Cold Case Files - Evidence Kit: Sacramento

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

In this special episode, Cold Case Files follows Sacramento County deputy district attorney Anne Marie Schubert as she hunts for a killer. Her target is a murderer who brutally stabbed a man to death in his home 16 years earlier, and she plans to find justice using a new grant for DNA testing. Check out our great sponsors! Canva: Get a FREE 45-day extended trial at Canva.me/coldcase  Boll & Branch: Get 15% off your first set of sheets withcode "coldcase" at bollandbranch.com  LifeLock: Join now and save up to 25% off your first year at LifeLock.com/coldcase  Lending Tree: Download the free LendingTree app now to get started and see why thousands of people turn to LendingTree every day for smarter, easier finances! Apartment.com - The most popular place to find a place!

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence. Use your best judgment. In 1992, a man named John Arana was murdered in his home in Sacramento. When his body was discovered, the crime scene was brutal. There was blood everywhere. So, when crime scene investigators examined the scene, it was likely that the murderer's DNA was collected in one of the many swabs.

Unfortunately, that evidence went on the pile with the hundreds of other untested evidence kits. It took 11 years for his kit to be processed, which gave his murderer an additional 11 years of freedom and to possibly kill again. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. I'm Brooke, and here's the unparalleled Bill Curtis with another special episode. In this cold case classic, Bill follows investigators in real time as they try to solve their coldest cases. This is Evidence Kit Sacramento. In 2000, Sacramento County receives a state grant to help reduce their backlog of evidence kits. What we have here is sexual assault kits and homicide autopsy kits that have been collected.

And they're going to be examined by our staff to see if there's any type of evidence associated with them. Here, there are about 600 kits waiting on forensic testing. This is a result of the fact that with insufficient staff, this backlog builds up because we just simply can't process it. It comes in much faster than we can put it out the door. Okay, we're here to talk about a 92 case. Is that right, Pete? Deputy D.A. Ann Marie Schubert heads up a task force that will select the cases for testing.

There's a lot of victims out there that want to know because they're walking down the street wondering if that's the person that killed their family member or if that's the person that sexually assaulted them. One of the team's first cases is the homicide of a man named John Arana. It appeared to be a pretty violent attack, and our crime scene people found evidence of foreign blood throughout the house. And then is there something else in the kitchen? Wasn't there something about a curtain or something in the kitchen? Arana was stabbed to death in his own bed 11 years ago. Blood samples were collected from throughout the house, but in 1992, DNA was in its infancy, and a DNA profile could not be

developed from evidence kit testing. Now the team hopes DNA will lead them to a killer. In terms of the suspect, right now we have some pretty good evidence of a foreign person on the newspaper and on the door jam or the door casing, right? Well, we know that there were at least two bleeders. The brutal killing left a lot of blood at the crime scene, and not all of it was the victims, a perfect opportunity for DNA testing. Wasn't there something here, like a swab collected in the kitchen? I think they called it 38C. The task force will select several blood samples from inside the house for testing. Now, the other last piece of evidence we talked about,

there was a beer can found, wasn't there? They then turn their attention to other evidence found at the scene, including a beer can found on the victim's lawn. Did the suspect take a drink? There was a dirt driveway at the front of the house. Mark Rall is an investigator with the Sacramento County DA's office. An unusual vehicle parked up on the lawn in this front driveway area, and this beer can is found in that same area.

It's worth a shot to try to get the drinker's DNA off from the opening of the can. Jeff Herbert and Mary Hansen are the DNA experts on this team. They will determine what evidence is viable for DNA analysis. Once the team has selected the blood samples and other evidence to test, they turn their attention to possible suspects. Two suspect DNA samples were collected in the original investigation. They will be compared to the evidence to see if there's a match. Mark, maybe you can tell us what you know about

the possible suspects or the motive for the killing. I think the motive was just a burglary, a robbery. Both the suspects are heroin addicts that routinely steal to support their habit. Now, in terms of the suspects, were these individuals that were known to the victim or unknown strangers? They were known to the victim, and both had been inside the house before. Okay. The last time I saw John was Tuesday night. Fatma Tringa is John Arana's niece. At the time of his death, she had definite ideas as to who might have killed her uncle.

They centered around her brother, his friends, and the cash-and-carry drug trade. My mother owned a house around the corner, and my brother lived there. My brother is a heroin addict, and a lot of drug addicts hung around that house. And my immediate reaction was somebody from there killed him. Investigator Mark Rall agrees with Matrenga's theory. He hits the streets to get a feel for the area. From the case file, he learns that original detectives on the case had collected a bloody shirt from one of the suspects.

Well, their explanation is that they're heroin addicts and that they bleed because they inject themselves, and maybe that's where it was from. The same suspect had a possible motive for the killing. He used to work for the victim at the house and stole from the victim, and the victim actually reported that to the police, and that resulted in this guy going to jail. So there is some past tension between these two guys. Obviously, we want to move quickly, because if it is one of the suspects and he's out of custody, we have that concern about public safety issue. I think that, you know, given the nature of the crime scene

and the fact that it is a very violent scene, I mean, we're always hopeful that, you know, it's going to match someone that has been previously identified Given the nature of the crime scene and the fact that it is a very violent scene, I mean, we're always hopeful that, you know, it's going to match someone that has been previously identified as a possible suspect. The next day, testing begins. The first piece of evidence is the suspect's shirt. As you can see, there's a number of different types of stains. There's these brown stains right here. Jeff Herbert plans to test the shirt for the victim's blood.

Once we've determined it's blood, we can then take a cutting and move on to the DNA process. If he finds it, Rawls' case is made. Based upon all the other facts that you could throw on top of that, that would be plenty to get an arrest warrant. I'm going to take a sterile swab and rub it on the stain to get some of the stain onto the swab. Before proceeding to the DNA stage,

Herbert performs a conventional test to see if the stains are in fact human blood. It turns a nice pink color, and it's generally very quick if there's plenty of blood there. And what I simply do is take a little piece of the stain, put it on a microscope slide, and then apply a reagent to that.

And if it's blood in a short period of time, we should actually see some red crystals form. So there's a good one right there. That's what you would call the classic Takayama. In the world of forensics, a Takayama crystal is chemical confirmation of the presence of blood. Now Herbert needs to extract cells from the stain and collect the DNA inside.

And to do that, we essentially break open all the cells in that stain. In the case of blood, we're looking at the white blood cells that have a nucleus. We add some chemicals to it and heat, and those cells break wide open. The samples will slow cook in the heat block overnight. In the morning, the scientist expects to find usable DNA. And after 11 years on hold, justice is closer than ever for John Arana. He was easy to be around. He was easy to talk to.

I mean, well, he was my best friend. Arana's niece, Pat, eagerly awaits the DNA results, even if the killer turns out to be her own brother. Whoever killed John needs to pay for it. 11 years after John was brutally murdered in his own home, the DNA in the evidence kit was finally processed, and the police were hopeful that the DNA from the crime scene would bring back a match. They had collected the DNA from their primary suspects to compare to the profile of the murderer. On October 21, 2003, Sacramento County criminalist Jeff Herbert picks through evidence, looking for a forensic clue that will lead him to a killer.

These are a bunch of swabs that were taken. I'm pretty sure these are all from the kitchen area where they found various spots of blood. These blood samples were collected from the home where John Arana was stabbed to death in 1992. It was found throughout the house. I mean, there's just blood everywhere. Blood on a newspaper, blood on the floor,

blood on a refrigerator. Investigator Mark Rall has a theory on how the blood got there. I think what happened is the attacker attacks the victim. During the attack, the hand gets wet from blood. The hand slips off the handle of the knife, and you get an injury to the hand. And after the attack, the suspect is walking around the house, he's looking for items to steal, and he's depositing his own blood around the house. If all is correct, the blood trail in the house should belong to the killer.

This is the swabbing from the door casing to the bedroom. Jeff Herbert sets the swabs aside for a DNA workup. He then moves to a bloody shirt found in the possession of a prime suspect and checks the results of his DNA testing. The shirt that we looked at, I only got a very partial profile on. I may not have taken a big enough sample, or it was from an area that just didn't have enough blood on it. So I will go back and actually take another sample

and profile that to see if we can get a profile from that blood. When the shirt fails to deliver a viable DNA profile, Herbert turns his attention to other evidence. This is a beer can found outside the residence. This beer can was found on the victim's lawn. My thinking was sampling this area right in here where the drinker of the beer would leave his saliva. Herbert will add the beer can

to his lineup of possible DNA sources. He first selects a blood sample for testing and separates the DNA from non-genetic material. Once we've taken the DNA and we've concentrated it in the centrifuge, we end up with most of the time a clear extract of about that volume. So it's a very small amount. The scientist then amplifies the DNA and gets his first look at the genetic markers that make up a DNA profile. This sample here is from the kitchen cabinet where the killer apparently tried to clean up himself or a murder weapon. And we've got a full profile of this person's DNA now.

Herbert discovers the same DNA profile from blood found on a newspaper and a door frame inside the victim's house. The question now, whose profile is it? The scientist runs a comparison against two major suspects. Now what I do is I'll take a suspect's profile, hold it, and you can compare it at the first marker. This guy is eliminated as a source of this blood right here, so we know it's not him. Now the second suspect, you do the same thing with him, and again, at the first marker, he's already eliminated as a source of the blood, just based upon just that one there, and he's very different anyways.

And then we go to the beer can, and he's not on the beer can. DNA on the beer can comes back as a match to the victim, John Arana. So he must have been drinking a beer at some point in time and left the can out front. The lab comparisons are good news for the suspects, but not so good for the investigation. The district attorney is waiting results right now, so I'll give her a call and let her know that they need to find some more suspects. Later that day, Deputy D.A. Ann Marie Schubert sees her suspects eliminated. Funny how you sometimes think it's somebody and it's not, so it's the best answer.

But it's obviously the best piece of information, the fact that it's consistent across all pieces of evidence. Everybody has ideas on possible suspects and things like that. It's a perfect example of how sometimes you have your mindset on something and ultimately the evidence proves you that it's not correct. Two of the suspects, besides my brother, we were positive that it would be them, and it wasn't. The victim's niece is disappointed that there is no DNA match,

but relieved that her brother, also a possible suspect, was cleared. We were never worried about it being my brother ever. We weren't. He wasn't. But we're glad that he was eliminated because that showed everybody that it wasn't him. The suspect DNA profile is later uploaded into the CODIS DNA databank and compared to profiles from more than 250,000 convicted felons. But this, too, provides no match.

Ultimately, the John Arana case is placed back into the cold files. The person or persons who killed John should not be walking around. We need justice. I mean, I don't think there'll be closure. I think closure is a broad word, but justice, they need to be brought to justice. In 2009, two years after this classic episode of Cold Case Files aired,

17 years after John Arana had been murdered, and six years after a suspect DNA profile had been added to the national database, a DNA match was discovered. A man named Michael Peterson had been convicted of burglary in Missouri and sent to prison, leading to his DNA being entered into the database. The investigators found no obvious connection between Arana and Peterson, but still they went to Missouri to interview Peterson. He denied knowing anything about the murder. Peterson, however, did confess to having an association with the white supremacist group,

a possible explanation for the hate symbols found in John's apartment. The investigators also discovered that Peterson had visited a California hospital on November 4, 1992, the day John was murdered, with injuries consistent with having stabbed someone. In 2013, Peterson was extradited from Missouri to face charges for the murder of John Arana. During the trial, Peterson testified that he had met a man named Terry Cooper at a homeless shelter where he was staying.

The two men went to a bar together where they saw John in the parking lot. Peterson then stated that Cooper Terry Cooper at a homeless shelter where he was staying. The two men went to a bar together where they saw John in the parking lot. Peterson then stated that Cooper had encouraged him to offer to perform sexual favors on John for money to buy drugs. Peterson then alleged that Cooper and himself both went to John's home where Cooper stabbed John. He also said that Cooper had stabbed his hand with a knife. He then explained his blood at the crime scene by stating that he had grabbed a rag to stop the bleeding. In 1993, Peterson moved to Missouri where his mother lived. The investigators couldn't find anyone with the name Terry Cooper that fit Peterson's description.

Peterson was found guilty of murder in September of 2012 and was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison. He is currently incarcerated in a Missouri prison serving 19 years for the crimes that led to the DNA match. After his time is served in Missouri, he will be transferred to California to serve a sentence for the murder of John Arana. Peterson is currently 56 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.