Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Teen Cheerleader Raped, Murdered, First of Several, PERP FAKES OUT COPS

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Two murders, weeks apart. Teen cheerleader Amie Hoffman vanished after leaving her part-time job. Two days later,  her body is found floating in a retention tank at a local reservoir. Hoffman has been sex assaulted and stabbed repeatedly.  Twelve days later 25-year-old Deirdre O’Brien, 25, bangs on a truck driver’s door at a desolate rest stop pleading for help. She also has been stabbed. Before O’Brien dies, she describes her attacker as tall and slender with bushy hair and some facial hair.  No arrest is immediately made, but the next year, 1983, a break in the case surfaces. James Koedatich calls police, describing his escape from an attacker, who stabbed him. As emergency responders take Koedatich out on a stretcher, a responding officer sees a car that matches descriptions of a vehicle spotted at the mall the night of Hoffman's disappearance and at the rest stop where O’Brien is attacked. The next day, Koedatich is named a suspect in the cases.  Joining Nancy Grace today:  Laurelle Ivey- Cheerleader Squad Mate and Classmate of Amie Hoffman, Class of 1983 Wendy Patrick - California Prosecutor, Author of “Red Flags," and Host of "Today with Dr. Wendy" on KCBQ in San Diego; Twitter: @WendyPatrickPHD Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (Specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy); Twitter: @TrialDoc; Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology"  Robert Crispin - Private Investigator, Former Federal Task Force Officer for United States Department of Justice, DEA and Miami Field Division; Former Homicide and Crimes Against Children Investigator; Facebook: Crispin Special Investigations, Inc. Dr. Monte Miller - Director, Forensic DNA Experts LLC; Specialist in Sexual Assaults and Murder, and Former Forensic Scientist for Texas Dept. of Public Safety State Crime Lab Dr. Jan Gorniak - Medical Examiner, Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner (Las Vegas, NV); Board Certified Forensic Pathologist  Julia Martin- Award-winning Staff Writer for The Bergen Record, Montclair Times, and NorthJersey.com, Gannet/USA Today publications;  Twitter:@TheWriteJulia (Montclair, NJ)  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A gorgeous teen girl murdered. And what does her murder have to do with the seemingly unrelated stabbing, separated by time and distance? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, just who is Amy Hoffman? Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Dave Mack. Amy Hoffman came to the U.S. when she was five years old from her native Korea.

She was adopted by Florence Hoffman and her husband Frank. A friendly and sociable high school senior, Hoffman is a member of the cheerleading team at Parsippany Hills High School and dating a member of the football team. She also works part-time two nights a week at the Surprise Store, a women's clothing store in the local mall. The money she makes is going toward her college plans, studying to be a chiropractor. You know, I'm thinking about Amy Hoffman, this teen girl, all excited about the chance

to wear a crown and compete for, I guess, high school queen along with her boyfriend, a time in life when everything seemed good, everything seems right. You know, when you're at that young age, you don't think about forever. You don't even think about the next hour or mortality. But sadly, her family was forced to think about it with me and All-Star panel to make sense of what we know right now. When was it noticed she was missing? Take a listen again to our friends at Crime Online. It's just a 15-minute drive from the mall to Amy Hoffman's home in Parsippany in Morris County, New Jersey. When the teen doesn't get home

close to her usual 9 4545 p.m. time and she doesn't call to let her mom know she'll be late, Hoffman's mom, Florence, begins to worry. She drives to the mall but finds Amy Hoffman's abandoned car in the parking lot. Oh, my stars. I can't even imagine looking for your child and then you find the car unlocked, open, but no child. With me in All-Star Panel to make sense of what we know right now,

first I want to go to a very special guest joining us. It's Laurel Ivey, a cheerleading squad mate and classmate of Amy Hoffman's. Laurel, thank you for being with us. I know no matter how many times you think about it or are asked about it, it never really takes away the pain of realizing Amy was missing. You're correct. Something that just you're for the rest of your life, you're always going to remember. Laurel, when did you realize that Amy was even missing?

The Wednesday morning, which was after she had been adopted the night before on Tuesday. How did you find out? We were in school and it was going to be a half a day because it was the day before Thanksgiving and we were going to be having a pep rally. So we had practiced for the pep rally and for the course, the Thanksgiving football game the day before. And, um, you know, all of us went home. And so Wednesday morning, while we're in school, right before classes began, homeroom began, one of my classmates, a fellow cheerleader came to me and said, I don't know if we're going to be able to do the pep rally today because Amy's missing and she never came home last night. So at first, you think there has to be a logical explanation.

You know, I mean, what does that mean? She's sick. She didn't whatever. But as the day progressed, we realized that it was more serious. And we didn't have texting back then. We didn't have cell phones. So it was, you know, I attribute, I compare it to like the telephone tag where you tell one student and then the next student. And before you know it, the entire school knows. Because we had a half day right

after our pep rally, we just, especially the senior class, we just all got into our cars and just went in groups as if we were going to find her on her own. But that's what we did. We just drove. We drove to the mall. We drove everywhere we could possibly think. It was horrific. It was horrific, horrific.

And we were all, you know, 17, 18-year-olds at the time. Did you see her car at the mall? I did not. I think it had been removed at the time. But we had heard that her keys were in the ignition, her purse was on the front seat, and the door car door was open. So we knew that she had left work, we knew that she had not only gotten to her car, but I mean, you know, if you're starting your car, and the keys are in the ignition, you're going to have your door closed.

Exactly. Now, where she worked in the surprise store, was that in the mall? It was. It was a clothing store that was, I guess, kind of similar to like a Gap. And she worked there a few days a week part time. So that particular day that she went missing, she had gone from school to cheerleading practice to that job. And then she never came home that night. Tell me about her as a person. I mean, Amy was just the loveliest, sweetest person in the world. She would do anything for you.

I know, you know, people often talk about deceased and they sort of glorify them. But in this case, it's just true. I mean, I don't think she had one enemy that I can recall. Everybody liked her. She was just a sweet, fun person. I had known her since junior high, and we had been cheerleaders together all through high school. We were very much looking forward to this game because it was going to be our last game on the football squad. So, you know, it was, it was, you know, just unreal, you know, and just very kind, never would say a bad thing about anybody, very popular. What was the competition where she would be wearing a crown? Oh, well, it was homecoming day. So set to be on homecoming court when suddenly she disappears. Joining me, another special guest,

Julia Martin. I'm sure you've heard her name. Award winning staff writer for the Bergen Record there at Montclair Times and NorthJersey.com. Thanks so much for being with us, Julia. Tell me about the area where Amy goes missing. Big town, small town, suburb, high crime, low crime. Tell me about it. Yeah, it's a suburb. It's definitely noturb high crime low crime tell me about it um yeah it's a suburb it's not definitely not a high crime and especially back then you know it's grown a lot since then um but you know i think i don't think there are any murders there and you know i think it was safe and

i think that's why she left the store and walked to her car by herself, and nobody from the store walked with her to make sure she was okay. Julia, you say it's a suburb. A suburb to what? It's kind of a suburb to Morristown, I guess. You know, there are people there who commute into the city. It's a fairly long commute. It would be like an hour train ride. So an hour train ride to New York, close to Morristown. And I'm trying to figure out what kind of a mall it was.

Did they have the big fancy stores like Macy's? No, not at all. It was one of the first county malls ever built. And it was a very basic mall. It was almost like a strip mall. I mean, there were very few stores inside and there was, I think, a McDonald's. That was pretty much it. Yeah. You know, Robert Crispin joining me, private investigator, former federal task force for the DOJ, Department of Justice, also DEA in the Miami field division. Certainly never a lack

of business there, former homicide. You can find them at crispininvestigations.com. Robert, thank you for being with us. The reason I'm asking the questions about the area, because let's just take downtown NYC, New York City. Somebody goes missing, oh, that could be any number of things. It's, you know, the capital of the world. There are millions of people from all over the world. It's high crime. There is all sorts of underground crime going on that we don't necessarily see or hear about. Anything can happen there. You know, I took the twins skating at Rockefeller Center this Christmas. Do you know, even though John David, my son, is 6'5", and my daughter Lucy's 5'3", I would not let them get on

the subway. We did a lot of subway without me sitting right next to them with my hand on Lucy and looking at my 6'5 son. Because you don't know when something could happen or what it will be. Now that's there where I grew up in unincorporated Bibb County. Nothing was happening. Okay, you couldn't pay a criminal to come commit a crime. There was no store, no restaurant, no bank. There was really nothing. Now, here we have a duality. We have Robert Crispin, Morristown, which has a higher crime rate, of course, than a suburb. You're an hour away from New York. That's a very quick train ride. And you've got a mall.

But yet still, it had that small town feel to it. So when a girl, this cute cheerleader girl disappears, you heard what Laurel said. Her car door opened. She went to school, went to cheerleading, went to work, left work, goes to her car. It couldn't have been a football field length away. Keys in ignition, pursese on the seat. Door open. Hit it. Yeah.

I mean, listen, it's got all the earmarks of something really going bad for those initial first responding officers. Okay. You know what, Crispin? I could say that. And I'm not a former DEA or DOG. Tell me something more than it looks like something bad could have happened. What do you do first? Well, first of all, we're securing that crime scene in that car and we're contacting the parents. Yep. Sure. Tell me something more than it looks like something bad could have happened. What do you do first?

Well, first of all, we're securing that crime scene in that car and contacting the parents. Yep. Sure. Absolutely. Because that car is our initial crime scene. We're pulling fingerprints. We're pulling whatever we can off that car because that's where all this started. Because nobody leaves their keys in the car.

Nobody leaves their purse. No. And you're right. that's exactly what they did first take a listen to our friend dave mac police officers find the car door open on amy hoffman's abandoned car her backpack is inside as is her pocketbook the purse along with her wallet is in the front seat and the key is in the ignition a co-worker tells florence hoffman that amy left the store around 9 30 and headed to her car. A canine handler arrived to track Amy but her scent goes cold just two parking spaces away. And take a listen to our cut three. This is detective captain James Moore. Her vehicle was found in the parking lot uh not too far away from the store that she worked in. And the door was open on the car, and there was a witness, and she noticed a male, white male,

in a green Chevrolet that was parked a couple spots away from where Amy's car was. And he was just sitting there in the car at that time. Yeah, I don't like that. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining me, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist. And you can find her at panthermitigation.com, author of Criminal Behavior and Where Law and Psychology Intersect.

Okay, I know your expertise is issues in legal psychology, but I don't have to figure out why anybody does anything because I'm not a shrink. But I'm curious, Dr. Sherri Schwartz, with all your education, when you leave a mall and you go to your car and there's a guy sitting there, not moving, not doing anything. He's sitting behind the wheel of his car looking at you. I would just keep walking. I go, oops, forgot something and go right back into the mall yeah the thing is you know Amy maybe either didn't take notice of him or perhaps you know she because she was in a very familiar place where nothing had ever happened to her before she felt very safe you know so there's a number of

things that number of factors that can play here. And another thing, at that young age, I mean, who on this panel or in this studio didn't speed in the car or ride without a seatbelt or stay at a party where other people were smoking pot or drinking and everybody's underage? I didn't say you did it. Just saying you do things at a young age. You don't notice things. You feel like you're going to live forever. So it may have meant nothing to her. Wendy Patrick joining me, California prosecutor and author of Red Flags. She's at WendyPatrickPhD.com and she's on today with Dr. Wendy every day, KCBQ. You have handled so many cases as we all have. Teens, it's a whole other thing. They don't understand what they're

doing you know it's true nancy and dr schwartz hits on actually a section on my book called familiarity breeds contentment in other words if you're so used to just sort of going the same route every day working parking lots all the different places we went you fail to appreciate the extent to which you might be in danger when you're actually leaving at night. You know, shopping malls. Remember shopping malls in the 80s? I mean, these were places our parents dropped us off at to spend the afternoon so they could go do their thing. We never thought we were in danger when we were walking through shopping mall parking lots.

But we still might have noticed, if we'd been paying attention, someone loitering in their vehicle way back in the day where there were no cell phones and there was no texting involved. Why would somebody simply be sitting there? So it's interesting that was something that was noticed. And, you know, I want to go back to Julia Martin. But, Julia, hold on just one moment. Guys, for the next days, there is an all-out search for this beautiful teen girl set to be on homecoming court. They did everything possible to find her, including exactly what investigator Robert Crispin advised. Take a listen to our cut four. This is from the new detective. We search the vehicle as we do routinely for fingerprints, any type of

items which may assist us in the missing person, but we ultimately didn't find anything. But that was about to change. Two days later, on Thanksgiving Day, a man out for an afternoon walk in a secluded area of Morris County, New Jersey, made a startling discovery. That's right. Dave Mack, our friend at Crime Online, will tell us about that in Cut 2B. Just two days later, around 1 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, Amy Hoffman's body is found by a couple walking their dog. The body is found face down in the water of a concrete holding tank in the Mindenboro water reservoir. She's wearing the same clothes she was reported missing in, a brownish purple sweater, plaid skirt, and cowboy boots. Hoffman's death was violent. The medical examiner found multiple lacerations and stab wounds

on her body. Her right hand had defensive wounds and her fingers were almost severed. The autopsy report records the cause of death to be exsanguation secondary to stab wound on the right chest. Hoffman had also been raped. First of all, to Dr. Jan Gorniak, renowned medical examiner joining us out of Clark County. That's Vegas. Again, never a lack of business there. Dr. Gorniak, explain what is sanguination? Sanguination just literally means to bleed to death, excessive bleeding.

So when someone says they exsanguinated, they lost a lot of blood enough to cause them to go into shock and then eventually die. What we know is that authorities looking for her were alerted that a couple out walking their dog around 1 p.m., and this is on Thanksgiving Day when most people are just pushing back from the Thanksgiving Day table, that would have been November 25, found her in a concrete holding tank in the Mendham Borough Water Reservoir there in Randolph Township. As you know, she was laying face down in the water, still wearing all the clothing she had had on that day, right down to her cowboy boots, a plaid skirt, a purple sweater, face down. The same clothes she was reported missing in. Her parents knew exactly

what she was wearing. And I find that really important to you, Robert Crispin, Private Eye. I can tell you right now what John David and Lucy are wearing. I don't have to see them to know. I even know what color John David's underwear and socks are because I laid them out last night. Now, Lucy does not want me laying out her clothes. And I completely understand that. But I was very encouraged that the parents knew exactly what she had been wearing and could relay that information. That said, face down in a reservoir. I mean, you know, immediately that's no accident. Robert? Yeah. So this now becomes crime scene number two and recovering her body from there is going to tell us so much it's going to give us the cause or the apparent initial cause

of her death it's going to allow us to secure her clothes it's going to allow us to get photographs that are going to help us down the road. Why is this all important? Because once we develop a suspect, if we ever do, then the clothes, the fibers, the manner in which the clothes are potentially put back on the body. A lot of people who are sexually assaulted, sometimes their offender is so nervous, he puts the clothes on backwards. He puts a shirt on backwards. He'll actually pull the pants up and put them on backwards. This is all indications of where the investigator needs to start looking as to what happened to this victim. So crime scene number two is under full go. Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned about putting clothes on wrong. I remember a case where

the murder victim had their underwear on backwards. A little girl had her underwear on backwards. And of course, she would never have done that. You know, little clues like that tell us so much. I want to go back to our special guest, Laurel Ivey, who was a cheerleader and classmate of Amy Hoffman's. Laurel, do you remember when you learned that Amy's body had been found? Like it was yesterday, Nancy. One of the most horrible memories I've ever had in my life. She had not been made public after many hours after she had been discovered. found out it was about nine or 10 o'clock at night on Thanksgiving. And it was a classmate that called the home, my home, and my father picked up the call. And my father was in another room upstairs.

And I was pretty much in a state of shock on the couch with my mother, watching TV, just reliving, you know, everything about her being missing. And when my father started coming down the stairs, I just knew. And when he told me, it was a shock that I've never had in my entire life. What do you mean by that, Laurel, that you saw your dad coming down the stairs and you, quote, just knew? I just knew because of the time that the phone rang at 9.30, 10 o'clock at night. I just knew there had to be news. And I just knew that, I just knew it wasn't good. And I could tell he was taking his time to come downstairs and talk to me.

And I just was in a state of shock. And when I saw his face, and he went over to the TV and turned it down and said, I have to talk to you. And I kind of I wasn't screaming. But at the time I started to yell and I said, no, no, no, I don't want to hear what you have to say. And then, you know, then he looked directly at me and he said they found her, Laurel, and she's been stabbed. And I fell to my knees on the floor. And all I can do is just remember screaming uncontrollably for I don't even know how long in a state of shock. To Dr. Sherry Schwartz joining us, a forensic psychologist. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, a murder of your beloved at any point in your life is life-changing.

You're never the same person you were before. But when that happens to someone very young, like in Laurel Ivey's case, she was a teen girl, when she finds out one of her best friends had been kidnapped and stabbed dead. It's it's life altering. It really changes the rest of the course of your life. I believe. Why is it that when that occurs to a friend, any beloved so young in life, it seems to have an even greater impact. Well, at that time, these were kids in adolescence, in the height of adolescence.

And this is a really critical developmental stage, right? This is a stage of development that's between your childhood, but you're not quite an adult. We know that the human brain isn't fully formed until sometime into the mid to late 20s. And so these are kids who are still developing to have such a significant trauma. And you're absolutely right, Nancy, it's a significant trauma at any age. But in this particular case, when you're talking about kids, it has an impact potentially on their development into adulthood. Laurel, Ivy, how do you believe that Abby's murder affected your life? Well, first of all, it definitely mars the rest of your senior year, which is supposed to be the

best year of your high school years. I mean, we went, most of my friends went from, we couldn't wait for the year to have all celebrate all the milestones to, you know, after that point, we couldn't wait for the year to be over and put it behind us, which you never really do. You think that you can, but you really never do. And again, the significance of her being found on Thanksgiving, it's just a reminder for every single year that followed that every Thanksgiving is associated with that horrible, horrible, horrible day. Not only were her friends and family devastated, just imagine your golden girl gone in such gruesome manner.

The community felt it as well take a listen hour cut five captain moore it had a major impact on the community women were hesitant about going out on their own especially at night there was a couple walking their dog through the woods and it's it's an isolated area it's like a lover's lane area and they came across the body floating in the water there was numerous slashes and stab wounds to her body and some were post-mortem meaning that after she had died the assailant still continues to slash her and cut her body it was pretty gruesome. To special guest Dr. Jan Gorniak, renowned medical examiner joining us. So many questions. This young girl was slashed multiple times. I know you've seen that

in your practice. We also know this teen girl, this little cheerleader was brutally raped but yet her clothes had been put back on her body. We also know that she was face down in water contained in a reservoir. So how does all of that, especially being face down in water, affect any chance of getting DNA? Oh, there's a lot of factors that can affect getting DNA. So obviously the condition of the body, the elements around because, you know, like any evidence you can take into the scene and out of the scene. So whatever is in the water, right, can also lend to depositing on the body. So the best way to get DNA is to actually, you know, when we do what we call a

sexual assault kit is actually get samples from quote unquote within the body, in the vagina mouth vagina the rectum mouth right um so being redressed um that might be beneficial because it is in a way protecting um the vaginal area the the anal region so it's being covered so there's a layer in between um being face down in in the water that might be difficult getting samples from say the mouth because of all the water that might be going in and out of the mouth because of the water and what's in the water. Same thing when we talk about fingernail scrapings, cutting the nails, combing hair. So there's a lot that goes into collecting DNA from the body. But if you don't try, you're not going to find it. So but the element and where the person is found and the condition of the body of their decomposants,

the longer they are out from that time of death until they're discovered, then that collection decreases. Joining me right now, a DNA expert, Dr. Monty Miller, Director of Forensic DNA Experts, specializing in sex assaults and murder, former forensic scientist for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Dr. Miller, thank you for being with us. You know, Dr. Jane Gorniak says something highly, highly probative. If there were objects in the water, like some of her clothing, including the clothing that had been put back on her, there's always a chance to get DNA from the clothing as well as body cavities. But let me ask you, Dr. Miller, how is DNA treated when it's been degraded, when it has been exposed to the elements, say mud, dirt, water? Can you still extract, hopefully,

the killer's DNA, even if the DNA has been degraded? Well, hopefully you can. And it depends on how degraded it is. You can get anything from a full profile, you know, all of their DNA to nothing. It just depends on, you know, how well it's, how much it's been degraded. The water probably won't cause it to be degraded so much as it will wash it off. Particularly if it's cold, most of our bodily fluids are the ones that carry DNA that we might find on somebody are going to, you know, be washed off with the water. Those things, the DNA that's found internally on the body inside, you know, the vaginal cavity or the rectum, you know, are really good places because those are not likely to

have the water wash across them and wash it out as well. But you can still get DNA if it's degraded, if it's not too degraded. But I wouldn't think that over a short period of time that that would be a problem here. Dr. Monty Miller, again, forensic DNA expert. What about touch DNA on the body or on clothing? If that is exposed to water, do you lose it? Most of the time you will. You know, sperm sometimes will stick to clothing and things, even through a wash cycle. So you might still be able to find sperm if you knew where to look, but most of the other

skin cells and anything from touch DNA and anything like that would likely be gone. Gone. Darn. And given the remote location of the crime scene out at that reservoir, police believe the perpetrator was most likely a local who knew their way around the area. They did the right thing. They go straight back to the mall. Take a listen to our cut seven from the new detective. Hoping for more information, police returned to the mall to question other employees. One woman stated that when she left the mall around 9 p.m., she saw a creepy-looking man just sitting there in his car.

She thought the vehicle was an old Chevy. She only caught a glimpse of the man's face. She could not offer police a detailed description. Investigators knew they would have to work quickly. We knew we had a major offender in our community. We knew we had somebody that was a predator. And what motivated me as well as all the other law enforcement officers who worked in this case is we had to capture this guy before he killed again. But could they catch the killer before he struck again? And trust me, statistically, this killer is a man.

Take a listen now to our cut eight from Psychic Investigators. 18-year-old student Amy Hoffman goes missing. Two days later, her mutilated body is discovered in a water retention tank. Police from all across the region are hunting down a brutal killer. The second victim was a girl named Deidre O'Brien who worked in a local restaurant and was heading home early in the morning. It was after midnight. She was forced off the road and abducted from her vehicle. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The second victim was a girl named Deidre O'Brien who worked in a local restaurant

and was heading home early in the morning. It was after midnight. She was forced off the road and abducted from her vehicle. So now, Wendy Patrick, we're hearing about another young girl who had been in her car, who was forced out of her car, and now we're hearing about this being at a rest stop just a very short time after Amy was taken out of her car in the evening and at a public place seemingly the perp had no problem with being watched I mean it's almost a fingerprint crime it's becoming patterns make the predator it looks like this is an abductor

who is a local, knows areas where he may be able to get away with it easier, knows where to potentially dump the bodies. And that's the type of thing that investigators are going to use to then try to put these clues together and connect the dots. Absolutely. It looks like somebody that has a distinctive M.O., even if we just have these two incidents. Now, we're talking about another young girl, Deidre O'Brien, and a very short distance away in Mendham Township. Take a listen to what Detective Captain James Moore has to say about this in our Cut 9. They didn't catch the killer the first time, and now they've got a second dead body. Later brought to a rest stop on Route 80 in Warren Township where she was murdered.

We were all very upset because now we had two gruesome homicides on our hands and we had a feeling that the same individual was involved because the same type vehicle was seen leaving the scene of Deidre O'Brien's

homicide. So now we have not one, but two attacks on young women. When you are looking at a case like this, let me go out to Dr. Sherry Schwartz, and you see startling similarities. What do you look at to determine if the same perp attacked both young girls? Well, one of the first things to look at would be how they were killed or how they were injured, right? So, was it by stabbing? Was it by strangulation? Were they both sexually assaulted? Were their bodies left in the same place? Maybe with a surviving victim who can help the police, like in the case

of Ted Bundy, was the way that they were approached by the perpetrator similar? Yeah, there's just so many similarities out to you, Robert Crispin. They've got to realize these two may be connected, right? Oh, they totally do. As soon as they got to that scene and they realized, you know, these guys who work these cases, these homicide guys or these major crime guys, you know, they see similarities as soon as they get there. And they're already processing in their mind that this is absolutely connected to the one we did last week. They just need to put it together. But I can tell you, as soon as they got on scene from working these types of cases, their mind went right to this is the second homicide involving the same person. And they must have felt awful, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor.

They couldn't catch the guy when Amy goes missing and is found dead. And now here's Deidre, another young girl killed in very similar circumstances. A brutal death, I might add. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, a brutal death, you're going to start thinking of motive. Who would kill this way? You know, when you talk about post-mortem injuries, flashing, stabbing, I mean, that speaks to rage, not just a crime of opportunity. So that one of the things that that does is really heightens this community fear and awareness that this is somebody that's

out of control and appears to be killing indiscriminately. And another thing I think they can deduce at this point that it's a random killer. In other words, I don't think the two women were connected in any way. And that means that one person has attacked two unconnected women, which may indicate he is unconnected to them as well, and is killing at random, which is even scarier, much harder to solve a case like that, until, believe it or not, a crack in the case. It basically falls on their heads. Take a listen to our cut 12 from the new detective. The suspect and his vehicle matched the description of the suspect in the Amy Hoffman case. With only tiny synthetic fibers

recovered from Deirdre O'Brien's clothing, investigators went to the site where she had been abducted to search for more clues. They found a tire track left in the dirt. It was photographed, and then a cast was carefully made. While the tread was only one potential clue, it was the strongest. Most energy was put onto the tire track itself.

Because we could see where its location, approximately four feet from the victim's vehicle, that it was probably the suspect's tire. And we've heard a lot about that type of evidence in the Idaho case, where tire track castings taken from outside the crime scene where four young students were murdered. Tire casting tried and true. Here is the break. Take a listen to our cut 14. They responded to a home in Morristown where an individual had been stabbed. While they were at the scene, one of the officers noticed the green Chevrolet sitting in the driveway and it matched the description of

the vehicle we were looking for. So they called for the forensic team to come to the scene to check this vehicle out. As it turned out, they found the tire on the car matched the imprint that was found at Deidre O'Brien's abduction. And subsequently, the individual was arrested and charged with the two homicides. So straight back to our DNA expert extraordinaire. Joining us, Dr. Monty Miller, forensic DNA expert. Dr. Miller, we hear fiber evidence was taken off Deidre's clothing. Fiber evidence. What is fiber evidence?

So fibers are all of the different things that we make our clothing and carpets and other things out of. They're very distinct. Some of them are rare and others of them are rather common. They have distinctive shapes and sizes and colors. They look different under certain kinds of light and things like that. So they can be identified. You can't tell for sure that they're, you know, from the same source. You know, if they're from a carpet in a car, there are lots of cars likely that have that carpet or in your house. But it certainly is a credible way to connect people to potentially being in the trunk of a car or being in someone else's car, just because fibers and those things do transfer when we get around. Yeah, the similar case is the Wayne Williams prosecution in Atlanta for the murders of many young boys and teen boys.

Fiber from his car and his home carpet found on nearly every single murder victim. So what do we do now? We look back at the dying words of Deidre. Take a listen to our cut 11 from Crime Online. Two weeks after Amy Hoffman was murdered, a truck driver parked at a rest stop 20 minutes from the Morris County Mall was jolted from his sleep. A terrified young woman was begging for help. She was bleeding badly and barely clinging to life. The truck driver called police. Though she'd lost a lot of blood, 25-year-old Deidre O'Brien was still conscious

when the paramedics arrived. She told the authorities that less than a mile from her home, a car forced her off the road. The driver brandished a knife and forced her into his car, an old Chevy. He drove her to the rest stop, sexually assaulted her, and then stabbed her repeatedly. Deidre O'Brien would not survive her injuries. She died at the hospital, but not before giving a description of her killer. Giving a description of her killer. Let's let Sergeant

First Class William Hughes shed a little more light on what happened to poor Deidre. Take a listen to our cut 10. The only thing that stopped him from continuing with his attempt to sexually assault her was the fact that there was a truck parked in the rest area a little ahead of them. Just had enough and didn't want to be bothered with her anymore so he stabbed her and threw her out of the car and then drove her off. And that's when Deidre had enough strength to pick herself up and go to the truck to knock on the door, getting help from the truck driver. What Deidre lived through, the sex assault, the stabbing, she managed to give a description. Believing the perp was a local and based on Deidre's description, cops are led to a guy,

James Kodadich. Take a listen to our cut 13. As investigators race to identify a suspect before he could strike again, another stabbing was reported. This time, the victim was a man, but the details were familiar.

34-year-old James Kodadich told police while he was driving, he was pulled over by an early model Chevy with a flashing blue light on the dash. The driver of the other car pulled him out of his vehicle and stabbed him. Kodadich fought off his attacker and fled to his mother's house. His description of the assailant resembled the murderer at large. To police, James Kodadich was fortunate his wounds were not serious. Wow. He claimed he was stabbed, but amazingly, he lived. And what a story he tells police. He was followed by, ominously, by

a car that had blue lights. The stabbings were mostly superficial. And he's matching the description from Deidre. Take a listen to our cut 15 from the new detective. We believe that he thought the police might have had an idea or were looking at him as a suspect in a case which we weren't but that's why we believed he made this particular scenario up. But Kodadich's plan backfired and led investigators right to him. Based on the evidence, police believe that Kodadich prowled for vulnerable women to abduct, molest, and kill. For the murders of Amy Hoffman and Deirdre O'Brien,

James Kodadich was sentenced to 95 years. To you, Laurel Ivy, cheerleader and classmate, along with Amy, the first of two victims that we know of, how did you feel when Kadadich was found guilty? The actual trial didn't happen until years later. I was already in college. But there was a two-week period between the two girls' murders. And after Amy had been murdered and found, there was this panic among our community about was it a target to the cheerleaders? And so for that period of time, and the police asked us not to wear like our cheerleading jackets out in public or to, you know, our parents wouldn't let us,

like I had a part-time job and my parents wouldn't let me drive to my job at night. They would pick me up and drive me home. And we were very, very, very terrified because her killer was still at large it was and then after deirdre's murder um now you have two and so now you really believe that there's a serial killer out there which i had never even known what a serial killer was at that time and when i was 17 um so it was even more um he was convicted or he was

arrested for Deirdre's murder first it was I guess some time passed before they were sure that he had been connected to Amy's murder so there was still a kind of period of time where we were not completely sure that

James Kadadich had been apprehended for Amy's murder we weren't sure if her murder was still at large. Kadadich, sentenced, remains behind bars, but of course, he is now trying to file even more appeals, most likely a habeas corpus, insisting the DNA recovered from Amy would prove he did not rape and murder her. You know what? I wish they would grant that so the DNA could prove him guilty once and for all regarding Amy. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off. Goodbye, friend.