Cold Case Files - Innocent Prey

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

A serial rapist is terrorizing women around Portland, Oregon, and investigators are faced with an endless list of potential suspects until a hunch finally pays off.  Check out our great sponsors! Bonafide: Go to HelloBonafide.com and use code COLDCASE to save 20%! Prose: Take your FREE in-depth hair consultation and get 15% off at Prose.com/coldcase  Psychic Source: Mention code COLDCASE when you call 1-800-355-9214 or sign up online at PsychicSource.com  Listen to the new Audible Original Bad Republican by Meghan McCain! Visit Audible.com/badrepublican  Apartments.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 and sexual assault. Use your best judgment. On the evening of February 9th, 1997, Janet Cha, a high school freshman, left her boyfriend's house in Portland, Oregon. She walked half a block to the bus stop, like she had many times before.

This time was different, though. She noticed a man following her, so she crossed the street. But the man crossed as well. Then he caught up with her and grabbed and dragged her into an abandoned garage. This is Janet. He asked me, have I ever had sex before? And I told him no. So he said, okay, I won't make you do much. After he was done, he stood me up and I just laid there and I watched him jump over the fence. And then I stood up and pulled my underwear and my pants up. She ran back to her boyfriend's house and called the police.

I couldn't see his face because he wouldn't let me look at his face, but I know he was bald, you know, shaved head. And he was about medium build. And he was about 6 feet. Janet went to the hospital, where her injuries were documented and biological evidence was collected. Unfortunately, though, in Portland, sexual assault cases were less likely to be investigated without a named attacker. The investigation appeared to be forgotten by the police, even though Janet's memory of her assault was there to stay. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. Three weeks after Janet's assault, in a nearby neighborhood, 15-year-old Michelle Horst was visiting a friend.

She eventually said goodbye and began the short walk home. Five blocks later, a man she didn't know crossed her path. This is Michelle. I kind of glanced over at him, just like a friendly smirk. Didn't want to be too friendly or didn't want to be rude and stuck up. So I just, you know, just kind of gave him a little, and that's when he came behind me and grabbed me. Michelle was 5'2", and the man was over 6 feet. He dragged her into a yard that couldn't be seen from the street.

I couldn't breathe at all. I just felt like I was going to literally pass out. The attacker pushed Michelle to the ground and raped her. When he was finished, he told her to count to 100 before getting up, and then he ran away. He told me that he wouldn't hurt me if I just cooperated, did what he said and promised not to yell. So, and I did that. I was scared.

Michelle ran back to her friend's house and called the police. She was taken to the hospital for a rape kit. Detective Paul Larson met Michelle at the hospital. During my interview of her, she said that she didn't think that she could identify the individual. He was a black male. It was dark. Like Janet before her, Michelle's case was put on the back burner because there wasn't a named suspect. No one had connected the two assaults. The sexual assault detail, if they have similar cases, then they pursue it. But apparently there was

nothing that was giving them indication that there was another incident. The two cases grew cold together. Janet and Michelle went to the same high school. Neither girl knew the other had been attacked by the same man. Nine months later, in November of 1997, 14-year-old Akilah Johnson was on her way to school. The first bell rang at 8.15, and she was running late. She relaxed a little when the school building was in sight. Then she noticed a man standing on the sidewalk. He turned to ask me a question and I answered his question. So at that time,

I was just being a bypasser, a friendly bypasser. A few seconds later, the man grabbed Akilah and pulled her between two houses. Rory choked her until she passed out. I woke up crying, blurry eyed, foggy eyed. I swear I seen clouds and everything. I'm serious. When I woke up crying, blurry eye, foggy eye. I swear I seen clouds and everything. I'm serious when I woke up. But then after everything cleared out from that, then he was there suffering. When the attacker left the scene, Akilah ran to school where the police were called.

Detective Ron Sturdivant responded. From her description, it sounded as if she had seen him pretty well, although he had told her near the end of the assault to cover her face, and what she did was put her coat over her face as he was leaving, not to watch him. But she still had been able to see him. The detective asked Akilah if she would meet with a police sketch artist, and she agreed. Two days later, the meeting took place. When I did the sketch, and they started showing me eyes and a piece of a nose and lips, and, you know, some stuff that I really was just trying to vaguely remember what I saw

because I really didn't look at him in his face like that, you know. The drawing was distributed to law enforcement personnel and also the media, leading to 30 suspects being eliminated. However, the evidence collected from Akilah's rape kit was enough to create a DNA profile. Unfortunately, no matches were found in the state DNA database. Here's Detective Sturdivant again. It was disappointing. I had the hope that with the DNA evidence that we would eventually make a connection through some subsequent person being added to the data bank, but you didn't know when that would be. Akilah's case joined Janet's and Michelle's cases in the cold case files.

No one realized the connection between their assaults, except for the attacker himself. In December of 2001, four years after the attacks on Janet, Michelle, and Akilah, 14-year-old Melissa Bittler left early for school. She had an appointment with her math teacher. At 7.30 a.m., she said goodbye to her family. She grabbed her backpack and headed out the door. She didn't make it to school. 911, police for a medical.

Police. What is the emergency? There's a body in our backyard. There's a what? A body. Less than 50 steps from her house, Melissa was found lying face down with her pants and underwear wrapped around her ankles.

Detective Cheryl Kanzler and Paul Weatheroy were first at the scene. This Detective Cheryl Kanzler and Paul Wetheroy were first at the scene. This is Detective Kanzler. Sexual assault was the absolute first thing that went through my mind. Seeing the body the way it was, the positioning with the buttocks elevated, the pants down around her ankles. Drag marks in the grass showed that Melissa had been grabbed on the sidewalk

and moved to the backyard. A condom wrapper was found near her body. It's like you've done your terrible, nasty little deed, and now you're going to stand up, zip up your pants, and walk away and just leave her there like a piece of garbage. The idea in Melissa's backpack led the detectives to her home, where they talked with her parents, Mary and Tom Biller. I cried.

I wasn't sobbing. It was... I mean, it was like my life ended. I suspected everybody, certainly my neighbors. I mean, who would know? I mean, she left at a different time that morning than normal. I mean, it's right across the street. The police questioned everyone in the neighborhood,

but they couldn't find anyone who could provide them with a lead. This is Detective Weatheroy. I believed it was someone that had offended before, and I felt that it was someone that would offend again. I felt like it was a predator, someone that preyed on little kids for sex and for violence. The detectives created a list of possible suspects from called-in tips and the sex offender registry. They then mapped the neighborhood into grids to begin their search. This is Detective Kanzler again.

The red indicates a half a mile, and then each of these numbers in red indicate where a registered sex offender lives. We began to look at people who rode her bus, because she rode a TriMet, a public transit system, to work every day. We contacted the meter readers, the mailman, the garbage man. I mean, it was nonstop 24 hours a day for the first several weeks. The autopsy of Melissa's body revealed strangulation as the cause of death. The biological samples collected were sent to Terry Kunz at the Oregon State Police Crime Lab. Only a total of eight sperm heads were found, which is not a typical number. Here is forensic scientist Terry Koons.

There appears to have been a condom used. Why there was a few and not more, why there was not either zero or a lot, I can only surmise there may have been a hole in the condom. There may have been some manual transfer in taking it off. Despite the small sample amount, Koons was able to create a DNA profile, which she entered into the national database.

I compared that and saw a match to another case and pulled that case. I now know that we have a serial child rapist who was killed. The DNA linked the attacks of Akilah Johnson and Melissa Bittler. The investigators reviewed Akilah's case file and then reached out to her. This is Akilah Johnson. At first, I was like, why are you guys bothering me?

You know what I'm saying? Okay, you haven't found him over this many years. Why you keep on messing with me? Because it's over. I'm just like, it's out of my life. Akilah agreed to share the details of her attack with Detectives Kanzler and Weatheroy. They recognized the similarities between the two cases

almost immediately. When we heard of how he attacked Akilah, we got the impression that he did the same thing with Melissa, that he may have engaged her in some type of brief greeting or conversation, probably jumped her from behind and dragged her into the yard as he had dragged Ms. Johnson. We sit down, and with the assistance of the sex crimes personnel, we begin to look at all the old sexual assault cases.

It was a tedious, slow task. The detectives found a small amount of unsolved rape cases that matched the killer's M.O. Only a few of those cases had DNA available to be tested. The unsolved cases with untested DNA were sent to the crime lab, where the link was finally made between Michelle, Janet, Akilah, and Melissa's cases. They had all been attacked by the same man. Here's Detective Kanzler again. We became more hopeful we would be able to solve this, but again more worried.

He's out. He's murdered Melissa. When's he going to strike again? The detectives made lists of suspects to contact and collect DNA from. In April of 2002, five months after Melissa's murder, 75 suspects had been eliminated. But there were still no leads. Here's Detective Weatheroy again. We've developed hundreds of names, if not a thousand, subjects of interest. So we believe that he's in there. And so now it's just a matter of trying to get to him. On April 28, 2002, at 3.30 a.m., a call was received by 911. A woman, who wished to be anonymous, reported being attacked by a rapist in her own home.

911, I just feel safe. Do you feel safe staying in the house? No. Why? reported being attacked by a rapist in her own home. In reality, it took the police five minutes to arrive at her house. But it felt like an eternity to the woman. It's been a long time, but it's only been a few minutes, okay? When the police arrived, they took the woman to the hospital. She told them she was sleeping on the floor of her living room when she had woken up to hands around her throat. Detective Craig Yost took her statement. She began to struggle. She was choked to the point of unconsciousness. When she came back to, she began coughing.

Blood and saliva and things came out of her mouth. The woman got a glimpse of her attacker's face and realized it belonged to her cousin's boyfriend, 33-year-old LaDawn Stevens. Here's Detective Yost again. I think probably once he realized he was observed, I think he probably would have tried to kill her. And I think the fact that her plane dead saved her.

She would not budge off the fact that it was LaDawn Stevens, so I was 100% behind her. Detective Yost and his partner, Detective Dennis Minnis, brought Stevens in for questioning and also ran a criminal background check on him. They found crimes against women on his record that dated back 20 years, including sexual assault and attempted sexual assault

on girls as young as 9 years old. We arrested him, took some photographs of him, because during the sexual assault on girls as young as nine years old. We arrested him, took some photographs of him because during the sexual assault, she had bit him on one of his hands and caused some scratches under one of his armpits. Marks on Stephen's body match the ones from the woman's description, though he claimed that they had happened in a work accident. The detectives didn't believe him. Here's Detective Yost again. As we're looking at him, some things are coming to mind. LaDawn's date of birth is December 13th, which is the day that Melissa Bittler was killed. The detectives noticed too many similarities between the assaults to

dismiss. Detective Minnis said to me, you know, this guy could have done Bittler. And I said, yeah, it's very possible. Detective Yost shared his theory with Detectives Kanzler and Weatheroy. Their reactions were mixed. We all kind of looked at each other, and I remember some of the detectives saying, it's not him, he struck an adult in a house, that's way out of character. Well, there was a lot of differences, but I think some of the similarities was that he was very violent, that he was engaging in sex from behind, and he was doing it with force.

I think all of those kind of made us think that maybe this might match our suspect, who was escalating over time. Yost, acting on his hunch, submitted Stephen's DNA for testing at the state crime lab. After I did the warrant and turned the things into the crime lab, you know, I kept thinking, well, maybe he is, maybe he is, but I thought, you know, he's probably not.

I'm probably getting my hopes up too high, and I hope I didn't, you know, give them false hope. Terry Koons received the DNA and extracted a profile to compare it to the killer of Melissa Bittler and the rapist of Michelle, Janet, and Akilah. You've spent so much time looking at them, and they're not it. Over and over again, they're not it. And you don't know if you ever will find something that matches.

After the DNA profile was extracted, Koons compared the DNA of LaDawn Stevens and the profile from Melissa Bittler's rape kit. This is Detective Weatheroy. I saw tears in her eyes, and so I knew that she had some good news. I actually sat at my desk and I started to cry and people came running over, what's the matter, what's the matter?

And I said, it's Fittler, it's done. That was Terry Coons after matching LaDawn Stevens' DNA to Melissa's killer and the rapist of Michelle, Akilah and Janet. There was no biological link to the woman who identified Stevens because he used a condom. However, a connection was made when the investigators found a pair of Stevens' underwear with the victim's blood on them. I'd call it his last rape.

He apparently did use a condom, but the evidence that nailed him to that was her blood on his underwear. For Mary and Tom Bittler, Melissa's parents, Stephen's arrest was a welcome surprise. It was joyful. And it was done sooner than I expected. We so much thought that he would just go on killing the rest of his victims.

He had nothing to lose. Stevens faced charges for murder and four counts of assault. The prosecutor, Rod Underhill, announced he would seek the death penalty for the murder charge. He literally wrote in his own handwriting that he would target young females, and he would tell us why. And that he enjoyed seeing the fear in their faces during his attacks. a specific gender together with a specific age because it would give him the most power and the

most control and the most fear of all the people that he could think of. On January 26, 2004, the capital murder case against LaDawn Stevens began. Prosecutor Underhill used LaDawn's own journal in his opening arguments. I needed the perfect victim. I decided my victims be female children. We wanted the trier of fact to help use it to help determine his guilt and then ultimately to help determine his punishment. On February 12th, the jury began to deliberate. And after being out for a week, they came back with a guilty verdict on all charges.

Here's Tom Bittler again. I was just so joyous and overcome. I just wanted to sit there all day and listen to the jurors go, guilty, guilty, guilty. At Stephen's sentencing hearing, 19 of his victims took the stand. Here's Akilah Johnson again. I got to look him in the eyes and I got to let him feel my pain and my anger and my hurt and everything all at once. Constantly keeping that eye contact so he wouldn't know that I'm not frightened of you. The prosecutor asked for the death penalty, but the jury ruled that he would receive life in prison

without the possibility of parole. This is Michelle Horst. I was just more upset that my life had to be taken to, you know, for them to stop him. For Mary Bittler, no sentence will ever be enough to wipe away the memory of the last time she sent her daughter off to school. Or, to help her from asking herself, what if? What if I had gone with her? I mean, I will always what if.

Then I sometimes think maybe Melissa was supposed to help us catch him. Because this community rallied around her murder case. And there were so many people that wanted him caught. So maybe she helped us catch him. 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.