Crime Weekly - S3 Ep340: Coffee and Community Cracks A Cold Case

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

In 1992, the remains of a woman were discovered in north Houston, Texas. For 33 years, she was known only as a Jane Doe. Today, through forensic genetic genealogy, she has finally been identified as Joann Zamora, a mother of six. With the help of Moxxy Forensic Investigations, Intermountain Forensics, Break Investigative Group, and supporters of Criminal Coffee Company like you, we were able to discover the identity of a Jane Doe left unknown for over three decades. Now, Joann has her name back, her family has some answers, and investigators can search for what happened to her. If you have any information in the case of Joann Zamora, please contact the Houston Police Department Crime Stoppers at [phone]. Criminal Coffee Co. is offering $5,000 to anyone with information leading to an arrest of those responsible for her death. Read more about the case here: https://www.forensicmag.com/3594-All-News/621319-Moxxy-IDs-1992-Jane-Doe-Case-is-Ongoing/ 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

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasar. And we are here to talk to you today about sort of a crossover because, yes, we're crime weekly, but for anybody who doesn't know, we're also the owners of a criminal coffee co, where we sell great coffee. Personally, we think so. A lot of other people think so as well. Yeah. And we also use a portion of the profits from criminal coffee to donate to helping solve cold cases. We've done that before and we are- Albert Frost. We're happily here to announce that we have done it again. For more than three decades, a woman known only as Jane Doe lay buried in an unmarked grave in Houston, Texas. She had no name, no story. Her life, and how she got there was a mystery. But thanks to the power of forensic genealogy and the unlikely partnership between a nonprofit, a coffee company,

and a grieving daughter, she finally has her name back, and it is Joanne Samora. This all started in September 8th of 1992 when skeletal remains were discovered in a wooded area off West Rittenhouse Road, north of Houston. Investigators believed that the woman,

the victim, was white, in her 20s with brown hair, and she had distinctive dental work. But despite effort, she was never identified and she was buried as unknown in Harris County Cemetery. For decades, she became another statistic, a Jane Doe lost in the system. At the time, Joanne disappeared, her daughter, Spencer Graham, was just two years old. And for years, Spencer lived with a very painful uncertainty.

She was told that her mother had just simply run away, basically abandoned her. And obviously, Spencer grew up with questions that she had no answers to, and she carried the weight of an absence that was never explained. But now we have at least some answers. We know who this person was. We know what happened to Joanne, and she didn't just run away. She didn't just leave her family. In 2024, Moxie Forensics Investigations, which is a Houston-based nonprofit, launched an investigative genetic genealogy effort to identify her. The project began in earnest on December 5th, 2024, This effort was aided in part by crowdfunding and also a sponsorship from Criminal Coffee Co. So we provided the critical financial support for the genealogical effort.

And we've also offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. Now currently, because Joanne has been identified and the police department have said, hey, we're treating her death as a homicide. They're actively investigating. And we hope that we can help in that effort as we helped in the effort to identify her. Yeah, absolutely. As you just stated, this case came from Moxie Forensics a little over, I want to say, seven, eight months ago.

We were looking for another case. They're difficult to find. They really are. Surprisingly, they shouldn't be. Yeah, they really are. It's a weird industry. But this case came across my desk, looked it over. It looked promising as far as potentially identifying her, although, and I'm going to let the team talk

about it in a couple minutes, depending on the background of the dough, it can be more difficult and it ended up being the case here. But this is classified as a homicide. Emmy has ruled her death, cause of death, a homicide. And so that's where we are now. We have her identification. We know, we know where she was found. And we just don't know the who. And so that's where we go from here. And that's why it's not only about identifying the victim. It's also about bringing the people to justice that are responsible for this. And that's why we're continuing our effort with your help all of you guys out there supporting us and supporting criminal coffee where we're able to offer a reward of $5,000 for an arrest and conviction of someone if they are brought to justice. So it's a big

congratulations to you guys. We are a small independent company. We don't have this big organization behind us. And in this tough economy where a lot of businesses are going out of business. The fact that we're almost three years into this now and we're still going strong, it's a testament to your support for us and what we're doing here. And like Stephanie said at the top of the show, we do think it's a combination of things. The coffee tastes pretty good. We're biased. But I also think that Crime Weekly in this true crime community that we have and our obsession with not only finding out what happened, but getting answers for those who need them, I think that's what brings us all together. And

And you guys are now responsible for solving two different cases just by purchasing coffee. And there was really very little law enforcement movement on this one until we all got involved. So nobody's going to sit here and tell me that a podcast or a coffee company or a group of individuals who care can't make a difference. Because if it wasn't for everybody that we just mentioned, we wouldn't be here right now. So how did we get here? moxie reaches out we look at the case it looks good i reach back out to them and say not only are we going to fund the DNA testing but i'm going to also provide two genetic genealogists they both are on staff with break investigative group my firm their names are jeremy and ryan are

going to be hearing from them in a little bit they are absolutely incredible and so they went over for free and worked with moxie forensics and i'm not going to spoil it for that for you guys i'm to let them talk you through it. But when you hear what these guys do and how they do it, specifically in this case and on a more macro level, I think you're going to be extremely impressed. And you want to stick around because I've talked to Jeremy and I talk to Ryan and I want to show you how good they are at what they do. So one of you tonight are going to be able to weigh in down in the comments. If you have someone that you're looking for, you're looking to learn more about yourself, something in your family background where you're maybe you were

adopted or whatever and you can't find your family, we're going to pick someone and we're do the genetic genealogy for you for free. That's what we're going to do tonight in addition to speaking to them. And we're also going to speak to Spencer. So without further ado, let's bring Ryan and Jeremy on so they can talk to you about what they did in this case. All right. So we're here with my guys, Jeremy Lipford, Ryan Russell, these guys, I've mentioned

them numerous times on this channel before, but I believe it's the first time you've ever seen their faces unless you were at CrimeCon the last couple years. Ryan was there two years ago. Jeremy was there two years ago and this year. For anybody who doesn't know, I want to talk to us from a general perspective. What is genetic genealogy? When you get a case like this, what is the process? Take us through that. Sure. Thanks, Derek. So, you know, a lot of people have taken DNA test at places like ancestry or at 23 and me. And when you do, when you do that, what comes back to you is a list of like DNA matches. And so you may have close ones like aunts and uncles or cousins that you spend the holidays with, but then you've also going to have

more distant ones, like, you know, second, third, fourth, and beyond cousins, people you've never heard of before, but they're related to you. You share DNA with them. And so what happens when we get a case like this is that we upload the unknown person's DNA to a database called Jedmatch. And what happens is that it populates a list of who that person is related to, just like when you take an ancestry test for your family and we get a list of this unknown person's family and if we're lucky those matches might be close like first cousins or they may be really far like third fourth cousins or worse and so that's kind of where the process begins and then from there what we do is we start looking for like clusters of matches and so if you think about your family how like you

probably have cousins on your mom's side and you have cousins on your dad's side but they probably don't each other because they're not like really related you know at least in most cases and so the way that it works is when we see the match list we start looking for who is related to each other so people that are related not just to the person we uploaded but also to one another as well and it makes like a little cluster of matches and then when we find a cluster what we can do is we start looking at the family trees for those people sometimes we're lucky and they give us their family tree they just upload it to the database other times we have to build it for them we have to to kind of do the homework and figure out who their grandparents and everything are.

But as we build those family trees back in time, what we start to see is like some common ancestors. We start to realize like, oh, all these people in this cluster, they're all related to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And what that tells us is that the unknown person is also related to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They're also descended from them. Then we just have to figure out how. And so then what we do is we build down from Mr. and Mrs. Smith, find all their descendants,

and basically until we find the person that we're looking for. So that's an overview of how it works. And Jeremy, can you even take us further back? Like, that's once the DNA, the profiles uploaded the Jedmatch. And I know this is in your area of expertise, but when we find a Jane Doe, baby dough, John Doe, can you talk about the process specifically as far as the lab process? Because people hear the term sequencing and things like that. I've even asked you some questions before where I'm like, hey, what would that process be like?

Can you walk us through that from discovering of a body to the profile being uploaded to Jedmatch? Right. So for, you know, this particular Jane Doe, they had to extract DNA from her teeth. So they sent the tooth to the lab. They do whatever they do there to get the DNA extracted. And then they format the data in a way that it can be uploaded to those public genealogy databases like Jedmatch. So if you were to look at the data, data if you open up, it's like an Excel spreadsheet with a whole bunch of numbers and letters

and I call it garbly goop. But that translates and it uploads to those databases in a way that we're able to see who they're related to. So there is a lot more science involved into it. But generally, you know, with the Jane Doe, sometimes they have to exhume the bodies first. And I don't know in this particular case if they did that or not. I think they just maintain the tooth in the evidence. In the evidence, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, shout out to Intermountain Forensics. I don't think we've mentioned them yet. We worked with them on Albert Frost as well. They did the DNA, the lab testing here. They developed where they extract the DNA from the tooth. They create this term called sequencing, where they can, like Jeremy said, in a more eloquent way, they develops a pattern or a code that can be uploaded to these websites where then someone like Jeremy or Ryan can start the investigative work, can start that genetic investigative, whatever detective work you want to call it. Stephanie, any questions for you before we dive into Joanne specifically? I mean, I don't have a huge understanding of this process like Ryan and Jeremy do, but we did go to Intermountain Forensics a few years ago and they walked us through the process.

They showed us some of the equipment they used. It was so interesting. And so now every time I face a case like this that has any genealogy or forensics aspect to it, I always remember that process, how not only how, extensive it is, how thorough it needs to be, how expensive it is. And, you know, when we were going through the lab, he was like, oh, every time you use this machine, it's this much money. And every time you turn this machine on, it's this much money. And so it's just so very important to have people like Jeremy and Ryan who are donating their time and their services and their intelligence to solving these cases. And really, it's great that, you know, people have a very,

a huge desire to purchase criminal coffee, not only because it's good, but because they know that a portion of it is going towards helping to fund these things, which are so expensive and so widespread. So that's all I have to say. But yes, we want to hear more from Ryan and Jeremy, I think. Ryan, with this particular case, we had given an opening before you guys hopped on here, and we had talked about the fact that initially, when Joanne was discovered in Houston, they thought she could be a white woman in her 20s. And you, and Jeremy have talked to me extensively about the hurdles that happen when come to find out the Jane Doe, John Doe, Baby Doe is not Caucasian.

Can you talk to us about that, some of those complications that it's not only about being able to process whatever evidence you have and turn it into a DNA profile that you can use, but then uploading it to like a Jedmatch, depending on their background, that could make it more difficult as the genetic detectives here to actually find those connections to family members. That's right. So, so, so, uh, it's a lot more difficult on average to solve Hispanic cases. Uh, the big, there's a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest one is just these databases are underrepresented by, uh, Hispanic people. White people like myself are the most likely to have taken DNA tests and to upload them to databases. And so I'm therefore more likely to have more matches and

closer matches. And, uh, when you have a lower representation, um, from the Hispanic population in the database, you're just, you're probably not going to get as many matches and as many close matches. And that's the single biggest challenge in a situation like this. And it also comes back to, you know, your ancestry, right, and where your family's from. And so in Hispanic cases where maybe a person's, you know, grandparents or great-grandparents have, you know, come here from Latin America, whatever country they've come from may not have genealogical records that are as easy for us to access as the ones in the U.S. And so therefore it gets a lot harder to build their family tree back in time to find those connections and relatives. We just don't have access to the

information that we do for those who have had sort of multiple generations, extensive generations back in the U.S. And so those are challenges that we kind of run up against. And I actually found some research. This is a little bit dated from 2022. But basically at this point in time at 22, there were only like 14 cases that had been solved of Hispanic ancestry through IgG total, which was about 3% of the entire amount of cases that had been solved. Only 3% were Hispanic. And generally that was because, you know, they got lucky and those people had pretty good matches to work with. You know, second cousins are closer.

And usually that's kind of what it takes. and so in this particular case we had I wouldn't say amazing matches but they also weren't horrible but we were kind of on the outside range of is this possible just based on the level of matches that we got and so I remember the call you guys said well

she's definitely she's Hispanic and that's going to make it a lot harder for us and I said okay well do what you can that was the start of it so Jeremy maybe walk us through you go over here I bring you guys in you're working with moxie it's not just you two over

there's a team of people. How does that work? Because it definitely takes a whole organization, a whole group of people. You're all attacking it from different angles. Right. There's a spreadsheet that we all participate in where we claim matches. So we look at the relatives that show up and Ryan says, I'm going to work this one. Jeremy says, I'm going to work this one. And everybody kind of works in collaboration together so that we're not stepping over each other. And so Ryan actually stumbled across the right track. And this has happened to me and Ryan several times. I always picked I always choose the wrong way. Every time.

And so he was able to work it. But there were a total of eight volunteers that we were all working on this collaboratively. But, yeah, Ryan was the one that struck gold. So talk to us about that, Ryan, because how does that feel? You're sitting in front of a computer. You're drinking your coffee,

your criminal coffee, of course. Right, of course. And you're working this case, and you don't know if you've picked the right one. You could be just tasting a dead lead, but it's part of the process and it needs to be done. So what happens as you're sitting there in front of your computer, whatever you're doing

when you say, oh, wait, I might have something here. Yeah, no, the blood starts pumping and, you know, you start getting, like, I've got to go for a walk, you know, like start pacing, get a little jittery. I mean, it is, it is exciting. It's a rush for sure, yeah. I remember getting the call. It was probably one, I don't know, text or whatever. I was late at first, but you guys know me.

I'm always up. But I got the text message in the break group chat and you say you up, I got something to tell you. And when you said you had to call me, I knew it was good. I knew it was good. And I was good. And I was so pumped. And obviously we couldn't tell anybody I immediately called Stephanie the next morning because she's not up until two in the morning because she's not a sociopath. I am up until two in the morning. Sometimes you are. Sometimes you go to bed early though. Sometimes. But no, I was so pumped for you guys, so pumped for everybody because I knew the chances weren't high. So talk to us a little bit more about Joanne's case in particular. What was it in her case as you were doing this match?

If you remember it, what relative was it where you started to see a connection where you're like, this could be our person, this could be our family? So like I said earlier, you find that cluster of matches and you're looking for the common ancestor. You know, I called a Mr. Mrs. Smith, you know, and, you know, you find that, that couple. And then you're kind of working backwards in time to find out who their descendants are. And so in this case, I mean, you know, it's like whoever the couple was, we need to find all of their second great grandkids because it's probably one of them. them, you know, and that's a lot of people, you know. And, uh, and you can always use some clues to kind of narrow down, uh, which one it's going to be. We know we're looking for a female, for

example. We know that we are looking for somebody who was born in probably like the 1960s, uh, ish. So that helps. Uh, we know we're looking for somebody that lived in Houston, Texas, obviously, because that's where she was, was found. So with all those criteria, you're able to kind narrow down the field and eliminate people. And ultimately, you know, we, we sort of found the Zamora family and realized that they had been living in Houston, Texas in the 1990s. And that's kind of when, you know, you start to realize, oh, this is something. We've found something here. And Jeremy found something exciting at that point, too. So. Ryan said, I think this is the family. So I looked up in one of our PI databases, kind of skip

trace to see where they lived. And it turned out that Jane, or Joanne, rather, his body was found less than two miles away from her mother's house. It's like, this can't be a coincidence. We're definitely at, you know, we have the right person. This was that call when you said it. And talk to us about that, Jeremy, because you actually went to Houston and you sat down with Spencer. And Joanne had other children as well? Yeah, six children in total. Six children in total. And you went down there and you went on your own dime, went down there, saw her, which you're just amazing and both of you guys, you guys care so much. Once you make that match, Ryan, Jeremy, you have that match, it looks good on paper, but now there's a physical element to it because it's not just

enough to have it in the computer. You got to start making some calls, right, Jeremy? You have to start interviewing people to see, hey, are you missing anybody? Did a family member ever disappear on you? Yes, and that part we weren't involved with directly, another member of the, of the taxi team would then work with law enforcement. And law enforcement would take that tip, that lead, and go to the family and talk to them. And that's where they were able to confirm that it was Joanne. Yeah, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible what you guys do.

And we started this case, I think, late December or mid-December and solved it by January. Yeah, it took a month. Pretty damn good. That's really good. Yeah, Stephanie and I have known for a while, but we've been chomping at the bit to say something. And unfortunately, we weren't allowed until as of late, but. We were dropping little hints here and there. Just a couple.

Just a couple. No, it's incredible. It really isn't. Before you guys jumped on, I let the audience know that you guys have graciously volunteered your services. I figured we could pick one person. You guys will be in the comments as well. What are some of the type of cases that you would be looking for to do here?

Where if there's someone out there right now listening or watching and they have, what's the type of case that you would look at if they describe it in the comment section and say, hey, that's potentially promising where we can actually help. I mean, anyone who's been adopted, that's, you know, easy, I say easy. Me, Ryan and I work in that world. It's much more easy to work with people who are adopted because we're able to use Ancestry.com or AncestryDNA, whereas we can't use that in our genetic genealogy investigations because we're only able to use Jedmatch or Family Tree DNA.

Those two databases are limited. and scope for law enforcement. Whereas if we're working with adoptees or people who just don't know who their biological parents are, we're able to work with the actual consumer DNA companies, 23ME, ancestry. And so we can, we can, and that just gives you more data. So, for example, ancestry has like, you know, over 20 million users. Yep.

Jedmatch has two million. So, you know, the bigger pond efficient. That's a good distinction to make. I don't think a lot of people know that. easier to work within the ancestry database, but we're not able to do that with, you know, Jane Does, John Does, and Cold Cases. Imagine if we had access to that database for that. So it takes education, so people who have taken DNA tests from Ancestry 23 Me to take, if they're interested in helping solve cold cases, crimes, violent crimes, we have to download a file

from Ancestry or 23 and Me and upload it into Jedmatch or Family Tree. DNA and then you can opt in for law enforcement to match to violent crimes. And that way people can help, you know, your DNA can help solve cases. You guys were saying before this recording, I think it was last night that you really wanted to push today to anybody listening or watching, go and upload your data to Jedmatch. If that's something that you believe in, if that's something you're okay with, upload it directly to Jedmatch. How would someone go about doing that guys? Yeah, and this is a way that anybody can help, even if, you know, you, you know who your parents are you don't have a mystery you're trying to solve you can still be

involved in these efforts go to jedmatch.com and you spell that geddmatch.com and they're going to have right there on the website a link you can click that we'll talk about the step by step of how to download your data from whatever site you tested at ancestry 23 me and then upload it to jedmatch it takes like five 10 minutes it's it's easy anybody can do it you do have to just take a test first so if you've already taken one you can do that literally right right now. If not, but you're interested, maybe order that test. And then after you get the results in, you can take that step. That'd be amazing. So anybody out there right now who's listening or watching, if you're an adoptee or you're looking to find your biological parents,

Ryan and Jeremy may be able to help you, no charge to you at all, be completely done under break investigative group. If there's something more to it, if it's a cold case that you're relatives in and it's something where we need to get a little bit more involved with criminal coffee, we would entertain that as well. Absolutely. That'd be great. No, I agree. I think that, you know, I've gone back and forth about putting your information into these databases, but Jedmatch, that's what it's specifically there to do. It's not this weird for-profit thing, you know, it's there to help identify these people, and that's very important, and I highly encourage everyone to do it, and I have done it myself. I have not actually done it yet, and Jeremy was trying to get me to do it when we were at crime con, and I was going to do it, but I think it's something I have to do at home, but Jeremy, hold me accountable. Look at your day kid. I'll do it.

I'll do it. I'll give my stamp of approval. I've been wanting to do it. I just, you know, gets away from you. And you got a lot of white boys in the system already. So I don't know how much I'm going to help. But Ryan, how close was the match for Joanne? Like, was a third cousin?

Was that the closest or something of that nature? You know, second, third cousin range, some somewhere in that nature. Yeah, yeah. So someone that distance is the reason why we were able to give Joanne back her name. So even if you, you know, you don't. have anybody that you know that's missing in your family, your DNA can still help solve those cases. Yeah. Most people don't know their second or third cousins, you know, but, you know, if one of them that you're related to is missing or, you know, whatever, like, you could be the

reason why they're identified. So, yeah. Now, you guys are incredible. I'm so proud of you. And we don't talk a ton about break, but what we do, that we do a lot of air searches, surplus searches, not fun stuff at all, not criminal related. That's how we pay the bills. But what Jeremy and Ryan are really passionate about is IGG and we are getting more into it now as we're growing criminal coffee and these two are rock stars. I told Moxie they were rock stars and they didn't let me down and I appreciate you for that because you know me, my ego. I had to be right. But I appreciate you guys being here again. If someone out there right now is listening or watching this and you're someone who is adopted or is looking to find relatives of yours, you think there's a bigger family

out there that you're just waiting to find and maybe there was some financial restrictions for you or you didn't know where to go. Jeremy and Ryan are here right now. Break is going to do it. No cost to you whatsoever. We want to show you guys what we're capable of doing and maybe it'll incentivize more people to get involved with this process because you at home right now, if you like true crime and you like solving cases, this might be an avenue for you because it doesn't really take, it takes experience and knowledge. You've got to go to the schools to do, but this is something I would say almost anybody can do if they put the time in. Is that fair to say? That's right. Absolutely.

Great. Well, we appreciate you guys. Next, we're going to bring on someone who's closer to Joanne than any of us could ever be. That's going to be her daughter, Spencer. Guys, thank you so much. We're going to be right back with her. Okay, so we are here with Spencer Graham, Joanne's daughter. Now, Spencer, I know that your mother had six children and you were just two when she went missing and you were the second youngest of her children, correct? That's correct. And so, I mean, obviously, you're two years old, so you're not going to remember a lot from that time period. But as you grew up, I'm sure you had questions about who your mother was, where she was.

Can you tell us a little bit how that went? Yeah. So I'm not sure how old I was when I first got the story. The story from when I was younger was that, you know, she had her own issues. and there was a time that she could not physically be with us due to court orders. And so one day she just couldn't do it anymore. And she was going to visit us one Easter and she just disappeared. Never showed up.

Never, never showed up. And so for the majority of my life, I thought that she was just a mother. who left behind her children. So you grew up believing your mother abandoned you and your siblings? For the majority of it, up until a few years ago. So how was it when you kind of got to a place where you thought, hey, maybe that's not what happened? And maybe something happened to her that prevented her from coming back to us.

What was the emotion you were experiencing in that time? Being a true crime fan myself, you know, I was putting some pieces together. and thinking, yeah, she was murdered. I remember turning to my sister and telling her she was murdered. And even though I said it out loud, I didn't truly believe it. It was almost as if I was talking about one of the true crime shows that I watch, where you're like, oh, she disappeared. Nope, she's buried somewhere.

She hasn't been found. You know, it was almost if I was speaking about somebody else's family. I mean, yeah, absolutely. There's, of course, after a certain amount of time passes, you're thinking to yourself, hey, she would have reached out by now. She would have made an attempt to reconnect by now. Nobody's seen her. Nobody's heard from her.

This is not just a simple instance of a woman taking off and, you know, taking time for herself or getting space or just not wanting to take care of her responsibilities. something happened to my mother. And based on your kind of knowledge and your interaction with the true crime community, you probably saw that it's very likely that this happens. This does happen. People think their parents or their loved ones leave them, but in fact they encountered foul play that prevented them from coming back.

So it was almost as if it was something you hoped would be the case. I don't know which would be better, right? And I was thinking about this when I was reading about your mother and your story, in thinking, I don't know, as a child, would you want to believe this person left me or would you rather believe that something happened to them and prevented them from coming back? But either way, you'd want to know what did actually happen. You'd want the truth. Yeah, that's exactly it. Because either outcome is heartbreaking, really. Obviously, with the outcome of her leaving, at least it wasn't somebody who decided to just take her life for whatever selfishness.

reasons. How was that like, I mean, I can't even imagine, I would assume, and please correct me if I'm wrong, initially when you thought that she had just left, she had just quit, essentially. I would assume there was some resentment there, maybe a little bit, a little bit of wondering, how could she do that to us? Fast forward to when you get the call when we start poking around and Moxie calls and Houston PD and they're saying, hey, just want to know, you know, this could be connected. What was that like for you personally? And walk us through that experience. And walk us through that experience when you first found out that this was occurring all these years later? So the Moxie, like the whole journey, I was actually not in the no at all until it was confirmed.

So I have only known about this a little over two months. I found out July 3rd. And I guess this had been going on for months. Yes, it has. Yeah. So my mother's sisters, my aunt, they were in the know. They were testing their DNA. And it wasn't until they reached out to my sister, who then told me one day that she needed to talk to me. And I knew that it was serious because she wouldn't text it to me. She wouldn't call me. And I was actually getting a little upset at her because me and my husband have been like married almost 10 years. So we were redoing our vows in Vegas. So I was thinking she's going to cancel on me.

She's not coming to Vegas for my vow renewal or something else. Like I was like, what could it be where she didn't want to talk to me? And so she came over after giving me, you know, a heart attack all day. And there was a second where she had said, you know, the Ancestry.com, like finding, I think that's kind of like a pathway they had, finding out the connection that it was her. And there was like just like a breath where a couple of things were running through my head. And I was thinking, where is she? You know, I was born in New Jersey. So she has ties to the East Coast. I was thinking she has a family in New Jersey, you know, like where are you going to tell me she's been at this

whole time. And then within that next breath, it was, she was murdered in 1992. So it was just a lot of emotions. You know, I think that this may be a funny analogy. But you know, when you think about winning the lottery. All the times. All the time, Spencer, every day. And you just have like you know that the chances of winning the lottery are very slim it's something that you dream about though and you kind of think about what your life could be like if you win the lottery and it's just nice to to think about it and to kind of have like a little bit of hope and then to basically be told you'll never win the lottery that little bit of hope of your mother coming back into your life. And I told myself, I'm going to give her a hard time for leaving us. And I'm going to

be, I'm going to let her get to know me. You know, I'm going to give her health and tell her, you know, you missed out in a lot, me getting married, me having cancer in 2024, all of these things that, you know, you need a mother for. I wanted to give her a hard time, but I was going to let her in. And that little bit of hope just vanished. And you're basically being told, you'll never win the lottery. It will never happen for you. So it was heartbreaking in so many different levels. Yeah, I was, I was wondering that, you know, there's obviously, it's good to know my mother didn't just leave me. But also now that that chance of reconnection, that chance of, like you said, letting her in and having some opportunity to have a relationship with your mother,

the only one you'll ever get, it was gone in that moment. So it's great to know what happened, but it's not the closure that you would have liked. How's your other siblings? You're one of six. You were sitting at the top of the show. We were putting that out there. Obviously, you're here representing your family. But how is everybody doing?

How is your family doing with this information? And knowing that at this point, it's an active homicide investigation. There's somebody out there right now, potentially it's responsible for your mother's murder, and they could be someone from that area. I mean, we know where your mom was found, less than two miles away from your home at the time. How are you guys doing? Yeah, so I'm representing all of my siblings. They're mixed emotions because even though that last couple of years, we thought that this could be the case. Knowing it for certainness is different.

You know, they're, I would say, private. Unfortunately, my, our mom's story, it's a bit messy, you know. But you know what? Most family, most family dynamics are. Yeah. That's the truth. So I think that they, they don't want to be in the, you know, the spotlight. And, you know, honestly, I'm not a spotlight person.

I'm an extrovert. I don't like to have my face out there, even though I've been doing news interviews and things like this. But I know that somebody has to be her voice, and I want that for her. I want to shout out on the rooftop that she didn't just leave us and, you know, that she was trying to be a good mother. I know speaking with my siblings that regardless of exactly

what happened, they want to know it all. Even if it's hard to hear, they want to know every detail and try to fit all of the pieces in, because there are a lot of gaps in her entire story, especially us being so little and me not even being the youngest. Yeah. So at this point, are you working with the police department? Are they sharing information with you? Have they given any indication of what direction they're taking with this? What's next? A little bit. So there is a detective working on the case and they have said that they have to reopen it as if it's starting from scratch, you know, getting all of the details. And I know that they have some evidence, at least, you know, her jaw, you know, things like that that they still have. I don't know any more than that. But I do know that getting her story out there is really going to be. get us some the answers that we're looking for because somebody knows something 100% when she went missing was there any sort of investigation on behalf of law enforcement so her family did hire a private

investigator and I believe they also did a police report and my family you know they just they just thought that she left okay so at this point what the police are doing is they're saying hey there's never really been an investigation into this so we're going to take this as if we're starting from day one, hopefully retrace her steps, hopefully bring in some suspects, people who may have had interactions with her in the days leading up to her death, anybody who may have had a problem with her. And as far as you and your family goes, and the people in your lives, are there any possibilities in your heads of something, someone who might have done this or a reason why? And you can be careful how you say this if you are. Obviously, it's an open

case so if you don't feel comfortable that's fine but just be careful saying any names right well i don't have any names the only person that i could kind of point a finger at is whoever she was seeing at the time her and my father were not together at that time and you know i mentioned a couple years ago how I think, I rethought about her leaving versus her possibly some foul play. It's because my paternal uncle had mentioned, you know, she had her problems, but she loved you guys so much. And she would always call you to check up on you and want to come see you. Because she was out of character to just disappear, right? Right.

Yeah, exactly. And so that's when I turned to my sister and I said, she was murdered. And I think her boyfriend or the guy she was seeing at the time did it because we received a phone call, like my dad's side of the family and my grandmother from a boyfriend asking, you know, where she's at because, you know, she was supposed to come show up. But, you know, she left with his camcorder and, you know, some money. And I think that there's different stories of, oh, she, he's claiming she took off. And then there's stories about, oh, I gave her bus money. I just wanted to see if she showed up. And, you know, again, this could be the true crime person in me thinking about these two things.

And, you know, how somebody could cover their tracks by, oh, you know, I just want to want to make sure she's you know they talk about people being close to the investigation in a way and they insert themselves so i'm thinking they you know this person could have reached out to maybe clear themselves of like oh i have no idea where she's up or start to start a narrative of and she took off so don't look over here yeah yeah no but that's that's why these solving these dough cases are so important because for an investigator the first thing you do is look at the victim and develop a profile on them. Who were they around at the time of their disappearance or their murder?

Were they having any issues? Where were they the last time they were seen? All these really important details that you get pretty much right from the beginning. Well, if you don't know who the person is when you find them, you can't do that. So now having that information, detectives can start this case where it should have started in 1992, but they were unable to do so. And I mean, I guess that's like where I want to go with this because we're, We're always trying to promote here on Crime Weekly.

You know, if you know something, say something. But also with what we're doing with criminal coffee and how important it is to solve these cases where you just don't know who the person is because it doesn't only have an impact on that victim. It has this residual impact on the entire family. And that doesn't stop after a year or two when the case goes cold. That's with them forever. And you're walking, talking proof of that. And so for me, it's so important to have you on here.

We didn't have this with our last case. and for people to be able to listen to you and see you and see the impact that's had on you, I think is extremely important for not only true crime, but any type of nonprofit, whatever you're doing to raise money for these causes, I think hearing from you is extremely important. Yeah, you mentioned that it really sticks with you. My whole life, ever since hearing, you know, the story since I was younger,

I've had this fear of somebody that I love, just disappearing so if my husband goes somewhere and he doesn't like check in you know with me this split second moment i think about those true crime you know scenarios in the story of my mother and think something's happened to him and i'll never find out and i also fear that if something happens to me that nobody will find out it's literally something that sticks with me daily, and it's all because of these answers that I never thought that I would have. I think we all in the true crime space get that way, and I know that there's a lot of people, my kids, close friends, family, who, you know, if they leave my house, I'm like, text me when you get home.

And then if they don't, I'm that weird person that's like, you're home, right? Like, I need to know, you're home, correct? So, yeah, it makes us all very hypervigilant and worried. And for you, I imagine it's tenfold. especially now. This is going to be, you know, a traumatic thing that does stick with you. But when this happened, she was living in Houston and so were you, correct? Actually, no, I was living in Austin. I've, I only lived in Houston when I was just a little bit younger for a short time. But I was living with my grandmother on my father's side. So she was supposed to

visit you for Easter in Austin. Yep. Okay. But she was, but she was living in Houston. That's right. Yes. Yeah, less than two miles from that house where she was found. So when her body was found, was there any coverage on the news on TV about a woman's body being found that made its way to Austin or to anybody who knew you? Or were these two things just never put together? They were never put together. And honestly, even if it was, I don't think that we ever would have connected to the dots, because she's Hispanic. You know, know, it said that she was white. It said that she has scoliosis, which I didn't know about that and that she had artificial teeth. And her family would have known that because they have like

this, like this kind of like disease that she apparently. Genetic disorder in the teeth. Yeah. Apparently since she was like, you know, younger, like a teenager. I never knew that. Me and my sister were very surprised when we found that out. But apparently, it's something on, you know, her side of the family, luckily that we didn't inherit. So all of these things, I never would have put them together. Even if I had that path to find out, like, if she was a missing person, I would have just scrolled along and said that's, that's obviously not her. Yeah, that's, these things have disqualified her from being the, yeah, I see what you mean.

Oh, very, very sad, but I'm really so happy now that you have some answers. Some answers, yeah, of course. And you can start. Or to come, hopefully. Yeah. that moving on as far as the emotional aspect of it, the criminal aspect, the technical aspect, that continues. But as far as, you know, in yourself, you weren't left and you were loved. And that's so, I think, I mean, important to know at the end of the day. And we really appreciate

you coming on here and talking about your mom and talking about this. It has to feel very strange to be thrust into the public eye suddenly when this is a very private matter. But we appreciate you being so open and talking about your mom and what happened to the Crime Weekly. viewers who do care very, very much. You know, they wouldn't buy criminal coffee and they wouldn't be so intense about finding out what's happening with these cases. They care. And they're, you know, they're going to be a part of your family now, too. And they're going to be wanting to know what's going on and wanting to see this case move forward. So you have a whole slew of supporters behind you right now who are not going to let this fade to black again. Yeah. And by the way, this isn't over, right?

Like we found your mom. She's now going to be reunited with you guys. But now we have to find the scumbag who did this. And as I don't know if you know this or not yet, but we're putting up a $5,000 reward from criminal coffee where if there's information that leads to an arrest and a conviction, there's money on the table. So for no other reason than for the money,

come forward and say something. If you know something, if you're out there right now, listening or watching, I'm also going to right here on the screen and also say it for audio, the Houston Police Department, Homicide main number is 713-308-3-6-00. They also have a cold case squad,

which is phone number 713-308-3618. If you know anything about Joanne or people she was around during that time, maybe there was something that was said in a bar or at a get-together or a friend or family member who was acting weird around the time when this occurred. If you know something, say something. And come forward, you can remain anonymous. You can help bring this case to a close and make sure that the person who's been probably out there walking around all these years is finally held accountable for what they did.

There's time to make a difference not only for Spencer, but for her entire family and for most importantly, for Joanne, because you're very kind to bring up the fact that your family dynamic wasn't perfect. You don't have to disclose that, but no family is perfect. And everyone goes through trials and tribulations. but regardless of what's going on, nobody deserves this. Your mother did not deserve this. She needs justice.

We have an opportunity to give it to her and your family. So I'm hoping we can do it. I really am. But either way, we're here for you no matter what you need. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for all of that for the, you know, the reward. Also for, you know, donating to this case because I definitely wouldn't have answers yet. There's other, you know, Jane Does and John Does that are still, you know, waiting to kind of get their story solved.

I do appreciate, you know, everything, the both of you. I know that I certainly want answers for me, of course, selfishly. I think also I want other people to kind of get this type of feeling that I have. And so I feel super passionate moving forward to, you know, do whatever I can to also kind of give like this relief to other people. I think that you can relate to this because you're a true crime fans. There's two mysteries I always wanted to have solved my mothers and what happened to John Bonnet Ramsey. So it's just got one of those already. get in line yeah get in line yeah you all want to know that one definitely do well thank you so much for

being here spencer anything you need let us know obviously i'm sure everyone will be showing their love and support in the comments and hopefully we'll be talking to you soon and we'll have another update and it'll be a big one yes thank you both i really appreciate it okay so thank you everybody for joining us for this special crime weekly episode i know that you all are as happy and pleased with the results as we are. You get to see the face of somebody who was personally and directly impacted by the funds of criminal coffee to help solve her mother's case, or at least give her mother her name back and hopefully leading to solving the case. It was so nice to hear from Spencer directly, emotional, obviously. I think I'm not just speaking for myself when I say that we all

can relate to what she's saying on a very human level. And it's good that you're she has some information, but as Derek said, the battle is just starting, and hopefully this leads to some real answers and then action as well. So Derek's going to give you the number to call again one more time. If you have information, if you do know something, as Spencer said, she's sure somebody knows something out there. Somebody definitely knows something here. No doubt about it. Homicide main number is 713-308-360-0. And the Cold Case Squad is 71338-36-18. And like, I said when Spencer was on, you can remain anonymous. If you know something, just give them some breadcrumbs, let them follow them. And we really appreciate everybody being here. And as we did last

time with Albert Frost, we are going to offer anybody watching a special discount on criminal coffee so you can re-up on your coffee and continue contributing to solving future cases. And the discount is going to be 10% off. And all you have to do is use the code, Joanne, J-O-A-N-N. All one word. And just like with Albert, we sold a ton of coffee after that. Listen, whether you purchased one bag two years ago, this isn't just, I'm not just saying this to hype you guys up, you helped solve a case. And so if you didn't get in on it the last two cases now.

If you didn't get on the first two, we're going to keep going. We're not stopping anytime soon. Be part of this. Come join our community. If you want to help people like Spencer, check out criminal coffee. Or if you don't, go to a nonprofit, do something. Give something if you can if you're able to do so because these cases matter and it really truly does make a difference. And I'm so proud of what we've been able to accomplish in two years with this little company, little criminal coffee company right here just doing it out of our own office.

We have contributed to solving two cases. If you told me that three years ago, it might have doubted you. But we're just getting started. And as we continue to grow and spread that message, hopefully we're able to do more more frequently. That would be the plan. Yes, absolutely. And like Derek said, it's kind of a complicated industry. Oh, man. She hears, she's my, Stephanie's my therapist behind the closed doors about this, because it is not easy. A lot of gatekeeping going on with these cases.

A lot of gatekeeping, a lot of egos at play. How do you put it, stipulations on everything? You know, they want your money, and I'm not calling on anybody specifically, but it's a complicated thing. And that's why I brought Jeremy and Ryan in as well because I just know, I just know what they're capable of. And I knew that if it was solvable, they were going to solve it. They did. Final words to you. I'm excited. I'm pumped. Yes, I'm very excited. Yeah, I'm just, like you said, I'm proud of everybody. I'm proud of the people watching, the people purchasing. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of Jeremy. I'm proud of Ryan. I'm proud of you, Stephanie. I'm, thank you. I just think it's a great thing

when people come together for good. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you to Moxie Forensic Investigations Intermountain Forensics, Houston Police Department, everybody involved, it takes a whole group of people to get this done, not just one person, takes a village. It takes a village, exactly. And let's find this person. Let's find this person and plashes their face everywhere. Yeah, thank you so much for being here,

sticking with us. And as always, if you're listening on audio, thank you. If you're listening on YouTube, please let us know what you think about in the comments and give Spencer some love. Until next time, guys, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.

Thank you.