Original subtitles

Yee-haw!

We were always trying to protect Michelle.

I tried to call her, but she's not answering her phone.

Saw dried blood, and the victim's face

was unrecognizable.

There's a dark secret here.

He would get totally out of hand.

He would choke her and raise her up in the air.

Holy cow. This could be our guy.

So we start looking at those traffic cameras.

And it's the old clue game, trying to figure out, you know,

who done it with what weapon in what room.

Dubuque police officer Brandon gudenkauf is on patrol

when he receives the call --

a possible homicide in an apartment on Iowa street.

Our dispatch did not have much information,

so I was going to call blind.

When I arrived on scene, I noticed a group of subjects

standing outside of the residence.

I approached them and began talking to them.

The bystanders, including the 911 caller,

tell officer gudenkauf

that they're concerned about their neighbor,

a woman who they know only as "auntie."

I then went inside the apartment with my partner.

But I had no clue what I was walking into.

Due to all the clutter, I could not tell

if someone was hiding.

I didn't know where the victim would be.

When I looked into the kitchen,

I saw a naked female.

And I saw dried blood all over her body.

There was blood all over the cabinets

and the refrigerator and stove.

First responders notice dozens of puncture wounds

as well as evidence of blunt-force trauma.

I saw multiple stab wounds,

and the victim's face was unrecognizable.

It's clear that her death was no accident.

I had just about four years of experience.

At that point, I had not seen a murder scene.

You never forget

the first homicide in law enforcement that you go to.

And this one, just with the brutal nature of it

and complete shock of walking in

and seeing that, being the first one in there,

is something that I'll never forget for the rest my life.

When we have a crime scene,

usually we tape off a lot more

than what we actually need from.

From there,

everything that's within that crime-scene tape stays there.

Officers speak to the woman who called 911,

who identifies herself as a neighborhood friend,

for more information.

The 911 caller explains that she noticed

the decorations normally used to cover her windows

were missing.

She tells officers

she then decided to check in her apartment,

and that's when she discovered her bloodied body.

Although the neighbors know her as "auntie,"

no one seems to know her real name.

But investigators soon manage to I.D. The victim.

We're a family of seven -- five kids --

and we grew up on a midwest farm

and always played together

Michelle is a character.

She was kind.

She was sweet.

She was an old soul

but had a childlike spirit.

Michelle's favorite time of the year was Halloween,

and she loved to dress up.

Here goes Michelle!

She loved the water. It was her favorite.

The faster we went, the better.

We tried to knock her off,

but she would hold on forever.

Yee-haw!

I got a call from the dubuque police,

and they said, "I'm sorry to tell you

that your sister is deceased.

She was murdered." And I yelled, "murdered?!"

Everything was going through my mind,

all these questions --

who? What? Why? How?

You never think in your wildest dreams

it would happen to your family.

Back at the scene,

lead detective Chris gorrell begins his investigation.

When I first got to the scene,

she was lying on the floor on her back.

Her clothes were off.

It looked like she had been beaten.

There was clearly a big struggle.

There's cabinet doors that are pulled off.

There were multiple puncture wounds

from being stabbed numerous times with something.

Quite honestly, almost anything can be used as a weapon.

And, you know, it's the old clue game

trying to figure out, you know,

who done it with what weapon in what room.

And that really is what's happening.

So when we're processing the scene,

there's a bloody kitchen knife.

We found a fork that was kind of bent

and had blood on it.

It became evident to US at that point, then,

that this fork obviously was used, too.

You could see the four tines

where they had penetrated the body in different spots.

I had not seen that kind of injury on somebody before.

I'd been on the force for 20 years.

Michelle's would rank up there

in terms of some of the worst scenes.

You could just tell

that there was a lot of pain and injury that she suffered.

Investigators discover

a bloodstained bra in the kitchen

and a bloodied pair of men's shorts in the adjoining room.

When we have no idea who perpetrated a crime

such as this,

we start to look at the victim.

That's where we begin.

What was her lifestyle like?

Did she live with anybody? Did she have a boyfriend?

Her shirt's completely off her body.

Her pants are completely pulled down.

So, obviously, sexual assault is something that comes

to the forefront of your mind,

thinking, "are we looking for somebody that she knew

that she was intimately involved with?"

Police begin canvassing the neighborhood.

As part of an investigative step,

we'll go out into the neighborhood

and just try to find witnesses.

So we're knocking on doors

when people are generally asleep.

None of Michelle's neighbors

can think of anything to help investigators.

But then the woman next door tells detectives something

that stops them dead in their tracks.

She was telling US that Michelle openly

welcomed people into her apartment.

Michelle Kinney -- she took people in

that she didn't even know.

For US, it's like,

"now our suspect pool just got huge."

We have, essentially, a person that knows everybody

and has contact with everybody.

So, who is our suspect?

We had no idea.

Police in dubuque, Iowa,

have found the body of 53-year-old Michelle Kinney.

And investigators are reviewing their suspect list

after learning Michelle often let strangers stay in her home.

Michelle would go to church

a couple times a week,

and she would meet people

down on their luck,

and she would provide for them.

Many people have been in and out of her apartment

where she has helped them.

With that open-door policy,

our pool of suspects just got larger.

She kept an unlocked door,

and people in the neighborhood knew that,

so it was concerning

that anyone could have gone in that apartment.

It appeared that she might have gotten friendly, too friendly,

with the wrong person.

While investigators dig into Michelle's background,

looking for potential suspects,

the next day, the results of the autopsy come back.

The autopsy revealed that she had been stabbed 41 times

throughout her head, torso, and neck,

and she had some blunt-force trauma to her head and face.

But they did not find evidence of a sexual assault.

Detectives hope the bloody men's shorts

found at the scene

will help point them in the direction of a suspect,

but it will be days

before DNA results come back from the state lab.

DNA doesn't happen overnight.

This isn't "CSI."

This isn't any of these shows where you watch it

and, literally, I can send it in

and they can call me an hour later and say,

"this is your suspect." It doesn't happen that way.

Investigators next return to Michelle's neighborhood...

Looking for additional witnesses

who hadn't answered the door the previous night.

We'll follow up with witnesses a lot,

and we'll follow up two, three, four times sometimes.

The canvass extends into the evening

as detectives continue connecting

and reconnecting with Michelle's neighbors...

...including the woman who lives next door.

Any information that a witness can give US helps US.

It's not just people that see things.

It's all senses.

You know, did people smell something?

Did people hear something?

We really rely on that.

Hearing this,

investigators can't help but wonder,

could Michelle have been arguing with her killer

earlier that evening?

Unfortunately, without more to go on,

investigators acknowledge

identifying the mystery individual

with Michelle that night

will be difficult.

However, detectives learn from another neighbor

that Michelle once had a troublesome roommate --

a man known only as "drew."

While speaking to the witnesses,

we learned that Michelle

had recently taken in

an individual

that didn't have anywhere to go or live or anything like that.

He was going through some hard times,

and she allowed him to stay with her,

and this person became a suspect pretty quickly.

Now detectives wonder if drew was the voice

heard arguing with Michelle the night of her murder.

Later, detectives connect

with another one of Michelle's neighbors...

...and are provided with yet another name to investigate.

Detectives now have two possible suspects --

a former roommate named drew

and Tom, a recent ex-boyfriend.

But while they know little about drew, aside from his name,

they quickly confirm Tom's identity from family members.

First person that came to my mind was Tom le grand...

'Cause I knew he had beat her up before.

Michelle and I talked

about the relationship with her and Tom.

I didn't like the way it was going.

She didn't, either.

I think she tried to have him leave several occasions prior,

and, eventually, then, he did leave.

It got a little volatile, I believe.

I heard that police were called.

Detectives easily track down Tom

and bring him into the law enforcement center

for questioning.

We wanted to know

what kind of contact did he have with Michelle?

Was it recent? Was it old?

Were they in a relationship at any point in time?

And so, obviously, we need to go talk to that person,

try to alibi them out, see where they were at,

see what they know about this.

Tom claims he and Michelle were still in contact

after the breakup

and he was heartbroken to hear of her death.

But Michelle's family doubts his sincerity.

He was an alcoholic. I know he drank vodka.

And he would get totally out of hand

where he would choke her and raise her up in the air

by choking her.

She would tell me that he tried to come back into her life,

and she wouldn't have it.

Detectives hunting Michelle Kinney's killer

have their eye on Michelle's ex-boyfriend Thomas le grand.

Under questioning,

Tom admits he and Michelle broke up

because he had a drinking problem.

Tom insists he had nothing to do with Michelle's murder.

He does, however, confirm

another name familiar to detectives.

While investigators have heard drew's name before,

they aren't about to dismiss Tom as a person of interest.

We were struggling a little bit

to try to narrow down our list of suspects.

As detectives keep pushing forward,

the Kinney family gathers to Bury their beloved Michelle.

Her wake/funeral was all in one.

I know in my heart of heart

we did all we could do to celebrate her life

with glitter, sparkles, sequins, buttons, everything.

She wouldn't want it any other way.

So many people came to celebrate her life,

sharing their stories about how Michelle touched their lives.

I wasn't doing so well.

I missed her funeral,

and I missed my son's wedding, as well.

It happened that same weekend.

Though...

...i wanted to be there, but I couldn't.

I didn't get to see her funeral.

I didn't get to go.

Investigators are focused

on two persons of interest --

Michelle's ex-boyfriend Thomas le grand

and her ex-roommate drew.

But his location still remains a mystery.

So they turn to the city's traffic cameras for help.

We found that there was at least one camera

that pointed directly towards the front door

of Michelle's apartment.

Officers scroll through hours of footage

from the day she was killed...

When they come across an important discovery.

An unidentified man

arrives with Michelle

at her apartment.

He actually helps carry some groceries

up to her building.

We watch on traffic cams as the two enter into the building.

We were able to show that that person entered the house...

...and that person exited the house

in between the time that she was killed

and the time that she was found.

Nobody else went into that house.

So we're able to use this footage

to say, "there's our suspect."

Investigators decide their best chance

of identifying this man is to use the city's traffic cameras

to track his movements after he left Michelle's apartment.

We track him from the apartment,

and he walks around the downtown area

and eventually walks to a bar on central Avenue

and is seen going inside that bar.

The same bar

where police arrested a man

on the night of Michelle's murder.

We were able to identify him as garry James.

He was somebody that was causing some issues in the bar

with other women.

And they were basically wanting him

to be asked to leave.

He was ultimately found to be intoxicated.

Officers forcibly remove James from the premises...

...and the arrest was captured

on dubuque police body cam.

I observed a beer bottle in his hand.

He was holding it in a manner that would be more consistent

with somebody that was gonna use it as a weapon.

And as soon as I made contact with him,

the individual became extremely irate with me.

And he was going to become a violent person.

So one of those things is just the fact

that he became very verbal with US.

I could tell that he had been drinking.

It was evident that something else

was going to happen at that point.

James was then brought to the law enforcement center

for booking...

...where he became increasingly aggressive.

Once we see that he's arrested

for public intoxication...

...the likelihood of him still being in jail is pretty slim.

The fear we had was he's no longer in dubuque,

and then how are we going to track him down from there?

If he is involved in this,

obviously, our concern is the public

and what is he capable of?

If he's capable of this once, he's capable of this again.

Police in Iowa are zeroing in

on the person they believe is responsible

for the murder of 52-year-old Michelle Kinney...

Garry James, who was captured on traffic cameras

leaving the victim's apartment complex

and was later arrested at a nearby bar

for public intoxication.

But investigators now fear he may be back on the streets

and a danger to the public.

In this case, the subject was arrested.

Normal public intox arrest, we arrest somebody,

we bring him to jail, they put him in a holding cell.

They'll give him a mat and they'll sleep it off.

And normally, the next day, he sees a judge,

and the judge releases him.

Investigators continue to dig into James's background

and discover yet another incident

involving the police captured on body cam.

Just a day prior to Michelle's murder,

police responded to the home of a woman named Pam

who feared James had returned to her apartment

after she had kicked him out.

The lady had taken him in,

and then he started doing some things that really caused her...

Concern.

So she kicked him out.

He's essentially kind of stalking her.

So she calls US.

With body cameras recording,

responding officers entered Pam's residence.

Although he got away from them that night,

detectives working the Michelle Kinney murder

discovered James's current location.

The jail was called, and we realized he's still in jail.

There was kind of this moment, like, "holy cow.

This potentially could be -- this could be our guy,

and he's still here."

But while detectives have James in custody,

before interviewing him...

...they decide to circle back to Pam to understand

his state of mind in the days leading up to Michelle's murder.

Armed with this alarming information,

they decide to roll the dice and question James directly.

When we got him in that room and read him Miranda

and I was sitting in the second chair...

We almost always interview somebody

with two investigators.

Part of that is

so that my person doing the questions can stay focused

on the questions and doesn't have to

try to record the responses.

Typically, an interrogation starts out

with an interview.

I'm just building rapport, getting to know that person.

And that may take a good half-hour to 45 minutes

before it kind of turns into an interrogation

where I start questioning them on

what they're telling me if I know it to be a lie.

Investigators press James

on details of his relationship with his female friend.

As I interview people, you know, I guess my goal

is to get that confession.

I try to have them save face.

It's tough when you're working a homicide.

You can't sell it any different than what it is.

Detectives reveal part of their hand

by showing him a screenshot

taken from traffic camera footage

that shows him with Michelle Kinney.

As investigators, we kind of keep our cards

close to the chest here

and not give out everything we know

we don't leave our cards all out at once

so we get them back on track.

We may feed them a little bit information --

"well, we saw you on video going into that that building."

He admitted that that was him

and that he didn't remember meeting this lady

and the lady asked him to help carry some grocery bags.

Believe she had told him that if he did,

she'd give him $3 for his help.

This point in the interview with garry, he's not even admitting

that he walked into the apartment.

He said that he took her to the front porch of the building

but didn't go in.

Camera footage shows this guy going into the house.

You can't lie your way out of that.

A lie that we can prove is a lie

is almost better than a confession.

But it's not a sure thing.

We need a whole bunch more.

Dubuque detectives are three hours

into questioning garry James,

quite possibly the last person

to have seen Michelle Kinney alive.

Although James admits

he helped Michelle with her groceries...

He claims he didn't go into her apartment.

But traffic camera video proves otherwise.

I try to appeal to some sensibility

or some just common sense

and say, "garry, help US understand this."

We've got you on video.

He was hung up on

not changing his clothes in that apartment.

He didn't want to put himself in that apartment.

Garry was a tough sell.

He certainly wasn't going to give me

anything that I wanted to hear that day.

But I think I've planted the seed in his brain

to do some thinking, do some soul-searching

as to what type of person he was,

what type of person his mother raised him to be.

Detectives let James sit with his thoughts overnight.

The next day, they decide to change up their tactics.

We know something about garry James.

He thinks religion is important to him.

We can use that.

So I kind of went into a religious theme.

I told him there's going to come a time

where he has to sit across from a higher power

and answer to the sins

or the crimes that he's committed.

It was like the floodgates opening,

and he just said, "I did it.

I did it. I killed that woman."

That was, essentially, the final piece of the puzzle

that fit in there.

Basically came down to, he states, is misplaced rage

against the girl that threw him out, Pam.

He adamantly denied that there was any motive,

any intent, or actually any sexual assault that happened.

James insists Michelle's clothes

were ripped off during the struggle.

How can he do that to another human being

and walk away in her jeans

because his are too bloody to wear?

He goes to the bar

and drinks with money

which he just took from the lady he just killed.

As investigators, what we want to know is why.

What triggered you?

What made you do this,

or what did she do that was so bad that you had to kill her?

And garry really didn't do that.

He didn't really tell US exactly why he did this.

Garry James pleads guilty to second degree murder

and is sentenced to 50 years in prison

for the murder of Michelle Kinney.

This case is important

because it validated our camera program.

This is a whodunit, and our cameras speed up

our investigations immensely.

There's that whole mantra that the first 48 hours

of an investigation is so important.

With our camera system, it comes down to that first 48 minutes.

We are literally moving that fast.

I thank god that there were cameras

and that he was caught.

I can't imagine the families going through this

not ever getting closure.

It has helped me heal and...

Get to where I am to be able to move on.

Here goes Michelle!

If Michelle was sitting across from me,

I'd just give her a hug and say I love you.

Thanks for being there for me.

I think one of the things

that Michelle really would want US to know

is never stop being kind. Don't be fearful.

Stop and say hello to those people

that really needed the most.

I miss you.

I miss your good spirit...

Your good hugs.