Warm hearts, Cold cases

Daily Democrat, The (Woodland, CA) - January 21, 2008
Author: LUKE GIANNI

They found him dead under a sleeping bag on the east bank of the Elk Slough in Clarksburg. He'd been out there for months. He was wearing a short-sleeved dark blue T-shirt with a large green "M" on the front.

His body was so severely decomposed, his race could not be determined.

Coroners put the young man's age between 25 and 35.

No one knows who he was or how he got near the slough.

The only thing investigators do know is someone plunged a knife into his heart and dumped him there.

Now, all that's left of the unidentified "Hispanic/Black/White" male is a clay depiction of his face reconstructed from his remains, which now sits on a shelf in the Yolo County Coroner's office - where it has been since 1999.

"I am sure his family is wondering where he is," said Yolo County Deputy Coroner Laurel Weeks.

This "John Doe" represents the worst-case scenario for homicide investigators.

It's challenging enough to find the perpetrator in a murder with little physical evidence, Meeks said. It's nearly impossible when you don't know who the victim was.

Without an identity, detectives have no starting point to begin their investigation. No friends, no associates, no family, none of the usual investigative entry points that usually shake out leads, Meeks said.

Until very recently, that's where most unidentified murder victims' stories end - without a face, without a name, and a family wondering why their relative stopped calling.

Enough is enough, Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig has said.

The DA's office is endeavoring to establish a first-of-its-kind cold case unit in the county that, utilizing new genetic technology, might offer hope to one day put a name to John Doe and other murder victims whose killers have, until now, escaped punishment.

Momentum on law's side

Reisig's mandate comes as national momentum has been building to improve missing person databases and DNA forensic resources in the country.

In California, voters approved Prop. 69, which took effect in June of 2004, that funds and permits the California Department of Justice to collect DNA samples from convicted felons and will eventually allow sampling of arrestees as well.

Since 2006, according to the DOJ, nearly a million samples have been collected and logged, which resulted in more than 4,000 query hits and have aided in more than 5,000 investigations.

Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven, who has been tasked with organizing the Yolo County cold case unit, said DNA forensic technology will breathe new life into the county's unsolved murder investigations.

"Back then, they got a blood sample and that's it," Raven said. "A lot of times, you just have some evidence that you can throw into the DNA databank and boom."

DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic acid, which is a nucleic acid that contains genetic instructions for the development and functioning of all living organisms, including humans.

Everyone's DNA structure is unique and can be found in human samples of saliva, hair, blood and semen - common residuals left at crime scenes that in years past were often overlooked by investigators.

"What I envision is getting all the cold cases from all the different agencies and triage them and seeing which ones we can solve, which ones we might be able to solve and which ones go back on the shelf," Raven said.

Raven and other area law enforcement officials attended a conference in Arizona in September funded by President George W. Bush's "DNA Initiative" which, among other functions, provides grant funding for regional DNA forensics.

Cases need warm bodies

Raven said there are several challenges to overcome in order to setup a successful cold case unit in Yolo County.

The first is manpower.

In order to pursue the county's cold cases, the county will need a few warm bodies to heat up the trail, Raven said.

"I realize it's a resource issue," Raven said. "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We need dedicated investigators. The problem for us in a county like this with agencies that are small, is how can you take a body and dedicate it to that when you need it for the regular case load?" Raven said.

Raven said given the county's size, it wouldn't take much,

On the investigation side, one, maybe two detectives would be enough, said Sgt. Scott Smith of the Davis Police Department, as he poured over mounds of paperwork, charts and evidence booklets that are the city's cold cases files.

"I don't think anybody in the county has enough resources for cold cases," Smith said, as he squinted at a police-generated timeline of a young woman's last days before she disappeared two decades ago.

Her name was Theresa Dawn Clark, and she was last seen in Davis on the evening of Nov. 24, 1986 at an Alberston's supermarket. She was 28.

Her remains weren't discovered until March 1, 1987, by hikers in a field east of Davis.

Her killer, however, has yet to be found.

"That one is just nagging," Scott said. "And I think a lot of people in Davis in that era can associate with that."

Scott said the Davis PD had a detective assigned solely to the case and was making progress, but he recently died of throat cancer, leaving behind mountains of paperwork with no one to pick up the trail. And with no funding, he has yet to be replaced and Clark's killer continues to bask in the shadows of injustice.

"What did this mean?" Scott asked rhetorically as he pointed to the now-deceased investigator's notes. "Why was this important to him?" he asked again, holding Clark's checkbook. "We don't know what the significance of these are, but the officer knew."

Smith said the only chance they have of collaring Clark's killer is to have a dedicated, full-time investigator on the case.

"The key element is going to be funding," Smith said. "The only thing that stops us now is manpower and budget concerns. If we had an extra body, and that body was paid for, we would start focusing on these cases right now, but we don't have either at the moment."

Out of date

In addition to funding and manpower, the nation's missing persons and DNA databases will need to be integrated and vastly improved, law enforcement officials said.

Traditionally, the venerable National Crime Information Center, maintained by the FBI, was the original repository for the nation's criminal tracking information, including missing person reports.

However, many law enforcement officials and private advocates say the 40-year-old system is woefully incomplete.

"I've heard some people call it the silent scream," said Todd Matthews, Media Director for the " DOE Network ", an online registry of missing persons.

Matthews is credited for solving the "Tent Girl" case after 10 years of his own personal investigation.

"Tent Girl" Barbara Hackman-Taylor was discovered dead in Kentucky in 1968 and went unidentified for more than 30 years before Matthews solved the case.

It was Matthews' father-in-law, who discovered the body while he was surveying well sites two years before Matthews was born.

Matthews now spends his days advocating for a mandated federal system that requires counties to report missing persons into a national database to be integrated with DNA profiles.

"Even though they have a valid police report, doesn't mean they report it in the NCIC," Matthews said. "Some call NCIC useless."

Matthews said the federal government has made headway in fixing the problem with the recent deployment of "The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System," which launched in July of 2007.

NamUs is a national online database of missing persons cross-referenced with reported unidentified decedents.

Although still in development, Matthews said it represents an enormous step forward in improving law enforcement's ability to match the dead with the missing.

In combination with burgeoning DNA forensics databases, Matthews said, NamUs will make for a formidable tool in bringing yesterday's murders under the full competency of tomorrow's technology.

"Meanwhile, you have so many family members out there with these cases unsolved," Raven said. "Some of them are very solvable. They have no peace basically, no measure of satisfaction at all."

Holes to make a mansion

Like Mathew Rocha, whose sister, Dolores Wulff, disappeared on the night of July 31, 1979 in Woodland and was never seen again.

Police immediately looked at her husband, Carl Wulff, who was the only person with her that night, as the prime suspect.

Rocha said he was certain Wulff killed her because of marital problems between the two.

Carl Wulff said in court, however, that Dolores left him and changed her identity.

But Rocha didn't buy his account of her just leaving in the middle of the night.

"She was scared of the dark," Rocha said. " All her clothes were there. Her car was there. Her medication was there. Nothing was missing."

"I never did find her. I think he buried her up in those hills somewhere."

Police could only find circumstantial evidence connecting Carl Wulff - a bit of her hair and blood along with one of her earrings in the trunk of his car.

"This was before we had use of DNA forensics," said Ron Heilaman, a Yolo County Sheriff's homicide investigator at the time assigned to the case. "He never said he didn't do it. He only said he didn't do anything wrong."

After eight years of investigation, including airplane surveillance, elaborate rouses and severe harassment from Rocha's family, the case was finally brought to trial.

But Yolo County Judge Donald Balding dismissed the case in 1985, ruling that too much time had elapsed from the time of Dolores' disappearance, violating Wulff's right to a fair and speedy trial.

Rocha's anguish, however, continued on as he tried in vein to find his sister, even luring Wulff away from his home to dig holes on his property.

"If I had a dollar for every hole we dug, I'd be talking to you from a mansion," Rocha said.

He never did find Dolores.

Carl Wulff died in San Diego in 2005 at the age 70. He never to admitted to anything.

Rocha said over the years he has gone through the emotional timeline from rage to forgiveness, putting his faith in God for ultimate justice.

"I believe in God," Rocha said. "I believe in reward and punishment. Only God can judge perfectly."

Although it won't be perfect, Raven said a cold case unit could go a long way in solving cases like Dolores Wulff and many others that are languishing in the county unsolved.

"Just because they happened 20 years ago doesn't mean these people are no longer suffering," Raven said. "Their suffering more because they haven't gotten any measure of satisfaction."

Meanwhile, Raven said, he will continue to work with county and city officials as well the state and federal government to fund this endeavor.