Crime Weekly - S3 Ep181: Crime Weekly News: Jessica Gutierrez Killer Convicted

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

63-year-old Thomas McDowell was sentenced to life in prison for first degree burglary, kidnapping and murder in connection with the 1986 disappearance of four-year-old Jessica Gutierrez. On June 6, 1986, the mother of four-year-old Jessica Gutierrez woke to find her daughter was not in their Lexington South Carolina home. A police investigation that followed found evidence that someone had entered the home through the window early that morning before taking Jessica and exiting out the front door. Although there were multiple land and air searches, Jessica was never seen again. It wouldn't be until 2021 that the case would be reexamined, and a lead would soon be found. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And real quick before we dive into it, I'm rocking my criminal coffee sweatshirt over here. I wanted to give you guys a heads up. That's the crew neck, right? This is the crew neck. Real quickly, I wanted to take you behind the scenes because we get a lot of questions. We don't talk a lot about the coffee.

We try not to inundate you guys with it every week. A couple things going on. First off, the merger of the websites. We didn't like it to begin with. We are working behind the scenes so that you're able to combine merchandise with the coffee all under one order. It'll be super simple. It'll make your lives a lot easier. So apologize for that. We were trying to get merchandise added, but it's coming from J&R Marketing, which is a different company. So we're working on that behind closed doors, but you can still order your merchandise right now. If you want to go do it, go to criminalcoffeeco.com. You can

check it out. And obviously we have K-Cups, we have bags of a whole bean ground, and we still have an announcement coming soon, which I'm not going to say yet. Although some of you in the comments have definitely guessed what it is. Pretty simple. Just give it away. Pretty much. Pretty much. I mean, there's only so much things it can be. It doesn't take a detective to figure out. There's only about two things we could be announcing. So very astute of you who have figured it out. But you still don't know what we're doing, how we're doing it. So there's still some surprises to come. We still got some magic up our sleeves. Anything from you, Stephanie, before we dive into this week's

breaking news? No, I think we should dive into this week's Crime Weekly News now. I think we should as well. All right. So 63-year-old Thomas McDowell was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree burglary, kidnapping, and murder in connection with the 1986 disappearance of four-year-old Jessica Gutierrez. Now, this is a case many of you have talked about and even asked us about in the DMs, the messages for Crime Weekly. Glad to see there's some resolution in this case. Obviously, these stories are always bittersweet because yes, you know who

did it. Yes, they're being held accountable for what they did. But at the end of the day, we've still lost an innocent person, very innocent person, in this case, a four-year-old. So again, you like to see the person behind bars, but at the same time, it doesn't make for a happy ending. So here's what happened. On June 6th, 1986, Deborah, the mother of four-year-old Jessica Gutierrez, woke up to find her daughter was not in their Lexington, South Carolina home. A police investigation that followed found evidence that someone had entered the home through the window early that morning or when it was still night, and they took Jessica and then exited out the front door.

Although there were multiple land and air searches, Jessica was never seen again. They do believe that she is deceased and her body is yet to be found. In September of 2021, the FBI and the South Carolina Attorney General's Office reopened the case and a team of law enforcement agents reexamined the evidence and interviewed over 125 people. This eventually led them to Thomas McDowell, who they discovered had dated Jessica's mother, Deborah, briefly in 1986. One of the key pieces of evidence was a fingerprint recovered from a window in the home, which matched McDowell. His defense team during his trial argued that since McDowell had dated Deborah Gutierrez, it would be impossible to determine when that print had been placed on the window. But the state countered this by saying in 1986, this home was cleaned often, and that included the windows.

And additionally, there was male DNA found in the home, whereas at that time, Deborah Gutierrez was a single mother, and it was just herself and her daughters living in that home. So only females, no male DNA would be found in the home. A witness during McDowell's trial was a man named Michael Fowler. He'd been in jail with McDowell in the late 80s, and he claimed McDowell had confessed to killing a four-year-old girl before dismembering her body and burying her. It's worth noting that McDowell was in prison at this time after Jessica Gutierrez went missing for sexual assault, so it kind of does make sense that this was a pattern for him. Additionally, there was a

pack of cigarettes and cigarette butts near the window, and the brand of cigarettes matched the brand that McDowell smoked. And relatives of McDowell's claimed that after Jessica went missing, he changed his appearance by shaving, and then he stopped wearing a hat, even though he was known to wear a hat. But what happened is Jessica's sister, who shared a bedroom with her, her name's Rebecca, she would later tell the police that she'd actually woken up in the very early morning hours in the room that she shared with Jessica, it does make a lot of sense that he was trying to conceal himself from law enforcement and he felt he was guilty of something. After Thomas McDowell's conviction, Jessica's mother, Deborah Gutierrez, announced that she and her family had been waiting 38 years for justice. And she said, quote, I hope he confesses to where her body is. Only he and God know that. And I'm hoping eventually he will let me know or confide in someone because I have a place already for her next to her family.

End quote. I tend to think that he's probably not going to reveal the whereabouts of Jessica's body simply because he went into this trial claiming he was not guilty. Exactly. He still says he's not guilty. His lawyers clearly are still defending his innocence. And I have no doubt that he will appeal this conviction that has earned him two consecutive life sentences. So unless they offer him some sort of deal, which I mean, at this point at his age, what kind of deal would actually both, you know, make sure he served the appropriate sentence as well as give him a life to live outside of prison still? Maybe he can maybe they can work with him on like transferring him to a better facility or giving him something in prison to make his life sentence easier.

And that will trigger him to hopefully disclose the whereabouts of Jessica's body. But very sad case. I really don't think that he will ever reveal where her body is because that would be admitting guilt. And there are some people who just never want to admit that they're guilty, even though they're sitting in prison for that crime for the rest of their lives. So unfortunately, this guy got away with it for a long time, decades, almost 40 years. He's gone unchecked and undiscovered. And he's going to still kind of be running and thinking he can get away with it. But, yeah, this was a big mystery for a long time, what happened to four-year-old Jessica Gutierrez. The fact that she was so young, the fact that, you know, most likely what happened to her is that she was raped and then murdered.

It's just a very sad story. And then, you know, also the fact that she's taken out of her bed in her home in the place where you should be safest. It's terrifying. It's every parent's nightmare thinking that you don't even have to worry about your kids when you're out in public. You have to worry about them when they're tucked into their beds and you're trying to get, you know, some rest at night and you still have to be paranoid that somebody could still enter your home and take your child in your own home. And that is, like I said, a parent's worst nightmare. But what do you make of it? This goes to what I was saying earlier as far as, yeah, you have a conviction.

You have a sentencing. He's going to spend the rest of his life behind bars. All that's good stuff. But you can tell even by Jessica's mother's statement, how much weight does it really hold? What is she really, even though she's got this sentence, even though he's going to be behind bars, what is she saying at the end of this? I just want to know where my daughter is. Of course. For her, the hole is still there.

Yeah, of course. And even if she finds where she is and she's able to bury her, it'll be better, but it still doesn't, it's not going to allow her to heal ever. She died the day her daughter died, period. I think that would be the case for all of us. So for me, oh God, I shouldn't say this. I'm going to say it. So it's one of those things where for me as a parent, I would probably go to the prosecutors and say, listen, I am completely fine with him getting out if he tells me where she is. And, you know, I would find her.

You would say that? Yeah, I would say that because if he admitted to where she was, that would confirm he in fact did it. I would find her. I would bury her properly. And then I would find him. I was about to say, because I don't think it's really right to just let somebody like that out so you can get some information because who knows if he strikes again, you know? Did you follow what I said there? I did. Yeah, I did. You know,

it's a little bit of a time to kill there. You get what I'm saying? You know, it's one of those things where I'm not condoning anything, but to answer your question, you wouldn't have to worry about him hurting anyone else. Yeah. Well, I endorse that. It would create a level of accessibility though, wouldn't it? Yeah. Type of accessibility you don't have when they're in prison. That's just me speaking as a father, not as a cop. As a cop, I would tell you, you let the justice system do their job and that's where it ends. As a father, I would want to know where my daughter was.

I would, him confirming where she was and us finding her there would give me all the confirmation I needed. And like I told you, just because you find her doesn't mean you move on and you're happy. You're still dead yourself as a parent. So might as well take some people with me. So there was a lot of controversy in this case because obviously Jessica went missing in 1986.

In I think it was 2006 or 2007, Deborah Gutierrez got into it with the investigators, the police department. She basically said they were mishandling the case. They weren't doing all that they could. She got into an argument with the sheriff at the time. And then he allegedly threatened, you know, basically told her, like, if you don't back off, I'm not going to keep investigating this at all. And if I remember correctly, that sheriff, I forget his name right now. It starts with an M. He ended up being charged. I don't know if he served time, but he was charged with corruption. So what I'm looking at here is you've got male DNA in the house. You have a fingerprint or a palm print on the window. It was 1986. So we were in

a place where forensics and fingerprinting and DNA were kind of becoming a thing. And it didn't really get broken. The case didn't get broken until 2021. So what between 1986 and 2021 were the police doing with this DNA and this fingerprint, right? Now, maybe it wasn't a partial DNA, whatever, but this guy went to prison or in jail shortly after. That means his fingerprints, his DNA, all those things would be in CODIS. How did it take this long, almost 40 years, to identify him if they had this stuff? And I mean that they found cigarettes, right, which I assume some of them were smoked because they said a pack of cigarette and cigarettes. And I assume some of them were smoked. So you could have gotten DNA from that. He dated Jessica's mother. So you have somebody

who's been introduced to the house. This is a person who statistically would be looked at because we all know that violence against the children can happen when a mother brings a non-related parent or a non-related man into the house. Those are just the statistics. I'm not trying to offend anybody. It just seemed like everything would have lined up and he should have been looked at a lot sooner and he should have been brought in for questioning and they should have checked his DNA and checked his fingerprints and stuff like way before 2021. So I'm not I'm not exactly sure what happened here and why it took so long. So I don't know the specifics of the case, but just to kind of point out a couple barriers, potentially fingerprint.

Obviously, you hit on it partial fingerprint like they had a fingerprint, but you need a certain amount of points to make a classification. It could be a situation where it was a smudge or whatever the case might be. They might not have been able to use cyanacrolate on it to enhance it. So you could have some issues there, like not all fingerprints are created equal. As far as the DNA, you said 1986 for this, correct? Yeah. So yeah, DNA is starting to be a thing. I mean, just to kind of put it into context of where it was, think about the OJ Simpson trial, which I believe happened in like, well, Nicole was killed in 94. I don't know. The trial was after that.

But even then, there were still a lot of questions surrounding DNA, like as far as its credibility, like as far as how effective it was. It was then starting to be a prevalent use of evidence in cases. So you could have a situation where based on the type of DNA they had, how much they had, it might've taken more recent technology, which we've really seen ramp up in about the last 10 years, where they're able to take even partial DNA and do whole genome sequencing, put it together and develop a familial match to it, et cetera. Whatever the case may be, we don't, I don't know the specifics, but there could have been something that was more usable in the last 10 years. But overall with this case, because I did say something as far as what I would do, I

think the affirmation of him confirming where the body was or is would give you that current confirmation that he was involved. But there is a world, and I'm not just saying it to be diplomatic or correct about it. It's one of those things where maybe he didn't do it. I don't know. So it's like a situation where if you are involved, we know that there are people in prison for crimes they didn't commit, right? We're hearing about it all the time where somebody after 40 years of serving prison time is out based on DNA. So is there a world where this guy, without me knowing the specifics of this case and developing my own professional opinion, is there a world where he's innocent and that's why he's continuing to claim his innocence? Sure. However, if he confirmed where the body was, that would

give me what I needed to make a decision. That's why I said, you know, if he's willing to tell us where she is, then I'd be willing to let him out because him telling us where she is when they haven't been able to find her after all these years would be very suggestive that he was directly involved with her, with her disappearance and her death. Yeah. And I just found, I found the sheriff's name. It's James Metz, by the way. Okay. James Metz. Yep. And in February of, no, I'm sorry, not February. In September of 1986, he gave an interview to a paper and he said, we have a suspect, actually. So I wonder if this is the same person. So in an interview with the South Carolina Network, Metz said police have uncovered new evidence in the case, but not enough to bring charges. Quote, we do have a prime suspect in the case. We have recovered information

that is helpful to us. With persistence, we'll be able to make an arrest before we need more evidence. We've narrowed the case down. We feel we know what has happened in the case. This is the same year she goes missing, right? Later Monday, Metz said that the suspect had taken and failed a polygraph test administered by the Sheriff's department. He said that the results of polygraph tests are not sufficient grounds for an arrest. Metz refused to speculate on when an arrest will be made. Earlier, he wouldn't speculate on whether the girl is still alive. He said, quote, I'm not sure that we know that she is alive. We feel like we've arrived at what has happened and we have narrowed our list of individuals, but there is not enough evidence yet to an effect an arrest, end quote. So if we come to find that Thomas McDowell was the suspect

they were looking at in 1986, the same year she went missing, and it still took almost 40 years to bring him in, that is a little concerning. Don't you think that's concerning? I don't know. Is that concerning or am I wrong? It's not what you know, it's what you can prove, right? And I mean, I think you want to go after the person and you want to make sure that when you do, you have your ducks to both sides. I mean, and this is coming from the cop, right? Like it's not enough to just know the person did it. You have to have the evidence to support it. And all you need is one jury member to say, I don't think he's guilty and he's walking. And you have a situation where, you know, I've said this before, I'll say it again. I feel pretty confident that OJ Simpson murdered two people, but because the prosecution got cocky and there's more to that

than just not having the evidence right but you know they they took their shot at it he was acquitted and he's walking around as a free man so it's like i don't know it's at least then you know he went on trial for it i guess like i get it then at least the public would know you know so you'd have the argument can be made because they waited they got a conviction yeah do you know i'm saying i'm not saying i disagree with you i'm just saying you know it's it's that's why i bring it back to the victim and their families whether it happened immediately after where they arrested him or 40 years later let me ask you god god i'm knocking on wood right now god you know forbid would it really matter to either way, even a conviction, whether it was a year after it happened or 20 years later? My only concern is this person.

Yeah. This person, you can't like there's no police resources where every single suspect in a child can follow this dude around for the next four decades, making sure he doesn't snatch another child. Right. And to me, like that's that's more that's the most important thing. That's my main concern when I think about how long, it's not even like a couple years, how long he wandered the streets out there. Somebody who's capable of stealing a four-year-old girl from her bedroom, raping her, killing her, dismembering her, and burying her, and then continuing to go on and look at himself in the mirror every day for the next 40 years, somebody like that, they're not going to stop.

That's not a one-off thing. That takes some true lack of soul. You're a sick person. Yeah. What you're saying is completely valid. But it's a matter of you can't go arrest him without the evidence to support he committed the crime and you can't go to a judge and say, well, we're arresting him because we don't want him to do it again i know it's just like i just because he's going to be out in a week um at dna and even a partial fingerprint within the last 40 years

there was a time before 2021 that that stuff could have been analyzed and nothing happened between like 2005 and 2021 that would make it that crazy where you would all of a sudden be able to decipher this fingerprint or this DNA. So it's just, I don't completely disagree with you, but I think 2005, although it seems like it was yesterday is a little pushing it. Just think about you cover true crime more than me, the real jump in DNA and its ability to be accepted in the court of law. It would have happened in the last 10 years. If we think about it, when was the Golden State killer conviction or when did they identify him?

Was that what, seven years ago? Yeah, like 20, 2019, 2020. Even when that happened, do you remember really people like, wow, they can do this? Like even the- Well, that was just because of the familial DNA thing. Well, the genealogical element to it, right? Even that was like the genealogical databases. These websites were like, oh shit, law enforcement just used us as a tool.

Yeah, and then everyone was mad. That's not what we expected to happen. And now they've made these changes since then, right? So I don't 100% disagree with you, but I do think because you think 2005 and we're old. It's like 2005 is not that long ago, but I mean, you think about it, we were two years removed from high school. We weren't hearing a lot about DNA solves back then. We really weren't, even though the technology was there, like the DNA was there, the ability to process it and have it be accepted as a form of evidence, I think has become more, it's become more acceptable over the last 10 years, or maybe even 15, maybe, but it hasn't been that long. I wish it was. It

was longer. Well, I mean, this is one of those cases, Jessica Gutierrez's abduction is one of those cases that has remained a mystery for so long. A lot of true crime channels, podcasts have covered it because it was this enduring mystery because of the whole aspect of Jessica's sister, Rebecca, who's only six at the time, literally witnessing this happen. Right. Exactly. She woke up, saw her sister being taken by this man in the hat. She saw the man put Jessica over his shoulder and walk out of the room with her. But she didn't, you know, reveal this right away because she was her but she didn't you know reveal this right away

because she was scared and and she didn't know what to do she was six years old so there was always that aspect of it that made it very mysterious so to see it kind of come to its conclusion now is you know satisfying in a way but also you you do get upset when it's like it seems obvious this guy's been here the whole time. He didn't leave the area. He was still in North Carolina. He's still in the Carolina area. And he's been sitting there this whole time

and you didn't do anything. And that's just frustrating. Keep going back to that, aren't you? Yeah, that's the frustrating part. Like, I'm glad to see it come to a conclusion, but you hate to see it take that long. You know, that's all. That's all. And I just got to say, again, it's not always what You know, that's all. That's all.

And I just got to say, again, it's not always what you know, it's what you can prove. Don't be so defensive. Because, you know, again,

it's, I don't think they were sitting there saying, Hey, we have the evidence to arrest them. No, I don't think so either. I really don't. But I do think that there was probably not everything done that,

that could have been done initially. And I think once, you know, I mean, they did enough, though. I will tell you this. There's cases that I've looked at now where I wish the detectives had processed the scene correctly, because if they had, we would have an arrest today. You know, at least they took the time to process and swab and get the DNA initially that was now used to convict this guy. Right. I'm not going to say, I have said Kate did cases before,

but Michelle Norris is one of them for me. I think that case was solvable. 100%. These are guys that were my supervisors when I got hired, who were the detectives on these cases. And I think they didn't do the best job processing the scene, which I will give them this. It was out in the woods, but it's one of those things where we can't go back and get that evidence now. So even though it was before their

time, if they had processed it correctly, this was 1988, right around the same time as Gutierrez, we might be having an outcome similar to what we have in this case. And I'll tell you at this point, I would, I, as a detective, I'd be ecstatic over that even though it wouldn't bring Michelle back. But yeah, I mean, it's hard. Police work is not easy. I will say that. And I'm not making excuses. I'm the first one to call it bad police work. It's not an easy job. It's not an easy job. That's for sure. But hopefully this guy has a change of heart at some point.

I really do hope so. He is older. I don't think he will, as you don't. But he comes forward and gives them the answers they deserve so that they can find Jessica, bury her properly, and let the chips fall where they may on everything else. But any final words from you on this one? No, I just obviously are, as always. It took too long.

It did take too long. I think you can admit that. But our thoughts and our prayers to Deborah Gutierrez, to Jessica's whole entire family, who, like you said, have some answers but will never be healed from this. And our positive thoughts are with them and we hope the best for them. And yeah, that's it. What do you guys think about this case? I know that everybody has been kind of following Jessica Gutierrez and wondering what happened to her. So how does it feel to kind of know what happened and have this sort of wrapped up? And

do you think that it's possible that this Thomas McDowell guy could be innocent because his lawyer said so? And I will say that there is a lot of circumstantial evidence. I think it's hard to try a case after 40 years, Derek. I think it's hard to try a case after 40 years. Do you think it might've been hard to arrest them because they didn't have enough evidence? But, I mean, they apparently did have enough evidence to arrest him and get a conviction, right? I mean, they got the DNA they were able to process. They didn't match the DNA to him, just the fingerprint. Just the fingerprint.

They just said they found male DNA in the house, which means they probably did not process that DNA properly. And they were only able to tell that it was male. So they connected him through the case, through the fingerprint. I suppose they never really say exactly why they arrested him now, just that like they finally had enough evidence. And I do think that he was the suspect in 1986. And it's just like, oh, he must have been. Yeah. Yeah.

It's blowing my mind, man. Blowing my mind. This is why I can't be a police officer because if i thought that this guy did it and i wouldn't just be able to be like okay well i guess we'll just wait till we have enough evidence like yo i would lock him up in like a bunker like a cement bunker underneath the ground that's it like he'd be in there with a bunch of other child rape and abduction suspects that i couldn't prove did it i just like shove them all in the cement bunker and be like, hey guys, go at each other, have fun. Wait till you start eating each other and see how bitter y'all taste. Anyways, we're off topic here. Yes. Let us know what you think in the

comments. Make sure to like, subscribe, follow. If you are watching on YouTube, if you're listening on audio, make sure to give us a five-star review because we love you and you love us and we would love that. And don't forget to follow us on social media. And there's a new Crime Weekly episode coming up in just a few days. It's going to be the conclusion of the Dan Markell case, the eighth and final part. So stay tuned for that. Final words, Derek? Couldn't have said it better myself. Later, guys. Have a good night. Be safe. Bye.