Cold Case Files - The School Teacher

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

25-year-old schoolteacher Christy Mirack is found brutally slain in her Lancaster, Pennsylvania apartment in 1992. The investigation uncovers a plethora of suspects, but still, the case goes cold. It isn’t until 26 years later that investigators catch their big break with the help of a genealogy website. Check out our great sponsors! Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive! SimpliSafe: Claim a free indoor security camera plus 20% off with Interactive Monitoring at SimpliSafe.com/coldcase   June's Journey: Download June’s Journey today! Available on Android and iOS mobile devices, as well as on PC through Facebook Games!

An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. Christy was my middle sister. She was a very secure person and was very opinionated. She wasn't someone who would give in. Very cautious of her surroundings. So when this happened, I'm like, she had to know this person.

There was no way she would open that door. There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's a chilly winter morning in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on December 21st, 1992, and the halls of the local elementary school are buzzing with holiday excitement. Before the bell rings to signal the start of the first period, Principal Harry Goodman notices the sixth-grade teacher, 25-year-old Christy Murack, is missing.

Christy was never late for school. I thought, what? You know, it was just so unlike her. So I called her apartment about five times. Nothing. I left messages, Christy, where are you? We're worried about you. And that's when I called her mother. Christy's family lives two hours away and when Principal Goodman asks if Christy had been back home that weekend, her mother Jerry begins to worry. And she tries to call Christy at her townhouse in East Lampeter Township.

When there's no answer, Principal Goodman volunteers to check on Christy himself. So I pull up to her apartment, and her car is iced over, and I knew something was wrong. And then I saw that her door was partially ajar. I rang the doorbell a number of times, and I'm screaming her name. Christy, Christy, where are you? So I made the decision just to walk in to see if I could help her. I walked into the apartment and I was in total shock.

I've never told anybody what I walked in on that day. It affected my whole life. I had screaming nightmares for about five years. I had intense therapy. Yeah, it totally changed my life. Christy Ann Murak was born in Shemokin, Pennsylvania on November 3rd, 1967. The middle child of Vincent and Jerry Murak, Christy was described as always smiling and always energetic. Her brother Vince recalls growing up with Christy.

Her dream and goal was always to be a schoolteacher. She knew that at such a young age, there was times she would be like, we're all going into the garage and I'm going to have a teaching session. She would have her chalkboard up and just throw some things out there as far as just teaching for a short period of time to us.

Christy's high school best friend, Annie Adams, remembers how close they were and how much fun they had together. She was a very kind person. She was the kind of person that would really do anything for you. And I know a lot of people say that, but she truly was. After graduating from high school, Christy went to Millersville University and got her degree in elementary education. She moved to Lancaster where she got a job teaching at Rowerstown Elementary School. Principal Goodman remembers just how well she fit in. I was a principal for 27 years, and there are certain classrooms that you walk in and the teacher is teaching and you get chills.

The kids were really in tune with her and I could tell that she enjoyed what she was doing. And that's something you can't teach as a love of teaching. Christy's neighbors hear Principal Goodman's cries for help and they let him inside to call 911. Within minutes, police and rescue units arrive at Christy's apartment and enter her home. It's apparent that there was a struggle just inside the door.

There are scuff marks on the floor, the door frame, and the door itself. On their immediate left, in the living room, they find the body of a young woman. It's Christy Merak. She's nude from the waist down apart from her socks, and the clothing on her upper half has been pushed up, exposing her chest. It looks like sexual assault, and it's clear that Christy has some significant facial injuries and marks around her neck indicating that she was strangled. There are more signs of a violent struggle.

Crime scene investigators begin to collect evidence, including a piece of carpet that is stained with some sort of bodily fluid from Christy's attacker. As the crime scene is being processed, Christy's mother finally gets an answer on the other side of the line. Instead of hearing her daughter's voice, an officer picks up and delivers the devastating news. Initially, Jerry is told that her daughter's death was an accident,

and she's urged to get to Lancaster as soon as possible. Christy's brother Vince travels with his parents to Lancaster, and he recalls the reaction when they were told that Christy had been murdered. It was extremely difficult on my mother. And at that point, it was just a sure panic. When I found out, I don't remember crying. I really don't remember anything after. I just couldn't believe that this was happening.

Christy's roommate had left around 7 a.m. that morning, and Christy usually left for work between 7.30 and 7.45 a.m., so her murder had occurred just hours before she was found. In fact, Christy had been wearing her coat when her body was found, which meant that she had likely been attacked just as she was leaving for work. Police began canvassing the neighborhood, and a woman living in the same complex tells them that she'd been out walking her dog at around 7.15 that morning when she saw a white or light-colored vehicle parked in the overflow parking lot directly across the street from Christy's townhouse. The woman tells them that

she saw a white male with a muscular build and stringy dark hair exit the vehicle and walk across the street towards Christy's apartment. As Christy's neighbor watched the man, the neighbor's roommate came outside and while they were speaking to each other, they heard a loud, high-pitched scream coming from the direction of Christy's house. The neighbors cannot be sure that it was Christy screaming, but they assist the detectives in creating a sketch of the person seen in the area that morning. The composite sketch is released to the public along with the description of the vehicle. But the tips that result from the sketch lead nowhere. The detectives pin their hopes on the possibility of finding one piece of evidence that will lead to a suspect within the first day of investigation. But nothing stands out.

Whoever had killed Christy Murak had done it in broad daylight, and they had left the door open as they fled the scene. I don't think anybody could comprehend anything that happened. The question just kept saying was, why? What happened here? The following day at Rowerstown Elementary School is the last day of classes before the holidays. And instead of eager anticipation, the students and faculty members are heartbroken over the loss of their beloved sixth grade teacher. As the staff are trying to navigate the difficult day, they're approached by a man who asks to see Christy. They're unsure if he knows what happened to her and they ask him if he had heard the news.

When he tells them that he actually hasn't heard the news, red flags go up. They wonder who he could be, so they alert the police. Officers arrive and they're able to identify him as a man who goes by the name Dagger, Christy's ex-boyfriend. He agrees to come to the station to be interviewed. Dagger and Christy had met a couple of years prior at a local bar. He was 20 years older than her, but the age gap wasn't the main issue with their relationship. She was excited that she met this guy. I was like, oh great. And then she said, and he's married. And I'm like, just be careful.

Their relationship continues in secret, with just a few of Christy's close friends knowing about it. But eventually Christy grew tired of being the backup plan. And two days before she was murdered, she ended things with Dagger. I think Christy was just comfortable at first, and then I think her friends were starting to get married. She felt like she needed to move forward. At the station, the detectives' interests are piqued when they hear how recent the breakup was. Dagger tells them that he had been trying to call Christy

to see how she was, and when she didn't answer, he became concerned enough to go to the school. He's asked about his whereabouts on the morning of the murder, and Dagger tells detectives that he had moved to Virginia with his wife, and he had been at the DMV getting his vehicle registration and driver's licenses changed to his new address. The alibi checks out. getting his vehicle registration and driver's licenses changed to his new address. The alibi checks out.

Dagger passes a polygraph examination, and his DNA does not match the sample found at the scene. Without a suspect, the community remains on edge over the Christmas period, wondering who could commit such a heinous act. Things like that didn't happen in Lancaster. It's a very trusting community and I think that changed for everybody. Dr. Wayne Ross performs the autopsy on Christy Murak and what he finds is troubling. Christy had sustained a number of injuries to her head, face, neck, and chest.

Her jaw had also been fractured during the attack. A wooden cutting board believed to have been used in the murder was found next to her body. Dr. Ross determines that Christy was sexually assaulted and lists her cause of death as strang, and the manner of death, homicide. Swabs were taken during the autopsy, and they're sent to the lab for testing, and a DNA profile is found. In 1992, DNA evidence was in its infancy, and the DNA index system, known as CODES, only contains the profiles of known offenders in 12 states. When the DNA from Christy's murderer is run through the database, there are no hits. Investigators are back at square one, and with no prime focus, anyone can become a suspect.

Two days into the investigation, the detectives turned their attention to the last person who saw Christy, the principal, Harry Goodman. The lead detective had called to come down to the police station and answer a few questions. I went down there, first of all, thinking I was going to tell them about her teaching and her background. And they fingerprint me right away. And I'm thinking, my God, they think I did this. And they take me in an interrogation room. I was in total shock. And he started asking me questions about Christy.

Did you think Christy was attractive? Were you having sexual relations with Christy? And I said to the lead detective, how dare you defame Christy's memory? How dare you defame me? And? How dare you defame me? And they couldn't understand, well, why would you go down there? Is it typical for a principal to do something like this? And I said, yeah, I was worried. They wanted to polygraph me.

And I said, sure, go ahead. I've got nothing to hide. Hook me up. They got somebody from the state police who polygraphed me. What is your name? Where do you live? Did you kill Christy Murak? That's how it went. I was not going to allow them to intimidate me.

I got into a zone. I passed the polygraph, and it was incredible. I couldn't even mourn for Christy during that time. On the day after Christmas, Christy's family gather near her hometown to say their final goodbyes. Our funeral was one of those days that I try to forget. It was a very painful, sad day for us and our family. I remember standing in the church and it's one of those things

where you don't hear any sounds. It was truly almost like a movie moment. You're there, but you're not really there. And somebody said to me, turn around. And I turned around and I looked, and the church was absolutely packed. And this person said, that just shows how many people loved her. The detectives continue to investigate Christy's murder, interviewing at least 500 people within the first two years.

They hear about a few Peeping Tom incidents that had occurred within Christie's townhouse complex, but that lead goes nowhere. Few leads develop, and by 1995, the detectives have spoken to over 1,500 people. They're able to clear 60 potential suspects just from DNA comparison. It was hard to believe what we were going through and still had very little answers

to where we started from that day. It's just one of those things that's like gnaws at you. Like you want an answer and you don't know why you don't have an answer. By 2002, the 10-year anniversary of Christy's murder is approaching, and her mother, Jerry, is fighting two battles, one for justice and one for her own life against cancer. Her dying wish is for her daughter's killer to be found. I still kept in close contact with the lead investigator, but the frustration level seemed to get worse every year. Every day was a struggle. It was a struggle for my mom.

She had cancer, it reoccurred. They cured her, it reoccurred. In December of 2002, my mom unfortunately passed, but she just made sure. She's like, please don't ever let this go. And I assured her I wouldn't. There was not a bone in my body that said I would give up on this. I couldn't go through life without knowing who did this and why. Jerry was buried beside her daughter at All Saints Cemetery in Ellesburg just before the anniversary. In 2007, Christy's brother Vince continues the fight to find her killer. He decides to erect a billboard along a major highway in Lancaster.

The sign said, do you know who murdered us? I mean, we wanted to make it as chilling as it was, as it was to us. We didn't get approval from the police. I basically told them this is what we were going to do. I think people driving there every day maybe look at it like, you know what? This has really been bugging me for all these years. It's time I need to talk. We did get a lot of information from the posting of that billboard,

but unfortunately nothing was concrete enough that we would get an answer. 23 years after Christy's murder, the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office takes on the case in the hopes of bringing much-needed closure to her family, now that forensic advancements offered them a better chance of solving the crime. Assistant DA Christine Wilson had never forgotten about the murder. I was a senior in high school at the time that Christy Murak was murdered. She reminded me a lot of myself and my girlfriends. I was a really young prosecutor, and it was a case that I had always wanted to work on. It was an important case to Lancaster County. It was just something

that I had a vested interest in solving. The case review reassures Vince that his sister's case may finally be solved. And with advancements in DNA technology, the investigators feel the same way. I knew that the case could always be solved because of the DNA evidence. And I knew that technology was changing. I knew that just getting the additional resources would be able to help to solve the case. Detectives Erb and Martin had gone to a conference and they learned about Parabon and how you could submit DNA and you would obtain these profiles. Through a DNA analysis,

the phenotyping predicts basically a genetic makeup of a person and it would tell you the skin tone of that person, their area or country of origin, how their face would have been shaped, their eye color, their hair color. But it can't tell you how heavy the person was or what life choices they made to affect their appearance. In 2017, the investigators submit a sample of the DNA found at the scene for testing for the second time, and the case is reignited. Using the phenotyping technology, Parabon Nanolabs, a company specializing in DNA analysis, is able to produce an age-progressed photo fit of the suspect, a white male who would be aged between 45 to 55 in 2017. They look back through the interviews that were conducted and compare the composite photograph

with photographs of those interviewed, but no one stands out. The image is released to the public just before the 25th anniversary of Christy's murder in hopes that someone recognizes the killer. Just as they begin to lose faith once more, the notorious case of the Golden State Killer is solved in 2018 using the most innovative and advanced DNA technology available, genetic genealogy. The investigators work with Parabon Nanolab's chief genetic genealogist,

Cece Moore, and she is able to utilize the DNA that had been analyzed for the phenotyping process. We were able to upload that to GEDmatch and then wait for the relatives to appear. When you upload a file to GEDmatch, you could get a close relative or just very distant cousins. But I was very excited when I opened up that match list and saw that there were close enough cousins that I thought there was a pretty good chance we would be able to identify the person that probably killed Christy. So once I have that match list, I need to build the family trees of those potential cousins. So I have to identify who that person is, who their parents are, grandparents, and so on. So how far back I go in the tree is really based on how much DNA a person is sharing.

GEDmatch is an online service used to compare DNA data files from different testing companies. The DNA profile is linked to the names of distant relatives. They begin to build a family tree, and once the family tree reveals a common ancestor, Cece flips the tree upside down to perform reverse genealogy. Now I'm building forward in time, trying to find all

the descendants of that ancestral couple. I'm looking for men who might be the right age, in the right place, and have the right ancestral mix to potentially be the suspect. This leads to a specific family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania that is of primarily Northwest European descent. But Cece knows that the suspect has Latin American ancestry, specifically Puerto Rican, because of the phenotype analysis that had been done. She searched through contemporary sources like newspaper archives and social media to find a male that fits the profile. She's able to find a male who

was the right age and lived in the right place, but she needs to find the Puerto Rican connection. Finally, she gets a hit. There was a article that talked about how he liked to cook Puerto Rican food because his biological father was Puerto Rican. And that was the moment where I knew that Raymond Rowe was very likely Christy Murak's killer. But there aren't going to be any arrests based on what I provide. They're going to have to vet that lead. 49-year-old Raymond Rowe has been living in the community the entire time, and he was well-known throughout Lancaster as a local celebrity. He's a DJ who started his career playing music at house parties

and eventually got gigs at local nightclubs under the stage name DJ Freeze. He built a business as a wedding DJ and was quite the success. Roe had never been convicted of a felony, so his DNA was not in the CODIS database. But investigators feel sure he is their suspect, so they begin looking into how he may have known Christy Merak. Did she go to the club that he was a DJ at? She enjoyed her friends. They had a good time. They went out and enjoyed Lancaster, the nightlife. In 1992, Christie and Raymond Rowe

also lived in close proximity to one another. So it's really anybody's guess where they could have potentially come into contact. Raymond Rowe did strongly resemble the profiles, but in order to make an actual arrest, you have to obtain a DNA sample that is going to match the DNA sample that has been entered into the CODIS database. It is now May 2018, and a surveillance team has been set up with the assistance of the Pennsylvania State Police. They follow Raymond Rowe to an event at a local school and send an undercover trooper inside. The undercover trooper was able to get close enough to Roe to collect a water

bottle and a piece of chewing gum he had left in a cup. Roe doesn't suspect a thing. The DNA evidence taken from the items are sent to be compared to the DNA found on Christy's body at her autopsy. It's a perfect match. The detectives have the evidence that they need, and on June 25th, 2018, Raymond Rowe is arrested and interviewed by Detective Erb. During the course of the interview, he was denying having any contact with her. He denied knowing her, having anything to do with her. But when I mentioned the peeping Tom, he kind of distanced himself by leaning back away from me. And then we were able to eventually get to the vehicle that was seen in the area of the murder the day that the murder

happened. He came around and admitted that, yes, he had a white Toyota Celica. Everyone wants to know motive, but our working theory is that he was potentially obsessed with her and had stalked her and had been the peeping Tom and had watched her and tracked her movements leading up to this crime. But as far as what the exact motive was, is anyone's guess here. Despite Rowe's initial denials, the investigators have enough to arrest him and charge him with murder. A press conference is held just hours later, where District Attorney Craig Stedman announces the news. Good afternoon. Thanks for coming. Today we are announcing the arrest of Raymond Charles Rowe for the murder of Christy Murak. The long wait to catch Christy's killer is finally over, and her friends and family have mixed feelings.

When I saw the press conference, at first I was shocked, and I went from shock to being very angry because I finally had a face to put that anger to. It almost brought me to my knees when I saw that they made an arrest. It was surreal. It blows my mind. He saw everything. I'm sure he saw everything, you know, the newspaper articles, the news. I mean, everything was right there. It doesn't sit well with us.

The fact that somebody blatantly ignored a family's cry for help, did what they did, it takes a real sick person to be that way, I believe. In January 2019, Raymond Rowe pleads guilty to murder in the first degree, rape, and burglary to avoid the death penalty. Rowe apologizes to the family and says that he cannot imagine what they're going through. The judge sentences him to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 60 to 120 years. After 27 long years, it feels as though justice has finally been served.

But two years after pleading guilty, Raymond Rowe is trying to get a new trial. On August 26, 2021, he tells the court that he lied during his original plea and that all that happened was that he had been intimate with Christy Merak on the day that she was killed, but he claims that he had not been the one to kill her. Rowe insists that he was pressured into pleading guilty, but his appeal is rejected and he remains incarcerated at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Weymar. It is a bittersweet victory for those who loved Christy Murak. Knowing Christy like I did, she would be one that would have forgiven him. And I know that she's at peace. I know that she's with her mother. And I can't wait to see her. And I will.

And I'll give her a huge hug and say, Christy, you made such a great impact on everybody. It seems like forever ago that we were all together, but definitely see her smile in all these pictures. Like I remember, like it was yesterday. I wish we all could be together because I would just like to restart from where we left off at and just keep continuing life the way it should have went.

Cold Case Files is hosted by Paula Barrows. It's produced by the Law and Crime Network and written by Eileen McFarlane and Emily G. Thompson. Our composer is Blake Maples. For A&E, our senior producer is John Thrasher and our supervising producer is McKamey Lynn. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz, Maite Cueva, and Peter Tarshis. This podcast is based on A&E's Emmy-winning TV series, Executive producers are Jesse Katz, Maite Cueva, and Peter Tarshis.

This podcast is based on A&E's Emmy-winning TV series, Cold Case Files. For more Cold Case Files, visit aetv.com.