Cathy Swartz

Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail and may be sensitive for some listeners. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now and true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to talk all things right now in true crime, including trial happenings, because that is what is this week is all about. It is one trial after another after another. So we're going to go through all of the trial happenings. So right now, we have the case against the man who is accused of murdering Rachel. Morin on the Maw and Paw Trail. So the defendant in this case is a man named Victor Martinez Hernandez, and he is accused of sexual assaulting and killing Rachel on the Maw and Paw Trail. He also had another sexual assault and I believe murder that happened in his homeland. I want to say it's El Salvador, but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that, and I am too overwhelmed right now to fact check myself. So that trial is entering it's sixth day as of Wednesday when I'm recording this, and they've had testimony from medical examiner. They've had testimony from the person that last saw Rachel, who was also jogging on the trail or walking on the trail, and this man testified that about thirty seconds after he saw Rachel, he saw a suspicious man in. The woods wearing a gray sweatshirt with. The hood pulled up, and he said he heard a branch snap in the woods and he looked to his left and then he saw the man and he said that they made eye contact, and he said that he felt that the man felt like he got caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing. But he just thought it was weird. It was weird to see anybody in the woods, coming out of the woods near the woods. It just wasn't normal. And that is likely the last person that saw Rachel alive before she was attacked by this obvious, alleged horrendous human. This one is going to be really interesting. There is physical evidence that tie him to this case. That is how they eventually caught him was this physical evidence. So it's going to be interesting to see how things play out. I don't know how long the trial is going to go. I know that they did excuse a juror today, I don't know the circumstances surrounding. Why I will keep you guys updated. I'm recording this on Wednesday. I release all of my episodes Thursday evening. If something happens between now and then, I'm going to tack it on to the end of this episode so I don't have to re record because I have so much in my head right now when it comes to trials to talk about, and I'm a little bit overwhelmed, little bit overwhelmed with all the trials that are currently going on and hearings that are happening. It is literally going to be my full time job on top of my full time job, to keep up with all of the right now and true crime of it all. But I am doing my best. So that is what's going on right now in Rachel Morin. Okay, Next up, there is a hearing going on today again. I'm recording this on Wednesday with Brian Coburger, his team, his defense team, and the prosecution, and I am just going to read literally verbatim these updates from one of my true Crime Girls, Patricia. She posted them on the true crime. Group she has on Facebook. She's part of the true crime group that I run with my friend Katie, and she is literally saving my life with these updates because I am knee deep in the Lori Valo Dabel trial and I have no brain capacity for anything else, So this is so far. Ann Taylor, who is Brian Cooberg's attorney, started giving oral arguments on the use of the words murder, sociopath, and psychopath in the courtroom. She wants these words removed because they are inflammatory. She clarifies she's not asking that the word murder not be used during the jury trial, but instead asking the state and its witness to not label Brian as murderer. Judge says that he's having trouble. Understanding, says he doesn't need to issue an order because it's. Already a rule for both sides, and. The prosecution requests that the court deny the motions and instead have the defense simply object during the trial. The judge ruled that the state cannot label Brian a sociopath or a psychopath. They can use the term murder for charges and allegations and opening statements. Regarding the inflammatory words and evidence. He just tells both sides to follow the rules that are already in place. He has adamant that neither side skirts the rules. He will also address extremely graphic photos on a case by case basis as to what will be presented to the jury. The defense then goes on to argue against evidence being used by the prosecution because it is a violation of four H four B, which says you cannot use evidence of a prior bad act to convict. On new charges. They have issues with prosecutors using Brian Coberger's final to sales paper, the Amazon records that showed the knife and sheath and sharpener that were purchased months before the crime, and the use of the video of police stopping Brian Coberger for speeding and not wearing a seat belt. The judge says that. The defense is misunderstanding the rules and the evidence regarding a prior bad act. He even said it is not a bad act to purchase things on Amazon. The judge also says that she doesn't get to tell the state how to try their case, which we love this judge. Judge Hipler is the bomb regarding the traffic stop video the defense says it shows a clear picture of the Alantra hipler. The judge asks the defense, isn't that the point. The judge also says no reasonable person would look at a traffic stop video and see these actions as a bad act, suggesting the driver would commit murder in the future. Love it. The state then says the video is important because it connects the suspect to the car, his phone number, and his address. They say, of course the defense doesn't like the video, but that isn't a reason to exclude it absolutely. The judge said that he is going to review the video and may allow exclusion on the part of the video where the policeman offers his opinion on people who don't wear seat belts and the portion where Brian Coberger questions the police's need for his phone number. Next up, they discuss who will be allowed in the court during the trial. The prosecution wants Brian Coberger's family kept out of the courtroom as they may be called as witnesses, which is a fair request, and the defense says Brian's family does not want to help the prosecution and that they watch every hearing and they support Brian Coberger if they had the financial resources, they would be present for every single hearing, but they live on the other side of the country. The defense also made a point that there will be no tailoring of testimony if the family is in court because every member of Brian's family was interviewed immediately the night that Brian Coberger was arrested, and those interviews are on video. In other words, no story changing based on what they see and hear in court. They also made a. Point that due to Brian Coberger's autism, he really needs his family, which we don't even want to talk about that with me right now. That guy is an. Actual delusional human they, in my opinion, allegedly. They also made a point that as of now, the prosecution has not subpoened any members of the family or listed any as witnesses. Big point made by defense is that it is a important that the jury see that Brian Coberger has a support of his family. If they are not in court, then the jurors won't think his family supports him. The defense also asks court to make a ruling against anyone wearing clothing in court that mentions the death penalty. The States said that they will advise the witnesses in victim's family to follow the courts to quorum regarding clothing worn. There is plan to call in subpoena a few of Brian's family members and they said that Brian's family is devastated over this and they want to give Brian Coberger and his family quote unquote humanity which he didn't give the victims and their families when he allegedly murdered for college kids allegedly. There was also discussion about Brian Coberger's family testifying early so then they could be in court, but this could cause a lack of flow for the prosecution's case. And the judge is taking this motion under advisement and will be making a ruling and issue in order later. So that is all that I have so far. Again recording this on Wednesday, it is about five o'clock here, and like I said, I am knee deep in Lori Valodaebel right now. And that is the update. But obviously the. Defense is going to do everything they can for their client and in best interests of their client and making sure that their client has everything that they need, and that is literally their job. I get it, one hundred percent understand, but I feel like they are grasping at straws with some of these things, and the prosecution is holding strong and the judge seems to be very fair and impartial, which is exactly what we need right now. In this case, we're dealing with four victims who were horrifically. Murdered in their home. He came in allegedly to their home and killed four people, changed for families, lives forever, multitude of other lives being the victims that were left, the living victims, their friends, the remaining members of their family. This has gone on for such a long time, and I think Brian is doing everything he can because he thinks that he is smarter than everybody. At least that's what I the impression I get. It's just going to be such a wild ride going through this trial and things leading up to it. I feel so bad for the victims' families because they are having to relive this nightmare every single day of their life anyway, and then you add on stuff like this and it just it makes it worse, It drags it out, and it's going to be a wild ride. This summer is going to be a wild ride because his trial is coming up. So that's it for now. In that if there's any more that I need to tack on to the end of this little right now in True Crime update, I will and we are going to get into the meat of potatoes of my life right now, Lori Valo da Bell. We have a lot to talk about. So the trial kicked off Monday. We have had so far two excuse jurors. I don't know one of them why they were excused, but one was excused because his employer had issues with him being gone for possibly six weeks and it would be a financial burden, so they excused him. The other one was a female. I do not know why she was dismissed. It has not been disclosed, but two days in a row they had a juror dismissed. So this is going to be a long trial. They're saying possibly six weeks. So to have two out so early in the game is not great because you have to have the final jury for this to go to verdict, and if they don't, then we would have to do it all over again, which we don't want to have to do because I am already up to here with LVD Laurie Valodabell, and it's only day three of the trial. So days one and two were very law enforcement firefighter focused. The first two detectives that were on the scene testified, and a couple of the guys from the fire department, and then there was the ballistics expert that Laurie actually wanted struck from the expert witness list because she didn't think that he needed to be brought in as an expert witness. He should just be a regular witness. And their questioning and cross examination went on for quite a long time. That was literally two days of the trial, and Laurie is, I don't know how to put this. She's doing an okay job. I'm not going to say she's doing a great job. She's doing an okay job. We've definitely seen worse from people who are representing themselves. But I do think as the trial goes and as the witnesses get a little more personal to Laurie, We're going to see a different side of Laurie. Right now, we're seeing more her questioning people that were at the scene that day and questioning the way that they did things and why they did things the way that they did it, and basically just trying to build this case that it was self defense. They had instructed Alex on how to do CPR over the phone, but he was uncomfortable. That's why he didn't do it, and so on and so forth. So on Wednesday today they called a witness named Nancy Joe Hancock. Now she is a witness for the prosecution for the state. This is a witness that Laurie wanted to be crossed off of the list and not allowed to testify. Nancy Joe Hancock is a woman who went on a date with. Charles Valow shortly before his death. They met on a dating website for Mormon individuals. I believe they chatted briefly. They went on a date, and he was in the midst of being separated from Laurie. It was going towards divorce because Laurie was being Laurie and actively cheating on him with Chad day Bell. Evidence will show she was cheating on him with Chad day Bell. If you know, you know. And he went on this date and was obviously opening up to her about some of the things that were going on in his life, talking about changing the beneficiary on his insurance policy and they were just talking about what was going on in his life and his struggles with her. Obviously, it makes complete and total sense to me. But Laurie gets up to cross examine this witness, and you would think that that woman's her husband, that is how she is treating her, and she was getting really snarky with her. So you went on a date with the married man and all you did on your date was talk about me and my life and our relationship, so on and so forth. And at one point Nancy Joe was like, don't flatter yourself. We didn't talk about you the whole time. And let me tell you, I wanted to applaud right then and there. Bravo Nancy Joe for standing your ground. And it's interesting to watch these people testify because they all obviously know that. This isn't just a case. It is just a case about Charles. That's why we're here in Arizona. But there is so much more to the Lori Valo da Bell than just Charles Valo. Charles Valo is a starting point. We have Tammy, we have Tylie, we have JJ, we have Brandon Boudreau, we have all these people, and they're not allowed to talk about it at trial that there's more than Charles, because this trial is about Charles, so the other crimes and murders and attempted murders are not being brought in. And it's really interesting to try to watch the people that are testifying navigate all of this because there is so much more to it than the trial that's at hand. It has been such a wild ride. Gigi from Pretty Lies and Alibis said she thought there was going to be a Jerry Springer episode happening in the courtroom when she was cross examining Nancy Joe, because Nancy Joe's pushing our buttons and Laurie was biting one hundred percent. She was literally. Reacting to everything Nancy Joe said, which isn't what you do when you're a lawyer, but it's what you're doing as a crazy jealous wife, which is so bizarre because you are upset he was on a date when he wasn't legally divorced yet, but you were having a full fledged affair also with a married man, like hello, I'm confused. So needless to say, Lori is really really doing the most. Some of her questions are just out there. She likes to make commentary. After she asks and gets the answer, she'll be like, oh interesting, or oh I see. She is just constantly commenting. And the judge told her you need to stop doing that, and she continues to do it. It is just an ongoing thing. So it is going to be a long trial, absolutely long trial. I do want to tell you guys a little bit of a story. So I was having a conversation the other day with a couple of my friends that are very true crime coded, and we were talking about the trial and finding impartial jurors and how are you going to find jurors that don't know about Lourie's previous crimes and all of that, And I very much would have the exact same thought and feelings and thinking, there's no way you're going to find anybody that doesn't know who LORII Value is. But believe it or not, I had to do a full on dissertation in the office the other day at work for I would say a good seventy five percent seventy five to eighty five percent of my coworkers, who, despite working. With me and knowing who I am as a human, had. No idea who Laurie davell value whatever we're calling her is, or the crimes she committed. So there are a heck. Of a lot of people out there that aren't in the true crime space, don't keep up with that genre of things, that really truly don't know. So that is how you find fair and impartial jurors, because you find people that have not a clue what is going on in any capacity of true crime, criminal cases, anything like that. I guess people like that do exist out there, and that is good because that's what we need in order to make sure that these cases do get a fair and impartial jury. They are either found guilty or they're found not guilty, and then they go on from there. That's what it's all about at the end of the day. That is how our justice system is set up. And I do. Believe that there are people in Arizona who have no idea what the name Lori Valodabel even has behind it. They don't know about the prior crimes, her prior convictions. They probably don't even know that she is also up for attempted murder of Brandon Boudreau. They don't know any of that. But we are only a few days into trials, so I'm sure we have a lot more to come. I will continue to keep you guys updated, though. Right Now in True Crime is probably going to turn into to the trial corner because we have a lot of trials going on right now, and I'll be trying to update you guys on all the things. Sorry, this was such a long right now in True Crime, but I just had to get all of that stuff out and kind of catch up a little bit. So we are going to go ahead and get into today's episode. Okay, guys. Today I am going to be highlighting the now finally solved homicide of a nineteen year old woman named Kathy Swartz, a crime that occurred in nineteen eighty eight in Michigan. Kathy's case was cold for thirty five years until new advancements in DNA technology and the authorom lab in the Woodlands, Texas, helped solve her crime. In twenty twenty three. This story was featured alongside the story of Mary Catherine Edwards case that I previously covered in a twenty twenty episode titled The Code Breakers, which covered both Mary Catherine Edwards and Kathy's cases and what it took to solve them. The type of cases are honestly my favorite, and I really like sprinkling in the solved, decades long cold cases into my podcast because sometimes we need to know that there's hope in these older, colder cases. I know I have a lot of family members of missing and murdered individuals who listen, and I want them to always know that there is hope. We finally have answers about who killed Kathy, but the question remains why, and unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to get those answers, and we'll get into why that is in a little bit. For my research, I watched a video on YouTube called Left in Blood the Kathy Swartz Murder, and I will also reference the twenty twenty episode throughout this episode as well, and I will be sure to link both of those below in the show notes for my sources. I first want to start off by telling you a little about who Kathy was and what has led us to talking about her on today's episode. Kathy Siue Schwartz was born on May twenty fourth of nineteen sixty nine in Three Rivers, Michigan, to her parents David Michael Schwartz Senior and his wife Audrey Sue nicknamed Algie Swartz. Kathy was raised on a two acre farm in a small nearby community of Menden, Michigan. She was in Girl Scouts. She was part of the four age program, and she ended up getting her own pony when she was only eight years old. She attended Menden High School in nineteen eighty seven, but her family would soon move to Three Rivers, Michigan before her senior year started. Kathy was your typical normal teenager. She enjoyed bowling. She held down a job at a grocery store and also at Burger. King at one point. She was very much a tomboy and really enjoyed hunting with her dad. She was also a incredible artist. Kathy ended up leaving high school at eighteen when she became pregnant with her daughter, who was named Courtney. Everybody that knew Kathy said that she was a wonderful person. She had no enemies, She was a great friend and an excellent mother to her nine month old daughter. Everyone that surrounded Kathy loved her. So let's set the scene of what happened that day. Kathy, her baby, Courtney, and her fiance Mike Warner shared a two story apartment at Riverside Townhouses in three rivers Michigan. Apartment one oh two stood decorated for Christmas, which was just three weeks away. It would be baby Courtney's first Christmas, and there was already gifts under the tree. Although Mike was in Courtney's father, he had stepped up and planned to raise her as his own. Mike and Cathy had met in September, when Courtney was only six months old. Their relationship progressed super fast, and they got engaged in November. Shortly before the murder. Mike worked at a nearby paper plant. They were just beginning their lives together, and unfortunately what happened next would change everything forever. The night before the murder, Mike and Cathy had a normal night at home. They ate fishings, they played a couple of board games, and then they went to bed. Mike said that the next morning, which was Friday, December second of nineteen eighty eight, Kathy had woken up with him and kissed him goodbye when he left for work around five am. Everything was normal at this point. Mike had returned home from work in the middle of the afternoon around three point thirty to find the unthinkable had happened. When Mike entered the apartment, he saw blood smeared all over the walls, the railing going upstairs, and it was evident that something had happened here. He ran to a neighbor's home and called nine one one. Mike said it was almost like the blood was painted. On the walls. He then went on to find Kathy dead in their bedroom and went to chuck on baby Courtney, who was in another room. She was unharmed standing in her crib. Police did say that it did appear that somebody had recently changed baby Courtney's diaper because it was a fresh diaper. Investigator said the scene it was one of the bloodier scenes that they had been to, and it appeared that Kathy had fought for her life from the kitchen to upstairs. A struggle had obviously occurred. Kathy had been beaten and strangled, her throat was slashed, and she was left to die in her bedroom. There was a pink phone in Kathy's bedroom that had a bloody fingerprint on the phone. The line had also been cut. There was also a bloody footprint that was mixed with water on the bathroom floor, which alluded to the fact that the killer must have washed up after the crime. In fact, the bath water was still running when investigators arrived to assess the crime scene. Now it wasn't just an average footprint. It was a size nine bare footprint, which, similar to fingerprints, are super identifiable. At the time, investigators were using a new technology that included a light that illuminated things at a crime scene that weren't necessarily visible to the naked eye. Once they did this, they found a couple of different things. They found on their refrigerator that there was something written on there. There were two things, and one of them said Metallica and the other one said the name Harley, and it said Harley was here. They put the light over Kathy's body and they also found writing on the inside of her thigh that said I was here. So what did this mean? Were the two different sets of writings connected. Kathy's childhood friend named Jennifer, describes her as being a very careful person. Jennifer said that she would often call Kathy up and say, Hey, I'm my mobe over, and even though Jennifer only lived five minutes away from Kathy, Kathy would not unlock the door until Jennifer arrived. So Kathy was obviously cautionary and safe, and she wouldn't have just let anybody into her apartment, especially knowing that she had a nine month old baby in the next room. She was very aware of her surroundings. So the question remained, who did this? How did this happen? If Kathy was this cautious and safe, was this somebody that she knew and trusted and willingly let into her apartment? Because from the outside looking in, when I first started researching the story, I thought it has to be somebody she knows, because she's not just going to let some random person into her apartment. And there was no signs of forced entry or anything like that. Investigators believed that this was somebody that Kathy knew and trusted and let into her apartment. Police did not find a murder weapon. However, they did find what appeared to be an outline of a pair of scissors that was left behind on a pair of sweatpants that were in the apartment. The autopsy showed that Kathy had three separate cuts on her neck, and it also appeared that the killer had also used his hands, as there was also multiple abrasions and bruises on Kathy's neck, trunk. Arms, and hands. It was obvious that she had fought for her life and she did everything she could to try and save herself and to save her daughter. It appeared to police that the killer had escaped out of the back door, which was partially blocked by a Christmas tree. There was also a candy cane on the floor that had been knocked off of the tree when the killer had attempted to escape. I'm going to post pictures of the set up of the apartment on my Instagram and Facebook. They believed that Kathy had been killed shortly after twelve pm because of the bruises that were on her body and the way that they appeared. They theorized that the beating that Kathy had to withstand lasted about fifteen minutes, which just absolutely must have felt like an eternity to poor Kathy. Unfortunately, like with all of the cases, the person closest to the victim is often the first that needs to be ruled out as a suspect. So that brings us to Mike Warner. Investigator said that he was really kind of hard to get a handle on he wasn't super emotional, and he believed that investigators thought that he knew who did it, and he wasn't saying anything. He had an. Alibi because he was at work that day, and Kathy's friend Jennifer said she never once would think that Mike was capable of doing anything like that. Mike was quickly ruled out as a suspect because of the alibi, and they had the prince, They had the footprints. And it did not match. Also important to note here that even in the YouTube video I watched on this case, they interview Mike and you can tell that this poor man has some trauma. I can't imagine finding someone you love brutally murdered and having to pick up the pieces of your life when you yourself are so young. I know we say it all the time, but trauma and grief does some really crazy things to people, and often they don't act like we think they should immediately after a tragedy. But you really don't know how you're going to react to trauma like that until you are in it, and the lack of emotion doesn't necessarily make you guilty. Moving on to another suspect, investigator started looking in to was somebody from Kathy's past, and they started kind of digging into Kathy's past relationships and one of the first people that popped up was Kathy's ex boyfriend, who was nineteen year old Troy Shulti's Now. A big reason that Troy stood out was because he was a huge heavy metal fan and he also loved Harley Davidson so much that he had a nickname, which was Harley. And if you remember, the handwriting on the refrigerator said Metallica and Harley was here. Now. Kathy and Troy allegedly had a rocky relationship. He also didn't have an alibi for that day, and it is alleged that somebody saw his truck at Kathy's apartment the afternoon of the murder. He ended up being arrested three days later. He had no criminal history and he denied being involved. He told police that he had written on the fridge with a marker at a party months earlier and had wiped it off, which is why it was invisible to the nigga. Once he was arrested, they got his finger and footprints and sent them off for comparison, and it was not a match. They were so sure that this was their guy that they even went back and had investigators compare the finger and footprints to double check to make sure that they weren't missing something, because honestly, there's no denying it. When you have actual fingerprints and an actual footprint, there is no denying if it's a match or not. And this guy was not a match. He was then released from jail nine days after his arrest, but the cloud of suspicion would follow him for years, and honestly, it still follows him to this day. They also questioned a man named Michael Howard, who was baby Courtney's father. He was considered a person of interest. He had an alibi, and again his prints didn't match. There was also another man brought up who was a friend of Mike Warner. His name was Robert Waters, and he had been at the apartment a month before the murder, but he had actually moved to Arizona right before the murder, so he was crossed off of the list and his prints were never taken. We're going to circle back to that in a little bit. But interestingly enough, the same day that Kathy was murdered, there was a car that had sped out of the Three Rivers, Michigan apartment complex and ended up plunging into the Saint Joseph River. It took investigators thirty minutes to pull the people out of the car. The occupants were a woman named Christina Shelton who was twenty four years old and her three year old daughter. Christina did not survive the accident, but the child did. Now, the interesting thing about this was that Christina and Kathy were neighbors. They lived in the same apartment complex, so investigators thought that maybe Christina could have seen something that spooked her and that is why she took her child and left in a hurry and ended up accidentally crashing her car into the river. Police were never able to determine if these two circumstances were connected or not, but it's very interesting. Nonetheless, there was also a woman that was seen near the crime scene that was either said to be an accomplice or she knew that something had happened, and authorities ended up releasing a sketch of her, but nothing ever came of that. They also staked out Kathy's grave at the cemetery to see if maybe Kathy's killer would come visit. The videotaped three days. Before and one day after the one year anniversary of Kathy's death. There was somebody that had visited who was a childhood friend of Kathy's. And this was a man that had a friendship ring that Kathy had given him when he was a small child. He visited her grave and left the friendship ring behind. They had him on camera and they thought that he could be a little bit suspicious, but sure enough, once they contacted him and got his fingerprints and footprints, he was indeed not the guy that they were looking for. Now, there were rumors. That this whole thing was a cover up and police were involved, and that is the reason that the case wasn't soolved. There were obviously a ton of rumors that went around because it was a small town and you would think that with a actual distinctive footprint and fingerprints that it would be a slam dunk, But it wasn't, and before we knew it, thirty years had passed by. Now by this time, Courtney is now an adult and has children of her own. She was raised by Kathy's parents. She grew up knowing what she knew about her mom from her grandparents, and then as she got older, she learned more from police reports, but knowing that her mom's killer was out there, she said that she would always look at people while out in the grocery stores and wonder if that was the person that killed her mom. She learned when she was in fourth grade that her mom was indeed murdered. At sixteen, she sat down with her grandpa and went over police reports and newspaper articles. He wanted to know everything. Courtney ended up having her first child at age nineteen, similar to her mom, and she lived her life scared, living in her first apartment, thinking what happened to her mom would happened to her. In twenty twelve, a task force was formed and they ended up circling back on everything They met with the original detective on the case, who was named Kenny Baker. And at the time they were talking to Kenny and going over everything with him, he was battling cancer. Kenny had said that his original partner were certain that it was Troy who had committed the crime, although he had been eliminated previously with the footprints and the fingerprints, they thought that maybe Troy's dad had gone in and assisted him in the murder, but he had passed away shortly before they were able to check his prints. He still remained under this cloud of suspicion all of these years later. So when they were talking to Kenny Baker, they were kind of asking him his different theories, and they also went on to question him about some of the evidence that had gone missing. There was a bloody shower curtain that had gone missing, and all of the other fingerprint evidence from the crime scene. If you remember me talking about how bloody the crime scene was. On the walls, the banister. Leading upstairs, they were all covered with blood and any potential fingerprints were lifted from the scene and put into evidence. But now all of this evidence was gone and missing. The cold case detective did reveal one thing that was interesting. This is something new that we did not know. That there was a bloodstain on the pink telephone that did not belong to Kathy, did not belong to her fiance, Michael Warner, and did not belong to any of the suspects. They had went ahead and entered this into Cotis and it was discovered that it did belong to a male. But as of that time, they didn't have a match for it, so they not only had a fingerprint and a footprint, they had solid DNA evidence. But their fear with this was that the fingerprint and footprint were going to match up with one person and the DNA bloodstain evidence was going to tie back to another. In May of twenty twenty two, they tried one last ditch effort to try to figure out who this DNA belonged to, and they sent the DNA evidence from Kathy's pink phone to authorm that is located in the Woodn's, Texas. I talk about them all the time, and they are literally changing the game in DNA and genealogy. They got to work and by January of twenty twenty three, Offram had narrowed it down. The killer was one of four sons of a couple named John and Judith Waters. They had raised their family just north of Three Rivers. So now they had to go through and question these brothers which one of these guys was the killer. They were able to roll out the youngest Waters brother because his DNA was already in codis and it was not a match. Two of the other brothers, who still lived in Michigan, agreed to a DNA test and questioning. When investigators first question these two brothers, they brought them in just under the pretenses of they were working on a cold case and they had a list of two thousand people from the area that they were trying to exclude. So they bring the first brother in, who is named Sonny Waters, and he comes in. He kind of gives them a rundown of his life and talks about his family. He said that one of his brothers, who has named Robert Waters, now lives in South Carolina, and he goes on to expand that Robert had gotten into some trouble as a juvenile, but has turned his life around. He moved out of Michigan, kind of started anew He now has a plumbing business. He's married, he has kids. And Sonny is very much offering all of this up, not realizing that they're looking at the Waters family for suspicion in Kathy Schwarts's murder. Sonny willingly gives his DNA and makes a comment about how he would love to help in any way he could. He has nothing to hide. And it's really interesting. Because the investigators that first investigated this case said, of all of the different DNA and footprints and fingerprints that they collected from people over the years. Everybody that they approached and questioned was always very willing to give their footprints and fingerprints because they knew they weren't guilty. And he said that the day is going to come when the person who is involved in this won't be as willing to give their fingerprints and footprints, and that is how we're going to know that that is the person who's involved. So at this point. They're very close to zeroing on the person that killed Kathy Schwartz. Sonny and his brother were excluded, and there was only one brother left, Robert Waters. Now, if you think of the name Robert Waters and you think it sounds familiar, it's because it is familiar. I mentioned it earlier. Robert was a childhood friend of Michael Warner. They grew up together, they went to elementary school together, they used to play at each other's homes and they were friends. And just a month before the murder, Robert and his girlfriend had visited Kathy and Mike Warner's apartment, but he had moved to Arizona the month before the murder, so investigators never ended up checking his prints at all because he was not considered a suspect. He had left and moved to Arizona. On April thirtieth of twenty twenty three, investigators went to Robert Waters South Carolina home where he lived with his wife and children. He was fifty three years old and very successful. He lived in a. Five hundred thousand dollars home and they knew at this point that Robert was their man, but they didn't want him to know that, so they went there under the pretenses of they had talked with his brothers and they were working a cold case from nineteen eighty eight and they were basically trying to go through people that lived in the area at the time and were wondering if he would be willing to come down to the police station and talk to them. I am going to play the bodycam footage from the cops first interaction with Robert, and I am going to start that right now. It is hey, morning, alright, good are you can. We help you? I'm Sam smoking from three years pity. This is the top Peters from Missisters State Police. Nice, wait, can we talk? All right? We can go and go back in here. Got stuff doing there? What I do? So we were just wanting to help a lot of the blue just. Not five here. But we had both talk to your brothers. Okay, I'm not sure. I name to day told you we had he had talked to them back in February. So I'm helping Sam and we reopened this case from uh from three very way back in the day, going back through and and getting interviews and just so we were wondering if you wouldn't have if you have time to come down to the tree and talk of us down there. Yeah, okay, you just get yourself down there. We can. Are you available right now? Okay? So from that footage, Robert is very calm during this whole interaction. He seems cooperative. He said he was willing to come down. However, he never showed up. So the detective that had gone to talk with him decided to call him. And I'm going to play the recording of that conversation now for you to hear. Is Robert Hey, Robert Todd Peterson from the State Police. I'm just getting ready in it to end up that way. Oh okay, and you and. Basically you want to question to me about on again, it's about you may not even remember us back in nineteen eighty eight, there was a homicide of a girl in Three Rivers, Michigan, where you used to live or near Okay, yep. And so we've we opened that case back up. When exactly did that happen nineteen eighty eight? Wa in eighty eight, because I do know that we were in there. Oh my daughter was born down there in Phoenix. So I think that Robert is losing his mind at this point and realizes that the gig is almost up. But he does have the alibi, so to say, of living in Phoenix, Arizona. It lines up with the timeline. Of his daughter being born. This is why they didn't originally print him was because he had left to go to Arizona. So officers ended up coming back and Robert rode over to the station with them. He was very calm, cool, collected. He spent seven hours down at the station. He never once wavered. He was very calm the entire time. The footage of watching him at the station is truly wild, and the fact that he was able to hold his composure just really speaks to what kind of person we are dealing with here. So as they are talking to him, they're making small talk back and they're in the process of cross checking his prints to the ones that were left on Kathy Schwartz's phone back in nineteen eighty eight. Now, Robert had said that he's been a plumber for twenty years. He thinks that his fingerprints might be a little worn out and smudged from being a plumber. And I honestly think that in his mind he thought that he was going to get away with this because of that. I really truly think that that is what he thought, and that is why he was so calm. While they were making small talk with Robert, they ended up getting a call from the crime lab that is in the process of cross checking the fingerprints and they're having a hard time matching it up. They ask if they can redo his fingerprints and make sure that they're able to get the full finger like, do the full finger roll, including the tips of the finger so they can without a doubt say that Robert Waters is their guy. He willingly gives his prince again. He never complains, not ever once. They also take his footprints and they do a DNA swab of Robert. It's now five forty five PM and they have been at this whole thing for hours. They match the prince. It is definitive that Robert Waters is their guy. And they tell him that it was a match, and they told him that he was under arrest. He was calm, he said okay, and they placed him in cuffs. After thirty five years, they finally had their guy now. Unfortunately, Kenny Baker, the initial detective on the case, had passed away by this point, as did Cathy's parents. When Courtney heard the news that they had arrested the man who killed her mom, she couldn't even process what was happening. But only five days after Robert was arrested, he hung himself with a sheet in his jail cell. He was held in general pop in a cell by himself and was not on suicide watch. Mike Warner never once suspected his childhood friend of such a horrific crime. He said it shocked him that he was involved. Troy still struggles to get his life back on track after being the number one suspect for nearly thirty five years in a crime that he had nothing. To do with. Even though evidence pointed not towards him, he was always under that cloud of suspicion. He lives with his mother in his mother's basement. He struggles every single day with just functioning and it completely ruined his life. His mom says that he stays to himself and is basically a hermit. Mike Warner, the fiance of Kathy, also lives outside of town with his mom. Can't hold a job and spends the day collecting bottles and cans to turn in for profit. He would always visit Kathy's grave and leave her flowers. He very much struggles during this interview, and you can just how it's so sad. These poor people had their lives completely turned upside down and then they were suspects, and a small town cloud of suspicion really does follow you. Mike spends his time riding his bike around town. This was truly a tragic murder that affects so many people. No real motive or reason, no justice, but at least there's answers as to who killed Kathy, but the why will. Never be known. Investigators said that they think that he potentially went over to the apartment, and of course Kathy let him in because he was a friend of Mike's, and that he attempted to come on to her, and she of course denied him, and then he proceeded to kill her. I'll never understand these cases and how you can just go into someone's home, viciously take their life, and then go on with your life as if nothing happened. He went on to be a very successful individual. He married, he had a family. When you look at the bodycam footage, he is a normal person. He is a normal guy. Does not look like somebody that is capable of such a horrific thing, but sure enough, he was capable. Now investigators are unsure if Robert could potentially be a suspect in other crimes, but his DNA now lives in the code of system, So if there ever is another case that they are trying to solve and there is DNA evidence, maybe it could tie back to him. I personally believe that somebody that can commit a crime as heinous as this is capable of anything, and probably was a violent person, and Kathy was likely not his only victim. But that is just my opinion. So that is Kathy's story. Another solved case after three and a half decades, thanks to advances in DNA technology, investigators that were willing to go the extra Mile and family that never gave up hope. I really like sprinkling in these solved cases and how they were solved, because I think it's so important for the cases that still are in the backlog of unsolved, even the possible Jane and John Doe. Cases that exist. Still every day we are one stip closer to solve all of these cases. Every day, advancements are happening in the genealogy space and the DNA space, and things are changing and evolving, and I think a lot of people that have been on the run for so many years, that are tied to these different crimes are running out of time. And I think that that's a. Really cool thing because we are literally witnessing history happening right before our eyes, and it is really cool to see and from the outside looking in, be a part of and really get to see these cases solved after so long. So thank you guys so much for listening to Kathy's story. It is definitely a sad and tragic one for all involved parties and the people that still have to live with what happened that day, have to live with being accused of this horrific crime when they truly had nothing to do with it. I can't imagine how that affects somebody's life, and still to this day, affects their life. But Kathy's story is solved, and for that we are ever so grateful that there is an answer and an ending to this decade's long case. So, like I said, thank you guys so much for listening. I will see you guys next week for a brand new unsolved case that I am working on right now, and there is going to be a lot to say about that one, so stay tuned for that and I will see you guys. Then, have a great weekend and stay safe. Bye.