Cold Case Files - DNA SPEAKS: Justice for Mary

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

When 23-year-old Mary Scott is found murdered in her San Diego home in 1969, a case with few leads quickly loses steam. Years later, Mary’s daughters grow determined to find answers about the mother they barely knew, and a crime that’s 50 years cold. Greenlight: Get your first month FREE when you go to Greenlight.com/coldcase Hers: Start your free online visit at forhers.com/CCF for your personalized weight loss treatment options. Qualia - Go to Qualialife.com/COLDCASE for up to 50% off and use COLDCASE at checkout for an additional 15% off! ZocDoc: Check out Zocdoc.com/CCF and download the Zocdoc app for free! 

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 Podcast, 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 episode contains disturbing accounts of violence and sexual assault. 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. It's 1969 in San Diego, California.

Tom Giacinto is a former cab driver. In 1969, this is where I picked Mary up, at the Stargarder night, where she was dancing. When you are a brand new cab driver, you don't get the best cab, and you don't get the best hours. So I had to work the graveyard shift. About 2 o'clock, people started coming out of the club. And Mary was standing by the Star and Garter. And she said, are you taking me home? So I said, yes.

I met her probably about a week or two prior. I picked her up on at least two other occasions. And so I actually was able to get to know her. I'd been in the Navy. So you become pretty judgmental, I guess, sometimes of folks. And she was a good woman. I just, I knew she was. I drove her home here, of course, and it's my understanding that I was the last person to see her alive. The night is young at the Star and Garter, a hotspot of San Diego nightlife. But one of the club's most beloved dancers,

23-year-old Mary Scott, is a no-show for her shift. Mary's friend, Dodie, goes to her apartment to check on her. Tony Johnson is a senior investigator with the San Diego District Attorney's Office. Mary was laying on her back on the floor. She had blood running on both sides of her face from her mouth. San Diego police, including Detective Jim Singh, arrive at Mary's apartment minutes later. In 1969, I was a San Diego police detective working the homicide unit. When I arrived at the scene,

I noticed Mary was laying on the floor just inside the door. The chain was broken, and that part of the door casing with the part of the chain still attached was across the room. My theory was that there was a knock at the door, and Mary opened it briefly to the level of the chain because she was alone and tried to shut the door, and the suspect threw his shoulder into the door before she could get it latched, and the door hit her in the jaw,

broke her jaw, knocked her on the ground, and it looked like she had red marks on both sides of her neck and around the front of her throat. It was clear to me that it came from somebody strangling her. It was visible that Mary had been the victim of a sexual assault. I had seen other sexual assault victims of this type, and it was apparent to me that there was semen on her body. Detectives start knocking on doors, questioning Mary's neighbors.

There was one particular witness who lived almost next door to Mary. She heard the banging on the door. She heard the door open. Then she heard the crash and the scream. Now we know that she got off work at 2 o'clock. She got home about 2.10, 2.15, and it happened right then. It was clear that it was a rape homicide. It's an emotional scene to see this young woman laying on the floor dead, but it's our job to stand in the shoes of the deceased victim and protect their rights against the

world. All right. Rosalie Sands, take one. A.P. Mark. Rosalie Sands is Mary Scott's sister. This is the first time we're sitting for this kind of interview about Mary. Why now? Why do you think

it's important for us to know who Mary was and about her story? I was initially reluctant to participate in this because I can't watch these kinds of shows because it hurts too much. But it was important that Mary's voice be heard. It's just a story to everyone else, but I knew her before the crime and I knew who she was and I knew what was lost. I'm Mary's youngest sister. Mary was six and a half years older than me. Mary made me feel really special and loved, like she wanted to be with me. She would always answer all my questions for me, the kind my mom might be too embarrassed to answer. I could always ask Mary. Music was a huge part of our family when I was little.

We would, like, sing in the car on the way to church, and I loved that. And Mary had a huge stack of 45s, and I still remember most of the songs. There was just always music. Mary used to go to dances all the time, and they would go to the USO. You had to be, I think, 16 to go. So when Mary was 15 she got a fake ID so that she could go to the dances where the sailors all came and they danced. Patrick Weibel is Mary Scott's ex-husband. I went in the Navy in 1962. Did my training, and lucked out and got stationed in

San Diego, California. One night, I had a good friend that needed to go somewhere. I took him, and he asked me if I'd come back and get him. Well, I did, and Mary happened to be with him. What made me fall in love with her, she showed me things I didn't really know, you know, because I'm a Cajun from Louisiana. And she was a California girl. And just made me happy, you know. Donna Weibel is Mary Scott's daughter. She journaled quite a few things in here that happened along her happiness and with

my dad. Mary says, one day on the beach, Patrick told me he loved me and wanted to marry me. It took me a long time to answer because this was a big decision for me and I wanted to be sure. I said yes while eating pizza at a cozy restaurant, one of our favorites. I remember when Mary got engaged. She's 17. She came home from a dance and she went into my parents' room and woke my mom up and was kind of squealing like, look at my ring, look at my ring. It was so exciting. I just decided she was the one I wanted. You know, when you catch a beautiful catfish, you don't let it go. Once they're married, the couple has two girls.

Christine is born in 1964 and Donna the year after. The young couple moves back to Patrick's home in Opelousas, Louisiana. My marriage to Mary was good, but I think she just couldn't get used to Louisiana life. They were here, I think, two years, and she fell out of love with my dad. So she left my dad and took my sister and I with her back to California.

She just wanted to go home, and I wasn't gonna try to stop her. I wanted her to be happy. She had to hustle to take care of us, and she started dancing at a club and leave us with sitters. She never got to see her girls, and she had all that mother guilt. So she flew back to Louisiana with the girls and came back without them. I was so stunned, because how can you leave your girls?

She said that they were so happy there, she didn't have the heart to take them away. And that even though it didn't work out with her and Pat, she wanted the girls to stay there with his family because they felt loved and secure. And I know she was going to come back for us. I know it. But she never had the chance to do that. Detective Singh questions the person closest to Mary,

her best friend Dodie, about the days leading up to Mary's murder. She told me that the two of them wanted to get away, so they went over to Las Vegas. After they had returned, they found that Mary's apartment had been broken into, that the front screen had been taken off and a window opened and things were strewn about inside and there was a note.

And the note was from Tom Krause. Tom Krause was Mary's boyfriend. He wanted to be with her and she wasn't responding in the same way that she had in the past years. He didn't like that rejection. He felt that Mary was his, and Mary was done with him. And so he wasn't willing to accept that. Chris Lindberg is a deputy district attorney for San Diego County. When someone is killed, especially in a violent way like Mary Scott was

killed, sometimes you look at the people closest to the victim to see if there are strong feelings there, if there's a reason to kill. Detective Singh focuses on Tom Krause and his dramatic breakup with Mary Scott only two days before her murder. Mary had decided that she was going to tell him that it was over. They had a quarrel and Tom left, but he was not at all happy. But Mary was happy to see him go. Detective Singh and his partner interviewed Tom Krause at the San Diego police station. We documented his story about where he was during the time when this incident occurred. We verified he actually worked in another bar, in another place, and he was there. We asked him if he'd take a polygraph, and he agreed.

There was no deception in his answers. Detectives have no physical evidence tying him to the scene. He's off the hook for the moment. I was in bed, and someone knocked on the door. I knew something was up. I said, what's going on? And my mom just said, Mary was raped and strangled. And I was just stunned. I'd never experienced a death and I didn't know what I was supposed to feel or think or do. And so I started like punching my pillow, I remember,

and screaming and yelling and saying how unfair it was and that she never got to live her life and who knows what she would have done and all those kinds of things. Of course, I told my closest friends and everybody was shocked, but they really always seemed more interested in the crime than in the loss. This is the newspaper article that was printed the day after my mom was murdered.

It stated, Go-Go Dancer 24 slain in apartment. The nude body of a Go-Go Dancer was found late yesterday in the furniture-strewn living room of her East San Diego apartment. Erica Nichols is a journalist and author of Reclaiming Mary, A New Perspective on a Cold Case Murder. In 1969, because there was such a culture clash between a more traditionalist society and a more kind of free-loving society, that really had an impact in the kind of headlines that were being put out about Mary and her case at the time.

They really just focused on her job as a go-go dancer. It was so weird to me because that was not who she was. That was just her job. But they used that as the only descriptor. And then it was always about the crime and that she was a go-go dancer. And that was it. Honestly, I just think it was disrespect to my crime and that she was a go-go dancer. And that was it.

Honestly, I just think it was disrespect to my mom as a human being. It's not just their fault because my family wouldn't talk to the press. They came and my dad called them vultures and told them to go away. So, you know, they didn't get our side of the story. When you focus on just their occupation, I think as a society, we're trying to distance ourselves from it. I think we're trying to say, this is what happened to her, and here's what she did, so if I don't do that, then I'm probably okay.

When in reality, we know that someone's career has no bearing on the crime that happens to them. I had read the newspaper that Mary had been murdered. She was someone I genuinely appreciated as a person. It was really bothersome to think that she had met her demise. I thought I probably should report it to the police because they may not know that she was taken home in a cab. And also because I was going to the police academy about seven days later.

I was going to be sworn in as a police officer. So I had to make sure that I gave them all the information that I had. I met Mary a week or two before the murder. I had been called to pick her up and take her to several different locations. I only knew her as Lucky at the time. There was an overriding feeling that she was protective, that she was always concerned about her safety. On one occasion, she called for a cab, and I picked her up, and I didn't see her at first because she was standing in the shadows. She did not want to attract attention.

Then on the night that I picked her up when she was murdered, she was calling for a cab to go home, even though the patrons there would have been more than happy to drive her home. For her own safety, she wanted to be in a cab. On one occasion, I took Mary to the Greyhound station where she was going to Vegas, her and Dodie. I knew that they were good friends, and I knew about Dodie's husband and Mary's influence

over his then wife. Keith Christopherson was Dodie's husband. They had been on and off. She told me that her husband was a bartender and that he had been trying to get back together with her. And it was very common for him to finish his job at the bar at 2 o'clock and drive to Mary's apartment and knock on the door in order to see Dodie,

knowing that she would be there. Dodie was not clear whether or not her husband was the one that did this to Mary. But several other times, Keith had come over there after his shift to try to talk to his wife, and that wasn't working out real good for him. And this incident looked like it could be exactly something that he might be involved in.

We had to try to eliminate as many people as we could in order to narrow down our focus on anyone. And that focus actually happened pretty fast with Dodie's husband. He did his best to give us his alibi. It was very tough to verify. The incidents that he talked about, we found out that they didn't happen on the days that he said they happened. Everything he told us turned out to be wrong. Detectives have strong suspicions about Keith Christofferson, but that's about all they have. You have to understand that this was 1969.

It was clear that we might have identifying information on the rape kit, but we didn't know what DNA was. There wasn't enough physical evidence, and we just couldn't prove anything related to him. We couldn't put him in handcuffs. With no more leads to pursue and no physical evidence to connect any one suspect to the crime,

the investigation into Mary Scott's murder sputters, and the case goes cold. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. You know, as our kids get older, some things about parenting get a little easier, like when they finally learn how to put on their own shoes, and they no longer melt down about a broken banana. But then there are those other conversations that don't get any easier, like talking about money. The reality is kids won't really understand how to manage their money until they're actually in charge of it. That's where Greenlight comes in. Greenlight is a debit card and money app designed specifically for families. It lets

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But this particular homicide, we were not able to solve. This was not my investigative case, but because I had been the cab driver and the last one besides the killer to see her alive, I lived with that case in my head. The unsolved ones you live with the rest of your life. I think we were around 11. I was 11 and Christine was 12.

My grandma had this room that stayed locked all the time. I don't know how, but my sister opened the door and there was a chest in there which looked like a wedding hope chest. And we opened it and we got the shock of our lives. We found my mom's wedding gown. We found her birth certificate. We found the telegram from when she died.

We found her death certificate. We found the telegram from when she died. We found her death certificate. We didn't know that her mom died. My grandma wouldn't tell us anything. And growing up, my sister and I never asked too much. We confronted my grandma, and she was very upset because we were forbidden to go in that room. But then she finally admitted what was going on. But it was just a shock to my sister and I to find all that. From then on, our curiosity was bigger than ever

because we didn't understand, but we tried to understand. As the girls grow from their teens to early twenties, Donna's big sister makes a bold decision. Christine wanted to pursue things about my mom. I didn't want to have anything to do with this because my grandma just pounded in our heads as we were growing up, you don't fool with California. My grandma, she was terrified. She didn't want whoever killed my mom to come back and get us. Determined to find her California family,

Christine hires a private investigator. One day, it was probably about 1988 or 89, Christine called me and said, is this Rosalie Scott? And I said, yes. And she said, she said, my name's Christine. You probably don't remember me. And I said, of course I remember you.

And I was so excited. She couldn't wait to come visit us in California she said she really wanted to meet her California relatives she was really sweet it's now December 20th 1989 20 years after Mary's murder Christine was I think 25 and her car slipped on ice and flipped over and she was. I just couldn't believe it. I never got to meet her. It crushed Rosalie and myself and my family. Christine was the one that wanted to pursue this about my mother.

I wasn't going to pursue it because I was raised where you just don't fool with it. But one day, about four years later, it was just like something fell from the sky, and I changed my mind. I said, I want to do it for her. Donna got in touch with me, and I was really surprised to hear from her. She said she wanted to fulfill Christine's dream. I'm going to California. Here, this is your mom. Boy, her and Christine look alike.

Donna flew out to San Diego to meet us. I'm sure she was hoping to get answers and such, because that's how she is. We went right to where my mom was buried, in Greenwood Memorial. She really wanted to see Mary's grave, which I don't think I had ever visited it. She had a beautiful marker that had the year of birth wrong, because Mary had a fake ID that had the year of birth wrong because Mary had a fake ID that made her a year older. So everyone thought she was born in 45, but she was born in 46. That bothered me when I saw that on the marker. That's not even the right year.

Donna was really upset. She cried and cried. That was really uncomfortable for me. And then after that, she took us riding around to my mom's apartment where she used to live. We went ride by the club where she danced. The Star and Garter Club was still there, still open, still go-going. When we go back to my Aunt Rosalie's, I cook a gumbo. I just made this delicious gumbo. Can you smell it? And she's a good liar, too.

It was fun. Is that Mary? Yes. This is your mom and Johnny. Oh, really? How cute. Look, her two frontina missing. I learned a lot.

And I had a big family in California. It was a beautiful, beautiful four days. Oh, there's Mary. Oh, look at her. She had freckles too. Donna leaves California even more determined to get justice for her mother. When I got back from San Diego, I had called and checked on my mom's case. They said they're still working on it, but there wasn't any leads.

I was very excited about, you know, that they're pursuing it and they're gonna really work hard. Every cold case is important. Every cold case is deserving of attention and investigation. Investigators will look at cases again and again over the years to see if something jumps out,

if some new technique can be tried, if there's some way now that it can be solved. It's now 1999, 30 years after Mary's murder. The San Diego cold case team began a review of all the cases where there might be a benefit to do DNA testing. I called again, and they said they had about 25 files with preserved DNA and they pulled my mom's file out of that stack. DNA had been developed to such a point that we could distinguish individuals. What they did was those unresolved suspects who were not completely cleared, the detectives went out and got their DNA to do a one-on-one comparison.

The preserved DNA found on Mary Scott at the crime scene in 1969 is compared to the DNA of the case's lingering suspects, Dodie's ex-husband, Keith Christofferson, and Mary's ex-boyfriend, Tom Krause. DNA being the major new tool that they had, the thinking must have been, like, we will get an answer now.

Surely we will find out who killed Mary Scott. But they didn't. They were able to eliminate each of those suspects as being an offender of Mary's murder. It is very disappointing. The worst part is when you think you've got the right guy, and then it's not him. But at least you get a definite answer one way or another. The worst part is when you think you've got the right guy, and then it's not him.

But at least you get a definite answer one way or another. I'd kind of given up. And then the years went by, and the years went by, and I would still make contact with them at the police department. But, you know, it was always, not yet, Donna, or no, we working on it. It's going to take a long time through DNA. It's now 2018, 49 years after Mary Scott's murder. All right, we got to go back to that breaking news. We told you at the top of the hour,

an arrest in the case of the East Area Rapist and Golden State Killer has been made. Let me first by saying this. The answer has always been in Sacramento. Genetic genealogy, it provides a lead. It tells us somebody that has a relationship, a family relationship to the DNA that we're interested in from the crime scene.

But it doesn't necessarily tell you definitively who committed the crime. I'm reading all these articles about how people are using forensic genealogy to solve these old murders. And I knew they had DNA from my sister's case. The DNA was so preserved. It was from the rape kit. My friend, who's a retired San Diego police officer, I asked him if he could ask them to open my sister's case up again. I said, they're solving all these old cases now with DNA.

Don't you think they could do that for my sister? There was conversation among law enforcement. Why can't we use genealogy to identify a criminal? The genealogical community was very worried about the privacy aspects. But then along came Golden State Killer. And then all of a sudden, everybody was jumping on the bandwagon. And I jumped as fast as I could because I just saw this thing is going to be great. It's now 2020, 50 years after Mary Scott's murder. Rosalie and Donna had originally kind of got this ball rolling. Then I was approached by the

sergeant of the cold case team. He asked me to take a look at this case. All of the evidence that had been impounded was still available. What's amazing is that you think about the evidence, the physical evidence in the case that was kept for 51 years in the property room. So you had, for example, the nightgown that she was wearing. But really what we wanted was the semen from the swabs from Mary's body. It had already been developed into CODIS, but there was no hit. So now, being 2020, we could do genealogical testing and hopefully find the person who left that sample.

Using public records and public genealogical databases, DNA experts test the sample for Mary's body at the crime scene. Four months later, a promising lead. It's been 50 years, and the crime scene tells us what happened there that night back in 1969. The killer had left behind a DNA profile that ultimately was matched to John Sipos. Detective Johnson digs into John Sipos.

John Sipos at the time, I believe he was 74. He had a very nice house in Pennsylvania in a little town called Schnecksville, which is right outside Allentown. He'd been married for 40-some years to his wife. He had a career, a successful career. The only thing notable about him was that his neighbors couldn't stand him. One neighbor was ready to move out and sell his house because Sipos was so hard to be next door to.

John Sipos was the right gender, the right age, and he was tied to San Diego. He had been in the military out here. In 1969, John Sipos was a sailor assigned to NAS Miramar. He was a mechanic working on some of the jet engines. Interestingly enough, many of his co-workers would go to the Star and Garter. We couldn't find anybody that could say, I went to the Star and Garter with John, but the fact that other people from his base went there

gave us an indication that might be the case with John as well. Also, it was interesting to notice that right around the time of Mary's murder, John happened to live just about two miles from where Mary's apartment was, also very close to Star and Garter. I mean, everything fit. I got a call from Tony Johnson telling me, Donna, we found him. And I could have just hit the floor. I really did not believe this would happen. And he said, I can't tell you who he is, but I could tell you he's in Pennsylvania. That's all I knew. I was just beyond excited. I just knew my sister

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be done by picking up items of discarded trash that the offender might have thrown out. Cigarette butts, straws, cups, Band-Aids. Once you throw your trash in the trash and you put it out on the curb, we can come by cigarette butts, straws, cups, Band-Aids. Once you throw your trash in the trash and you put it out on the curb, we can come by and we pick up that trash can and we go sort through it and see what we can see. If he were close by, we would probably go out and get that ourselves,

but he happened to be in Pennsylvania, which is a long ways away. We knew from previously watching the residence that only Mr. Sipos and his wife lived there, is a long ways away. We knew from previously watching the residence that only Mr. Sipos and his wife lived there. So we reached out to FBI. We talked to an agent who was set up and did the trash run. In that trash was a Band-Aid.

The Band-Aid had his blood on it. Blood is a very rich source of DNA. So it was collected in Pennsylvania, where he lived, taken back to San Diego, tested by the San Diego Police Department Crime Lab. We found out that the DNA from the blood matched the DNA from the crime scene. It felt damn good, I can tell you that.

Since we've started doing these new investigations with genealogy, we're finding more and more of these one-time offenders, where they do some horrible crime, then they blend back into society. And that kind of runs counter to the way the average cop thinks, because we think he did it once, he's going to do it again. It's amazing to me that somebody could do a one-timer

like this case and to do it again. It's amazing to me that somebody could do a one-timer like this case and not do another one, but that's what it looks like. The DNA and John Sipos' blood is a match to the crime scene DNA. Police arrest Sipos and charge him with the 1969 murder of Mary Scott. He denied participating in Mary's murder. He had a very kind of an arrogant attitude, but he said a couple of things that didn't sit well with any of us, really. One of the things he said was, did she get what she wanted? In other words, you know, she's some

kind of sex maniac. Then he also said, I would never associate with a woman like that. Got to see that video. That was very chilling. He was talking about her as though she didn't matter. And that was just offensive and horrible. This man said that about my mom. It's like he was mocking her. You just don't do that. That's horrible on the family.

You get this call from Tony that they've identified somebody. What's that conversation like? Very lively and probably interspersed with lots of words that I can't use today to say, wow, that was really great, and are you sure? And I can't believe it. I mean, she was never forgotten. And so all of a sudden, in my mind, and I can't believe it. I mean, she was never forgotten.

And so all of a sudden, in my mind, it actually starts to relieve you. Wow. I got a call at home from Tony Johnson. And he said, well, we solved one of your cold cases. And I said, I only had one, Mary Ellen Scott. I was excited. It was something I never forgot.

When John Sipos was arrested, I felt a lot better. But I was going to feel a lot better when he was tried and convicted. More than 50 years after the crime, John Sipos is tried for Mary's murder. It's special because this case has waited so long for this moment. We were all very nervous. When I saw him in person, I just kept thinking, this is the last face that my sister saw.

This is the person that terrified her and killed her. And to look at him with that in mind was horrible, horrible. We really didn't know what the verdict might be. It was a very old case. After one day of deliberation, the jury reaches a verdict. When they said guilty, oh my God, I couldn't explain the emotion coming through me. It was like a miracle, you know, it was like I had chills

everywhere. I always hoped that they would catch him, you know, and I'm so grateful that Donna and my sister-in-law pushed it and took a long time, but they wouldn't let it go. John Sipos is sentenced to a prison term of seven years to life. The sentencing for Mr. Sipos was based on what the sentence would have been back in 1969. Unfortunately, we weren't able to proceed on the rape charge because so much time had passed and there's a statute of limitations for rape. He still never admitted it, and he won't admit it. I had so much hatred for him, and I still do. I have to forgive, and I'm going to let it go one day. I will. After 53 years, this is the first time I've been able to tell the story of Mary. She was a great big sister to have, and she helped me through a lot.

I wish I had her longer. I wish I'd gotten to have an adult relationship with her. I'll just never know what that would have been like. It's strange to think I'm so much older than her now. But she's still my big sister. I want people to remember that she was someone very special. She wanted everyone to be happy. And if they weren't happy, she was going to make them happy. She's brightened so many people up when she was alive.

She did. That's what I want people to remember. Cold Case Files is hosted by Marissa Pinson, produced by Jeff DeRay, and distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at anetv.com.

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