Cold Case Files - The Bathtub Killer

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

After a pregnant woman is found sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in her bathtub in New Hampshire attempts at a DNA match are unsuccessful. 10 Years later a presentation on another unsolved homicide, in a similar manner, helps investigators to connect the dots. Babbel - Get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription at Babbel.com/COLDCASE

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. March 4th, 1987. Snow begins to fall in the early evening. By midnight, the area is thick with it. And at sunup, over a foot covers the ground. As the town of Dublin, New Hampshire begins to dig out, police receive a 911 call. The request? Not for another snowplow, but an ambulance. Yeah, I need an ambulance over here at the old Jubilee Farm in Dublin, New Hampshire. What's the problem? My wife's dead in the bathtub.

Okay, what's your name? Gary LaFond is 25 years old. His wife, 23-year-old Michelle LaFond. The couple had been married four years and were expecting their first child. Within an hour, New Hampshire State Police Sergeant Clay Young enters the LaFond home. We could not see any forced entry, which for us was at least a place to start. Inside the house itself, you could see that there had been a struggle. An overturned chair, a cut wire, signs of a struggle between Michelle and her attacker,

lead from the kitchen to the upstairs bedroom, where police find sheets stained with blood and a knotted nightshirt. In the upstairs bathroom, Sgt. Young finds Michelle Lafon's body, raped and strangled, lying face up in the bathtub. The marks on her body indicated that she had been restrained or tied and there were what appeared to be some form of ligature marks around her neck. Placement of the half-naked body in the bathtub strikes Young as unusual, perhaps indicative of some sort of sexual sadist. The detective begins his investigation at home.

Under circumstances like this, you just start right close to the home and spread out in terms of the people that you talk to trying to develop information. Suspects were developed, but suspects were also eliminated. The technology of 1987 is unable to lift a genetic fingerprint from the semen samples recovered from LaFond's body. The blood type, however, is developed,

and Young tests every white male he can find looking for a match. We were never able to identify, at least from the suspects we knew at the time, who might have been responsible for this. We were able to eliminate a few, but we could never conclusively say it was anybody. In time, the case goes cold. Michelle LaFond's rape kit is put into storage, and Sergeant Young must wait for a sexual sadist to strike again.

You're hopeful, but at the same time, you're guarded in terms that you just can't say, well, we're going to really solve this. You think someday we may be able to, but at the moment, where it stands to. Ten years and 1,400 miles distant from the Lafon murder, a group of law enforcement officers gathers for its annual conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. On the morning of December 8th, forensic investigator Lou Eliopoulos gives a slide presentation on cold case homicide investigations. He ends with the unsolved murder of Dina Kitchler. We would average anywhere between

150 to 200 homicides a year. So you kind of know when a special homicide comes in. So from the standpoint of what was done to her, what we had at the scene, we knew it was a special homicide. Dina Kitchler was raped and strangled in her Jacksonville home. Her killer sexually assaulted the body and cut the corpse's hair in an upstairs bathtub. Eliopoulos tells the conference Florida's main suspect may have been the last person to see Kitchler alive, a loner named John Brewer. Detectives, however, failed to develop sufficient evidence to prosecute Brewer. As Eliopoulos outlines the parameters of the Kichler case, he notices a detective in the front row of the audience. And this detective is just turning

pale. I mean, I can just see the blood going right out of his face. The detective is Jim Tucker, a lieutenant with the Portsmouth Police Department and familiar with unsolved homicides in his home state of New Hampshire. Lou looked at me and says, there's a problem. And I guess I had my mouth open or something. And I just asked him, I said, please don't tell me this guy's from New Hampshire. Eliopoulos tells Tucker not only did John Brewer spend time in New Hampshire, he was probably living there in 1987, the year Michelle LaFond was murdered. A one-hour slide presentation in St. Petersburg,

Florida, has breathed new life into a New Hampshire murder, cold for more than a decade. Tucker returns to Portsmouth to find out what other connections John Brewer might have in the Granite State. David Kelly was in college when Michelle LaFond was murdered. 11 years later, he heads the cold case squad that handles her case for the New Hampshire State Police. On January 27, he gets a call from Lieutenant Tucker in Portsmouth. The lieutenant briefs Kelly on the Kitchler bathtub homicide and gives him the suspect's name, John Brewer. I took the name and it was very interesting what he had to tell me. It was a spark.

The first step for Tucker and Kelly is to find a connection between John Brewer and Michelle LaFond. Tucker opens up the case file from the Jacksonville homicide investigation. Inside, he finds the link he needs. Looking at the paperwork, they had a job application for John Brewer, and on the job application, it had Michelle LaFond's husband listed as a reference. To me, that was huge. We now had John Brewer working in the area at the same company as the murder victim's husband. The circumstantial case against John Brewer is gaining in strength.

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smart kids and families to navigate life together. Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to greenlight.com slash coldcase. That's greenlight.com slash coldcase to try Greenlight for free. Greenlight.com slash coldcase. In a quiet New Hampshire town inside a small home, a young woman named Michelle LaFond is found raped and murdered. 1,400 miles away in the shaded heat of northern Florida, a second woman lies dead. Her name is Dina Kichler. She too is raped and murdered. Two homicides, yet the two seem as one.

Both homicides were of a sexual nature. Both victims were home alone at the time that they died. In both victims, there was some sort of a struggle. They're both young girls, both very attractive, had dark hair, similar size, and immediately, I mean, they look like they could have been sisters. Thomas Simos investigates cold cases for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service out of Jacksonville, Florida. David Kelly does the same for the New Hampshire State Police. Because Dina Kitchler was the wife of a Navy seaman and attacked while living in civilian housing,

Simos works the Florida case. In January of 1998, he opens the cold case file to find the name John Brewer, a loner identified as the last person to see Dina Kichler alive and a prime suspect in the slaying. Kelly also connects Brewer to the LaFond slaying via a job application that indicates that Brewer actually worked for Michelle's husband, Gary.

With each corner we turned, we were finding out a little bit more of the information that was constantly leading us towards John Brewer. Kelly sends a LaFond murder file to Florida. A Seamos and Florida medical examiner, Lou Eliopoulos, compare specifics with the Kichler case. The pattern of behavior is compelling. Both of his cases involve women that probably let or opened the door for the perpetrator. Both of them sustained a blitz-style attack for no reason. This person just started beating them up.

Both were taken upstairs to the bedrooms. They were both sexually assaulted on the beds. There was some type of sexual curiosity after death, and both cases involved a sharp cutting tool and the use of a bathtub. The method of murder is distinct, and cold case detectives believe growing progressively worse. In 1987, Michelle Lafon's death was a quick one. Not so three years later for Dena Kitchler.

It appears the killer lingered over Kitchler, sexually assaulting her with a bar of soap and a screwdriver, then cutting her hair after death. There were some things that were done to the body. From a sexual homicide standpoint, this person's playing with the body. And he's playing with the body based on his deviated sexual fantasies. So he has graduated to doing more things, and he's carrying his fantasies or what have you farther with Dina.

When seen together, the LaFon and Kichler slayings reveal the mind of a sexual sadist, one who is growing increasingly violent and, if not stopped, likely to hunt and kill again. In the course of his investigation, Asimos also contacts an old girlfriend of Brewer to ask about their relationship and hopefully gather some useful information. One interesting thing that she told us was that John was obsessed with her in the bathtub. She said she couldn't turn the water on in the bathtub to take a bath without him showing up at the door. Brewer's girlfriend claims the suspect insisted on watching her take a bath and appeared to gain sexual pleasure from it. The story is another link in the chain of circumstance and coincidence that binds John Brewer to two murders in two separate states. Only one state, however, has a realistic chance

of securing a conviction. Unlike Florida, the state of New Hampshire has a DNA profile of their suspect attained from semen recovered from Michelle Lafon's rape kit. Up until now, however, they've had no suspect for comparison. Florida provides the suspect and his DNA profile. Well, I told him, we have John Brewer's DQ-alpha numbers. How about let me just fax those up to you? So I pulled the laboratory report, faxed them up to Dave Kelly. About 20 minutes later, he called me back and very excited,

said we've got a match, the DQ alpha numbers match. The DNA match is enough to arrest Brewer for the murder of Michelle LaFond. Little comfort for Jacksonville detectives who want Brewer arrested on two counts of murder instead of one. At that point, we really said, okay, let's do everything we can to get Brewer charged with Michelle LaFond's homicide. Once we do that, then if the opportunity presents itself, then we'll take another crack with Dina's case.

On October 23rd, New Hampshire detective John Kelly confronts John Brewer in front of his Jacksonville home. He is there to bring Brewer in for questioning about the murder of Michelle LaFond. Kelly's case centers on semen found at the scene of the crime and linked to Brewer through DNA testing. Kelly, however, wants more. I wanted to place him there. I mean, forensically I had him there, but I really wanted to talk to him about why he may have been there. At first, Brewer claims he never knew Michelle LaFond. Then, feeling the heat of a DNA match, the suspect adjusts his story.

He tells Kelly he was having an affair with Michelle LaFond. They had sex the morning she died, and he left the house before she was murdered. The bruises on the victim's body tell Kelly otherwise. Whatever else she did that morning, the acts of sex Michelle Lafon endured were not consensual. There was no question in my mind at that time that I was looking at the murderer of Michelle Lafon. Fast forward to the end of 2024. Think of your goals. What can you do right now to give yourself

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Babbel is better. One study found that using Babbel for 15 hours is equivalent to a full semester at college. Babbel has over 16 million subscriptions sold. Plus, all of Babbel's 14 award-winning language courses are backed by their 20-day money-back guarantee. Here's a special limited-time deal for our listeners. Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash coldcase. Get up to 60% off at babbel.com slash coldcase, spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash coldcase. Rules and restrictions may apply. Kelly begins the extradition process to New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Brewer is handed over to Florida detectives. With the camera rolling, Brewer is questioned a second time,

this time about the murder of Dina Kichler. You go as far as you can go. You push that envelope as far as you can push it, but you've got to keep him still talking to you and comfortable with the interview. After more than two hours of interrogation, Brewer confesses to adultery and nothing more. Sure, I wanted more. There was a lot of really brutal things that were done that would really kind of detail what type of person he is and how the later post-mortem mutilation went to that level. I wanted that. He didn't want to do that.

At the end of the day, Florida cannot gather enough evidence to charge Brewer in the Kichler case. Instead, they pack him off to the airport and to date with a DNA match in New Hampshire. On April 17th, John Brewer walks into a New Hampshire courtroom faced with the possibility of lethal injection. Brewer decides to cut his losses. He pleads guilty, first in New Hampshire and then in Florida, for raping and strangling two women he barely knew. In return, both states agree not to seek the death penalty, and Brewer is sentenced to life without parole in the New Hampshire state prison. For cold case detectives, the conviction allows them to offer a bit of comfort for the families of two dead women and

perhaps more importantly ensures that a sexual predator will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Whether there's other people out there or not that we don't know about, I like to think that there won't be a third. Some person out there is gonna be walking around today because of this, because of this investigation. I'd like to think that as a homicide detective, as a policeman. I think we all strive for that.

And I think we've done that in this case. Although he pleaded guilty in both cases, John Brewer now claims he is innocent. In a letter to investigative reports, Brewer writes, I am totally innocent in both cases. I was framed by people who just wanted to resolve a case any way they felt necessary to achieve a conviction and seek political gain for themselves. Cold case detectives call this a case of killer's amnesia. They say science has the best memory. And in the case of the bathtub killer,

leaving his DNA at the crime scene assures John Brewer will never forget he is a murderer. Cold Case Files is hosted by Marissa Pinson, produced by Jeff DeRay, and distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by Bill Curtis. Check out more cold case files at anetv.com. It's summertime and with Pluto TV Summer of Cinema, the streaming is easy. Stream hundreds of free movies on all your favorite devices all summer long. Chill out poolside with Mission Impossible and Transformers. Or stay cool inside watching Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Titanic, or The Wolf of Wall Street.

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