Cold Case Files - The Flaming Gorge - Caught in the Mail

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

A man suspected of the cold case murder of his wife and son hatches a new plot to kill his mother and father; and detectives solve the 20-year-old murder of a teenager by tricking her killer into licking an envelope, then extracting DNA from the saliva.Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.Mint: To get the new customer offer and your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to Mintmobile.com/coldcaseProgressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.Rosetta Stone: Cold Case Files listeners can get Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50% off when you go to RosettaStone.com/coldcaseZazzle: Go to Zazzle.com for 25% off your first order!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Want instant MVP status? Join the new Dick's Scorecard Plus program. For $99, ScoreCard Plus members enjoy one year packed with perks, like $80 in annual bonus rewards, free shipping with no minimum purchase, triple points on two purchases, and more. That's over $160 in benefits. Join Dick's ScoreCard Plus today and score more than ever.

Tap the banner to learn more. Exclusions and terms apply. Visit dix.com slash scorecard plus for details. This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories.

Seven miles outside the town of Green River, Wyoming, the Lost Dog Trail heads south into a canyon called the Flaming Gorge. Sergeant Kevin Alvesteffer patrols this wilderness for sweetwater County. On August 10th, 1996, at a little after 3 p.m., he gets a call. A man had called in on a cell phone stating that his wife and child had fallen off of a cliff. He went on to say that he didn't know if they were dead or not, but he could hear them gurgling. The man on the phone identifies himself as Bob Duke, but is unsure of his exact location. Forty minutes later, Alva Steffer finds Duke at the top of a cliff. In a heap,

on the rocks below, Lai Duke's wife, Leanna, and his five-year-old son, Eric. Duke tells police the young family had chosen the cliff for their afternoon picnic. His wife and child were out on the point. His child was chasing lizards. He had went back to his vehicle to get something to drink when he heard his wife yell his name. He went out onto the point and found them missing. He looked over the edge and saw the bodies. The top of the cliff is flat. and littered with broken rock. At the edge is a drop of more than 100 feet. Duke tells Alva Steffer he tried but was unable

to get down the cliff to check on his family. The Green River Fire Department, including Lieutenant Doug Stewart, is called to the scene. Unlike Bob Duke, they find the slopes surrounding this particular cliff to be less than treacherous. We went about 30, 40 yards north,

walked down the hill to the victims. It wasn't real easy. Pretty steep terrain, very rocky, a lot of loose rock. But it wasn't that difficult. We've dealt with worse. Within a few minutes, the team has reached the victims who are already dead. Doug Stewart calls up for what the fire department calls a Stokes basket, used in this case to transport two corpses,

a mother and child out of the flaming gorge. I recall when we placed them in Stokes, We put the mother in first, then we put the baby in, and we took Mama's arm and put it over the baby. Somebody patted the little fellow on the head and said, sorry, little buddy. It's not right. In the wilderness outside Green River, police and firefighters make a living, rescuing people who have wandered too close to nature's edge. All of the rescue personnel, however, have an uneasy feeling about the deaths of Leanna and Eric Duke. None of them are convinced it was an accident. I didn't know what to believe at that point.

You try to give the person a benefit of a doubt. I mean, it's a horrendous thing to have happened. It just didn't seem right. The whole deal, the whole situation was not right in my mind. Several things bothered the crew. First, contrary to what Bob Duke claims, the cliff itself is not hard to negotiate. It only takes rescue workers a few minutes to walk to the body.

Second is Duke's attitude at the scene. It's not what authorities would expect from a man who has just seen his entire family killed at an afternoon picnic. He seemed very nonchalant at the time. To begin with, I was attributing it toward shock. But the more conversation that I listened to him have with other people, it just didn't sit right with me. It seemed rather calm, just very good. quiet. Didn't really say anything. If you asked him a question, he would answer the question, but really wouldn't elaborate on anything. Beyond Duke himself is the cliff and its obvious dangers.

Common sense tells the workers a mother would never take her child anywhere close to its edge. We all, I'm sure, thought the same thing. How could this happen to two of them? That seemed to be the general consensus. It was a shock to all and nobody could actually believe that It did happen as an accident. It just didn't seem possible. Concern over the deaths is so widespread, each of the firefighters writes down his thoughts concerning the case, providing a record in the event charges should ever be filed.

With no hard evidence of foul play, however, the deaths are ruled to be accidental. Bob Duke collects $60,000 in life insurance, and the case is closed before it ever gets a chance to go cold. Just the lack of evidence. There was, as far as I could tell, no physical evidence at the scene. There wasn't anything that you could actually stick out and use as evidence as a smoking gun. The case stays closed for two and a half years, until Bob makes a call to an old friend.

Bob, it seems, has a favor to ask. He says, well, I want you to do something for me. Like, what are you talking about? He says, well, I want you to kill my parents. And he offered me 20 grand. off me 20 grand. He goes, I know you need the money I'm giving you the first offer, the first shot at this. Incredibly, Roger isn't surprised at Bob's offer. According to Browberger, Bob asked him to kill his wife and son two and a half years earlier in 1996, shortly before they fell to

their deaths from the cliff in Wyoming. He said, okay, how much is it going to cost? He goes, I'll give you 20 grand. He goes, I'll leave the 22 out behind the shed. We'll be barbecuing Thursday. Shoot me in arm, try and miss the bone, to my wife and kid in the head and chest, and take out as many neighbor kids as you need to, to make it not look so isolated. And they told him, this is, this is out of line. That's crazy. And then on the third and final time he offered me to kill the wife of the kid, I told him, you need to do yourself in favor and get a divorce, you know, because this is just the acceptable. It can't just go around killing people. When Browberger had first learned about the deaths of Leanna and Eric, he immediately suspected

it wasn't an accident. He didn't, however, approach police or confront his friend. If I went to the police, I would have been my word against his. And I would have been attacking, you know, someone verbally attacking someone who just went through a personal tragedy. And he would have known that I suspected that he was behind it. Now two and a half years later, Bob Duke is back and wants his parents dead. This time, Browberger decides he needs to talk to someone.

They went to my father first because I couldn't believe it was happening again. I told my dad, this is the way it was with the wife and kid, and this is what happened. And now he's coming to me about the parents. I don't want to see anybody else killed. And he told me to go to the police. He didn't believe me, but he told me to go to police. Roger Browberger calls Mont Meekam, father of an old schoolmate, and a lieutenant with the Green River Police Department. He called me at the house.

Really didn't want to talk over the phone and said he needed some help. He was in big trouble, and I tried to get to, I said, Roger, what's going on? here. Browberger tells Meekum about Bob's plans for his parents and what Browberger suspects about Duke's dead wife and child. The thing that probably convinced me the mosque was his state of a panic. I mean, this was somebody that was in need of some help. We walked him through the story for probably two hours. And anytime someone makes that type of an allegation, your next step is to get proof somehow. Meekam sets up a phone sting and asks Browberger to push for specifics on how Duke wants his parents

killed. But by the time they get Duke on the phone, his plans have changed. Now he asks Browberger only to act as a lookout, while Duke himself shoots his parents in their home. What was the plan then? As far as like a signal? Like a... That's just... That's something...

I don't know. It's going to depend. You know, let me... It might be something like, you know, if the porch light is off. Something simple like that. It's not going to be like loud that's going to wait to neighbors or nothing, is it?

No. Okay. Cool. The recording puts some substance behind Browberger's story. Mekam puts in a call to the FBI and they agree to get involved in the case. Todd Scott is a special.

special agent with the Bureau. The FBI took this very seriously and we immediately began a background investigation on Bob Duke very rapidly trying to find out who this gentleman was, what his past was, where he was living. Scott doesn't have to dig very far to find a motive for murder. Since 1996, Bob Duke has lived off the insurance money from his wife and son's death. Now that money is gone. If his parents were dead, Bob Duke was dead.

Bob Duke would stand to receive another infusion of insurance cash. Bob Duke had been struggling financially for quite some time. Credit card bills, rent, things were adding up, and he was in some financial, having some financial problems. Scott and Meekam agree the best way to build their case is with more specific admissions from Bob himself. They set up a second phone sting with Roger Browberger, now posing as an eager trigger man.

Remember when we talked before about the $20,000 for killing your parents? Yeah. Hey, I'm thinking I might want that. Do it. The telephone conversation that occurred on January the 7th, 1999, Bob Duke went into great detail in the plans of how he was going to, how his parents should be killed. When he'd do it quiet enough.

Right. I think it needs me more than a door flame. Okay. Okay. And everybody's closed up this time. There's open windows or anything like that. Right. It just seemed very cold.

And the tenor of the conversation on January the 7th was one that was very cold and calculated. Just wait till they walk in and then catch them off guard? Yeah. Okay. Gotta be together because my dad does have a gun at them. Right. The management in the FBI and the police department, we felt that we couldn't let this go on any longer. On January 8, 1999, FBI agents burst into a home in Houston, Texas, and arrest Bob Duke for conspiring to kill his parents.

Bob Duke told the FBI agents in Houston at the time of his arrest that, yes, he had talked to Roger Browberger about killing him. his parents, but that he believed that it was all a joke and he wasn't serious about it. Federal authorities, however, take the matter very seriously. Four months later, Duke pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and is sentenced to 10 years in a federal penitentiary. Two potential murders had been prevented, but that still leaves Bob Duke's wife and son. Their deaths, which had been considered accidents, now appear to be nothing short of murder. The question The question for cold case investigators in Wyoming is how do they prove it? They had ruled it an accident, in my opinion, way too early.

One person falls off the cliff, but not too. Not too. Something's wrong. Something's desperately wrong. I've seen my share of homicides in 18 and a half years in this department. This is the most gruesome, heinous case that I have ever been involved with. And I wasn't about to give up. Never crossed my mind. Learning something new as an adult can be tough.

You start out motivated, and then somewhere along the way, it gets overwhelming or hard to stay consistent, and you just don't know what to focus on next. That's why having the right tools makes such a difference. Rosetta Stone, who's been a leader in language learning for over 30 years, just launched a new app called Rosetta Stone Sapphire. And it really feels built for how people actually learn today. It combines their immersive method with newer technology to help you move faster and stay engaged. Sapphire gives you everything you need in one easy to use. app, structured lessons, conversation practice, pronunciation tools, personalized feedback, and comprehensive vocabulary building. What stands out to me is how personalized it is.

Instead of generic lessons, you can focus on the things you actually want to talk about, travel, work, hobbies, whatever matters to you. And their new chat missions lets you practice real conversations, like asking for directions or making plans in a low pressure, interactive way with instant feedback. Having all the tools you need all in one place makes language learning more useful and easier to stick with. If you want to take your language skills to the next level, don't wait to try Rosetta Stone Sapphire. Calfire listeners can get 20% off their Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when they sign up today. You'll get unlimited access to all 25 Rosetta Stone languages, plus all the new Sapphire learning tools. Visit rosettastone.com slash cold case to redeem your 20% off.

That's Rosettastone.com slash cold case and start learning a language for real. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light, and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV! Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is ours.

It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep, and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. Learning something new as an adult can be tough. You start out motivated, and then somewhere along the way, it gets overwhelming or hard to stay consistent, and you just don't know what to focus on next. That's why having the right tools makes such a difference.

Rosetta Stone, who's been a leader in language learning for over 30 years, just launched a new app called Rosetta Stone Sapphire, and it really feels built for how people actually learn today. It combines their immersive method with newer technology, to help you move faster and stay engaged. Sapphire gives you everything you need in one easy-to-use app, structured lessons, conversation practice, pronunciation tools, personalized feedback, and comprehensive vocabulary building. What stands out to me is how personalized it is. Instead of generic lessons, you can focus on the things you actually want to talk about, travel, work, hobbies, whatever matters to you. And their new chat missions lets you practice

real conversations, like asking for directions or making plans in a low-pressure, interactive way with instant feedback. Having all the tools you need all in one place makes language learning more useful and easier to stick with. If you want to take your language skills to the next level, don't wait to try Rosetta Stone Sapphire. Codews listeners can get 20% off their Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when they sign up today. You'll get unlimited access to all 25 Rosetta Stone languages plus all the new Sapphire learning tools. Visit rosettastone.com slash cold case to redeem your 20% off. That's Rosettastone.com slash cold case. And start start learning a language for real.

In April of 2000, Sweetwater County Patrol Commander Tim Merchant decides to open an investigation into the accidental deaths of Duke's wife and son. Nearly three years earlier, they allegedly fell to their deaths off a cliff just outside Green River Wyoming, with Bob Duke as the only witness. Well, I actually didn't think I could make a case, but considering the fact that Mr. Duke was probably lying about what happened at the scene, then we had a homicide. And I just, I just wanted to get involved in it. Central to Merchant's investigation is Duke's childhood friend Roger Brouberger, who claims Bob Duke tried to hire him for the job just weeks before the fall. Browberger's story

is a good beginning. Now Merchant needs to develop evidence, tying Duke to the fall at the cliffs. Eric's birthday was actually August 8th, two days before this happened. Merchant enlists the aid of Harold Moneyhun, the local prosecuting attorney who wonders aloud why Merchant is so convinced this is murder. Merchant responds by driving Money Hun out to the cliffs of the Flaming Gorge. And I took him to the crime scene. I think that drove at home. He took one look at that crime scene and said this was no accident.

Seeing that area in person, there was almost a very important. visceral feeling that no parent is going to allow a child to play there. Merchant and Money Hun returned to paperwork generated on the accidents, looking for the slightest hint of a homicide. Their effort seems pointless until Money Hun picks up a photo of Bob Duke's wife. It was a close-up of her neck as she lay on the coroner's table. There was one particular photograph of Leanna where there appeared to be a linear bruise across her neck. When I first saw that photograph, it looked like she had been strangled, possibly strangled, ligature marked. Cold case investigators send the picture to a forensic pathologist and ask if the

bruise could be evidence of a rope wrapped around Leanna Duke's neck. And within a day or so, he emailed me back a response that it indeed did look to him that it could be a ligature mark and that he advised that we exhumed the bodies. And that really got to be a little bit of the body. And that really got the investigation going. On July 7, 2000, the bodies of Leanna Duke and her son Eric are exhumed from their graves, four years after they were laid to rest. For Tim Merchant, the process is difficult but necessary. What bothered me is I had to go to Leanna Duke's parents and tell them that I was going to dig

their daughter and their grandson up and take them to Cheyenne for an autopsy. Now that was tough for me. and there were a lot of tears on their part and they were very upset and they weren't happy to see this thing getting drug open again, but they were very supportive. The remains of Leanna and Eric

are transported to the state crime lab where three forensic pathologists look for any indication of murder. Decomposition, however, has destroyed any soft tissue evidence of strangulation. Four days later, the pathologists returned their report. When we got their report, there was nothing from the pathology that would indicate or help us determine whether this was an accidental fall or a homicide.

The decision to exhume has gained the investigation nothing. On November 10, 2001, Harold Moneyhun and Tim Merchant returned to the Flaming Gorge Reservoir with a fresh approach to their case. With the help of an expert on falls, they will reconstruct the deaths, hoping, hoping it might establish whether Leanna and Eric fell or were pushed. These two pegs show where the bodies came to rest. The little boy was here, Eric, and his mother was right down there. They hit approximately 30 yards up that slope and came down this rock slide. Came to rest right there.

Dummies, identical in weight, height and overall shape to the victims, are first dropped off the cliff and then thrown from the cliff. The landings are measured and charted. So what we were able to find out is that it didn't really matter where you go off or whether you were pushed or whether you slip. You're going to end up in the same spot. Like the exhumation, the reenactments gained cold case investigators nothing in terms of usable evidence.

After 16 months of legwork, their case against Bob Duke still lacks any hard forensic information. It was difficult. You'd always like to have some. some absolutely indisputable forensic evidence in any court case. And we had almost none. The case against Bob Duke isn't perfect, but it's the best investigators can do. And in their eyes, it is well beyond any reasonable doubt. With indictments for murder in hand, the state prepares to try Duke for killing his wife and son. On August 12, 2002, Bob Duke's murder trial begins. The prosecution relies heavily on its star witness, Roger Browberger, who recounts Duke's request that Browberger

kill his wife and son. The second major element in the state's case is the cliff in the Flaming Gorge. Any reasonable person who goes out there and looks at this crime scene is going to know that Leanna Duke, on her worst day, would not have allowed her son to get close enough to the edge of this cliff to fall off accidentally. And that's the case right there. This is unbelievable as an accident, which made him a liar, which caused this to be a homicide. On August 15th, the jury gets into a bus and drives to the flaming gorge. One by one, they peer over the cliffs down into the field of rocks where Leanna and Eric lay. Eight days later, they agree with Harold Manihan and return a verdict of murder in the first degree.

Bob Duke is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife and son. and the attempt to murder his parents. Roger Browberger is in the court that day. For two and a half years, he kept silent about Bob Duke. Now he seeks out Leanna Duke's father and receives a measure of forgiveness. I told him, Father, I was sorry. And he thanked, he thanked me for coming forward.

I feel responsible for the murder because I hadn't said anything. And he thanked. He thanked it was tough. Dear, thank you from her parents. For investigators, the case against Duke was difficult. With no physical evidence and no eyewitness, the team relied ultimately on common sense and Duke's hubris.

I think he's probably the only person on earth that believes that this would pass as an accident. Everyone that has seen that crime scene and everyone who ever will will come away in absolute disbelief. and that's what got James Robert Duke. In the early afternoon of November 12, 1982, in Seattle, Washington, an employee for a local TV repair service walks outside to dump some trash. He said that he noticed in the trash box

that he's seen a foot. And I think, as I remember, he thought it was a doll for a minute until he did a double tape. I said, no, that's a real person there. And, of course, he immediately called the police. Sergeant Jim, Joe Sanford and Dan Engel head over to the alley behind Magnolia TV and find a cardboard box

with the body of a teenage girl. She was in the large box and then there were other boxes, smaller boxes, placed on top as if to cover the body. Well, I've seen a little girl appeared to be in full rigor which kind of tells you that she was killed somewhere else and brought there. Forensics removed the body from the garbage, knotted tightly around the girl's neck, is a brown plaid bathrobe tie. On one of her legs is evidence of a possible rape. There appeared to be semen on the inside of one of her upper legs. So there was certainly sexual activity and in all

likelihood it was in fact a sexual assault. Seamen samples are collected and tagged as evidence. An ID is found inside a white plastic bag next to the box. The victim's name is Christine In Somstead, she is 13 years old and lived a few blocks away. I won't say she's a runaway. She just didn't stay at home every night. She had been a reported runaway several times, but I think so many times that the family quit reporting her as a runaway. The last time Christine's family remembers seeing her is two days earlier on her way to school.

Detectives begin picking their way through Christine's friends, looking for a young man who might also be a killer. I always felt that it was more than likely somebody that she knew and in fact ran with. We had polygraphs set up on a number of occasions for several of her friends. They all passed their polygraph. Detectives can place no one with Christine on the night she was killed. The only person seen in the area is a 14-year-old boy and family friend of the Sumsteads named John Affin. He had been seen pushing a cart around the neighborhood.

a hand truck with a large box on it. And I sent a detective out to talk to him. He's interviewed. He said, yes, in fact, he was there. That he had gone out and stolen some firewood. And he was wheeling it to his house. Athens story sounds odd to police. When they follow up with his family, however, the story checks out.

They did, in fact, have a wood-burning freestanding fireplace. and they did use that. In fact, other people told us that they had stolen firewood in the past. So it became a perfectly logical explanation. Athens' presence in the case is typed up and filed away, along with dozens of other potential leads, all of which go nowhere. It's real frustrating, yeah. Real frustrating.

And the longer the case went, the more frustrating and done. Six months go by and then a year. The Sumstead case sits on Sergeant Sanford's desk. Christine is not forgotten, but her murder is still not solved. Eventually in January of 1991, Joe Sanford retires, and the Sumstead case falls into the cold files. Eleven years later, in 2002, the Seattle Police Department dusts off some of its oldest homicide files. Veteran detectives Dick Gagnon and Greg Mike Sell work full-time on more than 300 on solved murders, their top priority is female victims.

Female victims of homicide are oftentimes sexually assaulted. That is more likely to yield DNA evidence. And with DNA technology advancing rapidly, we felt that would be a good place to start. Gagnon and Mike Sell select 65 cases. Among them is Christine Somstead's murder. Detective Mike Sell pulls evidence on the case and sends a seaman sample to the Seattle crime lab, where Beverly Himick, a forensic scientist and DNA specialist, uses STR DNA typing to extract a complete genetic profile.

I got a great profile on this case. I had a single unknown male individual, and at that point, we really had no one to compare this profile to. The profile was entered into state and national DNA databases, with no luck. Detective Mike Selangaynugnan returned to the case file. and start at the beginning, re-interviewing each person listed in the reports. And so by talking to people, the name John Athens kept coming up. And John had been looked at by the detectives earlier in investigation. And we talked to someone else, and they'd say, well, yeah, everybody knows that John

Athen did it. And it seemed that everybody knew it about us. Cold case detectives begin to take apart John Athens statements from 1982. They don't find the smoking gun they are looking for. but what they do find is a lot of small clues that add up to a strong suspicion of murder. He had been seen in the block where her body was found the night she was last seen, undoubtedly the night she was murdered, and he was pushing a cart or a wheelbarrel with a box in it. That to me was quite significant that he was at the scene of where her body was found. with a conveyance that could have transported a body.

He told the detective at a time that he was getting firewood. And if you look at the area, it's quite a distance from his home. And it was a hubb hill climb to going back home. And John was not any type of an Adonis. He was a little short, fat kid. I can't see John pushing a cart full of firewood up that hill. But detectives can imagine John pushing that cart down a hill with Christine Sumstead's body inside.

The problem is how do they prove it? In 1982, Athen was 14 years old. In 2002, he is 34 and lives 2,800 miles away in New Jersey. For Seattle detectives, that presents a problem. He's in Jersey, we're in Seattle. There's no way we're going to be able to go down there and try to get some surreptitious DNA sample from him, you know? Because the department's not paid a couple of grand to go down there.

I mean, on TV, they spend money like it's, like it's, you know, water. Around here, you better have some reason to go over there, but come back with something. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. They make it super simple. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with coverage options tailored to your choices.

Plus, you'll see what discounts you may qualify for, like the online quote discount or savings for paying in full. In fact, 99% of Progressive AutoCustomers earn at least one discount. See if you can save when you switch to Progressive. You'll feel good about making a savvy choice. Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little extra cashback. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed

who saved with Progressive between June 24 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. Finding the one can feel impossible. And in today's world, it's even harder. False profiles, inaccurate pictures, incompatibilities, ghosting on dates. Is this sounding familiar? But if you're ready to make your move to a new place, it doesn't have to feel like dating. All it takes is a simple search on Apartments.com to find your perfect match. Whether you're looking for a three-bedroom condo downtown, a two-bedroom duplex in a quiet neighborhood, a cozy studio in a walkable city, or even a single family home in a cul-de-sac.

You can find a place that checks all the right boxes. So whatever stage of life you're in, settle down in your perfect home by using Apartments.com. No more swiping or awkward first dates. Make it easier to get a place that gets you. Visit Apartments.com, the place to find a place. When people hear that Mint Mobile plans are only $15 a month,

the first question is always, what's the catch? And honestly, there isn't one. No gimmicks, no gotchas, just unlimited talk, text, and data, fast-reliable coverage on the nation's largest 5G network, and an award-winning care team. I've seen people switch and immediately notice the difference. Keeping their same phone, their same number, and suddenly paying a whole lot less every month,

it just feels simpler. Mint Mobile basically looked at everything that's frustrating about wireless and fixed it, offering premium service for $15 bucks a month. You can choose a 3, 6, or 12-month plan, so you're not dealing with that constant monthly bill cycle. If you're ready to ditch overpriced wireless, it's incredible. incredibly easy. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com slash coldcase. That's mintmobile.com slash cold case. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash cold case. That's it. There's no catch. $45 up front payment required

equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only, speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes fees and restrictions apply. See Mintmobile for details. That was the challenge we had here was how do we obtain a DNA sample from John Athen? One option is to fly across the country, Shadow Athen, and obtain a discarded sample of his DNA, a plan that is too expensive for Seattle's cold case unit. Mike Sel and Gagnan share their frustration with fellow detective Linda Diaz. She says, well, what if we send him a letter? Linda, I'd love to send him a letter, but what do I send a letter saying?

I'm a Seattle Police Detective. I want your samples, lick this and send it back to me. She said, well, let me work on that. Let me get back to you. I put weeks of thought into it thinking, what would entice someone to send me a letter back? And then I thought, well, he had traffic tickets. And I came up with the class action lawsuit idea. The lawsuit idea is simple.

A letter from a fictitious law firm offering refunds for people who may have overpaid, the city of Seattle for traffic violations. If Athen response to the offer, he will have to moisten the return envelope before posting it, perhaps leaving his DNA in saliva on the envelope seal. And I had a self-addressed return envelope, and I went and had those run through the bulk rate stamp machine because I figured a law firm if they were doing mass mailings

would send that out so that all he had to do was lick the envelope. and mail it back. I'm reading this thing. At first I thought it was real. Then I realize it's her letter. I says, this is great. She says, you think it'll work? I said, listen, we sent it to them.

We're out, 74 cents, two stamps, you know? They mail the letter to John Athens in New Jersey. And a few weeks later, Dick Gagnon gets the call. Phone rings. It's Linda. Dick, the letter's here. I mean, she's not like she just won the lottery. Back in the Washington State Crime Lab,

Beverly Himmick begins by cutting away a small portion of the sealed flap. The actual two sealed pieces are teased apart after they've been cut up into several pieces. And really all the cells that are deposited by the saliva just trickle down in the solution. And from that point on, you can extract the DNA right out of each cell. Himick develops a complete male DNA profile from the envelope seal. Her next step is compare that to the unidentified profile, from the Sumstead murder. Every single part of the profile was matching,

and so I knew that I had the person who donated that semen was the same person who licked that envelope. Beverly Hymick picks up the phone and delivers the news. She says, Dick, I got news for you. I can't tell you who licked the envelope, but I can tell you one thing. Wherever licked the envelope was also the donor of that semen 22 years ago. The estimated probability of selecting another

unrelated individual in the U.S. population was one in 59 quadrillion. That's a match. So at that point, we knew we had our guy. We had the right guy. And at that point, that's when we went to the brass and asked for money to go back and continue the investigation. Three weeks later, Seattle detectives fly to the East Coast to confront John Athen at his job site.

He is working a backhoe on a construction project in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. Investigators approach Athen cautiously. The worst approach is to immediately confront a suspect, to challenge him, to accuse him. You have to be cautious because if you get too aggressive, too confrontational, the magic words I want an attorney and a party's over. And our reason for being there is to get a statement from him, any kind of statement, lock him into something. The detectives introduce themselves and ask Athen to join them in the car. Once inside, the questioning begins. DNA has already established that Athens had sex with Christine Somstead.

The question is, if he will admit it. I said, who's having sex with her back then? What do you mean? She was sexually active. Who's having sex with her? I don't know. Come on, John, you know who was? I mean, up in Magnolia, everybody knew everybody.

The other guys? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's okay. How about you? Me? Yeah, did you ever sex with Kristen? Oh, man. He says, I never, you know.

he never even kissed her. Now there could have been an explanation, but he did not offer one. He told us he'd never had sex with Christen. Having sex with someone has made you a murderer. But in this case, by denying all these things, it shows that there's a prima facie case that he was there and there's something he's hiding. John Athen asks for an attorney, but it's too late.

He has already made a first and perhaps fatal misstep. Cold case detectives charge Athen with the murder of Christine. Sumstead and return him to Washington to await trial. In the months preceding the murder trial in fall of 2003, a legal battle begins over the ruse used to obtain a sample of John Athens' DNA. Defense attorneys urged the judge to suppress the evidence or dismiss the case because police obtained Athens' private property by posing as lawyers. A Washington state law bars non-lawyers from acting as attorneys. Steve Fogg answers for the prosecution. They didn't act as an attorney. They sent him a letter inviting his participation in a class action,

but they didn't file a class action. They didn't represent him in court. Cops frequently will, you know, sell, you know, dope to somebody on the street and then immediately arrest that person and recover the dope. Those cases don't get dismissed, and they shouldn't be dismissed. And we felt like the same logic would obtain in this case. The judge listens to arguments and rules in favor of the prosecution, refusing to suppress the evidence, and upholding the police mail sting. Tim Bradshaw is the senior prosecuting attorney for King County. We know what has been argued by a zealous counsel on his behalf. But in the end, we know that when he voluntarily licked that envelope, he sealed his fate.

In January of 2004, Athens case finally appears before a jury. 12 days later, the jury delivers its verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, guilty of the crime of murder in a second degree. John Athen is sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. For Christine's family, it seems hardly enough. The person hit really ruined a lot of people's lives. We're tired of being scared. And what he did was really unspeakable.

He's ruined my whole family. He's been held accountable. I would like to see him admit responsibility, take responsibility. I'd like the family to know that he takes responsibility. I don't know that we'll ever hear that from John Athen. For Cold Case Detectives, the verdict goes up as a win on a scoreboard which hangs in their office. The chart we're the most impressed with is a little chart we made for the DNA cases. And that is not our badge yet for the state crime lab.

We've sent 42 cases in the state crime lab. They've returned 35 cases to us. Of those 35, they have profiles of an offender in 25 out of 35. That's a 72% baton average. We did our job and with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. And like I say, but there's probably other Kristen Sumpstads here in this vault that those cases have to be looked at too. At first, I didn't think it was real.

I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV! Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is ours. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials.

No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. BetMGM, an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League, has everything you need for 2026 Stanley Cup playoff action. Hockey fans in Canada can place live bets every game during the quest for the Cup. Create same game parles, take player props, and place futures on the 2026 Stanley Cup champion. Check out BetMGM original bets. Hockey markets you can't find anywhere else.

And it's not just about what you can do on game day. The BetMGM app has improved its first line this season to include instant withdrawals. Download the BetMGM app and enjoy the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs like never before. betmgm.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you,

please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-260 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario.