. I mean, you know, she had this very, very distinctive, like, breathing going on. He had this look in his eyes. I won't forget that look. It's just like the stare that you stare down a victim and if you say anything,

you could be one too. Late on the night of July 4th, 1997, a California Highway Patrol officer spotted flames whipping up from an olive orchard just off the highway in Northern California. When he went to investigate, he found the body of a young woman. She'd been murdered. Her body had been dumped and set ablaze. Why was this woman killed? And how did she end up in this orchard so crudely disposed of? In order to determine any of that,

detectives first needed to figure out who this mystery woman was. Then, eventually, they might be able to figure out what person, or persons, should be held responsible. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. I'm Brooke, and here's Bill Curtis with a classic case, Burning Desire. We're on State Route 99, and we're in the area where Fresno County and Madera County meet.

Ben Grasmuck is an officer for the California Highway Patrol. Just before midnight, Grasmuck sweeps his beat, a lonely stretch along Highway 99. And when we were still on the freeway, I happened to glance over there, and I saw a fire. Grasmuck follows the flames into a nearby olive orchard. There, he discovers a body. The torso was on fire, and I could see her, I'll never forget, her two legs sticking up out of the fire towards me. I immediately knew it was a woman, and I immediately knew she'd been murdered. It appeared that she was relatively young.

Detective Kathy Starr responds to the scene. There was extensive burning to the body. The victim was lying on her back. Her legs were up and open. There aren't any homes in this area. This is not a widely traveled road here. So to come in here, dump a body, set the fire, very unlikely that you're going to be noticed. Stark homes the orchard for clues and happens upon some footprints in the dirt.

There were two sets of footprints. One appeared to have been wearing socks. The other was clearly a bare footprint. The prints and nearby tire tracks are photographed. Meanwhile, at the morgue, the pathologist determines the victim was shot twice in the head. Starr believes the victim was shot dead, then set on fire in an effort to cover up the crime. The detective's next order of business, ID her victim. If we didn't know who the victim was, we weren't going to find out who the suspect was. Starr puts out an APB on her Jane Doe and then begins the waiting game. There are a lot of missing persons cases. It's 4th of July weekend, so we were real uncertain

as to how soon we were going to be able to identify this victim. I know, like I started to feel like something is wrong. Ruth Pimentel has an uneasy feeling. Her best friend, Andrea Bourne, is missing. Annie called me at 7 and said she was on my way to my house, our house, and she was with Jay, and she never came home. And I think Jay's done something to her. Jay is J.L. Travis, Andrea's boyfriend, and the last known person to see her alive. I knew his history, like I knew he was in jail.

You know, I knew that he had guns and that he held them to Annie's head in the past and that she had told me that. So I really, I really thought that something was wrong and I told that to the police. Fresno police take down the missing person's report and compare the details to Starr's bulletin about the burning body. They have here is a white female adult in her 20s, 5'9", blue eyes and blonde hair. And that matched the information that we had taken so far on our Jane Doe. Dental records confirm the body to be that of Andrea Bourne.

You just kind of, like, your mind can wrap around this and say, okay, this is what happened to my beautiful, happy, sweet daughter. Gloria Barnes is Andrea's mother. On July 7th, Detective Starr tells her Andrea is dead. She said, well, we have made a positive identification on the body, and I'm really sorry to tell you that it is your daughter, Annie. And I just started to cry. They said, well, her body was burned beyond recognition.

As a mother deals with her pain, Kathy Starr gets on with the business of finding Andrea's killer. She starts with J.L. Travis. Okay, the date is July 6th. My name is Detective Kathy Starr. In a small interview room, J.L. Travis tells detectives he had nothing to do with Annie's disappearance. Insisting, he took her to a pool party on the 4th of July, then dropped her safely at home.

So I kissed her, and she got out of the car, and she shut the door. After that, she started walking to her door. She opened the door up, and I drove off. He was avoiding eye contact. His body language suggested that he was not wanting to open up and be truthful with us. It was very hard to

believe him because he wasn't consistent even when he was trying to act as though he was grieving for his lost girlfriend it was so transparent it was it's almost laughable how little he he cared detective starr and ginder questioned J.L. for hours, probing his story and searching for a motive. Eventually, J.L. takes the bait, telling detectives that just weeks earlier, Annie had met someone new. You had become aware of Annie's involvement with another person. Can you tell me about that?

I had paged her, because I put I love you in her pager. Then she had paged me back, and she told me, don't pager her no more because she has a new boyfriend, and he don't appreciate me paging her. And I said, oh, I didn't know you had a boyfriend. Jealousy. I think the victim was going to leave jail, and I think he was having a hard time coping with that.

Jealousy makes people do some strange things. Theories aside, detectives need more to put the cuffs on J.L. Travis. Starr then asks her suspect for a look at his feet. I was looking for anything on his feet that would be consistent with walking out in that orchard. We have abrasions in his feet and small puncture wounds, which could very well have been made by the debris in that field. Along with the abrasions, the size and shape of Travis's feet match up to the bare footprints found in the orchard. There were similarities, yes.

The shape of the toes, the way the toes overlapped, the size of the big toe. With the evidentiary trail heating up, Starr decides she wants to examine Travis's car. We compared the tire tracks, and they didn't match in size or tire impression to what we had at the crime scene. There was no blood, even on the windshield. There was negative for blood. Nothing in her car. Detectives have an intriguing circumstantial case, but not enough for an arrest. After more than 12 hours of questioning, Star releases JL Travis.

We knew we had our guy, and now it was just building the case so that we had enough evidence that we could convince a jury of that. We continually were trapping him in lies and inconsistencies. He was just not trustworthy. J.L. Travis has talked at length about the day that Andrea Bourne was killed. Now Starr takes her suspect's statements and tries to find the holes. He had mentioned to me that after leaving the pool party and driving Annie home, his cousin Kevin Mitchell was with him. So we went looking for Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell repeats the same story J.L. Travis told, save one small detail.

He was the one that initially told us that they were in Tracy DeVaris' car. Tracy is J.L.'s other girlfriend. He has two children with her. There was no reason to not think that she had been murdered in that car. Even if she had been transported in that vehicle, there would have been trace evidence that would have been left. Starr pays Tracy a visit and asks to see her car. Her story is, well, I'm sorry my car was stolen. How convenient that her car is stolen three days after Annie's homicide and that she forgot to mention to us the fact that she had loaned that car to jail that night. Detectives don't believe Tracy Tavares any more than they believed her boyfriend.

Starr has Tavares pegged as a jealous and perhaps violent girlfriend. She wanted Annie out of the way, and we felt that she had the influence over J.L. that she could make that happen. I think we tried every tact we could take with her to try to get her to fess up, to crack. Detectives believe the best way to crack Tracy is to find her car.

Within weeks, the vehicle is recovered in the garage at Kevin Mitchell's mom's house. We're thinking, we've got our car, and we're going to find the trace evidence in this car. When we searched the car, this car was pristine. It was cleaner than anything you would get off a showroom floor. Tracy Tavares' car yields no connections to the murder. After three months, Starr gets pulled off the case and on to fresh homicides. It was very difficult to let go, yeah. Especially being so close, being so close and having to let go of it.

Andrea Bourne's murder slips into the cold files, where it will stay for three years until J.L. Travis's cousin resurfaces with a story to tell. America's ready to get back to work, but to win in the new economy, you need every advantage to succeed. Smart companies run on NetSuite by Oracle, the world's number one cloud business system. With NetSuite, you'll have visibility and control over your financials, HR, inventory, e-commerce, and more. Everything you need, all in one place. Whether you're doing a million or hundreds of millions in sales, NetSuite lets you manage every penny with precision. You'll have the agility to compete with anyone, work from anywhere, and run your whole company right from your phone. Join over 20,000 companies who trust

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After Andrea Bourne was murdered in the summer of 1997, it only took the original detective, Kathy Starr, a few days to come up with a suspect, Andrea's boyfriend, or possibly ex-boyfriend, J.L. Travis. His story is rife with inconsistencies. It only took a few weeks for Detective Starr to truck in the car where she theorized that Andrea was killed. But the car was clean, and without any further evidence, it only took three months for Detective Starr to get pulled into other cases, and for the Andrea Bourne case to go cold. It would be three more years before another detective, Vince Zavala, would bring new life to the case, and be able to track down an eyewitness. Every case deserves attention. This one cried for attention.

Vince Zavala is a one-man team working the oldest and toughest cases on the books, the cold cases. Well, whenever fresh eyes look at a case, they may see something that the original investigator didn't see. In 1999, Zavala picks up the unsolved murder of Andrea Bourne and digs in. The Madera County Sheriff's Department had focused on three individuals, Jacob Lee Travis, Kevin Mitchell, and Tracy Tavares. When I reviewed the case file

from the Madera County Sheriff's Department, naturally those three people jumped out at me as being primary suspects. In 1997, the three were caught in a web of lies. Travis and Tavares had been interviewed on five different occasions and given five different stories. Kevin Mitchell had been interviewed once and gave a completely different story. Zavala begins the process of reexamining evidence and tracking down leads.

Two months later, he gets his first break. I later discovered, by interviewing several people, that Jacob Lee Travis, by his own admission, did in fact possess a.25 caliber handgun. So he had the same type of weapon that was used to murder Andrea Bourne in his possession less than 24 hours before she was murdered. This began to put the wheels in motion. Next, Zavala turns to Tracy Tavares' car.

Tavares claimed it was stolen just days after the murder. Police at the time believed the theft report to be bogus. A set of prints lifted from the vehicle, however, provides Zavala with an opportunity. The prints were recovered during the initial investigation, but they were never compared to anyone. So we compared them to Kevin Mitchell. The prints belonged to Kevin Mitchell,

putting him in line for a potential charge of grand theft auto, unless, of course, Mitchell is willing to talk. And they were like, well, you're wanting of grand theft auto. Unless of course, Mitchell is willing to talk. And they were like, well, you're wanting for grand theft auto. And I'm thinking, oh my God, I just started crying. And I was just telling him, look, I'm gonna tell you guys the truth.

We look for the truth. Kevin of his own free will, wants to explain the truth as he knows it. Am I correct, Kevin? Yes, sir. On March 15th, Kevin Mitchell sits down with cold case detectives and begins to talk. He was very willing to talk. In my opinion, on one hand, he was relieved to get it off his chest, and of course, on the other hand,

he felt if he was truthful and cooperated with us, perhaps the arm of justice wouldn't hit him as hard. Mitchell tells Zavala on July 4, 1997, he went to a pool party, then caught a ride home with Andrea Bourne and J.L. Travis. They were always talking. I mean, I couldn't hear them because the music was up loud in there in the front. And could you see if it was a normal conversation?

You know, it didn't seem like they were arguing or anything. According to Mitchell, the conversation between Andrea Bourne and J.L. Travis appeared to be normal, until J.L. pulled a gun. It was all of, it was like within a split second. He, when he had got the gun and it was close to her head. She tried to move his hand and she like screamed, J. And then it was too late. I can't stop him. That was basically the defining moment in the investigation. This pretty much is the last nail.

We have a strong circumstantial case, and now we have a witness to the murder of Andrea Bourne. I'm just basically like, I don't know what to do right now. You know, I was pretty scared, and he shoots her again. I was just sitting in the car, and she was still alive at the time. And you know, she had this very, very distinctive, like, breathing going on.

I couldn't do anything to save her life. I couldn't do anything. I wanted to, but I couldn't because I was scared for my life. As Andrea Bourne lay dying in the front seat, Mitchell says J.L. drove out to the olive orchard. He laid her down, and he poured gas around her and then on her and then set it on fire and we left.

He had this, like, this look in his eyes. I won't forget that look. It's just like the stare that you stare down a victim, and if you say anything, you could be one too. Four days later, Mitchell says, JL and Tracy Tavares were back, asking for a favor. They called me over and they said, Kevin, I want you to get rid of the car. They said, don't worry about nothing, you know, it's the insurance to take care of it. You said at some point Tracy gave you the key?

Yeah, she took her key off her key ring and gave me her key. That was an important statement because we knew that Andrea Bourne had been murdered in Tracy DeVars' vehicle. Now Tracy DeVars, Jacob Lee Travis, and Kevin Mitchell have made plans to dispose of the vehicle. Mitchell tells Zavala he hid the car at his mom's house, then left town. After two years of legwork, Zavala believes his case is made. He has an eyewitness to the murder, and finally an arrest warrant in hand for JL Travis.

I didn't find it unusual that he was still with Tracy DeVars. In my opinion, he felt safe that he was never going to be arrested for the murder of Andrea Bourne. They were living out in rural Fresno County on a piece of property owned by Tracy DeVro's family. On March 20th, Detective Zavala brings Travis to the Madera County Sheriff's Office and charges him with murder. He was shocked initially. Initially, when I interviewed him, he was very remorseful. And at that point, I thought he may confess.

He then snapped out of it and denied any involvement. J.L. Travis is packed off to jail to await trial. Meanwhile, Zavala turns to the woman he believes to be his accomplice, Tracy Tavares. Worst case scenario, I think she was involved. Least case scenario, she knew what happened and she was not truthful with law enforcement. Zavala books Tavares on insurance fraud for falsely reporting her car stolen. She takes a plea and will serve no time. It's frustrating, but we can only do the best we can with what we have.

Kevin Mitchell is never charged with a crime. J.L. Travis, however, does not get off so easy. On February 20, 2003, he pleads guilty to a charge of second-degree murder and draws 15 years to life. He wanted the best of all worlds. He wanted this young, beautiful, intelligent woman, Andrea Born. He wanted the mother of his children, Tracy DeVars.

He wanted his cake and he wanted to eat it too. I think he realized that he was losing her. And rather than, if he couldn't have her, no one was going to have her. And so that was the motive for killing her. When you're the victim of this kind of crime, you don't have any closure. Gloria Barnes lives alone, surrounded by fragments of her daughter's life, a life that ended with a gunshot, a gunshot that gutted a mother's soul. It just never goes away.

It just kind of eats at you. And you try to go on with your life and you try to find some years after he murdered Andrea Bourne, or Annie, as she was known to her family and friends. According to a website set up by Annie's family, J. Travis had his first parole hearing on May 8, 2014. The hearing lasted about six hours, during which the two-member parole board listened to Jay and asked him questions. Annie was represented there by the California Attorney General's Office. Jay said during the hearing that his other girlfriend, Tracy,

had urged him to kill Annie, and on the day that they went to the pool party, he doesn't know why he shot her. This explanation contradicts a letter Jay had written to the sentencing judge, where Jay claimed that he killed Annie because he loved her so much that he couldn't bear for anyone else to have her. Ultimately, Jay's parole was denied. His next parole hearing will be in 2021, at which point Jay will have been in prison for 18 years. He'll be about 50 years old. Cold Case Files the podcast is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by Scott Brody, McKamey Lynn, and Steve Delamater. Our executive producer is

Ted Butler. We're distributed by Podcast One. Cold Case Files Classic was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by the one and only Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com.