Oldest Cold Case Solved
Nancy Marie Bennallack was born in Grass Valley, CA. She spent her childhood years in the school of Hennessy, later moving on to Nevada Union High School, where she excelled in athletics - she played softball and handled the role of song leader during her school's songs and other festivities. Bowling was her leisure activity of choice, and she loved practicing this hobby with friends and family alike.
2 Hours of Cold Cases Solved in 2022:-
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Nancy Marie Bennallack was born in Grass Valley, CA. She spent her childhood years in the school of Hennessy, later moving on to Nevada Union High School, where she excelled in athletics - she played softball and handled the role of song leader during her school's songs and other festivities. Bowling was her leisure activity of choice, and she loved practicing this hobby with friends and family alike.
2 Hours of Cold Cases Solved in 2022:-
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00:00Nancy Marie Benelak was born in Grass Valley, California.
00:07She spent her childhood years in the School of Hennessy,
00:10later moving on to Nevada Union High School, where she excelled in athletics.
00:15She played softball and handled the role of song leader during her school songs and other festivities.
00:22Bowling was her leisure activity of choice, and she loved practicing this hobby with friends and family alike.
00:29Even though her figure was relatively slender, Nancy had quite a fierce appetite, according to her sister, Linda Cox.
00:36After graduating from beauty school, Benelak started working at a beauty center situated on South Auburn Street.
00:44A friend of hers persuaded her to come with her on a trip to Hawaii.
00:48There, she found employment at another beauty salon before returning to California,
00:53where she secured a position as a court reporter.
00:56If only she knew the gruesome horror that awaited her upon her return.
01:02On the night of October 25, 1970, Nancy and her fiancé, Ferris Salami, returned to her apartment after a social outing.
01:12After spending time with Nancy, her fiancé went home later that same evening.
01:17In the few days preceding her untimely passing, Benelak spent the majority of her time with her fiancé, Ferris Salami, who was chief public defender.
01:28In fact, the two were planning to marry within weeks of that evening.
01:32According to what Salami told detectives, Nancy was lying in bed when he said goodbye to her at approximately 11.30 p.m.
01:39Before heading off to his own home, Ferris stated that Nancy always left the sliding door to the nearby balcony slightly open to allow her cat to go in and out if it ever felt like going outside.
01:53The following day, her co-workers noticed that Nancy had failed to show up to work.
01:59Linda Cox, Nancy's sister, was among the first people to suspect something was wrong.
02:05This was shortly after she received a call from the place Nancy worked at, letting her know she didn't show up that day and asking if everything was okay.
02:15Linda quickly called up a few of her friends who lived next to Nancy's home and asked them to check if Nancy's car was still in the parking lot, and they let her know that it was.
02:26Shortly afterward, one of Nancy's co-workers called her son, Jack, and asked him to check up on her.
02:32With the assistance of the apartment manager, they entered her residence.
02:37They found Nancy dead with stab marks.
02:40Upon arriving at the scene, deputies discovered that this case had many parallels to Judith Hakari's murder, which occurred earlier that year.
02:50Both women were nearly the same age and resided less than a mile away from each other.
02:55Furthermore, they were both getting married soon.
02:58Other than that, deputies weren't able to find anything else linking the two cases together.
03:05Following Nancy's murder, the sheriff's office interviewed over 500 potential suspects.
03:11Among those were Richard John Davis and a roommate of his, but both provided strong alibis for one another.
03:17Davis, who lived across the apartment complex from where the crime took place, was 27 years old at the time and had a history of being an unstable alcoholic who was prone to violence.
03:29Still, investigators didn't have a strong reason to suspect Davis, as the evidence led them to believe that the attacker must have gotten into a car and driven away from the area after killing Benelak, which indicated the man was, most likely, an outsider to the neighborhood.
03:47While this was happening, crime scene investigators were working hard to determine what exactly transpired on that fateful night.
03:56It was later theorized that, during the evening of October 25th, or early morning hours of the 26th, a male, likely suspect, entered Nancy's apartment by climbing up to the second-story balcony and through the open slider.
04:11The man clambered over the balcony with duct tape on his fingers to hide his fingerprints before breaking into Nancy's residence.
04:20To accomplish this, the killer had to be agile, which meant the culprit must have been young, most likely under the age of 30.
04:29Furthermore, an ominous trail of crimson red blood was found running from the balcony, across the sidewalk, and ending in the parking lot.
04:37This led investigators to believe that the suspect may have left with a knife wound since the blood trail leading out of Nancy's apartment indicated a cut most likely sustained on either the hand or arm.
04:51Although crime scene investigation methods have vastly improved since 1970, back then, technological limitations hindered what investigators could learn from examining a crime scene.
05:03For example, while analysts could identify someone's blood type, sadly, that was about the extent of it.
05:11In 2004, almost 40 years after Benelak was killed, a new ray of hope emerged.
05:18Investigators were able to develop a DNA profile using samples from Nancy's apartment.
05:24For many years afterward, law enforcement ran the offender's DNA through state and national databases on a weekly basis.
05:32Unfortunately, all attempts proved rather pointless, as the suspect either seemed to have given up his life of crime after his latest murder, or somehow managed to avoid being caught while staying under the radar for decades.
05:46Any semblance of hope, Nancy's family had soon begun to vanish once more.
05:51Then, a year later, in 2005, homicide detective Mickey Lynx began looking for Nancy's killer.
06:01Mickey would go on to retire a few years after, but continued to follow the case closely nonetheless.
06:08In 2019, she rejoined the investigation as a volunteer, determined to help Nancy's family find comfort and bring her murderer to justice.
06:17Then, in November 2019, the sheriff's office and district attorney's office launched a forensic genetic genealogy investigation.
06:26They uploaded a DNA profile onto the open-source genealogy website in an effort to hopefully find people who might be related to the suspect and narrow their search until an ideal match was found.
06:41Eventually, a source for the DNA was found, although it did not belong to anyone on the database.
06:47Police also began collecting DNA samples from all the likely suspects or their closest relatives, hoping to find a match that would put Nancy's case to rest once and for all.
06:59Among those who provided DNA samples was Davis' own daughter.
07:04During the search efforts, it would seem Lynx managed to get in touch with Davis' roommate.
07:09The roommate couldn't remember how he'd met Davis or why he moved in to live with him.
07:14But he did recall that Davis had gotten a divorce at the time and that the woman Davis was married to later gave birth to a baby girl.
07:23Davis never made any effort to connect with his daughter later on, nor did he provide for her whilst growing up.
07:31Detective Lynx sought out and eventually met with said daughter, who was in her 50s at the time.
07:37Davis' daughter agreed to help out by giving investigators her DNA upon hearing Nancy's case.
07:43On the 13th of June, 2022, which coincided with Nancy's birthday, her sister Linda received a phone call from Mickey that would change everything.
07:55Lynx had received a sample of DNA matching that of Richard Davis from the laboratory.
08:01She followed up with the original murder case book.
08:03With no initial, middle, or birth date attached to go by, she needed more information to solve the case.
08:11However, after finding an old listing that stated that Richard Davis was, in fact, a former resident of the same apartment complex where Nancy was murdered,
08:21all the puzzle pieces began falling into place.
08:24By running samples of the daughter's DNA against blood samples taken the night of Nancy's murder,
08:30Lynx was both shocked and relieved to find that it was a match.
08:35The truth was finally revealed.
08:38Detective Mickey Lynx's violent efforts were what eventually led to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office announcement,
08:44the one where they revealed that, at the time, 27-year-old Richard John Davis was, in fact, the man responsible for Nancy Benilak's murder.
08:56Davis had never truly fled the crime scene, as police investigators suspected.
09:01Rather, he'd been living close to where he committed his heinous crime for years.
09:05While the truth was finally out, unfortunately, it was bittersweet, as both Ferris Salami, Nancy's would-be betrothed, and Richard Davis, her killer,
09:16had died in 2004 and 1997, respectively.
09:21Meaning that, sadly, there would be no closure for Ferris, nor any punishment for Davis.
09:28Still, Nancy's sister, Linda, along with her husband, Tom, was relieved to have finally learned the truth.
09:34While Richard Davis's death, as a result of alcoholism-related complications, meant he never faced punishment for his crimes,
09:43at least it meant that Linda and Tom could, at last, begin the healing process together,
09:49and not have to worry about undergoing a long and arduous trial that may very well have taken years.
09:54The fact that Davis broke into Nancy's apartment on the night of the murder through the slightly open glass door
10:01and covered his fingers with tape suggests that Nancy's murder was, in all likelihood, premeditated.
10:08Although Davis's motive was unknown, detectives speculated that he may have had romantic feelings for Nancy
10:15and killed her out of spite or anger upon hearing she was getting married.
10:20While Davis was later questioned by detectives alongside his roommate,
10:25it would seem that, luckily for him, none of them thought to check his arms for knife wounds.
10:30Had they done so, Davis would have likely spent the rest of his life behind bars.
10:36Furthermore, while Davis did have a reputation for being quick to anger,
10:41he still managed to avoid being added to the CODIS database.
10:45This was because he had no prior convictions except for a minor DUI charge.
10:51In a statement read by Sheriff's spokesman, Lieutenant Rodney Grassman,
10:56Linda said her family was grateful to Lynx for never giving up on the investigation.
11:01She also mentioned that she had almost lost hope that the case would be solved.
11:06Linda, in a later written statement,
11:09mentioned how often she and her husband Tom have expressed their belief that Nancy would have loved their ranch,
11:14with all the animals roaming in the wide open spaces.
11:18They went on to state how much they were tormented by the reality of being unable to share news of their children and grandchildren with Nancy,
11:26but were nonetheless happy that Nancy's soul was finally at peace.