The Deck - Elisa Gano (Queen of Diamonds, Arizona)

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Our card this week is Elisa Gano, the Queen of Diamonds from Arizona.At just 30 years old, Elisa had already lived a lifetime of ups and downs. She often found herself experiencing homelessness while battling her own personal demons. All the while struggling to be a mother to five children. Despite her difficulties, Elisa’s family felt she would come out on the other side. The problem is she never got that chance.If you know anything about the murder of Elisa Gano in October of 2000 in Phoenix, Arizona, please contact Silent Witness at 480-948-6377 or toll-free at 1-800-343-TIPS. If you prefer to remain anonymous you can leave a tip at silentwitness.org. If you have any information regarding Timothy Edwards, who, before his death, was described as Native American, with dark hair and hazel eyes, standing between 5’4-5’6 and weighing about 155 pounds, Detective Roestenberg wants to hear from you. You can reach him directly at 602-534-5920 or email him at [e-mail]. View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/elisa-gano Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Elisa Gano, the Queen of Diamonds from Arizona. At just 30 years old, Elisa had already lived a lifetime full of ups and downs. She often found herself experiencing homelessness while battling her own personal demons. And all of that while struggling to be a mother to five children. Despite her difficulties though, Elisa's family felt like she would come out the other side. The problem is, she never got that chance. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. It It was the early morning hours on October 3rd, 2000, when a paving crew arrived at their job site along West Lower Buckeye Road in Phoenix, Arizona.

They were in the process of laying asphalt at a large parking lot, but that morning all work was halted because the crew made a startling discovery. They were kind of shocked, obviously, to see a nude woman on the side of the roadway. They immediately recognized that she was more than likely deceased, so they immediately called the police department. That's homicide detective Dominic Roestenberg

of the Phoenix Police Department. He told us that because of the location, there was some confusion at first with who was dispatched. And the first officer to arrive on the scene that day was actually from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, not Phoenix PD. So it's very uninhabited. It's an industrial area. Not a lot of houses nearby. It's like a commercial industrial area is probably the best way to describe it. You know, you wouldn't see a lot of cars, you wouldn't see a lot of foot traffic there. There's not a lot of stores like super close. The sheriff's deputy approached the body and confirmed what the paving crew had suspected.

No sign of life. More than that, he most likely knew she'd been dead for at least a few hours by the time she was found because he also noticed discoloration in the left arm from where blood had started to settle. Once he was actually boots on the ground, he knew this case wasn't his. The location fell within the Phoenix police jurisdiction, so they were called out to secure the scene

and begin an investigation, which started with their victim. The best way I could describe it, she's supine so that she's lying upward. She's completely nude. She's wearing a brown hiking boot on her left foot and two socks and that's it. Her shirt and bra had been pulled over her head and were sort of like tangled in her hair. And both her arms and legs had been spread out by someone who left dusty handprints on the victim's inner thighs. They observed that she had some contusions and abrasions throughout her face and her

body and that she didn't appear based on the rigor and the levity was consistent with the body positioning. So it didn't look like she had been moved. That told detectives that whatever happened most likely happened where they were standing. And it couldn't have happened that long ago. With the Arizona heat, it didn't look like she had been out there

for several days. She was in an early state of decomposition, very early state. So maybe a day, maybe less, maybe hours. It's not just the body that told them a story. That dirt landscape offered up its own clues, footprints and tire impressions that were collected and compared against known workers, investigators, and all their vehicles. What they were left with painted a fairly detailed picture. It was likely some type of smaller vehicle

that pulled up to the construction site, and the victim likely exited the vehicle from the passenger's side, where a crushed cigarette was found. The suspect exited the driver's side, and the pair appeared to have met towards the back of the vehicle. And then they believe things started

to take a turn for the worse. Just based on the disruptions in the dirt and the soil, And then they believe things started to take a turn for the worse. Just based on the disruptions in the dirt and the soil, there was a struggle. She feels like this person is either going to hurt her or kill her, and she's going to fight and she's going to do everything she can to separate herself from this potentially hostile, violent situation. At least for a moment, the fight seemed to have moved away from the car

because nearby other items like shorts, underwear, and a ripe boot were found. And based on the condition of those items, Detective Rothenberg surmises that her clothing was violently stripped from her body. The force it takes to actually remove a boot from somebody else's foot, it can be challenging taking off your own boot sometimes.

And to take somebody's hiking boot, I mean, it's an ankle hiking boot off your foot, it's going to take some degree of force. Eventually, she was dragged back toward where the front of the car would have been. It's here where they believed she was most likely sexually assaulted and murdered. It appeared the suspect then got back into the car, reversed, hit a pallet partially full of cinder blocks, and then fled the scene. Now, detectives couldn't be 100% certain what they theorized happened was true. It was a professional guess, but sometimes that's all you get. Because the secluded location meant that they most likely wouldn't find any witnesses to

the actual crime, and there weren't any security cameras at the location either. But what they lacked in eyewitnesses was made up for in physical evidence. Like a condom, a soda can, that cigarette butt that they had found earlier. And all that's great, but they might not even need it. Because if they were looking for the killer's DNA, he left them the best and possibly most incriminating sample. Because on the victim's leg, along with those dusty handprints, was some sort of stain.

And they knew exactly what they were looking at. By the time their victim was sent off for autopsy, much of what they speculated would be confirmed. Like time of death, which sounds like was put at either the night before or in the early morning hours before the body was discovered. And some of the biggest questions they still had, like who their victim was, would be answered. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation

in the manner of death of homicide. She also had numerous abrasions and contusions throughout her body. So she had recent injuries that would have been consistent with her being physically attacked, which was consistent with her being physically attacked, which was consistent with her being found out there, the positioning of her body, and also she appeared to have been sexually assaulted as well.

The semen stain on the victim's leg was going to be their best chance at IDing their killer. They knew the sample would be collected and entered into CODIS and hopefully give them a name. But in the meantime, even though they didn't have his name, they at least got their victims, and that was a place to start. So after collecting her prints at the autopsy, we were able to take those prints to Phoenix Records, and we were able to determine that it was Elisa Anne Gano.

30-year-old Elisa was already in the system because she had some prior arrests for things like trespassing, sex work, and charges related to drugs. Using those records, detectives could track down and notify Elisa's mother, Lydia. And in doing so, they learned that Elisa had five children at the time that her mom was helping raise. So they had to break the news to some of them, too. Elisa's oldest son, Freddie, was just 13 when his mother was killed. I remember we were getting off the bus, me and my brother Alex,

and we saw the detectives. But we didn't think anything of it because my uncle, her brother, was murdered a year prior. So we thought maybe the detectives were there talking to my grandma about that case. We walked in and they're just like, are you Freddie? Like my nana's like crying and we're like, what's going on?

And they're like, are you guys Freddie and Alex? We're like, yeah. And then they're like, well, we're sorry to inform you, but your mom passed away. We had seen it on the news and we didn't know it was her. Freddie got the job of gathering some of his younger siblings up that day

to bring them home so they could be told to. 10-year-old Adam was one of them. I was at the park playing. It was getting closer to Halloween, so I saw my brothers, my two brothers, walking down the park, and they were calling for us. And he's like, oh, we gotta go, we gotta go. And in my head, I'm thinking closer to Halloween, so I saw my brothers, my two brothers walking down the park and they were calling for us. And he's like, oh, we gotta go, we gotta go. And in my head I'm thinking, oh,

because you know, I remember before I was talking about how this Halloween costume that I wanted, I kept saying, I kept bringing it up, and I was like, oh, maybe they got it for me. And I was thinking in my head, maybe that's a surprise. And then, yeah, I had seen Alex and Freddie's face and I was like, something's wrong, but I didn't know. Like, I couldn't pinpoint it. And then when we got home,

that's when they told me and my sister. And we just, I just remember we broke down and it was like, I remember my nana being in there and they just told us and it was just like, couldn't believe it. The family told detectives that Elisa had hit a rough patch and at times wasn't even living at home. According to Freddie, this was a pattern

with Elisa around then. She would come and then disappear and then come and disappear. This wasn't just hard on the children. Freddie's grandmother Lydia would try searching for her daughter when she didn't come home. As Freddie just mentioned, Elisa's brother David was tragically murdered. And according to the family, the murder was solved, but you can only imagine Lydia never anticipated having to endure the heartbreak of losing another child. She knew where she hung out, so she would always, you know, come back crying because

she's like, I didn't find her, I couldn't see her, you know. She was always worried about her. Lydia told police that most recently, Elisa had been out of the house for about three months. Though her mom had seen her at least once within that timeframe. The last time being about two weeks prior at a thrift store. According to Lydia, Elisa was in the company of a large man. She described him as black, possibly Cuban,

who spoke fluent Spanish. And whoever this guy was, he appeared to have some control over Elisa because he wouldn't allow her to talk to Lydia or Elisa's own daughter, who was also there. Now, no one seemed to know who this man was, so police had their work cut out for them, trying to track this guy down. But in the meantime, her family did provide police with everything they knew or had heard. An uncle of Elisa's told police that there was a rumor she'd been staying at a motel around the area of 51st and Buckeye Road,

which wouldn't have been that far from where her body was eventually found. The rumor was that she'd been staying in room 11, and that the management at the motel still had some of her things. When detectives found what they thought to be the motel in early November, they were told that there was no Room 11. There hadn't been for about two months as the motel was in the middle of a remodel. The manager also said he didn't know the victim and no property was left behind before that remodel started. So this motel offered nothing, but there was another place that the family had pointed detectives to. A truck stop. And like the motel, this truck stop also wasn't far from where Elisa's body had been found. It was also a place known to be frequented by sex workers.

But if that's where Elisa might have been in the time leading up to her death, no one there was going to tell them. You know, they're scared of retaliation. They're scared for their own safety, you know. I don't want to be labeled a, air quote, snitch. I don't want to be the one that, you know, got this guy because now I'm in fear for my safety. I'm out on the streets myself.

I'm out here working too. Is this going to endanger me? At least one sex worker who wouldn't give detectives her name did confirm that Elisa hung around that area in general. And another guy, who also refused to give his name but said he knew Elisa well, told detectives that there were a lot of rumors going around about her death, though what exactly those rumors were are unclear. Detective Rothenberg said investigators did a canvas for cameras in that general area, and there were none at the truck stop that he was aware of.

There were cameras inside a convenience store nearby, but they were too grainy to really glean anything from them. So the truck stop ended up being a bust too. Actually, everything was feeling like a bust. They weren't finding the mystery guy who was last with Elisa when her mom saw her, And even the more they looked into Elisa's background, nothing else was jumping out at them. It was so limited on what we could find out about her. It presented challenges. You know,

we looked at all of her police reports. You know, did she call the police saying this guy was threatening her? Was this guy assaulting her, did she have an estranged boyfriend that was chasing her around, did she have an order of protection? All that was looked into and nothing, we were able to determine nothing from that. It was very frustrating. We did media on the case, it was on the local news,

we put out silent witness flyers, we distributed flyers, and very, very limited information if anything came in. Weeks now turned into months. But in February of 2001, detectives were able to track down another associate of Elisa's named Ernesto. It's unclear how, or if this guy maybe came to them, but according to Detective Rothenberg, Ernesto seemed to match a pretty vague description of the guy that was last seen with Elisa in that thrift store two weeks before her death. So when we ran into Ernesto, we were optimistic at first. He agreed to be interviewed. I mean, he didn't have to talk to detectives.

He genuinely seemed concerned about, you know, finding the perpetrator. Now, it's unclear if police were able to pin down with certainty if Ernesto was the guy at the thrift store. Though he did tell detectives that he had last seen Alisa even more recently than just that if it was him. He said he last saw her just two days before she was killed at that truck stop that they'd been pointed to. He denied having sex with her or any kind of physical contact with her at all.

So he's basically telling police, like, look, I'm not your guy. But he did say he'd gotten some info from at least one of the sex workers there after she died. Though the information turned out to not be that helpful, because that person had told Ernesto that they didn't see Elisa leave with anyone, something that the girls made a habit of, watching who each of them went off with. Now, if Ernesto had something to do with Elisa's murder, I mean, detectives didn't know at the time if he did or not,

but according to Detective Rothenberg, he wasn't someone who was acting like a guilty man. He gave his buckle swab voluntarily. We didn't have enough to take one from him, certainly with a search warrant, so he voluntarily provided. He adamantly denied being involved in the homicide in any way.

He said he never engaged in sexual intercourse. We were able to use that buckle later to do direct comparisons of the evidence at the scene. And it does not appear at this time that Ernesta was involved in any way. The DNA that they'd gotten from the semen sample was a great help in ruling people out. But as far as ruling people in, bust again.

So we were able to get a full unidentified male profile from that sample and it was entered into a federal database which is called CODIS. That database is phenomenal as long as we have somebody in the database to match it to. It's a great resource and we have local databases, state databases, and the federal one. And it was entered into CODIS and it was just an unidentified male profile,

so we didn't get a match. That's frustrating as investigators, you know, we probably have our guy, we have his profile, we're entering in the database. Now it's just a matter of waiting. At the time, detectives didn't realize how long the wait for a DNA match would be. Because it wasn't just a few years. It was decades. And it wasn't just that profile sitting in CODIS that had frustrated detectives over

the years. None of the stuff that they'd collected helped even as testing got better with time. For instance, the cigarette butt ended up belonging to one of the construction workers who was not considered a suspect. DNA found on the condom actually belonged to another unknown female, not Elisa. And remember, there were even dusty handprints on Elisa's legs, but no fingerprints could ever be pulled from those. So in all those years, Elisa's family waited.

Her children grew older. They had children of their own. Her mother Lydia eventually passed away without ever knowing who murdered her daughter. But as Freddie points out, Elisa's memory was always with them, one way or another. My daughter looks similar to her. She smiles sometimes and I'll get teary-eyed. I'm like, crap, you look just like your Nana, you know, like your grandma. By 2021, Detective Rothenberg, who was now assigned the case, realized it was time to think outside the box. He had just

had some recent training on something known as familial DNA. A little bit different than genealogical testing, we're able to mine through state and federal databases, arrested offenders' DNA. So it's going to be first lineage, so it's going to be limited. It's not as large as CODIS, but it's going to be limited to, you know, a sibling, a son, or a daughter. So I met with members of the forensic team.

Our lab doesn't even do familial testing through a state lab. They wanted cases where there was a full profile that had some merit to it. When I was able to present the case to them and show them, like, listen, this is DNA on this female's leg that was found on her inner leg, and it's been in CODIS for 19 years. They were very receptive on doing the analysis needed. That sample was sent off, but that meant more waiting. On a case that had already waited long enough for some kind of justice.

As 2021 rolled into 2022, there was still no word from the lab. But come late summer, Detective Rothenberg finally got what he was hoping for. A hit on someone who had been previously arrested on drug charges. On August 18, 2022, I'm alerted by the DPS lab of a female by the name of Janessa Edwards and was advised that Janessa's DNA matched through indirect familial association. So what that means is she's not at the scene. It's not obviously her DNA, but from an indirect familial association to the source of the vaginal swab. So it's telling me that this person,

Janessa, is a first-line family member of our suspect. So I was excited at this point. More specifically, this meant that a father, brother, or son of Janessa's most likely committed this crime. But now, Detective Rothenberg had to find Janessa. The hunt for Janessa starts, and I start looking at her driver's license, her address, as where she was. I was able to find out she was on probation, but she had absconded.

She may have left the state. There was already a felony warrant out for Janessa's arrest for failure to appear in court on a drug charge. Her probation officer told Detective Rothenberg that he was considering issuing an additional warrant for non-compliance to her probation requirements. So a lot of people were looking for her, yet somehow she remained elusive.

So I make several attempts to locate Janessa. I'm unsuccessful, so I'm like, okay, the road's not going to stop here. I could have, you know, gave up or just said, you know what, let me just wait. Janessa will eventually turn up. I put what's called the file stop printer for her and still weeks go by and I can't find Janessa. So what am I going to do next? I don't really need Janessa. I want to find Janessa and interview her, but she's not directly involved in my homicide, if that makes sense.

So I tell myself, what am I going to do next? And that's when I started looking for Janessa's family members and I was lucky and I was able to find her mother, Janessa's mother, who lives in the state of Wisconsin. Detective Rothenberg picked up the phone and called Janessa's mother, Carmen. She also didn't know where Janessa was, although, interestingly enough, she thought she was in the Phoenix area. But what Carmen did provide was the piece of the puzzle he was looking for. Carmen told Detective Rostenburg that Janessa was an only child. So that ruled out any idea of a brother being involved in Elisa's murder.

Genessa's age at the time of the murder also ruled out the possibility of some son of hers being involved too. She would have been too young. So that only left one other option. The person who most likely murdered Elisa was Genessa's father. According to Carmen, his name was Timothy Edwards. She described him as being Native American. I asked her, did he mention of anything, of being involved in a homicide or anything? She had no information of that.

She actually said she had never seen him be violent before, but just because she hadn't personally witnessed it herself doesn't mean he wasn't a violent person. Timothy and Carmen were never married. They weren't even together very long. Just because she hadn't personally witnessed it herself doesn't mean he wasn't a violent person Timothy and Carmen were never married They weren't even together very long and Janessa appeared to be estranged from her father Now way back in 2000 Timothy would have been 32 years old when Elisa's murder took place and While detective Rothenberg believed Timothy had some ties to the Phoenix area, which made him look even better for it, at the time of our interview he couldn't recall what that tie

was. So why Timothy was in the area is unknown, and it's a little hard to go back and ask him now. Detective Rothenberg was able to confirm that Timothy passed away in October of 2008 at the age of 40. His obituary states that he was living in Iron River, Michigan when he passed away, and that he was a, quote, self-employed construction worker. While Carmen told Rothenberg that she had never seen Timothy be violent, his criminal record told a different story. So running a nationwide criminal background check on Timothy Allen Edwards from dating back all the way to 1987 to his last known criminal record in 2007, he has an extensive criminal background for charges including assault, domestic violence, assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, battery and liquor violations. Timothy clearly had some violent tendencies. And that DNA appears to have put him at the scene.

Detective Rothenberg is 99% certain he was there. But what exactly happened between Elisa and Timothy, or how they even came into each other's orbit, Detective Rothenberg could only speculate. I think it would be, in my mind, logical to believe that he's just kind of passing through town. Their paths cross the truck stop or somewhere else. They meet up, they end up down on Lower Buckeye Road where the incident occurred, and this violent, horrible act took place.

Timothy's death had denied Detective Rothenberg the chance to put him in handcuffs, to look him in the eyes and ask him some tough questions. It meant he would never go to trial or sit in a prison cell where he belonged. More than anything, his death denied Elisa's family the justice that they were due. When our reporter first sat down with her family, they only had recently become aware of Timothy Edwards. Who, by the way, was not someone known to them. Here's Adam and Freddie again.

I'm still in shock. It's bittersweet. It's bittersweet because now we know, but it's like, no, but we don't have answers. That's the bittersweet part of it is like, we know who it is, but we don't know why. We don't know what his motive was, or was it just a random thing, or did he do it to other people? Elisa was only 30 years old when she died. And that's what's so heartbreaking for her family.

She still had so much life to live. And her loved ones felt very strongly that the Elisa of then would not be the Elisa of today. Us having kids, I think she would have at least tried to change her life around. And I think she would have been a great grandma. She was an awesome mom. When she was healthy and she was herself, she was a great mom. I tell this to everybody, I tell my dad to my grandma.

But she had her demons. I think she would have been the best grandma. One thing Freddie had pointed out was the possibility that Timothy Edwards could have other victims out there. Even though the DNA profile from Elise's case is still sitting in CODIS without matching to other cases, Detective Rothenberg shares Freddie's concerns. He may have done this to other people as well,

and that's something we'd want to look into. You know, was he passing through Phoenix? Was this, you know, one-time deal? Or did he travel throughout the country, possibly doing this to the other women? We don't know that. If some of this information, either through Alisa or Timothy Edwards,

rings a bell with anyone, I know we're going back several years. To please call, we are still continuing to investigate this case, but any information could be helpful. If you know anything about the murder of Elisa Gano in October of 2000 in Phoenix, Arizona, please contact Silent Witness at 480-948-6377 or toll free at 1-800-343-TIPS.

If you have any information regarding Timothy Edwards, who before his death was described as Native American with dark hair and hazel eyes standing between 5'4 and 5'6 and about 155 pounds, Detective Rothenberg wants to hear from you. We'll put his direct contact information in the show notes. The Deck is an audio check production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo