Cold Case Files - Left For Dead / On The Case

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Fingerprints lifted from two beer bottles help a California detective track down a prostitute's killers. Two persistent cold case detectives wait many years for science and technology to evolve, so they can use the DNA results to investigate the 1990 murder of a woman and the death of a man killed in a car crash in 1988.Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.Marathon - Join Marathon Rewards today and start earning rewards on every gallon of gas. Marathon, where fun runs on full!Omaha Steaks - Go to OmahaSteaks.com and use promo code COLDCASE at checkout for $35 off. Minimum purchase may apply.Progressive - Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.Taskrabbit - Get ahead of your to-do list and get $15 off when you go to the Taskrabbit app or Taskrabbit.com and use promo code COLDCASEShopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at Shopify.com/coldcase and take your retail business to the next level today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Well, they pull over and get in the car and take it from there. It just depends. In November of 2006, Mary Jones is working as a prostitute in San Diego, California. I want to have some fun and the price is right. You know, yeah, do what I gotta do. It's scary because you don't know who you're getting in a car with. Jones has worked on the streets for 19 years and knows the dangers all too well. I've had a lot of ugly things done to me.

I hear the guns pulled on me, bats, you know, drove off in fields, woods and bones broke. You don't know if you're going to come back dead or alive. Eleven years earlier, another prostitute from the same person, same area was murdered after a John turned deadly. When I get into the area, I saw a piece of wood way laying down on the bag. It's March 22nd, 1995. Hugo Martinez is a gardener for the city of Chula Vista. Just after 7 a.m., Martinez is working in Lauderbach Park, when something unusual catches his eye. When I start walking almost on the middle of the field, I noticed it wasn't just a piece of wood.

It was a body. So I started walking towards the body. In the corner of the park, a woman lies naked in the dirt, shot eight times in the back. Told me that a body had been found at Laudabock Park, and she appeared to be a victim of a homicide. Detective Paul Villapondo takes the call and arrives at the scene. She was totally unclothed. There were several apparent gunshot wounds to her upper body. I noticed a lot of debris nearby.

and some clothes. There was some trash, beer bottles, and condoms found on the ground nearby the location where she was found. Crime scene technicians discover two sets of unknown footprints in the dirt. The prints are photographed and evidence has collected. Meanwhile, Via Pondo tries to ID the victim.

At this time, I decided to take a photograph and show it to the people that were gathered the parking lot. One female there told me she thought she recognized the person as being Pam and that she hung around the area of Olivewood Terrace and Ocean View Boulevard in San Diego. General, it's a high crime area. We walked up to the house but there was a pit bull chain to the front door. I yelled at the house and a male Mr. Sharp came out and spoke with me. They showed me a Polaroid and I said that That was her.

Tyrone Sharp IDs the victim as his friend, 32-year-old Pamela Shelley, a known prostitute and drug user. And that night, we was all sitting around getting high. I'm going to tell the truth about her. According to Sharp, Pamela left his house around 2 a.m., but never returned home. Oh, she said she was going to the playground. They called the playground. I kind of walked her up to the next block here and just told her to be careful, you know. And she said, well, somebody's got my money in their pocket.

And she took off for a little bouncy walk that she has. The news of his friend's murder hits Tyrone hard. She was the sweetest person that you ever wanted me. She was a beautiful person. And of all these unnecessary lot lizards around here, why would they take the queen, you know? Via Pondo starts asking around for information. This is 32nd of National. It's high pedestrian traffic because of the...

nearby naval base so she could get customers pretty steadily out here. I was looking for people who knew Pamela working in the same area that she did, some of her steady customers, any information I could get to try and develop a possible lead. For six weeks, Viapondo works Shelley Street but finds nothing in the way of Leeds. Pamela put itself in a pretty precarious situation because you You never had any idea who you were coming up against. When the streetwork fails to pay off, Via Pondo turns to the crime lab, hoping to catch a break. We had a lot of evidence laying there.

We had the condoms, beer bottle, clothing, a lot of activities. So it's pretty totalist that everything happened right there. On March 23rd, police evidence technician Rodrigo Vieska sifts through the materials from the park. He pulls out a beer bottle found just five feet from the body. What's interesting about this bottle is that the bag is we have two items in here. One is a beer bottle and one is a liquid. The liquid is what was in the bottle still in when we found it. Hoping the suspect's prints are still on the bottle, Viesca applies super glue to enhance

the detail. I literally just poured a little bit in here, about a quarter-size piece. Put it on the hot plate right here. And then we sat here and we watched it cook. This glues on the print to the surface. Oh, I saw all these fingerprints on there. Some white residue with ridge formation. And it's like, okay, I've got something to work with here.

When Vieska dust the bottle, he lifts two unknown fingerprints. The prints are uploaded into Aphus, but the system doesn't return a match. None of the leads led anywhere. It just went down a path where there was no... resolution. I felt that no one deserves to die that way. After three months, Pamela Shelley's case goes cold, and her mother, Norvell, is left without answers. Oh, God. Devastating. It takes everything for abuse. I kept saying, why? Why? Who could have did this? This is the property room of the Chula Vista Police Department where all the evidence from all crimes is kept. Of course, the homicide

evidence is kept forever. Bob Conrad is a cold case detective in Chula Vista, California. In January of 2002, Conrad reopens the Pamela Shelley murder, now seven years cold. This one had some possibilities. There were some leads that needed to be followed up on and some evidence to be re-examined. Conrad pulls the evidence from storage and sends it out for DNA testing. They did develop a DNA profile from the swabs. Also, there were some condoms found near the scene, and DNA profiles was developed off the condoms as well.

In April of 2003, the two unknown profiles are uploaded into the CODA system, but failed to generate a match. Disappointment. You're always disappointed when you don't get a hit on these things. But Conrad returns to the evidence, locates the beer bottle, and resubmits the prints for testing. This is the latent print section of the Trulivista Police Department crime. lab. On April 9th, latent print examiner Mary Kay Hunt looks at the fingerprint evidence. This is the actual lift. So we'll place the latent print under the direct capture area and capture that image. Hunt loads the prints into APIS. 30 minutes later, the system returns two separate hits. She said, we've got two hits off the spear bottle off prints. So it went from

kind of zero to 90 in about one minute there. Detective Bob Conrad has two names, Andre Robinson and Adrian Sutherland. Both had lived in Chulovist at the time of the murder. They had both been in the Navy. And then I noticed they were both from the same hometown in North Carolina. The Prince are a good start, but Conrad needs more. We knew we had a potential defense of, oh, well, I was just drinking in the park, and I had nothing to do with this murder.

Conrad takes his case to the San Diego district attorney's cold case squad, and the team devises a plan. Well, the strategy was to hit them simultaneously. The decision was made that two teams were going to contact these two individuals, one in San Diego, one in Norfolk. We wanted to hit them at the same time, so they wouldn't have a chance to communicate with each other. On May 27th, Detective Bob Conrad pays a visit to Adrian Sutherland,

a suspect in the 1995 murder of Pamela Shelley. Fingerprint evidence has linked Sutherland and his childhood friend, Andre Robinson, to the crime. We approached him on the premise that we were investigating his buddy Robinson. We wanted to relax him a little bit and get him comfortable. Would you be surprised if I told you that you think I'm Andre into his body? He was found up there in the park. Yeah.

You'd be surprised. I hate to hear that. After 15 minutes, Conrad changes his approach. But when we started pointing a finger at him, he got very defensive. But it's surprised because I told you there's something in that part in college he didn't do it. Yeah, they're definitely surprising. You're telling us you never been there.

Right. Never been there. I never been there. He and Robinson both lived within a half a mile of the park at the time of the murder. And he denied knowing where the park was. He denied ever picking up a prostitute. He just denied everything. With a search warrant in hand, Conrad collects a DNA sample from Sutherland and sends it to the crime lab.

Meanwhile, investigator Mike Howard finds Robinson stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, with a career in the Navy. You know, he played it very cool. Extremely cool. It doesn't show his emotion on the outside. Robinson seems eager to provide information about his old friend Sutherland. I'm asking you, your opinion, what kind of person is he? Twin us. He has to watch them.

And reason I said it is because he's a woman I'm not. You know what I'm saying? As the interview progressed, the question start turning toward Robinson himself. Why would your fingerprints be a purebottle with his fingerprints at a murder. Robinson denies any involvement in the crime and hands over a swab of his DNA. There were two separate DNA profiles obtained from spermatozoa, which were from items that were found at the crime scene. DNA analyst Byron Sondonberg tests the samples and finds not one but two separate DNA matches. I actually found that the DNA profile obtained from the condom

matched the DNA profile obtained from Mr. Sutherland and the DNA profile obtained from the vaginal swabs from Pamela Shelley matched the DNA profile obtained for Mr. Robinson. It really doesn't get much better than that. After seven years, cold case detectives have what they need. We were prepared to get the arrest warrants and go after these guys. In an interrogation room at the Chula Vista Police Department, Mike Howard. You have an objective, and the objective is to get to the truth.

You know that the people that you're interviewing are doing everything they can to keep you from the truth. He took your DNA. He took your DNA out of your mouth. With that court order, that DNA, that DNA, come back this woman. Not mine. Yeah, I did. No, it didn't.

No, it didn't. I swear to God it didn't come back. Hang out, no way. They don't know that woman. Hang up. Well, you might not know her, but come back to her, and not only that, fingerprint came back to you.

For 20 minutes, Sutherland dismisses the DNA evidence and continues his denial. Here we go, round two, round three. And he has to come up with the next So he says, all right, we picked up a prostitute. So I went into that storyline. This is my final story, man. This is making the truth.

That's all I want. I just want the truth. This is exactly what happened. One night, me and Audrey were riding around, and we were somewhere over by 307th Street, and that's where he met that girl. Picked her up. Admissions are coming out.

Okay. The dyke is trickling, so you're getting somewhere. here. I do know that I do have this with his girl, but I stood a distance while he had sex where I don't know what the hell went wrong, but he just started shooting that girl. What he was telling me that Robinson was a shooter made sense. Details that he told me fit the evidence that I knew was in the case. But Howard isn't ready to let Sutherland off the hook just yet. Okay, but your semen's there.

Explain it, what happened. Tell me, that's a mystery you gotta clear up. And then he went back and forth, he wavered. I don't remember having sex with one. Well, maybe I did. Oh, and then one point he says, okay, I did. No, I didn't. I don't remember.

After four and a half hours, Howard ends the interview. It's pretty exhausting, and boom had to hop on a red eye. And boom, as you land there, you know, you're ready to take you to take on Robinson. He had already gone out to sea. The ship had left port, and they were doing some naval maneuvers in the Atlantic. On June 10, 2004,

Andre Robinson is flown off the USS Truman and into an interrogation room at the Norfolk Police Department. I'll actually go out of crime right now. Are you prepared to talk about this? Me, sir. Okay. He was quiet,

Reserved. Playing it cool. Like he was before. During questioning, Robinson admits he and Sutherland picked up a prostitute, but he says Sutherland killed her. He's not going to tell me to take up her clothes. So what was happening? She was forced to have sex, this girl. You're saying that he wanted to cute her. And the results, that right? Yes, that's what I'm telling me.

It's a story Howard isn't buying. He's playing a con game with me, hoping that he can con his way out of it. I know you'd like to meet a lot of things to talk about your being almost to hear me out for them. Okay, we're going to get to the truth here. I saw the weakness. That's when I moved in. I know that you were a shooter. I know you were. I know you're thinking about it. Okay.

I know that you and he didn't know that you and Tedford's trying out of the way it did or that it was accident. He knows the gig's up. His head goes down. goes down and he just murmurs, I was the shooter. The dyke opens. I was the shooter. What happened? I can't. Why? That's what I think I was. I can't. I don't know. I can't even say you why. You can't say what? I can't say what. Yeah, I don't get no. Robinson crumbles under the pressure. He says he and Sutherland picked up

Pamela Shelley, forced her to perform sex acts, and then he shot her in the back. He couldn't give a reason. He couldn't give a reason. He said it was senseless. He said he just snapped. It just happened. Robinson and Sutherland are each charged with murder and sent to jail to await trial. They just killed her like a piece of trash, threw her away like a piece of trash.

She's like subhuman to them. Just like an animal to them. In February of 2006, Andre Robinson Stans' trial for the murder of Pamela Shelley, prosecuted by San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Garland Pied. It's kind of a dream case for a prosecutor to have. Not only did we have the fingerprints on the bottle, but then we had Robinson's DNA and the body cavity swabs.

And we also had a complete confession. During the trial, Robinson changes his story and says Sutherland was the shooter. The story was, I just confessed to it because I was under stress. I told them what they wanted to know. And it really wasn't me. It was the other guy. It's a claim the jury doesn't believe. After two weeks of trial, Robinson is found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

The only difficulty in the case was against Sutherland, and that's why we decided to offer him a plea. Five months later, Adrian Sutherland takes a plea deal. And he pled guilty to 12 years. I think justice is done in that, I mean, 12 years is a long time in prison for the second guy, the non-shooter. But the shooter got life without parole. So the rest of his life, he'll never get out. I could not understand why.

Till this day, I don't know why. Why kill her? Why kill her? It's terrible. For Norval Shelley, the answers help. But the pain of losing her daughter remains. pain just never goes away. It never goes away. Because you ask yourself, why? Where did I go wrong? You know, where did I go wrong? As a mother, but I don't know that answer. Insurance isn't one size fits all. And shopping for it shouldn't feel like squeezing into something that just doesn't fit. That's why drivers have enjoyed progressives name your price tool for years. With the name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they show options that fit your budget.

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On Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay Never. It's February 2006. Ray Staley is a cold case detective in Kansas City, Missouri. Danny Phillips is his partner. What do you got to see this guy around? John Jackson is their sergeant. We got a murder.

Your body was discovered in September of 97. In a city with more than 900 cold cases, the detectives have their work cut out for them. In February of 2006, Stanley and Phillips catch a break on an old case. The 1990 rape and murder of 28-year-old Linda Winfield. It was a brutal crime, brutal homicide. She was repeatedly stabbed, and she was sexually assaulted.

And numerous stab wounds on her body. On September 15, 1990, Winfield's body was discovered in a lot on the north side of Kansas City. She was found, lying on her back. She was clothed. We believe this offense occurred right there, not that she was dumped. For nearly 16 years, the case remained cold. Now, police turned to the crime lab for a break. So this is our walk-in freezer that has all of our evidence that we retain in the lab.

All of the biological evidence is housed here. These are all individual samples. Jennifer Howard is a DNA analyst for the Kansas City Police Crime Lab. So we've got stains from clothing, we've got swabs from victims like a vaginal swab, we've got nail scrapings, hair samples. In August of 2005, Howard searches the cold storage and pulls out a small envelope containing evidence from the murder of Linda Winfield. These are the actual samples for our case. And this envelope actually has a vaginal swab and then nail scrapings, which are actually all. already in the tube for us. Back in the lab, Howard examines the evidence

and begins DNA testing. There was indication that she had recent sexual activity, so the vaginal swab is still really important to this particular case. Seamen is detected, and Howard extracts an unknown DNA profile. Well, at first I developed the genetic profile of an unknown male. So we didn't know who it belonged to,

and then we put it into the CODIS database and got a hit. profile matches an offender who is currently incarcerated in the state of Kansas for another murder, a murder of another woman that occurred approximately eight months after Linda's death. Because this is an ongoing investigation, cold case detectives will not reveal the suspect's identity. Phillips and Staley review the file and discover Linda Winfield was living on the streets and working as a prostitute. She was living with a boyfriend up until not too long before she was killed when she left the home and ended up on the street.

This is one of the worst, one of the worst I've seen because, I mean, just the mutilation. So, I mean, this is a guy that we would surely like to catch up to. The DNA is a start, but Staley and Phillips need more. They start by returning to the crime scene. On July 20th, 2006, Cold Case Detectives returned to the crime scene and find not much has changed in 16 years. Most likely she was killed right there, right where she was discovered. She was stabbed numerous times and almost decapitated. Sometimes you go just to see the location, just to see what it looks like.

But this particular area where she was found is down out of the beaten pan. And we just needed to see what was down there, see what avenues that a person could leave from. And it was basically one road in and one rode out. The suspect in the Winfield case is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of another young woman. He's an animal. He's already been incarcerated, found guilty of killing one woman. And we want to do the best that we can to put together a strong enough case to see these convicted on another. And he stays behind bars and doesn't ever get out. We don't want them having the opportunity to kill somebody else.

Back at the police department, Staley and Phillips brief Sergeant Jackson on the case. In 90, this guy was found. She just cut ear to ear, just her head almost severed. The DNA profile was found in her. Find out he's incarcerated. He's the first-degree murder. Trag down the murder involves the murder of a young girl. Apparently she was accused of taking money, drug money, preliminary chit-chaton,

He's a model for sure. He was OC-connected. He got caught up in an indictment, fairly significant drug indictment. So he runs with some bad folks. The two women were killed eight months apart, and semen evidence from the same man was found on both victims.

Sergeant, how are you doing, sir? This is Detective Phillips, Kansas City. Say, I'd like to talk to you about possibly coming to your station this Friday to review that came. case file we spoke about. Detective Phillips hopes there might be other similarities that could strengthen his case. It would be huge to be able to show that, you know, you have this offender, you have multiple

deaths, and that the M.O. is the same. In the file, he finds striking similarities in the killer's M.O. In the two cases, there are injuries inflicted about the body that are the same, and that is numerous stab wounds about the neck. So you had these common traits with the two cases and then this only profile found in a girl that was believed to have been working the streets. We're pretty confident that we're looking at the same guy. At this point, time's in our side.

We're not in a hurry. The offender's locked up. We will be locked up and we're going to conduct the investigation of matter that will result in us obtaining this additional evidence. With time on their side, Phillips and Staley changed. their approach and pick up another murder case after a second DNA hit comes through. This is exactly what we're looking for, a perfect match between a parent blood sample and a suspect. Scott Hummel is a DNA analyst in Kansas City, Missouri. In December of 2005,

Hummel pulls evidence from the 1988 hit-and-run accident that killed 56-year-old John Ziontuk. A car was stolen and that car ended up crashing into another vehicle. vehicle, killing the driver of that vehicle. The stolen auto, it appeared that the driver of that car was injured because there was a broken windshield and blood on that windshield. Now, 17 years later, Hummel pulls the glass shards and begins testing. So those glass fragments were collected at the crime scene in 1988 and were retained in the laboratory in a freezer. There's the yellow chemical pad that when it comes in contact with blood, it will turn a green color. And there we get an immediate strong green reaction, which is an indication that this is an apparent

blood sample. Hummel extracts a full genetic profile from the blood on the glass. In this case, all the blood samples were tested. They all typed more the same profile, and the profile from the blood matched Melvin Jacks. This is exactly what we're looking for, a perfect match between a a parent blood sample and a suspect. It's great news for the case. Detective Danny Phillips now has a suspect, 53-year-old Melvin Jaxx.

He runs a report and finds Jaxe in a Kansas prison, serving a 13-year sentence for aggravated burglary. I like that injury or possible injury. Would that correspond to where he would have hit the windshield? Anywhere in front of his face? Forehead, sure. Phillips pulls the file and reviews the case. He just drive a long mind in his own business and hear out of the clear blue. You know, this car teabones him and subsequently he dies. It's senseless Mr. Sandichick was an innocent victim. The suspect was driving a stolen car when he tried to outrun police.

And before the officer had even had the opportunity to stop this person, he accelerated, blacked out, turned his headlights off and fled. Moments later, that car ran a stop sign and crashed into Seanchuk, killing him instantly. When police arrived at the scene, the stolen car was there, but no suspect. No trace of this guy. He was gone. All he cared about was, I'm in a stolen car. I hit some guy. I don't know if this guy is dead or not, but I'm getting out of here, and he just left. Back in 88, an anonymous tipster led police to Jacks, but they lacked the evidence to make an arrest.

There was a phone call that the text was received at the time saying that they believed Mr. Jackson was the person that was responsible for the death of Mr. Sanchez. And this was like three months after the wreck. And so Mr. Jacks was then completely healed by that time. So there was no evidence of the wreck on his body. So it ended there. Today, DNA changes that. The physical evidence will clearly show that his blood, several different blood patterns

throughout the interior of the vehicle were caused from injuries he sustained in that accident that happened right then and there. On August 2nd, 2006, Cold Case detectives head to the south side of Kansas City to get a look at the crime scene. It's important to revisit the crime scene as an investigator. It's just not the same as looking at photos. You can get a whole lot better perspective by being able to the scene yourself. After piecing together the crime, detectives realized

their case has a whole. Jax could argue that someone else was driving the vehicle. He could say that he was a passenger or someone else was driving a vehicle. So we just want to counter any type of defense or argument he might say in his defense. The key was to see, okay, if the blood did match her suspect, is it consistent with the suspect being the driver? Traffic investigator Chris Petrie examines the case and run some simulations.

The tree struck the right, the bumper, right of center. So in doing that, the car travels on motion, strikes the tree, all the weight is still left the center. It's going to cause the car to rotate left. Mr. Jacks still going forward, and it would account for it being right of the steering well. We can't bring the cars into the jury,

but it just shows you on a smaller scale that the laws of physics are the same. The officers agree. The blood and damage to the windshield came from the driver of the vehicle, not from a passenger. Basically, we're just trying to cover all the bases because these are things he could say.

We have signs on our side and physics on our side, so it'll help us out just on that. Detectives are ready to speak to Melvin Jacks. Just before 9 a.m., they find him at Lansing Correctional facility, and confront him with the evidence. Jacks denies any involvement and then abruptly ends the interview.

Complete denial. In no way, shape, or form is he going to admit to have any responsibility for this accident or having been involved in any fashion? I don't think he understood DNA, especially the DNA evidence in this particular case, that it was all over the inside of the vehicle. From the windshield, the driver's armrest, all the bloodstream, the tissue is that of Melvin Jacks. It's fresh. It was wet. You know, this is collected the scene immediately after the accident. There's no way to dispute that. Cold case detectives don't get the confession they

angled so hard for, but they aren't finished yet. They do get the name of a woman who's willing to talk. We can go back through the case file, look at those who are close to Mr. Jacks at the time, and see if perhaps he mentioned to them anything about his involvement in this person. particular accident. It's a break that is about to pay off. I have blood all over me and he said I tried to help the other person but I think they're dead. I was ordering something online the other night and just when I wanted to pay I blanked. What password did I use for this site? Do I reset it? Try three wrong ones and lock myself out? It's the worst. But then I saw that purple pay button at checkout, tapped it and I was done in seconds. No login spiral, no digging for my wallet, it just works. That amazing purple pay

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On October 4th, 2006, Cold Case Detective's Danny Phillips and Ray Staley sit down with an acquaintance of Melvin Jacks. Hoping for a break in the 1998 hit and run. murder of John Sianchuk. We took a shot in the dark with a witness that we located, used to date Melvin Jacks. It was encouraging when we contact her because she didn't ask questions. So that indicates to me she knows what we want to talk about.

She has information. Can you tell me about when this was? I know it was at night, and when I looked through the peep to see who it was, I saw was Melvin and he was hurt pretty bad. As detectives listen, the woman talks about a night 18 years earlier when Melvin Jacks confessed to a deadly accident. He was just crying and hugged and I had blood all over me.

And he said, I tried to help the other person get out of the car, but I think they're dead. I said, why didn't you call the police? Why did you leave? He said, look at me. I got drugs on me, the police, all I do is go to jail. Did you notice any injuries about his body this time? I just noticed he was so hurt that I thought he was going to die in my living room. She had very clear recollection.

You know, you don't forget these kinds of experiences. It was pretty traumatic, probably for both of them. He started crying and said, I think I killed somebody. And all he could do was run. He was so scared. And he indicated to her that he had. somebody in the car and he doesn't think that this person is alive and stuff. So that was, that was, that was a crucial piece of information that we needed.

Has he never been in trouble for stealing cars that you know? He's never been in jail for stealing everything. He probably tried to steal the refrigerator. I mean, seriously. After 30 minutes, cold case detectives have what they need. I mean, we've already got the guy. Like I said, the DNA's in the right places. It's him. This is icing on the cake. Morning. Ted, how are you? Doing good.

Two months after locating their star witness, cold case detectives bring their case to prosecutor Ted Hunt. It all fits together and I think we've got a good, strong case

to present to a jury. Ultimately, they have to decide what it all means, but we think it leads to murder. What we're doing right now is we've got the thing loaded and it's ready to go. We've got the charges ready

and we're just going to send it to the grand jury. Hunt takes the case and files one count of felony murder against Melvin Jacks. We will try to get as much time as we can for him. He started this ball rolling by stealing the car and then running from the police and that runs come to an end. If convicted, Jacks could face up to life in prison. You guys did a great job and I'm ready to start the prosecution. I feel good about it. I feel great about it. I feel great about it. I feel

I feel the best about it because it's going to bring closure to Mr. Sanchez's family, okay, up in Canada. After all these years, they're going to have closure. Well, we're going to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It's early in the morning, 6.30. And we're going to talk to the family of the homicide victim, Mr. Sinchuk. On November 28, 2006, Detective Staley and Phillips board a flight to Canada. 1,600 miles later, they touched down in Edmonton with a temperature of negative 24 degrees. Being homicide detectives, this is the only, we can't really bring good news to people because, you know,

there are someone that's died, but we can bring some type of relief, you know, letting them know that the person that's responsible is caught. Detective Staley and Phillips arrive at the home of Irwin and Joyce Strifler, John Seanchuk's sister and brother-in-law. This is the last stop for cold case detectives. Joyce and Irwin Stryffler have lived with a loss for 18 years. We got the phone call. It was in the middle of the night, which kind of gets you off guard. You just don't imagine that it's him.

Like, they probably made a mistake and something else has gone and wrong. Today, the Stryfler sit down with cold case detectives and receive some unexpected news. We opened the investigation a few months ago. And in doing so, the criminals was able to confirm that there's a DNA match. So we have our suspect. Looks like we have a very good case against the person. We're responsible for the judge that. Detective Phillips explains the case against Melvin Jacks.

There's no doubt in my mind. He was the operator of vehicle that struck your brother. Well, I think it's gratifying to know that justice is being served, you know, when you take the life of somebody, whether it's by murder or by accident or whatever. It puts it in perspective, you know, these are real people. They had a real loss. But until you see through pictures and words that they, you know, a victim's family might express to you just how important this person is, I mean, it just really doesn't hit home until this kind of thing happens. being able to tell this family that after 18 years, they can put a name to who killed their family member. You know, that's gratifying. And I hope that will help them, you know.

For Cold Case Detectives, one case is closed, but hundreds more remain. It's very satisfying. But that satisfaction short-lived because when we get back in the office tomorrow, it's back to the other cases that we're still working. The cases that still remain open, the cases that there's still a tremendous amount of work to do. And you hope that eventually we had this sort of conclusion with those cases as well. Pluto foe. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV. Where all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch Anchorman, the legend of Ron Burgundy.

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