Dateline NBC - Cape Fear

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

In this Dateline classic, one woman disappears, and two sets of bones are found near Wilmington, North Carolina. Is one suspect to blame for both deaths? Josh Mankiewicz reports. Originally aired on NBC on April 10, 2009.

Wilmington, North Carolina, July 30th, 2006. It's 2 a.m. Last call at the Junction Pub and Billiards. And for one woman who walked out this door into the shadows, last call very likely marked the last moments of her life. I got a phone call from my father saying, very likely marked the last moments of her life. I got a phone call from my father saying, there's a problem, and he said, your sister Allison is missing, they can't find her. Suburban New Jersey, Lisa Valentino heard the news

from her father John. He learned that his youngest daughter, 34-year-old Allison Foy, was missing. But how he learned it was just as unsettling. A message was left on the phone. Please call the police department that your daughter's missing. Did the two of you find it strange

that you had to find out about this from the police department and not from Allison's husband? Yes, I did. Why didn't her husband call? His answer to me was he couldn't find my number. Allison was a married mother of two young daughters, an accomplished dancer and gymnast. The only member of a tightly knit family to have moved out of the New York area to North Carolina.

The day that she actually went missing I was having a birthday party here and she had called and I said to her, you know what Allison, I said everybody's coming here and she said okay I'll give you a call when things settle down a little bit and I said okay and that was it. Unfortunately that's the last time I ever spoke with her. Allison had been reported missing by her husband Michael. Wilmington police detective Mike Overton and Captain Marshall Williamson started working on the case and found a marriage very clearly on the rocks.

At the time she went missing, she had been going out late at night to bars leaving the husband and kids behind. As police in Wilmington tried to reconstruct the night Allison Foy vanished, they discovered she'd gone to work at her new job as assistant manager at a Wilmington hotel. Then spent those last hours at the Junction Pub in the company of another man, not a lover, but by all accounts a confidant, who said he thought Allison was too drunk to drive home and asked the bartender to call a cab for Allison. He saw a cabbie poke his head in the door and watched Allison walk out with him.

But that wasn't the only story police heard. We've heard she's left alone. We've heard she left in a taxi cab. We've heard she left in someone's car. We know she didn't leave in her car. Police found that in the pub's parking lot. No clues inside it. Allison's family could simply not believe the theory that she might have just taken off without telling anyone. Is it possible that if Allison had decided to walk away from her life that she wouldn't have told you?

No way. No way. There's no way that she would have just picked up one and left without telling any of us, but two, not taking her kids? Never. The family converged on Wilmington, hitting the streets, passing out flyers. You would have gone anywhere to find her.

Without a doubt. 100%. Allison's husband's behavior became an issue. He didn't help in the search for her. And just days after she vanished, he cut off service to Allison's cell phone. Why would he do that? His answer was that he didn't have enough money to pay her bill. Spotlight.

Spotlight goes right on them. Mark Benson, private eye, the family hired him to aid in the search. Her husband Michael was essentially unconcerned about her well-being at the beginning. He was thinking that she was somewhere alive and well where she shouldn't have been. Michael Foy did not want to speak with Dateline. He told police he had nothing to do with his wife's disappearance. And as the weeks began to pass, police came to the same conclusion. Did Allison's husband Michael have an alibi?

He was home with the kids, was his alibi. We went through the house, he gave us his computer, came in and wrote statements. He's done everything I've asked him, except for one thing. What did he not do? He did not take a polygraph test. Because the question, are you glad she's gone, might have looked incriminating even though he might not have had anything to do with it. That's correct.

And that's where things stood a few months after Allison's disappearance. For this episode, we put together our team of experts who've worked hundreds of homicides, relying on years of insight, experience, and instinct to take a look at the case and share their thoughts. Dwayne Stanton, a retired homicide detective from Washington, D.C., who investigated Chandra Levy's murder. Yolanda McCleary, a retired crime scene investigator in Las Vegas and a model for the character on the hit series

CSI. And Alan Jackson, an LA prosecutor turned defense attorney who's been seen on a lot of high profile cases. What's your initial impression here? Well, there's a couple of questions about Michael Foy that have to be answered. They have to be answered. Number one, and this isn't the biggest question, why wouldn't you call the person that your wife is closest to? But number two, and much more chilling to me, is he didn't take any part in the search. That's a big red flag.

I mean, don't you agree? I agree, I agree. And that he immediately cut off her cell phone, which makes you think, well, you know what? She won't be using this phone again. But on the other hand, people handle emotional stress in different ways. He's a very angry angry man

He thinks his wife ran away with somebody and anger takes over To do things. I don't think that we would normally do at this point. She's missing. She's still alive No, no way the kids the kids my first reaction is she'll leave the husband. She's not gonna leave the kids It's a possibility is getting. Is it possible? Yes. We need to look at all avenues. Don't stick on one thing because we need to find her if she is still alive. We have to have an open mind. Absolutely.

And if the facts don't face up to it, then move on. Our team focused on two key witnesses, Allison's confidant who, by his account, saw a cabbie poke his head in the door of the pub and watched Allison walk out with him. And... He wanted that cab driver, the person who stuck his head in the door and that she left with. I'm sure that they can track down what cab

was at the Junction pub on that particular night. Well, you'd hope so. Where was that cab driver? And where was Allison? The answer? Not far from where she was last seen. But when she was found, police also found more than they were looking for. Wilmington, North Carolina. By the spring of 2008, Allison Foy, married mother of two

daughters, had been missing for nearly two years. She'd just started a new job in hotel management and the last time her sister had spoken with her on the day before Allison disappeared in July 2006, Allison had been celebrating. She was the most upbeat that I had heard her in months. And then she was gone. Her best friend saw her leaving the Junction Pub and Billiards at closing time with a cab driver. Since then, no trace, not a word, not a credit card charge. Not a phone call. Our team of investigators wanted to find that cab driver. And of course, so did the Wilmington police.

Detectives searched, but something strange. There was no record of any cab being dispatched to the pub. No record of any calls made from the pub to any cab company. At the same time, Allison's unhappy marriage was pointing police toward her husband, Michael. But then, within a few weeks, investigators moved in new directions. He was concerned for her safety the longer she was gone.

The family hired a local private eye. We were just waiting for the next phone call. You were getting nowhere. Getting absolutely nowhere. Three miles from the pub, April 2008, a man walking through woods just off the main road finds bones bleached white from the North Carolina sun. It's a set of human remains.

I had one of those police officer gut feelings. I know this is gonna be Allison. This is gonna be who I've been looking for for basically two years now. DNA tests would later prove that the remains were those of Allison. Her skeleton had been covered with growth and debris and from that, forensic experts estimated

that Allison's body had been there just about since her disappearance nearly two years before. When you find out that it's her, are you glad? There was a little, because now I know what happened, and I can give answers to her kids, and my dad can have answers about his daughter, and maybe we can mourn a little bit and bring her home and, you know, kind of put her to rest in a way that is deserving of her. But that was not the real surprise.

What completely shocked everyone, and that's not too strong a word, what made headlines and turned this case in a completely new direction was that just 10 feet from Allison's remains was another skeleton, a second female victim, a second murder. Were these remains in the same condition?

Had they been there the same amount of time? No. There was basically a year's worth of forest growth growing over one of the skeletons, where the other one was fairly close to the surface. Police concluded Allison's body had been there likely since the night she went missing. The second body about half as long. Both bodies simply dumped. No sign of posing or ritual. Discarded like so much trash. But who was this Jane Doe?

Who was this Jane Doe? Months later came an ID, Angela Nobles Rothen, 42 years old, a mother of one. She'd last been seen nine months earlier. But Angela was much different from Allison Foy. She had drug problems and had been known to work the streets. Sonya Williams, at the time, she worked those streets too. She had a good heart. She'd give anybody the shirt off her back. She deserved to live just like anybody else.

What connects Angela and Allison? That had to be the first question you asked yourself. We did. There's no evidence they knew each other. None at all. They didn't hang out in the same places, didn't go to the same restaurants or bars that we could tell. Two women connected not in life but in death.

Who killed them? How? And where their bodies were found? Investigators found little evidence otherwise. There was some clothing found but not all the clothing that you would expect to find. So it's likely to believe that these bodies were naked or nearly naked when they were dumped. It appears that they were probably naked from the waist down.

So perhaps a common motive, sexual assault and a common manner of death by knife. Autopsies showed Angela's throat was slit. We know that Allison was stabbed. They found up to 40 stab wounds in the sweater alone. It was a terrible way that her life was taken from her and her two daughters got robbed. Somebody took their mother away. She was a great mom, and her life were her two daughters. What is 40 Stab Wounds? Passion, say to you.

It's personal. It is personal. And it tells us a little bit about the criminal as well, committing that particular crime. I would tend to think it'd be a bigger person than a smaller person. I agree. This was a first degree intentional homicide. This is somebody who wanted her dead and wanted her to suffer. She was never, ever, ever going to take another breath on this earth when he was done with

her. Is it too much of a jump to say there's a serial killer in Wilmington? My answer to that is yeah. A serial killer in my mind is someone who's randomly acting to assuage whatever demons they've got inside them and randomly killing. And you don't think this is random? I do not. At this point, there's not enough to suggest that these are random killings.

As soon as you find a second victim, all of a sudden the husband doesn't look so good. The husband is not as exciting as he once was. Absolutely. Your first avenue, I'm guessing, would be to try to figure out what those two women have in common. Well, you know, on the surface it appears that they don't have anything in common. But in reality, they have one thing in common,

and that is they both live a little bit of a higher risk lifestyle. OK, you've got one who's a prostitute. That's definitely higher risk being with men that you have no idea who they are. And the other one's hanging out in bars late at night. The other one's in a bar, and she left quite drunk, which means you've lost all your senses, you've

lost your control, and you're placing that in the hands of somebody you don't know. So they do have something in common. What is the connection between the junction bar and this field where the bones were laid? Is this a well-known place? Is this a secluded place? The area where the bodies was found is near an area in Wilmington where prostitutes are known to take their clients. So prostitutes would have known that area.

Prostitutes as well as Johns, people who solicit prostitution. If they've been there, which narrows the focus a little bit more. This was not a random body dump. This place was chosen for its seclusion. It was chosen for its familiarity. The person didn't go back once. It went back twice. Secure the second time with the idea that he had gotten away with it the first time. He's comfortable with it at this point. Maybe someone who'd been there before.

It turns out that private eye hired by Allison's family had made a discovery that would give our investigators and the case a whole new direction. A boneyard in Wilmington. Allison Foy, Angela Rothen. Two women. Two vastly different lives. Sharing apparently only a common grave, and as our team of investigators points out, a killer who felt comfortable and safe in the area where their bodies were

dumped. Then, a break in the case, incredibly via email to Mark Benson, the private eye hired by Allison's family, an email sent by a woman to the radio station where Benson hosted a Saturday afternoon talk show. She said, there is talk amongst the people in the bar that my husband may have had something to do with Allison's disappearance. The bar, Junction Pub and Billiards, where in July 2006, Allison spent what is believed to be the last night of her life. The woman's name? Susan Iannone.

She was in the bar that night? She frequents the bar all the time. As a matter of fact, her husband is a fixture at the bar. Her husband? Tim Iannone. He wasn't even on the radar at the time. What was your sense of why Tim Iannone's wife was calling? My initial response was that she was calling out.

She wanted you to investigate it? I think so. I really do. So when I called her, I said, you know, why would they say that? And she said because he had an altercation with a prostitute a week before. A prostitute? Remember, the second body next to Allison's just down the road from that bar was that of Angela Rothen, who at the time of her death was believed to be working as a prostitute. I immediately went to the Wilmington Police Department, found out that there was an actual case involving her husband

that he had picked up a prostitute and had assaulted her. Sonya Williams, Angela Rothen's friend, once an addict and prostitute. There's more to her story. She claimed she'd been assaulted by Tim Iannone. He had an open large size box cutter knife and he got it and he put it to my neck and he said, you will do what I tell you to do. And at that point he grabbed the back of my hair and made me continually have oil stakes with him. While he's holding his knife on you? Yes. Both Angela and Allison were murdered with a knife. He told me I could leave, and when I tried to leave,

he grabbed me, laid me down on the seat. He tied me up with duct tape. He beat me in the head. It sounds like you thought you were in a fight for your life. I thought that if I didn't get away from him, I was going to die. Sonia did manage to break free and escape. Within hours, Tim Iannone was under arrest.

I know what he did to me. And I know that he is dangerous. Iannone was charged with kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon in the attack on Sonia Williams. But rather than be a reliable witness, Williams admits to giving police and prosecutors the slip, preferring not to relive the horrors of the experience, but instead to get high, to blot out the memory.

The result, without her testimony, Ayanoni was offered a plea deal and was sentenced to probation. For Private I Mark Benson, a pattern was emerging. Three more prostitutes told police that they too had had violent sexual encounters with Tim Iannone. Benson knew Iannone had convictions for embezzlement and larceny on his criminal record, but no history of sex crimes. The evidence against him is entirely circumstantial, but there is a lot of it. For example, the spot where Iannoni's alleged assault of the prostitute took place, it's located perhaps 100 yards from where Allison and Angela's bodies would later be found.

Did that make him the number one suspect in Allison's disappearance? Absolutely it did. So the private eye narrowed his focus to the case he was hired to solve, Allison Foy's murder. And two more details jumped out. In July 2006, Tim Iannone lived just around the corner from the pub where Allison was last seen. And finally, there was this.

Remember, on the night she disappeared from the pub, Allison's best friend said she'd had too much to drink to drive her own car home. So a call was made and her friend said Allison left that night with a cabbie, stuck his head in the door and said, did anyone here call a cab? And what does Tim Iannone do for a living? At the time of Allison's disappearance, he was a cab driver.

So it's possible that when the bartender that night called a cab for Allison, she was calling Tim Iannone? Could have been. In fact, Iannone, who was a regular at the pub, had his cell phone number on a special list kept behind the bar as a cabbie to call if anyone needed a ride home. The cab driver came in with a ball cap on, scruffy beard he believed, and country stocky. That's all he could tell me was that he was country stocky. That describes Tim Iannone.

To a T. I mean he's maybe 5'10", 240. And so now we have a cab driver who was a regular at the bar. And frequents prostitutes. It doesn't get much better than this. We're looking for a sexual predator with a history of violence. Someone who is at least in some way connected to the junction bar. Someone who is at least in some way potentially connected to a cab. Someone who likes knives.

Someone who fits the description, country stocky. And we're looking for someone who has a connection to the burial site. You can put a check mark by every single one. He goes to the top of the list immediately. Did anyone see him that night? In other words, is he the guy? Start showing the picture around.

Is he the guy that poked his head in? No one can identify him. No one can or no one would? No one has. All right. What do the three of you make of Tim Iannone's wife essentially making him a suspect? She's pretty powerful. My experience has been when women put their husbands on the radar screen of the police department, usually it's because of fear.

Or they've done something to irritate them or make them mad. Do you guys believe that there really were any rumors? No, I think somebody would have called and hopes for that 10,000 reward if they really thought it was him. Because she knows within her heart that it's him. Or she has this possibility it might be him.

It could be him. What's your first move? Find Mr. Iannone and bring him in? I have to find Mr. Iannoni and bring him in? I had to find Mr. Ioannoni and bring him in. Well. And spend some quality time with Mr. Ioannoni. Wilmington, North Carolina.

The question being asked was whether, hidden among those residents, was a killer stalking women. A seemingly innocent email to Private I. Mark Benson, a message from a woman worrying about her husband, had led to a suspect in the murders of Allison Foy and Angela Rothen. That suspect, cab driver Tim Iannone, had been involved in that incident with a prostitute at a location close to where the bodies had been found, and he was a regular at the pub where Allison had been last seen. Sounds to me like this guy's a tailor-made suspect. On the surface, that's exactly what it looks like.

Wilmington police detective Mike Overton took the private eye's information and soon found more. A witness had spotted someone, a cab driver, he said, acting suspiciously in the area where the bodies were found. The result? A sketch. It resembles Mr. Ioannoni. It does.

You polygraphed Mr. Ioannoni? We polygraphed him. And he passed the polygraph? Passed all questions asked, actually. Despite Ioannoni denying any part in the murder and passing the polygraph, in June 2008, police had enough circumstantial evidence against Ioannoni to make their move, executing a search warrant that gave them permission to search Iannone's home, his vehicles, his previous residence, and any taxi cabs that Iannone might have driven during the time frame of the murders.

And? Search the house that he was presently living in, nothing, storage shed, vehicles, found absolutely nothing to link him to these crimes. And nothing in any of the cabs? Nothing in any of the cabs. For Allison's family, finding nothing was hard to believe. I just don't understand how they swear at a search warrant.

There's all this circumstantial evidence and then they turn up, you know, nothing. Maybe there was nothing there. Maybe there wasn't. I don't know. Time to talk to the man at the center of the case. Meet the cab driver, Tim Iannone. He and his wife Susan agreed to sit down with us in December 2008, largely in response to what they claim

was irresponsible coverage by the local TV stations and newspapers in Wilmington after details of the search warrant became public. They got the wrong guy. That's all I have to say. Why are you doing this interview today? What do you want people to know? Your prejudging and your lip service to details that you know nothing about hurt people. Hurt people that don't need to be hurt. What's happened to your reputation?

It's been dreadfully tarnished. Do you think people who see you on the street, who've read about you in the newspaper, they think you're a guy who got away with murder? Yeah, basically. A monster, I guess you would say. At this point, investigators believed Iannone was either a killer or one of the unluckiest men on earth.

A man whose own wife put him on the law enforcement radar screen in that email to the private eye. That was after Iannone was charged in that incident with former prostitute, Sonia Williams. How and why did you reach out to Mark Benson, the private eye? Truthfully, and this will be the first time that my husband's ever heard this. And if I have tears, you'll understand that I feel responsible for all of this. And he doesn't even know it. And he doesn't even know it.

Rumors were going around that my husband had something to do with Allison. Well, that made me mad. So what did Susan Iannone do to defend her husband of 24 years, the father of her two children, she essentially turned him in to private eye Mark Benson, hoping she says that the PI could help clear her husband's name. I called him to ask him simply if he had heard that.

The rumors that your husband was involved with Allison's disappearance. Right. Is that the first time you've heard that? Yeah, that's the first time I've heard that. Is she in trouble? No. The reason for contacting Mark was,

this is crazy, let's get this out of the way. You're much more interested in defending his reputation than he is. Tim and I are two very different people, if you haven't seen that already. Of course I'm going to defend him. I know what the truth is. Tim and I are two very different people, if you haven't seen that already. Of course I'm going to defend Tim. I know what the truth is. But what is the truth about the encounter that put Iannone under a microscope for the murders?

Sonya Williams? Mm-hmm. You know her? No, I met her that night. And you picked her up? Yes. And you attacked her? No, that's not what night. And you picked her up? Yes. And you attacked her? No, that's not what happened.

What did happen? I really don't know that I can talk about that, to be honest, because I don't know about the civil litigation that supposedly might be pursued on her behalf. You can simply tell them she stole from you. You don't have to elaborate any more than that. She stole from me, more or less. But there was no assault, no beating. The worst thing I ever did was pull her hair to keep her from running. It was not an attack, a rape. It was nothing like that.

Sonia Williams denies stealing from Iannone, sticks by her story, and now wishes she had shown up as a witness to help seal a case that was eventually pleaded down. You pled guilty to? Crime against nature. Having oral sex in a public place, more or less. You believe him? There was no rape, there was no assault. I absolutely believe him.

You know there are times he hasn't told you the truth. Sure. But you believe him about this? Yes. Sonya Williams, the only prostitute you've ever picked up? Yes. So other prostitutes who say that you've assaulted them, they're also lying?

Yes. And they'd be doing that, why? I have no idea Sometimes you have to consider the source be it right be it wrong meaning that a prostitutes word is worth less than in my opinion Sure sure. December 2008, Tim and Susan Iannoni sat down to answer questions about Tim's possible involvement in the murders of Angela Rothen and Allison Foy.

Like the Wilmington police, our team members had specific questions they wanted answered. If there's something that we don't know, if he has an airtight alibi that, you know, he was on a beach in Jamaica someplace, then let's reassess. And so the question of whether or not Tim Hynone has an alibi becomes a very big issue. It becomes the central issue in my mind. What's your alibi for the night that Allison disappeared? I don't have one. I don't know. I don't know where I was that night. I mean, if I was home, I would guess. We were home by seven o'clock and that's

where we stayed. That's where he was. You're his alibi? Yes. I'd have knocked him out if he wasn't at home with me. It's hard for me to believe that you don't understand why you would be a suspect. You were accused of assaulting prostitutes in exactly the area where the bodies were later found. You lived a stone's throw from the bar at which one of these women was last seen. You drive a cab. One of the victims was last seen by at least one witness trying to get a cab to leave the

bar. Correct. So, it's not a leap, I think, for anybody to think the police ought to be looking pretty seriously at you. Correct. I never had a problem with the police investigation. I mean, as far as them looking at me, I would have looked at me. You took a polygraph.

Yeah. Police told you you passed. Yes. They asked for DNA evidence. You gave it. Yes. They asked for hair evidence. You gave that.

Yeah. Are you a murderer? No. Did you kill Allison Foy? No. Did you kill Angela Roth? Yeah. Are you a murderer? No. Did you kill Allison Foy? No. Did you kill Angela Roth? No. What do you think happened to those women?

I couldn't even speculate. I don't know what kind of mind could contemplate doing something like that. So I mean, I had no idea. What do you think ought to happen to the person who committed those murders? Execution. Plain and simple. What do you want to say to those families? We're very sorry for your loss, but I'm not the ones who had any, I'm not the one who had anything to do with this.

What do you make of his construction there at the end? I'm not the ones, I'm not the one who had anything to do with this. Significant or a slip of the tongue? And he also says we're very sorry. Right, we're, as in plural. She's not the one being looked at. Right, it's just how.

Anything in body language catch your eye during this part of the interview? It's something that I found extremely interesting in that you asked him, are you a murderer? He said, no. Words said no. But his head said yes. He nodded his head yes.

You asked him, did you kill her? He said no. And again, his head nodded yes. I've seen that before. His body language, he can't control that, that happens. What do you make of the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Aynoni are willing to do this interview? My experience has shown me that a lot of times,

people want to sell you a package. I've interviewed people. They walk into the interview room, and they have stamps across their forehead. You know what? I'm not going to say anything. And then they turn around and say everything. Talk for hours and hours and hours, because they're trying to convince you. They

want you to believe their story. Okay, or he didn't do it and he's tired of having his name dragged through the book. Well, that's a good possibility. We checked out Iannone's claims that he'd only picked up one prostitute, Sonia Williams, for sex. With the help of police, we found this woman, no longer working the streets of Wilmington. We agreed not to identify her. He picked me up on numerous occasions, at least 10 to 15 times.

He gave me a cell phone number to have me call him if I needed a ride. If I didn't have money, instead of exchanging, me paying him for the ride, we exchanged sexual favors. And Wilmington police tell Dateline that Iannone has admitted to picking up nine prostitutes for sex. We confronted Mr. Iannone with this information. I was going to's an accurate statement. So the number nine is not true? Not true.

And what about that alibi? Police tell us cab records show Iannone did not clock out from driving a cab until after midnight the night Allison went missing. And so he could not have been home at 7 p.m. as his wife Susan described in our interview. The only reason I would have said 7 o'clock is because on Sundays, and if I back, it may not have been a Sunday, see, I don't remember. Do you think maybe you were mistaken?

I mean, sure I could be. That was when? 2006. Well, that alibi met a sudden death. It was too much to believe at the time and it doesn't surprise me in the least that that fell flat. He's now lying to not only the authorities, he's lying, he and his wife actually are lying to you. January 2009, the spotlight of suspicion that was shining so brightly on Tim Iannone in the summer of 2008, had been nearly extinguished. The cab driver, who's been so cooperative with police, has not been linked to the killings

with any hard, physical proof. That's despite what even he acknowledges, to be significant circumstantial evidence against him in the murders of Allison Foy and Angela Rothen. You've probably tried people with a weaker circumstantial case than that. Well, that's great circumstantial, but you still have to link it, you know, legally.

Iannone was so eager to help the police, he phoned Detective Mike Overton and volunteered to come in for an interview. How often do guilty people come in and offer to talk to you? It's pretty rare. And by late 2008, police were backtracking on some of the evidence that led them to execute that search warrant on Iannone's home, car, and taxi cabs. Remember that sketch? The result of an eyewitness who said he saw a cab like the one Iannone drove parked at

the site where the bones were found. I don't put a whole lot of credibility in this witness at this point. Because? I can't go into a whole lot of becausees, but we've done so much more investigation. I just don't put a whole lot of credibility today into what he told us then. And Wilmington police went even a step further, making headlines in November 2008 when they told reporters that Iannone was no longer a suspect. What was the exact language the police used when they called you?

Police tell Tim that he is cleared. And I said I certainly would. What was your reaction to hearing that? I guess that's good, but I expected that to be followed by the announcement of them arresting someone for this. That hasn't happened. We're going in other directions away from Mr. Inoni at this point. I'm hoping and praying that the police are doing their job and they know what they're doing

and that if he's not the guy, then he's not the guy. If they cleared this gentleman, then it's got to be somebody else out there that's responsible for this. So we're back at square one or square zero. Or square zero. Square zero is right. I have to tell you to sit there and watch John and Lisa struggle with the idea that this has got to sort of start all over is heartbreaking.

But in the end, you can't wish for the evidence to show you a certain thing. You have to follow the evidence where it takes you. And if it's not him, it to follow the evidence where it takes you. And if it's not him, it's not him. But it's somebody. What do you guys still want to know that you don't know now? I want DNA evidence.

Absolutely. No question. Wilmington police have done a lot in this case. They've made a lot of headway. One piece of evidence they don't have back yet is the DNA that they're gonna get off the sweater and the other garments found at the dump site. This was a Lizzie Borden blood bath. It was horrendous. So the killer came in contact with her sweater, came in intimate close contact with her sweater.

You think the DNA could close this case? That DNA is at the center of this investigation. Absolutely. It's either gonna be Tim Iannone's best friend or his worst enemy. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the answer? Time and the elements apparently destroyed any potential DNA on the sweater and other

garments at the dump site. Detectives say there was no DNA link to Iannone in either Allison's or Angela's cases. You still leave your mind open for other suspects? Of course. Always. Absolutely. It always comes down to the question, what have we missed? Right.

What have we missed? Since our story first aired, there have been major developments. In 2021, 15 years after Allison Jackson Foy's body was found, Wilmington police were going through some old pieces of evidence that had never been processed. And there was an amazing story attached to one of them. Back in 1996, a woman had reported to police that a man had picked her up in a vehicle, raped her, beaten her, and held her against her will, and then left her for dead on the side of the road.

A passerby saved her life by getting her to a hospital where evidence was collected using a rape kit. That rape kit had languished in a police evidence room without being processed until North Carolina legislators allocated funds to help pay to test those kits by sending them to a lab. And when Wilmington police sent in the evidence kit from that alleged rape back in 1996, the lab came back with a hit DNA matching a man. A man named Timothy Iannone. So in November of 2021, authorities arrested and charged Iannone with rape and kidnapping. A jury convicted him of those charges. And in 2022, a judge sentenced Iannone to serve at least 48 years in prison.

Prison is likely where Tim Ayanoni will die. He is not eligible for parole until the year 2074, when he will be 113 years old. As for Ayanoni's wife Susan, who so vehemently defended his innocence to Dateline and to me, she died in 2024. Allison Jackson Foy's father John, also featured in our story, died in 2015. And those two little girls Allison left behind? Courtney was 12 when her mother disappeared. She's now 31, has a baby of her own, and is carrying on her mother's love of gymnastics by running a gymnastics school. Her little sister Jordan, who was just 4 years old at the time her mom was murdered, is now 27, going to nursing school and writing a book about her own life and her mom's story.

And finally, Allison's sister Lisa has never given up the fight to find and charge her sister's killer. Lisa Valentino continues to work on the case, as well as to share all she's learned with the families of others who are missing missing as the New Jersey State Outreach Coordinator for a group called the Q Center for Missing Persons. In fact, one of the cases she's working on now is about the disappearance of a woman named Danielle Lopez in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Lisa and I met again for the first episode of season four of my podcast series,

Dateline Missing in America. The episode is called Lost Lane, and it's out now. I hope you'll take a listen.