Original subtitles

[Jeanne] Any time you find someone

who has committed multiple homicides,

the first question everybody wants to know is why?

What made them that way?

Why did they choose the victims they chose?

And there's often no answer to that question.

[Joe] I have met only one serial killer in my career.

And it's a remarkable experience

when you sit across the table from someone like that.

When you are a serial killer, the thrill for you is to kill.

[gunshot]

[thunderclap]

When someone has no fear of capture, no fear of being identified

and responds in a violent wa in the smallest provocation

they are the rare and most dangerous of all the killers.

[bell ringing]

[distant voices]

[sirens blaring]

[fire crackling]

[woman] For a fire, they've called an investigation.

4-2-1-8. South.

On January 26th, 1988,

a call was received about a fire in an apartment building.

[Brian] The fire department responds. Their first priori is life safety.

You have multiple families living in one building.

That building on fire- it can cause quite a lot of damage and a lot of injury.

[sirens blaring]

[radio chatter]

Is there anybody in here? Is there somebody to save?

[indistinct chatter]

Once the fire's out, then you can kind of gradually

sort of condense down what your scene really is.

[Ann] And then they started to look very hard

to see if there was anyone left in this apartment.

In this particular case in that investigation, they come across a body.

[Skip] Most of the time, you're going to assume that that body died

as a result of the fire.

But in this case, there were several lacerations to the victim,

both front and back.

It was so evident that this wasn't a death from a fire

but rather a death from a violent act.

They seal off the scene. We're gonna get Homicide here.

Not sure if they had to call Joe Kenda.

[phone ringing]

5:30-ish in the morning. I'm pretty much awake anyway.

But the call comes in,

and there's some frantic dispatcher on the other end of the phone

making announcements about what's happened.

"Don't tell me anything 'cause I don't wanna know what you think you know."

First reports are never to be believed.

"Give me an address. Where am I going?"

"I'll decide what's happened when I get there."

[sirens blaring]

In 1988, I'd been on the police department for 15 years.

And I was a supervisor in Homicide.

[indistinct voices]

Mrs. Kenda wasn't all that thrilled with my choic of career.

My kids weren't, either.

And I ignored them.

I will admit that.

And Mrs. Kenda and my children suffered for it.

But I never left her presenc without telling her I loved her.

'Cause it might be the last time I ever saw her

As a policeman, you have raised your right hand

to do something that is ultimately very dangerous.

That's why they give you a gun and a pocket full of bullets.

I was going to resolve violent death.

I took an oath to do that.

It meant something to me the and it still does.

What have we got?

We show up.

The fire captain takes me on a tour.

The place is destroyed.

It's the worst possible smel you've ever smelled in your life.

This is definitely an arson.

What you have is multiple spots where fire was initiated

and what appears to be newspaper used as an accelerant.

On top of that, you've got a body there.

This body's been set on fire.

So you had to investigate that body to find out,

"Okay, what happened to this guy?"

[Leon] His face has been slashed up.

He's been stabbed in the abdomen multiple times.

He's been stabbed in the back multiple times.

The strikes are coming from the right,

which would make that person right-handed.

So here he is, cut up to pieces.

The most disturbing thing is someone has pulled out a section of his intestines.

This was not the result of being stabbed.

So you not only have a murder,

you have somebody who's playing with the remains.

Uh-oh.

Who is this person that's been burned up and cut up and stabbed?

[Skip] We were able to find a wallet not too far from the body,

and that identified that person as 31-year-old Victor Woods,

who lived at that address.

[Larry] He's covered in newspapers.

But one thing you notice on all of them is they all contain blood.

Well, typically, that's telling you

that blood did not come from this victim laying on the ground

'cause it's everywhere else on these papers.

Our bad guy is bleeding.

When he used the knife, it gets slimy with blood.

And your hand goes down the blade, and you cut yourself.

Usually in the palm.

A painful wound.

When we look around, we find a knife.

It's a 13-inch-blade kitchen knife.

It is covered in blood. Obviously the weapon.

So now what do you know?

Our perpetrator did not come here armed.

This is a weapon of opportunity.

He finds it in the kitchen.

He pulls it from a knife block.

He uses it on Victor Woods,

and he drops it

because he has other things to do.

In the bathroom, there was a lot of blood in there,

which would indicate that the killer,

after he finished killing this guy,

he goes in, tries to bandage his wounds up.

[Joe] This is not something that's just gonna go away.

It needs to be stitched. It needs to be put back together.

So I immediately sent a detective to contact all the ERs

and have them tell us if someone comes in

with a deep wound in their right palm.

The key component of most investigations

but especially with murder investigations,

is what we call neighborhood canvassing.

You want to see who saw wha and when,

who heard what and when.

And lo and behold, a witness was located.

18-year-old girl, who was with the Olympic training committee.

[Joe] This girl is an Olympic athlete.

Karate and judo are her specialties.

[Larry] She said she was having trouble sleeping.

And she wanted to do something to help stretch her back

so she could get back to sleep.

There's a vending machine area in the complex.

She's out there putting a coin in a machine.

And she hears a muffled argument

coming out of apartment 104

She can't tell what they're saying,

but they're yelling at each other.

And that draws her attention.

And all of a sudden, it stop

And while she was outside, she saw a guy run out the apartment complex

and get into

what she described as a muscle car.

[Joe] And I asked her. I sai "Well, tell me about this car."

"Anything different about it?" "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's hot."

"Huh? How do you know?" "I could hear it."

[car engine running]

[engine revving]

"That car had throat." I know what that means 'cause I'm a car guy.

I personally have always loved cars.

I've had every kind of car you can imagine.

When she says throat, "That car had throat", it's got a rumble.

It's intentional.

Generally, cars have a muffler exhaust system that's been muffled to make them quiet.

Without that, the car's very noisy.

Some people like a real deep rumble in their exhaust

because it kind of gives the muscle-car sound,

the muscle-car feeling to the vehicle.

[car revving and rumbling]

[Brian] This car- it's at least a tie to the crime scene,

should we find somebody.

The information is that the suspect left in a vehicle.

The net grows with every minute

as far as how far away he could be.

Less than half a mile from those apartments is the entrance to I-25.

Interstate 25 starts in El Paso, Texas,

runs through the states of New Mexico, Colorado,

Wyoming, and into Montana.

So there is a four-lane pathway

leading you into three-quarters of the western United States.

40 miles south of Colorado Springs,

directly on I-25, is the city of Pueblo.

[horse neighing]

No. Under no circumstances

did I ever think that I would be talking about this again.

It has brought up some bad memories.

My name is Roger Gomez. I'm a retired ex-detective

with the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office.

[snorts]

[Roger] In March of '88, a rancher by the name of Sikes,

Mr. Sikes, called in and said he wasn't sure what he had come upon.

He was on horseback.

And he was actually looking for a baby calf that may have died.

You pay attention to your horse.

Well, it helps you in finding what you're looking for...

-[horse neighs] -[whip cracks]

[man] Ya!

...as well as things that you might not want to find.

Roger was working patrol. He was a corporal patrol.

And he was working what we called south sector.

When drove up, I parked, and I met with him. He couldn't tell what it was.

I knew what it was. I knew it was the torso of a human being.

[Joe] There is no head. There are no hands. Just a torso.

Who could do that? Well, somebody did.

So we are obviously looking for a serious criminal.

He doesn't just kill, he dismembers.

He's hacking them to pieces with a 13-inch knife.

Maybe you're killing in Pueblo, too, huh?

'Cause we certainly think you're killing in Colorado Springs.

[Joe] We are a long way from Colorado Springs, Colorado,

at this location, Ryan National Park.

And now we have this horrible discovery of a human torso.

Who is he? Who knows?

At the moment, there is no way to identify him other than being a human

and being dead.

[John] It was a very gruesom and very brutal murder.

It kind of makes you really wanna solve the case

when you see man's inhumanity to man like that.

Deputy Roger Gomez. Sharp guy. Been around the block.

Sheriffs have a different approach to things

because they wind up being very alone.

You're 20 or 30 miles from the nearest other officer

when you're out by yourself.

Dangerous work. You never know what you might encounter.

When I first saw the torso, it was like a giant, square pillow

you'd find outside on your furniture. Big, thick.

There was branches around it It was like somebody tried to cover it up.

We didn't realize initially until we uncovered and we saw we have legs.

This is a body.

I understood why the rancher couldn't tell it was a body.

It was, like...

I remember the balminess of the skin.

It didn't look like a body. It was dry, almost like leather.

[Leon] In Colorado, we're in the mountains, and so it's very dry.

And when you have low-moisture environments

and the body goes through decomposition,

it heads in the direction of what we call mummification,

which is a drying out of the body.

The good part of that is it does preserve it.

[John] The evidence is telli you it's been there for months.

Given the decomposition factor in the body,

it's impossible for Gomez to determine a cause of death.

They had to summon a corone to that location.

These people are looking specifically

for impact wounds, puncture wounds.

They're looking for, in this case, a dismemberment.

The type of saw that was use

So, if you're cutting through a neck bone,

they're gonna leave impressions on that neck bone.

The doctor finds a jagged cut line on the neck.

The jagged cut line reveals this was done with a saw blade of some kind.

The doctor finds a similar pattern on the wrist bones.

Not only did they kill someone and then they dumped the body,

then they cut him up, now they've taken, essentially, souvenirs

or other objects with them.

There's a head and hands out there,

and we're gonna go find them

The head was removed, and the hands were removed.

That is 99% of the time to obscure identification.

So we had no idea who it was at that point in time.

I was really working on trying to find any piece of evidence

that I possibly could find that nobody else might find.

This is gonna sound bizarre, but I got in the place of that corpse,

and I lied down.

And felt that if I slammed the body down,

maybe there's something that we can't see.

I took pictures of every square inch of that place.

I realized that there was no other evidence there.

[Joe] There is no blood. No dried blood, no bloodstain.

Only this item. This torso.

So this is a disposal site.

Where's the rest of him? Who knows?

Nobody locked their doors. Nobody bothered to take the keys out of their vehicle.

And after this happened, why, that all changed immediately.

We're looking at somebody who's extremely cold

To not only kill, but then to dismember,

that is a very rare thing.

And it speaks to the viciousness...

...of the person responsible.

Who could do that?

Back in Colorado Springs,

our detective is running down who Victor Woods is,

the first homicide victim.

And steps are taken immediately

to notify the family or friends in the area.

[Rick Caw] Vic was, uh, I would consider him a best friend.

He was the best man at my wedding.

So you can't get much closer friends than that.

It was my wife, Linda, who had got the call.

He had this charisma about him and this personality

that just oozed out of him.

She got a call from someone

in the Colorado Springs Police Department

asking if we knew or she knew Vic Woods.

I said, "Of course, he's our friend."

And he says, "Well, he's deceased."

And I was just stunned.

I mean, I'll never forget that phone call.

It's almost like it's not real at first,

you know, you hear it,

you understand what the words are...

...but it doesn't quite sink in at first.

Vic was from Zanesville, Ohio...

...and he had an opportunity to work in the bike shop

out there in Colorado Springs

and be the manager there.

And he is a knowledgeable and widely known

bicycle repairman

for high-end bicycles.

[Caw] For being in retail sales,

I think that fits

Vic's personality exactly,

and something he loved, cycling,

um, was perfect for him.

As the detectives are looking into this case,

they contact the apartment manager.

[Kenda] The manager says that Victor paid his rent

absolutely on time every tim

No issues whatsoever.

[Caw] All we knew was that Vic seemed to be

pretty happy at this bike shop,

and things were going good for him

and then the next thing you know,

we get this phone call.

It was completely counter to everything

that was going on in his life at the time.

And it's a very common thing for witnesses to say

"He didn't have an enemy in the world."

Well, I disagree.

He had at least one.

That's who I'd like to meet.

The manager says, "But I've heard there may be

some problems with the business,

and there may be some friction between the boss and Victor.

[Arms] Victor's business partner

was a man named David McCart

and often times in a business relationship,

there may be a lot of money involved.

One person's action may have a real negative impact

on the other partner and create a lot of anger.

[Ervin] Money is stressful within families,

but when it's money involving a livelihood,

I think that really ratchets up the tension.

[Kenda] David, the guy that owns the bike shop,

what if he comes over and things get out of hand,

and the owner grabs a kitchen knife...

...and decides to dance with Victor?

Knowledge, access,

arguments,

can that add up to murder?

It often does.

[typing]

[Kenda] Stranger killings are very rare.

The real key in a murder cas

is who are they, who do they know?

Business partnerships often end badly.

There's money involved.

That leads to a dispute.

That often cannot be resolved.

Victor and the owner of the bicycle shop...

...have argued about it in the past.

So now, the first person that gets my attention

is this owner.

Let's go to the bike shop and see if David might be afoot.

I want to look at him.

I want to look at the palm of his right hand.

I want to talk to him. I want to do a lot of things.

-We go to the bicycle shop. -[doorbell chimes]

There's a clerk at the sales counter.

"Is David here?" "Yeah, he's in his office."

"Would you have him come out?

We'd like to speak to him, we're the police department."

So around the corner comes David.

David is on crutches and his leg is in a cast.

A full leg cast.

It's obviously been there for some time.

Joe asked him about his injury,

and he said he had broken his leg and had surgery on it.

Is this the guy who's gonna select the 13-inch knife

and attack his 31-year-old worker,

who's in fine shape?

Who's gonna hold his crutches?

We still want to talk to him.

And we do.

[Martin] So Joe lets him kno that we learned that

there may have been some friction

between the two of you.

David says, "No, there was

no friction really."

[Kenda] He is pretty candid

He reports, "Yeah, there's money problems in the busine

and Victor had ideas, and I disagreed with him,

and we argued about it.

But eventually, I came around to his way of thinking

and we were gonna start doing

a few of the things that he suggested."

David says Victor had actually just gone out

and contacted a bunch of hotels,

trying to work a deal with them

to rent bicycles from the sh

so that their patrons could use the bicycles.

They were really looking forward to improving

and continuing the business.

[Kenda] Then I said, "Well, now, let me explain.

I'm with homicide,

and Victor, I'm afraid, is no longer with us."

And he was absolutely floored,

shocked to the maximum,

couldn't believe anything about that.

It really, really distressed him.

He's trying to get into a chair.

I said, "Let me help you.

Grab my hand with your right hand.

Grab my hand.

And I'll take that crutch and set it up against the wall."

His hand is pristine.

From the blood we found at the scene,

we really anticipate that

this suspect was gonna have a wound to his hand.

Back to square one.

The only known potential suspect is gone.

So what else do we know about him.

David told Joe that Victor likes to go

to a place called the Yukon Tavern

for a couple of beers after work.

[Kenda] The Yukon Tavern at that time in 1988

was a very popular night spot.

And it was several miles away from Victor's apartment.

But on payday, Victor would go to the bar

because he was a member of one of the pool leagues.

There's pattern because he was there frequently.

So the chances of somebody who worked at the bar

knowing something valuable to the investigation

would be way high.

[Kenda] "What's he drive?"

"He has a Toyota with ski racks on the roof."

"Okay, thanks."

So off we go to the Yukon Tavern.

As we parked,

I turned to this detective. I said, "Hey...

...that's his ride."

Right there in this lot.

So Victor certainly was here, and his car still is.

So we go in the bar.

[Ritz] The bartender is probably one of your bes resources inside a bar.

A good bartender knows his clientele

because his tips

are probably based on a lot of his work.

It's important for him to pay attention to what's going on.

[Martin] When investigators talked to the bartender,

"Oh, yeah, I know a Victor very well.

He comes in here all the time. Pretty nice guy.

Uh, usually no trouble, uh, gets along well

with everybody, everybody likes him.

He comes in here and shoots pool."

[Ritz] Generally, he was a quiet individual.

On this particular night, he seemed to be drinking

a little bit more, a little bit more boisterous,

little bit more obnoxious.

[Caw] They never saw Vic be a mean drunk.

He was a fun, happy drunk,

but Vic sometimes, didn't have a filter,

and as he drank, he would talk,

and sometimes, he might ruffle some feathers.

[Kenda] The bartender says

he starts an argument with some people,

and it winds up going out in the parking lot,

and there is a fight.

Bar fights can start over nothing.

Alcohol is the driver.

People have their inhibitions lowered

by alcohol consumption.

They develop something called liquid courage.

They begin to believe that they are somehow

a professional boxer because they've had 13 beers,

and they're gonna show these guys what they mean.

Those fights can turn ugly. They can turn fatal.

[bar fighter] Come on! Get his ass outside!

[Kenda] You want to talk to the people involved in the fight

[Ritz] We're able to find all the bar patrons

that were present at the tim

happen to be the local hango for these people.

And they pretty much describe it as just

a simple misunderstanding.

[Arms] Bar fights

are a dime a dozen

One or both sides are intoxicated.

Well, it was no big deal.

A little pushing and shovin out in the parking lot.

[Ritz] None of them have any kinds of wounds on them

to indicate that they cut somebody

during a murder.

Everybody was able to accoun for each other's actions

during that period.

It really eliminated all of them from being a suspect.

[Martin] So now, you're looking at,

okay, how come Victor's car

is still at the bar and he's not?

Somebody had to have given him a ride home.

Did this person

give Victor Woods a ride to the morgue?

He certainly could've.

[Kenda] Pueblo PD has a horrible discovery

of a human torso.

This is something unheard o in that jurisdiction.

We're still trying to figure out what happened,

physically, what happened?

And those facts are not known,

and they aren't gonna be known until we have an autopsy.

[Ritz] The medical examiner coroner's operating...

...with a hyper focus towards what's the cause, what's the manner.

I was very interested in the process

of what happens with the body.

So I was invited in when the body was taken in

and actually rolled the body on the table.

That whole process was really helpful to find o what had happened.

There's nothing pleasant about this.

It's horrible.

It smells horrible.

It looks even worse.

It is the nature of trying to resolve

violent death.

We're dealing with cadavers and working on them

when I was a pre-med student.

To me, I had to get over that,

even then, I had to get over that process.

Not everyone's cup of tea as they say,

but it is work that must be done.

Even without a head, even without hands,

there are still clues there.

[Kenda] It's obvious that these were post-mortem injuries.

There's no penetration wounds to the torso,

no evidence of gunfire.

So what killed this guy?

Probably the wounds were confined to the head..

...but the head's missing.

We don't know who this human is,

and for the moment, there's no way to find out.

[Corsentino] May 7th...

...of 1988,

there was a second call that came in

to the Pueblo County Sherriff's Office.

In the Rye area, there was people on the trail...

...and they came across what appeared to be bones,

but they weren't even sure if it was human bones...

...until they actually saw the skull.

Roger then responded.

It was somebody reporting a skull.

It immediately clicked.

I said, "Is this the skull to the torso?"

Is it the one we're missing from our initial investigation of John Doe,

or are we dealing with a killer

who is dismembering people

and throwing them away like yesterday's garbage?

What is going on here?

We don't know,

but we certainly need to find out.

[indistinct chatter on police scanner]

[indistinct chatter on police scanner]

[Kenda] At this point in this investigation...

...we have discovered a human skull

20 miles from where this body was discovered

with no head.

Is this the head to that bod

[Gomez] So right away, I'm thinking,

"Just stay calm don't jump to conclusions.

Let the scientific evidence support what you think

before you open your mouth."

And that's what I did.

[Kenda] The hiker that found his head

takes the deputies to the area where he found it,

which is a ravine.

[indistinct chatter on police scanner]

[Kenda] The ravine is withi throwing distance of a road

So in their search of the ravine,

they do discover some items of evidence

that are important.

One is a pair of black leather gloves.

[Gomez] And the gloves, to m

I think, well, they work out with them,

they were body builder's or motorcycle gloves,

just looking at it.

Then the next step is

taking pictures, setting the markers down.

But I do find a cord from Venetian blinds.

I find a black plastic bag.

The other is a blood-covered rusted saw blade.

[Gomez] There was a miter sa that was there as well.

I measured a 12-inch blade with a 6-inch handle.

It's not every day you're gonna go into a rural area

and find a miter saw.

That miter saw

was used to dismember, in my mind,

the body of the victim.

Well, you're talking about

hands with flesh on them

and fingers,

and you got squirrels and rabbits

and all kinds of wildlife.

That's an hors d'oeuvre for them.

I mean, they're gonna... They're gonna take...

Birds will fly off with a finger.

Once a human is killed,

and their body is left in the wildlife area,

you are not mama's baby boy anymore.

You are lunch.

[indistinct chatter on police scanner]

They properly marked it identified evidence

and then brought it back to the Pueblo County Sherriff's Office.

James Kramer travelled with Roger

and met him at the Pueblo County Sherriff's Office.

[Gomez] Here's a body, here's a head.

Here's some evidentiary stuf like a saw.

But it has to be proven.

God forbid if you had the head of somebody else,

and it didn't match your torso...

...and you're out there blabbing about it.

Not a good idea. You've gotta be able

to confirm it with science to back it up

[Kelly] When you use a tool like a saw...

...what it does is it causes markings on both sides,

the torso and the neck.

Once you have the head and the torso,

and you can reunite them,

where the saw was, where it cut through

is going to match on either side.

It's essentially gonna be like two pieces of a puzzle

coming nicely together.

Dr. Kramer is able to determine that that skull

in fact came from the torso

of the body they have in the morgue.

You now know that this skull is correct.

Now, another question, who is it?

[Gomez] We realized there was a big chunk

that was missing from the front of his right side of his face.

What was that caused by?

Dr. Kramer is able to determine

that the damage to the skull

was caused by a gunshot wound...

...which, of course, explains the issue

of not finding any damage on the body of John Doe.

The fatal damage was restricted to the skull.

By the dispersing of the body parts,

this individual was making every attempt

to conceal who he was.

This individual was going to be elusive

and very difficult to...

...connect with,

unless he committed another crime.

[Kenda] Who are we looking for here?

Who is this guy?

This is something out of the movies,

but here we are.

Does it connect to the killi of Victor Woods?

We don't know, but we intend to find out.

[Kenda] Right now, at this moment of this investigation

of Victor Woods...

...we can reconstruct some of this.

When we went to the Yukon Tavern...

...his car is at the bar.

Mr. Woods did not walk home

It's too far, he's gonna get a ride.

Well, what if there was a cab outside?

In the cab culture of the 1980s...

...they hang around airports, they hang around bars

if they're not busy.

[Joe] Because often people realize that they'd been drinking, they see the cab,

they approach and he has a fare.

[engine starts]

[car screeching]

[Joe] So, we contacted all the taxi companies in Colorado Springs.

[Larry] So the taxi cab companies are contacted.

They tell Joe that,

"No, we didn't take anybody home from there."

But one of the gals who was driving the taxi,

was in the parking lot when an altercation took place.

[men shouting indistinctly]

It was determined that Victor had got into an altercation

inside the bar that moved to the outside.

[men shouting indistinctly]

And after it was over, she saw somebody walk up to Victor.

[Joe] She said she'd never seen him before.

He was wearing a black leather jacket.

And he was by himself.

It was an observant cab driver

because he may have caught her eye a bit.

Dark curly hair, beautiful leather jacket.

Little bit cocky in the way he walks.

[Joe] He's incredibly good looking.

"Movie star handsome" were her words.

And he has a tan.

A magnificent sun tan.

People notice things that are out of ordinary.

It's the middle of winter.

Where'd he get a sun tan?

She saw him go up, talk to Victor

and Victor walked over and got into his car.

Oh, what kind of car was he driving?

He was driving a blue Trans Am.

[engine starts]

-[engine revs] -That had a very distinctive sound to it when he drove off.

[car screeching]

Think back to our athlete, our man with a muscle car.

That's the guy.

[engine accelerating]

So now, we have another credible witness

who sees Woods with this same individual.

Two and two always equals four.

[engine accelerating]

This is our prime suspect.

The man in the car.

[engine accelerating]

There's a major interstate that runs right through Colorado Springs.

Y'know, a blue Trans Am could have been here one minute and gone the next.

So where can that car be from? Who knows?

But it's not from here.

[engine accelerating]

[Joe] Then the Pueblo Sheriff's Department, Deputy Roger Gomez.

That's a very tall order on his hands.

The case for me, brought on its own obsessiveness because

I knew I had an obligation to the family.

I had to get this and do the best job I possibly could.

The first step of many steps in the process is to go back and identify

if there's anybody missing that meets

the physical bone structure of this individual.

[Larry] When his body was found, the torso was found.

The body was, uh, very muscular.

Which indicated that this person worked out a lot.

About a couple weeks later, I'm working late one night

and a man, by the name of Mr. Glen Ferguson comes to our department after hours.

I say, "How can I help you? "So I wanna report a missing person."

And I said, "Well, who is it?"

He said Paul Vosika.

His step son, Paul Vosika, has been missing for months.

[camera shutter clicks]

It all made sense to me when the father came in and said he has a missing son

who is a body builder.

It all made sense.

That torso, most likely, is Paul Vosika.

Who is Paul Vosika?

What does he do for a living?

What are his habits, his hobbies?

Is he engaged in illegal activity?

All the questions you have to ask.

[Larry] There was a follow u interview done with Paul Vosika's sister, Robin

And she indicated that Paul was actually a pretty good guy.

But he started running with the wrong crowd.

She says, "Yes, yes, Paul has always been a body builder.

Works out constantly.

Became interested in steroids.

And that led him down a path of the use of drugs.

And he got involved in drug running."

[Roger] Robin gave me the impression he was way over his head.

How he was in danger-land.

[Larry] She indicated that o of the guys that Paul would hang around with,

what she described as a very good looking guy.

"He's like movie star pretty.

And he has this incredible tan all the time."

A really good looking guy with a tan.

Well, my, my, my.

You've been busy, Mr. Good-looking-tan-guy.

[engine revs]

[Joe] What is he capable of

Anything to anybody.

Violent crime is a horrible thing.

It's been around ever since humans have been around.

But there are levels of it.

There are levels.

Most murders are specific in motive.

[mysterious music playing]

[gunshot]

[gunshot]

[Joe] When you are a serial killer,

you don't need a motive.

Because the victim doesn't matter.

[engine starts]

[car screeching]

It is very rare and very, very frightening.

[ambulance siren blaring]

[police speaking indistinctly]

I was in bed. It was like, three o'clock in the morning,

uh, that I got the call that my Captain, Dan,

uh, wanted me to respond to the Hampton Inn.

The city of Pueblo has an incident where a security guard

and a night clerk have been shot during a robbery.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Rich] My job, immediately w to start taking measurement

and visual accounts of the scene so that I can prepare crime scene sketches.

[police speaking indistinctly]

-[camera shutter clicks] -[Rich] Photographs are obviously taken.

But sketches can do a little bit more.

-[camera shutter clicks] -[Rich] They can have measurements.

[camera shutter clicks]

[camera shutter clicks]

The desk clerk was Raymond Garcia, who was 26 years of age.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Joe] He was shot to death at the scene.

There was a life ended, right there.

A life that had a lot of, uh, potential ahead of it.

[Lori] My dad called, probably about 7:30.

And he said that...

Sorry.

That Ray was shot.

And then I just asked him, "Is he okay?"

And he's like, "No, he didn't make it."

And I just remember just crying. Losing it.

Sorry.

[sniffles]

And my heart just sank because not this guy.

Not this guy.

He was someone that was gentle, kind, loving.

And I remember, when I heard that, I thought, "This is so unfair.

This is so unfair. It's just not right."

[Lori] Raymond was my brothe He was three years older than me.

He was born in '61 and myself in '64.

So, yeah, he was always my protector.

Ray was supposed to be worki like, five days before.

And he switched with the gir 'cause it was her birthday, so they switched and...

And he was there at the wrong time.

But that was him. He would do whatever for anybody.

[sniffles]

[John] Nobody could understa why anybody would just take that life,

for no reason.

He could have just left him.

Y'know, what was in that person's head that gave him

the right to take another life?

[Dan] The difference in this was, once again, there were two victims.

One murder and one attempted murder,

the security guard being shot in the jaw.

The security guard being treated for the gunshot wound at the hospital,

was Robert Martinez.

[Dan] It appeared to be a robbery,

that was impulsive in shooting both individuals.

Because the person wanted to get in, get out

and not have anybody remain, uh, as a witness.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Joe] They process everythin they can, but it may not lead to much.

They were unable to locate anyone at that crime scene.

No resident was up, nobody else was working around the area.

Nobody saw anything.

I remember thinking, y'know, "God, you've got to do something. Somehow, some way.

Some way to bring this man to justice, to bring some peace to this family."

What they've got, hopefully, is a surviving eye witness.

He's in critical, unstable condition.

But if he lives, he could be the key.

[intense music playing]

[Joe] In the 70's we were all looking for ways to share information.

So we developed in the West something called the Rocky Mountain Information Network.

The RMIN reports.

They are incident based reporting systems

that try to capture the details of the case

so that unique parts of the case can be compared one to another,

to see if there any linkages.

[Joe] I was religious about getting those reports and reading them because,

the sharing of information is the key.

Information is the way things get resolved.

The more you know, the less you have to look fo

So a RMIN broadcast comes in about a crime in the city of Pueblo.

When I read that initial RMIN report, my face lit up

Well, are you the guy I'm looking for?

I think maybe you are.

[camera shutter clicks]

It's a very nice moment, when you finally think you're getting somewhere.

[intense music playing]

[Joe] Here we are, with this RMIN broadcast.

The Hampton Inn on I-25 in Pueblo, Colorado

is robbed.

[camera shutter clicks]

-[camera shutter clicks] -[police speaking indistinctly]

[Joe] The security guard is in a hospital,

being treated for severe injury.

So Pueblo PD has a witness, a living witness to this crime.

[Jeanne] An eye witness who got shot,

is certainly a high impact witness

that can give you details that you would never, ever get.

[machine beeping]

[John] Fortunately, the bull kind of grazed him,

went in and around the skul

instead of penetrating into the brain.

But he could have easily been killed right there

and I think he realized that too.

[monitor beeping]

[Joe] Pueblo PD says,

upon interviewing the surviving witness...

[Joe] Mr. Martinez, he walks in

and sees armed robbery in progress.

The man turned to put the gun towards him.

He said... and this is pretty much a quote,

"I think I'm going to kill you."

And raised a gun and shot

Robert Martinez right in the face.

Well, Robert Martinez fell to the floor

but he was still alive and he was still semi-conscious.

He said he heard the man walk into the other room

where Raymond Garcia was and he heard the shot.

What kind of person goes into a hotel

which deals with very little cash

and kills two people,

or believes he's killed two people,

for a small amount of money?

[Joe] The person that would do that

is someone who has no emotio

has no understanding of the value of human life.

What piqued my attention

when I read that initial RMIN report,

was at the end of that conversation with Martinez,

Martinez said the last thing he remembered

is he heard a muscle car drive off.

Consider that for a moment.

[car revving]

[Joe] Think back to what the athletic girl said...

at the Lois Lane Apartments

He drove a muscle car.

The taxi driver at the bar at Yukon Tavern.

He drove a muscle car.

All that adds up to somethin

We are all looking for the same guy.

The very same guy.

Could he be a serial killer? Of course.

A misnomer perpetrated sometimes by the press

that a serial killer does things exactly the same way.

No he doesn't. No he doesn't.

When you are a serial killer,

the thrill for you is the kill.

We need to find

the owner and driver of a muscle car.

That's the answer to this case.

You have a crime scene on an interstate highway.

It is busy 24 hours a day, at both directions.

It goes to the Mexican border

and nearly the Canadian border.

[John] We had officers hit the highway

both directions immediately

speeding north and speeding south

trying to come up with a car that had loud mufflers.

[producer speaking]

In thousands of cars? Yeah, it is very difficult.

You've got a sheer volume by I-25 that's overwhelming.

Reality is that you're not gonna catch everybody.

[Joe] How many muscle cars are out there

driving around that intersta as we speak?

Corsentino has a very tall order on his hands.

That's not something easy to do.

But while he's in the process of working on this problem,

he gets the magic phone call.

[telephone ringing]

[Joe] A witness calls in, a woman

and she reports that she has information

on who did the Hampton Inn robbery.

Well, that's exactly who we are looking for,

is another witness.

They bring this woman in.

She says, she has this boyfriend

and his name is Ronald White.

She had information that her boyfriend

was the one who had committed the robbery

at the motel and and had killed the clerk.

[Ann] She dropped a dime on him.

She had enough, it was really fresh.

She was angry and ready to go.

[Joe] There is an old expression,

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

It's been my experience, that's very true.

Ronald Lee White is about to learn his lesson.

[telephone ringing]

So he's no longer the guy with the tan...

[car revving]

[Joe] ...and a muscle car.

He has a name.

Now we're not chasing a ghost.

We're chasing Ronald Lee White.

The female says that she knows where he is

because she threw him out.

So Pueblo PD knows his whereabouts.

Now it's time to write an arrest warrant

for one count of first-degree murder

and one count of attempted first-degree murder.

[Rich] Myself and my partner,

we're in the process of writing an arrest warrant.

We asked Colorado Springs Police Department

to provide some officers that could assist in surveillance.

[Joe] When they arrive at the residence,

a muscle car is parked in the driveway

indicating that Mr. White

is most likely inside that building.

[woman on radio talking]

[Dan] The question was whether they were going to use

a tactical entry into the house

or were they going to knock on the door and go in.

I don't think anyone expected him to...

to be taken peacefully.

They surround the house anticipating gunfire

from a guy like this.

[Rich] Some point he came out,

opened up a trash can and put something in the trash.

Looked like he might leave

and they couldn't let that happen.

He came back to his car.

And it rained cops.

[police siren blaring]

He steps out calmly, turns around

and places his hand behind his back

to be handcuffed.

No resistance.

No comment. No words.

Great, nobody died.

I request the PD in Pueblo

to provide me with their information on his background.

[Joe] He has a criminal history

you can measure in ounce.

For violent crimes,

sex crimes, narcotics.

You name it, he's involved in it,

in huge ways, in huge numbers.

[cell doors buzzing]

[Joe] Two times in prison.

[gates locking]

On one of those occasions words are said

by another inmate.

[Ronald White grunts]

[Joe] And Mr. White attacks him with a sledgehammer

to within an inch of his lif

It took six guards...

to get control of Mr. White.

Because he is absolutely out of control.

The dark personality of Ron White

showed many times over

into stages of anger,

uh, if you crossed him.

[Joe] Another incident involving Mr. White in his history.

He comes upon an incident

where a police officer

is trying to make a physical arrest.

The suspect is gaining control of the officer.

White walks up and shoots the guy in the head.

Kills him.

He didn't make a decision here, it's an instinct.

"Oh, he needs to be dead. Boom!"

Suffice to say, Mr. White suffers from anger issues.

No kidding.

[camera shutter clicking]

[camera shutter clicking]

[camera shutter clicking]

[Dan] I was concerned about Ron White escaping.

He was coming into the Puebl County Detention Facility

and I wanted to make sure that the receiving deputies

knew that we were going to isolate him

and not put him in a holding cell with anybody.

[John] About a dozen deputies led him down the ha

and he just kind of had a scowl

and he looked at everybody as he walked by.

And you could just see in the eyes, they were...

blank. No humanity,

no compassion.

Uh... no feeling in those eyes.

Uh, scary.

It's like looking into the eyes of evil.

The eyes of the devil.

Now that Mr. White is in custody

and is perfectly intact and coherent...

[Joe] ...Corsentino has the opportunity

to question him about the Hampton Inn robbery.

He tells Corsentino he's had the gun,

bought it in Denver,

kept in his glove box.

He needed it for a rainy day.

Oh, really?

What's your definition of a rainy day, Mr. White?

[car door closing]

He told me, when he went into the Hampton Inn

to rob the place...

he got insulted. I said, "Why?"

He said, "The guy didn't take me seriously.

I am sitting here with a gun.

He doesn't even pull his gun, so I shot him."

He said, "I got insulted. Do your job the right way,"

[Joe] After the security guard disarmed himself

at the demand of Mr. White,

when he has this security guard, Martinez, on his knees.

Just told Robert Martinez, "I think I'll kill you."

Shot him right in the face.

Never looked back.

Walked in the other room.

Put the gun to the back of Raymond Garcia...

shot him dead.

It's a very, very sick, violent death.

[car screeching]

But Mr. White is very sick, very sick indeed.

[Joe] Pueblo PD says

if he killed Victor Woods, he'll confess.

[camera shutter clicks]

He loves to confess.

He loves to say outrageous things

to see your reaction.

He is, as we say, an unusual guy.

[Joe] I'm going to interrogate him

and I want to know who I am dealing with before I do that.

What buttons should I push

and what buttons should I avoid?

If he's angry, he won't tell me anything.

He'll invoke his rights.

He'll walk out and I'll never know

for certain if it's him.

[alarm buzzing]

[Joe] And off he comes

to Colorado Springs.

[cell lock buzzing]

[Joe] I have met only one serial killer in my career

and it's a remarkable experience when

you sit across a table from someone like that.

I'm expecting him to be very alert.

I'm expecting him to be nervous.

When I walked into that room...

he's not nervous.

He's not anticipating anything.

Mr. White is asleep on his forearm.

I thought, "Well, what do we have here?"

And I said, "Do you prefer to be called Mr. White?

Do you like Ronald?

Do you like Ronnie?

He just looked at me. He said, "Call me Ronnie."

"Okay."

"Then you can call me Joe."

So now we have established

this little rapport.

So, he notices a sign,

in the room that says, "No smoking."

And I said, "Do you smoke, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Would you like a cigarette?"

"Well, there... there's a sign."

"You see, I might kind of run this place you know, so,

you want a cigarette, I'll get you one."

I put a cigarette in his mouth.

And uh, I lit a cigarette.

And I said, "Oh, you need a light, don't you?"

And I kind of laughed.

"Yeah.", he said, you know.

So I threw the lighter at him.

When he opened his hand,

there's a pink scar running across his palm.

And I said, "You know, you're...

You got the injury on your hand there."

"Yeah."

"I bet you got that when you stabbed Victor, didn't you?"

He looked at me, turned his head,

then he said, "Yeah.

And it [bleep] hurt too."

"Oh, I bet it did."

[Joe] So, here we are, with Ronald Lee White.

He's charged with a number of homicides,

and now he's about to tell me

about the death of Victor Woods.

I never asked him another question.

Told me how he watched him in the bar.

He was drunk.

Started a fight.

[indistinct yelling]

White said he kind of felt sorry for him.

So he said, "I'll give you a ride."

Takes him home to those apartments.

When they get there,

that's when something goes wrong.

[indistinct conversation]

[stabbing]

Obviously, Mr. White

is easily provoked.

That's what makes him so scary.

One minute he is performing a service

by giving somebody a ride.

The next minute he is hacking them to pieces

with a 13 inch knife,

and examining their stomach

'cause he's never looked in one before.

"Who are you, man?"

[Larry] He had no qualm

in talking about that whole thing.

Uh, it was almost like

it was badge of honor for him

just to talk about,

this is what he had done.

[Joe] After White kills Wood

he is significantly hurt

by this knife.

He's trying to stop the bleeding.

Then Ronnie decides

it's time to burn the place.

"What did you think about all the people that live in that building?"

"[bleep] them.

I had to cover up that evidence."

[Larry] Ronald Lee White told investigators

he didn't think he'd get caught.

He didn't leave any clue behind

that would catch him in this.

But, yes, he did.

[Joe] Now it's time

to discuss the murder of Paul Vosika,

and his dismemberment.

Paul's sister, Robin,

I think she was aware

of some of the circles that he was in.

[Joe] There was one guy in particular

he spends a lot of time with

And he's a bad news guy.

And he and Paul Vosika

were the very best of friend

They had known each other for a long time.

And they wound up in the drug business togethe

He said they would do drug reps.

From Pueblo, to Colorado Springs,

to Denver.

Sometimes two or three times

a night.

White gets it in his head

that Vosika has stolen $1,500 from him,

pretty common, among dopers.

If he is hitting up the Hampton Inn for $200,

what do you think he would feel

if Vosika pulled

and stole $1,500 from his wallet?

You have now gone into the depths of hell.

You violated the king, and you're gonna pay with your life now.

[engine revving]

[Joe] He tells us

that he lures him out to a remote area.

He puts Vosika on his knees.

He tortures him verbally

for an hour.

He's going to kill this man,

but he wants his hour of enjoyment first.

He took out a book from the back of his car,

which is about this thick,

put it behind Vosika's head

took the gun...

[gun cocking]

[gunshot]

...and shot him.

And the theory for White

was that it would produce maybe less blood.

Why get dirty?

You're just killing this piece of crap

that has annoyed you.

Good God!

Now he has this guy dead,

he uses a saw.

I'll never forget it as long as I live,

the way he described it.

He said that when he took the miter saw,

he's gonna cut the head off

He got angry,

and I said, "Well, why did you get angry?"

He says, because it got stuck on his neck bone.

He eventually got through it,

but it was so hard,

that when he go to the hands

to cut those off, he said,

"They came off like butter."

[sarcastically] Oh, isn't that nice, Mr. White?

So much easier.

He walks away with a head in his hand

by the hair,

and thinks how much easier it is

to carry the head,

than it was to put his body over that fence.

Mr. White drives away

with Mr. Vosika's head.

20 miles or so away

he throws it out the window over a fence.

Somebody will find it,

probably, maybe no one ever will.

And if they do, well, so what?

How are they gonna connect that to him?

They're not.

Because he's a genius.

He kills cleverly.

And he will continue to do it.

Probably learn it from the Vosika murder,

to the Victor Woods case,

to the Garcia case in Pueblo

He's becoming harder and harder,

and more cruel,

as every murder

continues to go on.

[Joe] So Mr. White announce he's tired.

He won't talk anymore. And I'm like, "All right."

And I said, "I'll see you in court."

I stood up and he stopped.

He turned and looked at me, and said, "You know.

I don't know if I can remember

all the people I've killed."

That's a pretty amazing statement.

Mr. White was ankle deep in blood

when we met him.

What's to say he wasn't knee deep

[Joe] Now, why did Ronald Lee White

tell me he didn't know if he could remember

all these murders he's committed?

What's he up to?

Does he believe he's been caught anyway

and he might as well tell the truth?

Does he wanna brag about it?

Does he want the attention its gonna bring him?

Given what we know

about Mr. White

and how he has behaved

in the past several months in Pueblo

and Colorado Springs,

there's absolutely no reason in the world

to disbelieve him.

Of all the people

ever arrested and charged

and convicted or murder,

the worst person I've ever dealt with

is Ronald Lee White,

without doubt.

In my humble opinion

I think he is good for 15 murders.

[Dan] I don't think there's any question

as I sit here now years later

that Ron White

committed more murders than we know about.

He has a pattern of behavior.

[Joe] I believe the statemen

I do.

But what I think doesn't matter.

What only matters, is what I can prove.

Mr. White did plead guilty

to the murder of Victor Wood

the murder of Mr. Garcia,

and the murder of Paul Vosik

And the attempted murder of Mr. Martinez.

Those are the only four cases we can prove

he was involved in.

[gavel bangs]

Mr. White is so bizarre

that here he is, in court,

with his massive weightlifter body,

hand cuffed behind his back

in belly chains,

I'm in there,

and he says to everybody,

"I'll kill all of you sons of bitches

and I'll kill your kids too."

And everybody in this room

is recoiling from this guy.

And he is loving every second of it.

He didn't care if it was in the courthouse.

Um, and he got a lot of attention

for a lot of that stuff too.

Family members come in to a criminal case

hoping for answers.

They want... closure is the fashionable word.

But there is no such thing,

when you've lost a family member

that you loved.

Just felt anger.

And he just...

just stood there, you know, smirking like,

he didn't have a care in the world.

And that was

pretty hard to see him

just like enjoying himself

and we're here grieving.

[Joe] White turned to the judge,

the judge told him he's gonna send him to a life in prison.

"I don't want life in prison

you dumb son of a bitch.

I want you to kill me.

Execute me."

[Dan] In his mind,

he was done.

He did not wanna spend

life in prison

because that was more of a torture

for him than just having his life come to an end.

[Joe] But that's what he got life in prison,

and he's still there

in prison

locked up and alone

where he is always going to be

until the day he dies.

[George] This guy took someone's life

and he's paying for it with his life.

He is, uh...

He's deserves everything he gets.

Justice is served.

[Lori sobbing]

[Lori] I just wanna tell hi I love him and miss him.

[sniffling]

He was the best brother anybody could have.

He was my guardian angel.

How would I want Vic to be remembered?

He just had a zest for life,

uh, a little bit of a zest for adventure.

[Linda] Vic, we loved you.

And, I'm glad that you

are a part of out life.

We really, really cared

for him in so many ways.

[Roger] I take a lot of prid in how I handled this case.

And I think

our efforts in reference to get this guy convicted,

and getting him where he belongs,

is proof enough for me.

Look at the effort.

Look at the loss.

Look at the pain.

Look at the death.

That gives you some insight

into what law enforcement

deals with everyday.

It is intense work

with very intense results.

It's the kind of work that requires

a dedication.

It isn't a job.