Cold Case Files - REOPENED: The Hitchhiker

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

A hitchhiker is found murdered, and police spend three decades chasing down their only lead. Then an unexpected twist brings a brand new suspect to light...Homes.com: We’ve done your homework.Shopify: Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at Shopify.com/coldcase and take your retail business to the next level today! Thrive Market: Go to ThriveMarket.com/coldcase for 30% off your first order, PLUS a free $60 gift!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Use your best judgment. People don't really hitchhike anymore, especially if they're traveling a far distance. In the 70s, though, it was something people did all the time. The hitchhiking craze might have died down because public transportation improved, or because Lyft and Uber became popular. But I think it's more likely people just realized that it could be dangerous. Getting into a car with a total stranger is really risky. Hitchhiking was even made illegal in several states. And if the case you're about to hear is any example,

it was outlawed for good reason. This case of hitchhiking gone wrong began in 1975 and took nearly 30 years to be solved. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. I'm Brooke, and here's the original Bill Curtis with a classic case, the hitchhiker. I was going through our cold cases at the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department and Lieutenant Smallcomb told me about a case that he had worked in 1993.

Kevin Bailey is a homicide detective with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office. In April of 2004, Bailey opens up the cold murder book on Jerry Sullivan, a hitchhiker found shot to death in the summer of 1975. The first thing I do when I get assigned a case like that is I go through the case file itself. In reviewing that evidence list and reconciling that with the case file, I saw that there was a pretty particular important piece of evidence and that was a fingerprint.

The fingerprint was lifted off the inside of the victim's wallet almost 30 years earlier. It is a lead that takes cold case detectives back to a counterculture revolution and murder inside a patch of woods in Northern California. Well, here we're at Navarro, California, and we're about approximately 15 miles from the coast. In the fall of 1975, Detective Ralph Mays and criminal technician Grover Bethards walked through the woods and into a crime scene. He was lying face down, all you could see was the top of his head. And I recall the sleeping bag was zipped open slightly.

Slightly, yes. Yeah. Inside the sleeping bag is the body of Jerry Sullivan, a cast on his left leg and a bullet in his brain. You could not see anywhere where somebody had been scuffling or any fighting or anything went on. We'd not only searched this midi area here, we searched up. We expanded our search area all up into these redwood trees here and all around.

I remember we walked down along the highway looking for whatever we could find. In fact, we went across the road. Police bag up an assortment of items, including the victim's sleeping bag, maps, and a cigarette butt discarded near the body. What investigators don't find, however, is anything that helps ID their victim. No wallet, no other cards or anything with them. And so we try, of course, one of the things you try for, of course, is fingerprints. Beathards checks the victim's prints against the DMV database and pulls up Sullivan's license.

The 20-year-old is originally from New York State and hitchhiking up the coast. In the mid-70s, they called them the hippies, you know. Everybody living free and doing pretty much what they wanted to do, kind of living for the day. Detective Mays contacts Sullivan's family members, but they can offer no clue as to who might have wanted Jerry dead. That is, until two days later, when Sullivan's family receives a package in the mail. Inside it, the victim's wallet. The wallet, the insert, including the driver's license, had been mailed back to the address that appeared on the driver's license.

He was given to me by Sergeant Mays, and he wanted me to see if I was able to develop any fingerprints on it. And I was able to develop a nice print on the plastic case to the driver's license. And I was able to develop a nice print on the plastic case to the driver's left The unknown print is entered into California's fingerprint database in 1975 it fails to generate a match With the cast on his left leg, you know, that was a pretty obvious show. Yeah, that would be pretty obvious You know they saw that yeah, it was clean. You know, mean, it wasn't when people drove by or looked at him and stuff. Meantime, detectives continue to pick through the back roads

of Northern California, looking for anyone who might have picked up a hitchhiker wearing a cast. I mean, of course, I wasn't real happy to be seeing the Mendocino County Sheriff because, you know, at the time I smoked a lot of marijuana and I wasn't really, you know, what are they doing there? In 1975, Kathy Smith is 24 years old and living the life of a hippie. I lived in an old apple orchard like, like in a tent and So it was living very close to the land.

And it was really nice. It was beautiful. I loved it. I loved it. Three days after Jerry Sullivan turns up dead, Smith's commune with nature is interrupted by a visit from police. Locals in the nearby town of Filo tell police Smith picked up two male hitchhikers.

Smith says she had picked up the two men several days earlier, and one was wearing a leg cast. I picked him up, and I told them that I wasn't going all that far, probably five or six miles down the road. So I had both of them get into my car, one in the back and one in the front. Kathy Smith is one of several locals who apparently picked up the two hitchhikers, one of whom detectives believe to be Jerry Sullivan. The other hitchhiker? Quite possibly

Sullivan's killer. We interviewed several of the people that gave him rides and I did what they called an identikit of a person's features and face so we made up a composite of this person. We had several different composites made up. After we had developed the composite drawings we were able to, in talking to enough people, learn of a free school, they call it in them days, up the coast from here, probably about 25 miles up the coast. According to witnesses, the free school, called Summer Hill West, was mentioned

by the second hitchhiker as a place he had once attended. Mays heads north to see if anyone at Summerhill might be willing to talk. There was this huge movement actually to Mendocino County and we were part of that movement. And even though we were a school, they called us a commune. We were Summerhill commune. In 1975, Heidi Bohan is living at Summerhill West,

a destination of choice for a lot of young people heading north out of San Francisco. In October of that year, Detective Mays arrives on campus, asking a lot of questions and carrying a composite sketch of his mysterious hitchhiker. That was a period of time that it was extremely sensitive, that you didn't have relationships with the police. I interviewed and talked with a lot of paranoid people.

They were always wondering, you know, why, what are you looking for me for? We were a counterculture. And so to call the police and to actually initiate some sort of contact was a big deal. I.D. Bohan might not like the police, but murder is a serious matter. When Bohan sees the composite sketch of the man believed to be Jerry Sullivan's traveling companion,

she decides to come forward. I thought it was this young man that had not been there very long. I wasn't close to him. Was it someone I knew real well? But his name was Bob Holt. The name Bob Holt is one of many to land in Detective Mays' notes. Efforts to track down Holt, however, go nowhere. And it was disheartening, you know, like I said, Mr. Sullivan, the father would always,

we were in contact and he always wanted to hear something positive. And oftentimes, there was nothing good to tell him. An unknown fingerprint, a hitchhiker, and a name. Jerry Sullivan's murder is a puzzle. One detective's won't piece together for another 30 years. You know that feeling when you're standing in the grocery store, staring at labels, trying to figure out which snacks are actually healthy, and just wishing there was an easier way?

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Homes.com. We've done your homework. A man was found murdered at a makeshift campsite in the woods near Navarro, California. Though the police located several of his belongings, there was no identification found near the crime scene. The police determined that the victim had been a man named Jerry Sullivan. His family couldn't think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Jerry. A few days after Jerry's body had been discovered, his wallet with his ID inside was received by Jerry's family in the mail. The investigators pulled a fingerprint off of the license, but they weren't able to find a match in the database in 1975.

the license, but they weren't able to find a match in the database in 1975. A decade later, that fingerprint was once again analyzed and led the investigators to a woman named Kathy Smith. She'd mailed Jerry's wallet to his family after she had given him and another hitchhiker a ride. The police focused in on identifying that second man, possibly Jerry's killer. When I was referring to the wall of shame to the Hall of Fame, the wall of shame was this when Mr. Sullivan's case started. His case file, you got to remember, wasn't even actually here. Kurt Smallcomb is a detective with the Mendocino County

Sheriff's Office. In 1993, he opens up the file on Jerry Sullivan, a hitchhiker found shot to death 18 years earlier. When I started going through it, just reading the case and then coming across the, looking at the latent print and the information like that, it was, okay, it's workable and let's go to work for the solvents. Smallcomb runs the single unknown print lifted off the inside of the victim's wallet through APHIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. That led to the Department of Justice coming back with a hit on Mr. Cordero. Mr. William Cordero is a resident of Oregon,

a man with no hard criminal history, but someone with a lot of explaining to do. My reaction was, hey, this could be our guy. We felt that, hey, this guy's going to have to have a pretty good reason why his fingerprint would be inside the victim's wallet. In the 1970s, Cordero had ties to the Mendocino area, often going there to fish. Smallcombe decides to travel north to Oregon to talk to Cordero and perhaps do a little

fishing himself. What's going on here? Well, again, the reason we're here is there was an assault homicide that happened years ago. It came in your room in 1975. Inside an interview room 250 miles north of Mendocino County, Kurt Smallcomb begins digging at the newest suspect in the Jerry Sullivan homicide. I started going up there.

It was all about getting the statement. Were you ever in Minas Gerro County in 1975? Get the statement from Mr. Cordero. If I could put him in the location. You know, I might have been there because I'm a salmon fisher. And I knew a lot of people here and there. Putting himself in that location. I think this guy is pretty good.

You ever pick up any sharks? Oh, I imagine I probably did guy is pretty good. He absolutely denied knowing anything about Mr. Solner, ever finding anything belonging to anybody else in Mendocino County. Cordero is never told about his print found inside the victim's wallet. After their interview, the suspect lawyers up and refuses to speak to police a second time. Without enough evidence to charge Cordero,

detectives are once again stymied, and the case again goes cold. Until 11 years later, when a fresh set of eyes gets involved and gives an old cigarette butt and the case again goes cold until 11 years later, when a fresh set of eyes gets involved and gives an old cigarette butt a second look. Our victim, Gerard Sullivan, was not a smoker. And I noticed that in 75, they had collected a cigarette butt

from the crime scene. In April of 2004, Detective Kevin Bailey inherits the Sullivan file from Kurt Smallcomb. Bailey believes William Cordero to be his first and best suspect, but needs more evidence before he can charge Cordero. That is when Bailey notices a single cigarette butt sitting in the Sullivan file. I felt that we did get DNA off that cigarette butt, that it would match Mr. Cordero. Bailey sends the butt out to be tested.

While waiting for the results, the detective heads north with DA investigator Tim Kiley for another chat with Cordero. I haven't done anything like anything that hurt anybody ever in my whole life. Okay, well then let's clear it up. Let's just sit down, go over this thing and be done with it. Bailey and Kiley confront Cordero with a search warrant. Initially, they don't tell the suspect about his fingerprint found inside the victim's wallet.

He maintained there was no contact with Mr. Sullivan. He had never hitchhiked with anyone with a leg cast. He had already told us that there was no, that he had never found a wallet, that he had never seen the victim's body. And so he couldn't come back now and say, yeah, I did find a wallet or some excuse. So we felt it was safe to tell him at this point about the fingerprint.

Your fingerprint was found on his wallet. On his wallet? He said it on his wallet. On his wallet? Inside his wallet. That insert. I can't believe that. It almost seems like enough evidence for you to take me to jail. He went through various emotional states. At one point he was lying on the ground outside his residence, almost weeping.

But again, he maintained that he had no contact with the subject. Emotions aside, Cordero offers no credible explanation for the print and is asked to provide a DNA sample. Detectives promise they will be back in touch. Next time, perhaps, with a warrant for Cordera's arrest. This is the main DNA extraction laboratory. This is where we sample the evidence. In the summer of 2004, DNA analyst Deanna Kaser has a stack of cold cases to work on,

one of them almost as old as she is. I was born in September of 1974, and this case happened in 1975. So, yeah, I thought it would be interesting to do a case that was almost as old as me. Kacer pulls out a cigarette butt collected from the Sullivan crime scene 29 years earlier. She suspects DNA extraction will be a long shot, until she notices that the cigarette was actually hand-rolled. Presumably the saliva that's in between these two creases is somewhat preserved because it's not exposed to the elements in any way. It's kind of smashed between the two pieces of paper.

Kaser is able to extract a partial genetic profile. Before she compares it to William Cordero, Kaser runs the sample through CODIS, the state's DNA database. When she does, Kevin Bailey's murder investigation takes a turn. She goes, I did get DNA off the cigarette butt, and I do have a match. Of course, we're all assuming it's going to be Mr. Cordero. And then she gave me the bad news as it was not,

and came back to Robert Vaughn. Robert Vaughn is a convicted murderer now sitting in a California prison. Even better, Vaughn carries a history of attacking hitchhikers. Robert Vaughn had attacked a man with a rock while the two of them were camping together in a rural area, very similar to this murder. It's definitely one of the reports that

jumped out at both of us and you know that was almost T for T the motive that happened in ours. Bailey and Kylie do background on their suspect. Deep in the paperwork they discover a second connection to the Sullivan murder. In reviewing Mr. Vaughn's rap sheet, I see that one of his aliases is Robert Holt, H-O-L-T. I go through the case. I find a scrap of paper that was written by Detective Ralph

Mays at the time. On that scrap of paper, I find the name Bob Holt. In 1975, a 20-year-old named Heidi Bohan ID'd a student named Bob Holt as a possible match to a composite sketch of the killer. Bailey tracks down Bohan and emails her some recent photos of Robert Vohan. I just asked her, look at the photograph and tell me if this is the person you knew as Bob Holt back in 75. When I opened it, I actually immediately said, that's Bob Holt.

You couple that with the DNA evidence, his violent history and the assault that he did with the person that survived with the rock in the head and, you know, it just looked like a sure thing. Tim Kiley might think it's a sure thing. Assistant DA Richard Martin, however, feels otherwise. I told him, I need a confession. I need this guy to admit that he did it, or an eyewitness that saw him do it. Because right now, he can't say that he was not at the scene. We can prove that without any doubts at all. We have to show that he was involved in the homicide.

Bailey and Kylie need more than a cigarette butt to make their case against Vaughn. They decide to sit down with a suspect and see if they can get him talking. When we were kids, we dreamed big. Astronaut, president, you name it. But as we get older, our dreams shift. Maybe now you're dreaming of turning your passion

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Death, available now wherever you get your podcasts. I told him, well, we're here investigating a homicide that occurred about 30 years ago, and I think that maybe you can help us. Robert Vaughn doesn't really want to talk, but remains intrigued as to how and why detectives suspect him in Sullivan's death. He seemed very curious as to why we were there. We told him it was a homicide. In our minds, of course, he knows why we're there very well.

Tim told him we're going to get there. And what Tim told him is you're going to love it, but you're going to tell us your story before we tell you ours. Vaughn is doing 15 to life on an unrelated murder charge and is up for parole in a couple of years. Bailey lays out a few hard truths for the convict. What his life will be like if Vaughn refuses to talk to police. And what I told him is, you know, you've been before the parole board and you've been denied. And you plan on going again.

I mean, this case is not going to go away and you're the guy that did it. Now you can go before the parole board every five years for the rest of your life saying, I don't know anything about this case and I'll be sitting in a chair behind you saying that you're good for it. I said, or you can probably for the first time in your life do the right thing for the right reason. And he said, I think I can clear this up for you. He goes, I can tell you the caliber of the gun.

And that started the dialogue for the interview. We had an argument. And I forget what it was about. We had a fight or something. So when he was asleep after the argument, he's sleeping. What happens after that? He shot him in the head. OK. You remember how close you were and how far along? So when he was asleep after the argument, he's sleeping. What happens after that? You remember how close you were or how far along?

What? Robert Vaughn provides Bailey and Kiley with a full confession and eventually pleads guilty to Sullivan's murder. He is sentenced according to 1975 laws to a term of seven years to life. William Cordero is eventually cleared of any involvement in the murder, although the existence of his print on the victim's wallet remains to this day a mystery. After his confession, Vaughn presses detectives, still curious as to how they got on to him,

what clue he left behind. That cigarette butt's what brought us here. And I get plugged into this case, and there's a cigarette butt at the scene, and I submit that, and guess what? It hits on you. So we're on a cigarette butt? I kid you not. I promise.

Robert Vaughn says, something like, isn't that something? You know, my favorite show is the Cold Case Documentaries. I love that show. And one of us said, well, maybe someday you'll be on that show. Robert Vaughn, who was already serving time for a murder he was convicted of in 1991,

is currently located in a correctional facility in California. He was denied parole in November of 2008. He's currently 63 years old. Cold Case Files the podcast is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delemater. Our associate producer is Julie McGruder. Our executive producer is 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. See what's screaming free all month long during Pluto TV's April ghouls. Get your heart pounding with nightmare fueling classics

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