Cold Case Files - Caught By The Past

Episode Date: December 15, 2020

Clydine Dallas is murdered in her own home, and despite fingerprint evidence her case goes cold until a special squad tasked with re-opening tough cases picks up the investigation. Need a gift idea? Check out our great sponsors! Bambee: Go to Bambee.com/coldcase to schedule your FREE HR audit! ManCrates: Now through DECEMBER 23RD, buy one item and get a second item for 50% OFF at ManCrates.com/coldcase - PLUS: Get SPECIAL Santa Daily Deals! Madison Reed: Get 10% off plus FREE SHIPPING on you first Color Kit with code CCF at madison-reed.com  NetSuite: Let NetSuite show you how they’ll benefit your business with a FREE Product Tour at NetSuite.com/ccf 

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Use your best judgment. In 1986, Clydene Dallas was 37 years old. She'd lived in Atlanta for most of her life. She'd raised her daughter there, and her parents and other members of her extended family were always nearby. When I look for information about a victim, I rarely find an obituary. Instead, it feels like the awful news about their death overshadows the need to relay the details of their life.

Clintian was the exception. Her family took the time to write about her life and to share the details of their life. Cladian was the exception. Her family took the time to write about her life and to share the connections they had with her. Cladian was the receptionist in the WSB-TV newsroom in Atlanta. She was organized and punctual. But on October 3, she was uncharacteristically late for work. Cladian didn't show up at the office that day. For third, she was uncharacteristically late for work.

Claudine didn't show up at the office that day. Claudine didn't show up at the office ever again because Claudine had been murdered. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. I'm Brooke, and here's the talented Bill Curtis with a classic case caught in the past. Let's shoot for Javita doing two different election stories because I think there's plenty out there. This is the newsroom of WSB-TV in Atlanta. Of all the political stuff today, if you weren't doing this, which is the big one?

Is it airs? Is it early voting? Each morning starts out like this. The other thing is, you know, the campaign manager, I don't think we should let him off the hook. As reporters and producers determine what events to cover in the city of Atlanta. We got the Davis trial. Eric Phillips is just going to go straight down there and cover that for today. Of course, the opening statements were at 3 o'clock on Friday, so that continues.

On an October morning 20 years ago, however, things were very different when these newsmakers actually became the news after one of their own was murdered. I got a phone call from one of her co-workers. She called me and said, well, Tasha, your mom hasn't made it into work yet. On October 3rd, Tasha Dallas takes a phone call from WSB-TV. Her mother, Clydeen Dallas, is a no-show. She had been there for 10 years. She was the head receptionist. She was a very liable employee. She never missed a day.

Suspecting something is wrong, Tasha drives over to her mom's house. When I walked in, I was like, this is not right. Like, stuff turned over, paper everywhere, things on the floor. The house has been ransacked. I called for my mother. Still didn't get any response. Kept walking through the house, went in her bedroom,

and that's when I found out she was on the floor. 37-year-old Clydeen Dallas hangs over her bed, naked, hands bound behind her back, and her own bedsheets cinched around her neck. At first, it didn't seem real. I was just in shock. Just couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was called to this location.

A body had been found. Atlanta Police Detective Gary Lovett catches the call. You start naturally at the victim's body. That's how you work a homicide. You start at ground zero, and you work out from there. Family, friends first. The body is transferred to the morgue, where Seaman is recovered, confirming Clydeen was sexually assaulted.

Meanwhile, Leavitt isolates the killer's point of entry. There was a stereo, a huge piece of furniture, up under the window with a visible footprint on top of it. The window was slightly ajar, and all that suggested that that's where entry was made. Everything else was locked up. Crime scene technicians dust the window and recover several unknown fingerprints. Police took fingerprints from a front window. We are told she had lived there about eight years.

Meanwhile, the local news catches wind of the story, and WSB reporter Mark Winney arrives on scene. My overwhelming memory of that day is arriving at the scene, and arrayed on her living room wall, kind of the centerpiece of her apartment, were these photographs of a handful of the on-air people she worked with. I was startled to see my own face staring back at me. And you know, when you see something like that after somebody has died, you're flooded with a lot of emotions. Authorities may know more about her death

after an autopsy tomorrow. Winnie puts his emotions aside and covers the story. Meanwhile, Detective Lovett determines Clydeen's stereo TVs and car are missing. Well, with the car, the first thing I did was put a lookout for that car. I gave him the description of the car, the tag number, and that sort of thing, and that was put out citywide. We're told she may have been robbed in her apartment and her car was missing.

It is a 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Anyone who sees it is asked to call Atlanta Police Homicide. I'm Mark Winney, Channel 2 Action News. As the story hits the airwaves, detectives work the streets in search of information and 24 hours later catch a break. As the story hits the airwaves, detectives work the streets in search of information. And 24 hours later, catch a break. I'm great at gift shopping for my friends. But when it comes to the guys in my life, I never know what to get them. Until I heard about Man Crates.

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The car was found a few miles from this location where the victim was found on Hollywood Road on the street. The car is processed and prints recovered. So that was some glimmer of hope. Over the next five weeks, Lovett compares the prints to four different suspects, but each is eliminated. We kept eliminating people. In fact, over a period of months. We continued to locate people, but they were all eliminated.

After two months, Lovett is out of Leeds. When you walk on a crime scene and you see a victim laying there, in this case, Mrs. Dallas, she's been brutally murdered. At this point, she can no longer speak for herself now it becomes my job to walk for her, to talk for her, to speak for her

so when I cannot walk that last mile to a conclusion for her it becomes frustrating as Clydeen Dulles' case grows cold to a conclusion for her, it becomes frustrating. As Clydeen Dulles' case grows cold, a family is left without answers. It was very hard from day to day. Would they ever find out who murdered my sister?

You know, would somebody just tell us something? It just got to the point you said, will it ever happen? This is the Atlanta Police Property section. We're on the seventh floor, which is the archived evidence and all of our part one crimes, rape, robbery, murder. Vince Velasquez is a cold case detective for Fulton County. 1989, 1988. In February of 2004, a squad is formed to tackle the oldest and toughest cases on the books, cold cases. Well, we identified upwards of 1,200 cases. You know, if you look at the shelf, these are just, you know, these are just tens and twenties of boxes just on this bin, but these are ten or twenty families that are looking for closure. And, you know, if we can help a family and take this box and put it on another shelf,

that would be wonderful. The squad goes through the files and handpicks 59 cases with the best potential for DNA. We focused early on, on just the female murders, dealing with some type of sexual component where there may be for DNA. We focused early on on just the female murders dealing with some type of sexual component where there may be some DNA. Detectives pulled the file for the 1986 murder of Clydeen Dallas and find a rape kit. And the first one that I reviewed was Clydeen Dallas's case. On December 1st, 2004, Lisa Hobgood takes the DNA profile and uploads it into CODIS. I put it into the database. It only takes two or three minutes to get the results back.

And when I look back, I saw the information that I put in from her profile and then a convicted offender profile beside it. So I was pretty shocked. The search results in a hit to a man named Richard Hambrick. It's a pretty good match. The frequency of someone having the exact same information in all 13 areas is well over 1 in 10 billion.

It's like you're fishing and you're waiting for a bite and that was it. That was our bite. We kind of all got in the gear and said, okay, let's get this. So we actually had a live person to look at now and he gave us the name of Richard Hambrick. The squad has a name. Now they need to build their case.

He had recently been released from prison after serving 12 years for armed robbery and burglary. His M.O.s normally coming through a window is exactly what happened in this case. Looking at that as an investigator, you start seeing patterns, and you start seeing the motive being burglary, robbery, theft. You know, it really started fitting into play with this.

Cold case detectives track Hambrick's movements and find some suspicious connections. After the murder occurred, a car was taken and her vehicle was found on a street directly across from where he actually lived at that time of the murder. Also looking at his family, we found a brother that lived across the street from where the victim lived. That would give him opportunity to surveil the victim. My gut instinct told me this

guy's good for the murder, no doubt, in my mind. Eighteen years after Clydeen Dallas was murdered, Detective Velasquez is about to come face-to-face with her killer. Rich, you know what today is? Today is your past catching up with you. This is actually Herndon Holmes, 502 Kennedy Street, and apartment 103 is where hambrick lived at the time that we arrested him on december 6 2004 cold case detectives head to the northwest side of atlanta for a word with richard hambrick the man suspected in the 1986 rape and murder of clyde dean dallas

on that day we myself and investigator McVie came over here, and he was actually standing in the doorway. As we approached, I could see his face through the screen. His eyes just became huge. His eyes became just very transfixed on, are they coming to see me? And honestly, it was as if Clydeen Dallas herself was walking up to his door from his past to say,

here I am, you know, you didn't get away with this. Velazquez introduces himself as a homicide detective. In return, the man says he is Leon, Richard's brother. I played along with him, and he invited us in his home. He then gets on the phone and calls his mother and continues with the charade and says, Mom, you know, the police are here looking for Richard. Do you know where he's at? So I looked at McBee like, Mom, you know, the police are here looking for Richard. Do you know where he's at?

So I looked at McBee like, okay, this is, okay, let's just continue to play along with his game for a minute. And I said, well, before I leave, one thing, I need to see your ID. And at that point, he just, you know, froze for a second, said, well, you know, I got to be honest with you, I lied to you. You know, I am Richard, you know, and I said, of course, you know, we know that Richard. Velasquez cuts to the chase.

The first question I asked him, does he know who Clydeen Dallas is? His answer was immediately, no, I don't. At that point, I had a photograph of Clydeen with me. I showed him the photograph, and I asked him, do you know who this person is? And he looked at the photograph, and he said no. Hambrick denies any involvement, but his DNA proves otherwise. I said, Richard Hambrick, you're under arrest for murder. And no shock, no, I mean, just put his head down like, here it is.

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Schedule your free product tour right now at netsuite.com. I'm Detective Jim Rose. This is Detective Velazquez. Today is December 6, 2004. Less than an hour after his arrest, Richard Hembrick sits down with cold case detectives. Did you know a woman by the name of Clyde Dean Dallas? The name goes out. Have you ever in your entire life been in those apartments at 336 Holly Street? Candace Hambrick.

For 45 minutes, Hambrick continues the denials until detectives turn up the heat. Rich, you know what today is? Today is your past catching up with you. My past catching up? I'm thinking about all I'm going. If you look at his nonverbal language, his hands are in his lap, and he's constantly looking down, you know,

and that's just not indicative of someone who's trying to profess their innocence. You mentioned something earlier. You watch cold case files. I'm not familiar with that. Well, we were cold case files. That's what we did. And I seen it on your card. Right. Do you understand what DNA is? How would you explain to me how that DNA got there? How could you explain it to me?

That's a lie, Richard. You gotta go in there with a strategy, and the strategy is to let them lie to you. Look at that photo, Richard. You ever had sex with her? You know the facts, and you can prove the facts, and you use those lies against them later, and that's exactly what we did.

This is it. I don't know what is this. Yeah, we don't know about this lady. Yeah, we remember this. Ebrick says he recognizes Clydeen Dulles as the candy lady. She was a candy lady? She would sell candy out of her house, is that what you're saying? Yes. Richard, did you ever have sex with the candy lady?

Yeah. Yeah, dear. He said, okay, well, tell me your story. And you just let him do it, you know. And if they want to dig a hole, you just hand them a bigger shovel. That's my theory. The last time you saw the candy lady, did you have sex with her? The last time I saw her, yeah.

Hembrick says he dated the Candy Lady for several weeks. It's a claim detectives don't buy. What do you know about her family? What do you know about her friends or occupation? What does she like to do? What were her likes or dislikes? Tell me about her. I want you to tell me about her. But what he couldn't get past is the fact that he knew absolutely nothing about this woman, nothing, but wanted us to believe that he was in a relationship with her. And that would explain why his DNA is there.

What do y'all want me to say? I want the truth, Richard. I don't want you to tell me anything but the truth. Only you know the truth. After three hours, the interview is over. We have breaking news about a major development in a murder case

that is more than 20 years old. Just maybe an hour ago, maybe less, a suspect left in a very unusual manner. We're told he was on a gurney leaving Atlanta Police Homicide because he complained of chest pains.

Embrick is charged with the murder of Clydeen Dallas and sent to a jail cell to await his trial. This guy had gotten away with murder for 19 years. We gave opening statements 19 years to the day of Clydeen's murder. Sheila Ross prosecutes the case for Fulton County. There are no questions anymore. The mystery has been solved, and the evidence overwhelmingly shows that this defendant right here,

Richard Hamburg, shows that this defendant right here, Richard Hambrick, is responsible for raping, verbalizing, and murdering Clayton Dallas on October 3rd of 1986. Central to Russ's case, the DNA evidence. The answer for 18 years that everybody was looking for was contained in this little packet and was contained on the tip of a q-tip. The DNA was overwhelming. If you add to that the medical examiner, Dr. Randy Hanslick's findings, that the sex and the death were what they call perimortem, which is almost contiguous or near at the time of her death, and that's really difficult for them to overcome. Hambrick sticks to his defense

that he had a consensual relationship with Clydene Dallas. And you can't say, based on the way she was found, that you had consensual sex with her. Nothing about being bound and gagged after you've entered in through the window speaks of consensual sexual intercourse. After seven days of trial, the jury comes back with the verdict. It's always a scary moment.

It was tense. It was quiet. You could have heard a mouse scurry along the floor. We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of count one, the offensive murder. It helps me, but it doesn't bring her back. But it makes it a little easier to get along with your life a little better, knowing that someone's caught, but he gets to live every day. He gets to eat every day, and my mother don't.

Richard Hambrick is sentenced to life in prison. For the Cold Case Squad, it's one case down, hundreds more to go. You know, it's nonstop. You know, we just hit the rewind button and we just started over again. You know, we've identified over a thousand cases going back to, I believe, pre-1970. So, you know, we've got a lot of work to do. But for one family, justice is finally served. Came to put some new flowers, but we brought somebody. Yeah, we love you. Always thinking of you. I have to say something, you know, we're here, we love you, and we never, we always miss you and we never forget you.

Dear Heavenly Father, we're once here again, visiting our sister on a good, sunshiny day. It's all for a good cause. She'll never leave us, you know. She's always in our hearts on October 7th 2010 the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published two sentences in the death and funeral section of the newspaper Richard Hamburg jr. 55 died September 29th. Funeral. Noon Friday. Woods Memorial Baptist Church. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our associate producer is Julie Magruder.

Our executive producer is Ted Baller. 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 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 realcrime.