Criminology - Candice Rogers

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

In 1959, Candice Rogers was abducted and murdered while selling Camp Fire Girls mints door to door. At the time, Candice was in the fourth grade and lived in Spokane, Washington. Her murder shocked the city and forever changed the amount of freedom that children in the area were allowed. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Candice Rogers. Her murder went unsolved for over sixty years and was called Spokane's Mount Everest by some investigators. Some evidence was collected and preserved for many years. Eventually, DNA technology advanced to the point that a DNA sample was produced from the evidence. This allowed the authorities to utilize genetic genealogy to help zero in on Candice's killer, a man named John Hoff. Hoff's daughter helped by providing DNA to link her father, a man she never dreamed could have been a sadistic killer. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 195 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, it's good to have you back. You know, last week was rough for you, man. The voice just wouldn't cooperate. Yeah, I was bummed out not to be able to do that episode with you, but I think you did a great job and I appreciate you.

pulling double duty and I feel like I'm back to nearly 100% so excited about this episode. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not ideal for us not to both be on the podcast, but obviously we wanted to put the episode out. It was a good episode and we didn't want to deprive people of having that to listen to. So we did what we had to do. Yeah. And hopefully people like the episode so far I've heard from a lot of people that they really thought it was a good episode. So yeah, that's great news. But now you're back.

The voice is with you. And so we're back to normal. Let's, let's get the work. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Nolan Bell, Chickadee, Robin Gannon Moreno,

Sue Cune, April Butler, Angela Quidor, and Laura O'Connor. A lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much for that support.

It goes a long way to helping us get the show out. And for anyone that would like to support the show, they can go over to patreon.com slash criminology. All right. Short and sweet. Let's jump into this episode. Now, it's only February. And so far in this year, 2022, we've already seen monumental movement on cases that have

been cold for many years. the case we're discussing today is a very old case, which has been called Spokane's Mount Everest by some investigators on the case. It was solved late last year. And it really enforces that notion, more of that it's never too late for crime to be solved, even if the perpetrator can't possibly face any punishment through our legal system. I think it's important not to give up hope on some of these old cases because every week it seems like there's a new update this case got solved that case got solved and the cases are ones that are some of the ones that seem the toughest that might not be solved or the oldest so to know that stuff is going on and and that kind of works getting done it's

it's pretty impressive and i also think it's the reason why you know a lot of us continue to talk about some of these older cases obviously it's content for the podcast but at the same time you know, a lot of people are trying to keep these cases alive, keep the awareness of different things in people's minds because you just never know, you know, is there going to be someone who decides to come forward? Now, I think most of these cases are being solved through technology. And that makes a lot of sense, right? As technology evolves, new things become available. Old evidence can now be used in a way that it never, you know, could be used previously, but you just never know where something might come from that might help solve a case. Yeah, which is a perfect segue into this case because it's

based on good police work that happened early on, proper collection of evidence, storage, and then eventually, as technology evolved, the work of those original investigators, the stuff they collected, the stuff they put into evidence, it proved to be the missing piece to solving this case. The case we're talking about today is Candace Elaine Rogers, known as Candy to Friends and Family. She was born to Carl and Elaine Rogers on July 18, 1949, in Spokane, Washington, and she grew up there. Although Carl and Elaine divorced, they stayed close. and Candy lived with Elaine, who was a high school teacher. In 1959, Candy was in the fourth grade at Holmes Elementary School in Spokane.

At the time, Spokane in the eastern part of Washington, and less than 18 miles west of the Idaho border, had around 180,000 residents. The town back then was known as a nice, quiet place to raise your children. Candy was a member of the Camp Fire Girls, a youth development program focused on skill building and outdoor activity. The Campfire Girls were similar to the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, and they were actually informally founded the same year as the more well-known Boy Scouts organization. The Campfire Girls of America still exist these days as a co-ed organization, only now it's called Campfire.

Candy was a Bluebird, what the youngest members of the organization were called at the time, similar to a Cub Scout. The Campfire Girls sold things, much in the same way that the Girl Scouts still sell cookies today to help fund their group activities. At the time, the Camp Fire Girls were selling boxes of Campfire Mints, door to door. These days, I'm sure everybody has seen a stand outside of the grocery store when you've gone shopping with groups of Girl Scouts selling boxes of cookies. Now, it used to be much more common to see the Girl Scouts just going around your neighborhood,

knocking on people's doors. And even if you weren't a scout, I remember. remember when I was younger, you know, my school organized sales of different things, which encouraged students to fundraise. It was kind of like trick or treating because you were going door to door, not getting candy, but asking people to buy things. This kind of dwindled after, you know, all the stranger danger stuff really became a concept and spread for Spokane, this awakening to the evils lurking close to home had not yet happened, but soon everything would change in the town. And more if this is something that, you know, I remember vividly.

It seemed like, I don't know, every few months, and I'm probably exaggerating, but the school was wanting us to sell something, whether it was wrapping paper or, you know, nuts, candy, something to help raise money for whatever. And, you know, it really wasn't something that I wanted to do, to be honest with you. And then I just kind of talked about Stranger Danger. I feel like then it kind of morphed into, I remember my mom would take the form to the hospital where she worked. She was a nurse. And she would put it up on the board and, you know, all of her friends would sign up and help out that way. But I can tell you right now, I don't remember my kids having to do that type of stuff. I remember some of that stuff, too, from when I was a kid and I was in Cubs Couts and we did similar things.

But I think the time I was a Cubs Cout was right around the time where they were phasing out the door-to-door aspect of it and making it more where you'd go to the store and see a group of kids with their mom or whatever out in front, which I think obviously is safer. because you've got multiple people in a public place with an adult there, it usually seems like there's very little chance of something bad happening versus kids wandering off on their own going door to door. You never know who they're going to come across. And it's kind of sad that we don't live in that age anymore where kids could just go out and do something as innocent as selling candy to raise money for their causes. But that's where we are unfortunately.

I think it's sort of like the hitchhiking thing back. of the 70s. You know, a lot of people got around that way, but then eventually, I think a lot of people realized that it wasn't safe. So you don't see any of that anymore. So just sort of goes hand in hand with as we evolve and learn more about these awful things that happen. I think we all change our ways of doing stuff. Yeah, no doubt. Now, I will say in the last couple of years, I have had some Girl Scouts come to my door. Now, they've always had a parent that I could see. you know, there at the end of the driveway, never someone coming alone because I just don't know many parents nowadays that would feel comfortable with letting their child go door to door around

the neighborhood by themselves. Yeah. And it's, it also comes down to not necessarily the, the creeps and the monsters and the perverts and the criminals, but even the dangers of getting hit by a car, those kinds of things falling and getting hurt. So I think there's, that risk is eliminated to two when you're in one central location and not going about trying to sell that stuff. On Friday, March 6th, 1959, Candy still had seven boxes of Campfire Mint she wanted to sell. She had come home from Holmes Elementary. She played with her dog a little bit and then had a snack and oatmeal cookie. From there, she left her home on the 2100 block of West Mission Avenue at around 4 p.m. and began going door to door to her neighbor's homes. She was just one of many campfire girls in the area

trying to sell mince that day. Later, after sunset, she still hadn't returned home, and Candy was expected to always be home by 545 before it got dark. Her family, including her mother and grandfather, walked around the neighborhood searching for Candy. Before long, many of her friends and neighbors had joined the search, but there was no sign of her anywhere. It was unlike Candy to stay out too late. People that knew her, all felt that she was very mindful of her curfew and wouldn't stay out past it. When searchers came up empty, the Spokane police were called, and they joined the search. Police questioned just about every resident in the neighborhood and determined that candy had only sold one box of mince to her neighbors before she disappeared. Although some reports

mentioned that number being two boxes, one witness reported that they saw candy and at around 6.30 p.m. on West Maxwell Avenue, just around the corner from her home. While searchers were looking for candy in that same area, a car referred to in news reports only as a green 1953 fort, raced down Maxwell Avenue, turning north on Belt Street before going out of view. The car hit the curb during the turn onto Belt Street. Candy's grandfather, who was out looking for her, actually had to jump out of the way of the car to avoid being hit by it. It's unknown who was driving that car that night or whether candy was inside. But police wound up searching for it unsuccessfully.

At around 9 p.m. that night, several boxes of mince were found along the road. And some reports mentioned that they were found on both sides of the Spokane River, on either side of the Down River golf course. Again, the reports varied on how many boxes were found. Some say five, while others say six. It was clear that some of these were found along North Pettettit Drive near the Fort George Wright Bridge, but there was still no sign of Candy, and the trail of mint boxes didn't show the searchers which way candy had headed. North Petit Drive is a riverfront road that runs near the Spokane River from the northwest,

and ends where Maxwell Avenue meets Belt Street. The area is called Doomsday Hill by local trail runners due to the incredibly steep incline of the hill, a fitting name for a place where you find the only remaining traces of a missing child. The search for Candace Rogers was huge. It included horses, helicopters, cars, and foot patrols, and spanned from the area near Candy's home to nine-mile falls, about 11 miles north. Everyone in Spokane, Washington, knew about the missing campfire girl. Her disappearance made headlines in the morning newspapers and many different groups

were involved in searching for candy, members of the Air Force Reserve Unit, the U.S. Postal Service, Boy Scouts, volunteers were offered up by a number of different local companies, as well as hundreds more civilians. 1,200 people in all scoured Spokane for signs of candy, but all their efforts proved fruitless. Sadly, it was during the search for Candice that things took a tragic turn. Three airmen were killed when a Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw helicopter, they were searching in, hit a high voltage power line and crashed into the Spokane River below. Two airmen thankfully survived the crash, but this crash seemed to be the beginning of the search slowing down for candy. But she was still on the mind of everyone in Spokane, despite morale

taking a hit following the crash. On March 21st, 15 days after Candy vanished, two airmen who were stationed at the Fairchild Air Force Base just south of Spokane were hunting in a section of woods in the area of Old Trails Road when they noticed a pair of girl's shoes in the woods. They immediately recognized that these were not women's shoes, but distinctly those of a little girl. This wooded area was less than 10 miles away from the Rogers home. And since the Air Force had assisted in the search for Candy, the airmen were well aware of her disappearance. So they headed back to base and reported what they had found.

This prompted a new search in that specific area that started early the next morning on March 22nd. And literally, just minutes into the search, the lifeless body of Candace Rogers was found when a searcher noticed her leg in the brush. Her body had been covered up with branches and needles from the surrounding pine trees in order to hide her from view. And it seems like we've said this a dozen times

or maybe more in some of the episodes we've done. How often is it a hunter that finds these missing remains of people out in the middle of seemingly nowhere where most people aren't going to go? Yet these hunters always managed to stumble upon. on these bodies. Well, and I do think there is a reason for that. I mean, if you think about the areas that a hunter would traverse,

they're going to go through some areas of land that most other people would have no reason to travel. So I do think there's, you know, at least some reason why we see that from time to time. One of the guys that I hunted with had the unfortunate experience of finding a woman that had taking her own life hanging from a tree out in the middle of the woods. And I know that was something that just rocked him. And he, you know, it was always a peaceful place for him to go out there. And after that, it was never the same for him.

So it's got to be something that just weighs on you seeing something like that. Yeah, I mean, obviously, in all of these cases, you feel for the family of victims. and we talk about that quite a bit, but you can't forget about some of these searchers, people that stumble upon a body that has to play on their mental state. I mean, there's just no way around it. It's going to affect you.

Candy was left in the woods just 130 feet from Old Trails Road. It was apparent that her feet were bound, and it was later determined she had been strangled with strips of fabric torn from her own petticoat. There were remarks on her waist as if she had been tied up with rope, but no rope was found anywhere in the woods near her body. It was also determined that the little girl had been sexually assaulted by whoever had abducted and murdered her.

A green seat cover for a car was found near the scene, but investigators weren't sure if it was related to Candy's case or not. It was a gruesome crime scene, and words slowly leaked to residents of Spokane that Candy had been found murdered, and it shocked them. That kind of thing just didn't happen there. One thing that police found of interest, was a purple smear on an article of Candy's clothing, possibly on her sweater and coat.

The purple substance smelled like grape. Investigators thought that maybe it could be grape-flavored bubble gum. And later, this would take them down a very specific road, looking at a serial killer named Hugh Byron Morris, who had apparently had a fondness for grape chewing gum. 29 years old at the time of Candy's murder, Morse denied involvement in her death and would always maintain that he did not kill Candy. Now, investigators didn't necessarily believe him. In 1955, just four years before Candy was murdered, Morse had been charged with attempting to molest two eight-year-olds in California.

He had been incarcerated at a Tascadero State Hospital for rehabilitation. until 1957, when he was considered cured and released. Even after Candy's murder, Morse was committing crimes in Spokane. He is known to have murdered at least two women in their Spokane homes in 1959 and 1960. In 1960, he also assaulted two victims who live, including his estranged wife. His crime spree didn't stop there, though, with murders and attempt. murdered in Alabama and Minnesota.

More similar to Candy's murder in late 1961, he molested a six-year-old girl in St. Paul, Minnesota. But despite police interest in Morse, they didn't find anything linking him to the murder. And Morse wasn't the only suspect police looked at. According to the spokesman review, the list of suspect names fill 7, 11 by 14 in sheets, each with two single-spaced columns of names. In addition to the names that investigators actually came up with through tips and other leads, there were more than a dozen people who confessed to murder and candy.

None of the men who confessed, though, were strong suspects. Another man named Alfred Graves was identified as a suspect during the very long investigation. He had taken his own life using carbon monoxide from his own car on March 22nd. the very day that Candy's body was discovered. His car was parked on Down River Drive with a suicide note found in it. It's unknown what was written in the note, but it didn't dissuade the police from looking into him. Spokane Police Detective Brian Hammond focused on graves because when he died, the 50-year-old man

had rope and bobby pins in the trunk of his car, as well as news articles that were found in his room that focused on women and children who had been sexually assaulted. Multiple women had accused graves of inappropriate contact. He lived on North Cannon Street just around the corner from Candy's Home on Mission Avenue. Another suspect was James Howard Burnett. He took his own life by hanging himself in his cell at the Spokane County Jail on February 7, 1960. Just four days after he was arrested on suspicion of a sex crime against the child. The 49-year-old, who lived on Sinto Avenue, which is just two streets south of Mission,

left behind a widow, unaware he was even in custody when he died. When his wife learned of Barnett's suicide, she reportedly said something to police to the extent of, he killed that little girl, didn't he? Before hanging himself, Barnett supposedly wrote on the wall in his cell a message in blood that read, I have sinned against the Lord. He apparently didn't specify what his sin was, but one assumption is that he was indeed guilty of the sex crime against the child he was arrested for. Despite a large amount of promising suspects, none of them panned out because there was nothing linking them to the murder, and Candy's case went cold pretty quickly. Despite a reward of $3,000, being offered in her case, a month after her body was found, a pretty big amount of money back then,

no solid leads came in. Candy's family and the community were forced to accept the knowledge that a savage killer, who quite possibly was living amongst them in Spokane, would very likely get away with Candy's murder. Candy's parents' lives were understandably forever changed, and they died before any answers would come. And more if this is something that we talk about quite a bit. The murder of Candace Rogers changed Spokane forever. We see that in a number of cases, especially, you know, dating back to the 50s and 60s. Even in 2007, Detective Brian Hammond said to the press, it really changed the way Spokane

worked back then and how children were allowed to run free or not. Gone were the days that children could just go door to. a door in their own neighborhood. One thing that the passage of time provided investigators with was the advancement of science and crime-fighting tools like DNA and forensic genealogy. Luckily, the evidence in Candice's case had been collected and preserved properly by the original investigators. We mentioned some suspects earlier, and the lead detective on the case up until 2020,

Detective Hammond, felt that DNA might solve the case, and he wanted to exhum the body of a couple of the suspects, Graves and Barnett. He felt that one of them quite possibly was Candy's killer, but he also didn't feel that he had enough evidence to request a warrant to exume their bodies. And there were still other good suspects, too, to consider. Aside from the many suspects that investigators had come up with decades earlier, Detective Hammond added five more, including one man who owned a green car like the one seen racing by people who were out searching for Candy. That fleeing car was later dubbed the Green Hornet. One woman came forward saying she believed she was the last person, aside from Candy's killer, to see the little girl alive. And she

recall spotting this green car creeping toward Candy as she walked near Cannon Park just next to her home. It wasn't until the early 2000s, at least four decades after the evidence was collected, that a semen sample was able to be isolated from a stain on Candy's clothing. This was possible not only due to new DNA technology, but also as we mentioned, because investigators early on had properly collected and preserved the evidence. This is noted in the 2021 Spokane Police Department press release, which stated, with no way of knowing the future of trace evidence and sensitivity of ensuing testing procedures, it is a testament to the diligence of investigators in 1959 that evidence was preserved in such a manner that DNA could be extrapolated

62 years later. In 2007, years after this DNA was extracted, investigators showed reporters that they still even had the shoes. Candy had been wearing that day, which had been recovered in the woods and led to the discovery of her body. And more of it, I think we do need to talk about this evidence collection. I mean, obviously this is the job of the police, is what they're supposed to do, but you have to put it in context. These people, you know, doing this job back in 1959 had no idea. They couldn't even have dreamed the technology that would come many years later. But they did their job correctly and it allowed for later DNA extraction. The other thing that really kind of jumps out at me is I think in a number of cases we've seen, even sometimes in scenarios where

we believe police did things correctly, DNA, you know, degrades over time. They're not actually able to get a profile. You know, it just seems to me that I don't want to call it luck because obviously the police did their job here. But there are a lot of factors. I will put it that way, that have to kind of all align for the technology that we've now developed to be able to work. And it's, it's, it is hard to fault those investigators early on back in those days because they had no idea, as you mentioned, what would be coming. Now, today, obviously, I think the investigators know that there's always something else coming in their very, cognizant of that and they'll use gloves and use all the proper stuff to make sure there's no

contamination. But I cringe. I've seen so many crime scene photos from back in the 1950s and 60s where investigators are walking around holding stuff up for the camera, holding evidence up with their bare hands. And you have to wonder, is there any evidence that's lost or contaminated or otherwise just not able to be used because of those little things that they didn't know about, if that stalled any of those cases from being solved because of that. Well, I think at the very least, I'm sure it hampered the efforts later on, right? Once the technology was available, okay, they go to test it. They find out that either, you know, they can't get a viable sample or it's somehow contaminated.

It's mixed. I mean, you can go down a number of different avenues. Following the DNA discovery, police had something to work with, but there were no matches from the STR DNA profile that was entered in the CODIS, the combined DNA index system, the FBI's DNA database. Not even Hugh Morse's DNA was a match, the killer who was known to like grape-flavored chewing gum. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

It's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. He died in April 2003, still in prison in Minnesota where he was serving two life sentences. A DNA sample taken from him in 2002 had not matched the stain from Candy's clothing. This surprised many that he was not the killer.

I think it's important to note that the, quote, great gum found was just a note from a detective. It had never been tested, collected, or analyzed. It was just a great smelling purple stain that one detective thought could be gum. The Spokane Police Department contacted Othrum Labs for assistance in February of last year, 2021. Many labs were unable to analyze the DNA sample at all due to its age. It had degraded severely. In 2020, a different lab was unable to analyze the sample. In fact, they declined to even try due to the degradation. There was no way for investigators to have known exactly the optimum conditions for DNA sample storage back when DNA wasn't even a thing.

The sample was also contaminated in some way. Non-human DNA was showing up. And when we talk about Othram Labs, you've heard us mention them many times before, they felt they were up to the challenge. Despite the age of the sample, the degradation and the contamination of this sample, Arthur and Labs was able to work with it. In March, 2021, Authrum received a DNA sample for analysis.

Their scientists were able to develop a DNA profile, which was used to search for a suspect's family tree using forensic genetic genealogy. By September 2021, Detective Zach Stormett in Spokane had to investigate only three people, all brothers. All three of the brothers were long deceased, but one of the brothers had children that investigators were able to track down.

His two siblings never had children. They felt that one of those children, named Kathy, who was the daughter of a man named John Hoff, was their best lead. Police contacted her and were up front about their intentions. They wanted to try to confirm the identity of Candace Rogers' killer. Kathy was willing to cooperate and provided a sample of her own DNA. When she was told which crime she might be able to help provide an answer to,

she was aware of the case and immediately headed to the police station to get the ball rolling. And Morphi and I have talked about forensic genetic genealogy so much. I mean, we did a whole season on cases that involved it. My question here is what would it be like if you're Kathy, right? You're the daughter of a man who police believe may be the killer. of this little girl so many years ago. Now, she jumped right in. She doesn't sound like she hesitated at all and said,

I'm willing to help. I'll do whatever I can. And I think a lot of people would have that same thought. But I think for some, it would have to go through their mind. Do I really want to help prove that my father, maybe someone who I felt was this great guy was really this sadistic killer.

For some, I would think it would have to be a tough decision. Yeah, I think a lot of us probably would say, oh, no problem. I'd want to help catch a killer. But if the police knocked on your door and said, we think your loved one may be involved, that's got to be a situation that not many people can imagine what goes through your mind and what she had to deal with. But it sounds like she was on board pretty quickly. and wanted to find out the truth.

But I think at the very least, you have to have a second thought about it, right? Thinking about the ramifications of what could come out. Your father's name is going to be forever tarnished. Maybe your name to some degree, just by association. All of that stuff has to go through your mind. But I still think it's amazing that when approached by police, she said, I'm in. you really have to give it up to her. The DNA sample from Candy's clothing showed a strong likelihood to being a match to the DNA provided by Kathy, a parental match.

Based on this, investigators requested a search warrant to collect John Hoff's DNA and they were able to exhum his body in order to take a DNA sample. John Ray Hoff, who was 20 years old in 1959, was a 100% match to Candice killer. Finally, after more than half a century, 62 years, the identity of Candice Rogers killer was known. I'm always amazed that years later, decades later, even after some of these bad guys have died and they're buried, that doesn't stop investigators from solving these. and if need be, going back and exhuming their bodies just to prove it. So I think it just goes to show that you might get away with it while you're alive, but even in death, sometimes your secrets are going to spill.

And that seems to be what happened here. And one thing to me, Morf, that is kind of amazing is, you know, we often find out that, you know, some of these people, they did unspeakable things. So, you know, he killed and sexually assaulted Candice Rogers when he was 20 years old. That's what the police believe. But then he went on to have a life. Obviously, he had children. So I guess my question is, you know, how does these people do it? You know, is it, you know, the mindset that allows them to do it that also then allows them to kind of go on with their life as though it's, you know, it's. You know, the mindset that allows them to do it, that also then allows them to kind of go on with their life as though it, it didn't happen. You know, does it torment them? Or do they not think about it at all? It doesn't haunt them.

I mean, I'm really kind of curious about how people can live with some of these things that they've done and just go on as though they have a normal life. Yeah, one interesting thing, too, is I've noticed a lot of the cases that are being solved, these older cases, and being the killers being identified through genetic genealogy, A lot of these killers, as far as the police know, didn't go on to kill other people, which is surprising. You'd think they would do it and then get some kind of taste for it, and it would be something that they would do again. And in many cases, there's no other confirmed victims of these people, which is kind of interesting in its own, I think, that they are able to sort of do something so heinous and then move away from it and it never happens again.

It's kind of weird to think about that. A background investigation revealed that John Hoff lived less than one mile from the Rogers home, just south on Broadway Avenue, about a 14-minute walk or a three-minute drive. The Spokane Police Department hasn't yet determined how Hoff and Candy came into contact with each other, or if they knew each other at all. Candy was shy, according to her friends and family. But one likely connection is that Hoff's younger step-sister, who was 10 years old at the time, was also a campfire girl, and she was actually big sister to Candy.

Basically, this man had murdered his little sister's younger scout mentee and gotten away with it. Unimaginably, Hoff's step-sister told police that she remembered crying to her brother over the loss of her friend Candy, unaware that she was crying on the shoulder of the person that was responsible. She couldn't remember, however, her brother and Candy ever directly crossing paths. John Hoff had never been suspected of Candy's murder and really was never on their radar. I think this fact shocked many, including Detective Stormant, who handled Candy's case during the early 2000s. According to a 2008 article in the spokesman review, he said he was confident. The killer is named in the case files.

His predecessors assembled in the year after Candy Rogers was abducted. As Detective Stormant said, the work put into solving Candy's case isn't measured in hours. This is measured in careers. In fact, one detective, Brian Hammond, who wanted to see the case solved before he ended his career, investigated Candy's murder from 2006 until he retired in 2020, just one year before the case was finally cracked. This really was a team effort right from the time Candy v. Candy was. vanished until her case was sought. John Hoff had a criminal record, which included petty crimes as a youth, and more serious crimes which were similar to Candy's attack as an adult. When he was 16 in

1955, he was captured by law enforcement in Yakima, Washington, after escaping a boys' camp near Olympia, about three hours away. He joined the military not long after when he was just 17. During his time in the military, he was stationed in Spokane at Fair Chau. Air Force Base, and he also worked as an inventory clerk while he was serving Korea. In 1961, just two years after Candy's murder, Hoff was convicted of assault in the second degree, with an added intent to commit robbery. It was reported that he accosted a female, forcibly removed the victim's clothes, tied her up using her own garments, and strangled her before fleeing the scene. This victim fortunately survived her assault and was able to name Hoff as her attacker. He was sent to

to six months in prison, he was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army on charges of desertion directly due to his conviction for assault. Yeah, Morph, kind of hard to continue to perform your duties for the army when you're not there, right? You're in prison convicted for this assault. After he was released from prison, Hoff held different jobs, including one at West Pine Lumberyard, one at a meat packing plant, and one is a door to door cutlery salesman. And this was just kind of an odd coincidence since he had decided to attack candy while she was selling something door to door. He also married in the 60s. He had four children, two sons and two daughters, including Kathy, who helped solve the case. Kathy has publicly used words like

disbelief, anger, and sadness when discussing the fact that her father killed Candy Rogers. John Hoff died 11 years after he murdered Candy, he took his own life on June 30th, 1970, when he was just 31 years old by shooting himself in the head. It could be just a coincidence, but this is the year that Kathy, his daughter, turned nine years old, the same age that Candy was when she died. Kathy had gone her entire life, thinking that her father had been unbearably depressed, while working at the meat packing plant. His face was burned by a chemical. But she has stated that she now knows that's not true. He wasn't depressed because of the chemical burns. Her father wasn't who she thought he was. And, you know, this is clearly painful for her. You can see it in her face in the video interview

posted by the Spokane police. The grief, anger and sadness are also very clear. when she says that he got to die with people thinking he was an upstanding man and he wasn't. And I kind of talked about it earlier more if you know, how do people kind of go on? And, you know, maybe for John Hoff, he couldn't go on. Maybe what he did to Candy Rogers ate him up inside. And eventually he just could not deal with the memories of. of what he had done. Yeah, and I think it's really interesting, as we pointed out,

that his daughter had just turned nine, so you have to wonder if maybe he started thinking about that around that time, and it just started weighing on him. Astonishingly, Hoff was buried in the same cemetery as Candace Rogers, a sad mistake, but at the time he was buried, there was no way to know that Hoff shouldn't be near candy, even in death. According to the website, Find a Grave, Hoff was formerly interred at Remembrance Law on lot 2504, but he is or will no longer be buried there.

His family members, including his wife and his daughter, Kathy, who helped solve this case, had him move to another cemetery out of respect for Candace Rogers in order for her to be able to finally have peace. Candy's cousin Joanne Poss, who was just 13 when Candy was murdered, was touched by their considerate gesture for candy. She told various papers that she was totally moved and said, that means it also impacted them, not just us, but them too. It's in a different way, but it doesn't mean they don't hurt. I know they do, and I'd like to thank them.

Perhaps even more incredible is the 2014 book, Like Behind the Badge, which was published by the Spokane Police Department History Book Committee, The book features a profile of Candace Rogers' murder, and just 10 pages later, the 1961 mugshot of John Hoff was used in an article about the Identicate Identification System. Although some things had been answered, namely who killed Candy, many questions remained, and people wanted to know some things that maybe will never be known. during the press conference, Detective Stormant declined to speak on whether he believed Candy was killed on the same night she had been abducted. It is worth noting that if Candy was killed and left in the woods the same day that she was abducted, the stain that was used to extract a DNA sample was outside in the woods for over two weeks, which makes it even more incredible that investigators at the time were able to store and preserve. it in such a way that it was usable in 2021.

One of the lingering questions people have is what about the Green Ford speeding past searchers on Maxwell Avenue, the day Candy went missing. Police haven't been able to determine if that car was driven by Hoff or connected to Candy's case at all. While the nagging questions are frustrating, Spokane Police Chief Craig Mitle stated, it is our hope that, at least by solving this case, it brings a measure of comfort and closure to the family and to the loved ones in this community as well. For investigators, the closure was bittersweet. Of course, they were static to solve one of their oldest and coldest

cases, and it meant great news for the family of an innocent victim, but it also meant delivering some really terrible, life-changing news to other innocent people, the killer's family. As Detective Stormett put it, I took those people's lives and their childhood and dumped it on its head. As for Candy's family, her father, Carl Rogers Jr., took his own life in June of 1963 at a hotel in Walla Walla, Washington. He shot himself with a revolver at the age of 44. Her mother, Elaine, passed away on September 18th, 2006 at the age of 82 in her home in Loon Lake, Washington. She was born at the home she lived in when Candy set out to sell her men's. And like Candy, she had attended Holmes Elementary School. Elaine moved to Northern California after Candy died

and worked for many years as a counselor at Petaluma Junior High School before moving to Loon Lake in 1990. Family members of Candies who were still alive who weren't even born when she was murdered wish that her parents and her grandparents had been around to hear the good news. And to me, more, if this is kind of the bittersweet part of, you know, some of these really old cases that are now being solved, it's great that the answers are coming out, the surviving family members get some closure, they get some answers. I think the part that is bittersweet is that because so many years have passed, A lot of the family members connected to the victim have died.

And they died never really knowing what happened to their loved one. Yeah, and I think Bittersweet sums up this whole scenario because in these old cases, when family members are no longer around to see a resolution that they hoped for for so long, it just seems very frustrating that that work was done and came to a resolution. resolution, but some of the people just weren't there to see it. And that's unfortunate. Well, I think Bittersweet also applies to, you know, people like Kathy and Hoff's family. They were innocent. They didn't do anything wrong. And their whole life was kind of turned upside down. To the many detectives and law enforcement personnel worked on Candy's case over the 62 years that her murder went

unsolved, her cousin Joanne extends her extreme gratitude on behalf of the entire family. The family released a statement saying in part, all of them from the beginning to this final closure, it had to have been hard on them too, but they will never realize how great they have made us feel, what they have done for us. The solving of Candy's case is a reminder that although sometimes the wheels of justice can turn slowly, they always keep turning. And with new advances in technology, comes new chances to identify bad people even after they are long dead. So morph as we wrap up this case, you know, obviously it's amazing when a case is solved after 60 plus years. Police didn't give up.

The family didn't give up. You know, there are some very interesting aspects to this one. You know, very intrigued by the actions of Kathy. And like I said earlier, you really have to give it up to her for making the decision that she did to help the police knowing that it could bring, you know, shame upon her father and to some extent her family is very brave. There was also some some very strange coincidences in this case, you know, Hoff's sister being a big sister in the case. in the campfire girls to candy, Hoff being buried in the same cemetery as Candy up until the time they moved him.

And the one that you mentioned morph about his picture, being in a book later on after kind of a synopsis of Candy's case was included. This is just stuff that you can't make up. You know, a lot of times I talk about movies. If you put some of this stuff in in movies, people might think, oh, there's no way that could happen. But this is real life. It happened. Yeah.

To me, this case is like a sort of a transition from the Leave It to Beaver years. I almost imagine her going around selling those mints, like an episode of Leave It to Beaver. Everyone's happy. Everyone's friendly. And then there's this wake up call that there's. things aren't as cheerful as they seem. There's a bad person here doing bad things.

And after that happened, the town probably was never the same. And it started to creep in that you can't let your kids go door to door. And you can't leave them out unattended. And I think that was just a sort of sad state of affairs when that happened. And people were faced with this new outlook on things. Yeah, we've done a number of cases in sports. specific towns or cities where it almost seems like that incident, whatever case we're talking about was the tipping point, the transition from Pleasantville, Mayberry, leave it to Beaver,

you know, whatever you want to think of it as to, okay, we got to lock our doors. We need to make sure that we know where our kids are at all times. They can't have the types of freedoms that they've enjoyed. They just can't. Thanks because of Sunny Landon for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so yet, go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review as well. And keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way.

If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at CriminologyPod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for. for Criminology Podcast, or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts Discussion and Fans. So, Morf, that is it for another episode of Criminology. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike. And Morph.

We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.