The Deck - Brenda Gaddis (Jack of Spades, Ohio)

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Our card this week is Brenda Gaddis, the Jack of Spades from Ohio.None of Brenda’s friends or family could’ve guessed that Thanksgiving 1990 would be the last time they’d see the sweet 33-year-old mother of three. For weeks, it seemed like Brenda had vanished into thin air… but eventually finding her just lead to more questions that are still unanswered to this day.If you know anything about the murder of Brenda Gaddis in 1990, please call the Cold Case Unit at the Dayton Police Department at [phone]. To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllc The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Follow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Our card this week is Brenda Gattis, the Jack of Spades from Ohio. None of Brenda's friends or family could have guessed that Thanksgiving 1990 would be the last time they'd see the sweet 33-year-old mother of three. For weeks, it seemed like Brenda had vanished into thin air, but eventually finding her just led to more questions that are still unanswered to this day. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. Day Nohaya was fighting hard to keep the harsh Midwest winter away in December of 1990. The whole month was unseasonably warm, and Wednesday the 12th was no exception, with temperatures

hovering between 50 and 60 degrees. So two local salvagers, a man and a woman in their 30s, decided to take advantage of the warm weather and scour their neighborhood for aluminum cans littered to the side of the road that they could turn in for cash. What better way to spend the day? And what better road to walk than Guthrie Road? A twisting, turning street on the city's southwest edge that has all the elements of a can-hunting gold mine.

It's pretty rural feeling with a slight ditch on either side. Directly to the south is a big landfill, and on both sides of the road the ditch is lined with thick underbrushed, perfect for holding on to all kinds of aluminum treasures. As the salvagers were scouring the dense brush though, something caught their eye. Some kind of large object lying beneath all the branches. When the object came into focus, they were horrified to realize that what they were staring at was the nude body of a deceased woman. Now since the salvagers lived close by, they booked it home and immediately phoned police

who were quick to show up. They followed the pair to the location and immediately got to work roping off the area. Here's now retired detective Doyle Burke who responded to the scene that day. Well, you have to be careful in a scene like this because there is no word of step. In this thick underbrush, you have to kind of just painstakingly do it a piece of the time as you approach the body, you can't just rush in and grab the body. Even from a distance, it was clear that the woman hadn't died at that location.

It looked like she'd been placed there, and a while ago, based on the level of decomposition. But those weren't the only things investigators made note of right out of the gate. We noticed that she had a like a gold colored necklace on and a diamond ring. That's a clue. And again, you don't, you know, discount anything, but you have to go towards your most promising direction. If this is a robbery, I'm taking the ring and the necklace. I'm going to all the trouble to transport this body somewhere. I've got time to take those items. So you tend to think that, you know, that might not be the reason.

Also of interest for detectives was what wasn't on the woman's body, clothing. The lack of clothing is evidence in and of itself. The fact that the killer took time to disrobe her, transport her, but not take anything of value, it's almost like it's someone that's familiar with her in some form. As detectives got closer to the woman, they didn't see any obvious injuries,

like a gunshot wound or anything that pointed toward a cause of death. There also weren't any clues around the body that suggested a cause of death. In fact, there wasn't much for authorities to collect from the scene at all, aside from documenting some suspicious tire tracks that they found on the road. There were tire treads basically on the asphalt, but that I mean, they're black, you can make out the tread of the tires, and they're adjacent to where the body was thrown into the ditch. That could be the suspect vehicle.

Obviously, we had our evidence crews that do all the hard work, you know, document them, diagram them. The problem we have with things like that, they're pretty general tires. There's 9,000 cars this fits. So unless you get the vehicle and you can show that, oh, this one's worn, you know, this on the left side, it's 9,000 cars this fits. So unless you get the vehicle and you can show that, oh this one's worn, you know, this on the left side it's worn, and there's individual wear characteristics, it's to be documented and retained, but it's not, you know, I go get them tomorrow

lead. After processing the scene, police moved to canvassing the area. But like I mentioned earlier, it's kind of a more rural part of town, not totally remote, but definitely not a big business hub or super residential area. This was back before even businesses had cameras. Businesses are not on the roadway. They set way back. They've got long driveways. There are no close residences.

There's not a whole lot of people to talk to. It's traveled just well enough to wear a car at night, parked by the side of the road there while they dispose of her body. Nobody's gonna pay attention to it. The investigation was going nowhere fast, but it wouldn't be long before authorities biggest question was answered. Even though the woman was pretty decomposed,

the corner was able to rehydrate her fingers enough to lift her prince, which quickly came back as a match for 33-year-old Brenda Gattis. Who, as it turns out, died from blunt force trauma to the head? You basically have right on the left side of the head, just around the earlobe and a little above. But Forte-Strauma injury could be from a pipe, could be from a bat, could be from a stick. Other than the trauma to her head, Brenda didn't appear to have many other injuries. There were some slight abrasions on her legs, but it was undetermined if those were pre- or post-mortem.

There was also no defensive injuries, according to Detective Burke, although there is some source material that does note she looked to have put up a fight. And, surprisingly, there was no evidence of sexual assault. Once the autopsy was completed, authorities notified next of kin, Brenda's father and mother, James and Ida Gattis. Of course, they were heartbroken, but they'd suspected for a while that something was wrong. No one had seen or heard from Brenda since Thanksgiving a whole three weeks prior which was totally unlike her. They told police that Brenda was a person with substance use disorder and had been experiencing

homelessness for some time. But she wasn't like out living on the streets, she was more couch surfing, jumping between friends and relatives' homes. The family was very open about, you know, what she does, and the narcotics did not know anything about where she would get them or anything like that. They kind of separated themselves from that part, knew that she would turn to sex for money at some points in time or drugs, but not a steady sex worker. But still, Brenda's life didn't have the same unpredictability that sometimes accompanies a high-risk

lifestyle. She was reliable and visited her three young children who lived with Aida on the regular. But they told police that after a day of thanksgiving festivities with the family, she just vanished. Brenda's fiance Donald confirmed James and Ida's timeline. He hadn't seen Brenda since Thanksgiving either. In fact, the two of them had had plans to get together the day after Thanksgiving, but Brenda was a no-show. Which, Donald said right away had deeply concerned him.

He'd gone around and checked her usual haunts, friends' houses, Hoover Lane's, which was a bowling alley in Dayton that Brenda had worked out on and off, but he couldn't find her anywhere. Donald told investigators that once his searches turned up nothing, he went right to the police station to report Brenda missing. But as police pointed out to Donald at the time, Brenda was a full-fledged adult. She had every right to just up and lead if she wanted to. And that, combined with her high-risk lifestyle, meant law enforcement didn't file an official missing persons report. Donald said they did, however, write up a complaint memo. Now, if you listen to our episode

on Corey Mitchell, you may remember this, but a complaint memo is basically just a formal way to document an incident that doesn't necessarily rise to the level of a crime. That alerts street crews and detectives that this person is missing. She's not an endangered missing per se, you know, she doesn't have some disability, Alzheimer's or something like that, where you'll see. Now we have amber alerts and things like this, but reports made, but it's not something that's actually being worked on, I wouldn't say. It's general knowledge, general information. No one's assigned to it, no one is actively looking for or anything.

Well, no one official, but her family and friends were certainly keeping an eye out. But now their search had come to a gut-wrenching end, and all they could do now was fully cooperate with the investigation. Everybody we talked to, we would ask him to do mine if we look around, maybe she left something here, and everybody was cooperative. There was nothing there that you would say, oh, this is going to be helpful or, and she really didn't keep a whole lot of things anywhere. After leaving those searches empty handed, investigators explored another path.

Maybe Brenda's murder was related to her sex work. They tried to track down some of her clients, but there was no luck on that front. She didn't run a regular route or anything like that. It was a matter of convenience. If the offer came up and she could use a little extra money, that's what she would do. Nothing was panning out for detectives, but as with most murder investigations, it wasn't long before there were some rumors popping up. A friend that Brenda had stayed with on and off told police that she'd heard gossip about Brenda for a while, particularly allegations that she'd been stealing.

We heard that she may have been taking some money from people or she owed people money, but it's not like, I know she owed John $400 that she was supposed to pay it. It's just, there's nothing to follow up on there. It's a possible motive and we won't discount it. But if you owe money, why don't you take the chain and the diamond ring too. It seemed unlikely, but there also wasn't much that seemed likely at this point either. And before they knew it, investigators had run out of threads to follow. There was no bright shining star suspect that you go, let's go get them first.

We don't have any suspects, and we don't really even have a promising direction to be honest with you. I mean, we know how she died, but why did she die? We don't even have that. A motive at that point in time. Not that you need that, but it's helpful in trying to figure out who did it. But when Wondoor closes, another opens. Soon enough, investigators began connecting the dots and found that Brenda's case fit the same MO as a few other murders in and around Dayton. It started off with just a few cases on the list.

But over the following years, the count rose to nearly a dozen cases that span from 1985 to 1992, all with striking similarities. All the victims were known or suspected sex workers, they were small in stature and between the ages of 26 to 36. All but one were black women. Six of them were killed elsewhere and their bodies dumped. Eight of the victims were nude or partially disrobed when their bodies were discovered, and most had been sexually assaulted.

Now police didn't think literally every single one of those murders was committed by the same person. But they thought maybe smaller groups within that list were victims of the same killer. So they began identifying which cases were the most similar to one another, and they ended up loosely connecting Brenda with three other cases. I want to walk you through the basics of each of those murders so you can see how they're similar. But Detective Burke asked us to not use the victims' names because other agencies are involved and he wants to respect their investigations.

So here's a timeline. Out of the four victims, Brenda was the first to be murdered. Remember, she was found on December 12, 1990. Next was a woman found on December 14, 1991. A year almost to the day after Brenda was found. This woman was nude, beaten to death, and dumped about four miles from where Brenda was located. That same day, the next victim was found.

She was dumped just west of Dayton in a vacant trailer park. This woman was fully clothed and her cause of death was blunt for trauma. The last victim was found about six months later in June of 1992. Her body dumped just north of Dayton proper. She'd been struck in the head and had a plastic bag tied around her head as well. They're all dumped in a similar manner, killed in similar manner. They're not all close in proximity, but they're close enough. Obviously you're transporting somebody by vehicle.

So the fact that it's not within, you know, a mile of the say of each other, anything is really not a big concern for me. So pretty similar circumstances across the board, all within a year and a half of each other. But, it was all speculation. None of these cases had been solved or even had viable suspects. So, it's not like there was a promising person of interest to look into as a serial killer. Still, Brenda's case possibly being connected to these other three victims remained law enforcement's best and maybe only lead for quite some time. But some time is the key term there because for some time, that's all

they had, just this theory. That is until 2006. That's when Dayton PD's cold case unit dusted off Brenda's file and decided to send a few items from evidence off for DNA testing. And low and behold, they got a profile. Her right fingernail scraping had unknown male DNA underneath them. The cold case unit was ecstatic.

They finally had some useful, tangible evidence, so they got busy. They insured their DNA profile was entered into the local and state databases, but it wasn't a good enough sample to be entered into NDIS, the national level of codis. Now the state databases were better than nothing, but when they uploaded it, there were no immediate hits. So next up on their list was testing the DNA against key people from the investigation. Everyone willingly provided their DNA, and no one was a match, pretty much eliminating them from any current or future suspect list. Now, I bet you're wondering if they cross-checked the new

found DNA and Brenda's case with any of those cases from 1985 to 1992. Because remember, most of those victims had been sexually assaulted, so right there, there should be some usable DNA. We asked Detective Burke and he said, yes, in some of those cases, they were able to collect vaginal swabs, fingernail scrapings, etc. and they have a good DNA sample. But, Berk also said that with the victims being known or suspected sex workers, that actually kind of muddied the waters, especially for vaginal swabs. Sure, the DNA could be from the killer, but it very well could have been from one of their clients.

And with DNA testing still being a relatively new process that took a lot of time, investigators just weren't ready to go down that rabbit hole yet. Instead, another rabbit hole popped up in the form of a tip. Maybe the most promising one they'd received yet. The tipster who came forward will call him Noah. He were called to police a vivid memory he had from his childhood in 1990. One involving his stepfather who we've been asked to call Ryan. His stepfather Ryan would sometimes pick up sex workers, take him to the basement of their residence. He would see this intermittently, and he

remember on Thanksgiving that he had heard a woman screaming. Noah claimed that the following day, he witnessed something even more disturbing. When his stepfather was taking them to school in their car, he noticed a hand sticking out from underneath, a quilt that was rolled up in the back of the car, like an old hashback type car.

Thanksgiving, 1990. Right away, investigators made the connection that maybe this was Brenda. But there was one thing off about Noah's story. Maybe you caught it too. Noah claimed Ryan was taking him in his siblings to school the day after Thanksgiving, when there is no school. But it was easy to give Noah the benefit of the doubt.

Again, he's recalling this traumatic event 16 years later, and he would have been only 9 or 10 when he witnessed it. So maybe he was just misremembering that part. Before jumping to any conclusions, though, police wanted to talk to Noah's siblings, two sisters, basically to see if their memory of the day lined up. Siblings could not confirm, would not confirm anything like that that occurred. Odd, for sure, but they weren't fully questioning Noah's credibility just because of that. Memory is a funny thing, and maybe the sisters had just forgotten or weren't wanting to

pipe up. But the more investigators looked into Noah, the less confident they grew. The detectives researched it and found out through the court that our informant, NOAA, had mental health issues. Mental health issues is such a broad term. So our reporter, JC, asked Detective Burke what issues in particular NOAA struggled with. Because there's a big difference between an informant struggling with generalized anxiety disorder and an informant who suffers from a personality disorder associated with pathological lying. But Detective Burke said they didn't know.

They actually couldn't know. And unfortunately, that stuff is guarded from us. We can't just call it go. What does he have? Dimension, mental loss, schizophrenia. You can't just get that. After that, the NOAA lead fizzled. Investigators felt the lead wasn't credible enough to pursue so they dropped it and were

back to the drawing board. Which is where they'd remain for a whole decade and a half until 2022. By this point, Detective Burke was retired, but he'd literally just returned to DPD on a part-time basis to help with their cold case unit. And somehow, all the stars aligned so that he was there, right as the case he assisted with in 1990 was warming back up 30 some years later. So what was this development in 2022 that got things moving again?

It was none other than Noah reaching back out to check on his tip from 2006, asking why anything hadn't been done about it. Retired Detective Burke sat down with Noah to hear everything straight from the horse's mouth. Noah reiterated his 2006 story to Burke and was adamant that he knew where the woman was killed in their home's basement on a mattress. I'll be honest with you, in my contact with him, he didn't appear to have any mental health issues to me. He didn't really have anything to gain from this. I understand that you have to take with a grain of salt when someone may have issues that we don't know what the mental health issue was.

Detective Burke and the rest of the cold case squad decided to lean in to Noah's tip. It seemed promising enough and with a case three decades old, they were willing to try anything. We researched the information a little bit, found out the address they would have been living at at the time, because they'd since moved several times. And we went ahead and had him draw a diagram of what the basement looked like. And he did, and where, you know, the mattress would have been, and things like that. Next, investigators revisited Noah's sisters to see if they had had a change of heart or memory. They had nothing but good things to say about the stepfather.

You know, they usually went to church, everything, you know, it's almost, sometimes they say, you know, you protest too much. You don't have to go quite that far just on that Thanksgiving. Do you remember that? And they're like, well, we never remembered anything like that. That never happened. You know, we have mental health issues. And so we're right back in the same boat, but now we've got an address. So they took that address and ran with it. So, they took that address and ran with it. We went ahead and contacted the resident, current resident, very helpful people, and she gave

us permission to go down and search the basement. Now, you may be asking yourself, search for what? Who knows how many other people have lived in that house since 1990, and it's literally three decades later. Wouldn't any forensic evidence like blood be gone by now? Well, Detective Burke said maybe, but maybe not. We've recovered blood from many, many, many years past.

Stranger things have happened. Here's how they do a search like this. They get a team and go into the room in question. Now, they need complete darkness so they board up all the windows, then they spray this agent called Blue Star. If you're a crime junkie, that name might ring a bell. Basically, it floresces with body fluids, especially blood, things like that. Naturally, whatever area floresces, that's where they collect a sample from.

So that's the exact process Detective Burke's team followed, the day that they went and searched the basement. And wouldn't you know it? They spotted an area that glowed. A few, actually. Authorities collected their swabs and sent them off for testing, waiting with baited breath. Of course, what they found could have been bodily fluid from anyone, but it was still cause for excitement. In the meantime, investigators returned to Noah for another chat. They didn't want to tip their hand or get his hopes up and reveal that they'd uncovered something in the search. Instead, they said they just wanted to talk about the lack of corroborations surrounding

his story, how his two sisters didn't back him up. Now Noah didn't let up on his account of the day, but he did say that he missed spoke on one small detail, where in the basement he believed the woman was killed. He said it was actually in a small room in the basement. A room, of course, that investigators hadn't searched during their Blue Star testing. There was laminate flooring in there, and they didn't want to rip it up.

But, with Noah's updated statement, they now needed to. And thankfully, the owners of the home were as cooperative as ever, and agreed to let police return for another search. So, they went back, they ripped up the flooring, did the blue star testing, the whole shebang. But nothing florest this time.

That was hardly the end of the line for investigators, though, because remember, they still hadn't heard back from the lab if their swabs from the previous search contained Brenda's blood, or even blood at all. These things take time. And while they were still waiting, they reached out to the or even blood at all. These things take time. And while they were still waiting, they reached out to the man possibly behind it all. Ryan, no as stepfather.

He is a very elderly man now. We wanted to get a DNA standard from him. If Ryan cooperated with giving the DNA sample, they could compare it to what was found under Brenda's fingernails. And they could either put this theory to bed once and for all, or possibly have cause for an arrest. We basically told him what, you know, the information we had, and he said, oh, I don't think I want to do that.

I know. Sketchy, right? But former detective Burke said, sure, it could come across that way, but he can also see it in a more innocent light. But it's kind of scary when the homicide police come out and say we need your DNA because the mind just goes off and put me in a database and come up to something I touched four years ago and he goes, you know, I don't think I want to do that. So no DNA sample from Ryan.

As of today, they're still waiting to hear back from the lab on those samples from the basement. Our problem with this is, if any of that comes back that we've done prior on the first search of the basement, that's Brenda Gattis' that will give us enough probable cause to get a search warrant to take a DNA standard from our suspect. Right now we've got a guy saying this occurred to other people are saying this never happened. The suspect is saying I don't want to give a sample but I didn't do that. We need something else. The court is not going to give us a search warrant to say you can physically

take DNA from the subject based on that. It's not just the samples from the basement that they're waiting for. Around the early 2000s, they caught wind of this other guy. Someone who was known to have committed somewhat similar murders in Dayton and Florida back in the day. The connection is loose at best, so they haven't looked into the guy too much for Brenda's case. But investigators are trying to compare his DNA with what they have in Brenda's to know if it's something that they should dive into further. Oh, and remember the nearly dozen other cases I mentioned from the Dayton area with similarities

to Brenda's? Well, like I said, some of them have usable suspect DNA, so the cold-case squad wants to do across comparison and see if any match. Also, one of those cases was actually solved, and when police went and arrested the guy, he died by suicide. So now the cold case team needs to test his DNA against the DNA under Brenda's nails. And you might be asking yourself, why is all this testing taking so long? And the answer is simple, but none the less frustrating. We work with the State Crime Lab now,

but kill our local lab quit processing DNA. So we have to set up an appointment to have the case reviewed. They're working with the whole state and certainly the ongoing cases are much more important than a 23rd or 40 year old case. So we kind of take our place in line, and then it's longer to get the results back. Now we let the cold case unit know about the nonprofit I founded, season of justice, that gives grants to law enforcement for DNA testing, just in case they're interested in sending any of those samples to a private lab.

Whether they take advantage of that or not, they've got their site set on a different possible light at the end of the tunnel. Forensic, genetic, genealogy. They're currently working with a DNA expert from the FBI to get that testing done, and hopefully they'll be able to build out a family tree with real results. There are so many balls in the air for Brenda's case right now and whether or not any of them amount to anything, Burke thinks that justice is close.

I'm sitting here just happy as I can be that we have an unknown male DNA underneath her fingernails. That gets us in the doorway, but it's a very big room we're entering. That gets us in the doorway, but it's a very big room we're entering. Big is that room may be, DPD hopes that answers are right around the corner. And maybe their answers you have. It's been nearly 33 years, and that's long enough. It's time to come forward, so please, if you know anything about the murder of Brenda

Gattison 1990, call the Colt Case Unit at the Dayton Police Department. 937-333-7109. The Deck is an audio-check production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit the DeckPodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?