Cold Case Files - Evidence Kit: Chicago

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

In this special episode, Cold Case Files follows the Chicago Police Department’s Women's DNA initiative, a program that funds the testing of backlogged rape evidence kits and help victims find justice. Check out our great sponsors! Psychic Source: Mention code COLDCASE when you call 1-800-355-9214 or sign up online at PsychicSource.com  Get a quote today at Progressive.com - It’s one small step you can do today, that could make a big impact on your budget tomorrow. 

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. When a woman is raped, she has the option of going to a hospital for a sexual assault forensic exam, commonly referred to as a rape kit. During the exam, the woman is asked about her medical history and questions about any sexual encounters they've had. They are asked how they were specifically assaulted to help the practitioner focus the exam. She has to take off all of her clothes, which are taken from her and placed in an evidence bag. Her body is examined from head to toe. This includes being swabbed in various places where the attacker might have left his DNA. Pictures are taken of her naked body,

and then samples are taken of her blood and urine. When the exam is over, the woman is offered follow-up treatment for possible STIs and possible pregnancy. Depending on the facility, information about counseling and support groups might be shared with the victim. The process is uncomfortable to think about, and an additional traumatic experience piled on the trauma of being sexually assaulted. Women undergo rape kit exams because they want their rapist to be caught, which makes the fact that there are at least

200,000 untested rape kits in the United States, 11,000 in Canada, 175,000 in the UK, and an estimated over 10,000 in Australia. So infuriating. One of those cases was Robin Hill. She was 14 years old in 1998 when she was raped on her way home from a roller skating party. Her sexual assault forensic exam joined the thousands of others that went untested.

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. I'm Brooke, and here's the incomparable Bill Curtis with a special type of episode. In this cold case classic, Bill follows investigators in real time as they try to solve their toughest cold cases. This is Evidence Kit Chicago. The evidence locker. This is the crossroads of crime and punishment. Within these walls, thousands of unsolved crimes take the form of evidence kits. And inside each one is the story of a victim waiting for justice.

In 1998, Robin Hill is a high school junior. She was outgoing. She loved to dance, you know. She just loved life. On a fall evening, Robin and her younger sisters walk home with their mother Brenda. And we kind of, you know, kind of pipped along because her little sister couldn't walk that well. Halfway home, Robin runs ahead, and Brenda loses sight of her daughter. We got to 87th and Michigan. It was dark.

I didn't see Robin no more. I'm like, Dad, where'd she go? When Robin isn't at the house, Brenda sets out to look for her. When I got halfway down the block, I saw Robin. And Robin was hysterical. And she told me, she said, Mommy, a man assaulted me.

And he said he would kill me if I told anybody. I said, well, you know what? You're going to tell. In the few minutes that Robin Hill was out of her mother's view, a man grabbed her, took her behind a garage, and sexually assaulted her. But see, mom was a virgin. She didn't know nothing about all that, you know. So she didn't know what to do. And he pulled his coat over her head and told her, if she hollered or screamed, he would kill her.

Brenda calls the police and rushes Robin to the hospital, where the girl undergoes a rape evidence examination. She never went through that. And then going, taking stuff from her nails, her hair, and, you know, just stuff up her body. The evidence is packaged into a kit and turned over to the police. Afterwards, the victim and her family are left to deal with the devastation of rape. She didn't want to go back to school no more. She didn't want to go outside and play.

She didn't want to do nothing. She didn't even want to wear dresses. Chicago police can find no viable suspects in Robin's case, and the girl's evidence kit is placed in line with hundreds of other cases waiting for DNA testing. And that's where it stays for six years. This is our case file room. Each one of these cases represents a crime, the evidence that's in our crime lab.

That evidence eventually makes it to the state crime lab to be processed. And because of all the files and all the cases, as you see, that we have here, we got burdened. We just, the money ran out. The Chicago Police Department simply didn't have the money to pay for the testing, and the backlog just continued to grow. The backlog in Chicago when we started this project was 1,200. Sherry Mecklenburg is Corporation Counsel for the Chicago Police Department. When we were talking about the backlog, we were talking about what to do about it, and the more that we talked about it, the more that I realized it wasn't a question of technology.

It was totally a question of funding. If the kits are sitting there and they're not being tested because we don't have the funding right now, then rather than asking who should be paying, let's step up and just get it done. Mecklenburg decides to enlist influential Chicago women to create the Women's DNA Initiative, also known as WDNA. It's a private foundation established to raise funds for DNA testing

of backlogged evidence kits. It was hard to even figure out which kits needed testing initially and how much money we needed to raise. So we basically just got the word out. We applied for grants and we got the word out to the public and we put the money in an account and asked the police department to pull the kits. What we looked for basically is kits that we knew that we had evidentiary value to them. Okay, we know we have semen in this

particular sexual assault kit, so we have a good strong case that if we submit this, we more than likely will come up with a suspect. Police focus on kits that are coming up against Illinois' 10-year statute of limitations on rape. We were able to look at some of the cases that were getting close to the statute of limitations. So we started to pile these together to get these tested right away. Included in the first 50 kits going to a private lab for testing is the 1998 case of Robin Hill. The semen evidence, still viable, is taken through the intricate DNA testing process.

And after three months, the lab has an answer for the police. A full DNA profile of a suspect. Finally, police have a lead in the case. The question now, whose DNA is it? The profile is entered into the CODIS data bank, a national system that stores DNA from convicted offenders. And six years after Robin's rape, the DNA profile matches up to a suspect. His name is Wayne Willis.

Willis' DNA also matches three other unsolved Chicago rapes. Once his DNA profile got put into the CODIS database, he kind of went off like a pinball machine, and he hit two, the four outstanding cases in Chicago. Detective Jeffrey Roberts is given the task of tracking down Wayne Willis. He learns that a few months prior, Willis was picked up by Chicago police on a warrant out of North Carolina for four sexual assaults there. This is actually his wanted poster from Raleigh's North Carolina. Police were probably days within acquiring him when he jumped on a bus and made it back to Chicago.

The suspect match is great news for WDNA. We had hits to a serial rapist who had been identified. I was thrilled to see it because it just confirmed that this really can be done and we really can get rapists off the street. He didn't venture too far

off the King Drive. It's just maddening he slipped through the system without being hit as a pattern. With the suspect locked up, Detective Roberts and his partner, Jennifer Ghoston, head back to Willis' hunting grounds. And he saw them coming past the food basket, walking through the parking lot, going northbound on King.

They look for a pattern to the attacks, something that will help them unearth more links to their suspect. So then he got out of the car, so he actually had to follow her almost a block. Immediately he took her up here, down this way, and at the same time he's searching in the yards looking for a spot that he can take her to. I would put it in an analogy of a crack cocaine addict. When that person or individual hit that cocaine pipe for the very first time,

then every subsequent high is chasing that first one. Our victim comes back west, walking down 86th Street, and so he left his car, got out on foot, followed her. She went this way. That's a lot of nerve, though, to grab this young girl. After revisiting the crime scenes, detectives move on to the most difficult part

of building a sexual assault case, attempting to locate the victims and convincing them to prosecute. At that point, it's a matter of contacting each and every victim and witness that we thought was really critical to the case, establishing a relationship with them. They really didn't have, they didn't see them until they were grabbed. The problem is, many women who have been raped

It's the next one, 14. don't want to be found. You're talking about a young woman or a woman at that particular time who's experiencing the most horrendous moment in her life. And you don't know how she was able to put that behind her so that she's able to move on with her life. And then to walk up once you located them, ring that doorbell and say, we need your help. We got this bad guy. Let me revisit and take you back to a dark place you don't want to go.

You know why? Because of the simple reason they're scared that he might get off, come back after them, and kill them. In July of 2004, detectives locate Robin Hill, six years after she was sexually assaulted. He must have grabbed her and took her back here. This is where he did it at, right here. She called me on the phone. She said, Mommy, guess what?

They caught the man who did that to me. And I'm like, that's good. She said, are you going to be behind me? I said, all, guess what? They caught the man who did that to me. And I'm like, that's good. She said, are you going to be behind me? I said, all the way, baby. All the way. We got to put him away. But Robin struggles with the idea of reliving her attack in a courtroom. She had planned to do it, but she didn't want to.

She was like, Mommy, how am I going to do this? You know, I want to forget it. I said, but, Robin, he won't be put away. She said, but, Mommy, I'll try. Robin eventually agrees to work with police and prosecutors. Detectives are also able to track down Willis' three other Chicago victims. I found her here at this address. And each ultimately agrees to prosecute.

Wayne Willis is charged with four separate counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault. But detectives are convinced that this serial rapist has attacked even more women. Only thing I'm just a little despondent about is the fact of not finding all his victims. I believe that there are other victims out there. I think that crime as a rule is underreported,

but I do believe that he's responsible for more than the sexual assaults that we have worked on. While Wayne Willis awaits trial, Roberts and Ghostin build their case against him, searching for other possible victims. The Women's DNA Initiative raised money to have the backlog of untested rape kits processed, including Robin Hill's exam, six years after she was assaulted. The DNA was matched to a man named Wayne Willis,

whose DNA also connected him to at least three additional rapes. All four women agreed to press charges against Willis, while the police searched for additional victims. It doesn't take long to find one. In broad daylight, he got my dress up. I'm up against a tree. You know, I was telling him, you know, I have a son at home. Please don't hurt me. Well, it appears to be he was quite methodical in the method that he used to stalk his victims.

Chicago sex crimes detectives Jennifer Ghoston and Jeffrey Roberts have a sexual predator in their crosshairs. This was a person that was really good at attacking young women. His name is Wayne Willis and DNA has connected him to four sexual assaults. The suspect targets teenage girls on the city's south side. Brenda Crawford's daughter Robin Hill is one of Willis's victims. Six years after the crime, her daughter's fears about Willis still haunt Brenda. She would never get that out of her mind. And any girl who is assaulted, it's hard to get out of her mind. She was scared that she would meet him again,

because he had told her, if you tell anybody, I will kill you. Detectives soon learned that Wayne Willis is responsible for even more crimes. The suspect had been arrested for an attempted sexual assault a year after he attacked Robin Hill. This happened, I think, August 3rd, 1999. I was 25 years old at the time.

On a summer morning, Kenya Harvey took the bus to Chicago State University to register for classes. I noticed him on the bus with me because I got on at 63rd and King Drive and we went straight down. Kenya headed on to campus. And I seen a guy walking up behind me and he was walking kind of fast. And as I was turning around because he was coming up on me so fast, he had grabbed my behind. So I kind of put my hand up, and I'm like, you know, whoa, what are you doing? The stranger told Kenya to walk with him. The man was large, and Kenya was scared.

He led her to a wooded area on campus. At that point, I started praying, and I'm like, Jesus, please help me. You know, I don't want him to do anything. I'm like, sir, please, whatever you want, you can have. He told me to turn around against the tree, and I turned around against the tree. At that point, he lifted my dress up and started kissing all over my legs, my behind, you know, all up my back. And I'm still praying, and he's like, look, if you say one more word, I'm going to knock you out. So at that point, I stop, and I'm praying in my head.

Perhaps her prayers had already been heard, because Kenya's attacker had a sudden change of heart. He was like, okay, if I let you go, would you tell? And I said, no. The man ran away, and Kenya ran to the police. Within an hour, she was in the back of a patrol car when she spotted her assailant on the street. I said, that's him. And they was like, you sure? I'm like, I'm positive. The man was identified as Wayne Willis and placed under arrest.

Nine months later, Kenya Harvey was prepared to face him again in court. But Willis skipped town before his trial. They was just like, well, we'll put a warrant out for his arrest next. You know, and it was just like, dang. You know, now he's out on the street and he's going to do it to someone else.

Over the next four years, Willis continued his crime spree, allegedly assaulting four other women in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 2004, WDNA raises the funds for Chicago police to test their evidence kits. Women's DNA Initiative, which is, we call it WDNA for short, is a group of women in the private sector, and we've come together to try to raise funds for DNA testing of criminal sexual assault kits, the rape kits, that are backlogged.

In its first year, WDNA has funded the testing of at least 50 evidence kits in the Chicago Police Department. And they won't stop there. The women of WDNA are committed to raising money to eliminate, not just reduce the backlog here. If he doesn't go away, he's going to do it to other people and maybe do more damage. So he ought to be put away because he looked at all the people he didn't do it to. For Sherry Mecklenburg, founder of WDNA, identifying predators like Wayne Willis is the whole point.

If we test these kits, as you can see from the hits we've already gotten, we can solve old rapes, give the victims some closure so they can stop wondering if he is still out there. And because you can see these are serial rapists, I believe the statistics are that each rapist rapes seven times before they are caught. We can catch them before they have seven victims. In July of 2004, Detective Jeffrey Roberts prepares to confront Wayne Willis about the rapes of four teenage girls. When I sat down with him, I had all the case files in front of me, and I took them in chronological order by year.

I told him, we know there's more victims out there, without a doubt, but we're going to speak specifically on these because your DNA was extracted from their kits. But the detective does not want an admission from the suspect. In fact, he wants the opposite. I don't want you to confess. I want you actually to do the crook thing and tell me you want a lawyer. You don't want to say anything because if you take that approach, then that means you'll be hammered pretty good if you're convicted on all counts as a predatory, dangerous sexual offender, and hopefully you'll get the max where you'll spend the rest of your natural life in jail.

Faced with the overwhelming evidence, however, the suspect breaks down and says he wants to talk. I'll tell you this much, he started crying, which kind of took me by surprise a little bit because I really didn't expect that emotion to come from him at that point. The detective is joined by an assistant state's attorney who takes a written statement from Willis. They begin with the case of Robin Hill.

In this particular one, he was shown a photograph of the victim. It's kind of like a reverse photo lineup to see if he remembered the victim. And just to briefly read it to you, Wayne states that he remembered the girl in exhibit one, which was the photograph he was shown. The detective then asks Willis how he approached the young woman. Well, that case, I asked him how he was able to acquire the victim when she was walking with her family, and he gave us an admission of when he first spotted her, how he followed her on a bicycle, then on foot, and then once she got out of eyesight of her family, he was able to grab her and then take her into a rear yard, actually behind the house where he sexually assaulted her. Well, this goes on to describe his attack on Robin.

Wayne states that he placed his forearm around her neck, told her not to make a sound, and then he goes into what he actually did to that victim. He described how he forced her to get on the ground, disrobe, and then the sexual acts that he made her perform for his sexual gratification. Wayne Willis gives up the details of each of his four Chicago assaults. Detective Roberts believes the apprehension of this serial rapist could not have come soon enough.

If he hadn't have been caught, if his DNA had never been left at scenes, he'd never been identified, he would still be out there. And he would still be walking our streets, stalking these women and young girls, a very dangerous sexual predator. With a confession added to the DNA evidence, detectives believe their case is made. But convicting Wayne Willis will come down to the most important evidence of all, the

victim herself. Six years after she was sexually assaulted, Robin Hill's attacker is identified. DNA tests performed on semen samples in Robin's evidence kit have led police to a suspect, 38-year-old Wayne Willis. Willis' DNA also matches semen from three other rape victims' kits. When you have evidence sitting on a shelf that can convict somebody or exonerate an innocent person, and we have the technology to test it, it seemed to be our responsibility to do that. The Women's DNA Initiative has provided the funding to get Robin's kit and hundreds of others out of backlog and into the DNA lab. Now, Robin tries to gather the strength

to face her assailant in court. She was scared. She just said, Mommy, I don't think I'm strong enough to do it. I said, yes, you will, baby, because Mommy's going to be behind you. While Robin and her mother wait for Willis' trial, Chicago Detective Jeffrey Roberts decides to get up close and personal with the accused predator. The suspect has already confessed to four Chicago sexual assaults, including Robin Hill's. But the detective wants to know this serial offender even better, to help him ID serial rapists in the future. I came in and sat and spoke with him again, and I actually asked his help,

because what I tried to get across to him, if you can honestly tell me or give me some idea of the scope of what you did, why you did it, how it came about, it would help me in my job to be a better sexual crimes detective. Willis agrees to take Roberts on a journey through the back alleys of the criminal mind. The things that he explained to me was that his crime was actually based in fantasy. And this was something that had been with him since his mid to late teens.

Willis tells the detective that he began acting out these fantasies about 20 years ago. A lot of times he would be just trying to get home, coming from work, going somewhere. And at that point, he would run across a young woman who would then, he would become attracted to. And once that attraction clicked in, then the rest of it came in progression. But for whatever reason, as he stated, he couldn't stop himself.

The serial rapist goes on to give the detective an estimate of his total number of victims. 19 young women and women that he sexually assaulted, with another double-digit number of 17 to 20, in his estimation, that he attempted to get. But for whatever reason, he was unsuccessful in acquiring them. To date, without any more DNA samples to test, detectives have not been able to link any more attacks to Wayne Willis. For now, they are satisfied that four Chicago victims will see justice served.

I have all the confidence in the world that he will be prosecuted and sentenced to whatever appropriate term in the penitentiary he deserved for what he did. On July 31, 2006, Wayne Willis is scheduled to stand trial for the 1998 rape of Robin Hill, the first of his four Chicago victims. But six weeks before the trial date, tragedy strikes the young woman for a second time. So Robin had a very bad car accident. Robin is killed in the crash. I just got stunned because I really wanted her case to move forward. I wanted her to

have a chance to have some type of closure. When she died, she was still coping with it. She would never get that out of her mind. For Robin's mother, the tragedy of losing her daughter has only strengthened her need to see Wayne Willis punished. I want him to get some years. I want him to hurt like my daughter hurt and like all these other girls has hurted. Without Robbins' testimony,

prosecutors decide to move forward with their second victim and her case of aggravated sexual assault. On January 5, 2007, a jury finds Wayne Willis guilty. He laid it to death. He was found guilty. And I take my hat off to these young women. It took a lot of courage to be able to come forward after all them years and still try to get justice for what happened to them. Three months later, Willis is sentenced to 33 years in prison.

He still faces sentencing on two other Chicago rape cases, as well as possible prosecution on six additional sexual assault cases in Illinois and North Carolina. Personally, I don't think he should ever walk the earth again. I think that the same things that drove him to commit the crimes that he committed, if he was out now,

he still would be committing those type of offenses. So he should be away forever for what he did. Much of the credit for bringing this serial predator to justice lies with the Women's DNA Initiative and its founder, Sherry Mecklenburg. Well, we didn't do it alone by any means. I think it shows that the community and the police working together can solve these problems because they're really not just law enforcement problems, they're also the public's problems when we have crime.

So I think what we showed is that we can work together to solve this, and what it really means is that these problems are not insurmountable. Wayne Willis is currently serving out a sentence in an Illinois prison. I found no evidence that he was tried for any additional assaults in North Carolina. Willis is currently 54 years old and will not be eligible for parole until the year 2048, when he's 82 years old. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz and Ted Butler. 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 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 real crime.