Cold Case Files - The Monster / A Cousin's Promise

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

The Monster: Police are convinced they have caught the rapist/murderer of an elderly woman, even after DNA evidence is exculpatory. They keep him in custody until an identical incident occurs. Later, the culprit is caught in the act of attacking a teen and brought to justice on several cases shown to have the same DNA. A Cousin's Promise: Twenty-one years after her cousin's death, Cheryl Cowans prods Reynoldsburg, Ohio to reopen the case. Once again, DNA appears to link the victim and murderer, but legal maneuvering puts him in prison for only five years.Check out our holiday deals!!Happy Mammoth: Get your Prebiotic Collagen Protein risk-free AND get 15% off your order with code COLDCASE at HappyMammoth.comQuince: Find gifts so good you'll want to keep them! Go to Quince.com/coldcase for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!Cold Case Files is sponsored by BetterHelp! Get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/coldcaseHomes.com: Looking for a new home? Head to Homes.com - They've done your homework.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following episode contains intensely disturbing accounts of violence. Listener discretion is advised. They were both elderly women living alone. Sexual predators made an attack here. They came, he killed her, they raped her, and he left. He was becoming more brazen and more violent each time. The guy is a monster. It's 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning in June 1993.

Fort Smith, Arkansas resident J.W. McAlpin is a regular at the Phoenix Village Baptist Church, where he notices an empty pew, one usually occupied by 58-year-old Juanita Wofford. If she couldn't get here, she was here. Anytime I'm church, doors open, she was here. After church, McElpin and a friend pay Wofford a visit. and immediately realize something is wrong. The living room door were partially opened, so we opened the storm door so we can kind of see.

All we could see was a trail of blood. We're going through the house. They call the police, and Fort Smith Detective Randy Cook is the first to arrive. And when we entered the residence, there was forced entry to the front door. There was obvious signs of violence, and Ms. Wofford,

was in her bed and had been obviously assaulted and murdered. Homicide Captain J.C. Ryder joins Cook at the scene. Sexual predators made an attack here. Perpetrator didn't take anything from the house. They came, he killed her, they raped her, and he left. Captain Ryder releases the crime scene to technician Luther Lone Tree, who quickly realizes he has his hands full. I knew it was going to be a very difficult scene to process.

She was not a tidy housekeeper. Using an ultraviolet light, Lone Tree starts in the victim's bedroom, focusing on a nightgown found near the body. We did look at it with UV light, and it did appear to be a stain that could have been either a semen stain or a saliva stain or a urine stain. The night shirt is essentially. sent to the crime lab where a semen stain is detected and a DNA profile developed.

Lone Tree also scans the walls of the bedroom and discovers something unusual, perhaps the calling card of a killer. When we were looking with oblique lighting and under UV light, we were able to see where the hands were placed on the walls. And you could see what appeared to be urine stains on the walls. We felt at the time that the attacker probably had a fetish called Golden Showers. He was really into Golden Showers, fascination with urine. Investigators next turned their attention to Wofford's living room,

where they detect more traces of blood. We were able to see footprints on the furniture, where the suspect climbed up on the furniture to walk out of the residence. Detectives believe the killer made his escape along railroad tracks running behind the victim's home. In the days that follow, Detective Fran Hall works the neighborhood, hoping someone might remember a face. We really didn't glean any useful information.

The people we talked to, a lot of them had already moved from the area. There was a lot of rental property, so people were in and out a lot. So we really didn't get any good information. The murder of Juanita Woffer, seems to be turning cold before it even gets started. Then Detective Cook shares details on a similar assault that took place two months earlier. In this case, the victim, 89-year-old Lily Jones, survived.

Now, this house looks just like... Cook begins with a visit to the Jones crime scene. The residence looks almost identical from the road to Ms. Walford's residence. It's got the bushes. It's an older house, probably. built in the same area as Ms. Wofford's house. The method of entry was the same way.

The screen door was cut. Front door was kicked open. There was a vicious attack. That night, Ms. Jones was here on the couch sleeping. She was woke up by a knocking at the door. She asked who it is, and the individual at the door asked to come in and use the phone. And she told the individual that he needed to go away.

The individual was able to force the door completely open, and he attacked her. And as he was trying to drag her back to the bedroom, she began to scream. And prior to reaching the bedroom, there was a small gas heater. And Mrs. Jones tripped over the heater, knocking her to the ground along with him on top of her.

And so this is where the assault took place on the floor of the bedroom. And after he assaulted her, he got up and left the residence through the front door. If it was the same suspect, then he was becoming more brazen and more violent each time. And it was a concern that we were going to have some more problems before we caught anybody. Investigators begin to sift through unsolved rape cases and police disturbance reports, looking for similar attacks and any potential leads.

What they find is a man who is either an eyewitness to Juanita Wofford's murder or perhaps the killer himself. This man was there. He was there and he knows all about this crime scene. This community is very close community. I've lived in this community all my life. And when something like this happens, a very brutal homicide, it affects. the entire community.

Detective Fran Hall is an investigator with the Fort Smith Police Department. On January 12th, she gets a call from a woman named Marlene, who believes her brother, Danny Bennett, might be Juanita Wofford's killer. He lived in the neighborhood, which is very close to Juanita Wofford's house. And because of his odd habits, she felt like he might be a suspect in this. According to Marlene, her brother Danny's odd habits include sexual abuse towards women he was dating. He was very sexually aggressive, and he would sodomize them sometimes, and sometimes he would use violence toward him and urinate on them.

At the Wofford crime scene, investigators discovered urine all over the walls. Detective Hall shares the possible connection with homicide captain J.C. writer, who obtains a warrant to search Bennett's home. We discovered several bottles of urine. Urine was found in empty Dr. Pepper bottles inside the refrigerator. Hey, this has got to be our guy. We've got urine all over the crime scene, all over the walls. I mean, what's the chances of somebody with a fascination of urine out in this neighborhood?

I mean, just bells went off. We've got our guy. On January 27th, detectives sit down with Bennett. In no time at all, he had told us what had happened. He admitted to killing Ms. Wofford. He went into some detail. He described the pool of blood in the living room floor. He went like this with his hand.

And I said, what is that? He says, the drag marks through the blood. And you can really see those in the crime scene photos. and he went on to say what made the drag marks was her buttocks. We asked him how he left the crime scene and he said that he had jumped up on the couch and out of the front door.

And that fit the crime scene exactly. The next day, investigators sit down with Bennett again. This time, they want to talk about the rape of 89-year-old Lily Jones. A case so similar to Wofford, detectives are sure the two more. must be linked. Almost immediately, Bennett begins to confess. We're talking about an incident that happened around the area 30th in Waco, around April

the 10th of 93. I've already taken a typewritten statement from Mr. Bennett. I'm going to read that statement and then ask Mr. Bennett if that's the correct statement that he gave me. I enforced my way into the residence and slapped her around. I went room to room and couldn't find anything, so I slapped her around again and put her in the bedroom. I pissed on the bed and on the floor. I then forced sex on her. Okay. With the single word okay, Bennett appears to put a seal on the Lily Jones rape investigation. He is charged for that crime as well as the Wofford homicide. Samples of Bennett's hair and blood are sent to the FBI crime lab for DNA analysis, and the community was able to breathe again.

It was like, thank God, that's behind us. The department felt like we had the right guy. I knew we had the right guy. Then the evidence starts coming back in. Ten months before Bennett is set to stand trial, DNA test results are returned from the FBI. They come back and say that our semen sample could be from two different contributors, but Danny Bennett's not one of them. They're also saying that the Lily Jones

and the Juanita Wofford case are not related. This just blows everything out of the water. Genetic testing appears to exonerate Bennett completely on the Jones rape. But Captain Ryder and prosecuting attorney Ron Fields are not yet ready to let go of the Wofford homicide. Well, we had a confession.

The police had done a good job. they had the interview where he'd been in the vicinity, we had the location. Still feel that we've got the right man because the description he gave of the crime scene was so detailed to the point of describing how he had left the crime scene. He had to have been there. Theorizing that seaman found at the Wofford crime scene might be entirely unrelated to the murder. The prosecutor refuses to drop the charges and Danny Ray Bennett remains in custody. until a year and a half later, when a third crime occurs

that convinces detectives they've arrested an innocent man. I was notified by Detective Pittman, and he asked that we come and assist him with processing their death investigation. On August 10, 1995, Sergeant Luther Lone Tree responds to a crime scene in Crawford County, Arkansas. Inside a farmhouse, he finds 74-year-old. Ruth Henderson laying dead on her bed. Lone Tree worked Juanita Wofford's murder two years earlier and immediately recognizes the pattern of attack.

Okay, this is a videotape of the inside of the crime scene. The victim once again had defense wounds, was damaged to the head like Juanita Wofford was, and she appeared to have been sexually assaulted also. So in that sense, yes, they were, That's the first thing that struck my mind was they were very similar. Prosecuting attorney Ron Fields and Captain J.C. Ryder are also called to the homicide. They too see the same parallels between Henderson and Wofford.

There was a blood trail in both houses back toward the beds. The women were put on the beds. They were laying in virtually the same positions. It was really spooky just to walk into that crime scene. It was almost like walking into the Wofford house. I think my first statement to Ron was we've got the wrong guy. Our killer's still on the loose. Despite his detailed confessions, all charges against Danny Bennett are dropped, and the investigation starts over.

Five years later, however, no arrests have been made. You get frustrated sometimes, but you can't get upset because you're not coming up with the right guy. It's a process of elimination. And it's 99% hard work. But what really catches the killer is the 1% of luck. In this case, that 1% of luck comes in the form of a 911 call from the survivor of an attack. 9-1-1-1-1-19.

I'm bleeding. I'm bleeding. I just don't just bite me. I'm bleeding. Then he cut my throat. He'd read me. When it comes to holiday gifting, I want to give things people actually love, beautiful, timeless pieces they'll keep for years. That's why I'm going with quince. From Mongolian cashmere

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We'd left here and went up to see a neighbor of ours. Stay up there and visit them for a while and came home and seen his trucking driveway. On March 28, 2000, Baba Qualls and his wife, Sheila, find a truck in their driveway belonging to their neighbor, Charles Ray Vines. So it was kind of odd while it was in the driveway, and I went around him, pulled up here and went in the house. And that's when I caught him in the house with my daughter. Bubba Qualls catches vines raping and stabbing his 16-year-old daughter. Bubba's wife and daughter call police. 911, where she's emergency.

I'm bleeding the head just don't just break me. I'm bleeding and he cut my throat, he raped me. Please, sorry, he raped my daughter and he cut her throat. I grabbed him and start beating on him. Then I tell my wife, go get my pistol. When I cocked to shoot him with it, it didn't fire. I cocked again, pulled the trigger, and I missed him. So then I pistol-wipped him with it, and hit him right here with this.

Here's the hard I broke it right there. And I beat him for 20 minutes that pistol. I beat him non-stop. Crawford County Sheriff's Deputy Jerry Martin responds to the Qualls' home. When I arrived here, I could see through a window. Then when I pulled in the driveway and saw what looked to me like a disturbance or a fight going on in the living room, and when I approached the front door, I saw two men standing there, and one stepped out of the way, and the other was the victim's father standing there, and he had a pistol in his hand.

Bubba fills Martin in on what has happened. Martin Cuffs Vines, calls for backup, and then checks on Bubba's daughter. She was conscious and could talk to me. You know, she had some injuries, you know, where she had a cut on the side of her head that I saw. Crawford County Sheriff's Investigator, Danny Phillips, joins Martin at the scene. Almost immediately, he senses something familiar. Clicked on my mind that we had had a murder back in 95 of an elderly lady who was attacked the same way. She had stabs on her head and around her neck.

and then also I knew of another murder, which was in Fort Smith, of his same manner. Danny Phillips remembers the 1995 unsolved murder of 74-year-old Ruth Henderson and the 1993 rape and murder of 58-year-old Juanita Wofford. These two crimes, together with an assault on 89-year-old Lily Jones, sit in the cold files. Now Phillips wonders if Charles Vines might not be the man detectives have been looking for. I told him that I had a subpoena to get blood. The next day at the St. Edward's Medical Center, Danny Phillips begins to build a case for murder against Charles Ravines.

And his response was, you know, is this for DNA? And that there sent up another clue for me that he knew that we were on his trail. The samples are sent to Arkansas State Crime Lab. DNA analyst Kermit Channel compares Vine's genetic signature against semen recovered from the Ruth Henderson case. We're able to immediately see that that DNA profile from Charles Ray Vines was a direct match to the DNA profile from the rectal swabs and also from the oral swabs in that case. Channel next moves to the murder of Juanita Wofford and the rape of Lily Jones. In 1995, FBI testing seemed to indicate that. that these two samples came from different donors.

Using more sophisticated methods of analysis, Channel discovers the two samples to be identical, and in fact, a full genetic match to vines. I think this is really one of the first cases that we saw here in Arkansas that linked a potential serial killer to different crimes. He's facing capital murder charges. He's going to be put to death.

He was asked if he wanted to talk talk and he said no he wanted to speak to his lawyer first i told charlie at that time that eventually someplace down the road he was going to have to talk to us or he was going to be put to death and with that he was taken back to the jail captain j c rider has lived with these crimes for the better part of a decade and is willing to wait a bit longer for a full confession in march of 2001 vines contacts writer and is ready to talk. Today's date is March 14th, 2001, the Fort Smith Police Department.

Inside a small interrogation room, Vine sits face to face with investigators. He begins with the rape of a woman he'd known his entire life, 89-year-old Lily Jones. With Miss Jones, he would come and take her to church. He just, you know, it's all around good guy.

except whenever he started drinking and smoking marijuana. Then it was a switch that just flipped. I remember going out to the door. I don't remember whether she let me in or I went, it just busted in, and then I proceeded to have sex with that. Even though you're sitting there interviewing a monster, you know, he was still being pleasant.

That was just the outward appearance of him. That's what had so many people fooled. Charlie, you beat her pretty bad, didn't they? Do you just lose control when you do something like that? I guess I do. I mean, it's like when I get in fights. I mean, something just snaps. I don't know when to stop.

An hour into the interrogation, investigators moved to the Wofford crime, Vine's first homicide. He said that he'd been out drinking, and he was in the mood for sex. And he knew Ms. Wofford lived by herself. She would represent no problem if he wanted to have sex. I remember walking up to her door,

and I guess I kept the screen to get entry to there. Been finding the door locked. I don't know. I guess I just busted down the door and went in. And I remember her facing me. I mean, I was just, all I remember is hitting her and just kept hitting her. I don't remember dragging her to the,

Beddream. I remember taking her clothes off. I remember to start having sex with her. Was she dead when you had the sex? Yes. Investigators then questioned Vines about the Henderson crime. The story is a familiar one.

Knocked on the door. As soon as the door opened, he barged in and the fight was on, beat her all the way to the bed. There he raped her, killed her, and then raped her. And then left. I asked him if he was to compare how good it felt on a scale of 1 to 10, where would the sex be at with you and a dead woman that you've just killed?

And he said, about a 14 would make your eyes roll back in your head. He said, it's the greatest outstanding sex he's ever had in his life. The guy's an monster. Charles Ray Vines pleads guilty to two counts of murder and a single count of rape and attempted murder. He is sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. Before being sent to prison, detectives ask Vines a final question about the man who came perilously close to taking Vines' place in the defendant's chair,

an innocent man named Danny Ray Bennett. I asked him, I said, what about when he was put in jail for this crime of murdering Ms. Wofford? And Charlie said, I was glad it was him. He said, I felt I was in the clear. To this day, investigators remain puzzled by the accurate details Bennett provided in his confession to Juanita Wofford's murder, and are grateful that science helped them spare an innocent man's life. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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Reva Wilson, Jeff Probst, Eli Roth, Ed Helms, and Kevin James. Join me on the Frontlines every Thursday. Get new audio or video episodes of the producer's guide wherever you get your podcast. I really heard my mom scream like a scream that I never heard before. And she said, Darlene has been murdered. And it was like, no, oh my God, oh my God, no. She was in the bathtub with her hands tied behind her back. She didn't deserve to die like that

And I felt that I needed to do something I was very proud of the community 288 units, garden-style apartments It was a nice area It's October 17th, 1978 Rosemary Findlay is the superintendent for an apartment complex in Reynoldsburg, Ohio At the end of the workday

She takes a call every landlord dreads The tenant in apartment number nine apparently left the water on and is flooding the neighbors below. So I pounded on the door and yelled, maintenance, maintenance. And nobody came to the door. So I had a master key and I unlocked the door and pushed it open only to have it to be slammed in my face. Through the closed door, Rosemary hears a voice.

She assumes it belongs to her tenant, 25-year-old Darlene Heinz. They said, I'm sorry, but I was running the bathtub and the water ran over. And I said, well, you're going to have to pay for the damages on this. And that the maintenance man is on his way. Minutes later, a maintenance man unlocks the door and catches a glimpse of what he believes to be a woman. He said he had the same difficulty at first, unlocking the door and having it pushed. And then he said, as I pushed harder,

and got into the apartment, this person just scooted right into the kitchen. And he said, I really didn't look at them. The maintenance man walks down a hallway to the sound of running water. Inside the unit's bathroom, however, he finds Darlene Hines laying naked in the bathtub, her head shoved under water, hands bound,

and a telephone cord tied around her neck. The maintenance man rushes back to the front door and then to the kitchen. He said when I turned and came back, nobody was in the kitchen. And, of course, he didn't know whether to look for me at that point. Detective Jim Krause is the first to arrive to Darlene's apartment. He immediately notes no sign of forced entry. Pretty much someone she had to know, because she would not let someone in the apartment

that she did not know according to the mother and her friends. She always walked through the people. As I said, the area was in disarray, which was not typical of the way she kept house. Crime scene investigator Bill Mark works with Krause, processing the apartment for evidence. He starts inside the victim's bedroom. I would gather by seeing this, the primary purpose of the suspect's presence was the sexual assault. But then after having done so, he did search for some type of guy. Seamen recovered from the body confirms Hines was raped before she was killed.

Her attacker apparently disguised his voice when the landlord came to the door and then fled the scene. A small amount of water in the lungs indicates Hines was probably unconscious before she went underwater. Most people aren't drowned. You normally use that as a method for killing someone and strangle them, shoot them, stab them. So my thoughts were there was an attempt to destroy physical evidence. that might have been present on her body. Mark concludes his crime scene investigation and writes up a report on the case.

Meanwhile, a family receives a phone call that will change their lives forever. Around 10 p.m., Darlene Hines' cousin, Cheryl Cowens, is home in bed when the phone rings. I really heard my mom scream, like a scream that I never heard before. You know, and it was like, no, oh, my God, oh, my God, no. Cheryl makes it to the staircase where she meets her mom.

And so she ran up the stairs, and she was screaming and screaming. And I came out the room and said, Mom, what's wrong? What's wrong? And she said, Darlene has been murdered. And I just couldn't believe what she said. And I screamed at that time, and I lost it. From the time they were kids, Cheryl and Darlene had been more like sisters than cousins. In the days that follow, the 17-year-old mother, must put her grief aside and help detectives figure out who might have wanted Darlene dead.

There was a guy following her from work. She met someone that she was a little afraid of at work, and he had been calling her. Darlene worked as a dental hygienist at the Echo Community Health Center. The man following her is James Hughes, a shuttle driver at the clinic. Krauss runs a check on Hughes and gets back a seven-year criminal record. that includes two convictions for rape. My impression was he was a controlling person, a predator. I knew he was too good not to look into as hard as we could.

Detective Krause brings Hughes in for questioning. Scared, broke out in the sweat, I mean noticeably broke out in the sweats. It makes you feel like, okay, you're on the right track. He did it. Hughes claims he has never been to Reynoldsburg. His girlfriend, however, tells police Hughes had been in town on the day of the murder and visited a transmission repair shop. That transmission shop is at Bryce and Main Street in the city of Reynoldsburg.

And where Darling Hines lived was at Bryce and Livingston, which was three-quarters of a mile away, but a straight shot. Krause feels certain he has found his killer, but has had. has no tangible evidence linking Hughes to the crime. Eight months after Darlene Heinz's murder, evidence from the case is boxed up and sent to storage, where it stays for more than two decades. 21 years later, in the fall of 1999, it's business as usual inside the Reynoldsburg Police Department,

until a little after 10 a.m. on September 30th, when a woman calls in and wants to talk about a murder. I owed it to her. I owed that much to her. She didn't deserve it to be murdered. She didn't deserve to die like that. You know, I felt that I needed to do something. Cheryl Cowens was 17 when her cousin Darlene was raped and killed. Now she's 38 and wants to know why the case remains unsolved. I'm really kind of puzzled here to want to know what's going on. I haven't been investigated. Why haven't they? Open it back up.

How can we go about opening back up? I said it's an old case. And if it's about the money, getting her case open, I know a lot of ways that you can make the money to get it open. If you've got to wash cars or run a bake sale, and that's what you need to do because I'm not letting it go. Normally for our community, we only have a homicide every five or six years on the average. Since 1958, we've probably only had maybe a dozen homicides total.

On September 30th, Sergeant Larry Finkis sits down with Cheryl Cowens to talk about the only cold homicide in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. The murder of Cheryl's cousin, Darlene Hines, more than 20 years earlier. She believed or had information that we should investigate a person known in Central Ohio as Dr. Jackson, who was a serial rapist in the late 70s, early 80s. I really thought it could have been him. I really did. Edward Jackson was a cardiologist who doubled as a serial rapist, sometimes tying up his victims and leaving them in the bathtub,

an MO similar to the attack on Darlene Hines. I obtained a lot of information on Dr. Jackson and looked at the fact pattern of his crimes versus our crime scene photograph. and the notes the original investigators had taken. And the more I read, and the more I researched Dr. Jackson, the more I was convinced it probably was him. Finkus's interest is heightened when he discovers Dr. Jackson actually worked at the same health clinic as Darlene.

My own got feeling that didn't have anything to do with it. It just didn't fit. Jim Krauss worked the original Heinz homicide investigation and believes his first suspect, another co-worker of Darlene's, and two-time convicted rapist named James Hughes, committed the murder. The only person we talked to and lied to us, the only person that didn't try to help. Then you see what his background was.

All that helps you form your opinion and your gut instincts. I think that's the one. Investigators now have two suspects. Both men with a history of rape who can't. can be connected to Darlene Hines. The science of DNA will determine if either man is the killer. We use what's called an alternate light source. We take it into a dark room.

And anything, semen, saliva, certain bodily fluids will fluoresce under certain wavelengths of light. On October 25, 1999, forensic scientist Jennifer Duval begins examining items of evidence from the Darlene Hines homicide. There was a whole box of evidence from stuff that they had collected from her apartment. Mostly bedding sheets and abed spread, some clothing. Seamen recovered from the victim's body initially appears too degraded for DNA testing. Other items of evidence also failed to yield any trace of semen. Eventually, Duval pulls out a scarf owned by the victim and puts it under the microscope.

Well, on the scarf specifically, there was, fairly large stains in the center of the scarf. And then when we mapped them with the chemical test for semen, and they were positive. Testing indicates a robust amount of semen still present. Duval immediately begins a process of DNA extraction. And one week later, the lab has developed a partial genetic profile. That was probably one of the biggest breaks in the case.

we were in business at that point. The next step for investigators is to compare the unknown profile to blood samples obtained from two suspects. The first is Dr. Edward Jackson, a man serving 282 years for raping 36 women. He said, you can take all the blood you want. I didn't do it. And, you know, he said, basically, don't waste my time.

Denials aside, Detective Finkis, remains confident, Jackson is his killer. Vinkas follows through, however, with the second man on his suspect list. An ex-convict named James Hughes. Two decades after Darlene Hines was murdered, James Hughes has changed his name to James Martini. He sits down with cold-gaste detectives and repeats the same story he told police over 20 years ago. I met her at her job. I used to work for a company that transported a client to her job for blood tests and stuff like that.

You wouldn't have had sexual relations with her or nothing like that? No, I just met him. I knew if we made his DNA in the apartment, then he had problems because then we could put him where he said he wasn't. Unlike Jackson, Martini is reluctant to provide a sample of his blood. Sergeant Dave Bachmoyer helps the suspect along. I just told him you could have a seat with a lab technician there and take his blood nice and easy or strap them down to get old-fashioned way, you know, but we're going to get his blood. Investigators send Martini's blood to the crime lab, and six months later, Jennifer Duvall's work is complete.

We got a match on the scarf to James Martini. The chance that someone else could have that same DNA profile was one in more than seven quintillion. in the African-American population. Your adrenaline shoots way up because, you know, then you're in the ballgame then. I mean, the guy's going to be picked up and go to jail. Larry Fincas swears out a warrant and goes to Martini's apartment. There's no answer.

I mean, we know he's inside because we have surveillance and we've watched him come and go. For 10 minutes, cold case detectives wait. Then, their suspect makes his move. Our surveillance personnel told us that he just jumped the fence out back, the six-foot privacy fence, and was taken off. I think the interesting thing was when we caught him. His comment that he was just leaving to go to work, but yet he worked about 45 miles away at that time, and his car was parked out front. So I guess he was going on a long job.

Cold case detectives handcuffed Martini and charge him with murder. You wouldn't have had sexual relations with her, nothing like that. At the Franklin County Courthouse in November 2001, according to the state, James Martini's audio taped statement helps to prove two things. He is a liar as well as a killer. We knew that he was the person that had sex with her. At least we were very confident with that. So our theory, though, had to be, obviously, that the same person who deposited the seaman

was the killer. DNA testing, coupled with two prior rape convictions, appear to make the case against Martini a sure thing, until one of the original investigators in the case, Bill Mark, is unable to testify. Mr. Mark was the only person who was going to be able to establish a chain of custody. The problem with the chain of custody would have been myself.

At that point in time, I was recuperating from an illness and would have been unable to testify. At the time of the murder, Mark had taken custody of the scarf on which the defendant's seaman was found. Without his testimony, the scarf would most likely be inadmissible at trial. But we suddenly had a real legal flaw. We weren't going to be able to present the relationship between the scarf, these slides,

and the deceased murder victim. that would have been a total gap for this jury. With a trial date looming, prosecutor Dick Tremulin believes he's looking at an acquittal. He scrambles to do what he can to make sure that James Martini does not walk out of court a free man. At a bare minimum, he was obstructing justice because he was lying to the police.

That carries a maximum sentence of only five years. getting this fellow in prison again for five years was far better than having him walk free James Martini takes the plea and is sentenced to five years in prison for Cheryl Cowan's the sentence feels more like an insult the system has failed her

how could he get five years when he spent 22 years live in a productive life kill her and get five years it's not justice it's not justice whatsoever that was a slap on the head you know if there's another

victim out there that would come forward that would be wonderful if we could get him prosecuted on another case because then that would keep him locked up probably for the rest of his life James Martini is released from prison after serving five years. In 2010, Martini's DNA positively matched evidence from the 1980 murder of Wanda Zellner, another nursing home aide. Martini was unable to be found and is wanted for questioning.