Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - 'Hotel For Dogs' creator's daughter gunned down in unsolved mystery murder

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

Kaitlyn Arquette, daughter of author Lois Duncan, was killed driving to a friend's home by someone chasing her. Shots from the pursuing vehicle hit Arquette twice in the head. Yet the shooter has never been found. The case has been dubbed a random drive-by shooting. Nancy Grace and her panel look at facts that make this case much more sinister. Joining Nancy Grace at CRIME CON, Kaitlyn's sister Carrie Arquette, Detective Christine Mannina with the Indianapolis Police Department,  Director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Sheryl McCollum, Judge Ashley Wilcott and Ellen Killoran  Crimeonline.com Investigative Reporter. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A beautiful girl gunned down with split-second precision by a drive-by shooter. It's almost too much to believe. And that's not what the family of Caitlin Arquette believes. We are live at CrimeCon with the latest in what is called a cold case. Nobody believes the story that was given to cops that somehow coincidentally two cars drive it at a rapid speed and one driver managed to get off a hit that executes a female driver nothing fits together i've got to tell you this is one of the most difficult types of cases

to solve a drive-by shooting the evidence evidence is gone, just like that. Maybe somebody saw what happened. Maybe they didn't. Maybe there's a camera. Maybe there's not. Very often drive-bys are strategically engineered so there are not witnesses. witnesses but right now I want you to find out about the victim in this case and why the case remains unsolved I have a very very special group with me and I'll introduce them as they speak but first to you

ek Ellen Kaloran crime online.com investigative reporter in a nutshell caitlin urquhart was 18 years old on july 16th 1989 she had recently graduated from high school she was an honor student with a bright future ahead of her going to college ion medical school that night she had gone to visit a friend at her home and on her way back from there she was shot while she was driving. Her car careened over a median and came to a pause on a sidewalk. She had two bullet holes, another, a third bullet hole in the car. She lived for 20 hours with her family. When you say two bullet holes, what do you mean by that? She was shot twice. She had two gunshot wounds. But there was also a third

bullet hole in the car. Which is very interesting to me that in moving traffic, somebody could peel off three rounds at least and hit the target. And when I say target, I mean inside the car. That's some pretty sharp shooting in moving traffic. Okay, that is the overview. Joining me also, Cheryl McCollum. You know her very well. Not only is she the director of the Cold Case Research Institute, she and I met in the trenches over 20 years ago fighting crime.

With your view of cold case reconstruction, tell me, with the important facts, evidentiary facts, what you think of the case. Nancy, if this was our case and I was talking to you in your office, the first thing that sticks out for me is there's two gunshot wounds in the victim's head, one by the temple and one right here at her cheek. And Detective Menina and I have talked about this before, but I know cops that stand and steal shooting at a target that's not moving, could not do that. So you're talking about Kate's car is moving, the perpetrators car is allegedly moving, that is unbelievable shooting if at all possible. And if nothing... And we know it happened in moving traffic. We have witnesses but here's the thing again y'all know about eyewitnesses that's a

whole nother session maybe they saw it in that time maybe it was delayed what they saw but the reality of what I'm trying to tell you is if nothing else we know there was at least two people in that car one had to be driving and one had to be shooting it had to be had to be at least two people And not necessarily both in the front seat. Not necessarily at all. So to me, that would stand out. But here's the thing. It's hard enough to hit a bullseye without anything moving.

Okay? Don't keep guns in our house, but I've been to many, many firing ranges as a prosecutor. We had to. It's hard enough to shoot a bullse-eye at a distance when nothing's moving much less when you're moving and they're moving and I assume that you believe Cheryl that the perpetrator was in fact in a moving vehicle at the time of the shooting it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be, but possibly one shot. But again, the placement, the placement to me is almost impossible, Nancy, to do while moving.

Because again... Well, have you ever thought, and I'm not saying this was a sniper, but have you ever thought that the perp was not in a car? Oh, absolutely. And that's what I'm... Well, I'm getting there. But again, there's witnesses.

The car, she was being chased. Witnesses said that. We know that. So she's trying to get away. So not only are they trying to shoot at her, they're having to navigate the same traffic while catching up to her and getting alongside of her because the trajectory shows. Wait a minute, Cheryl.

You say somebody else thinks she was being chased. How do we know she was really being chased? How do we know it wasn't just a car speeding up and it was perceived as being chased? Well, there were witnesses on scene. One of them, a perpetrator in his own right, a felon, a convicted felon in his own right. He's one of our witnesses. Another witness is a police officer that later on was arrested for robbing banks. So again, this case gets convoluted very, very

quickly. And it's one of those things where what the witnesses say, did they say they saw the shooter? She's out of the vehicle. They said that Caitlin was being chased. There were three shots and then she crashed her car. And what did the other car do pulled into a vacant lot turned its lights off stayed there a moment and then left going west on Lomas and what was the description of the vehicle VW Z you don't normally think of a VW as being to get away a VW what a VW what? A bug? A van? A VW bug. Nobody would pick a bug. That had to be their car. It would seem to be.

You would not pick a bug to be your getaway. And the witness that was also the convicted felon had access to a vehicle just like that. Oh. Do you think they're suspects? Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. Anytime you have a known criminal at an active, hot, violent scene, he would become number one for me. And if I was the crime scene investigator on that case, I would immediately tell my lead detective, hey, I know that guy. That guy's hot. He's, you know, got a record. And I will let Detective Menina tell you what she'd do with him, but I can already tell you what she'd do. He'd be halfway to the station. Am I right? Yes, E.K. Ellen Kaloran, Cheryl McCullough, special guest with me, Carrie Arquette.

This is Caitlin's sister. And also you've been informally introduced to Christine Menina, Indianapolis Police Department. You can also find her at The meninaphiles.com. Could you tell us your recollection of the day of the shooting? So Kate was the baby in the family out of five children. I was second to the oldest. I was actually living in Dallas, Texas. I had two young children and the phone rang in the middle of the night and my husband grabbed it and I saw him just pause and nod and then he handed it to me and I guess my mother had said I've got very bad news you need to be there for Carrie. So my mother said, Kate's been shot. And all I could

think was, see, Kate was like the neighborhood babysitter. She would be the person that people took on vacation with them to take care of their kids so that the parents could go frolic. And all I could think was, one of those kids got their parents' gun and Kate was trying to take it away from them and somehow it went off because people like us don't get shot, right? I mean, we had never known anybody who had gotten shot. My mother was a very, very successful author. My father was an electrical engineer at Sandia Laboratories. We were on speech teams and volleyball teams. Okay, hold on. Tell them some of the books.

So when I say my mother's a successful author, her name is Lois Duncan. Oh, I see people going, uh-huh, uh-huh. So she was known as the matriarch of young adult novels. She wrote I Know What You Did Last Summer. Recently in the theaters, Down a Dark Hall, she wrote Hotel for Dogs. She wrote probably 55 books before she died three years ago. That's a lot.

It is a lot. And she was an exceptional woman and she said that she would never ever die before getting justice for Kate is she actually it was a kind of an interesting evolution I'll go back to Kate in a minute but now he's thrown it to me about mother it makes me connect to it even more yeah she was know, us on the outside looking in, we feel like we know her, we know you because of all of her books, now movies. And when Cheryl first told me about this case, I had never heard of it. And she said, you know

about Hotel for Dogs? I'm like, yeah. She goes, well, that's the mom I'm like what and it makes me feel like I know them which of course I don't but it gives people a connection to you and to her so I wanted them to know about it so mother was this little tiny introverted uh. She lived a lot of the time in her head. But after Kate was murdered, she became this roaring lioness who did everything she could to try to figure out what had happened to Kate. And I think in some ways, I wonder whether or not the noise that she made ticked off people in authority to the point that they were just angry and they didn't want to help us anymore. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Anyway, Kate, it's not always anger.

It's not always anger because I would get calls. When I first went to the DA's office and I'd pick up the phone and go, Hello, Fulton County District Attorney's Office, this is Nancy Grace, can I help you? By the end of 10 years, I'd just go, DA. I was so tired. And a lot of times when people were calling me, it was to ask me about a case that I didn't know the answer to, that I'm completely overwhelmed and I haven't been able to get or find out or do whatever they call me the last 10 times wanting me to do. And so it's not always anger, it's almost guilt because you can't get to it all. And you want to give people answers and you don't always have answers. And then there is

the irritation factor. I haven't done it yet and I'm not going to say that I may not do it one day. Oh, it's so and so again. I've heard other prosecutors say that. Mother was the again. So I got on an airplane the next day, and I flew from Dallas to Albuquerque. Kate was in a coma at the hospital, which if you're going to be in a coma is a good place to be. And she stayed in that coma for about 20 hours as different family members arrived from different states where they lived. And where Kate's boyfriend actually hung out with the family for quite a few hours. And I'm mentioning the boyfriend at this point because he's going to come back into the story. He was Kate's first significant boyfriend. They were living together at this point

and he was involved in criminal activity. And when you talk about Kate, when I talk about Kate, I want to make her sound like she walks on water and that she's this beautiful, innocent teenager. But the truth of the matter is, she was a teenager. So here she is at 18 living with her boyfriend and she knows that he's involved in some of these activities. What activities? fraud scams where the Asian community members would rent a car and then they would crash into a car of other Asians and they would go to a doctor who was Asian and be represented by Asian lawyers and they would all claim soft tissue injuries. Okay, that is not new, nor is it exclusive to one group, as she's saying, Asians.

Somebody ran into me when I was a DA, and I was fine. I went straight to court. I got home that night, and somebody had an unlisted number. Call me, a runner, call me on the phone asking to represent me. I'm like, I'm a prosecutor I've got caller ID and you just broke the law click thank you that it's a scam a lot of lawyers do it a lot of doctors do it and they get insurance money through fake injuries soft tissue it's like oh my neck. And there's no way to really prove it or

disprove it. That's what she's talking about. We were told that this was the Asian, and I'm saying Asian because it was the Vietnamese mafia. And within minutes of Kate being declared brain dead, a phone call went out from her apartment where nobody was supposed to be, to the copper of the Vietnamese mafia in California, obviously, we believe, saying, okay, she's dead. And that was within two or three minutes of her being taken off life support. Detective Menina, I'm coming right to you, but Cheryl, that's very probative in my mind, what she just said. That is a lot of money on the line, and I'm speculating, but that's how investigations work. You all sit down, if you have anybody to talk to, and you go, well, what about this? What about that? I mean, if that's true, and I have no reason to disbelieve it,

that's a lot of money we're talking about. What if she had ever said, you know what, this isn't right. I'm telling. Or I want out of this. What if? I can tell you, Lois Duncan absolutely believed that Kate knew

and in some way said either she was going to tell or that it wasn't right or they needed to stop doing it because there were other scams they were running they were running college loan scams I mean hundreds of thousands of dollars you're talking about so Kate had a lot of information that would not have fared well to a crime syndicate it's more than hundreds of thousands oh yeah I'm saying what Kate knew for a fact was hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are several things. And fortunately, I've been a police officer for 25 years, and I have to say that the police screwed this up from the very beginning.

So really, they are the ones that made this case complicated. With that being said, there's just some things that 101 detective work that wasn't done. Very early on, when Kate went to her parents' house before she went to a friend's house before she was murdered, and in that brief conversation, she was talking with her mother about arguments,

and she was upset. Mom had seen her and said, you've been crying. And she made a comment that said, you know what? She said, did you have another fight with your boyfriend? She said, well, not a new one, the one from yesterday or whatever. I'll tell you about it later. So what that tells me is she was getting close to communicating with her family about what maybe she knew.

And I don't think this is complicated. I've been a homicide detective for ten years I've solved all but two murders, and I'm not that smart They're not that complicated okay, you got it. You got to keep things simple I think at the end of the day in my opinion and I dove into this for three weeks and when I mean dove I haven't slept because I've started to read it, and it makes me crazy. It's probably a sickness.

But there's a few things. She was arguing with him. She wanted him to move out, and we all know that in the midst of that. Are you sure she wanted him to move out? That's from the book. That's from Lois' mouth. She had the locks changed. The locks changed.

The landlord has. Okay, sorry. When you're changing the locks, that's big. So there's a few things that night mom picked up on it. And then Kate said, I'll tell you about it. Maybe even tonight. Okay. The boyfriend gets to the hospital and I can't even believe that he was allowed to go to the hospital. Uh, when they told him I would have yanked his ass and thrown him down into the homicide office. I'll get to you when I get to you. Number one suspect, number one suspect. Secondly, he gets to go to the hospital and if they were any good police officers at all, if they're going to let you go to the hospital, I'm right on your ass. I'm going with you, okay? Because he says, this is all my fault at the hospital.

So now we've got mom who's concerned, Kate who says, I'll tell you about it later. We've got a boyfriend that says, this is all my fault. And you have a bunch of ignorant police officers and detectives that don't look at this stuff. They don't interview him for a while. They don't interview the family. Yeah, there's some't look at this stuff. They don't interview him for a while. They don't interview the family.

Yeah, there's some complicated things to this case. The Vietnamese were probably involved. Her boyfriend didn't pull the trigger, but he might as well have. And that stuff wasn't looked into. So it's really disturbing and upset for me to stand up here and say that the police department failed this family. Absolutely failed this family.

And I'm a cop lover. You know, I believe in the thin blue line until it's bent, and then I have an issue with it. So getting the word out, this case isn't complicated. If I were on this case, I would grab my friend Cheryl here, I'd grab Nancy, and I'd say, let's go to California and get the boyfriend. And he doesn't leave my interview until he tells me what the hell happens.

One other important thing. In a conversation that mom had a couple days after when he was really upset because he calls mom and says, hey, can you call the landlord? I can't get into the apartment. Well, sure. At this point, mom still likes him and is still feeling him. The sisters are having some issues, okay? They are not real excited about this guy. He calls the landlord and says, hey, or calls mom and says, can you call the landlord? I can't get into the

apartment. I want to get my stuff. I want to go to sleep. Sure. Calls the landlord and says, oh, hell no. I loved your daughter, liked her a lot. My my wife liked her but I didn't like him and I definitely didn't like his cronies that's what I call in a basic 101 a clue right this isn't hard this isn't hard people but what this is is it's effort. It's talking to everybody, anybody. And the guy at the scene, what? Right. They got his name. He's a felon.

Even if you're not a felon, if you're at my crime scene, sorry about your luck, your night's over with. Taking you down to the homicide office, we're talking. I'll get you a coffee. I'll let you pee. But we're going to be together for a while. They got his name and a false number. What?

And they let him go. So we can sit up here and talk about theories. The police department screwed this up. Okay, let me jump in and let y'all know just how bad. So at a crime scene, when you have a dead body, that dead body belongs to the medical examiner. That car belongs to me. Now, Detective Menina, y'all already know her, highest solve rate in the United States as a homicide detective. If she was my lead detective, that car belongs to me. Clear? I'm gonna tell her what I've got, I'm gonna tell her what I found, then she can go back over it with me that's how we would work this that car of Kate's in the report from the criminalists said no fingerprints found on the car what so what Kate got shot twice in the head and wiped her own prints off the car it's

not possible that her prints weren't on the car. Now they could have meant no workable prints, no prints that didn't come back to the victim, but that's not what they wrote down. So I have an issue with that too. So while I'm doing... So then your theory is they either didn't do their job or the car was wiped down. Correct. So which one is it? Well, that's where we are. But at the point that I would be in that vehicle and couldn't find a workable print or a good print, Detective Menina would be going to the judge to get a search warrant for her home to keep that car, put a hold on that car. And I'll let the judge jump in at this point, but I just know that whole world would have stopped turning until we were done with it. And how do you head something off like that, Ashley?

You do the subpoenas. You ask for the subpoenas, and I, as a judge, would sign them, absolutely. If you have any probable cause to say to me this is why we think there's evidence here, what this evidence is, I'm going to sign them. I get warrants in front of me all the time, all day long. I say, okay, detective, raise your right hand. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, hold truth, and not much of the truth? Oh, my God, yes.

All right, let's go. Tell me what you put in this warrant and why and i make sure there's probable cause and if i am i sign off and i do it all the time for this reason because you need to collect that evidence and again a search warrant is not uh beyond a reasonable doubt it's just what the affiant the one swearing knows and it can be hearsay it can be anything that leads them to believe they need to search a location a car a locker a person get fingerprints whatever they need it's just probable cause that's all you need is a very low threshold and would have been very easy to get and that jurisdiction you can even get one

on the phone. Yeah. And let me just add, if I had these ladies as my witnesses in a court case in front of me, it would be a great day, right? This is so unusual. Honestly, Detective, I'm just going to say this. To have someone who's this transparent to say, this is what we found, this is what the evidence is, this is what was messed up, this for a judge to hear this evidence or a jury to hear this evidence, would be key.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Back to Carrie Arquette. I want to go back to what happened in the hospital because it's not always admissible in court, but I like to know. I like to know where everybody was standing. In other words, what was the boyfriend doing? What was his demeanor? How did he interact with other people? Who else came to the

hospital? What happened in the hours following her being pronounced dead and the hours leading up to that? I want to hear about everybody's demeanor at the hospital and then what happened with her apartment. Yeah, my memories about what happened in the hospital, when I think back on it, it feels flat to me. My family isn't a family of big criers, very little histrionics. When I walked in, my mother was sitting by my sister, and I had never seen somebody in that situation before. And I remember my mother saying, touch her, she's warm. And somehow reaching out and holding my It reminded me of past Christmases and birthdays, and it tied us all together in a very tight knot of love. Why did she say that, touch her, she's warm? I don't know. I think she needed me to, she knew how frightened I was,

and I think she needed me to connect with Kate, not a body. And that was her way of doing it. And then when my first child was born, Aaron, one of my other sisters, Robin, and mother, created an entire record or tape of lullabies and it was called songs from dreamland and mother wrote all the lyrics and Robin wrote all the music and sang it and I put on songs of dreamland and I figured that my sister's beautiful voice and my mother's words

could sing Kate to sleep for the last time. I was there for a while. Other siblings arrived. In these situations, you know, nobody knows what to do. You don't know whether you're supposed to sit by the bed or are you supposed to not talk? Can you talk? Should you go get that cup of coffee? We have no clue how this works.

And so we stood around just numb, not knowing what the next step was going to be and at points you the boyfriend came and went and nobody wanted him there but nobody knew how to tell him not to be there because they want him there because it seemed like such an intimate experience to see to to witness Kate's last hours. And while he had been part of family thanksgivings and such for a year or two, none of us really knew him. And we knew that he was having problems with Kate.

And if she didn't want him there, there being in her life or in their apartment, the idea of having him there at the time that she was taking her last breaths seemed like it dirtied the situation. It just feels wrong. It feels wrong, but there he sits with his back up against the wall in the hospital corridor weeping.

By the way, none of the rest of the family is weeping. We're all being stoic. But he's sitting there with his knees up to his chin weeping. We're all ignoring him. Did you know at that time she had changed the locks? I didn't know that, but you have to remember that I was a, you know, a young mother completely overwhelmed with two children and living in another state, you know, far away. I don't think, in fact, I'm quite sure that mother didn't know

and daddy didn't know because Kate was treating this all like a teenager treats things. I mean, if you tell your parents that your boyfriend is being awful to you, then when the boyfriend's not being awful to you, well, parents are like elephants. They never forget, right? You may decide that you want to go back to that boyfriend, but your parents would always hold it against the boyfriend that he was hurting you. Oh, I'm still mad at Lucy's bully from the first grade. Uh-huh. I see her every day in the parking lot pickup line. Still mad about it.

Yep. So I think that Kate was very intentionally not telling the family a lot. Detective, I just see her from the waist down writhing. Well, and another thing, guys, is this. And she just told me this morning, but I assume this based on the books, is that the police or the detectives never spoke with the family. What? What? And I told her.

I said, if I were at the scene that night, you know, and I try to be compassionate, I'm the detective on this, which means here's my cell number, right? Call me if you need me. I know the next couple days are going to be difficult. I need to speak with you as soon as possible. I'll contact you after the funeral, but if you need me before, call me.

The family was never, ever interviewed. The people that are the closest to you have the answers, right? The sisters knew a little bit that she was into some stuff, a little bit. There was a little bit of a feeling of it. That's information that I need to know. That's a clue, right? So you go to the closest people. The boyfriend, I would still be talking to him now. I want to go talk to him now. He's in California. He California he wants to go right you know what's interesting another interesting thing anybody on this jump in you take social cues and if the rest of the family is standing there being stoic yeah why

would you be in a ball out in the hall crying? Okay, ladies, I know this is wrong, but let me just say it. A man. Why is he out there crying in a ball and with the mother and the sisters trying to be strong? I mean, the whole picture is just, there's something really wrong. What's happening now? EK, where does it stand now? Oh, hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, I just wanted to, yeah, we are kind of a female dominant family, but you said the mother and the sisters, and I want to make it clear that my daddy was involved. He is a part of this puzzle. He's the quiet one with Mother being so well-known, and he is an engineer, kind of a personality reticent. But he was there, and two brothers as well.

So we just, yeah, I'd kind of like to ignore some of them. I guess I was being a little stereotypical, because I think if anyone, it would probably be one of the younger sisters that would break down and start crying, not the dad. But what I'm saying is why is he behaving that way when no one else is? Does it prove anything? No. But I noticed it.

It's a note in my head. What is happening now, Cheryl? Where can we go from here? Well, it's been about 30 years, and it's right where it was, basically. I was able to go to the scene. Let's see how you can put a spin on that to make it sound a little bit better. I absolutely cannot make it sound any better. There's no way.

We can make it sound better. I'm going to be really honest with you. I wouldn't want it to sound any better. There's no way. We can make it sound better. I'm going to be really honest with you. I wouldn't want it to sound any better. I want everybody to leave here just as frustrated as Lois and Carrie and the rest of the family. I mean, I've met with a brother. I don't understand why nothing's changed. Let me tell you some things we were told, because y'all are going to love this. I met with the prosecutor, and she flat told me that because Lois wrote a book and outlined the case and outlined who she thought was involved, that she had harmed any future prosecution that could happen because she interjected some reasonable doubt if it turned out not to be the person that Lois highlighted. But here's the thing. There's something every single person in this room can do, and that's one, care. That is two, research this case on your own. You'll see what we see. It's there. When the police show up, because I'm still at the scene. I'm not even at the hospital yet. And understand, there are reports and there are affidavits

from the folks that rode in that ambulance. And EMS said there were no police when they arrived on scene. How in God's name is that possible? When we get to a scene, we put a rookie in the middle of the street, and that rookie flags them down if they could have missed this scene. Back up a little bit more. The police report says it's a single car crash with no injuries. For the love of all that is good and holy.

How? And that was reported by a police officer. It gets even better. Guess who found the bullet hole in the car? EMS, shut your mouth. Not the detective. Not the police officer. Somebody that rode the ambulance.

So do I think that the police are embarrassed? Yes. Do I think they want Lois to shut up? Yes. Do I think they want this case to go away? Yes. They should be embarrassed. When they say it's a single car crash with no injuries and it turns out, oh, there's a dead girl with a couple of bullet holes in her head. And then they say, what address are you at they say there ain't no address here I've walked the scene myself I couldn't tell you right now if I'm facing east west north or south okay I'm one of those you know people in law enforcement that say you better tell me you were getting your ass kicked behind the waffle house so I can find you don't tell me you're northeast of bourbon street because I don't know where you are. All right?

They said there's no address. When I walk the scene, big as Dallas, there's the address. Okay, let me understand that the prosecutor told you. Yes. That they can't prosecute the case because the mother had a different theory. And wrote a book about it. Can I just remind you about what you reminded me of? I had a triple homicide where the mother of the victim got up on the stand. She did.

Go ahead. Y'all, this was so dramatic. We had a triple homicide. Now imagine that. That's enough. Nancy Grace is in the courtroom being Nancy Grace. And she's got the jury in the palm of her hand. And the mama gets on the stand.

And the jury is right with her locked in. And that mama points to that shooter. And she said, that is not who shot my son. Well, I'm sitting there going, well, this is an oh, shit moment. What's Nancy Grace going to do about this one, right? All of a sudden, I turn without missing a beat. Nancy handles it so beautifully. That jury goes right back to Nancy because Nancy explains what shock and trauma and disbelief can do to a victim on top of where does that mama have to go back and live? In that neighborhood with those shooters and the shooter's family.

Convicted. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. My point is, that's a lie. To say the mother has a different theory. Well, how many people have read the book? How many people have read the book? Awesome. Okay, so you can't tell me that you can't move it to a jurisdiction where somebody hasn't read the book?

How many people, like five people raised their hand? But also the judicial system is specifically designed, I believe, in our justice system. And let me say this. It's specifically designed to handle those situations. You do move jurisdictions. For any prosecutor to ever say, we can't prosecute that case because there's a reasonable doubt, that person should no longer be allowed to try cases prosecutor ever ever who has questions can you believe Renee Rockwell has a question this is to the

detective number one where are the important witnesses at this point? Well, a boyfriend's in California living in a townhouse. Okay, so this is a situation where even today the statute of limitations has not run on the investigation, correct? Correct. Yes, ma'am. In that state, how long can you put an investigative hold on the person? 72 hours? Well, the problem is, is this, is that I've got to get law enforcement, if I were to take this case, if she said, hey, take it, which I want to, want to go?

You know, I would, I would go find him, but the problem is, and in the bigger picture of this, and we probably don't even have time to go into it, is the fact that the police department doesn't want anything to do with this. So as I was talking to her before this podcast, we've got to find somebody in the Albuquerque Police Department that has a freaking heart, right, and says that this is wrong. And police officers were awful at it. We're ego-driven. We're like, we're right.

It's just not that way. We're humans. We've got to go in there and say, look, we really messed this up. This was wrong. We have grieving family. It is our duty as police officers. It's my duty. When I said I'm going to be a police officer, I'm going to do what I can for you.

So my job today, if I could say anything, is I'll say, look, I dove into this case for three weeks. I want to give you, if nothing else, hope. Right? Isn't that what everybody wants? They want somebody to say, you know what, I've looked at this case. I want to give you, if nothing else, hope, right? Isn't that what everybody wants? They want somebody to say, you know what? I've looked at this case. I give a shit. I'm going to go do everything I can do to bring you some answers. Because in her, in her opinion, in the family's opinion, the police department failed her. That's horrible. I may not be able to solve everything, but I'll tell you what, no family that I have ever ever ever dealt

with said I didn't do everything I possibly could preach that's what we have to give in closing it screams to me with this fraud overview that perhaps somebody in the police department is involved absolutely Nancy can I jump in real quick absolutely so that's what I was trying to paint the picture so Nancy and I had a case a, long time ago where this family went out of this way to tell us how this little bitty girl got out of the house on her own and must have just run off and was lost somehow. Okay. That's got to be the most perfect storm for all of those things to line up and happen for this car to have no fingerprints, for there not to be an address, for it to be a single car crash and no injuries,

excuse me, for them to have, you know, the police not stay at the scene and flag down EMS, for them not to call for the ambulance. What bothers me is that you have, let's say it was a stranger, in a happenstance, at a drive-by shooting, and we don't know the person. How freaking lucky are they that all of these inept cops were the ones that showed up? I don't believe that. I don't believe in that kind of coincidence. I never will. I never have. You got a seasoned detective that's on scene within 40 seconds. 40 seconds. And they don't call for an ambulance.

Can I ask you a question? What about ballistics since they managed to get one of the bullets? I assume they did a ballistics test. I think they said that they were.22s at first. They were.38s. A.22? Went that far? That's not hard to mess that up.

The caliber's on the bullet. Look at it. Yeah. I don't know. They didn't recover any shell casings. It was a.38? Yeah. And did they run ballistics to see if it matched up to the dome?

Nancy, what do you think? Well, I mean, that could be an answer right there. This is the problem. This case, unfortunately, represented a huger issue in the new Albuquerque Police Department. So what can we do now? And I believe you have something you want to read. Yeah, I would. What can we do now?

Well, I mean, you've got the biggest voice in here. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We can go to the Albuquerque Police Department. We could go to the mayor. We could go to somebody that has some power, and all they have to say is we need this case to be reopened if we need to bring in somebody.

And I wouldn't bring in anybody from the Albuquerque Police Department. I would go what I'd call change jurisdictions on that well get somebody brand new well you just go over one step up yeah absolutely go to the chief go to the chief go to the mayor find a special prosecutor absolutely I was just curious when EMS wrote the report was she found on the passenger side or the driver's side? Passenger side. Were the windows down? This window was shattered. So, again, somebody should have noticed the driver's side window was shattered and the bullet hole.

So, again, you've got police officers on the scene that didn't notice that. The EMTs noticed that. So, again, she was driving. She was driving. Came through left side, and then she fell over. But she veered all the way over to the left. She went over all those lanes of traffic in the median, jumped the curve, hit the telephone pole, and came to rest.

But there was fresh damage to her back bumper. So somebody could have tapped her to try to stop her. They rammed her, stopped her, shot her. Is it possible she was in the passenger side somebody else was driving no and then she was pushed into the driver's seat no no even her shoes everything was here i mean you could see even in the car there was void where some of the glass where she was sitting and then she slumps over so when she's shot you know she goes that way yes is there an idea i'm thinking if you could maybe pursue it from another angle,

like through the scams, maybe through somebody else, not Albuquerque, maybe the FBI or something? I believe the family tried the FBI, got the same result. What happened was I think they contacted the FBI. With the FBI, they needed that new Albuquerque Police Department to ask the FBI, and they didn't ask them. They said, we don't need your help. We got this. Do we still have the vehicle impound?

Where's the vehicle? Nancy. They never put an evidentiary hold on the vehicle. The vehicle was never even transferred from the scene. That's horrible. The first thing is with the scene, I have some issues with the vehicle even being driven. What I think my theory

is is it was pitted. It was hit from behind. It was pitted. She rolls into the pole after she was shot. Been on many homicide cases where the victim has been shot in the car and they roll into a pole. With that type of shot, and I told Cheryl this before, on my best day, and I'm a pretty good shot,

on my best day with God sitting on my shoulder hell no could I've executed those shots into her face no freaking way there was any gunshot residue was at a point-blank or within three feet I mean you're asking things that should have the medical examiner what did you turn okay I can tell you there's a photograph of Kate in the hospital and and her hands are bagged. What? Her hands are bagged. So that means they had to look at the gunshot wound.

If you shoot about 36 inches or less, there should be gunshot residue on your body that comes from the weapon. After that, it's too fine like talcum powder to go much further than that so to give you an idea though they should look for gunshot right when I do gunshot residue on a shooter or a assumed shooter I will do the top of their hand separately I'll do the inside of their hand so if there's gunshot residue here were you doing like this this, right? Because if you're holding the gun, it shouldn't be there. It should be void. Does that make sense? Okay. And I'll do both hands the exact same way. Because you'll see on TV, they do this. Don't ever do that. Don't watch TV.

Don't do those. Yeah, the next time that they take a GSR, they won't do that. Now, the only time CSIs like TV is when the really sexy girl shows up in the Hummer and that's all real. That's us. That's us. I don't know why we're not on TV. Yeah, baby. We're here. Y'all are sexy.

Did I hear you right that they reported as a single car accident with no injuries? That's a fact. That would be the first mess up of the scene, right? I thought I had to be mishearing that. And they also had no address for where it was. See, that makes me question the eyewitness because if she was ran from behind, that's not what the eyewitness really said. But remember, one of your eyewitnesses is a known felon that was standing by the car and was not taken downtown. And not shot, too.

I mean, you're going to leave a witness? You have somebody that went to prison for harming women standing by a car with a dead girl in it and you go, okay, you may go. Have a good evening. Have a good evening. Can I jump in right there about the witness? That's one of the theories about maybe why the police didn't pursue this case as much as they should have because that man that was standing next to the car with the dead girl with a mortally wounded girl in it had a violent criminal history violence against women sexual assault of his stepsister so that he could go to jail and protect a relative from being hurt in prison just on and on and on. And they didn't even run his name.

So that was one of the theories that the family had that maybe they were trying to cover their tracks because it was such a terrible mistake. I want to get all your questions in pronto. Go ahead. Come this way. I think I've heard of anybody who won't be out of prison. Sorry.

Okay, so you said that there was a bug or a Volkswagen, whatever, and there was a boyfriend. The boyfriend had a connection to that kind of car, right? No, no. Or the witness. So was that car ever checked to see if it had any damage on the front bumper? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, yeah.

So actually, as I understand it, the witness at the scene, when the first cop drove up, he found this man standing there. The man had a VW Bug also. By the time ER arrived and said there was nobody at the scene the man and the bug had been allowed to leave and the cops had left he'd have been in cuffs

so I'm going to say again how lucky is that shooter oh I'm so sorry is the entire police department on the take is the entire police department on the take I can just tell you no because people can't keep their mouths shut for that long and we need to find that one officer right like when somebody I always say this, when somebody tells you a secret, I'm going to tell you the secret,

you got to swear to God you're not going to tell anybody. You swear? I swear. I mean, that's why all the theories about OJ's conspiracy cover-up. But the fact that the cops and the Vietnamese were on the job That did not happen. At the chop shop. She wants to know,

do you believe anyone within the force is connected to the crime ring? I do. I do. It only takes one. Again, you had one of the police officers that was on the scene later arrested for robbing a bank. Absolutely.

Well, it doesn't seem like this was investigated very well, so this is probably a dumb question. I've read that, what about this friend that she was going to visit and the written directions to your house I mean the shooter had to know where she was to be able to to gun her down um so was she ever questioned um you know I think she was questioned this is how this went down she was questioned I think and then she said

she didn't have anything to say, and the detective was like, okay, that's not how any of that works. Guys, there's a special thing I want you to hear that our guest has written. Can I do it here? Sure. Yeah, you're right. And, of course, she threw it to me, and I have to open the phone. So you talk about anniversaries, and you think of them as being something lovely.

You know, it's your wedding anniversary. Kate's 30-year shooting anniversary is July 16th. And like my mother, I am an author. And this is the message I would like to send out there. You, you who killed my sister, you who know who killed my sister, you who suspect who killed my sister are aging. The day will come when you discover a lump in your breast, a swelling in your groin, blood in a palm

when you cough. There will be a time when you're told that a test result showed something too frightening to look at directly and you will cry out to God. You will try to make deals and promise him anything, everything, if only you are spared. You had not the courage, the spine during your life to do the right thing to lessen the suffering of my family by speaking the truth, and now you cry out to be spared your own suffering? Listen, that's God laughing. For our recording, if you have information regarding the shooting death of Caitlin Arquette, just 18 years old, at the time she was shot, please call 505-843-STOP. Repeat, 505-843-7867.

Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.