Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Are nearly 10 missing teen girls buried on remote Michigan woodlands?

Episode Date: May 10, 2018

Michigan investigators are digging up a wooded area northeast of Detroit in a search for more than a half dozen women who may have been murdered and buried there decades ago. Nancy Grace explores the case of Arthur Reams, who is already in prison for killing 13-year-old Cindy Zarzycki. Police now believe he had many more victims possibly buried near where Cindy's body was found. Grace is joined by forensics expert Karen Smith, psychologist Dr. Tiffany Sanders, and CrimeOnline investigative reporter John Lemley. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. There's a brand new website causing a lot of trouble for people with something to hide. Have you ever had a bad feeling about somebody? Suspect that a partner of cheating? Worried about your online reputation? If you answer yes to any of those questions, you may need Truthfinder. Truthfinder may reveal court records, bankruptcies, contact information, social, dating profiles, assets, and a lot more. You get it all in one easy-to-read report.

Why fork out thousands of dollars to a private eye when you can do the job yourself? Go to truthfinder.com slash Nancy and enter any name to get started. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph channel 132. Imagine your little girl goes missing and you search and you search and you cry and you pray and you search and you cry and you pray. And the years pass and you know nothing. And every day you wake up and wonder, will this be the day? And maybe a day passes that you don't think about it and beat yourself up because you didn't think about it the day before. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

That's the living hell that multiple families are going through right now. And they are waking up to the awful discovery that up to seven little girls appear to be buried in a serial killer's burial grounds on a farm where police have now started digging for the remains of a 12-year-old girl missing since 1979. How did it go undiscovered?

How did this guy go undetected for so long? As you hear my words, digging is taking place on a Michigan farm. We do have, as you know, probable cause to believe that this is a grave site. No question about it. That Kimberly King and other young female victims who were murdered are buried here. And we believe we have a suspect, and you know who that suspect is. He's already been convicted. He's in prison.

We were hoping that we'd get a little more cooperation from him. But we're going to do our jobs as far as law enforcement. This search could last up to two, three, four, five days. Whatever it takes, we're going to do our jobs as far as law enforcement. This search could last up to two, three, four, five days, whatever it takes, we're going to do it. We're very cautiously optimistic that we're going to unfortunately find remains, but the key issue here as far as what we're trying to do is we're trying to bring closure, trying to bring closure to the families, the families of the victims. That's the key here.

Straight out to John Limley, Crime Online investigative reporter, joining me along with Chicago psychologist Dr. Tiffany Sanders and forensics expert Karen Smith, and of course, Alan the Duke, Duke joining me out of L.A., Jackie Howard here in the studio. John Limley, I'm overwhelmed that authorities believe that there are at least seven little girls buried on this Michigan farm, a now vacant farm. What do we know? Actually, hold on, John Limley. I want you to listen to what we have gotten our mitts on. This is one of the little girl's father talking about the day his little girl, Cindy Zarzycki, goes missing. Probably about 5, 6 o'clock.

It was dinner time for dinner, and she wasn't around. What'd you do? I went to the police station, and they told me that I had to wait 24 hours to file a report. She should have been home. She's not home. Now we're calling friends, trying to find out where she's at. We went to, like, the different parks. And there was a carnival not far away.

And so we went to different places looking for her. What are you thinking? She maybe got hurt? She's in a hospital somewhere? I didn't know. I had no idea. I mean, anything bad wasn't even in the picture. So it was still, boy, is she going to get a talking to when she comes home?

Yeah. And I figured she'd be home. That is a father. That is Cindy's father when Cindy first goes missing from our friends at NBC Dateline. But now take a listen to Cindy's mother as well. At that point, we were still hoping that she had just spent the night at somebody's house. And I remember my mom coming into the room

and saying, do you know where Cindy is? She said, if you know anything, you better spill it. Now, you're a 13-year-old self. Are you wondering where she is? I was concerned right away, yeah. You didn't hear about that in East Detroit. You heard about it in, you know, other states. And so when you're 13, you think you're untouchable.

It was panic. You knew that there was something wrong. I mean, it's not like Jaws where you got the little music going and you know there's something. We're just making them out of a molehill. It'll be over. We'll find her. Everything will be all right.

To Dr. Tiffany Sanders, Chicago psychologist, that's what people tell themselves when they want to believe everything will be all right but cindy had never gone missing before she was a great student very well behaved they knew something was wrong dr tiffany and it breaks my heart police told them they had to wait 24 hours before they could report her missing because that's the critical time where you can save someone a child's life. Wow, Nancy, my heart breaks listening to those recordings. And of course they knew, but when you think about the five stages of grief, the very first stage is denial.

So they're denying what likely is the truth, that something unfortunate happened to their daughter and their sister. And when you think about this man who Cindy trusted, she probably didn't even think anything was going to be happening to her. She just probably thought it was an innocuous interaction, and he took advantage of her. So her family likely has gone through all those stages of grief, from denial to depression to anger to bargaining with God, like, please let our child be okay, let our sister be okay, and to that final stage of acceptance. And it's very unfortunate, and I'm so happy that they're likely getting the closure they need. It's so hard for them to get to that point because for so long, she's missing years past and they don't know what happened to her. Back to you, John Lindley. Let's take it from the beginning.

What focused police on this vacant Michigan farm? Tell me about the disappearance of the girls. There's so many and I predict they're going to be more. Well, we could begin with the specifics of Cindy's case and then we'll go back in time. Cindy, Sunday morning, not in the middle of the night sometime, tells her father that she's going to Dairy Queen, where she's going to meet some friends, and then they're going to walk to church. Now, this was a lie. She was actually intending to meet her boyfriend, Scott Ream. At least, that's what she thinks she's doing. When Cindy arrives at the Dairy Queen, Scott's not there, but his dad, Arthur, is. He tells her that he's met

her there so that they can plan a surprise birthday party for Scott. After that, no Cindy. She's not seen anywhere. It's not long, though, before police do hone in on Arthur. Shortly after Cindy's appearance, Arthur is thrown in prison for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. And this really shines the spotlight on him. The remains of a 12-year-old girl missing for years may be buried at a vacant Michigan farm. Police now believe is a graveyard, a burial site for many, many other girls. Police now digging on a remote property, and it's in Warren, Warren, Michigan. The Warren Police Commissioner, Bill Dwyer, says that he believes there are many others buried there. They say they've got probable cause to believe Kimberly is buried there and that there are other girls.

He did not give the names of the other missing girls. Now, Kimberly was reported missing from the same area around 1979, 80. She was staying with her grandparents that night. Nothing. What can you tell me about this guy, Arthur Ream, John Limley? Arthur has admitted since that first 1986 arrest for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl to having a fetish for teenage girls. Detectives, therefore, were very suspicious of Art when it came to some other cases that had big question marks by them. You know, a lot of these cases had been treated as runaways because there were never bodies found. Cindy's case was finally reopened when investigators interviewed Arthur Ream. They said his behavior was rather telling because when they

first confronted him, he didn't ask why they wanted to talk to him. He just said, I knew this day would come. It's very odd. He said, I knew this day would come. You know, I don't understand something, John Limley, why there was not a full on search for these girls when they go missing. And it's very upsetting that they were just discounted as runaways. That's one thing investigators have not been able to understand because they're picking up the pieces left behind by investigators from decades ago. And they're not sure if there just wasn't enough suspicion to think that there really had been foul play or who knows, maybe personnel time was just under crunch

at that moment and they didn't have the time to cover the cases. Here's another bizarre fact. Now, John Lindley has detailed how apparently Reem lured the one girl claiming that they were going to set up her little boyfriend. I mean, she's like 13. Her little boyfriend's birthday party at a Dairy Queen. But what he really does is lure her out under the pretense of a surprise birthday party for her little boyfriend. His son, so she trusted him him he rapes and kills her so that's how that went down and that is why she lied to her parents at first it sounds bad that she says she was going to this place what she was really going to do was set up a little surprise birthday party

at the local Dairy Queen I remember growing up that was the closest thing to us local Dairy Queen. I remember growing up, that was the closest thing to us, a Dairy Queen. We had to drive 25 minutes to get to that. That was the big thing, to go to Dairy Queen. So as John Lindley is telling us, the alleged perp, Reams, did not ask why cops were there, just said, I knew this day would come. Now, here's the thing about the son. Scott, Reem's son, and Cindy's then little boyfriend was killed in a 1994 drunk driving incident. He wasn't drinking. A drunk driver killed him. Now, in the hopes of getting who they believe to be a serial killer, Reem, to reveal where Cindy's body is,

the cops take Reem to his son's grave, and they let him lay flowers there. And they say, you've got your son's body to bury why can't Cindy's family the Zarzikis have that same piece and according to them Rain just shakes his head goes that's a low blow but then he makes an offer to show investigators where Cindy's body is, where it was buried. He draws a map of some land in Macomb Township that some of his friends owned. And the map was way too difficult to understand, so he was actually taken to where he's being held. He's taken from there to where the map shows the body will be. Seven hours passed. The investigators found nothing, okay?

Even landowners nearby were helping to dig, okay? They were all digging. And then they see a purse, a purse in the dirt, and a human leg next to shoes, and they all belong to little Cindy. Dr. Tiffany Sanders, Chicago psychologist, I cannot even imagine that moment. You're out there digging and you see a purse and shoes and a human leg. Wow. Yeah, I would be totally frightened. I don't even like scary movies. So just the thought of seeing someone's leg, someone's helpless body poking out of the ground, those images can be seared in our minds forever.

They're so emotionally charged, and it can cause whoever stumbled upon that person to experience their own sort of traumatic response. So we've got to think about those who are digging and putting themselves out there to help rescue this little girl or find her body. They're likely dealing with some emotional backlash from that incident. Well, that set the whole thing off, all right? And from that location, we now believe that there are multiple little girls' bodies. We are on the trail of a serial killer, according to many, and he's got a lot to be worried about right now, because after the innovation and detective work in the Golden State Killer case, where DNA from a long-ago murder and rape case was used and put into a site like Ancestry.com,

through familial DNA, the Golden State Killer was caught. Now, if this guy is the right guy, DNA on these little girls' bodies, if it still exists, if they're not totally skeletonized, which they may be, can be matched up on genealogical websites through familial DNA and possibly tie him to other murders. Now that he is in custody, a search warrant can be conducted on him. It's called a bugle swab. You put something like a really long Q-tip into somebody's mouth and get their saliva. Now that he's a suspect, even if there's not DNA left on the girl's bodies, that saliva can be put in a genealogical website to see all

of the websites to see if he is connected to any other crimes. See, his DNA can be put in the DNA database. It can be used in so many different ways to possibly link him to other murders of little girls. But right now, hey, why are we talking about it when we've got it from the horse's mouth? WDIV had a hidden camera on Reem in a prison interview with a detective. Listen. Years ago, I wouldn't even talk to you. Art Reem, convicted murderer, has no idea

he's on Rescue for a hidden camera. Oh, I've never given up on myself. I'm just saying that, you know, my life is over. Rehm killed 13-year-old Cindy Zarzycki, kidnapping her from this East Point Dairy Queen. That's just like Cindy. The next day, you know, I know what I did was wrong. Reem will now die in prison, but this murderer is hiding a secret, holding Cindy's family hostage. I can't make up for the wrong I've done. Reem knows just where Cindy is buried, and he knows family, and police want the answer. Reem contacts officers saying he has information to share.

You ever have nightmares? You fancy having some more nightmares? The decision on how to unlock the secret falls on the shoulders of these two men, Inspector John Calabrese and Detective Derek Mack McLaughlin. So what would you do? You want that secret. You know the answer would bring one family some comfort, a little bit of relief from excruciating pain. Do you beg, plead with Art Ream? Do you threaten him to get the information? Inspector Calabrese does just the opposite.

He tells Mac to act like he just doesn't care, like it's not important. With Rescue 4 hidden cameras rolling, Mac puts on his best poker face. He strolls into the Macomb correctional facility, ready to bluff. How you been? Whoa.

All right. You all right? I am. When Reem rambles on, Mac puts all the chips on the table. He tells the murderer, it's not important to know where Cindy is buried. Everyone already has closure.

Reem gets angry. I walk out of here right now. So you really don't care what happened? I don't have closure, so how the hell can they have closure? But Calabrese is confident. Reem erupts because the killer senses the only card he has to bargain with is no longer important. Calabrese tells Mack not to worry. Reem craves attention and he will be back. Just days later, Mac gets word Ream is ready to talk. How are you doing? All right.

Let's see. With Rescue 4 hidden cameras rolling, Ream starts to explain his map describing how he buried the 13-year-old. All she had to do was go up North Avenue. And that's right there. Now, did you go pretty deep, or? Reem gets specific about Cindy's clothing and accessories. Was she wearing a purse? Yeah.

Just put her in the hole and put a coat over her. Did you position the body in a certain way in the hole? With Reem talking, it seems as if the police gamble is paying off. Hands crossed in any way? But remember, this is no game. What really matters is not that Reem is talking, but if he's telling the truth and if police can find Cindy. He said that the bridge was like right in here. Just days after this hidden camera confession, Calabrese, Mack and other police officers uncover Reem's 22-year-old secret, the bones of little Cindy.

Happy for the family that we can hopefully give the family a lot of closure. Buried exactly how Reem described, face up with her purse on her chest and a jacket nearby. It's a bittersweet moment for Cindy's family, whose search has come to an end. They had no idea if Cindy was dead or alive for more than two decades. We want to make sure we place her at rest. She is at rest and not where somebody left. Karen Smith, he makes me sick because he's talking about his life is over, how he's suffering because he's been caught,

how he's suffered because of what he did, the guilt over killing Cindy. But there's so many others. He kept doing it. I mean, why is he talking about his pain and suffering? Oh, it's so typical, Nancy, the narcissism and it's all me, me, me. You know, this is just so typical of these predators, of these, you know, people who prey on the helpless children in our society. It's all about me and what I'm going through. Well, let's talk about the families

and what those little girls went through. And my prayers right now are that investigators are able to find the remains of these little girls that have been missing for decades and give these families some closure. I don't know if they'll be able to break this Arthur Ream guy and have him go back to the scene and maybe point out where he's put these other bodies. But that sure would be a help at this point because investigators have their work cut out for them.

This guy, a master manipulator, tricking this little girl into telling her he was planning a surprise birthday party for his son because the little girl had been dating his son at the time of her disappearance well as much as 13 or 14 year old little kids can date i guess that means holding hand at the in the movie theater when their parents drop them off so he used his own son as bait okay bait. Okay. From that, police have continued digging to Dr. Tiffany Sanders, Chicago psychologist. A, I'm very interested in his narcissism, that it's all about him and how he's suffering now. But also police say he is a control freak. What does that mean to you? Well, it seems like he uses manipulation to get what he wants. So he, you know, controls the circumstances to his benefit, exploiting young people, including his own son. He probably, you know, got information from his young son to create this situation for the young

girl to come visit and go to the ice cream shop and not thinking she was going to, that was going to be her last day on this face of this earth. So he's controlling, he's narcissistic, he thinks about himself. He has this grandiose idea that, you know, he's entitled to these young girls. What makes you think you're entitled? You're a grown man. Go after a woman and date her like everybody else tends to date and marry so this man is obviously sick he needs well he really needed help but he's in the best place he could be which is behind bars man he can really lie dr tiffany because he came up with some yarn about the little girl had fallen off an elevator and that they buried her that's such a lie because none of her bones reveal any breakage, fracture, nothing.

I mean, can you imagine after all these years, the family finally having closure and not in a good way. To John Limley, Crime Online investigative reporter, how are the girls similar, the seven that they think are buried? And of course, I predict there will be more. Who are they? How are they similar? Well, one that investigators are really focused and they're hoping that they're going to be able to find her is Kimberly King, this girl that's been missing since September of 1979. She was staying with

her grandparents that night. She wanted to go to a movie with her older sister. She was trying to pack in a lot that night. She also snuck out of a sleepover that same night through a bedroom window and she went to hang out in, this is again, Warren, Michigan, close to Lake St. Clair. She went to Warren's cruising spot. Now around 11 that night, she calls one of her sisters, Connie, from a payphone that's not far at all from her grandparents' house. Connie tells her to go back to Annie's, that it's too late to be out for a 12-year-old to be running around town. It's not really known what happens next, but we do know that this late-night payphone call to her sister would be the last time that any of Kimberly's family or friends would ever talk with her. And this is just one of the cases that may be tied to these woods in this farmland.

Oh, can you imagine finding out your little girl is buried out there after years of wondering if she just ran away and is living somewhere away from you? That would be just awful. Then to find out she was actually dead. And there's no doubt that he raped them in my mind because there are other victims that we know of this guy arthur remit already served hard time for a child sex offense in shelby township and and that was in 75 and then again in 98 for a case out of gladwin county both of them child sex offenses Why was he even out is my question. Four other women have come forward now claiming they were assaulted by him when they were younger. And nothing happened.

I just, I don't understand it. There's this huge line of victims. And now it's resulting because he kept getting out, getting out, getting out on child sex offenses. We now know he has committed murder on these children. A very disturbing past for Arthur Rehm. And I'm stunned, Karen Smith, that he had all these offenses and he wasn't kept behind bars, Karen. Isn't that typical, Nancy? You know, these guys rely on a broken system to go out and keep reoffending and keep reoffending. And that's

what apparently happened here with Arthur Reed. As soon as he got out, he went right back to his old behaviors, his old MOs, trolling for these little girls. And, you know, you said that there's probably more bodies in the woods, and I agree with you 100%. We're not going to stop at seven. There's going to be more. Well, here's the other thing. You know, there's no death penalty in Michigan.

So this guy can rape as many children as he wants to and murder as many children as he wanted to, and he will get no more than anybody else that pulled a gun and shot somebody in a bar. Okay? That's how this is going to go down. That is how this is going to go down. And the whole thing is just so disturbing to me. Up to seven girls, six to seven girls, we believe are buried at a Macomb Township burial site by a guy who had repeated convictions for child sex attacks, Arthur Ream. Police now searching

the woods. It's a little bit north of Detroit for bodies of these young girls. How are they doing it, Karen Smith? You're the forensics expert. How are they going about? I mean, you go out to a completely wooded area. It's all overgrown with trees, with fallen trees, with underbrush. How do you do it? Well, to say that this is going to be a complex undertaking would be an understatement,

Nancy. You know, at this point, we have advanced technology. We have ground penetrating radar. We have cadaver dogs. Aerial photography can show differences in the land and how it's laid out and maybe differences in the soil areas that they haven't looked at before. And the problem is, if they uncover one body, they have to individualize that body because now we're dealing with multiple victims. So it's not just a matter of uncovering skeletal remains. It's a matter of doing age, sex, ancestry, stature, and then doing the individual characteristics to identify that child as the victim they were looking for.

They may uncover a body they weren't expecting. It's going to make it so much more complex and so much more difficult. You know, it's freaky, Dr. Tiffany Sanders, Chicago psychologist, on another note regarding this perv, Arthur Ream, who was, P.S., doing another jail term on a child sex attack. I don't know how many of those he's got. But, Dr. Tiffany, this guy once had a family. Somewhere out there, there is a wife who knows everything about this guy, if we can find her. And he passed for normal because he looked like he was a typical,

or looked like he had a typical all-American family, wife, children, probably involved in the community. But, you know, when you have an intimate partner, a husband or a spouse or wife, you tend to know them very well. So I want to ask her if I had the chance to say, were there some suspicious things about his behavior when he would come home? Did he have any sort of marks on him? Did he, you know, have any sort of vices or fantasies that you thought were kind of weird and unusual? Because if your partner knows you well, you can pick up on those things. But, you know, sometimes, you know, some people turn a blind eye

and in this case, it could have possibly happened. But that is very unusual to have a wonderful, beautiful family. But you're going out and you're targeting these unsuspecting 12, 13, 14-year-old girls. Disgusting. For the longest time, there was hope Cindy Zarzycki was alive. There were alleged sightings of her in Florida, across the southwest and the south. Finally, eight years after she goes missing, she was pronounced dead, but her family never had a body to bury. That ended when she was finally found on this Macomb County tract of land. Now there are other families waiting in line,

wondering if their child will be the next to be uncovered and identified. A victim of Arthur Ream. Police burning the midnight oil looking for more bodies of little girls. Listen. We do have, as you know, probable cause to believe that this is a grave site no question about it that Kimberly King and other young female victims who were murdered are buried here and we believe we have a suspect and you know who that suspect is he's already been convicted he's in prison we were hoping that would get a little more cooperation from him but we we're going to do our jobs as far as law enforcement. This search could last up to two, three, four, five days. Whatever it takes, we're going to do it. We're very cautiously optimistic what we're trying to do is we're trying to bring closure, trying to bring closure to the families, the families of the victims. That's the key here.

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Now, it's as simple as entering a name. Truthfinder sifts through millions of public records from all over the country, assembling them into one easy to read report. Search the names of somebody you know. You could find criminal and arrest records, bankruptcies, contact information, social, dating profiles, financial assets, and a lot more. Why fork out thousands to a private investigator when you can do the job yourself? Everybody you know has something to hide. Now you can root out the most dangerous people before you become the next victim.

It's not just used to bust bad people. Truthfinder helps Americans reunite with friends, family, even people who served with them in the military. It's never been so easy to find the truth. Go to truthfinder.com slash Nancy and enter any name to get started. My message to those responsible, simply this, we will find you. We will knock on every door, talk to every witness, watch every piece of video, and analyze every piece of evidence. Believe me, you will not get away with this. And now to Chicago, an ATF agent gunned down a nationwide manhunt for the cop shooter. Right now, we are learning in the last hours a takedown. Joining me right now, John Limley, Crime Online investigative reporter.

What do we know? First of all, let's start with the shooting. For those of you that don't know about the ATF agent gunned down in the line of duty, start at the beginning, John Limley. Nancy, in the predawn hours of Friday, the reputed gang member, Ernesto Godinez, he slipped out of the back of the yard's home. This is the area in which he lives in Chicago.

He cut through a gangway about a block away from where undercover federal agents were working a gangway about a block away from where undercover federal agents were working a gang investigation. Now, thankfully, surveillance cam— Back it up. Back it up. With me, John Limley, Crime Online investigative reporter. It's the Almighty Saints. That's the gang we're talking about.

And they are brutal. Brutal. They will gun you down just as soon as they look at you, John Limley. These gangs have been plaguing Chicago for so many years, and in this part of Chicago, it's their domain. So what I understand is surveillance cameras that were set up for another matter, another matter, captured the shooter entering an alley just literally moments, not even minutes, moments before seven shots rang out. I mean, you know, Karen Smith with me, forensics expert, along with Dr. Tiffany Sanders, well-known Chicago psychologist. Karen, when you're in law enforcement, all those years that I prosecuted, tromping through housing projects, very often all by myself,

with nothing in my hand but a subpoena to deliver to somebody or a beat-up old Polaroid county-issued camera to take crime scene photos. I guess you go into it every day knowing you could take a bullet, knowing you could be shot at, I guess. I knew it. In fact, I remember one episode, Karen, where my investigator and I, broad daylight, knocking on a door, trying to find a witness. It was really bright outside and the

people had a screen door an old dark screen door fully screened door which is very common in the south over their regular door and you couldn't see through it and it was in the shade and I was in the bright sunlight, and all of a sudden, I see a barrel coming out of the door right at our faces, and my investigator and I, he grabbed me. We dove off the porch, dove into the bushes, okay? And I guess I recount it now anecdotally, but I really didn't think about it. When I would get ready to go out on the street or work a case I didn't really think about the fact that I I could meet with danger and now this ATF agent like so many other cops goes to work that evening and he gets shot by a gang member what about it Karen I recall moments like that as well Nancy and you know when you put on the and he gets shot by a gang member.

What about it, Karen? I recall moments like that as well, Nancy. And, you know, when you put on the uniform, especially ATF, I mean, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, just the title of their job elicits danger and even more so than a beat cop. And that's what I was, was just a beat cop. And I remember going into certain neighborhoods and just having my guard up, knowing full well that it was a dangerous area. So this ATF agent and shoot him in the face.

And that's part of the inherent danger. Oh, just the way we're even saying that, shoot him in the face. Well, once again, I've gotten ahead of myself. I'm putting the cart before the horse, John Limley. Back to you. So the surveillance cameras are set up for another matter, and they happen to catch this almighty saint gang member. And what do they see?

Well, and the sad thing was is at the moment they were actually working on a device that they were using. Their attention wasn't even in the direction that Ernesto Ginez was coming from. Let me ask you this, John Limley. Isn't it true that the agent and his whole team were looking down because they were changing batteries in a car tracking device at that moment? They were all looking down, and at that moment was about 3 15 a.m which i believe is truly the witching hour i don't think it's 12 i agree with a little girl in bfg big friendly giant the witching hour is 3 a.m i'm convinced of it had so many laugh if you want people go ahead karen

forensics expert dr tiffany shrink john limley, John Limley. Go ahead, Alan Duke. I know you're laughing into your hand out there in your posh penthouse pad in L.A. Jackie's saying yes. There's something about the 3 a.m. time. I had so many murders. And I know I'm supposed to be the just the facts man, but I've heard all my life that 315 has some sort of spooky significance. Okay, we're getting all voodoo. We've got to stop. People will mock us, but we all know it's true. Okay, so they're all looking down, and the guy opens up a hill of bullets. Go ahead. And as the officers immediately start scrambling, after the agent, one agent has been hit in the face. Officers call for... Oh, that just hurts me. Officers call dispatch for backup. The suspect

runs back to his house, which is just right there near the scene of the shooting, before he hops into a vehicle and drives off. And they've got most of it or some of it on surveillance video, but it's very grainy and it's very dark. Just FYI, Dr. Tiffany Sanders joining us from Chicago. This is your backyard. It's Chicago back of the yards neighborhood. And this gang, the Almighty Saints, are about 60 year old. They're a 60 year old

street gang. That's how long they have been a parasite on Chicago. So what does Chicago have to say to this, Dr. Tiffany? It's taken them 60 years and they can't get rid of the Almighty Saints. Yeah, Nancy, this is really, really you know such a sad situation uh atf agent doing their job 3 a.m in the morning unsuspecting and this man takes an opportunity a sucker opportunity to shoot uh a pretty much uh unarmed agent at that moment uh a defenseless agent rather and and when you think about our community being uh terrorized by these parasites is quite frustrating because you don't want to take your children outside you don't want to play on the streets because you don't know when a random bullet from some stupid gang member who's

fighting someone and they cannot shoot because they never hit their targets they always seem to hit some random child. It's just very disheartening to hear and read these stories on a weekly basis in the news. And unfortunately, Chicago has not done the best of job in trying to get at these gang members. And unfortunately, also, the residents don't turn each other in. They know who's doing the bad things, and they're raising these parasites

and they don't want to do anything about it. Listen to this. Despite $61,000 in reward money and impassioned pleas from police and public officials for community assistance, law enforcement sources tell the I-team there were no tips offered by neighborhood residents in the ATF shooting, seen as an indication of the grip the Almighty Saints gang has on residents. Well, I had a lot of gang prosecutions in this inner city Atlanta, but when the Almighty Saints came on my radar was the late 90s when a 12-year-old Saint, Almighty Saint member went through, quote, initiation and gunned down two rival gang members that were about uh 14 that's when i first heard the name almighty saint and at that time i was in the middle of um

a case that was later tried called Doom. It was the Doom Gang. And there were a lot of murders and a lot of shootings. I had a shooting, an aggravated assault case that was a Doom member, and they would, like, torture the person first. And I started working with a gang squad, as it was at the time and i heard about

the almighty saints in chicago um it's the new mob it's a street mob the new mafia and they run all of it's like organized crime they run all the crime within their turf. Drugs, prostitution, theft, larceny, everything. Evil. And the people that live in that area are subject to a bunch of thugs' rule. John Limley, so they shoot the ATF agent. They take off. The surveillance is very gritty.

It's at night. But it turns out this guy, Gideon, and his brother Rodrigo are the leaders of the almighty saints. And they can both rot in H-E-L-L as far as I'm concerned. So a takedown occurs. Tell me what happened. This is an interesting point. While surveillance footage places Godinez near the spot where the shots were fired, the criminal complaint does not allege he was actually seen firing the gun. Also, which has investigators scratching is why in the world Godinez opened fire or whether he knew he was even firing at agents. Because, see, these guys were in plainclothes while were setting up for their own task force in the neighborhood where he lived.

Long story short, an arrest has gone down. What do we know about these guys and how exactly were they caught, John Limley? Well, records show that both brothers have some extensive criminal histories. It was Ernesto and his brother Rodrigo. They were charged in 2011 with the attempted murder for a shooting in that same neighborhood, then picked up on a separate charge of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon for an incident in March 2012 while he was on bond. He ended up resolving both cases a couple of years ago by pleading guilty to aggravated discharge of a firearm and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. So he has been on the radar screen for investigators

for quite some time. Listen to this. Ernie Godinez cuffed and in custody, a prearranged surrender for the man prosecutors say shot an undercover federal agent last Friday. Sources say Godinez turned himself in with his lawyer in a parking lot behind the 1st District Police Station yesterday. Two different surveillance cameras captured Godinez in the area,

and at least three cameras captured what happened during the shooting. Godinez is seen on video leaving his home heading down an alley. They claim Godinez is seen leaving his home shortly after 3 in the morning and walking to an area where shell casings were later found. Video also allegedly shows Godinez running back toward his nearby home right after shots were fired. The complaint says ATF agents were in the neighborhood to place a tracking device on a suspect's vehicle. I know Eighty-four people were shot in Chicago. Eighty-four. And that includes, I think it was, nine homicides.

What in the hay is going on? Is it because the weather gets warm? I mean, Karen Smith, I know people scoff at that, but there's a clear increase in violent crime when weather gets warm. Why? That has been a conundrum that police have worked with forever. You've got the full moon, you know, saying you've got the warm weather thing. But it is a fact.

Crime spikes when spring hits. And, you know, to have nine murders and how many shootings? Eighty-some? Eighty 80 some 84 that's insane they have got to get a grip on this somehow some way what do we know about where they're being held are they both behind bars i mean if you could see this mugshot this guy's got such a smirk on his face i just want to wipe it off it's ernesto Godinez charged with shooting an ATF agent. In this past week, the agent shot while working with Chicago police in the back of the yards area. A reputed gang member, Ernesto Godinez, snuck out of his home in the early morning darkness,

cuts through an alley about a block from where federal agents were working on a gang investigation. And because of that, he's caught on surveillance video. But here's the kicker. I don't know how good that surveillance video is at night. I don't know what they captured. So the state is not going to be able to rely on that. They're going to have to come up with a weapon. They're going to have to come up with testimony.

And it is not easy to crack a gang member and make them talk. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. All we can do now is pray for the ATF agent and his family. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.