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Killers Caught On Camera S02E07
Transcript
00:00This time on Killers Caught on Camera in the United States, Colorado, an abandoned car full
00:12of trash is cause for suspicion. There was a distinct odor. Every police officer knows the
00:18smell of death. The SWAT team moves in on a suspect. And in Michigan, a young couple disappears.
00:27Two black bags and a shed put police on the path to a double murderer.
00:57Arvada, Colorado. Just a few miles northwest of the state capital, Denver. Home to 38-year-old
01:13Veronica Serenana, one of five children who grew up to love music and cheerleading. She
01:24went on to have two sons of her own, her firstborn arriving when Veronica was 20. Later,
01:31she worked at a bank. By June 2019, Veronica was living back home with her parents. But
01:40in the early hours of Wednesday, June 19th, Veronica went missing.
01:47On the same day, 911 dispatchers received a call from an employee at a church with a tip
01:56about a body in an obscure location.
02:01I work at the Rising Church in Old Town, Arvada. I have a person who is reporting a crime that
02:10was reported to him firsthand. And there's a vehicle that potentially has a body in it.
02:17The person who committed this crime is Frank Moffat. In the background, someone could be
02:23heard prompting the caller. Okay. Does he have any further information?
02:27Sergeant Kate Herlinger responded to the call to investigate the claim.
02:42She said that there was a man in the church and that he wanted to report a crime.
02:49Essentially, the crime was that his brother had killed his girlfriend and placed her into the trunk
02:54of a vehicle near his home. As soon as we heard we possibly have a body in our car, we're thinking,
02:59we have a homicide. We need to treat this as a homicide.
03:03It was a serious allegation with a named suspect who lived close to the car.
03:09When the police arrived at the address they'd been given, they found a white Ford Escort.
03:14It was abandoned, unregistered for two years, and stuffed full of trash.
03:21When police questioned neighbors, they thought the visible limbs in the abandoned car were part of a mannequin.
03:28I'm pretty sure. I mean, we both go coffee. And we pray that that's what we saw.
03:41There was a distinct odor of rotting, of death. Every police officer knows the smell of death.
03:48There was a female body in the car. Her head was down near the floorboard.
03:53Her feet were almost up on the seat.
03:57My initial response is, we need to get our CSIs out. We need to get the lab out.
04:01We were concerned with the rising temperatures that we would start to lose physical evidence, DNA off of the body.
04:07Detective Chris Steiner was called in to capture a 3D scan of the crime scene.
04:14The car is a critical part in this particular scene because that's where the body is located at.
04:21We use a 3D terrestrial laser scanners. It allows us to make a virtual copy of a crime scene.
04:28And we can go back to that crime scene anytime we need to.
04:33They needed to examine the body buried beneath the bags of garbage.
04:40Upon death, the body continues to change as it decays.
04:45So we ultimately sealed the car and then had it towed with the body in it back to the police station.
04:51The question was, how did the body get in the car?
04:58They only had one lead, the man named in the 911 call.
05:04Frank Moffat, who lived just around the corner from the car.
05:12The police moved in.
05:14Frank Moffat was arrested and taken into custody.
05:37He basically said that he had nothing to do with the homicide, had no idea how she ended up inside this vehicle that he was using at the time.
05:50The police quickly got to work searching for evidence in and around Frank's house.
05:57They also canvassed the area for surveillance footage.
06:00We need to knock on every single door and then get as much footage as we possibly could.
06:05Everybody has cameras these days.
06:07There you go. Bingo.
06:09Here, you got built angles.
06:11That's perfect.
06:13Meanwhile, the crime scene investigation team got to work on the white car.
06:18This was not just a female placed in the back of an empty vehicle.
06:23The car had a rolled up rug, it had trash bags, it had car batteries.
06:28It was packed full of stuff.
06:31Each item had to meticulously be taken out of the car.
06:36We processed some of the items for DNA.
06:39It was a very lengthy, slow process.
06:43They used the 3D scanner to ensure that every possible piece of evidence was documented.
06:51Detective Matt Archuleta had to examine the evidence in the car and what the body itself revealed about the cause of death.
07:04There was a small trickle of like a bloody substance coming out of one of the eye sockets.
07:10And it had a downward shape to it in the sense that it had run down the nose and then dried.
07:15Following gravity, that would indicate the head was in an upright position when that drop came out.
07:21It was fairly obvious that the death had occurred somewhere else.
07:25That the body was put into the car by someone.
07:29And then the body was covered with trash to hide the body.
07:35Once the police were able to remove the body from the car, they used a fingerprint scanner to identify the victim.
07:44Her name was Veronica Serenana, the same woman who'd been reported missing.
07:55The police notified Veronica's family of her death and started to try and piece together how she died.
08:03We contacted family, more specifically her mother, and started to get details.
08:07We wanted a time frame of her whereabouts.
08:13Doorbell footage showed the last time Veronica was seen.
08:18At her mom's house on the afternoon of June 18th, the day before she was found in the car.
08:27Speaking with Veronica's family, the police discovered that she'd been in a relationship with a man named Chris Moffat.
08:36The same man who initiated the 911 call about the body in the car and blamed his brother, Frank Moffat.
08:45It's definitely not a host. It's not my number of brothers.
08:50Veronica's mother said it was a very tumultuous relationship.
08:55There were plenty of times that Chris put his hands on Veronica.
08:58There were times he strangled her. He went to jail for this.
09:01He had just gotten out of jail.
09:03There was an active restraining order attempting to keep him away from her.
09:08He had possibly killed one of her cats.
09:11His behavior was very erratic. I think she was very scared of him.
09:17However, for whatever reason, she kept going back to him and they kept this relationship going.
09:24There's a psychological effect known as trauma bonding, which is when you are in a domestic violence situation and you keep returning to your abuser.
09:34And the reason for that is because they're violent and then they're really nice to you.
09:38And then they show a lot of love and then they're violent again.
09:40And in those nice moments, you develop this response where you almost accept the bad with the good.
09:47And you keep going back hoping for the good.
09:52Kyle McElroy was a detective for the Arvada Police Department.
09:57Veronica's family were worried about her safety.
10:00She had come back to her family. She had told her, I don't feel safe. I can't be around Chris anymore.
10:05She even made the statement, if I disappeared, look at Chris.
10:11Two months before Veronica's death, Chris Moffett had posted a series of strange videos online.
10:18You say, well, what if I fix it? It'd be so random.
10:23No, it should be random. And it wasn't.
10:26I mean, it went one direction for me for a long time.
10:32I look back and I go, you know, and people don't understand.
10:37That's the weak part of me that wants to hit somebody just because they hit me.
10:42I mean, it doesn't make sense. I don't really want to hit them.
10:47A lot of people who are perpetrators of domestic violence, we know that they have issues with anger management.
10:53We know that they don't have good conflict resolution skills.
10:55So it's not that someone is sitting there planning the cycle of I'm going to do something terrible to this person
11:01and then I'm going to make up.
11:03It's more that someone is unable to regulate the emotions when they feel angry
11:07and then goes back and overwhelms someone with love.
11:10So I think it's from both sides, it's a very broken relationship structure.
11:14But I think people often blame the woman for going back when we should obviously be focusing on the men
11:20who keep engaging in this violent behavior.
11:23Chris's violent behavior was an ongoing concern.
11:27Veronica's texts showed that they were seeing each other right up to the day she went missing.
11:34The messages reinforced that she was fearful of him.
11:44Chris was now a key person of interest.
11:48The police needed to find him.
11:51About that time is when we also realized we are missing her car.
11:55We're going to try and notify all the other law enforcement agencies around the state at this point
11:59that it's called a BOLO, be on the lookout for this vehicle.
12:03Veronica's car was a blue Mitsubishi Gallant.
12:08It was tracked down the same day as Veronica was discovered,
12:12just 24 hours after she disappeared.
12:16On June 19th, late in the evening, around 11.30ish,
12:21Glenwood Springs Police Department locates Chris sitting in a Walmart parking lot
12:25and he is in Veronica's vehicle.
12:27So they arrested him and booked him into the county jail up there.
12:32Inside Chris's wallet were recent receipts.
12:35They gave the police critical information.
12:39Those paper receipts being in the car were huge for us because all the receipts are timestamps.
12:44What we found was it looked that Chris and Veronica had taken a trip to Lake Dillon together.
12:54A hotel room key card led them to cameras and their first sighting of Veronica.
13:09This is the surveillance footage from the Luxurian.
13:12And this was really important because, as you can see here,
13:15this is the first time that we saw Chris and Veronica together up at Lake Dillon.
13:19And it gave us a really great starting point to try and develop the timeline from here.
13:24One of the other things we learned in this video, as you can see, is Veronica.
13:28And then you see the purse that Veronica is carrying here.
13:31And that is a purse that continued to come up in this investigation.
13:36The same purse was filmed by a camera pointing directly at Frank Moffat's house.
13:42The purse was hung on the front door by an unidentified male.
13:51It was recovered from the front door and taken in as evidence.
13:57That was a really key piece for us because we now know that this is the purse that Veronica is carrying.
14:04She has with her in some of the final moments when she's alive.
14:07And then it pops up back in Arvada.
14:15Veronica was also captured on camera at a nearby liquor store in Lake Dillon in the early evening on June 18th.
14:23We see that Veronica is still alive, buying items that correspond directly with the receipts that we found in her car.
14:30So all of this is just narrowing down a timeline of when we're trying to determine when this crime happened.
14:37It was one of the highest quality videos that we were able to recover.
14:40And we get really lucky here in that we get a clear shot of the purse.
14:44She was also filmed withdrawing money at an ATM.
14:56Every single time we could catch Veronica alive on camera, we knew that we needed to keep going because the crime would happen soon after that.
15:05This is the last video where we see Veronica alive.
15:09The cash withdrawal was in the early evening.
15:13And with Chris now in custody, detectives questioned him about his trip to Lake Dillon with Veronica on June 18th.
15:21Well, we're here to talk to you today about a death investigation, OK?
15:26Veronica's dead.
15:30You're kidding me, dude.
15:33You're potentially one of the last people to see her alive.
15:36So we just, we're trying to figure out what happened, what's going on.
15:41Chris described the whole evening with Veronica on the Tuesday night in Lake Dillon.
15:47Chris then suggested that the police investigate the nature of Frank's relationship with Veronica.
16:06What you need to do is you need to look into, you need to look through the information.
16:13You need to go through her messages.
16:15You need to go through her phone.
16:16You need to go through her email.
16:18My brother is a piece of dude.
16:23The police wanted to understand why Chris persisted to link his brother with Veronica's death.
16:29Chris was under the impression during his time in jail, his brother and Veronica had started a relationship and were seeing each other all the time.
16:38She had to choose one and the other, and she chose my brother.
16:42We knew that wasn't true, but Chris was convinced of it.
16:44The thing with jealousy is that it doesn't matter if it's true.
16:49What's particularly pernicious when it's not true is that you take every single protest that that partner is offering you as further indication of their deception.
17:01And so it's this vicious cycle where the person keeps saying, no, I'm not cheating on you.
17:05And you go, that's exactly what a cheater would say.
17:08And we know that jealousy is a major contributor, especially when combined with poor conflict resolution skills to domestic violence and also to intimate partner homicide.
17:20While Chris and Veronica were at Lake Dillon, there were a series of texts sent from Veronica's phone.
17:26They were to Chris's brother, Frank, just after 8pm.
17:30We began to notice that the night before the discovery of the body, that the tones and the words that are used within the text messages are fundamentally different than all of the text messages we see before.
17:47The language used was suspicious, and it was unclear why Veronica would be texting Frank when she was with Chris.
17:56The police decided to confront him.
17:58Ultimately, he said that his brother had told him that he had murdered Veronica, and Chris was saying that he felt guilty about ratting his brother out, and that was the reason that he fled.
18:19He basically claims, hey, I took her down to my brother's house on the 19th, I dropped her off, I don't know anything else about that, and then he asked for an attorney.
18:29As a result, the police became increasingly reliant on surveillance footage.
18:35It showed inconsistencies in Chris's testimony.
18:38Veronica's car was captured on camera, leaving Lake Dillon just before 8pm on Tuesday, June 18th.
18:47The change in tone in the texts coincided with Veronica's car leaving Lake Dillon.
18:53When we see that car coming out of Dillon Dam Road over by Lake Dillon, we start to get the idea she's not using the phone anymore.
19:02Her car was picked up again at 10.40pm at a Walmart near Frisco.
19:11It parks in the parking lot of Walmart, you see Chris get out, you never see Veronica get out, and we can watch as he comes into the store.
19:24We can clearly see him on surveillance, we identify him by the clothes he's wearing, his physical features are the same.
19:36We don't see Veronica again, and from the minute that they leave Lake Dillon, Chris is the only one seen exiting that vehicle.
19:42The next morning, Chris was seen at another Walmart just 9 miles from where Veronica's body was found in the unregistered white car.
19:59This was the camera angle that we used to definitively say that all the features that we can see in the video are consistent.
20:06The text on the front of the shirt, the white collar, the hat that he's wearing, and the physical features that we see on him continue to be consistent with who we know to be Chris Moffitt walking out of the Walmart just about an hour before the 911 call is made.
20:24Detectives compared all the different surveillance footage over the three days.
20:28The clothing was a direct match with what Chris was wearing in the luxury inn, the clothes found in Veronica's car, and crucially, the figure hanging the bag on Frank's front door.
20:42This was the clip that really kind of tied it all together.
20:47We see a man, we know his physical features are the same as Chris, and you can clearly see him hanging a purse.
20:52We had seen this purse appear over and over again. It has been with Veronica every time we've seen it.
21:00Chris Moffitt was clearly identified planting evidence.
21:07We're sure that Chris was trying to frame his brother.
21:12The surveillance footage also confirmed Frank's alibi.
21:16We noticed that the brother had come in 12 to 18 hours or a long time before and he never leaves again, which was consistent with what his statement was.
21:28Back at the crime scene investigation lab, Matt Achuleta had another breakthrough.
21:34Chris Moffitt's fingerprint was found on a trash bag inside the white car, contradicting Chris's version of events.
21:42One of those stories was that he wasn't in the car. He didn't put the trash into the car and he had nothing to do with it. The fingerprint on the trash bag told us otherwise.
21:53Now we know Chris was in that vehicle when he claimed to have nothing to do with Veronica's death and nothing to do with being in or around that vehicle. We now have him placed inside that car.
22:04The fingerprint and the footage were vital for proving that it was Chris Moffitt who killed Veronica.
22:11Seeing Chris on camera planting evidence in his brother's house allowed us to focus on him as a suspect within 24 hours of this crime occurring, which is so vital in any homicide investigation.
22:22We knew how Veronica had been killed when she had been killed. We felt confident that an argument had broken out like it had before and it had turned physical.
22:32We knew from looking at Veronica's body, the most likely cause of death was asphyxiation or being strangled to death. And so that would be consistent with an argument breaking out.
22:45There are 65 miles between Lake Dillon and Arvada with plenty of places to pull over.
22:52Up at Lake Dillon, there are some pull off spots that people sit and they can enjoy the views of the lake. And we believe that's where he actually murdered her and then drove her back to Arvada to dump her body in the car at his brother's house.
23:09Framing someone for a crime that you committed is incredibly difficult to do. We almost always see it in organized crime circumstances and basically nowhere else.
23:17And the reason for that is that it takes a lot of planning to successfully frame someone. And most murder is committed as an impulsive or bad decision in the moment.
23:26In this case as well, he wasn't planning to kill her probably. It happened because it was a domestic violence situation where he lost control and he went too far.
23:36But if you don't plan it, you can't plan also who you're going to frame, how you're going to make sure that they don't have an alibi, how you plant the evidence like a purse on a handle.
23:45It's going to be really hard to successfully frame that person.
23:49The question remains, why did Chris kill Veronica?
23:55He believed she was having an affair with his brother. I think he was jealous. I think he was angry.
24:02And I don't think he wanted her to ever be with anyone else but him.
24:05Chris Moffatt pled guilty to second degree murder and abuse of a corpse.
24:12He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.
24:18It must have been a terrorizing force in her life to have this relationship and to be drawn back in repeatedly knowing that she was likely to be strangled again, to be hit again.
24:30In some ways, this is a case study in intimate partner homicide.
24:36And what we should take from this isn't, wow, why did she keep going back?
24:39What we should take from this is, wow, why did nobody intervene and take him aside and train him on conflict management and make sure that his anger management was under control.
24:49Veronica Serenana was trapped. Extreme violence in her relationship became the norm. This is a global issue.
25:02Femicide, which is the killing of women and girls, it's a form of gender-based violence.
25:07Every single day, 133 women are killed in the world at the hands of family members and loved ones.
25:14So there's even more women who are killed, but just by people who allegedly love them, 133 women and girls are killed every single day.
25:25In our next case, someone you'd expect to be loving turned out to be quite the opposite.
25:35Detroit, Michigan.
25:4020 miles northeast of downtown Detroit lies Clinton Township.
25:46Home to the Marsacre family.
25:49The father, Robert Sr., his two sons, Robert Jr. and Kevin.
25:54And also the youngest child, daughter Danielle, and her boyfriend, Saren Bryan.
26:02Ava Glass is a crime journalist with a fascination for family dynamics.
26:08Danielle and Saren were a young couple. She was 18, he was 19.
26:13Danielle was a little more outgoing, a little more vivacious.
26:18She was a free spirit who didn't always like to do the things everybody else did.
26:25Whereas Saren was described by his friends and his family as quiet, introspective, and artistic.
26:32He liked to express himself through drawing more than he liked talking.
26:35But Danielle he could talk to all the time.
26:38And everybody who knew them saw them as a close and very happy couple.
26:43Danielle and Saren worked and lived together.
26:47Danielle and Saren both lived with Danielle's father and her two brothers.
26:54They shared a mobile home.
26:56It was quite crowded, but everything seemed perfectly normal.
27:00Until one night, Danielle and Saren returned from their all-night job at a local restaurant,
27:06were dropped off by a colleague, and then they completely disappeared.
27:10On August 26, 2018, 9-1-1 dispatchers received a disturbing call from Danielle's brother, Kevin Marzaker.
27:25Hello, 9-1-1.
27:26Hi.
27:27I need someone to come to my house.
27:30OK.
27:31What's going on over there?
27:32Well, my sister's been missing for four or five days.
27:35Her and her boyfriend.
27:38And we just found two bags in the shed.
27:41And it's why, though, I think they're in the shed in a bag, OK?
27:44And I'm just scared to open it.
27:50Police responded to the scene, recording on body-worn cameras.
27:54Kevin Marzaker and his father, Robert Sr., met them on the steps of their home.
28:03My sister hurt his daughter.
28:05I've been missing for five days now.
28:06OK.
28:07I did a walk around the house to check if there was any trails or anything suspicious.
28:11I've seen a boatload of flies.
28:13And when I pulled things out, we have these bags.
28:15It smells like death in there.
28:16They filled with flies, and they don't look good.
28:19I can't even open it.
28:21The patrol officers prepared to deal with potentially sensitive evidence.
28:34Stand by.
28:35Stand by for a second.
28:36Oh, my gosh.
28:37No, they are.
28:38They are.
28:39They hold.
28:40They hold.
28:41Man, that might just be, like, hard.
28:43Oh, yeah.
28:44Dude, we don't have to cut.
28:45We're confirmed.
28:46Is it?
28:47We're confirmed.
28:48Confirmed.
28:49Yes, it is.
28:50Everybody out here.
28:51Yes.
28:52Yeah, 100%.
28:53That's a person.
28:54There's nothing ideable right now.
28:55They see inside these large plastic bags, two really large plastic bags shoved at the
29:03back, and they see a leg.
29:05Definitely looks like it's human remains.
29:11The home was considered a crime scene.
29:14An investigation was launched to find out who the body parts belonged to, and how they
29:20ended up in the shed.
29:24They searched inside the home for evidence.
29:27Police.
29:28Police.
29:29In Danielle and Saren's bedroom were key items Danielle would normally carry with her.
29:36Danielle's phone charger was still there.
29:39Danielle was someone who was always on her phone to the point that she needed to have
29:43a phone charger to top up her battery, and it was something that she would never leave
29:46home without.
29:47Danielle had diabetes and was dependent on insulin to maintain her blood sugar levels.
29:53Not only was her phone charger still there, but also her insulin was still there.
30:03Outside, police guarded the shed.
30:07The bags of what appeared to be human remains couldn't be removed until the scene had been
30:13fully documented.
30:14That's a black t-shirt with her arm hanging out of it.
30:17Yeah.
30:18And there's another bag in there.
30:21Danielle's father, Robert Sr., and brother, Kevin, could only watch and wait for the police
30:27to confirm who was inside the bags.
30:33The police needed to work out what happened.
30:41She came home Thursday morning from her job.
30:47Okay.
30:48She works the night.
30:49She walked in the door, and as she walked in, I walked out.
30:54Okay.
30:55I kissed her, she said nothing.
30:57Came home, like I told you, figured she'd be in her bed.
31:02And she wasn't there?
31:04Gone.
31:05And her blanket and clothes were gone.
31:08Right.
31:09Okay.
31:10She didn't take her purse.
31:13Kevin Marzaker was convinced that the human remains in the shed were his 18-year-old
31:19sister, Danielle, and her boyfriend, Saren.
31:23I didn't have the heart to open the bag, man, me or my dad.
31:29Nobody opened the bag?
31:30Well, we were trying to get the nerve to kind of open it a little and look.
31:35Yeah.
31:36Because we had to know, you know.
31:37Yeah.
31:38So he pulled his knife out, reached over and cut it, you know, so it opened a little and cut it again.
31:45Yeah.
31:46It looked bad, man.
31:47Okay.
31:48But the police still had to confirm it was Danielle and Saren's remains in the shed.
31:57Forensic investigators use luminol, a chemical that reacts with hemoglobin, to detect blood under black UV light.
32:05A luminol test inside the bedroom that Danielle and Saren had shared found evidence of blood spatter.
32:17Extensive blood spatter, in fact.
32:20And then also cleaning fluids that had been used to try and eliminate it.
32:29As they removed furniture and carpet, it became clear that there had been a violent struggle in Danielle and Saren's bedroom.
32:43Danielle's father, Robert Sr., and her brother, Kevin, were taken to the police station for questioning.
32:50Kevin was asked about the strength of Danielle and Saren's relationship.
32:54I don't have any real verbal abuse.
32:57No, no physical abuse.
32:58And what her friend said about the guy Saren is that he would never hurt her physically.
33:03You know, he wouldn't, you know, do anything like that.
33:06So, as far as I know, he wasn't that bad of a person.
33:09What about your dad?
33:10How's your dad?
33:11Um, he's always a drunk.
33:13Okay.
33:14You know, and he's a good guy.
33:16You know, we lost my mom.
33:19My mom, uh, in 2011.
33:21And he's never really, never really been the same.
33:24You know, I kind of lost him at the same time.
33:27Living there at that time, so within the last week, I had you living there?
33:32Your dad?
33:33Yeah.
33:34Saren?
33:35Yeah.
33:36Danielle, was there anybody else?
33:37Um, my brother.
33:38Okay, and what's your brother's name?
33:39Robert.
33:40During the police interview, it became clear that Danielle's brother, Robert Jr., was missing.
33:47Dr. Roberta Babb is a clinical psychologist.
33:53Robert Jr., in 2011, developed symptoms of mental illness, to the point that his family
33:59became incredibly concerned and sought medical intervention.
34:02After evaluations and discussions with medical professionals, Robert Jr. was diagnosed with
34:08schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and paranoia.
34:11What we also know is that from 2011 onwards, due to his erratic behavior, he was hospitalized
34:18two or three times over a nine-year period.
34:22Kevin had no idea where his elder brother was.
34:26Oh, it was very, very early.
34:27Were you trying to communicate with him that night?
34:30Um, no.
34:31I tried on Facebook Messenger.
34:32Okay, but you didn't try texting him.
34:33Well, the thing is, I could tell, you know, he caught, you know, drift of what's going
34:38on and he pretty much said he was shutting his phone off, so I got to go charge my phone.
34:46Yeah.
34:47He never came back online, so I figured he'd do his phone.
34:50So, I didn't bother trying to call, trying to text.
34:53You know, if he's not coming back online, you know,
34:56he's obviously knows what's going on at that point.
35:01The police spoke with Robert Sr. to try and work out
35:04where Robert Jr. had gone.
35:08I'm trying to put pieces together,
35:10because we want to talk to Robert so that we can get his story, too, you know?
35:13I'm telling you. I'm telling you, Detective.
35:16Yeah.
35:16It's not us.
35:17Okay. Where is Robert staying at right now?
35:20I have no clue.
35:21But hasn't he been living with you off and on?
35:23We want to get a hold of him, man.
35:24Yeah, okay.
35:25We want to try to put everybody, you know, together who had contact with her,
35:31who may have spoken with her, who may have, you know, I mean, it's important.
35:37You know?
35:38Did she try?
35:39Who's in my shed?
35:40What's that?
35:40Who's in my shed?
35:42We don't know yet.
35:46Sounds like you do.
35:48How would I know?
35:49Sounds like you do, because why are you so worried about Robert?
35:52Because you want my DNA.
35:54I told you it wasn't us.
35:55We get everybody's DNA.
35:57Robert was there the last time you guys saw him.
36:00I want to talk to him.
36:04Robert Jr.'s phone records revealed that he'd called a cab to pick him up from the home
36:09on Thursday, August 23rd, the same day Danielle and Saren went missing.
36:18The cab driver told detectives that he'd taken Robert Jr. to Walgreens and then Wendy's.
36:24By analyzing the route the cab took, the police found surveillance footage that tracked Robert Jr.'s movements.
36:38After going to Wendy's on August 23rd, he was caught on camera taking a bus.
36:43He traveled for an hour and 20 minutes before getting off.
36:51Five minutes later, he was picked up on surveillance cameras, entering a Tim Hortons.
37:01Shortly afterwards, Robert Jr. returned home.
37:04The video footage of Robert Morzeka Jr. was incredibly helpful.
37:12Every place he was picked up on camera, he was obviously not injured.
37:17He was obviously not kidnapped.
37:20He was shopping and he was eating.
37:23He wasn't a victim.
37:23Robert Jr. was last seen by one of Danielle's friends at home on the 24th of August.
37:33Two days before the human remains were found in the shed.
37:38The police urgently needed to find him.
37:4126-year-old Robert Morzeka is a person of interest in this case.
37:45He was driving a white 1999 Ford E250 van with blue duct tape around the driver's side rear window.
37:53Police circulated Robert Jr.'s photograph across the country.
38:00Meanwhile, the medical examiner's report confirmed the bodies in the black bags in the shed were Danielle and Saren.
38:09It also revealed exactly how they died.
38:15Both Danielle and Saren had been violently beaten.
38:18A rubber hammer covered in blood was found along with the plastic bags and they believed that was the weapon that they'd been attacked with.
38:28They were both wearing t-shirts and underwear.
38:32So authorities believed they'd been asleep when they were attacked.
38:36They didn't die from the violent blood force trauma that they suffered.
38:42According to forensic analysis, they actually suffocated.
38:46They were wrapped in plastic and their mouths and nose duct taped.
38:51And then the plastic bag was duct taped around their necks.
38:53On August 27th, Robert's white van was spotted in Toledo, Ohio, 80 miles south of Clinton Township.
39:07The police found the van, but it was abandoned.
39:12Robert Jr. was nowhere to be seen.
39:14When the police got the DNA and fingerprint results back from the crime scene, they were a match for Robert Jr.
39:24The police were now on the hunt for Danielle's brother.
39:29Police notified employees and security at bus stations and airports,
39:35warning them to be on the lookout for a potential murder suspect.
39:38August 28th, two days after the bodies were found,
39:46Danielle's brother was caught on camera, but looked different.
39:53Robert Jr. develops, creates, finds a disguise.
40:00It's a sort of rudimentary disguise, a wig, a baseball cap or a hat of some sort and sunglasses.
40:08The next day,
40:13he walked into a bus station in Toledo and bought a ticket to Cincinnati.
40:21People working there believed it was Robert Jr. and reported him to the police.
40:28These attempts to disguise his identity had the unintended opposite effect
40:33of making everybody notice him because he looked so strange.
40:36When Robert Jr. arrived at Cincinnati bus station,
40:43he asked employees for access to a computer.
40:49They directed him to the library.
40:54He was relaxed and friendly.
40:56He scanned the news, unaware how closely he was being watched.
41:05In reception, the police were waiting.
41:12Unmasked and identified, Robert Jr. was taken back to Detroit.
41:17You're looking at the worst charge possible, killing two people, all right?
41:26And to make it worse, one of them was your sister, which is awful, all right?
41:31I've spoken to your dad, I've spoken to your brother.
41:35Evidence we have is pretty damning against you, okay?
41:38In search of answers, Robert Jr.'s brother, Kevin,
41:48called to speak with him in the interview room.
41:51Are you going to make this case go easier, bro?
41:55I don't know.
41:58What do you mean?
42:01Are you guys okay in the house?
42:04We're not living there anymore, Rob.
42:06There's blood everywhere.
42:10So are you pleading guilty and everything?
42:13No, I'm not.
42:15Why?
42:15Tell the court what happened, okay?
42:20You're not going to beat this case.
42:22There's no possible way you can't plead insanity
42:24because you can't bring him to the wig on, okay?
42:27So we're so lost right now,
42:31and you're the only one who can help us.
42:34So the right thing to do is just plead guilty, bro,
42:38and tell us what happened.
42:40You know, we're putting pictures up for our funeral tomorrow,
42:47and I can't decide if I can tell you a lot of them or not.
42:50The only thing you can do now to help your family
42:53who is so heartbroken that you just have to end this case, bro.
42:59You have to get this.
43:00Don't drag this out for two years.
43:03You know, it's just going to keep the pain hurting for everyone.
43:06Psychiatric reports declared Robert Jr. was sane
43:12and fit to stand trial.
43:14He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
43:18Despite his long mental health struggle,
43:22the argument of the state in this case
43:24was he covered up his crime.
43:27He attempted to hide all evidence of it,
43:29and then he fled,
43:31and they said those were not the actions of an insane person.
43:34Robert Jr. did not offer up an explanation.
43:39All the surveillance footage could provide
43:41was an insight into his state of mind.
43:44He doesn't seem panicked.
43:45He doesn't seem deranged.
43:47He doesn't seem to be lost or confused.
43:50In fact, he seems calm and rational.
43:53He seems to know where he's going.
43:55There's nothing in the footage
43:56that seems to indicate his mental illness is so severe
44:00he should be forgiven for beating his sister
44:02and her boyfriend to death with a hammer
44:04and suffocating them in plastic bags.
44:08Defense counsel claimed Robert killed his sister
44:11and her boyfriend
44:12because he thought they were conduits
44:15for voices in his head.
44:17The jury deliberated for just 40 minutes
44:20before finding Robert Jr. guilty.
44:22Murder in the first degree.
44:23He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
44:29The family never got a full explanation,
44:33but Dr. Roberta Babb feels the family dynamic
44:36offers some insight.
44:38From what we know,
44:39the children responded differently
44:40to the loss of their mother.
44:42Kevin and Danielle appeared to grieve
44:45but managed to continue with their life.
44:47It didn't disrupt it unduly.
44:49Robert Sr. had lost his wife.
44:51He was sleeping on the sofa,
44:53drinking excessively,
44:54Robert Jr. had lost his mother
44:56and was sleeping in his own room on his own,
44:58left with his own thoughts,
45:00and that must have been incredibly lonely
45:02and isolating for him.
45:04It may not have been that Robert Jr. felt
45:07a physical sense of threat from his younger sister,
45:10but her presence, her relationship,
45:12her getting on with life
45:13did pose a threat to his own sense of his identity,
45:17his agency, potentially his own masculinity,
45:20and that may have been something that activated
45:22very murderous thoughts in Robert Jr.
45:27They were heartbroken.
45:28They were devastated.
45:31Daniel's brother, Kevin,
45:33he said,
45:34I don't hate Robert,
45:36but he's not my brother anymore.
45:37And I think that gives us a very good picture
45:40of how strongly he felt about what happened.
45:42Paul's brother, he said,
45:42yeah,
45:46but he knew about his mother's house.
45:49Amen.
45:50呵 Mohammed,
45:51Transcription by CastingWords