Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - From Backlog to Breakthrough - The Murder of Nadia Iverson

Starting point is 00:00:00 To listen ad-free, visit Zinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show. It's easy to think that DNA is the panacea that will solve every cold case. The technology has come mind-blowingly far and has been used to solve many, many cases, including the murder of Stephanie Isaacson that we covered just a few weeks ago. And of course, DNA and investigative genetic

Starting point is 00:00:31 genealogy helped identify the Golden State killer James D'Angelo in 2018. That's not how it worked out initially for Nadia Iverson, though. Investigators knew exactly who she was, and it was clear exactly how she was murdered, but for a variety of reasons, the case went cold quickly, leaving her family with nothing but questions. It wasn't until 20 years later when Nevada cleaned up their gigantic rape kit analysis backlog that investigators and her family were able to get some answers, and 25 years later before they saw any degree of justice served on her killer. Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence as well as missing persons and unsolved cases. I'm your host, Sean, and with me, as always, is the one and only John.

Starting point is 00:01:28 I am the only John in the room. We have a case this week that went cold for nearly 20 years where DNA plays a vital part in the eventual solve, which is becoming more and more common as the technology around DNA is getting better. Companies like Othram Labs can get valid DNA profiles from extremely small samples. We'll talk in a bit about why the case went cold for so long. In the 90s, when DNA technology was new, there was no central database of DNA profiles like there is now. The technology was rudimentary, it was poorly understood, and it took time to be adopted by law enforcement. All of that led to widespread systemic problems that we have a lot to say about, but do you

Starting point is 00:02:09 want to get us started by telling the listeners more about Nadia Iverson? Sure. When we first started researching this case, it seemed like it was another example of a murder here in Las Vegas where there was very little information about the murder victim, but we did end up finding some good information in a local hometown paper near where Nadia grew up. Nadia was born on May 4, 1977, in Pittsfield, Warren County, in the northwestern part of Pennsylvania near Erie. Her mom's name is Judy Buchanan, and she had a younger sister named Marie, whose married name is Marie Coker.

Starting point is 00:02:49 We actually had to do a little bit of genealogy research ourselves to find out much more about her family. Her mother and father weren't together, but we can see that she has her sister, who we have a lot of information from, a brother, and two half-brothers, one of whom passed away in 2006 at the age of 34. Nadia and Marie were very close, and from what we've read, they had a pretty typical older sister-younger sister relationship. Marie has the most amazing things to say about her big sister that really help understand the type of person Nadia was growing up, so we're going to share some of those. We're thankful that she shared all of this with her hometown paper because it offers really great insight into the cool and unique person Nadia was. She described her sister as unique and said she was a firecracker and that she was very spunky and strong-willed and confident in what she was and that she marched to her own beat.

Starting point is 00:03:38 As you might expect, according to Marie, Nadia was friends with just about everybody she met. She was a very likable person, someone who just had to make sure others felt safe. She was the type to take others under her wing and take care of them. Another quote that stuck out to us was that she said, she put pickle juice on her sandwiches and stole the pimentos from her sister's olives, which really does paint a picture for anyone with a younger sibling. And she does sound super sassy. Marie told a story about how Nadia gave her her first tattoo when she was 13. It's just three

Starting point is 00:04:13 letters, Taz, T-A-Z, like the Tasmanian devil. She said, we were both a bit spunky back then, and it described both of us. It's no surprise that she said that she's really happy that she has this small memento in her sister's handwriting. She also talked about how the first time she used eyeliner, it was because of Nadia, who pinned her up against the wall and applied it, adding that her sister had a natural style and a gift for cosmetology and being a stylist. She was a girl with big hair in the era of big hair. Nadia's my age, only born eight days before me. Being from New Jersey, I kind of know a little something about the big hair era of the late 80s, early 90s. And she absolutely loved Warren County

Starting point is 00:05:02 where she grew up. She loved fishing in the Allegheny River, swimming in Broken Straw Creek in the nearby town of Garland, and walking for hours balancing on the train tracks that ran behind the family's house. If she got to choose, she'd choose to eat at the family-owned restaurant The Galley in Youngsville, which is still there to this day. We looked it up, and it looks like a great family restaurant. According to Marie, as a preteen, Nadia would come up with names for her future children and she wanted to find love and start a family. Nadia graduated from Youngstown

Starting point is 00:05:36 High in 1995 and Marie said that she had a serious boyfriend and they were planning to get married. When that didn't work out, Nadia was crushed. The two broke up in 1997, and as Marie put it, when you live in a small town, it's hard to avoid seeing your ex everywhere. It was only a few weeks later that Nadia met a new guy, Gregory Scott Vasilisan, that she called Scott. Nadia and Scott picked up and drove out of town, heading to Las Vegas. Marie said that the only items left in her room were a pair of jeans and a cherished leather jacket. We're not sure why they decided to move here to Las Vegas, but things didn't go as planned. Scott got arrested for armed robbery soon after

Starting point is 00:06:16 they arrived, which must have been a huge problem since they were both young and probably didn't have the easiest time finding steady employment. Scott was known to the local authorities because there were allegations that he was abusive, but we'll have more to say about him later. We don't know exactly what happened after he was arrested, but her friend Tori said that she saw Nadia on her birthday downtown celebrating on May the 4th. On May 8th, 1997, construction workers found Nadia murdered in a housing project called Marble Manor in Las Vegas' historic West Side at 1226 Reed Place near Washington Boulevard and Martin Luther King Avenue.

Starting point is 00:06:55 She had been shot in the head just four days after her 20th birthday. She was found wearing a turquoise jogging suit with purple sleeves, and newspaper reports at the time commented that she was thin and clean-cut with dark hair in the typical weird 1990s fashion. Police were able to identify her in just a few days because she herself had been arrested recently. An autopsy concluded that Nadia had been killed by a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, and according to the medical examiner, the entry wound indicated that the barrel of the gun was being pressed to the back of her head when it was fired. The bullet then exited the front of her face and was recovered from an adjacent

Starting point is 00:07:33 bedroom in the house. There were some dirty tissues recovered from the scene. No shell casings, money, or identification was recovered. The medical examiner noted that there was evidence that Nadia had been sexually assaulted as well. They collected what was called at the time a sexual assault forensic evidence kit, but today we'd just call that a rape kit. That included clippings of fingernails, swabs from her clothing, and some tissues that had been found at the scene, as we said, and all this was properly preserved in evidence. As we mentioned before, though, at the time, law enforcement didn't really know what to do with this evidence once they had it. There was no way to search for the perpetrator.

Starting point is 00:08:11 They would just have to hope they stumbled across it, and even then there was very little cross-referencing at the time in such cases. Nadia's rape kit and over 8,000 others became the backlog of kits needing to be processed here in Nevada. It would be two decades before all of those kits were finally analyzed. Let's pause for a minute and hear from our friends at PNW Haunts and Homicides. Take it away, Caitlin and Cassie. Hey, creepy people. This is PNW Haunts and Homicides.

Starting point is 00:08:41 I'm Caitlin. And I'm Cassie. Together, we explore stories of the paranormal and true crime throughout the Pacific Northwest. For each episode, we do a tarot reading to help us gain some insight on the topic as we share the facts of the case and our interpretations. You can find our episodes featuring true stories from infamous cases such as the misdeeds of Boeing, as well as lesser known true crime cases like the murders in Tunnel 13. As well as our spooky stories from Pike Place and Raven's Manor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else you'd like to listen. Have a creepy ass day.

Starting point is 00:09:18 Now back to the episode. This problem was not unique to Nevada. Nationwide, in 2017, there was a backlog of 175,000 untested sexual assault forensic evidence kits for cases from 1985 all the way to 2014. The backlog existed partly because of a lack of funding for testing for things like staffing in forensic labs and lack of proper equipment. At the time, though, detectives would not even bother to test evidence if a suspect was already known, if a victim didn't want to participate in the prosecution, or if the detectives felt they had stronger, more valuable evidence already. Many officers didn't understand that this evidence could be used to catch repeat sex offenders. That makes sense because the technology itself was really new. For Las Vegas Metro specifically, they didn't even start DNA testing sexual assault kit evidence until 1999. Before that, they were using a blood serum test that was much less accurate. Blood serum testing only led to convictions in as few

Starting point is 00:10:16 as 1 in 33 people. That was the same type of testing that resulted in Gary Dotson being sent to prison for six years for a rape he didn't commit. And it was actually DNA evidence, as you'll recall, that finally helped him get exonerated in that case. In 2015, Nevada received $4.7 million in total funding to analyze these kits and clear the backlog. There had been a growing concern for over a decade that the rape kit backlog was growing and it was preventing the prosecution of these criminals. The attorney general at that time, Adam Laxalt, formed the Nevada Sexual Assault Backlog Working Group, and one of their first steps was to develop a bill of rights for crime victims that specified that rape kits would have to be sent to labs within 30 days and analyzed within 120 days. In 2017, Nevada added more forensic lab

Starting point is 00:11:07 staff, two in Clark County and six in Washoe County. That's where Reno is. They also outsourced the analysis of some kits while they brought on new staff. Between the outsourcing and the added staff, they churned through the backlog steadily. It was very big news here in Nevada at the time with victims and families of victims finally hopeful their attackers could be prosecuted. Finally, five years later, on December 31st, 2020, Attorney General Aaron Ford announced that the state of Nevada had cleared its backlog of 7,855 kits. CODIS is the FBI's combined DNA index system, the National Criminal DNA Database. NDIS is the National DNA Index System, and it's part of CODIS. It contains the DNA profiles

Starting point is 00:11:55 uploaded by participating forensic labs, local, state, federal labs, such as the forensic lab here in Las Vegas run by Metro. The DNA profiles are uploaded into NDIS from evidence collected from many different sources, from missing persons, John and Jane Doe's, from crime scenes, as well as from arrested and convicted offenders. As forensic techs work through the backlog here in Nevada, these profiles were uploaded into NDIS, and at first, they were seeing a 40% match rate or hit rate to profiles already in CODIS, which is incredibly high. A CODIS hit or match can happen in one of two ways. The first is when a DNA profile developed from evidence is uploaded to CODIS and matches with the profile already in

Starting point is 00:12:38 the system. The second is a case-to-case hit where an unidentified DNA profile matches another unidentified profile from a different case. This type can be helpful in identifying serial sex offenders. When there is a potential match, the lab staff will perform a set of procedures to confirm. These confirmed matches provide invaluable information to the investigators, helping to identify potential suspects or serial criminals. Naturally, the more data that is uploaded, the more likely it will be to get these matches and the leads needed to close a case or identify a suspect or a Jane or John Doe. The testing of the backlog kits led to 1,083 DNA matches and 64 arrests. That's 64 people being prosecuted that weren't being prosecuted before,

Starting point is 00:13:25 all because Nevada cleared that backlog. It was great news for the community. Also, in 2019, Nevada legislators enacted SB 368, which created the Sexual Assault Survivors Bill of Rights, which grants sexual assault survivors the right to have their kits sent to a lab within 30 days and tested within 120 days. Survivors also now have the right to be informed of any results of their medical forensic examination, to be informed of evidence preservation policies, and, upon request, to defer analysis and have the kit preserved for at least 50 years for uncharged or unsolved sexual assaults, and at least 20 years for unreported or anonymous sexual assaults. The initial funds to expand the analysis effort were sort of one-offs, but going forward, Metro procured funding of $1.6 million a year to meet that 120-day time limit

Starting point is 00:14:19 and planned to hire eight new people to process kits and pay for kit testing supplies. This all came about in 2016 when the Joyful Heart Foundation, in collaboration with the Covitus Public Affairs Group, launched a nationwide campaign aimed at ending the rape kit backlog. The campaign strategy was established after a review of existing work in the field, including input from 75 experts, including advocates, survivors, prosecutors, investigators, crime lab personnel, and leaders at state, local, and national levels. After that, they did a comprehensive analysis of policy opportunities across all 50 states. The assessment established six key pillars essential for states to achieve comprehensive

Starting point is 00:15:02 rape kit reform. Those six pillars are implementing a statewide inventory of rape kits and backlog, mandating the submission and testing of all backlogged rape kits, mandating the submission and testing of all new rape kits, creating a statewide kit tracking system, implementing a mechanism for survivors to track the status of their kit, and allocating appropriate funding to submit, track, and test those kits. The progress of each kit is tracked on their website they established, which is endthebacklog.com.

Starting point is 00:15:35 You can actually visit that site right now and check out how your state is doing, and if they're not doing well, you can ask your legislators to prioritize getting these kits tested and implementing the proper legislation. Only one state on the list, Maine, has done absolutely nothing. If you live there, you should probably start calling your state legislature and your governor today to encourage them to get that process started. Many states have made good progress, and hopefully, before long, the national backlog will be entirely gone. So what did this mean for Nadia, whose case went cold almost immediately as they exhausted leads?

Starting point is 00:16:07 The DNA evidence collected from Nadia and the murder scene was tested as part of Nevada's effort to clear the backlog in 2016, a shocking 19 years after the crime had been committed. When Nadia's kit was tested, they got a CODIS hit, and it matched someone known to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. Very well known, in fact. In order to confirm that match, our old friend Dino

Starting point is 00:16:31 Kelly and his partner Ken Hefner took a trip up to Reno, where the suspect had been happily living his life for the past 20 years. You might remember Dino Kelly as being the lead investigator on the decade-long investigation of the black widower Tom Randolph. They followed him and were able to obtain a sample of his DNA. After additional testing, the police had their suspect. The DNA collected from the crime scene matched a former Las Vegas Metro police officer, Arthur Lee Sewell, who, as it turns out, has quite a history. Arthur Lee Sewell took a job as a corrections officer in 1990 and became a Las Vegas Metro police officer in 1992 at age 25.

Starting point is 00:17:12 In 1995, the police responded to a domestic disturbance at his home while he was still on the force. His.357 revolver was impounded, but it was later returned. Despite that, he was not removed from duty. In February of 1997, Las Vegas Metro set up a sting operation at the notorious Del Mar Hotel. There, Sewell was caught on video forcing a sex worker to perform a sex act. He was arrested and charged with oppression under the color of law. In other words, he was coercing and assaulting sex workers by threatening them with his authority as a police officer. He was convicted and given five years probation, and he resigned from the police force almost immediately. His DNA was collected as a

Starting point is 00:17:57 condition of his probation. He moved away to San Diego, and while he was living there, he was arrested again for soliciting a sex worker, but this time the sex worker was actually an undercover cop. At the time of his arrest, the San Diego police confiscated, you guessed it, a.357 revolver from Sewell. In 2004, as he was nearing the end of his probation, Las Vegas officers discovered that Sewell had violated his probation multiple times. In addition to the San Diego arrest and gun possession, he had failed to submit reports to the probation officer regularly, and he was removed from a sex offender counseling program for noncompliance, according to prosecutor Doug Herndon. As a result, his probation was

Starting point is 00:18:41 revoked and he was sentenced to between 18 months and four years in prison, and he ended up serving about two years in jail. I want to take a second here and talk about Sewell's gun. As we mentioned above, no shell casing was found at the scene of Nadia's murder. That led investigators to believe that the bullet had come from a revolver. With a revolver, the shell casings are not automatically expelled from the gun. They remain in the cylinder until they are manually removed. The bullet they recovered at the scene was consistent and, quote, eerily similar to bullets that would be fired from the.357 revolver that Sewell had previously registered with Metro in 1995 and was confiscated from his home by the San Diego police

Starting point is 00:19:22 in 1999. But according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, that gun was destroyed. Based on the DNA match, criminal history, and possible murder weapon match, cold case detectives Ken Hefner and Dino Kelly interviewed Sewell on camera on January 10, 2018. The video of that interview is shocking. Sewell tried to claim that while he was having sex with Nadia, some other person came in and shot her. The detectives told Sewell that it was his gun that was connected to the crime, and he kept denying his involvement for over an hour, before claiming that he couldn't explain why his gun was pointed at her head and then why it went off, but it did go off and he panicked and he ran away. The next day, Sewell was arrested

Starting point is 00:20:06 and charged with sexual assault and murder with a deadly weapon. The case went before the grand jury in March of 2018. The grand jury declined to indict him on the sexual assault charge, but they did indict him for murder. That was difficult for me to understand, and I'm sure it is for a lot of our listeners as well. Sewell and some Metro police officers stated that Nadia was working as a sex worker. Sewell claimed that he and Nadia engaged in a consensual sex act that he paid her for. Nadia's family vehemently denies that she was working as a sex worker, as there is no evidence that she was ever arrested for solicitation, and as we mentioned, no cash was found at the

Starting point is 00:20:45 scene or on her person. I have some more to say about this, but I'm going to save it for the swing shift bonus episode. This indictment came nearly 20 years after her murder, and as Marie put it, Sewell, quote, had 20 years to live a secret life. The state did contemplate seeking the death penalty for Arthur Sewell at first, but declined to do so. While efforts were made by the defense to lower his bail, he remained in custody for the duration of the pretrial hearings. The prosecution was prepared

Starting point is 00:21:16 to bring in the DNA evidence, the evidence of the bullet matching a gun Sewell was known to own, and his past crimes. In pretrial hearings, District Attorney Pam Weckerle argued forcefully to be able to bring in the past evidence of Sewell sexually assaulting two sex worker victims in Las Vegas, as well as the San Diego undercover cop he attempted to threaten or coerce. As DA Weckerle put it, he engaged in sex with sex workers without getting paid, while in uniform and armed, when he had the authority to arrest them and deprive them of liberty. The court ruled that during trial, the Las Vegas victims could be brought up,

Starting point is 00:21:53 but since the San Diego cop wasn't really a sex worker, and at the time Sewell technically wasn't a Metro cop, that instance would not be used in trial. The defense's main pre-trial argument had to do with Sewell's confession. At the time he was questioned, he was not read his Miranda rights, and the police continued to question him after he asked to speak to an attorney. This turned out to be a huge mistake by the detectives. The prosecutors tried to argue that Arthur Sewell was a former officer himself, and he knew what he was doing, and was fully aware of his Miranda rights.

Starting point is 00:22:29 The defense argued that his statement was involuntary and coerced. They stated that defendant was an officer 20 years ago and laws change. The judge agreed with the defendant and the confession was tossed out. The state lost their appeal on that ruling. The defense also made some highly detailed requests for information on the DNA testing procedures and any corrective actions taken against lab techs, indicating that they were hoping to make an argument against the validity of the DNA test results. We don't know exactly what their arguments may have been because this case never made it to trial. In November 2022, 25 years after Nadia's murder, Arthur Sewell accepted a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 6 to 15 years,

Starting point is 00:23:15 with credit for 1,811 days, nearly five years of time served. Art Sewell is currently serving out his sentence at High Desert Prison, and he's eligible for parole in 2028. Nadia's sister and her whole family have committed to be present at any and all parole hearings to make sure he serves out his full 15-year sentence. They feel like he got off very light with that sentence, and we'll talk about that in the Swing Shift episode, so make sure you subscribe so you can listen to that. I'll just say that we have some thoughts on that. We also wanted to circle back and talk about Gregory Scott Vassilin. Remember him? He's the boyfriend that Nadia moved to Las Vegas with back in 1997. At some point after he got out of jail, he moved back to Pennsylvania and got married to a woman named Kenda, and they had two children.

Starting point is 00:24:00 This is horrible, but Gregory actually murdered Kenda in an incredibly grisly fashion with an axe, and on November 19, 2002, he called into Fox News in New York City to confess to the murder. He hung up, but they used caller ID to trace him, and Kenda's body was discovered in Warren County, Pennsylvania shortly after. Greg fled to Las Vegas, and in less than 12 hours, he was arrested downtown. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is currently 61. We'd like to take a moment just to talk about Kenda because it seems that no news outlets really did that, and she deserves at least that.

Starting point is 00:24:42 Kenda was 34 at the time she was murdered. She loved horseback riding, and according to one of her sisters, she was a bit of a procrastinator, doing things like waiting until the last minute to do her taxes, which I can relate to. In the memorial website set up by her sister, there are some really nice quotes about her. Kenda was tragically taken from us much too early in life. She leaves behind two daughters, two sisters, her mother and father, as well as a great number of friends who loved and cherished her. She will be missed by all who are fortunate enough to have come to know her. Kenda was a pillar of strength. She gave support, help, and encouragement to many people around her.

Starting point is 00:25:19 She had the spirit of an angel. She could always light up a room when she walked into it. She was beautiful inside and out. I can remember Kenda and I dressing up in my mother's old Lastly, we'll finish up with some more quotes from Marie, Nadia's sister, in the aftermath of Art Sewell's long overdue prosecution and conviction. After 25 and a half years of waiting for justice, I feel, in a sense, relieved because he actually confessed. The fact that he's now owning it is something I've prayed for for a very long time, something that I've needed and my family has needed for closure. There will never be enough time served, she said. She deserved to live and have a life. He chose to use his police badge as an opportunity to serve and protect himself instead of the community. In two years, he will go before the parole board requesting release,

Starting point is 00:26:20 and I will be there. I will fight for every minute of the next 15 full years for my sister. I felt like I've had to be the voice for her to advocate for her because he took her voice. She lives on through us. I will take that forward with me and my children, and they will know the goodness and the love in her heart that she has for so many people. Nadia was laid to rest in her beloved home of Warren County, Pennsylvania. Her sister set up a GoFundMe, which we'll share in January of 2023, to fund a proper headstone. The one she got reads, Deep in our hearts, you'll always stay forever 20. Thank you for listening. We appreciate your support. If you're enjoying the podcast, we appreciate you sharing it with a friend and

Starting point is 00:27:04 leaving us a review. You can find us on all the social media platforms at Sins and Survivors. You can subscribe and listen ad-free on our Patreon and on Apple Podcasts, where you also will have access to our bonus Swing Shift episodes. Until next week, remember, what happens here happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit sinspod.co slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at questions at sinsandsurvivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support,

Starting point is 00:28:08 please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your hosts, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content

Starting point is 00:28:46 does not constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals for guidance.

Your Ad Here

Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - From Backlog to Breakthrough - The Murder of Nadia Iverson

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.