Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - GIRL, 5, WALKS ALONE TO SCHOOL, MURDERED

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Five-year-old Ann Pham is the youngest of 10 children, but her family felt her so responsible that the parents allowed the girl to walk the few blocks to her kindergarten class alone.  Pham never made it. She had been suffocated, sexually assaulted, and her body discarded.  according to police. Now, thanks to new DNA technology, Robert John Lanoue, 70, a former Fort Ord soldier, is charged with one count of first-degree murder, with special circumstances.   Joining Nancy Grace Today: Dr. Ed Green - Founder: Astrea Forensics, Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, AstreaForensics.com Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney, Fulton County, Georgia, Defense Attorney, Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC, CCEAlaw.com Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist, CarynStark.com, Twitter: @carynpsych, Facebook: "Caryn Stark"  Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert, Founder: Cold Case Investigative Research Institute in Atlanta, GA, ColdCaseCrimes.org, @ColdCaseTips  Dr. Michelle DuPre - Former Forensic Pathologist, Medical Examiner and Detective: Lexington County Sheriff's Department, Author: "Homicide Investigation Field Guide" & "Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide", Forensic Consultant, DMichelleDupreMD.com  Scott Rates - News Director/Anchor KION 46, Facebook.com/RealScottRates, Twitter: @RealScottRates,, Instagram: @real.news.rates  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A five-year-old little girl on her way to school, walking alone, but school was only a few blocks away. What could go wrong, right? A lot. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. What happened to Ann? First of all, take a listen to this. Two days after she went missing. Two days and just two miles from her family's home,

Pham's little body was found. As fate would have it, Sergeant Matthew Doza, who is helping lead this case, is the son of one of the Army CID investigators who stumbled on the child's body off of what is now South Boundary Road. A couple of years ago, we opened this case and we examined every single report. We examined every item of evidence and have since partnered with the District Attorney's Office Cold Case Unit. And they are running with this case and following up on every lead, every piece of information, every bit of evidence.

FAM's case is one where looking at all the DNA can bring closure and justice to victims' families. Here we're just hearing our friends at KION46. How can there be a five-year-old little girl that goes missing, her body found, murdered, and sex assaulted, and yet no arrest. Again, thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories on Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now in the disappearance and death, murder of a five-year-old little girl walking to kindergarten. First of all, to Scott Rates, news director, anchor, KION46. Scott, five years old. I guess I should throw this to our shrink here and start, but to you, what horrible devil walking amongst us would snatch a five-year-old little girl.

This is beautiful. She looks like a China doll. Off the side of the street, walking to school on a rainy California morning, murder her and sex assault her. Tell me what happened that morning. You know, it was just, it was a regular morning, walking to school, Highland Elementary School in Seaside. Seaside's just slightly north of Monterey, California. And she wouldn't make it.

And, you know, it was, the community at the time was shocked. There wasn't a lot of news coverage on her at the time, Nancy. In fact, Chief Borges, Chief Nick Borges with the Seaside Police told me it was dismal as far as news coverage. So it really didn't get out there. And that case went cold. No idea what happened to little Annie Pham. Walked into school and just disappeared. Scott Ray's joining me, KION46.

Tell me about Seaside, California. Big town, small town, rural, industrial, tourist. What is it? It's just two miles north of Monterey, California, about 33,000 people. That was the population as of 2020, just over 33,000 people. Mix of people. These are working class people. These are folks who work in the area. It's not big on tourism like Monterey would be or Pebble Beach, but it's more people who live here, that working class, like I said. Well, I can tell you this, Scott Rates. It's 2.25 miles away from Monterey. And I just happen to be familiar with that area. My sister lives in California with her family and I covered the Scott Peterson

trial and lived in Redwood City for so long. Just recently, coincidental, Scott writes, my daughter out of the blue said, what is Carmel-by-the-Sea? I said, sweetheart, that's where your aunt lives, out in that area. And that's where we went during COVID because we didn't want to stay in a hotel. We didn't want to fly. Took an RV and went to Carmel and Monterey. And Monterey is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, Scott. The water comes crashing in. There are sea otters.

There's all sorts of marine life. There is actually an old Franciscan monk outpost that was one of the first outposts. It was, I guess, the Spanish monks came and founded it to serve the area. We went there. It's so beautiful. And the point I'm making to you, Karen Stark, a high-profile psychologist joining us out of New York, is that the dichotomy of this beautiful, natural, serene setting, and then knowing a five-year-old little girl on her way to kindergarten

is snatched off the side of the street, sex assaulted, and murdered. It somehow, in my mind, doesn't fit together, yet I know that it happened. Unfortunately, Nancy, it happens a lot in the most idyllic settings and in the worst settings. It has nothing to do with the fact that you have people out there, you have pedophiles who are searching for young children for sexual purposes. And that appears to have been what happened in this case. And it's reality. That is a reality that we have to contend with. In addition to Scott Rates, news director and anchor KION46, and Karen Stark, psychologist joining us out of New York, with me is the founder and director of the Cold Case Research Institute. We met in the trenches fighting crime.

Cheryl McComb is with me. Cheryl, I think it's very probative that she was sex assaulted, strangled, then pulled out into the bushes. Hidden there, the person took the time to hide her body, which is staging, and we'll have a lot to say about that. And it was also at a now-shuttered U.S. Army post, Fort Ord. Correct. And Nancy, you and I both know perpetrators like this go places they know, that they're familiar with. They know there's not going to be anybody on an outpost there.

They know that they're not marching or exercising there. They're not going to run any kind of daily trainings there. So this person had knowledge of that base and specifically the area where she was found. What do you make of the fact that she had been pulled in the bushes? Now, think about it, Cheryl McCollum. Seaside, which was formerly East Monterey, now Seaside, very, very small population, about 30,000 people, not far from Monterey, but still, I would call it rural. How does that play into it in your mind, Cheryl McCollum? Well, again, the perpetrator selected this area. He selected where he placed her, where he tried to hide her. This was his doing. So he made every decision from who he snatched. So again, given her age, the distance from her home to her school, this was quick. This was somebody that was out hunting and seized an opportunity

when he saw this baby alone. So again, when he attempted to hide her, it was a location I believe he not only was familiar with, but knew he would go unseen and had the time to take to try to hide her. Let me talk to you about this, Cheryl McCollum, and everybody in our panel, feel free to jump in. This is not a tea party at High Grove with the queen, okay? Cheryl, do you remember the case that you and I are still working at Skullcase of Debbie Randall, a little Georgia girl? She went, I would say, seven, no, not seven,

maybe eight, 10, 12-ish. She went to the laundromat, catty-cornered to where they lived, and was collecting used soap and playing with the doll. This is what I'm getting at. She was horribly, horribly raped and murdered, this little girl. But my point is where she was found. Remember that like a rock quarry area and a rock. Gosh, look, I'm a JD. I'm not a contractor. And her body was ultimately found in woods by a volunteer near that rock quarry and processing plant.

And I've always said the two are connected. Who would know to go to that rock quarry processing plant late at night to murder a little girl and dump her body? Same thing here. The same thing. The same person that would know on that army base, they would be unseen and would have the time to do to this little girl what he wanted to do. They would not hear her scream. They would not see his vehicle. They would not see him pulling her out of the vehicle, assaulting her, and then leaving. So again, Nancy, you and I both know when a child is taken, those first three hours are when they're most likely going to be killed.

This is a fast, horrific crime, but it's quick. It doesn't take two days. So again, this person knew he could get in and out unseen, and you're talking about in plain sight. So it's going to reduce your suspect pool. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, I know it's easy and maybe almost natural to blame the parents for letting this little girl, five years old, walk to kindergarten.

Scott Wright, she was just five years old. It had to be kindergarten, right? Yes, kindergarten. She was walking to kindergarten at Highlands Elementary. Correct. And Scott Wright, how far from her home was it to the kindergarten? It was under a mile. It was right there. It was right around the corner. And obviously, Fort Ord

was not that far either. And let me just say, Scott Rates, our friend joining us from KION, he's been on this case trying to help get it solved for so long. Scott, I was a latchkey kid. My mom and dad left before I even woke up in the morning. And we walked home from school and let ourselves in. If we couldn't find the key, we had to pick the lock and get in the house ourselves or crawl in a window. That happened a couple of times. So, you know, I'm not going to blame the parents, but it's easy to point the finger at parents for letting a five-year-old little girl walk alone to school. It brings to mind a little boy, now famous, Eitan Patz.

Take a listen to our friends at CBS. Karen Stark joining me from Manhattan where the Eitan Patz case seemingly just took over. Cheryl, wasn't he the first child ever put on a milk box? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Karen Stark, that has been a cloud over New York City forever. And remember, Karen, that was the first day they had practiced and practiced him walking to school in New York City. It would be over my cold, dead body that I'd let the children go anywhere in New York City. But right now with this crime wave, it's insane. But they practiced and practiced for him to walk a couple of blocks. He wanted to be independent to school. They let him do it first day.

As I recall, he was kidnapped, sex tortured, and murdered. That's correct, Nancy. And back in those days, it was a long time ago, and I remember like you did that, I could walk to school and come home to school by myself when I was really young, growing up in New York. And it was a different time. People were not aware, as they are now. There wasn't the same kind of media coverage.

Well, I don't know, Karen Stark. We keep saying it was a different time. It was okay then. This little girl we're talking about, Ann Sang saying fam, that was a long time ago. Yeah, and bottom line, I don't know that it is different. We took, my brother or sister and I would take the school bus to school because we were the last pickup before the school. It's, you know, less than two miles to the school.

And then we would be the last to get dropped off. So we would have been on the bus for like an hour and a half before we get home. So we would walk home from school. We did that every day. We always walked in a pack. All the neighbor children went to the same public school. So there was safety in numbers. It's easy to blame the parent.

And let me tell you something, Daryl Cohen was a felony prosecutor in the same office as I prosecuted. He is now a high-profile civil attorney and defense attorney. Daryl, joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, you have seen my children. There is no way in H-E-double-L, even now, that I would let

my daughter go and walk by herself. I pretend to let her, but I carefully follow at a distance. And a very, you know, if you knew the maneuverings I go through trying to make sure Lucy is safe without her knowing. Oh, dear Lord, Daryl. But I've got people like Ann in my mind, little five-year-old Ann. Nancy, I always have these things in my mind. And as you know, I have three daughters. They're all older now. The youngest is 20.

Beautiful. And one of them worked for you for a while. And I tell them always never by yourself. Always have your head on a swivel. Now, yes, it's easy to blame these parents from so many years ago. And in some ways they are culpable because they didn't take care of that child the way they should have. Five year old little girl. Oh, I would never.

I wouldn't let a 15-year-old do that. But having said that, all the time, all the time, you can't say that this evil human being who did this to this child would not have done it to someone else. Unfortunately, he found a way to do it to her. And, you know, Daryl Cohen, as I've always had to tell juries, you may resent the parents for this and they may be wrong, but they're not the ones that raped and murdered a five-year-old little girl who had hid her body in the bushes to rot. That's the truth.

Guys, for those of you just joining us, we're talking about, I mean, a gorgeous little girl, five-year-old Ann Sang Pham, walks on a rainy California morning in January to kindergarten. And she is never seen alive again. Scott Ray is joining me, KION46. Tell me how her body was found. It was found two days later after she was reported missing and was found there right near Fort Ord. And, you know, talking to the police chief there in Seaside about it, she was found strangled, murdered, raped. It was just a horrific scene for the investigators at the time. And it was right there near that Fort Ord base.

And that base, since it's closed, it closed in 1994. But that's what investigators stumbled upon two days after she was reported missing. Dr. Michelle Dupree, joining me, forensic pathologist, former medical examiner and detective, and she is the author of

Homicide Investigation Field Guide and, importantly, Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide. Dr. Dupree, thank you, as always, for joining us. How can you look at this child's body and, number one, tell she was strangled? We always examine the body for any type of injuries, and so there may be actual physical marks around the neck. And then of course, when we do an autopsy examination, we look at the soft tissue. And when there's blood in the soft tissue, that's where it shouldn't be. And that indicates enough

pressure or strangulation to have caused the blood to come out of the vessels into that soft tissue around the neck, indicating strangulation. We also often look at something called a hyoid bone, which is a small bone in the neck that oftentimes is fractured or broken when there is a strangulation. Where exactly is the hyoid? The hyoid is right in the middle of your neck. If you look at sort of your Adam's apple, it's very near there. It's a C-shaped bone. It is the only bone in the body that doesn't articulate or butt up against another bone and it's very fragile. When you say it's very fragile, how would you describe it? If you looked at the hyoid bone, what does it look like and how delicate is it? It looks like it's a C-shaped, sort of a

backwards C-shape and it has two, we call them horns or little separate pieces that are attached. It's squeezable. You can actually squeeze it. It's flexible. And so that when it's broken, there was, again, significant pressure to break that bone because it is a flexible bone. How delicate is it? Compare it to something for me.

What does it look like? Is it the size of a drinking straw? Is it like dental floss? I mean, how big is it? A toothpick? It's a little bit larger than a toothpick, maybe two toothpicks together or so. It's about that width and again about the size, a little bit larger than a quarter in a child's age. Okay, let me think, let me think. So Cheryl, help me out here. It's the size of the thickness of two toothpicks put together. It's in the shape of a C, but you also said backwards.

So the two prongs of the C, Dr. Dupree, are they facing your back or your front? Front. Okay. So you've got the two prongs of the C and you're saying it's right behind, above or below the Adam's apple? Well, it's right at the level about of the Adam's apple. Is it in front of the Adam's apple or is it behind the Adam's apple? Well, it's right at the level about of the Adam's apple. Is it in front of the Adam's apple or is it behind the Adam's apple? No, it's above it a bit.

A little bit above it, right. So would you be able to feel it if you were touching above your Adam's apple? No, you cannot feel it. Okay, why is it there? I don't know the answer to that question. But what does it do? It doesn't really do anything that I know of.

But I can tell you this. I know one thing it does. It tells me, Cheryl McCollum, if somebody's been strangled. Because if that delicate little hyoid bone is fractured or broken, I know enough pressure was put upon it. And we hear about it a lot. Many people believe the hyoid is down at the base of your neck where a necklace would rest.

It's not. It's up higher. And the significance of that, Cheryl, why that's so important to know where it is, is that when you are strangled, that is where the finger marks would be exactly right there. That's about where your thumb's going to hit. So that bone, you know, whereas it may not serve a medical purpose that we know of, it certainly serves a forensic one.

And it's one of the best indicators we have of somebody being strangled. Guys, what happened to this little girl? Take a listen to this. Annie Pham of Seaside was just five years old when she disappeared on her way to school more than four decades ago. You cannot

find a case that's more traumatic than this. We're talking about a five-year-old girl who was walking to school to go to kindergarten and was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and smothered to death and then thrown on the side of the street in the former four-door property as though she was trash. But then, as the years pass, the case goes cold, even with DNA from the perpetrator, DNA from the little girl, the five-year-old girl. And Dr. Dupree, how do you extract the perp, the rapist, the murderer's DNA off the little girl's body? We look at places where it's most likely to be. We can also use something called an alternate light source where different bodily fluids reflect at different colors and we know where to swab. So we'll take a swab of that material and run it for the DNA. Guys, take a listen to our cut one, our friend

Veronica Macias at KION. Well, now to a story that has sat in so many for so many years in the city of Seaside. A family who fled Vietnam arrived to Seaside in the mid-70s full of hope and new beginnings, only to have their dreams shattered. Police say it's very unusual for a child to be abducted and then nobody see anything. Forty years later, investigators still have hope that someone can give them that missing piece of information that will help solve this case. Annie Pham was described as a shy and very responsible young girl. She dressed herself and was allowed to walk to school three blocks away to Highland Elementary all alone. On the morning of January 21st, 1982,

Seaside police say that Pham waited for the rain to stop before heading out to school. The five-year-old walked out her door here along Sonoma Avenue that day, and it's believed that she was abducted somewhere near this neighborhood market because she never made it to her school just a few blocks up the road here. So something very bad happened between her making a right turn from her house on the way up this hill. But then a major break in the case to Scott Rates joining me KION 46. The case was reopened. Why? So the Monterey County District Attorney formed a new DNA task force in 2020 and that's when they started to open up some of these cold cases.

There's currently over 400 cold cases in Monterey County right now. They started looking at all of them, including the case of little Annie Pham. And that's when they started to connect the dots. Veronica Macias, our main anchor, did that report, shedding new light on it in January. And then that leads us to where we are now with this major break in the case. So you guys start stirring it up at KION and then take a listen to our cut six, our friend Phil Aldridge. Today we have justice for this little girl. It's an incredible feeling. It's a great day for Seaside. It's a great day for

our county. It's a great day for everyone. I mean, this little girl finally has justice. She had no justice for 40 plus years, and today she does. Case closed. Good job, guys. Investigators obtained a warrant for Lanue's arrest. That was on Wednesday. He's now in custody in Nevada, pending extradition back to California. He charges one count of first-degree murder with allegations of kidnapping and lewd acts of a child under 14. Now to special guest joining us, Dr. Ed Green,

the founder of Astria Forensics, professor of biomolecular engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz. You can find him at astriaforensics.com. Dr. Green, no offense to the other guests, but saving the best for last, how was the case cracked? Well, we played a part in that that I'm happy to discuss, but the bigger role is the police work that was done, and the detective Bill

Clark, who got us involved, was extremely instrumental. I want to be clear about what we did do and what we didn't do. And we did some exciting DNA work that I would love to describe to you. But that is a small piece of the puzzle, a little cog in a bigger machine, most of which we don't see. We just do this new DNA work. And that, as I understand, it was able to generate some leads and is some good evidence that helps to jumpstart the case and ultimately identify a subject that they feel pretty good about. And so that's the big story. Our involvement in this began when Detective Clark contacted us and said that they had a piece of evidence, forensics evidence, DNA from rootless hair, which for a long time was thought to not be a good source for DNA. You mean mitochondrial DNA? Well, that is the conventional wisdom that one can only get mitochondrial DNA from rootless hair. And it turns out in a bit of a giant facepal palm, I guess, for forensic science that there's

plenty of nuclear DNA in rootless hair. It's just that it exists in fragments that are too short for the assay that is commonly done in DNA-based forensics, which is amplification of CODIS markers or SDR markers in the field of forensics. Generally, when someone says they made a DNA fingerprint or a DNA profile or a genetic profile, what they mean is they assayed these 16 specific positions in the genome that vary in their length. And then you can compare this to the CODIS database of this specific genetic profile and ask, is there somebody in this database or not? And if there is,

great, you've got your bad guy and the case is over. And if not, you really didn't learn anything other than your bad guy is not in that database. What we are doing now, the DNA, the fragments that are in rootless hair shafts, even as they sit on your head right now, they're too short, they're too small to be useful for that assay. They can't be amplified. The regions that that assay is looking for requires DNA that's 200 base pairs or so long, 200 stretches of ACGNT. And the fragments that are in rootless hair shafts are about 50 base pairs long. So all the many times that this assay has been tried from DNA extracted from rootless hair, you see nothing. The assay fails. And the general conclusion has

been that there's no DNA, no nuclear DNA in rootless hair. And it's simply not true. There is. It's just present in very short fragments. What is an assay? An assay is just something that you would do a test that you would do. A test. So you might have an assay for strep throat or an assay for cognitive ability or an assay for anything, a test that you would do to measure something. The assay that is normally done in DNA-based forensics is this STR amplification to get a CODIS profile. So in this case, to you, Cheryl McCollum, they did get a CODIS profile based on the ACG&T and running the test over and over and

determined what, Cheryl? Determined who's going to be responsible for this case. So once they get that profile and they run it more than once, it's to show, you know, cousins, it's to show, you know show close relationships or that specific person. Here's a good example that everybody can relate to. The Golden State killer, rapist and killer, D'Angelo.

Somehow, the cops got DNA off one of the bodies and it's very difficult, like in the case here with five-year-old Ann. Her body's been laying out in the rain in the elements for several days. But a great medical examiner like you, Dr. Dupree, managed to get some DNA. Some DNA probably left there like sperm when he raped this little girl.

Years later, they use the technology that Dr. Ed Green is telling us about astrophorensics specifically. And as in the Golden State Killer case, you don't get the actual person. You get a family tree. And then you start going down, down, down, down, down. Who related to this family tree lives in the area? Who was there at the time? Long story short, Scott Rates, who was ultimately arrested in the murder of Ann? They ultimately arrested a Reno resident, 70-year-old man, John Lanue. And he had been on parole for crimes against children.

And right now they're waiting to bring him back to Monterey County to answer for the crime here. Wait, he was already on parole for crimes against children? He was. Okay, what can you tell me about this guy, Scott? We don't know much about him. We did talk to a man who said that he was his brother yesterday. And this guy was very remorseful to the family and to the friends and to the community.

But we don't know much about him other than he's been living in Reno, and, you know, he's on parole. All these years, he's been hiding in plain sight. crime stories with nancy grace guys how did it happen in addition to awesome police work that dr ed Ed Green at Astro Forensics was so kind enough to point out. You know, I really respect that doctor not hogging all the credit and saying, look what all the police did when it's you guys, Astro Forensics, that managed to perform all these highly, highly innovative DNA testing. Nancy, you flatter me. This is very nice to hear, and we're very proud

of the technology. But just to point out, what we do when we get this DNA out and develop a genotype file, similar to what you would get from like 23andMe or Ancestry the we then hand that over to the police and they build out the family trees and they do this investigative work to develop suspects and eventually they came with a suspect and compelled a dna sample and we were able to compare that then directly. So there were actually two stages. The first stage is to find the relatives, find the cousins, and do the police work and the investigative work. And then once they were able to find someone who they, you know, with evidence that I can't be privy to, compelled a DNA sample, we could then do another analysis,

another comparison. Now we're not searching a database trying to find relatives, but we're doing a direct comparison. Comparison. Now you said you compel a suspect. In other words, you get a search warrant.

Now under the Constitution, Daryl Cohen, a target, a suspect, cannot be forced to give a statement, all right, or it's thrown out if they were forced, if they weren't given their rights. But with a search warrant, you can compel a target, a suspect, to give DNA. And it's very simple. You either give a blood sample or you get a buccal swab, which is a really long Q-tip. And think of a COVID test, except in your mouth. And you get saliva. That's the DNA right there. So the state can compel, as Dr. Green pointed out, a defendant to submit to a DNA test.

And that defendant is giving a statement against him or herself. Oh, blah, blah, blah. Or the person. And that's they should be. I'm blah, blah, blah, nothing. That's exactly what it should be. If they're giving a DNA and it matches. And by the way, what are the odds it's the wrong DNA?

Oh, please, Dr. Ed Green, these numbers are like one in 400 billion that you have the wrong person. I mean, it's not going to happen. That's right. Well, higher than that. Please tell me and make sure that Daryl Cohen hears this. Well, I recently learned from Daryl Cohen that DNA stands for does not apply. But that aside, the match probabilities are very easy to calculate in this case. And they're numbers that would make astronomers blush. They're in the hundreds of trillions, one in hundreds of trillions. But what we're able to do is now compare at hundreds of millions of positions across the genome because with this new technology we're not just looking at CODIS markers where the numbers were already astronomical.

Give me a figure like one and how many? Over a hundred trillion. Oh dear lord in heaven. Okay Daryl Cohen good luck arguing DNA deoxyribonucleic acid really stands for does not apply. But I will tell you a funny story. Cheryl McCollum, you may have been in the courtroom when this happened. I can't remember. I was trying one of my, well, my very first DNA case. Because prior to this, I'd have to prove rape and murder without DNA. We didn't have it.

So I was all about DNA. And I went to the crime lab and insisted the scientist who gave me a sideways hairy eyeball look said it wasn't a good idea. Of course, I knew better. I insisted they bring the slides of the DNA and show them to the jury. Cheryl, it looked like a big poster of undeveloped film with a lot of little dots on it. I took one look at it. I'm like, thank you, and immediately took it down. And I'm like, please, jury, do not remember that. Because if you look at it, unless you know what you're looking at,

you know, think of an ultrasound or a sonogram. Unless you know what you're looking at, it just looks black. It's like a black screen with squiggles it means nothing but to the trained eye it means everything so when we're talking about dna it's highly highly technical and you've got to have somebody like ed green to break it down in a way that even i or a jury could understand it right you? You're right, Nancy, but let's break it down even more. Oh dear, go ahead. When that comes back to a suspect, you can then place that suspect in that area. You may like an army sergeant stationed at Fort Ord when Ann was murdered.

Sort of like that. Sort of something like that. You got him in the right age bracket. You got him in the right race. You've got him in the right race you've got him in um in this case he's got a background in sexual assault i mean convicted child molester what the hey was he doing in the army can somebody answer that hiding moving he got a conviction for for child molestation and he how did he get in the army a convicted child molester out on parole stationed at fort ord wow i mean it's like taking out a neon sign arrest me cheryl it's horrible nancy but again they did get him he did 20 years in prison the sad thing is if he had been caught earlier that second you know crime that we know of wouldn't have happened. Take a listen to our friend Veronica Macias at KION 46, our cut for.

Forty years ago, a little girl disappeared on her way to school, and she was walking to kindergarten at Highland Elementary School. That was back in 1982 when she vanished. Her body, though, was discovered at Fort fort ord but her killer was never found little annie pham was described as a shy sensitive girl she was so responsible that her mother allowed her to walk to school alone her body was found two days after she disappeared in the former fort ord area and investigators say she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. The case was being investigated by Seaside PD and the FBI when it went cold.

However, new leads have now surfaced, which led them to reopen this case. Seaside police are announcing a partnership with Monterey County District Attorney's Office, their Cold Case Task Force. So if anyone has information that can help you're asked to contact seaside police it was appeals like that one that led to the ultimate arrest of this pos technical legal term of robert lanue now 70 then 29 turns out he was a sergeant in the Army stationed at Fort Ord, where five-year-old little Ann's body was hidden at the time. Now, in retrospect, that looks like an easy, easy puzzle to solve. But not always true.

If it had not been for that partnership, you just heard our friends at KION discussing, this case would never have been solved. And there's nothing more heartbreaking. Well, there are very few things more heartbreaking, Karen Stark, than a family who has blamed themselves for 40 years for the murder of their five-year-old child, but now have at least an answer. They have an answer, though, they'll never really get over it. Nancy, just the loss of a child to begin with is devastating. Something that, it's always with you, and then you think about the circumstances and the guilt that they have for having allowed

her to walk to school even though they're not to blame. I can't imagine that this is something that they don't live with every day. To Scott Ray's joining us, News Director Ann Anker at KION46, who played a really big role in helping bring awareness to the mystery of five year old and disappearance and murder. What next for this POC? Another technical legal term. Robert Lanoue. Next for him is to come back here to Monterey County and the district attorney here to prosecute. And she, you know, I've been talking to her, Jenny Pacione, and she says she's going to prosecute to the full extent and they're going to lay out all the evidence.

So that's what's next. It's going to be a process and it's going to be, you know, it's going to take some time. But that's the next steps for this suspect here, Nancy. You know, many people would argue he's too old for the death penalty, but isn't it also true, conversely, that five-year-old Ann was too young for the death penalty? We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off.

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