Cold Case Files - REOPENED: Unicorns and Alligators

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

The disappearance of a 8-year-old Rima Traxler kicks off a manhunt for a shadowy figure seen driving away with Rima the day she went missing. When police finally capture the culprit, they'll discover that Rima isn't his only victim. Check out our great sponsors! Shopify: Sign up for a FREE trial at Shopify.com/coldcase  Progressive: Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive!

Hey, Cold Case fans, we have something special for you. We're bringing you double the episodes every week. We know you dedicated fans need your fix in between new episodes. So every Thursday, we are back bringing some of our best episodes from previous seasons. Let us know which classic episodes you'd like to hear again in the comments. And don't worry, we'll see you back here every Tuesday for all new episodes of Cold Case Files 2. Now, on to the episode. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Use your best judgment.

In 1985, Rima Traxler was eight years old. She lived with her mother and younger brother in Longview, Washington. Rima's mother, Danelle, and her stepfather, Rusty, were separating. Rusty had been the only father Rima had known. He described her as a smart, independent girl who liked to play with Barbies and draw unicorns. Danelle described her daughter as a mama's girl who liked riding horses, wearing dresses, and having her hair braided. She also mentioned Rima's love of unicorns. Danelle had run away from home as a teenager. She met Carl Flensburg, Rima's biological father, while spending time in Alaska.

Rima was in the second grade at St. Helens Elementary School, which only provided buses for children who lived farther than one mile from the school. The school offered personal safety lessons each year, teaching kids not to talk to strangers and to report abusive or dangerous situations. Rima's mother had even taught her daughter a code word, in case she was ever approached by a stranger. On May 15, 1985, Rima, who was about 4 feet tall and 45 pounds, wore a pink shirt and a tan skirt to school. Her mother waited for her after school. Rima usually arrived around 3 p.m. after walking the 10 blocks to her home. On that day, though, Rima didn't come home.

She never came home again. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. Come 3.30, Rima didn't come home from school. She should have been home between 3.15 and 3.30, Rima didn't come home from school, and she should have been home between 3.15, 3.30. So I walked up to the school, and she wasn't at the school plan. That was Sunil, Rima's mother. She called the police and frantically searched for her missing daughter. All the places that we thought she might have been or gone to or people she knew

that lived in the area and you know we started looking for her and couldn't find her. I was just praying that she'd be found and come home. Donnell told the police that she didn't think Rima would have run away unless she was influenced by an older child. She she didn't think Rima would have run away, unless she was influenced by an older child. She also didn't think Rima would have gone with a stranger if they didn't know the code word, which was unicorn. Besides Rima and her mother, Rusty, Rima's stepfather, also knew the code word. A woman claimed to have seen Rima after school on a street close to the home of Rusty Traxler, where Rima and her mom had lived before Rusty and Danelle split up. He denied any involvement in Rima's disappearance, and the police weren't able to find any evidence that connected him.

The police also investigated possible involvement by Rima's biological father in Alaska, but once again found no evidence. In June of 1985, the police published a thank you to the people who helped search for Rima and an announcement. Though they were no longer actively searching for the girl, the case would stay open until she was found. Rima's picture was on billboards, flyers, and in the local paper, weekly.

People donated money to help pay for the printing costs and long-distance phone calls. Danelle didn't lose hope that her daughter would be found. She even celebrated Rima's birthday, which was on November 9th. Everyone who attended the celebration got a cupcake with a candle, so they could all make a wish for Rima's return. Sadly, those wishes didn't come true, and the only lead in Rima's case would come in the form of another kidnapping. I'm Lola. And I'm Megan. And we're the hosts of Trust Me, cults, extreme belief, and manipulation. We both have childhood cult experiences,

and we're here to debunk the myths about people who join them and show that anyone can be manipulated. Our past interviews include survivors and former members of the Manson family, NXIVM, MS-13, Teal Swan, Heaven's Gate, Children of God, and the Branch Davidians. Join us every week as we help you spot the red flags. Get new episodes of Trust Me every Wednesday on Podcast One or wherever you get your podcasts. In November of 1996,

10 years after Rima had disappeared, Kara Rudd was 12 years old. During the previous school year, Kara had some truancy issues at school, but she had really started to get serious about her education. She attended regularly and was improving her grades. Her family described her as a strong person who was independent, smart, and resilient. She was about four foot six inches with blonde hair and blue eyes. On November 21st, she arrived at school early, around 725 for breakfast. Her mother, Janet, had sole custody. Kara's father was in prison. A few people saw Kara before school started,

but she told a friend that she wasn't going to be in class, and she was seen getting into a Pontiac Firebird. Kara's mom, Janet LaPre, waited at the bus stop for her daughter. What we were asking of her is just to be safe. It doesn't matter if they're your friend or if they're mom's friend or dad's friend. If they don't know the code word, don't go with them. Janet called Kara's cousin, who was

also her friend and classmate, to ask if she had seen Kara. My niece told me that Joseph Condrell took her in the morning, and then my heart just dropped. I'm like, oh my god. Joe Condrell had lived in the garage at Janet and Kara's home during the summer. He was down on his luck and needed a place to stay. Unfortunately, Janet had to ask Condro to leave the home. He had a violent temper. She said that he would get drunk and black out and sometimes even threaten the children. According to Janet, Condro blamed Kara for being forced to leave his rent-free

accommodations, and he wasn't very happy about it. Janet called the police, afraid of what Condro might do to her daughter. Kara's cousin told the police what happened that morning. This is Officer Chuck Davis. They were waiting around outside for school, at which time Joe Condro had pulled up in his 1982 Firebird. The two girls then conversed with Joe. At that time, Kara Rudd had got in the car with Joe. After a few minutes, Kara got back out of the car and it drove off. She told her cousin that she wasn't going to school that day and that Condro was going to meet her at a nearby park.

He promised to take Kara to the woods to spend the day. Officer Davis believed that it was likely that Kara didn't run away. I made a call to my supervisor and advised him that the circumstances of this were beyond a normal runaway. And in fact, I told him that I thought this could actually turn into a homicide. Twelve hours after Kara's disappearance, Officer Davis brought Joe Condro in for questioning. He said that he had seen Kara earlier that morning, but didn't see her again after he drove away.

Davis noticed something about Condro that he thought was suspicious. I noticed that he had multiple scratches on both of his arms, and I asked him how those had happened, and he told me that those scratches were the result of him being blocked out of his residence earlier that morning, and he had had to crawl through his window to get back into the house, and thus he had scratched his arms. The scratches alone weren't evidence enough to hold Kondro, so he was released. A team was put together to help find out what had happened to Kara.

Detectives Jim Dusha and Steve Rahom were both on the team. Janet warned the detectives about Condro's violent behavior and grudge against her daughter. This is Detective Dusha. She said that as far as she was concerned, Joe Condro was the one that took her daughter and he probably had killed her. As each hour passed, the chances of finding Kara alive decreased. The detectives started by retracing Kara's steps on the day she disappeared. They hoped that mapping her movements could help them to determine possible locations she'd been taken. This is Detective Rahom. We knew the time he was seen at Monticello Junior High with her,

and we knew when he was seen in Kelso, Washington, applying for a job. So we knew that he only had about a two-hour time period. So that helped us determine how far he could drive. Six weeks after the team assembled, an acquaintance of Condro's was able to provide the detectives with information to narrow their search. We found an old roommate that had lived with Joe Kondro that said Joe liked to go up on Mount Solo. He described exactly the road up and how many turns to get to this one dead-end road, where Joe liked to take women up there, he liked to drink and he liked to do drugs up there

because it was so isolated that nobody came up there. The detectives went to Mount Solo and searched the area. They discovered a clearing that seemed suspicious. Here's Detective Dusha again. As we were all standing there, we said, this is a likely area where her body is. It had the mud that was found on his car. It had the grass that was found on his car. Everything fit into place from the description that his roommate gave us. A rescue team was assembled to search Mount Solo for Kara, but the train made the search difficult.

Here's Detective Rahome again. We have the Cowlitz River to our east. We have the huge Columbia River to the south and west. And it was sort of the needle in the haystack. You know, if we got lucky, it was going to be very lucky. There were probably five or six different groups from different counties and explorer scouts, professional search and rescue people. And we had specific areas in West Longview that we wanted searched,

and specifically Mount Solo. About 50 people were part of the search team, and they searched all morning without finding anything useful. Early in the afternoon, one of the searchers, Lieutenant Mike Parker, saw something. We had covered quite an area, started in behind myself and then went quite a ways north of this location. And we were coming back down and I was looking down in the ravine and saw an old Volkswagen car body.

Parker made his way down to the car to see if there were any signs of Kara. When I got down to the car, I couldn't open the trunk lid, but I could look inside the main passenger portion of the car, and that's where I found a big black wad of material. So as I was lifting it up, out fell Kara's bra. Inside the car was Kara's nearly naked body. Her torso had almost completely decomposed.

The lower half of her body was intact. Here's Detective Rahom again. Because of the slope, because of the water runoff, the way her body had been placed underneath the vehicle, basically from the waist down, was preserved as if she had been in a refrigerator.

Kara's remains were sent to the crime lab. Forensic pathologist Larry Luman was asked to examine the remains for evidence. The six weeks of exposure made a routine autopsy impossible. Here's Larry Luman. Her head was largely skeletonized. Her neck organs had basically been removed by animals, which would preclude a diagnosis of strangulation, which you would suspect in something like this. With only Kara's lower half to examine, Luhmann focused on saving any bodily fluids that were

present. In any case like this, as a matter of routine, we would take oral swabs, rectal swabs, vaginal swabs, looking for seminal material, and ultimately DNA, which would be determined by some crime laboratory, and that was done in this case. The swabs were sent to the DNA lab at San Diego's police department. Criminalist Patrick O'Donnell tested for traces of semen, though the odds were slim. I got very excited when I examined the one rectal swab that had been taken at autopsy, and I realized after doing microscopy that even though she had been out six weeks, that there was still some sperm present on the swab.

O'Donnell was able to form a DNA profile from the sample collected from Kara. He compared that profile to the DNA signature of Joe Condro. It was a match. O'Donnell shared his findings with prosecutor Jim Stonier. When I told them that I in fact had found sperm on a rectal swab and that the DNA analysis indicated that it was consistent with Joseph Condondro, their suspect, his mouth was just wide open. Stonier believed the DNA evidence would be extremely compelling in a trial. It gave scientific evidence of two things.

One that he was the perpetrator and also the seriousness of what he did. He had raped that young girl, and we could prove that he had done it. And the power of that evidence in front of a jury is just overwhelming. Jim Stonier filed a capital murder charge against Joseph Condro, meaning he would be executed if convicted. In an attempt to avoid the death penalty, Condro's attorney approached the prosecutors about a possible deal. The information Condro was willing to trade for his life

was why 8-year-old Rima Traxler had disappeared and how Joe Condro had killed her. Detective Scott McDaniel was assigned to interview Joe Condro as part of the deal Condro's attorney made with the prosecutor. The purpose of the interview was for Condro to share the details of Rima Traxler's murder. Here's Detective McDaniel. I just right off the bat, I said, well, Joe, you know why we're here. And basically, I just need you to tell me what happened.

And he told me the whole story. Condro explained that he had once been a friend of Rusty Traxler, Rima's stepfather. Through that friendship, he had learned about the password, Unicorn, that Rima had been taught to use when dealing with strangers. He used the password to gain Rima's trust. Here's a portion of the interview tape. I pulled up, but she seen me, and she approached the truck. I rolled my window down.

She goes, hi, Joe. And I said, hi, I'm here to pick you up. The password is unicorn. Get in. She gets in my truck, bang, closes the door. He then took Rima to a nearby creek to swim. Condra told Rima her parents would meet them there. Which was a complete lie. It was just a ploy to get her to take her clothes off so I wouldn't have to take them off later. At that time, I intended to kill her.

That's when I hit her in the side of the head in the temple right here, in the temple area. She was, like, looking at the river, you know, standing up. And I came up and I hit her in the side of the head. She fell down and knocked her out. After he knocked her out, Condra said he choked Rima and crushed her head with a rock.

Then he hid her body behind a log. Picked up some ferns that were there, threw the ferns on top of her and around by the log to camouflage the area. Detective McDaniel asked Condra why he chose to rape and murder children. Condro didn't hesitate before he answered. The example I can give is like an alligator. They eat and then they sink to the bottom of the river and digest their food for weeks

and then they're ready to do it again. That's how I am. I could wait another 10 years and then they're ready to do it again. That's how I am. I could wait another 10 years, and I'd always want to do that again. 14 years after Reema went missing, and two months after Joe Condro made his statement, a search party was sent to the creek where Condro claimed to have left Rima's body. Unfortunately, they weren't able to find any evidence of Rima Traxler's remains. Even though they weren't able to find a body, the cold case detectives believed that they knew what happened to Rima.

Joe Condrell was sentenced to 51 years in prison and thought someday he might be eligible for parole. But his own words made it unlikely that it would ever be granted. There's no way in hell that you can get me to change the way I think about sex with younger people. There's just no way. I mean, to the day I die, that's what I prefer. I'm a sick mother. Joseph Condro is a suspect in the disappearance of at least five young girls in the Pacific Northwest. Detective McDaniel corresponded with him regularly in prison,

hoping someday he would confess to the other killings. Condro hadn't confessed to anything when he died in prison in 2012 at the age of 52. Rima Traxler's remains were never found, and her mother Danelle had trouble accepting her daughter's fate without them. In 1997, she saw a picture of a homeless girl in Texas and thought that it was her daughter's face. Police investigated the lead, but it wasn't Rima Traxler. Tanel continues to search. 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.