Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - WHERE'S KELLY? Cheese shop, shoes & golf bag solve Kelly Dwyer mystery?

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

27-year-old Kelly Dwyer vanishes during a night out in Milwaukee. While detectives try to piece together the mystery, a cheese factory becomes the centerpiece of the investigation.Kris Zocco makes a 160-mile trip to a cheese factory and buys a spicy pepper jack cheese. He tries to create an alibi with the trip but ends up incriminating himself. Joining Nancy Grace to discuss the case: Julie Rendleman- NY Defense Attorney   Cloyd Steiger - 36- year Seattle Police Dept. Officer, 22-year Homicide Detective, & AUTHOR of "Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer-Gary Gene Grant"   Bethany Marshall- Psychoanalyst   Kris Sperry- Retired Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Georgia   Levi Page- Investigative reporter at CrimeOnline   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. A beautiful young girl goes missing, 27-year-old Kelly Dwyer, seemingly without a trace. Her friends at Lululemon call, it seems to go straight to voicemail as if it's dead. When was she seen by an independent witness? They're not a love interest. They're not an ex-boyfriend. They're not an arch enemy at work that we know of. And that's very, very critical when you're trying to establish a timeline is that you do it independently,

such as with video surveillance or witnesses that don't have a grudge or a romantic interest. What happened to Kelly Dwyer? This is Crime Stories. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. It was somewhat unusual for someone to just vanish out of thin air, especially on the east side of Milwaukee. Kelly Dwyer, she is a young woman that is out trying to discover herself.

You see this bright-eyed, smiling, beautiful girl who really seemed to have a lot of life and vitality. We got to spend quite a bit of time together in the yoga room. It was rare not to see her, and I had just assumed she was on an adventure of some sort. October 12, 2013, she did not show up for work. Her coworkers were absolutely the first to respond. Kelly was very tied to her cell phone, always posting on social media, always texting. When they called Kelly's cell phone, it went straight to voicemail.

Kelly Dwyer is missing. Solving the mystery behind the disappearance of a beautiful young girl, a Wisconsin woman just vanishing seemingly into thin air. What happened to Kelly Dwyer, just 27 years old? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, an all-star panel, Julie Rendelman, New York defense attorney. Cloyd Steiger, 36 years, Seattle PD. 22 years, homicide detective and author of Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer, Gary Gene Grant. Well, I haven't forgotten Gary Gene Grant. Renowned psychoanalyst out of Beverly Hills, Dr. Bethany Marshall at drbethanymarshall.com.

Chris Sperry, former chief medical examiner for the state of Georgia, but right now to crimeonline.com investigative reporter Levi Page. First of all, who is Kelly Dwyer? Tell me about Kelly. Let's start with that. Nancy, she's a 27-year-old young woman, and she worked at a clothing store, Lululemon, which is an athletic clothing store. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. Levi, Levi, Levi. First of all, let me tell you what Lululemon is. Okay, just frame of reference.

My daughter got invited to a very fancy birthday party. Okay? Lucy asked the girl, what would you like for your birthday well the girl said lululemon whatever yoga pants and I didn't know this part till later a silver necklace with my initial on it so Lucy knew once we went we went online to find lululemon the yoga pants were 86 dollars 86 dollars plus shipping which the shipping's worth it to me so i don't have to go to the mall so we did that little did i know she went behind my back to her dad to get the silver necklace too because the girl is the it girl at school all right so when i find out about the necklace i'm

like you know what this is more than I ever got for my birthday in my whole life but okay fine all right so then of course the yoga pants don't fit they're not the right size so we have to go to the store which is my nightmare we get there there was not one thing in there under about 90 dollars that is what Lululemon is. Yes, the stuff is awesome, but that is a place where the really rich, wealthy, and wealthy wannabes with credit cards show up to fit in in their exercise classes. They all have to have Lululemon on their yoga pants. Okay, I'm just telling you what it is. The stuff's awesome, I'm sure. Now, back to Lululemon. Go ahead.

So she works there. She loves her job. She's extremely tight-knit with her coworkers. And on October 12, 2013, she doesn't show up to work, and her coworkers take notice. They try to contact her. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on right there again. Sorry, Levi.

I don't think you're understanding this. Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, I did notice something when I was at Lululemon they're a bunch of perfect looking people working there but they're extremely friendly and they it's like a little subculture like they're all into exercising they're all into yoga they're they're yes they're salespeople they have a specialty though they they know all about this genre and they're very tight knit and the reality is at work for instance I'm meeting up with a former prosecutor I worked with and that was 20 years ago we're meeting up for lunch there's some kind of camaraderie there that you get from being with someone every day. And I got to tell you, I will say this, even though their stuff was so overpriced, the people there were super friendly and they all looked perfect, which makes me think Kelly Dwyer looked perfect, too.

Well, not only that, Nancy. Yes, they're a community. And as you may learn through Lucy in future years, they will tailor the clothing, even though it's athletic wear. They'll shorten the shorts or lengthen them put your monogram on them wait wait whoa whoa whoa wait wait stop stop what did you just say about tailoring the yoga pants they have sewing machines in the store where they will tighten them they will shorten them they will shorten the tops I mean I'm sorry but they all look like size two to me just just

let's just put that out there okay they have a tailor there for exercise pants they do it's the perfect fit now is that just in beverly hills or is that over the place world rock not that i would know from experience okay well you just taught me something but you know nancy but what about that camaraderie why is it the co-workers that notice somebody's gone? Here's what I noticed about that store and about the stories you cover in general. When it happens to be a group of young people, when somebody doesn't show up, they notice it because they're all on social media. They track each other. Unlike, you know, if you or I didn't show up at a dinner party, I might assume your child was sick. You might assume that, you know, my husband and I are, you know, having an evening trying to hash

something out. If something else came up, these young people, not only... Wait a minute. You hash things out with your husband. I just say, save it till the twins go to college. Put a pin in it. Okay, go ahead. I'll leave you your candlelit dinners. But you know what? They're very, they follow each other. So did you hear what we just played, that they all do yoga together? Yes. Yes. So they're a part of a community. And not only that, but they probably are all on Instagram together.

I don't know if you've been to some of these exercise classes. But the yoga instructors actually take videos. They post it on their Instagram. This is something they do to increase their following. So, you know, when somebody can't get a hold of somebody else, they look on Instagram, they look on Facebook, they look on Snapchat and Twitter. So it is very easy in this community to know that somebody has gone missing. Unlike 30 years ago, when you didn't, you know, a day passed and you didn't call your mother. Now it's an hour passes and everybody notices that the pattern has shifted and you're no longer doing the things that you normally do.

You know what? You're absolutely right. And Jackie here is gesticulating wildly to tell me that she's all over social media. To Cloyd Steiger, homicide detective, author of Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer, Gary Jean Grant. Cloyd.

She's got a really good point. Somebody that's on social media all the time. People notice when you're missing, but I'm still befuddled regarding it's a co-worker that reports her missing. Well, yeah, she probably is one of those people that's always on time for work. And it's just this pattern of behavior that suddenly changes. She's not, you know, maybe she's five minutes late sometimes, but she just doesn't show. And that's really actually very common way that we find homicide victims is they don't show up for work. And then somebody goes to the house and check on them and finds them missing there, which wasn't the case in this instance. But that's actually really common. And the social media thing is exactly right.

Everybody's on it all the time. And which is great for detectives trying to track somebody's behavior. But, I mean, I'm not surprised that her co-workers are the ones that called. That's right, as Levi Page with CrimeOnline.com is telling us when Kelly didn't show up for work. Her co-workers were the very first ones to respond. They called her cell phone, and they checked as Dr. Bethany Marshall pointed out her social media. You know, Levi Page, I don't know why you took me on a wild goose chase talking about the expensive yoga pants at Lululemon, but that's totally irrelevant, Levi, and I chastise you for bringing it up. Now, Chris Berry with me, former chief medical examiner in the state of Georgia.

Chris, you and I hashed out many, many autopsy reports together. I don't know if you remember sitting there muttering under your breath and looking at your watch. And I would say, well, what does this mean? What's a hematoma? Now you see what took me so long investigating the case, Chris. It's a whole different language. It's a whole different language. It's a whole different language, but right now we're talking about Kelly Dwyer. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. It was somewhat unusual for someone to just vanish out of thin air,

especially on the east side of Milwaukee. Kelly Dwyer, she is a young woman that is out trying to discover herself. You see this bright-eyed, smiling, beautiful girl who really seemed to have a lot of life and vitality. We got to spend quite a bit of time together in the yoga room. It was rare not to see her. And I had just assumed she was on an adventure of some sort. Beautiful.

October 12, 2013, she did not show up for work. Her co-workers were absolutely the first to respond. Kelly was very tied to her cell phone, always posting on social media, always texting. When they called Kelly's cell phone, it went straight to voicemail. Kelly Dwyer is missing. A beautiful young girl goes missing, 27-year-old Kelly Dwyer, seemingly without a trace, to Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter.

So her friends at Lululemon call in. Who do they call? They call her cell phone. It seems to go straight to voicemail as if it's dead. What else happens then at the very critical first few hours of realizing she's not reporting to work? They also notice that her social media is gone. Not that she hasn't posted on social media, but that all of her social media accounts are deleted. They're vaporized. There's no footprint on the Internet of her social media accounts, which is extremely

unusual because she was very active on there. She would post about her yoga routines and workouts on social media regularly. Let's go old school, Levi Page. When was the last time she was actually seen? Forget about cell phones and social media. When was she seen by an independent witness? So she was seen at a bar in Milwaukee with her boyfriend, Chris Zocco. She'd been dating him for a year. He's 38 years old. He worked at a relocation management company as the chief information officer, and they ate pizza at this bar. Well, it seems to me, to Julie Rendleman, New York defense attorney, the first thing you would do is round up everybody that was out eating pizza the night before she goes missing. Yeah, I mean, I think the person you're going to focus on

is the guy she's eating pizza with because that seems to be, at least as we know at this point, the last person that was seen with her alive. So we'd want to know what he has to say in terms of where she was the last time he saw her. You know what's interesting about that scenario to Cloyd Steiger, Cloyd, is that there are a lot of independent witnesses there, people that won't have a dog in the fight, skin in the game. What I mean by that is her girlfriends from work that were together, and they all go home to their own places, and you can verify where everybody was before, during right after except Kelly Dwyer those are what I call independent

witnesses they're not a love interest they're not an ex-boyfriend they're not a arch enemy at work that we know of and that's very very critical when you're trying to establish a timeline is that you do it independently such as with video surveillance or witnesses that don't have a grudge or a romantic interest. Yeah, that's the good thing about a case like this. There are a lot of independent witnesses, although the video is priceless and golden in this case. And tracking down all the videos is something you want to do so you can see where she's been and watch her movements. And so you don't have to, you do want to talk to the witnesses, but you can look for yourself and see that nothing happened at the bar. Of course, these are women she works with. Statistically, women are less

likely to commit a serious crime on another person. Why do we not believe that she just went off the grid? What about that to Dr. Bethany Marshall? It's tough to go off the grid. It's really tough to rid the grid. So what about this woman? Kelly Dwyer makes you believe she didn't just say, you know what? I'm fed up with the city life, fed up with social media. I'm fed up with the whole shebang. I'm out of here. Nancy, in a word, her attachment systems. She was attached. She had friends. She had family. She was dating not only Zoko, but I understand other people. So women likely will not abandon their attachment systems. Now, every once in a while, you'll have a mother who's not bonded with their children and the mother takes off and abandons the family. That is rare and that is

an outlier in this case she would not have left her friends and family behind levi page i just heard dr bethany marshall state that she was not only dating chris zoco she was dating other people as well yes she had a a profile on some dating apps and was dating other people as well but But Chris Zocco was the main person that she was dating. And her friends said that that was her most serious boyfriend, that they were really getting serious. Well, okay. If you're serious, you don't have dating profiles up. Now that opens up a whole nother can of worms for me. If you're still on dating websites, which I'm perfectly fine with dating websites. That's how my nephew found his wife. They're happily married with a baby boy that just turned two. But I'm saying that there are now

several males in the mix that we have to look at. Agree or disagree, Cloyd? Well, I agree 100%. You have to look at her profile and see who she contacted. But to your question of why she's on a dating site when she supposedly loves this guy, maybe she sensed that he wasn't into it as much as she was, and that's something that was going on. And so you can get her dating site activity and see who she connected with, see if she told anybody, I'm going to meet you somewhere, and that type of thing, and then follow up on those leads. Listen. According to Chanel Royston, before Kelly Dwyer disappeared,

it seemed her relationship with Chris Sacco was evolving did Kelly ever tell you that she was falling in love with Chris she never told me but you could tell you know how she would look at him that she was looking for something more and I think that she did love him at that point it turns out Sacco may have been in love as well with someone else. He was in a very serious relationship with a woman who he was dating at the time that he was seeing Kelly. And this young woman knew nothing about the relationship with Kelly. And did Kelly have any idea about this other woman? Absolutely not. And neither did investigators. To Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. So both of them are dating other people.

Is that right? Yes, that is correct. Okay, so let me understand. They're not in love as her friends thought they were. They are dating other people. That changes the landscape of the search. But of course, according to statistics, it's typically a husband, a boyfriend, or an ex that is responsible when somebody goes missing.

And then, based on those statistics, they speak to the boyfriend. They take a look at his cell phone. Listen to this. During his interview, he seemed flip, even when asked routine questions about his medical history. Anxiety, nothing like that? I have anxiety. Okay, but no, uh, don't take me anything for it. Okay, no problem, but no bipolar, schizophrenia. I suppose that's all open to interpretation by somebody. Zacco's interrogation finishes abruptly. Let's call my lawyer. But while they had Zacco in custody, police get a warrant to search his cell phone, hoping to find clues

in Kelly's disappearance. They were stunned to find a video of Zacco and Kelly Dwyer engaged in a sex act, where Kelly appears to be in distress. She can't breathe. She's straining for breath. When was this video taken? That video was taken approximately three weeks before she went missing. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So on Monday, October 14th, I started my shift at 4 p.m. I learned that Kelly Dwyer, a young woman, had been reported missing and had not been seen or heard from since the previous Friday.

As Kelly Dwyer's family and friends continued to search for her, Milwaukee detective Tammy Trammell McClain arrived at the scene of Kelly's last known whereabouts three days earlier. Chris Sacco's apartment building. They come right through this door and he actually holds the door open for her. You can see that on the video. Yes. You see two people that are chatting, walk past that camera. Then there's another camera that catches them turning the corner to the elevator. They bend the corner.

And then that's the last time that she is ever seen alive by anyone. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with me, New York Defense Attorney Julie Rendelman, author and former homicide detective Cloyd Steiger, renowned psychoanalyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, the former chief medical examiner for the state of Georgia, Chris Sperry, and CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Levi Page. So they go into his apartment. They look around. I can't help but notice video shows her going into his apartment building, but not coming out. You were just hearing our friend Peter Van Zandt at 48 hours. Now take a listen to this. More incriminating evidence, disturbing pictures of Kelly on Zocco's phone. Still photographs that are very concerning

as well because she appears to be unconscious on his bed. But police could not link those images to Kelly's disappearance. And despite Zocco being a person of interest, they could only charge him with drug possession. But that search of his apartment led police to a bizarre discovery in his bathroom. During that first search warrant, the police observe the shower curtain hooks with the torn fragments of shower curtain. A torn shower curtain. It may mean nothing to some people. To me, it means a lot. Right now, I'm working a cold case where one of the last clues that I have with a missing woman is the fact that in her home, the shower curtain was missing out of the bathroom that she decorated where everything matched to Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, that is significant. You know, for instance, in my children's bathrooms,

they don't have shower curtains up. But most people do have shower curtains up. And when she went to the trouble to match up everything when she bought, you know, the shower curtain and the rug and the towels and all that, and then a piece is missing, that means something. And here in his place, his apartment, Chris Zocco, the boyfriend, the shower curtain is torn down. Well, not only that, Nancy, let's say they're having a romantic sexual relationship. She's spending the night at his house, supposedly. A woman is going to want

a shower, right? She's going to want to take a shower after sex, or she's getting ready to go to work in the morning. Women want to groom themselves. So even if he didn't have a need for a shower curtain, she would most certainly make sure that one was there. And also the fact that the shower curtain was torn off of the hooks. I don't think I've ever seen that in anybody's bathroom. And this guy had a big job, a big life. He was a good earner. So the fact that he would have something in his house so amiss and out of place, like you would have in maybe a crack house or an impoverished kind of setting, it does not match what we would hope to see in that kind of a home.

So right now, all we have is video of her going in and no video of her coming out and a torn down shower curtain. As days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months, still no sign of Kelly Dwyer. To Dr. Chris Berry, former chief medical examiner for the state of Georgia. Chris, as time passes, you lose more and more evidence as it relates to determining a cause of death or even identifying a body. Explain. Yes. With the passage of time, nature takes its course. Decomposition begins.

Insects infest the body. If the body is outside, animals will get to it. And sometimes we'll even tear the body apart and distribute the bones and scattered pieces all over a large area. So it becomes much, much more difficult to find the injuries with the soft tissues gone and also with the damage that predators just naturally eating on decomposed remains will cause. So it makes a difficult problem even more difficult, sometimes even impossible. Right now the police have their hands tied. They don't know which way to go. That's a terrible spot to be in, in a missing person investigation.

So what do you do when you don't know what to do? You start over again, back at Zocco's apartment, but this time, police bring a special friend. They then bring in a canine to conduct a sniff for the odor of decomposing human remains. And that police cadaver dog, Molly, would deliver some stunning results there's an indication at the outside of the apartment door in the parking garage on the level he parked his car on the dumpster door on the 18th floor Molly alerted on the hallway guest bedroom bathroom. She went on to the master bedroom, got up onto Chris Zocco's bed. She seemed to be sniffing vigorously on top of his bed and gives her final formal trained alert.

For police, that moment changed this case forever. They now believed Kelly was dead. So police bring in cadaver dogs, and I've got to tell you something. To Julie Rendleman, New York defense attorney, no stranger to a courtroom, many people have asked me, for instance, what was my favorite case? Which is a crazy question because no case is more important than another. People have also asked me, who was your best witness you ever put on the stand? And I normally say it was a dog, a drug dog, who completely carried the day for me when I was prosecuting a drug lord. Julie Rendleman, everybody loves a dog in the courtroom

because dogs don't lie. Dr. Bethany Marshall, there's another obvious witness, the other woman. When she finds out he's been dating Kelly Dwyer and taking videos of her, probably unbeknownst to Kelly, of them in bed together, how do you think that's going to sit, Bethany Marshall? Nancy, can you imagine? Well, at first I would think that she's horrified that he's dating another woman. He hid a whole double life from her. But then can you imagine how relieved she is because this other woman has gone missing? Wait a minute.

I'm all happy about getting rid of love rivals, but not by them going missing and possibly dead. What do you mean she was happy? That she could have been a murder victim. Not that she's glad that the other person was. You know, I deal in my practice with people who have double lives all the time. And normally that person is getting a need satisfied behind their primary partner's back. And in this case, there seemed to be some sadomasochistic sex play. Either he was abusing her, but I don't think so. It doesn't seem like this is a domestic abuse situation. Or they were engaging in sex play that involved asphyxiation, strangling, and that it was beginning to go too far. And so what that suggests to me, if he is indeed the perpetrator, is that maybe he already had homicidal tendencies.

Maybe he sought out a sex partner with whom he could gradually more of a benign, vanilla relationship with her while he had this sadomasochistic sex play with the other one that was actually priming him to commit homicide. Well, as crazy as that sounds, I think it's not uncommon. Jackie has pointed out to me correctly that Kelly's friends told police that they occasionally noticed a bruising on Kelly's wrists and neck. They pointed it out to her and she would laugh it off and say it was a quote crazy night. Why is it Bethany that often women will go along with behavior that they really don't want. Well, it's interesting. The yoga instructor said that she was just sort of living her life and exploring things. And so I'm going to go with the yoga instructor's observation

that maybe she was in a period of experimentation. Well, okay. That's certainly putting perfume on the pig. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. When I went to interview the long-term girlfriend, Megan, I had a lot of photographs from the search warrants with me, and I was able to have her identify different objects within the apartment. They learned that a number of things were missing. She described that guest bathroom,

there should have been a shower curtain, there should have been a little rug and some matching decorative towels. All of those things were gone, and she was surprised to see that. She identified the shower curtain hooks that were bent and torn, identified the fact that they were not like that when she had last been in there. And it's in that very bathroom where the sniffer dog had alerted detecting human remains. Exactly. Megan also identified one more missing item. There had been a large travel golf bag lying in front of the TV that had been there for weeks and weeks that they literally would have to step over to get into the bathroom.

And that was missing. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Suddenly missing from the boyfriend's apartment, a very heavy golf bag. And how do cops find out about it? His other girlfriend now realizes her boyfriend not only has been cheating, but that the other woman is missing. But there's a lot more to that missing golf bag. Listen to our friend Peter Van Zandt. So he could take her body in the travel golf bag out of his apartment, into the elevator, down to the first floor,

and out that door to the garage without being captured on any cameras. But there are cameras inside the garage, and yet no image of Zocco with that bag. The garage is the only area where the cameras would be motion activated. Some of the investigators think, hey, he just got lucky with it. It took months of painstaking work for Milwaukee PD investigators to piece together Chris Sacco's movements on the days after his date with Kelly Dwyer. Lieutenant Eric Gobranson worked the case as both a homicide and cold case detective. At 10.06 a.m., we have Chris Zacco standing by the driver's side door.

When he leaves that building, at 10.08 a.m., Kelly Dwyer's phone, it goes dead. What do you think happened to the phone at that moment? Broken, powered down, thrown in the water. The river is very close by. Wow, it's amazing how much you can learn from cell phone triangulation and data. 19 long months pass, and then this. Authorities have just identified the remains of 27-year-old Kelly Dwyer. Detective, where are we?

We are on a dead-end country road, and we are about 45 miles west of Milwaukee. And it's quite overgrown here, but this is the specific area where Kelly Dwyer's body was found. For a year and a half, Kelly Dwyer had been here, hidden under these trees, just six miles from busy I-94, before her remains were discovered by a local man out for a walk. He catches a glint of light hitting off of something that's whitish in color. And when he takes a closer look, he sees what appears to be a human skull. Six days later, using dental records, those remains were confirmed to be Kelly Dwyer. What could not be confirmed, though, was just how she died.

Our friends at CBS, to Chris Berry, former chief medical examiner. Chris, why is it that after 19 months, a medical examiner cannot determine cause of death? If she was strangled or suffocated, there's no soft tissue, no skin, no muscles, anything left that you can see. And the only evidence that might be found would be possibly a crack or a break in the hyoid bone, the little U-shaped bone that's up at the base of the tongue. But in a young woman who is manually strangled, oftentimes there are no internal injuries at all, no bony fractures of any sort. And if she's suffocated or asphyxiated in some other way, any subtle evidence that would be present at the time when she died would be long gone. So it's essentially impossible. So without the soft tissue, you couldn't figure out asphyxiation.

You couldn't find hemorrhages in the eyeballs, the petechiae, because I guess those have deteriorated as well. They're long gone, yes. All that's left is just bone. How about gunshot or stabbing? Well, that should be much more easy to determine. If she had been shot or stabbed, evidence of broken bones where bullets had passed through and struck different structures would be easy to see, and even stab wounds. I myself have seen cut marks on ribs from people who have been missing for many years where a knife has slid over the edge of a rib and left a mark behind.

So that's much more readily visible, but it requires a detailed examination of every surface of every bone. Wow. Okay. Could you explain to me when you're saying that you've seen this yourself, when you're looking at a bone, let's just say from the rib cage or the arm, what do you see on the bone to let you know that there was a stab wound? You'll see a ridge or a little notch where the edge of the blade has struck or struck the bone and then been diverted and gone over the edge of the bone so that there is a cut mark left behind, a small little ridge or sometimes a triangular point or an indentation from the point of the knife.

And it's in a skeleton, after about a year outside, pretty much all of the, even the fat and the grease that's left behind on the skeleton is gone for the most part. And so it makes it much more readily apparent if there are these subtle findings. But, you know, once you see something like this, then it becomes pretty obvious if a knife especially has been involved. Wow. Let me ask you this, Dr. Sperry, to prep the human bones in order to examine them. I mean, how do you clean the bone yet not destroy any evidence? Well, actually, you know, first of all, you go over and examine everything very carefully, but then you immerse the skeleton, you put it in a big pot with some mild detergent, actually, that will just, the enzymes and the soap and mild detergent will just dissolve the fat and the grease that's left behind. that is pristine and that sort of treatment does not affect any damage any cracks or any notches

any cut marks anything on the bones like that so it also you if you put a little bleach in it that actually will then make the bones uh white so it's just careful cleaning with chemicals that don't destroy the bone but will get rid of the residue of you know fat and and soft when you say my you know where i've got to ask you this when you say mild detergent what mild detergent did you use well you know i i've used i've used dawn uh before and in fact it's there's several different brands that if you see on the grocery store shelf that says, you know, with oxidating enzymes or enzyme cleaning, those are the best because the different enzymes that are in, you know, like a variety of detergents, they all will break down the fat and the remnants of the proteins very readily.

I will never look at dish soap the same again, thanks to you, Dr. Chris Sperry. Okay. Well, you may be wondering how does Dawn dishwashing liquid and a golf bag all fit together. Well, just add this into the mix. The Mouse House cheese shop, nearly 200 miles away. How does that end up in a homicide investigation? One day after Kelly Dwyer disappeared, Chris Sacco left his girlfriend's apartment and hit the road. Where he went that morning would be the first in a series of clues as to what may have happened to Kelly Dwyer.

Chris Zacco had gone to a place called the Mouse House. What's the Mouse House? It's a cheese place. This is the Mouse House, 80 miles from Milwaukee, near Madison, Wisconsin. One cheese shop in a state full of cheese shops. Why would he drive up toward Madison to buy cheese? It's a very good question. A very good question. Zacco says he drove 160 miles round trip to buy a half pound wedge of cheese for his girlfriend's parents.

But the investigators say that he did it to finally dispose of Kelly's body somewhere in the rural Wisconsin farmland between Madison and Milwaukee. Okay, that's not all he did on his trip 160 miles away to the Mouse House cheese shop for a quarter pound of specialty cheese. Just curious, Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, what kind of cheese did he purchase? I am not sure of the exact cheese. I know Wisconsin has tons of specialty cheeses, but he also, Nancy, he also went to the mall and purchased some brand new sneakers. He traveled 80 miles to get cheese and sneakers and law enforcement found that extremely suspicious. Who travels that far for cheese? And not only that, to Julie Rendleman,

New York defense attorney, how would you counter this evidence? As it turns out, he had his GPS locator on his phone turned off for 17 hours during his trip to the Mouse House cheese shop 160 miles away. I think the biggest issue think the biggest issue for the defense is there's absolutely, absolutely no forensic evidence whatsoever in this case that links him to her disappearance. And I think that's added with the fact that even in the video of the house, there seems to be some surveillance that was not saved. And so I think the defense can kind of work off of both of those. Well, you've got a point, Julie Rendleman.

I guess that's why you win so many cases. Listen to our friend, Peter Van Zant, Sarah Hill. There was nothing on that skeleton to tell us what the cause of death was. There was no physical evidence found at the scene either. No shower curtain, no cloth, no towel, no clothing. And no travel golf bag. But detectives say there was one clue left behind, the position of Kelly's skeleton. Her feet and legs were more over in this area, with one of her legs completely turned, very contorted.

Same thing with her left arm. It was behind her back as if she had been scrunched into some kind of a container. Like a golf travel bag. Like a golf travel bag. Exactly. Exactly. Back to Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. When they spoke, when cops spoke to Chris Zocco, what did he say happened?

He said that they went back to his apartment he said they did cocaine had sex and that they fell asleep he then woke up at 9 a.m the next morning and he heard her leaving and the door to his apartment click and she was gone see Julie Rendleman New York defense attorney, that's why you never want your client to speak to police because that story sounds pretty innocuous, right? Like it could have happened just the way Levi recounted it. But once you speak to police, you're locked in. So if another witness comes forward and says,

oh, well, he said he went golfing that morning at 7 a.m., that's completely contrary to what he's told police. And also, why didn't she show up on the video? So even if you tell cops an innocent story, you shouldn't speak to cops, according to defense attorneys, because it can be disproved with hard evidence. Well, you always want your clients to shut the heck up. I mean, there's never a time. I don't think there's ever a single time, no matter how innocent you are, that you want a defendant to speak. And this is a prime example because anything he says,

especially he doesn't know what the evidence is. He doesn't know what they've seen on the video. He doesn't know whether or not the video has captured him downstairs at the car. So nothing, he says, is going to get him out of this. It's better to just remain silent. Well, in the end, in the end, he is convicted. Cloyd Steiger, are you surprised? I'm not surprised at all. I mean, the circumstantial evidence is so overwhelming. And, you know, I'd like to go back to the point that his GPS on his phone was turned off. It has to be more than that, because even then you're hitting off the cell tower.

So his phone had to have been completely turned off not to register where he's going. And I would have gone back as much as I could in the cell records and see if there were extended periods where his phone was turned off before. Probably not. Of course, he helped us all by going to the making the ridiculous story, going to the store to get a piece of cheese 80 miles. And then also to buy a pair of tennis shoes was great because it locks in the time. He's out there. I'd like us to like to address something that the defense counsel just said. People shouldn't talk because they don't know what the evidence is. If you're innocent, it doesn't matter what the evidence is. You know what? Well put. Bethany Marshall surprised at the outcome.

I'm not surprised at all. I mean, just look at behavioral evidence. She showed up at work with bruises around her neck and her wrists. He was leading a double life. They had been together for an entire year, Nancy. And when you're with someone for an entire year who's trying to asphyxiate you, leading a double life, the relationship has never consolidated. It is something other than a romantic relationship. It is somebody who's priming a victim. And so to think that this was a relationship gone sideways is the wrong way to look at it. This was a homicidal man grooming a victim.

Right now, we understand that Chris Zocco planning his appeal behind bars. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.