Cold Case Files - REOPENED: The Slide

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

An elderly woman is assaulted in her own home, and suffers a deadly heart attack during the assault. Her stolen checkbook is the only solid lead in a decades-long search for a killer.  Check out our great sponsors! 1-800-Contacts: Order online at 1800contacts.com - download their free app - or call 1-800-266-8228 SimpliSafe: Save 20% on your security system when you sign up for an Interactive Monitoring plan and get your first month FREE at SimpliSafe.com/coldcase Progressive: Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive!

This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Use your best judgment. In 1984, 69-year-old Agnes Vafrovich lived alone. She'd gotten divorced 15 years earlier. She had two children, a daughter and a son. They were grown and had moved away to start their own families. That spring, a man broke into Agnes' home, intending to rape and rob her. Regardless of the man's intentions, Agnes died during the attack.

She literally had a broken heart. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. I'm Brooke, and here's the lauded Bill Curtis with a classic case, The Slide. Put your hands down! Get out of the car! Get out! Lay down on the ground! Down!

It's just past 5 a.m. in the city of Minneapolis, and Lieutenant Jim Heimerl is in pursuit of a drive-by shooter. Get out of the car! Down, straight down. They've got two weapons in a car, recently fired. They hit him in the car. They tried to walk away from the vehicle. They just came around the corner in front of us, almost hit us. The majority of the killings that occur in Minneapolis occur in North Minneapolis right here.

So these guys deal with it on a daily basis. Jim Heimerl deals with violence every day. Today it's a drive-by. 22 years ago, something very different. The phone rang, and I assumed by the way the urgency of the call came in was that it was a homicide. Dispatch sends Heimerl to a small house on the northeast side of Minneapolis. Inside, the sergeant finds 69-year-old Agnes Fafrowitz

face down and dead. One of the things you look at when you walk in, obviously, is the room and the positioning of the body. The victim's underwear had been pulled down around her ankles and her shoes off. I mean, that's not a natural position. And automatically that just tells you right then and there, more than likely it's a sexual assault of some kind.

Heimerl works his way through the house and isolates the killer's point of entry. The first bedroom I actually walked into was his bedroom. And this is what I see right here. I see an open window. The screen had been removed. You can see where the glass had been removed, broken out. The window's up.

Basically, it was a whodunit, but there were some leads. Sergeant Bob Nelson takes the lead on the case and examines the ransacked house. Her purse was dumped out, and there was contents of her purse in the bathroom, and that wasn't right. Doors were open and drawers were open in the kitchen, like somebody was looking for something. That wasn't normal. In the kitchen, detectives find several cigarette butts. The evidence is bagged. The next day, Nelson gets word that the victim's checkbook is missing. He puts a call out to the bank and waits for the killer to make a false step.

Well, it was, yeah, hopeful. Generally, the suspects aren't that stupid that they go out and cash a check. But it was a shot. Meanwhile, over at the morgue, doctors receive the body and begin the search for evidence. The cause of death was not as evident as it is in many cases. On May 21, Dr. Gary Peterson supervises the autopsy of Agnes Fafrowitz.

With no obvious signs of trauma, the cause of death is a mystery to police. That is, until the ME opens up Agnes' chest. The assault caused stress on the heart, extra demands on circulation, increased the heart rate, blood pressure. The heart, because of the underlying disease, was not able to withstand that. Agnes had a heart attack while she was being raped. The ME collects semen and releases the body for burial. Meanwhile, Sergeant Nelson's phone is ringing. It's the break he's been waiting for.

Nelson? Hey, what's up? On a Tuesday morning, Nelson takes a call from a manager at the bank. They had just taken in these two checks. One appeared to be a forgery to her, in that it didn't match Agnes Vofrovich's writing. The check was made out there was Bill Vollmar Bailey. The check in the amount of $230 was cashed at a local liquor store on Friday the 18th. We believe that Agnes Vofrovich was probably killed Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the 16th into the 17th. So she was already dead when this check was made out and cashed.

You look at the starting stroke, you look at the height of the letters, you look at the baseline. Nelson calls in a handwriting expert to compare the checks. The size of this A compared to this A, there's a different size, there's a different angle, and this letter R does not match with this letter R. And plus, you have different slants.

You have a slant here, and this slant is going straight up, and the ending stroke and everything else is different. This was not written by Agnes. This is a simulated signature of Agnes by the person doing it. So we definitely wanted to find this person. Nelson jumps in his car and heads to the liquor store, looking for the man who cashed a check from a dead woman.

Agnes Vafrovich died of a heart attack when a man broke into her home intending to rob and rape her. The man had stolen Agnes' checkbook and the police discovered that a check from her account was written out and cashed at a local liquor store. The investigators headed to the store

to determine the name of their number one suspect. His name? Bill Volmar Bailey. So we went to the liquor store and we talked to Mr. Gidio, whose wife had taken in that check on Friday the 18th. The store owner says Bailey is an ex-con who moved to the area a month earlier. We're talking to Mr. Giddeo, and he's giving us a description of this guy,

white male, about 5'9". And I see this white male subject walking by right in front of the liquor store. And I said to Mr. Giddeo, his back was to the window, I said, is that him? And he turned around and said, yeah, that's him. And so he walks right into his apartment here.

Minutes later, Bailey leaves the apartment. Nelson is right on his heels. And he was walking across the lot here. My partner and I got in the unmarked squad car, the homicide squad, and we pull up on the wrong side of the street here where Mr. Bailey was, and approximately about right here, we got out of the car. He was smoking Camel cigarettes with the gold band underneath the filter, which were similar

to the cigarette butts that were found in the ashtray of the house. Nelson puts Bailey in the squad car and turns up the heat. I asked them why she had given him a check for $230, and he said, yeah, she wrote that to me. Why? Well, I did some work for her. What kind of work do you do for her? Well, I cut her grass. Yeah, I cut her grass. I cut her grass twice. How long ago?

A couple days ago. Well, we already knew the grass was 7, 8 inches tall. It hadn't been cut in weeks. I asked him what else he did. He said he did a brake job for a car. He said he'd clean up the battery posts. We knew that was a lie because both battery posts were caked heavily with an acid, crusted. So we felt very strongly that he was lying about everything he told us. The investigators bring Bailey into the station, read him his rights, and continue the questions.

Everything he told us was wrong. And Snowbeck, my partner, asked him about the check again, and Ron asked him, if she was already dead when the check was written, how could that be? And he said, quote, that's a good question. That was about the last thing he had said to us pertaining to this case. He didn't want to give us a written statement. Bailey is arrested and charged with the murder of Agnes Fafrowitz. Several months later, we found out from a burglary detective that he'd gotten Bailey in another set of three burglaries.

Two of them were occupied dwellings where he'd assaulted the older women. And we were like, what's he doing out of prison or out of jail? And we found out that the county attorney had dismissed the case. Dismissed the case against Bailey because the lab work came back and we didn't have DNA in them days. We were pretty mad. We were pretty mad. After six months in jail, Bailey is back on the streets. And the case slips into the cold files, where it will stay for more than 15 years. Until a key piece of evidence turns up in the unlikeliest of places.

There was no other evidence to be found anywhere. As far as I know, this was definitely the last shot. We're in the basement of Minneapolis City Hall, and this is the evidence storage unit. I had come here looking for evidence on a 1984 murder case of Agnes Fafruits. She was a 69-year-old female that had a heart attack during a rape. Barb Moe is a sergeant in the Minneapolis Homicide Squad. In May of 2000, she takes a call about a murder some 15 years cold. I received a phone call one day, and it was a woman, Virginia Golden. Her mother had been murdered in 1984, and she had called me. It was right around the anniversary of her mother's death. You can imagine, you know, without any kind of closure to this, she was still emotional about it,

and it still bothered her enough to make a phone call, you know, to ask for help. Mo agrees to take the case and heads to the property room. There she is dealt a blow. In this case, all the physical evidence on record had been destroyed in 1992. And it was inadvertently destroyed because at the time they were trying to make space in the evidence unit and clear it out of unnecessary evidence. And I think the property sheets from this murder case had just inadvertently been placed in amongst the others. And they were signed off as to be destroyed. Among the items destroyed, the rape kit, cigarette butts, and victim's clothing,

all items with potential for DNA. It's a mistake that could cost Mo her case. It was upsetting because this was a woman that was in her home living alone and a total innocent victim. So it's a case that you would like to see something come of. Somebody held accountable for it. Over the next several weeks, Mo works the case, searching for a way to tie the murder to her suspect, Bill Bailey. I knew that there had been an autopsy done, so naturally there would have been a sexual assault exam done,

which would have meant that they had obtained some samples from her. Moe wonders if perhaps the medical examiner kept his own samples in a separate storage area. The sergeant figures it's worth a shot. Extremely hopeful. That's all we had to go on. So, yeah, everything was riding on that. This is the underground storage facility of our hospital. We keep old records, old slides, equipment, anything that doesn't

actually have to be accessed on a regular basis. In the basement of a hospital in downtown Minneapolis, Nancy Rowan searches through row after row of evidence, hoping to find the one slide that could crack a cold case. It was just a regular cardboard box, and it was dated S.A. Slides, 1984. The boxes look like this, and they will have the year and then the number of the assault. Inside the box, Rowan finds two slides collected at autopsy. Well, I was glad that I had found it, because then we at least had a chance.

So I just pulled the slide and proceeded upstairs with it. We just were really unsure as to what to expect. Kathy Knutson is a DNA analyst. Essentially, that was a one-shot deal. You're working with limited sample, you're working with sub-quality, substandard quality DNA, and essentially you need to use it all when you do your one amplification.

On August 14, Knutson examines the slide. I need to get to it. It's like sandwiched in between two pieces of glass with some sticky glue in between, On the 13th, Knutson examines the slide. I need to get to it. It's like sandwiched in between two pieces of glass with some sticky glue in between, and I wasn't going to be able... There's no way that I could get these cells off without removing all of that.

Knutson uses heat to melt the glue and get to the DNA. Now, basically, just by waving it over the heat, what this is doing is it's softening that mounting medium and you'll see bubbles and you'll see it start to pull apart. Knudsen is able to extract a partial profile from the slide. When compared to Bill Bailey, it's a match. You wouldn't expect to see this particular five locus DNA type more than once in 15 million individuals. I guess that's what DNA does.

Barb Koob is Agnes Fafrowitz's granddaughter. She has been waiting 16 years for a phone call from police. I once heard something like, DNA is the finger of God pointing down saying you did it. And that's kind of how I felt about finally, you know, they're going to get him. In December of 2000, Barb's prayers are answered as Bill Bailey is charged with the murder of Agnes Fefrowitz. I knew from looking at his criminal history that he was a very dangerous person that deserved a lengthy sentence. So that was our mindset. Mike Fernstahl prosecutes the case against Bailey. We felt fairly confident.

We had, obviously, the DNA evidence was very important to us. The handwriting evidence was important. We had Bailey being in possession of a stolen check, and we had him giving a story that we could prove was not true. So we felt fairly confident. The trial opens in February of 2002. After nearly three weeks, the jury returns a verdict. Barb Koob is there as the guilty verdict is read. All the cousins were holding hands, and we all just, yes! So, yeah, and crying, and yeah, we were, it was done.

It was over, and he was going to get punished for it. Yeah, so it was a relief. The relief, however, is short-lived, as the conviction is overturned two years later on a Miranda rights violation. After he was advised and he waived his rights, his story didn't change. So it was disappointing for them to rule that the statements were taken involuntarily.

I knew he was a very dangerous person, and so we were going to go back and start over again and retry him with every intention of convicting him again. More than one year later, Bailey is back in court. On September 21, 2005, a second jury finds Bailey guilty of murder. I feel he's a psychotic personality. He's a very violent person. Sergeant Bob Nelson has waited more than two decades to see Bailey punished for his crimes. He's the type of person that should be in prison the rest of his life, and I think now he will be.

I don't think he's got emotion. I don't think he's got a conscience. He can't. To do what he did to her and other women, he can't have a conscience. At sentencing, Barb Goob has a chance to tell the court about the grandmother she has lost. Throughout the trial, I think everybody thinks of her as the victim and forgets she was a person. So I can't express what she was to our family, that she had a lot of friends. She's a God-fearing woman. She was a member of our family we all missed. Billy Bailey is currently 65 years old and continuing to serve a life sentence in Minnesota.

Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our associate producer is Julie Magruder. 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 Podcasts 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.