Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - Who Murdered Theresa Insana

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. When Teresa and Sana decided to move to Las Vegas after college, her family was very happy for her. She was looking forward to being among the excitement and glamour of the strip and to start a new career at a casino, and it was taking off quickly. She met a man at work, and they were engaged in just a few months,

Starting point is 00:00:29 but unfortunately, the wedding never happened. A few months later, her family and friends were frantically searching for her after she just vanished. 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 I'm your co-host, John. The case we're covering this week is a bit of a mystery that is still unsolved. Do you want to get us started? Sure. Teresa Insano was born on January 20, 1978, and grew up in Niagara Falls, New York, in the far western part of the state near Buffalo. Her parents are Joe and Anne Marie, and she's the middle child, with an older brother, Christopher,

Starting point is 00:01:24 and a younger sister, Mary Beth. She had a huge and close extended family with many aunts, uncles, and cousins. Her family is Catholic, and that was an important part of her upbringing. Her parents have given many interviews, and you can hear in their voice how close they were with Teresa. She was especially close with her dad. One of the things that we learned was that every year he made her a giant special cake for her birthday and was always incredibly generous with her. He absolutely adored her. For all the times we cover cases where there is little to no information available about the victim, this is certainly not one of those cases.

Starting point is 00:01:56 There is so much information that has been shared about Teresa, her life, and so many aspects of her personality, and we really want to highlight that here. Teresa was a great listener, and many of her friends went to her for advice and support. Some of the things she loved included Starbucks, Swedish Fish, Justin Timberlake, and all the latest pop culture and trends. She was also into fashion, shopping for clothing and accessories, and her friends often commented that she always looked excellent and so well put together and had a tremendous sense of style. Teresa attended Niagara Falls High School and was an outstanding student with a laundry list of accomplishments. She was in the top 10 of her class, a member of the Key Club, she played varsity tennis,

Starting point is 00:02:42 she was on the student council, in the National Honor Society, and she was also an avid dancer for seven years, and she was a cheerleader too. She was small in stature, only five feet tall, but by all accounts, she had the biggest heart imaginable, making lifelong friends in high school, college, at work, and wherever she went because of her kind, compassionate, and generous nature. After high school, she went to of her kind, compassionate, and generous nature. After high school, she went to SUNY Binghamton, where she continued cheerleading and joined the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority, eventually getting her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology in 2000. Post-graduation, Teresa returned home to Niagara Falls to figure out her next steps. Her father was supportive as always, but told her she had to get out there because she was meant for something great. She took a trip to Las Vegas and when she

Starting point is 00:03:29 came home, she announced that she was moving there. In an interview, her college friend and sorority sister said she basically just came home and packed a suitcase or two, then told her family she was moving to Las Vegas and would be starting a career in sales there. Around 2000, Las Vegas was booming, so it seemed like a reasonable move. Her parents were understandably worried about her since she would be living so far away, but also understood how important it was for her to move out of their house and begin her career and live in a city. She moved to Vegas with her childhood friend, Melissa Madge, who had lived next door to the Insana since they were young. They both found jobs right away in sales at different casinos, with Teresa finding work

Starting point is 00:04:09 at the Rio and Melissa at Harrah's. Both of those are Harrah's properties, so they were both roommates and co-workers too. Now that they were both employed, they were able to move into a two-bedroom apartment together at the Valencia Apartments in Summerlin. Her parents came to visit her and were so happy to know that she had found her place here in Las Vegas. She loved her job and her life here. Of course, even though she was thousands of miles away from home, she made it a point to stay in close contact, often sending thinking of you cards to her mom, dad, sister, and friends. In 2002, she met and started dating Jeff Fenton, a co-worker at the Rio who worked in the marketing department. Jeff had been divorced once and he was 30 years old,

Starting point is 00:04:52 a few years older than her. Teresa's parents said they liked him and he seemed like a really good guy. They moved in together and even got a dog, a very cute blue-eyed cocker spaniel named Frankie, who she often described as the love of her life. Frankie, not Jeff. Teresa loved animals. After only three months, the two got engaged, which seemed really fast to everyone in her life, but her dad did comment that Jeff seemed serious, even asking for his permission before proposing. They were engaged for just over a year and planned to get married back in Niagara Falls in April of 2004. But just weeks before the wedding in March, Jeff apparently got cold feet and claimed he wasn't ready to be married and Teresa was devastated. Teresa apparently discovered

Starting point is 00:05:38 the name of one of their co-workers named Melissa Ball on their caller ID for their home phone one afternoon. This isn't really a thing people normally have anymore, but in 2004, it was common to have a landline, since cell phones were fairly rare and expensive still, and you could get a caller ID box that would show you the names and numbers of people who call the landline. Teresa was definitely suspicious about that name showing up on their caller ID, but since they had broken up, there wasn't really a lot to be done about it. She continued working at the Rio with both Jeff and Melissa, and just tried to move on. It turned out that her suspicions were correct, and Jeff started dating Melissa shortly after they broke up. Regardless, though, Teresa and Jeff remained friendly since they worked together and co-parented Frankie together.

Starting point is 00:06:27 At one point, Jeff even agreed to stay over at Teresa's house where they used to live together to take care of Frankie on a night when Teresa had to work an overnight shift at the Rio. After the breakup in May, Teresa's friend Grace traveled to Las Vegas to visit, which she did every year. And Teresa shared something unsettling with her. She told Grace that she had been getting the feeling that someone had been in her house while she was at work. She said that sometimes the TV would be on a different channel than she left it, or that the DVD player was on, when she was sure that it was off when she left for work. She also said at one point to a co-worker that she felt like someone had followed her in her car on at least one occasion, but had then backed away.

Starting point is 00:07:10 Teresa didn't have a security system or cameras, which were still pretty rare back then, and she lived in Summerlin, which is considered to be a very safe area. Unfortunately, Grace said that she never ended up changing her locks, likely because it's so safe there generally. She also didn't have some sort of high-risk lifestyle that you would think would invite danger, so the idea that someone had been in her house was very odd. In the summer of 2004, Teresa was in Grace's wedding, and when she returned to Vegas, she started contemplating making a change.

Starting point is 00:07:39 She was considering going to grad school and possibly moving back east to be closer to her family. Instead, though, in September, she was offered a significant promotion at the Rio to sales manager, which included a significant raise, and she decided to hold off on the grad school plan for the time being, which was very disappointing to friends who wanted to see more of her. Tuesday, October 26th, was a day like any other for Teresa. She left work a bit early to go and vote at a local church and then headed home to walk Frankie and hang out with him on her patio. She called her mom around 6.30 and they chatted for a few minutes and nothing seemed wrong. Her mom said she seemed perfectly normal and she said she was going to have dinner and turn in

Starting point is 00:08:20 early. Teresa also called Grace, but she missed that call. And when Grace called her back around 730, there was no answer, even though Teresa told her mom she'd be at home. The next day, Teresa didn't show up for work. And by Thursday, October 28th, her co-workers were getting very worried about her and called the security office at the Rio. After that, her friend Melissa, along with two of her co-workers, including Jeff, her former fiancé, headed to her house to check on her. As soon as they entered the home, they knew something was very wrong. Her beloved dog Frankie was all alone, unattended, which is something Teresa would never do. Her purse, keys, cell phone, and her car were all there in the home, and on the bumper of her car, there was what looked like a spot of blood,

Starting point is 00:09:10 so they decided to call Las Vegas Metro. The officers called in the homicide division, who, as soon as they saw the blood on her car, decided to treat the house like a homicide scene and started analyzing it for clues to help locate Teresa and piece together what might have happened. They brought in two detectives who would take over the search for her. What the police investigators found in the house was very confusing. It seemed clear to them that Teresa wouldn't have left her dog alone for two days, or left all of her belongings there if she left. And of course, how would she have left if her car was still in the garage? They started to think that Teresa might have been attacked by an unidentified intruder sometime between 6.30 when she talked to her mom and 7.30 when Grace called her and that call went unanswered.

Starting point is 00:09:51 They found blood spatters on a downstairs bathroom mirror and on the bathroom floorboard and noticed that a towel rack was missing, looking like it had been torn out of the wall. They also found a large footprint that certainly wasn't Teresa's, and a small metal ring they couldn't identify that was about the size of a dime. They examined the car and found more blood in the trunk along with the blood on the bumper, which did turn out to be Teresa's, and also noticed that the car's front seat had been pushed all the way back. Based on that, they came up with an interesting theory. Since Teresa was only five feet tall, there was no reason the seat would be back that far. But where was she? There was no evidence of a break-in. Could it be that someone entered through the unlocked sliding door to the

Starting point is 00:10:35 patio where she used to hang out with Frankie? Another strange aspect is that nothing was stolen or missing, which casts doubt on the robbery theory. When her family back in Niagara Falls heard about all of this, her parents immediately flew to Las Vegas, and Metro, in their words, turned the zip code upside down looking for her. They canvassed the area immediately to ask if anyone had seen anything, even using dogs to help with the search. A few days later, on November 1st, around 11 a.m., Teresa's friends and family received the news they were dreading. She had been found by some construction workers, murdered, just three and a half miles from where she lived,

Starting point is 00:11:15 near the corner of Hualapai Way and Peace Way. She was found wrapped in blankets and towels, using duct tape and rope, and she had been moved down a steep embankment and placed in standing water in a drainage culvert under the road. This is in the southwest area of the Las Vegas Valley, and in 2004, it was very much the outskirts of the city. The coroner determined that she had been murdered by strangulation and blunt force trauma. Police had very little to go on at that early point in the investigation, but their somehow both wild and plausible theory was that an intruder entered her home and attacked

Starting point is 00:11:50 Teresa. They struggled, resulting in the attacker being injured enough to leave blood evidence and Teresa being murdered, with that struggle at least partially taking place in that downstairs bathroom, possibly with the missing towel bar being used by one of them as a weapon. At that point, they think the attacker wrapped Teresa in blankets and towels from the home, loaded her into the trunk of her own car, and drove her to the site where he left her in that culvert under Hualapai Way in Summerlin. Notably, they pointed out that the blankets and towels used came from Teresa's home, but the duct tape and the rope didn't, and their theory on that was he had brought them with him to the home. But here's where their theory gets harder to believe.

Starting point is 00:12:29 They think he then drove back to her home and parked her car back in the garage and tried to clean up the scene, thankfully not harming Frankie along the way. Investigators found evidence of spray bottles with cleaning supplies, trash bags, and used paper towels, so it seemed possible, although no one could explain why he might have done that or why she was targeted. They described that cleanup as methodical. Those blood droplets in the bathroom were identified as having come from a male, but there were no DNA matches in any of the DNA databases. At the time in 2004, of course, there was limited data to match people using a DNA sample and no way to match unknown samples. Police spoke to Jeff Fenton, Teresa's ex-fiancé, and the woman he started dating after he and Teresa had broken up, Melissa Ball.

Starting point is 00:13:17 The two had an airtight alibi for the night Teresa disappeared. They were at a Honda dealership buying a new car between 6.30 and 7.30 on the night she was murdered, and that's the window that police believe the crime happened within. Both the salesperson they worked with and other staff at the dealership confirmed they were there. Despite that, the police interviewed the pair several times, and at least one of the officers seems to think that Jeff, Melissa, or both might know more than they were admitting. I'm not sure why that is, though. We'll talk a little bit more why we disagree with the police on this point,

Starting point is 00:13:49 and think it's incredibly unlikely they were involved in our swing-shift overtime episode. At one point, they gave both Jeff and Melissa polygraph tests, but nothing conclusive was learned, and neither one was charged, nor been a serious suspect as far as we can determine. With no plausible suspects and a completely unprosecutable case against anyone, the case was transferred to the Cold Case Division. Teresa's family has been active in keeping both her case and her memory alive, and they've been working with Metro for over 20 years in the effort to solve the case. They've said on many occasions they appreciate how much attention

Starting point is 00:14:25 has been given to Teresa's case over the years. Yolanda McCleary, a now-retired Metro crime scene investigator, never let this case go, and she has kept in touch with the family for over 20 years, and in 2017, she personally funded the testing of the male DNA found at the crime scene using a new technology called DNA phenotyping, which was performed by a company named Parabon. DNA phenotyping is a process which can predict the physical appearance and ancestry of an unknown person using their DNA. That's very different than genetic genealogy, which we've talked about many times before. That process can identify a subject by searching for relatives in public databases and by building a family tree. Parabon performed the analysis and came back with a profile for the

Starting point is 00:15:11 DNA found at the scene, along with a photo of what the possible assailant likely would have looked like. They also age progressed the photo to show what the man would look like in 2017 when the analysis was performed. They determined that he was likely of Southeast Asian descent, likely Filipino, with black hair and black or brown eyes. We'll share the image on social media and post it on our website. You'll be able to find that at sinspod.co slash 71. According to friends and family, the photo didn't look like anyone familiar to any of them or anyone they knew was in Teresa's life, which adds to the mystery. Unfortunately, people of Asian descent have been underrepresented in genealogical databases, making performing genetic genealogy searches much more challenging.

Starting point is 00:15:56 There is some hope that eventually there will be a match on the DNA profile, or that someone will recognize the sketch and come forward with information. Teresa's family is very religious, and they have faith that eventually the mystery who killed Teresa will be solved. But in the meantime, they are doing an incredible job of keeping her memory alive. They have a great array of social media presences, including a Facebook page where they post updates on the case and memories of Teresa, an Instagram page which focuses more on photos of Teresa, her family, friends, and her dog Frankie, and a TikTok account, which of course has short-form videos where you can learn about the case and about Teresa, and these are all named

Starting point is 00:16:35 Justice for Teresa Insana. We'll be sure to share leaks to those on the blog post that we'll be putting up so you can find all of those links in one place. There is also a documentary being made, which is being funded by a GoFundMe. You can learn more about that at TeresaInsanaDocumentary.com. That documentary is taking time to produce because it's funded by contributions, but they're planning to come to Las Vegas in 2025 for the next phase of filming. The family also created a scholarship fund in Teresa's name called the Teresa Insana Memorial Scholarship. It's awarded every year to two graduating seniors in Niagara Falls, not Teresa's actual high school because that has been turned into a community

Starting point is 00:17:15 center. The family hosts a scholarship dinner event every year where they award the scholarship and celebrate Teresa's memory. As of 2023, they have gifted over $30,000 in scholarship money. Unfortunately, her beloved dad Joe passed away in April of 2021. He died never able to learn the truth of what happened to his daughter or to see her murderer brought to justice. Teresa's family and friends aren't deterred, and with the Parabon sketch out there and with the use of forensic genetic genealogy, they are hopeful that they'll someday get answers as to what happened and why, and they'll finally see justice for Teresa. As of 2017, cold case detectives Ken Hefner and Dino Kelly from Las Vegas Metro were assigned to the case. These two detectives also

Starting point is 00:18:01 tenaciously pursued murderer Thomas Randolph, so it's clear the case is in excellent hands. There are ways you can help get that justice for Teresa and her friends and family. You can share this story and tell people about Teresa's case. You can contribute to the documentary GoFundMe, which is short of its crowdsourcing goal. And you can upload your DNA profile into the DNA Justice Database, which is a nonprofit database used by law enforcement to identify unidentified victims and suspects in criminal investigations and homicides and sexual assaults. You can have your DNA analyzed by 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage, or any

Starting point is 00:18:36 third-party DNA company that will allow you to download the raw data. The details on how to upload to DNA Justice are on the Parabon site, which you can find at sinspod.co slash Parabon. We encourage everyone to do this as soon as possible. There's no knowing if your DNA can help a family get closure. Parabon also runs research studies, which you can participate in, and you can help them by using their Snapshot Study iPhone app as well. The details of all of that are on that same page on their website. Lastly, of course, if anyone has any information regarding Teresa and Sana's case, they should contact the Las Vegas Metro Police Department at 702-828-3521. You can also contact the Cold Case voicemail line at 702-828-8973 or email coldcasehomicide

Starting point is 00:19:30 at lvmpd.com. You can also remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555, or you can report online at crimestoppersofnv.com. Thank you, as always, for listening. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on whatever platform you're listening on. That's a great way for us to get the word out more widely about important cases like this. Until next week, we remind you, 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

Starting point is 00:20:33 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, 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.

Starting point is 00:21:15 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 does not constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals for guidance.

Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - Who Murdered Theresa Insana

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