Cold Case Files - The Woman In The Woods

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

For 34 years Jody Loomis’ killer goes undetected. And even when genetic genealogy leads to a suspect, their guilt must be proven in court. Check out our great sponsors! Vegamour: Go to Vegamour.com/coldcase and use code "coldcase" to save 20% on your first order! ClickUp: Use code "coldcase" at ClickUp.com to get 15% off ClickUp's massive Unlimited Plan for a year! KiwiCo: Get your first month of ANY crate line FREE at kiwico.com/coldcase  ZocDoc: Go to Zocdoc.com/ccf and download the Zocdoc app for FREE!

An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. I was scared. I was crushed. Who did this? I need to find out what happened to her. When you're looking at somebody you think murdered your sister, you're going to look them right in the eyes. You did that.

I'm not looking away. 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 the afternoon of August 23rd, 1972, in Snohomish County, Washington. 20-year-old Jody Loomis and her younger sister, Jaina, hop on their bikes and head off to visit their horse named Soddy for the afternoon. It was a beautiful day. Back in 1972, I'm 12. I took off down the road to meet my girlfriend. Jodi decided she was going to go to Soddy and be back before dark. My mom said, Jodi, you got your dime. We always carried a dime for a telephone call if anything ever took place.

And she pedaled off. Neighbors see Jodi with her dark blonde hair pulled back into a long ponytail as she pedals past them down the street and out of view. An hour and a half later, a young couple drives into the woods in rural Snohomish County, looking for a secluded hideaway to enjoy their secret romance. It's around 5.30 p.m. when they spot a log blocking the road ahead of them. When they get out to move the obstacle, they see the body of a young woman lying approximately 15 feet beyond the log.

She was on her back, wearing a pair of knee-length socks, boots, and bikini-style underwear. There are clothes strewn around where she's lying. A dime on the dirt glistens in the afternoon sun. And there's a wound on the right side of her head. The couple rushes over to help and finds that the woman is still breathing, but she's unable to speak. Desperate to try and save her, the couple carries her to their two-seater sports car, and as the man races to the hospital, his girlfriend tries to hold the woman's head up to keep her airways open. They're hopeful when they arrive at the hospital as she's still breathing,

but the hope quickly fades as the woman succumbs to her injuries just as the doctors begin to examine her. The woman has no ID on her or any distinguishable belongings, so detectives have no idea who she is. The young couple who found her bring police to the site where she had been spotted.

It's a secluded area of a thousand-acre property owned by the Rice family. While investigating the scene, officers soon come across Ken Rice and his teenage son Alan chopping wood. We had no idea what it was about. I can't say exactly what was going through my mind at 13. They separated us. They just started asking us who we were and how long we'd been there. I think they asked my dad much more extensive questions. Kenda Rice, Ken's daughter, was question two. She had seen a girl on a bike cycle past

while she was running the family fruit stand across the street. It's the first lead detectives get about the victim's identity. Later that night, Snohomish County Sheriff's Detective Jim Scharf and former Deputy Coroner Ken Christensen are called to Stevens Memorial Hospital in Edmonds, Washington to investigate the suspicious death. That was a troubling sight to have her laying there with just shoes and her glasses were askew on her face and she had a bullet hole in her head. We could see that there was dirt and leaves were stuffed in her underwear.

Her boots would have been put on after the underwear was pulled back up. I observed what appeared to be seminal fluid in the crotch of the underwear. It was obviously some kind of a sexually motivated homicide. With a small caliber firearm, the detectives wanted to take the boots. So I removed the boots and placed them in beige colored plastic bags. Detectives believe that the victim had been forced into the woods at gunpoint before being raped in the dirt beneath the trees. They think that she had been able to put her underwear back on

and was in the process of tying her left shoe when the killer shot her in the head. As night falls, Jodi Loomis' parents begin to worry. The number one rule was be home before it gets dark. After a few hours, mom's upset. So is dad. They're starting to make calls. Something really is wrong. They search through the neighborhood and woods before calling 911 and reporting Jodi missing.

It doesn't take long for the police to make the connection. And then that knock comes at the door, and you see those officers, and you let them inside, and they've got this look on their face. Oh, it's something I'll never forget. You know, when they said, we think Jodi's not alive and you're going to need to come down and ID her.

My mom fell to the floor. My dad couldn't catch her. Jim, Jodi's fiancee, was standing beside me. He was an extension of our family. And I could hear him crying. It's this whole feeling of everything just crushes, crushes. Yeah, right then and there. John Paul and Rosemary Loomis lived in the Mill Creek area with their three children,

John Paul Jr., Jodi, and Jaina. Jodi was blonde-haired and blue-eyed and stood around five feet, too. But she had an air of authority that her friends and family loved. Her best friend, Pat Wieland, remembers Jodi's nature. Jodi and I met in high school. She loved animals, loved outdoors, and very quick to defend anybody or any animal that she felt was being abused or not treated properly. So one day, Jody had ran across these hunters.

They were target shooting with these pigeons. And so Jody gave them a piece of her mind, told them they better stop, picked up this pigeon and brought him home. We just nursed him, and he became a part of our family. So very true to Jodi's nature, I would expect nothing else. I think what a kind and gentle and loving person she was. Her final moments on this planet were beyond horrible, just awful, just so unfair. How could somebody in a split moment

decide, I'm going to rape that person, and then I'm going to take their life? That's a mind that you wonder, what else have they done? As the community is left reeling from the senseless tragedy, the coroner tries to determine Jody's cause of death. In 1972, we were a rural area, and these things just didn't happen. It's terrible. Everybody wanted to make sure everything was done right. She had a gunshot wound to the right side of the head.

The pathologist recovered several.22 caliber slug fragments. It really affected me. I have a stepsister, and every time I looked at the young lady on the table, all I could see was my sister. The coroner confirms that Jodi died from the gunshot wound to her head and discovers that she'd been sexually assaulted. Vaginal swabs taken at the autopsy found intact spermatozoa, but DNA analysis did not exist in 1972, so there was not much to go on.

With no immediate clues pointing to the killer, everyone becomes a suspect. Jodi's fiancé, Jim, had been living with the family at the time. The couple was incredibly in love, and Jim is close to Jodi's parents and siblings. Jodi's fiancé was, to me as a 12-year-old, he was full of laughs, and he would pull pranks and that was so up my alley. He loved her and he had a way of making her laugh and finding the humor in things. He was also a musician and he would play the guitar and would sing. Let's say Jodi comes home and she's irritated that maybe we didn't do what we were supposed to do. Then he would start singing a love song on the guitar so that she would hopefully change her mood. Yeah, so it was a lot of fun.

It was a good time. He is devastated by the loss of his fiancée. Although the investigators are looking into him, Jim has a solid alibi. He had actually been at work at the hospital where her body was taken, and he didn't realize that was close to the victim, detectives wonder if it could have been someone living close to where she was found, the Rice family. The Rices walked right into the crime scene.

You just got that feeling of, they gotta know something. Something doesn't seem right. How could they not know? The police considered my brother and my father potential suspects because they were right in the vicinity where the young lady was found. The police want to find out what Ken Rice and his son Alan were doing there. And they want to know if the father and son had any involvement in what happened to Jodi. I doubted that my brother had anything to do with it.

I didn't know about my dad. I didn't believe that he could hide such a thing. But there was always a question in my mind. Because my dad, he liked the ladies, and he made lots of comments when you're watching TV about, oh, she'd be a good lay or something like that. But yeah, there were personal reasons, you know, in our family, and so it makes you wonder. It had to be really frustrating for the detectives, not having any good solid leads to go on. The best information that they had was that a couple years prior,

there were a bunch of men that were getting together in those woods to meet each other, but nothing linked them to Jody's killing. Ken Rice and his 13-year-old son were just chopping wood on their own land. There was nothing more to indicate they had anything to do with the murder, so detectives try to move on from considering them as suspects. For almost two years, the investigation stalls until April 1974, when a tip comes in about a group associated with a biker gang that had been bragging about raping and killing a young woman. The Reapers Roadmen were maybe a half a dozen guys, and they liked to party and ride motorcycles.

One of them ended up shooting at a train and hitting the conductor, and his gun was found to be a.22 pistol, the same type of a weapon used to kill Jody. The detectives managed to get a hold of the gun and bullets from the case, and they send it to the FBI for analysis. Ballistics testing concludes that the.22 caliber gun is not the one that fired the fatal round into Jody's skull. But just as one line of inquiry slams shut, a serial killer targeting young women in the

Pacific Northwest emerges as a suspect. There were numerous murders that were taking place. They had been raped. They didn't know who it was. I believed that Jody could have been one of his victims. How vicious somebody must be. He's still out there. We've got to catch him. It's the summer of 1974, and young women have been vanishing over the course of several months near Issaquah, Washington. The police believe the man responsible

was a man named Ted Bundy. The similarities between Jody's case and the Bundy murders were that she was the right age group, college age, and probably the right hairstyle. A lot of them had their hair parted down the center. Jody parted her hair down the center. While Jody matches Bundy's victim profile, her murder doesn't match up with his M.O. Ted Bundy is notorious for using a ruse to lure his victims into a false sense of security. He would put his arm in a sling or act like he needed help before getting the women into his car. But Jodi was seen riding her bicycle. The method of murder also doesn't match. Bundy often bludgeons his victims. Jody had been shot, and Bundy disposes of the women he killed in a

different manner, too. It just didn't fit right. Serial killers are human beings, and human beings are creatures of habit. Jodi's family is disappointed when the investigation stalls once again. And this time, the investigation goes cold for three decades. Decades pass, but Jodi's bedroom remains unchanged, much like her family's determination to find out who killed the 20-year-old who never made it home. It has been 32 years since Jodi Loomis was murdered, and a new investigative unit has been designated the task of looking into the cold case.

So in 2005, my parents were called. They said that there was new life being breathed back into the case. Wow. That was our lucky day. That was our lucky day. Jodi's case fits the criteria that the Cold Case team is looking for. Advancements in forensic technology mean that DNA evidence can be utilized in unsolved murder investigations. With the intact spermatozoa that had been collected during Jodi's autopsy, the investigators are hopeful that they could solve this case.

Then we found out that there was no DNA evidence anywhere. We couldn't find it. All were missing. You know, we were just flabbergasted. And it was just devastating when we realized that those things had been lost. So it was like a last-ditch resort that we hoped to God that we could get something off of the rest of the clothes that we still had in evidence. The all-important DNA samples are nowhere to be found. In early 2008, Detective Jim Scharf decides to try to find a profile

from other evidence that was collected. We had Jodi's shirt, her bra, jeans, and both of her boots. I sent all those items to the State Patrol Crime Lab to see if they could find any DNA evidence that might have been missed or left on another article of clothing. It took some time. May 15, 2008, was one of my greatest days as a detective. I got a phone call from the forensic analyst

at the State Patrol Crime Lab telling me that he found a spot of DNA evidence on Jody Loomis' left boot. We were so excited about it that we drove to the crime lab and went back to his workstation, and he showed us the slide, and I counted 25 spermatozoa on it and it was like yeah we actually do have what we need to solve this case it was

wonderful after 36 years it's a much-needed break in the case that offers Jody's family and friends renewed hope. We were very excited, you know, we're going to find who this person was. I felt that, oh, if they have the DNA, then surely they will get the person. Not understanding then, not necessarily. The DNA profile is run through the CODIS, the database used to track and store DNA. But whoever left that stain on Jodi's body is not in the system. It's disappointing, but investigators are now focused on comparing the

sample to those questioned in the original investigation. They start with Ken Rice and his son Alan, who had been working in the woods close to where Jodi was found. The Rice family, that was one of the names that kept popping up. Oh, I wonder if they knew something that just wasn't being told or somebody didn't remember something. Sheriff Scharf came back to our family and DNA tested my dad and my brother. Alan Rice is happy to cooperate, but he's unsure how helpful he can be.

I didn't have any new information on who might be guilty because I had no information at all, really. I just thought it was kind of civic duty to come in and help out. They asked kind of all the logical questions, including, did you do it? At the end, they asked if I would be willing to give them a DNA sample, and I out. They asked kind of all the logical questions, including did you do it? At the end, they asked if I would be willing to give them a DNA sample, and I did. Kenda Rice is anxious to finally find out if the killer had been close to home the entire time. It was really emotional because I was just waiting to hear, waiting for that shoe to drop. Is it possible that it was my father or my brother?

My dad and my brother were actually ruled out. It was a big, huge relief. With the Rices eliminated, the detectives chase a new lead. Someone called in to report that the man who owned a barn at a Strosky farm, where Jody kept her horse, could be responsible for her murder. He knew Jody Loomis, and they were far from amicable. I was aware that they were looking at the owner of the barn. The wife was a close friend of my sister's, and the husband was not.

He made some kind of an off-color comment to Jody at one time that Jody's father learned about and her father had words with him. The barn owner has no alibi for the time Jody was killed and Detective Scharf brings him in for questioning. Jody didn't usually cycle to the barn to ride her horse, Soddy. So it seemed unlikely the barn owner would have had the opportunity to kill her. So he agrees to provide a DNA sample for comparison.

He was an older man, elderly. He was cooperative. We had his DNA tested. We were able to rule out the man that owned the barn. The detectives even tracked down members of the motorcycle gang that was investigated years earlier. Some of the members were dead. But the detectives are able to eliminate them as suspects by testing their children's DNA. You now have a DNA profile.

And if you can't match that up with anybody, you don't have anybody to pursue. I'm Lola. And I'm Megan. And we're the hosts of Trust Me. you don't have anybody to pursue. of the Manson family, NXIVM, MS13, Teal Swan, Heaven's Gate, Children of God, and the Branch Davidians. Join us every week as we help you spot the red flags. Get new episodes of Trust Me every Wednesday on Podcast One or wherever you get your podcasts. I didn't know if I'd ever see the face of who murdered my sister. Over the years, you're just always grabbing at different straws and different things. And then if you hear anything, you're passing it on to the detectives. You just never let go of it. For 10 long years, there isn't much

to hold on to, but everything changes with one forensic advance. It's now the summer of 2018, 46 years after Jody Loomis' murder, and Detective Scharf learns about forensic genealogy. Using a suspect's DNA, a genetic genealogist can search for partial matches in public DNA databases. Those partial matches lead to a family tree. Someone in that family tree can end up being an exact match. The DNA sample is sent to a genetic genealogist who spends 58 hours over a three-day period

re-engineering a family tree to whittle the potential matches down to a son of Jaquetta and Albert Miller. The Millers have six sons and one daughter, so investigators look at the six males to see which one of them was likely Jody's killer. One had sexual criminal history, and that was Terrence Miller. A couple of years after Jody's murder, he was arrested for statutory rape and child molestation,

but he got a deferred prosecution for going through counseling, so Terry didn't go to prison. So now that we knew that he was a sex offender, we started following Terrence Miller around. Undercover officers are tasked with trailing Miller in hopes that they can obtain a known sample of his DNA without alerting him.

The officers follow Miller to a casino where he buys a cup of coffee. Seconds after he discards the cup into a garbage can, the officers retrieve it and take it in as evidence to be sent into the crime lab. On September 6, 2018, the results are in. It is a match. You're just like, yes, you know who did it now,

and this person's still alive. I was taking care of my mom at the time. She didn't have long to live, and I just said, Mom, they are so close. She couldn't say a lot at this point. She made it through that night, and she just beamed. She got to know.

Detective Scharf and Deputy Prosecutor Craig Matheson start to build a case against the suspected murderer. Now we need to figure out who Terrence Miller is. Where did he live in 1972? Where did he work? And all of this is stuff that occurred almost 50 years ago. What witnesses do we have that are still alive that can help us put this case together? Over the following months, investigators pieced together the case against Miller, a man who has lived his entire life in Snohomish County. A few years after Jody was killed, Miller had married his neighbor, and together they run a small ceramic shop in the community that had been haunted by Jody's murder for so long. It's close to home for Detective Scharf, too. Terry Miller kept this secret

all these years from everybody he knew. My brother and his wife, every Monday, bowled with Terry Miller for six or seven years. Undercover detectives are sent to the ceramic shop operated out of the garage at Miller's home. Acting as a couple that were interested in learning how to make ceramics, they bought

some ceramics while they were there. The female asked to use the restroom. Terry wasn't there, but his wife was, so she took the woman into the house, and that gave the man an opportunity to use his phone to videotape the interior of the ceramic shop. And while he was doing that, he observed a newspaper sitting out that was seven months old. That was the only periodical on a table in the shop at the time they were there. And the newspaper article recounted the arrest and then charging of a guy for a double murder from the mid-80s using the technology of genetic genealogy was an odd coincidence.

Or Mr. Miller is keeping up with what technology is doing for law enforcement. The detectives believe that Miller knows they are onto him. Once they have everything they need, the investigators make their move and arrest Miller in his home in Edmonds, Washington in April 2019. It was great to have him in custody, and now our next task was to interview him and hopefully get a confession out of him. If not, we needed some provable lies.

The detectives started turning the screws on him out of him. If not, we needed some provable lies. The detectives started turning the screws on him about talking specifically about the Loomis homicide. When we brought up Jody Loomis, he denied knowing her and denied ever having sex with her. So that was a key thing that we needed to prove in court. Miller was ultimately charged with one count of first-degree murder,

so premeditated murder. And he pled not guilty to that, and trial dates were set. Now, whether we can prove that Terry Miller is the guy or not is still an open question. So much time had passed. It was a very daunting task. Prosecutors are preparing to try Terrence Miller for the 1972 murder of Jody Loomis,

but the passage of time poses a major challenge. At that point, all of the detectives that had been involved in the initial investigation were dead. The medical examiner who had conducted the autopsy was dead. Both of Jody's parents at that point were dead. So we need to figure out what witnesses that we still have left and how we're going to get that boot in front of a jury. We requested that the judge impose bail in the amount of $1 million for Mr. Miller.

And then Mr. Miller was incarcerated pending trial. Over the course of the next several months, when Mr. Miller was incarcerated pending trial. Over the course of the next several months, when Mr. Miller was in jail, he made a number of phone calls to his wife. Every phone call is recorded. He had made comments to the effect that, you know, I'm going to jail. They've got me. They got the DNA. In July 2019, the accused killer does something no one had anticipated. He uses his assets to bail out on a million-dollar bond. The man suspected of killing a young woman is back in the community,

something that strikes fear into Jaina's heart. Can this really be happening? That with DNA and a murder, he's out, he gets to go home. Really upset us when we found that out. I was terrified for Jana. He could come after her. What if he just decided, you know, I'm going to come after the family? You know, what do I have to lose?

Miller remains out on bail when the trial finally begins at Snohomish County Courthouse on October 26, 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. After each day of testimony, Miller is able to go home. Prosecutor Craig Matheson has been able to gather enough witnesses from law enforcement and the coroner's office from 1972 in order to present all of the evidence to the jury. It's a strong case, but the defendant seems emotionless. During the trial, Terry Miller was very stoned-faced. When you're looking at somebody you think murdered your sister, you're gonna look them right in the eyes.

Prosecuting attorney Matheson delivers his closing argument to the jury on Friday, November 6th, and the jury breaks for the weekend. As deliber to the jury on Friday, November 6th, and the jury breaks for the weekend. As deliberations are underway on Monday, November 9th, attorney Matheson receives a phone call from patrol. They're at the Miller house. Miller had committed suicide that morning.

He did it with a.22 handgun, the same type of a weapon that he used to kill Jody. It's a crushing blow. But the jury hasn't been informed, and they continue to deliberate. A little while later, everyone is summoned back into the courtroom to hear the jury's decision. Jody's family and friends anxiously await that verdict. It's a very intense moment when you're sitting there and you're looking at the jury

and you're looking at the judge and the jury announces that he's guilty. Oh, thank goodness. It's a bittersweet outcome, as Miller had taken his own life just before he was convicted of Jody Loomis' murder. There was no justice when that trigger was pulled. I wanted him to go to prison because I pretty much knew what was going to happen to him in prison,

and it was not going to be pretty. I wanted the Loomis family to see Miller convicted. I wanted them to see him be handcuffed and led from the courtroom. He took that from them, but it was very rewarding because that family had been waiting a long time. Despite everything, Jaina hopes that something good can come out of the tragedy that had plagued her family for almost 50 years. We need to learn from what happened to Jodi and try and make it to where we take care of

other families that are going through this, of not knowing, and try to help. That's what Jodi would want. She would want that. I miss her for all my years that I had with her, and I miss her for all the years I didn't have with her. All the things that she cared about that I couldn't share with her

because somebody was so evil. Jodi, I love you so much. And that's why you don't give up hope is because I love you. Yeah. I love you, Jodi. 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

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