Cold Case Files - Deja Vu / Secret in the Well

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

A new fingerprint identification system helps detectives track down a killer after three years of searching. A Georgia investigator gets to the bottom of a 16-year-old murder case when he discovers the victim’s body… in the bottom of a well.This Episode is sponsored by BetterHelpBetterHelp: Visit BetterHelp.com/COLDCASE to get 10% off your first month.Hydrow: Head over to Hydrow.com and use code COLDCASE to save up to $475 off your Hydrow Pro RowerProgressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, Cold Case listeners. I'm Marissa Pinson. And before we get into this week's episode, I just wanted to remind you that episodes of Cold Case Files, as well as the A&E Classic Podcasts, I Survived, American Justice, and City Confidential, are all available ad-free on the new A&E Crime and Investigation Channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. And now on to the show. This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. At first, you just think it's not real. They were both found face down in the tub. They're both bound with duct tape. The person that did this is a monster. Everyone I said across from, I'm looking at them,

and I'm looking in her eyes, I'm thinking, are you the monster? In all my years of law enforcement, very few times would I say that I've ever dealt with a true social path. Ms. Quedon's was a conniving type person. Daddy bought the property, They've had it both in both of their names. She was going to get this property by whatever means possible. And her statement was, if he's in there, I don't know anything about him.

There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's September 17, 19, 19, 96 in Arlington, Texas. Ed Featherston is a veteran detective with the Arlington, Texas Police Department. Arlington is quiet on this Tuesday until Featherston receives a homicide call. Well, if I remember correctly, it was about 5.30 in the afternoon, and I had just left the PD when the Simons or Sergeant Simons called me.

And investigation, I was next up on the list. And next thing you know, I got the case. 2,200 block of Henderson, if I remember correct. is where I got it, and that was the old pear tree plum tree apartments. It's a nice building, it's a nice apartment complex. Nice on the outside, but inside apartment 816, a 25-year-old school teacher named Christine Vu lies dead. Well, when I first arrived on scene, there are uniformed police officers who are all over this apartment complex, who are locating, interviewing, and identifying witnesses.

Tang Chi Koo is there at the apartment. Tang Koo is Christine Vu's live-in boyfriend. It was Koo who called 911 after discovering his girlfriend's body. He was very, very distraught. He was screaming. He wanted the police to go find somebody and find who did it. Koo tells police he came home early from work and found the door to the apartment deadbolted from the inside.

So I think, okay, maybe she's in the restroom. I went back to the car. I smoked a cigarette. And then after I finished my cigarette, I went back and tried again. But nope. Koo tells police he called the apartment from a nearby pay phone, but Christine didn't pick up.

So this time I went back to apartment. And I tried the key, but the door is actually not, it's no longer locked. So I just pushed it in and I went inside. Inside the apartment, Koo tells police, he found Christine bound with the apartment. with duct tape and face down in the bathtub, strangled to death. And then I call 911.

It's a story that sends up red flags for veteran detective Ed Featherston. You know, he says, I came there, the door was locked, I knocked on the door, smoked a cigarette, she still didn't answer the door. I thought she was using the bathroom. I go to the gym facilities inside the apartment complex, call her on the phone, nobody answers. I come back, try the door one more time. Lo and behold, it's open.

At that point, I'm real suspicious. That suspicion is heightened when Featherston finds no sign of forced entry. Seamen recovered from the body confirms Vue was raped before she was killed. Experience tells Featherston the search for his killer might be a short one. In cases like this, quite often, it turns out to be a domestic-related homicide as opposed to a stranger. At that particular incident, Tang Chi-ku was my number one person of great interest. You can do to me whatever you want. You want to put me in jail?

Fine. Koo cooperates with police, providing hair and blood samples and answering difficult questions, all the while maintaining his innocence. His claim of innocence is bolstered when results from the crime lab come in. Joel Stevenson is a retired investigator from the Arlington Police Department. Lighten fingerprints were developed in various areas of the apartment, but primarily what turned out to be the important one was on the deadbolt lock. that was interior only.

The fingerprint lifted from the deadbolt lock in Christine Vu's apartment has a small scar in the center. That latent print did not match her boyfriend, her, or any of the officers, medical staff, or investigators at the scene. So we now have an unknown person who was at that scene, and it's our first clue that his story might actually be correct that he was sitting outside smoking a cigarette while she's being killed in the apartment. The unknown print raises just enough doubt to release Tang Koo. Meanwhile, a killer remains free.

It's December 24th, 1996, at a home across town. This is a good environment when you're eating because if there's something that's sensitive, you can break it up at the dinner table. Anybody need your steak sauce or anything? Brenda Norwood and her family are a tight-knit group. For them, Christmas Eve is family time. We were all in the kitchen cooking and getting things prepared. And then my niece called me and she said,

I hadn't been able to get in touch with Wendy. Brenda's niece, 22-year-old Wendy Prescott, was expected for dinner. By 11 p.m., she still hasn't arrived. And Aunt Brenda begins to worry. Brenda and her husband drive to the pear tree apartment complex and climbed the stairs to Wendy's apartment. There, they find their niece naked, face down, in the back. At first, you just think it's not real, but just to step in there and see her floating that

tub, and her body's lifeless, and her little hands were out too, and they were balled up in a fist. The person that did this is a monster. Arlington Detective Tommy Lenore receives the call. Once I got into the scene, and once I looked around, I then immediately recognized that this was identical to the Christine Vu murder. Deja vu was the word. Detective Ed Featherston joins Lenore at the scene,

haunted by a feeling that he's been there before. Floor plan, furniture, carpet color, wall color, the color of the decoration, the floral design on the walls of the bathroom are identical. Obviously, the most obvious similarities in these crime scenes was the manner in which the victims were bound with duct tape. Wendy Prescott's killer leaves behind at least two critical pieces of evidence for detectives. The first is semen recovered from the victim's body.

The second, a single unknown fingerprint pressed into the dust of a TV stand. We immediately preserve this area because with being a dust print, any wind, any movement, just even our movement as far as walking past and the breeze that we create could potentially destroy this print. So we have, I say, one chance to photograph it, and once we try to do anything with it, it's most likely going to be ruined. The dust print is from a thumb

and therefore cannot be positively matched to the index fingerprint from Christine Vu's apartment. Seamen recovered at each of the crime scenes, however, carries the same genetic profile, confirming the bathtub slayings are the work of one man, and that man is not Tang Kew. In some way, it makes you feel very uncomfortable because under the law, I say, well,

you are innocent until proven guilty. But no, any reality is the reverse. You are guilty, and you have to prove yourself you're innocent. You know, his story in itself is horrible, is a nightmare, because he was actually there as the crime was occurring. Yes, he's a focus of suspicion when it was an isolated incident, that's natural.

You always look at who's closest to the victim, but once the second crime occurred, and once we saw the genetic link, and once we excluded him, then in our eyes, he's a victim as well. A victim of a serial killer who is still on the loose, stalking the women of Arlington, Texas, and pushing police to the limit. Now you know there's an individual that's not only hit twice, but hit twice within three months. And so not only are we burdened with finding this person, But now we have to protect our community, and we have to worry when this person's going to hit again. All the single young ladies in this apartment complex are moving out literally in droves, and certainly I can't blame them.

That creates tremendous headaches for us, because everyone moving out the way they did can actually camouflage the suspect moving out. Detectives may not have control over the exodus of tenants, but they do, however, have a significant amount of forensic evidence, including DNA. and unknown fingerprints found at each crime scene. And then I thought, well, it's just run it through APHIS, which is the American fingerprint identification system. And I thought, hot dog, we're going to get hit because this guy is not going to be the first time he's ever done anything wrong. He just didn't wake up one day and say, hey, I'm going to go kill somebody.

The unknown prints, however, do not return a match in APIS. And so detectives look to DNA to make their case. The DNA, we know. We know that's our suspect. We actually have the suspect in laboratory custody, but we don't know who that suspect is. You immediately think, who could have done this? Who knows these two ladies? The hunt for suspects leads detectives right back

to the pear tree apartment complex. You're talking about occupants, people who are associated with occupants, people who work here, who is it that, what vantage point did someone have where they could watch these ladies? And then when you focus here,

we're going to focus on the number, known offenders here. These are your systematic case books. They're in chronological order. In the months that follow, Lenore and Featherston blanket the pear tree apartments, running down hundreds of leads. This was a massive canvas. You take a look at this one right here, as a matter of fact.

This one just simply says that this guy worked for an air conditioning company and that he was absent from work on both days that Christine Vu and Wendy Prescott were murdered. That's the type of lead you're going to have to follow them. This was an interesting one right here. changed all the locks in the apartment complex. A really intriguing suspect, there was an individual that lived across the hallway from Wendy who during the Christine Voo case

actually lived across the hall from her after the Christine Voo murder. That suspect is just one of hundreds asked to get blood or saliva samples for DNA testing. We're dragging DNA from everybody who walked out to bridge inside this place. After several months, Ed and I were very well known out here. Okay, they thought we were a couple of vampires because we were getting blood samples from everybody.

DNA samples begin pouring into the crime lab. This is what's called an electra-fair cram, which depicts the DNA profile of an individual. Criminalist Connie Patton runs each against the killer's profile. In the beginning, we received batches of anywhere from 10, 15, sometimes 20 samples at a time. And I can tell you in this particular case, there were four or five times that I went home. saying to myself, saying to my partners, we got it. It's him. Over a period of years, the suspect samples were processed and none of their types matched, so they were all excluded.

It's a major downer. I mean, you just, you just crash. After 18 months, DNA clears 102 suspects with no match in sight. And another 200 suspects are cleared through alibi or fingerprints. Meanwhile, an easy piece settles upon Arlington. The man dubbed the bathtub killer appears to have stopped killing. You keep waiting for that other shoe to drop. When's that guy going to hit again? And has he hit again and we just don't know about it? You would think that someone who committed these crimes within three months time. It was pretty remarkable that he stopped. And you wonder why he hasn't hit again, but you hope to God that he doesn't. All right, this is the 600 block of Davis.

Police station is right up here. It's now February 23rd. Derek Robinson is a detective at the University of Texas at Arlington. And this area over here is Greek Row. There's a lot of fraternity houses and sorority houses, as you can see over here now. In the early morning hours of February 23rd, Robinson responds to a report of sexual assault at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority House. The victim was beaten pretty badly.

part of her face was swollen, her eye was complete, and one of her eyes was completely swollen shut. No amount of counseling or antidepressants or anything will take away that night. The victim is Shima Benson, a 22-year-old senior at UTA. I was down to sleep, and I just felt in, like, in my chest, like this overwhelming, like, dread. Shema tells Detective Robinson she awoke to find a strange man in her bedroom.

He said, do what I say, and I won't kill you. And he has a gun to my head at this point. And the first thing that pops in my head is, well, let me bite him. And then I bit him. And that infuriated him. And that's when he started beating on me. And he left me, like, on the floor, naked, bloody, bruised. You know, incapacitated in the fact that I was, you know, kind of like, where am I, what's going on?

And, you know. A rape kit examination provides investigators with the attacker's semen, and Sheima provides them with a physical description. She was able to tell that he was a black male. He was light-complected, and she was able to give us a relatively good height and weight description. First thing we do is we distribute it among campus. The story makes the news, and it's not long before a tip comes in to the Arlington Police Department. I received a phone call from a young lady who was one of Wendy Prescott.

very best friends. Matter of fact, she was the last person to see Wendy alive. She called me and said, Detective Lenore, do you know about the girl? Her words are, do you know about the girl that was raped at the sorority house at UTA? And I said, yes, I know about that. And she said, that should have been me? And she goes, not only should that have been me, but that's the same person that killed Wendy. The caller gives Detective Lenore the name of a suspect. Her ex-boyfriend turned stalker. She described an individual who was stalking her and found out. that she lived at that sorority house, she even stayed in the same room that that young girl that was sexually assaulted was in. She recently moved out to get away from that stalker.

So based on that information from this young lady, I contacted Detective Robinson and I asked Detective Robinson if we could have the DNA from his case compared to the DNA from Wendy Prescott and Christine Vue. Approximately two or three days later, we get a genetic link. DNA testing confirms Shima Benson's attacker is the same man who raped and killed Christine Vue and Wendy Prescott. Detective Lenore tracks down the stalker suspect named by the caller, but finds that man's DNA does not match the profile of the serial killer. The investigation, however, has moved forward. Detectives can now exclude more than two-thirds of their original suspect pool

and focus only on men who fit the physical description of Shima Benson's attacker. He was an African-American male, appeared to be in his mid-20s. The suspect's physical profile also includes an unusual detail. I went to go do that, and then I bit him. And that's an injury that was very remarkable. It was an injury to his penis. And it was an injury that more than likely would not heal very quickly. Cold Case Files is brought.

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three years after Christine and Wendy's murders. Everyone I set across from and looked at you, I'm looking at them, and I'm looking in her eyes, I'm thinking, are you the monster? For three years, Detective Tommy Lenore has tracked his monster, An African-American man who raped and killed two women, then raped a third, but let her live. It is this change in criminal behavior that piques Lenore's interest. We need to go back now and start looking at these sexual assaults that we didn't look at before,

and now we need to start going forward and looking at this because this man is changing. Lenore puts out an APB on the suspect, including details of a scar suffered during the last assault. We even incorporated that this person may have a defect to his penis simply because of an injury. And quite frankly, that's one of the things that led us to the Grand Prairie offense. In the nearby town of Grand Prairie, DNA links another unsolved rape case to Lenore's suspect, bringing the running total of victims to four. By the summer of 1999, however, the detective is, once again, fresh out of Leeds. This is the demographic book from the pear tree apartments.

He returns to his deepest pool of suspects, men who lived at the pear tree apartment complex, the site of both murders. When this is resolved, we're going to find out this person is on this list and right under our nose. If everyone was absolutely cooperative, we would clear them probably in three to four days a person. The work is painstaking and ultimately thankless, as no new suspects can be developed. Meanwhile, science is on the march, and about to offer Lenore's investigation a leap forward. This is the Seagious Link from the Criminal Justice Department. Sergeant Gary Kron is an investigator who keeps up with technology. And it's talking about the new FBI IAFIS system.

IAFIS was the latest version of fingerprint analysis software, capable of rotating a print 360 degrees and detecting points of comparison where before there were none. It was just such better technology. I thought, what an opportunity for us just to see what would happen because we hadn't used this before. Sergeant Kron thinks back to the 1996 Peritree apartment murders. And they had been unsolved. We had really good latent prints on that case.

And it was just a hope that we would be able to get a positive result. Three and a half years ago, investigators lifted an unknown print from the dust on murder victim, Wendy Pry. Prescott's TV stand. Now, they send that print to the FBI for analysis. Two weeks later, the I-AFA system gets a match. The owner of the print, a man named Dale Devon-Shinnett. I had looked at that dust print so many times over the course of four years is almost ingrained in my memory. Crime scene investigator Joel Stevenson quickly confirms the match. I sit down, I guess, to take a breath, because my part's done, and I look over and I think,

wait a minute, I got another latent print that's not identified. Stevenson pulls out the latest print found on the deadbolt lock of the other murder victim, Christine Vue, and compares it to ink prints from Dale Devon Channette. There's a scar, big as daylight, that right index on the print card that we can see in the latent print. I'm like, I don't believe this. We've got him in both apartments. These individuals had no criminal history. The name Dale Devon Channette rings a bell, and Detective Lenore finds him in the case file. I referred back to my sheet and saw that he was number 17. There was nothing significant about him that made him stick out.

He was not the hunchback, one-eyed monster running through the village. At the time of Christine Vu's murder, Chinette lived in the pear tree apartment complex, but had no criminal record. In 1999, his prints were added to the I-Afiz system after a burglary arrest. Why are your latent prints inside this apartment? He denied ever being in the apartment. Lenore tracks down Chinette and brings him in for questioning. The suspect has no one.

explanation for his fingerprints in the victim's apartments, nor any desire to donate saliva or undress for investigators. I asked if he would voluntarily give us his samples and he refused. And so we got an evidential research warrant and we, through a court order, obtained those things. We observed the injury to his penis. So we were very comfortable that we had the right person. In this case, Mr. Chenette did match the profiles previously obtained.

On December 7, 2000, DNA specialist Connie Patton confirms the seaman found in Christine Vu, Wendy Prescott, and Sheima Benson, belongs to Dale Devon-Shinnett. That he did match, I believe, at all 13 genetic loci that were examined. Chinette is arrested and asked to answer for his crimes. The opening statement was, much like any opening statement I give, it's to tell them a story. Greg Miller is a prosecutor in Tarrant County, Texas. In January of 2003, he tells a jury the story of Dale Devon-Cinnett. I would describe Dale Channette as a predator, quite frankly, one of the worst I've seen in all the years I've been in this business.

He is evil. He's the worst of the worst. We had so much DNA evidence at that point. By the time trial begins, DNA has linked Chenette to an additional three rapes, bringing the total to five rapes and two murders. It was hard. because I was angry. Sheima Benson is just one of five rape victims in the courtroom. Four years after the attack, her anger has not subsided. I wanted to jump across the podium and strangle him.

On January 8, 2003, Chinette is found guilty of capital murder. He receives the maximum penalty in the state of Texas, death by lethal injection. He was executed on February 10, 2009. Something as heinous as what he did deserves that kind of punishment. But another part of me wants him in the general population being raped by the other convicts. You know what I mean? Like being subjected to the same thing we've been subjected to. Dale Chenette, whether or not he needs to be on death row or not, I will tell you this,

he doesn't need to be in society. For half a decade, Tommy Lenore hunted a man he came to know as a monster. Now the detective can put his case file away, secure in the knowledge that the monster. can't hurt anyone else. The word joy and happy just don't come into play. You still have ladies that are victimized. You still have the families who will live this with the rest of their lives. So there's no happiness, there's no joy,

but there's tremendous satisfaction. There's satisfaction that I was privileged to be part of the investigation that got this monster and put them away. It's November 27, 1987, in LaGrange, Georgia. I knew something was wrong, you know, immediately. When I got inside and saw there was no note or anything. Tim Wilkerson is 18 years old the night his father, Fred, goes missing. Of course, he was gone, his car was gone, and I thought it was very odd because we always left each other notes if we left to go somewhere.

Of course, the next morning when he still hadn't shown up, you know, as time progressed, I knew more and more that something had happened to him. Of course, Tim said that him and his dad were real close. Investigator Mike Newsom responds to the missing person's call. I went to the apartment where Tim and Mr. Wilkerson lived to try to make a determination whether there was any clothing or personal items missing where it might have looked like he had voluntarily left on his own.

I mean, he hadn't taken anything. He even left his pocket knife and watch such as that, you know, as if he was just going to run out for a few minutes and, you know, come back. By Monday morning, Fred Wilkerson has missed two days of work, and his son fears the worst. I knew by him missing work, you know, he was getting more and more serious every day, you know. You know, we were calling any friends or family that we had

just to see if anybody had seen him. I was pretty much panicking, you know. And of course Tim and his sister both really felt like. like he wasn't strictly a missing person that something had happened to their father that they felt like he'd been killed. Okay, right now we're located in the middle deck of the Atlanta airport, south parking, south terminal. Four weeks later, on Christmas Eve, Fred Wilkinson's car turns up at the Atlanta airport. Special agent Roy Olinger works the scene. When I approached the vehicle, the very first thing I saw was the whole vehicle was covered with a thick coat of dust.

And I walked around to the driver's side of the vehicle. Crime scene technicians process the car for fingerprints. Investigators are surprised when the vehicle comes up clean. It's pretty unusual not to find fingerprints someplace in the vehicle, because if you change drivers, you automatically reach up and change the mirror. You leave your fingerprints. On the door handle, you've got to close the door, you've got to open the door, you've got usually leave your fingerprints behind.

They would make you think somebody would wipe the car down. Inside the car, investigators find two more pieces of evidence. Pretty sure it was two payroll checks that were two Mr. Wilkison from the company he was employed by, which had been left in the vehicle, which of course makes you assume that if he had left on his own, most likely he would have cashed those checks. Financially, he was in bad shape, so I knew he wouldn't leave payroll checks laying there on cash, but the investigator at the time said, you know, people do that just to throw you off, you know. I thought, well, possibly he had gotten on a plane by himself and get away from him.

while. Detectives can find no record of Fred Wilkerson taking a flight. And ultimately, the discovery of his car raises more questions and answers. He was leaving money behind. So that was swaying me more and more and more towards foul play. When talking to Tim, the question of course was posed to Tim if he met harm at someone's hand who would have done it. And Tim related the story about Connie Connie Quedens. Connie Quedens is Fred Wilkerson's ex-girlfriend. Really immediately we knew that Connie was involved, wherever he was at, whatever had happened. At the time of the disappearance, according to Tim,

Connie and Fred's relationship had dissolved into a bitter dispute over a ranch house, resting on 14 acres of Rolling Georgia countryside. Daddy bought the property, and then they had it both in both of their names. Tim tells police that the feud began after his father had struck a deal with Connie. signing over his share of the property to her to help her get custody of her children. And he told me that as soon as she got custody of the kids, she would sign that back over. Shortly after Fred signed over his share of the property, Tim tells investigators Connie betrayed him.

He told me about the relationship how it went sour, how she kicked them out, called the Sheriff's Department, and kicked him out, and wanted nothing to do with Fred. I knew that he'd filed a suit against her and she was served. Two days before he disappeared, Fred Wilkerson had sued Connie Quedon's, seeking to recoup his investment in the home. Tim believes this to be a motive for murder. You know, I knew that something had happened when they served it with those suit papers. We talked to everyone.

Investigators sit down with Connie Quedons to gather her side of the story. Connie Quedon's denied that she has seen Fred since the 13th of November. Connie tells police her relationship with Fred Wilkerson, was strictly business. She denied having a sexual relationship with Fred. She said that she allowed Fred to move into her house to be close to his work so he could work on the house as the contractor.

From the start, though, the home was to be hers according to her. And Fred Wilkinson knew that he had no ownership to it. She was claiming the opposite of what Tim was saying. She gave a plausible explanation for everything. She was calm, cool, matter of fact, gave no indicators that she was lying. In the back of your mind, you could think that she's involved somehow. Detectives had their suspicion about Quedon's, but no hard evidence tying her to Fred Wilkerson's

disappearance. Because it was, like you say, there was always some information coming up where somebody saw him here, saw him there. In time, she's placed on the backburner, and the investigation begins to look elsewhere for answers. They assumed that he had financial property. problems, and he was a truck driver, so he had a lot of connections that he just kind of hit the road, you know, just to get away. We always had to leave that little door open, but, but no,

no, we knew he was not that type of guy. I mean, we just knew that he wouldn't have done that to us. In the months that follow, records checks show no activity on accounts or the social security number belonging to Fred Wilkerson, and a number of sightings turn out to be false leads. Time passes, and Wilkerson's fate remains a mystery, and soon evolves. into the stuff of local legend. Everybody in town, I guess, I say that. Most people that I talk to. Seven years later, in the spring of 1995,

reporter Lee West of the LaGrange Daily News picks up on a rumor about Fred Wilkerson. The talk around town was at Connie Quedon, actually killed him or had him kill or something because of the squabble over the property out there. The talk about Fred picked up after Connie hired a crew to fill in an old abandoned well, on the back of her property.

That immediately made us think she's covering something up. And everybody's talk was, you know, Fred's in the well. The local gossip soon becomes local headlines when Connie Quedens takes legal action to declare Fred Wilkerson dead. Oh, we were very upset because, I mean, we had nothing to gain by declaring him dead, you know. Connie, on the other hand, has thousands at stake

after making seven years of payments on a life insurance policy for Wilkerson. My question was, why would somebody keep paying it each month if they didn't know the person was dead? Because if he'd lived to be 90 years old, they would have, you know, they'd have paid more than they were to collect it. But we hired an attorney and learned that there was nothing we could do to stop. On May 24, 1995, Fred Wilkerson is declared dead by a Georgia County judge. A few months later, Connie Quedon cashes a life insurance check for $12,000. At that time, we contacted Connie.

Willis Grizzard is an investigator with the Troop County Sheriff. He still has his doubts about Quidens and asks her to come into the station to take a polygraph test. So when we set the schedule up, we scheduled at finding polygraph, she did a no-show. Connie Quidens declines to cooperate with the investigation. We just did not have enough evidence to put us on the property for a search. I mean, like I say, the libel laws get you, I couldn't say that Fred's in the well. Fred is in the well. That is the prevailing sentiment in the town of LaGrange, Georgia, where, over the years, Wilkerson's fate remains a favorite topic of discussion.

Until a rainy night in Georgia, when a burst of lightning turns the local legend into reality. This episode is brought to you by. better help. I can't count the number of times I looked up mental health or wellness advice online and ended up feeling like I was in a sea of information, tips, and strategies. Cold plunges, guided journals, should I try meditating with my cats? The options are endless and honestly, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Sometimes I've spent so long searching for the right thing that I don't actually do anything at all. That's why it's so important to have a trusted resource. Instead of getting lost in internet rabbit holes, actually talking to someone, a trained therapist,

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therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash cold case. That's better, h-elp.com slash cold case. A true crime podcast. It got me upset because this is someone's kid and someone know she's gone. That takes a different approach. It was shocking for something like this to happen in our little town. Focusing on the communities affected by life-shattering crimes.

It made news throughout the entire region that these two people had been shot while they slept in such a safe community. To give a new perspective on the devastation crimes can cause. It was shocking for something like this to happen in our little town. featuring cases from quiet towns to bustling cities and interviewing the people closest to the case. My first thought was that it's an unusual location for us to have a homicide. Listen to the True Crime podcast, City Confidential,

and step beyond the yellow tape to learn just how far a crime can reach. There are certain cases in the history of Boston that I think sort of define the city. I think this is one of all. New episodes of the City Confidential podcast are available every Thursday, available wherever you get your podcasts. In May of 2003, we had a storm come through LaGrange, Georgia. All of a sudden, the lights went off of my house. Pete Scandalakis is the district attorney working in Troop County, Georgia.

In the spring of 2003, a thunderstorm topples a pine tree crushing his brand-new pickup truck. I walked out, I saw my truck that had been crushed by the tree, and I started laughing, and I said, okay, God, why me? why is this going to happen? I know there's some reason. The reason remains a mystery, until Scandalakis drives his crippled truck to a nearby body shop owned by Tim Wilkerson. The same Tim Wilkerson, whose father Fred went missing in 1987 and has not been seen since. Tim was aware of the fact that we had recently solved another cold case file. The Troop County DA's office had recently made headlines after cracking a 33-year-old murder case

in the nearby town of Hogan'sville. any of the really details, but when I knew that it was 20-something years old, I, you know, I felt for the family. I mean, I thought that was great. We talked about you opening that up. When Wilkerson mentions his father's disappearance, Scandalakis listens and remembers. I was familiar with that case because I was an assistant DA when Mr. Wilkerson disappeared. Plus, I was not satisfied with the conclusion that some people had that Mr. Wilkerson had run away and had simply abandoned his family. He was not the kind of man that would leave his family.

Clay Bryant is a special investigator with the Troop County District Attorney. At the request of Pete Scandalakis, Bryant pulls out the Wilkerson file and meets with the Wilkerson family. After an hour with them, I was very well satisfied that the man had met with a untimely demise. I need some help as usual. Clay begins his investigation with a focus on the only suspect. mentioned in piles of casework. Connie Quedens was our number one suspect. Fred disappeared in the midst of a legal battle with Connie over a house they once shared.

Seven years later, Connie petitioned the court to have Fred Wilkerson declared dead. She then collected on a life insurance policy in his name. Everybody suspected Connie, but there was never a physical tie of Fred to Connie at the time of his disappearance. Okay, did he get crime lab report on that blood yet? In search of that connection, Bryant digs into the cold files and finds a handful of unresolved leads, including one that's been bothering Tim Wilkerson for eight years. I'm not sure. I'm sure the first day I told him Lisa Holderman.

Lisa Holderman is a former friend of Connie Quedens. In 1995, she contacted the Wilkerson family attorney, claiming to have information about Fred's disappearance. At that time, efforts to follow up with Lisa for an interview failed. And at that point, I said, we got to talk with her. Freaked me out. I was so not expecting that call. On September 5, 2003, Investigator Bryant tracks down Lisa Holderman, now Lisa Holderman Miles, and listens to her story.

It begins eight years earlier on the front page of the LaGrange Daily News. My mom and I, we were reading the newspaper. Like most of LaGrange, the Holdermans were talking about Fred Wilkerson and Connie Quedon's. It's been a rumor around town. Fred's down Queens well. Specifically, Connie's push to have Fred declared legally dead. You don't declare someone dead unless you know they're dead. It would be my thought on it too.

Said in the paper that they had found Fred's car at the airport because it kind of just gave a background about what had happened and how it transpired and that they had found his car at the airport. A champagne-colored 1987 Honda. When I heard that, you know, it was like, oh, you know, I drove to the airport for her at that time. According to Lisa, in 1987, at around the time Fred Wilkerson disappeared, she made a trip to the Atlanta airport at the request of Connie Quedens. She just asked me to come up and pick her up, just pick her up at the terminals, and she'd be out there waiting for me.

She was standing at the pickup waiting for me. She was by herself, just standing her waiting. I seen her. I picked her up, and we drove back to La Grange. It probably took me about an hour. Lisa never gave the road trip a second thought until eight years later in 1995 when she heard about the discovery of Fred Wilkerson's car at the Atlanta airport. That's when I really started thinking, oh man, you know, she could have done this.

She took the car. She had to have taken the car. The car was found within 200 yards of where Connie was standing. Lisa's tip gives investigators the link they need to break the stalemate with Connie Quedans. Her statement was the one thing that we used to tie her to Fred's disappearance. Clay had even asked me, he's like, well, you know, do you have any idea where you think he is? I said, I have the same idea everybody else has. He's in the well on her property.

If you'll look on top of the knob as we get here, where that piece of paper, is, denotes where the cylinder of the well was located itself. The well was approximately, I'd say four, four and a half foot across. It was an old hand dug well. Sixteen years after Fred Wilkerson disappeared, the legend of his demise is about to be put to the test. We came here today, started digging with a track co and then also bulldozer. Armed with a search warrant, a team of detectives begins digging up Connie Gweden's well. And I told Connie, I said, we're going to.

to search your property. And we're going to start at the location of the old well. And her statement was, if he's in there, I don't know anything about it. By 10 a.m., the excavation is well underway. Meanwhile, inside the home, investigator Bryant is questioning Connie Quedon's. I said, well, Connie, we have a young lady that's come forward. It says, she'd picked you up to the airport when you drove Fred's car up there. At that point, she came unglued. She said, I took the car to the airport, but I didn't kill him. Less than 40 minutes after Connie's admission and placing her in Fred Wilkerson's car, investigators unearthed what appears to be Wilkerson himself in Connie's well.

We're about 20 foot down, and we've made a discovery at this point, and so we've stopped operations at this time about 12 o'clock to find out exactly what we got. We think we found human remains. As I walked up to the well site, the excavation itself was massive, and in the center of the excavation down the cylinder of the well, there was a single human, what appeared to be, a human femur sticking up. The skeleton is wrapped in a role of carpet and carries a number of personal items that lead investigators to believe it is indeed Fred Wilkerson.

They reached in the pocket and put out chapstick, and that was one of the things that he told it everywhere he went, you know. Found his chapstick, his dentures, pants were the correct size for Fred Wilkerson. And it was hard to say. It was hard. I mean, that was a roller coaster day. We were, you know, happy one moment and crying the next. An examination of the skull reveals evidence of a single gunshot to the back of the head. Connie Quedon's is handcuffed and taken away in the sheriff's car.

On November 1, 2004, Connie's case goes to trial at the Troop County Courthouse. Mr. Quedens had, I think, two defenses. One defense was it wasn't Mr. Wilkerson in the well. and number two, if it was Fred Wilkerson in the well, she didn't put him there. The state attacks Quedon's first line of defense with a combination of circumstantial evidence and the results of mitochondrial DNA testing performed on the skeleton. The remains in the well were from a descendant of Fred Wilkerson's family. And since there were no other members of Fred Wilkerson's family missing, we knew that was Fred

Wilkerson. With Fred Wilkerson resting at the bottom of Connie Quedon's well, and title to his home now conveniently in Connie's hands, all Scandalakis has to do is ask the jury to connect the dots. What we wanted to show is that Ms. Quedens was a conniving type person and that she was going to get this property by whatever means possible. And once it became apparent that Mr. Wilkerson was going to sue to get his piece of the property back or at least get monetary damages, that put the motive on Ms. Quedon's to,

eliminate Mr. Wilkerson. You know, I was worried to the end. I mean, I just kept thinking she would pull some way to pull out of it. You know, she always had for so many years. For the Wilkerson family, 17 years of waiting for justice comes down to two hours of waiting for a troop county jury to find Connie Quedin's guilty of their father's murder. Quedin's is sentenced to life,

but under Georgia statutes, she was eligible for parole after just seven years. However, the Board of Partons of Paroles has described. on whether or not to parole her, and what they would do in this case is look at the fact that for 17 years she has gotten away with murder, and I doubt very seriously if the Board of Pardons and Paroles will release Ms. Quedens in the near future, if ever at all. Connie Quedens is still serving her life sentence, and the end to this case not only brings a killer to justice, but brings a father home. It's wonderful to have a place to come and just remember him.

A family once haunted by questions now holds answers. And while those answers may never bring their father back to life, it does bring a small bit of peace. That's when we chose the doves for the marker because it just seemed appropriate for peace, finally. For investigators, Fred Wilkerson's case was as much a matter of fate as it was evidence. God has a plan for everything. There's no other way to describe except divine intervention. A thunderstorm and a felled pine tree, guiding a prosecutor to a son who needed help with his father's murder. It is divine intervention. I'm a firm believer that God moves us in different ways, and this is the way that the good Lord brought me to Tim Wilkerson and brought Tim Wilkerson to me, and we were able to solve this murder.

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