- 2 months ago
Can police solve the terrifying disappearance of a beautiful teenager, kidnapped out of her own bed in the middle of the night?
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00:00How shocking was it that Donna had been attacked while the rest of her family was sleeping?
00:13To enter a household full of people, it's a very brazen act.
00:19Shock is to put it mildly. We couldn't believe it.
00:23Investigators found a large bloodstain on Donna's carpet.
00:25It was certainly enough to suspect foul play.
00:30You didn't know there was somebody hiding behind the bushes. It was terrifying.
00:38Did she kidnap? It's just sheer terror.
00:42We knew who to trust.
00:46You think you're safe in your own home. You have this young girl, loved by all, who disappeared.
00:53It's heart-wrenching.
00:57They conducted extensive searches.
01:00We had divers. Helicopters were used. She was gone.
01:06Everybody always held out hope that she was still alive.
01:11Did you fear that you would never know what had happened to Donna?
01:15Yes.
01:18There's no getting back to normal. There's no healing.
01:20It's devastating. It's devastating. Absolutely devastating.
01:24Hi, I'm Paula Zahn, and tonight we're on the case in East Windsor, New Jersey.
01:42The upscale community, about an hour outside of New York City, is considered a great place to raise a family.
01:49But when college student Donna Mako was violently taken from her home in the middle of the night,
01:56the peaceful suburb was paralyzed with fear.
01:59At first, the shocking crime had investigators baffled.
02:03Then, as they developed the evidence, a disturbing picture slowly began to emerge,
02:10until the final piece of the puzzle revealed the face of the monster who was responsible.
02:16February 26th, 1984, it was a typical chilly winter evening in New Jersey.
02:26But for Betty Mako, it felt anything but normal.
02:32She hadn't heard from her daughter Donna all day, and the 19-year-old was late for a family dinner.
02:38Donna's younger sister, Julie, will never forget the moments of building panic that came just after sunset.
02:46What do you remember about that night?
02:49Six o'clock rolled around, and my mom came up to my room and asked me,
02:52why isn't Donna home? Did she say she was going to be going someplace after work?
02:56And I said, no, she's supposed to be here for dinner.
03:04At first, Donna's family thought that she might have been held up by her new job.
03:09She worked for an attorney, and her lawyer's office was moving to a new location.
03:13She volunteered to help move the office.
03:17Julie was confident that her responsible and family-oriented sister
03:22would not have been late for Sunday dinner without calling.
03:26Julie and her mother went down to the basement apartment where Donna lived
03:33to see if there might be a clue about where she was.
03:38Instead, they walked into a nightmare.
03:41My mom said, why is it so messy down here?
03:44And she picked up a pile of clothes off the floor to put it on the bed,
03:48and that's when she saw blood on the floor.
03:50And as they looked around the room, they saw more bloodstains.
04:01My mom just turned completely white and looked over at me, and she said, call the police.
04:06When East Windsor police arrived, they were also alarmed.
04:18Investigators found a large bloodstain on Donna's carpet,
04:21as well as bloodstain on the upholstery of Donna's chair.
04:23How concerned were those officers when they discovered the blood?
04:29Finding blood evidence led them to believe that this could be more serious
04:33than the typical missing person investigation.
04:37It was certainly enough to cause the police to suspect foul play and go on high alert.
04:43Those concerns grew when police were told that Donna had never arrived at work that day.
04:56And testing of evidence found in Donna's bedroom brought more troubling news.
05:02There were some seminal stains that were collected from the bedding and also the rug.
05:07Based on the evidence that was collected at the scene,
05:10could it be concluded that there had been a sexual assault?
05:13Yes, there was evidence of sexual activity and various bloodstains.
05:19A disturbing picture was coming into focus.
05:24It was clear that Donna had been injured during a violent struggle.
05:31Were there any other signs of an attack in the basement?
05:34There was a sweater over the blood evidence that almost looked like it was intentionally placed.
05:39There was also some items that might have been moved,
05:42including the TV.
05:48Police were stunned.
05:50The evidence seemed to point to a brutal home invasion.
05:54It was the type of big city crime that simply didn't happen in safe communities like East Windsor.
06:00They carefully searched the property for additional clues.
06:05Were there any signs around the perimeter of the home that someone had broken in?
06:11It did not appear that there was any signs of break-in.
06:16But it turned out that neither of the doors to the home had been locked.
06:21We didn't really lock the doors back then.
06:22We were in a very safe neighborhood, and so it wasn't unusual for the doors to be unlocked.
06:27And detectives quickly realized that an intruder had entered the house.
06:33Was anything missing from her home?
06:36Yeah, there was a wallet as well as a calculator that was on a desk to the rear of the home that appeared to be missing.
06:43The desk was just steps from the Mako's back door.
06:50And the discovery that those items were missing led Donna's mother to mention another frightening detail.
06:58The back door appeared to have been left open overnight.
07:02Donna's mother actually closed the door upon coming downstairs when she woke up that morning.
07:08At the time, Donna's mother assumed that the wind had blown it open.
07:15But the totality of the evidence now pointed to a far more troubling conclusion.
07:21Police believed that Donna's attacker had entered the home, assaulted Donna, and then taken her with him when he fled.
07:32They were investigating the case as a kidnapping and assault or a potential homicide.
07:38Donna's family confirmed that clothing she had worn the day before was missing, including a pair of black boots.
07:52Investigators were still collecting evidence in the home when they received a disturbing report.
07:58The teenager's car had just been located, abandoned in a low-traffic area.
08:05Where was Donna's car discovered?
08:07Pulled over on the side of the road in East Windsor Township by the sewage plant.
08:12Investigators tracing the license plate realized that the car was Donna's.
08:18When investigators examined Donna's car, what did they find inside?
08:21The keys were still in the vehicle.
08:23And they found her purse.
08:25And that search left police convinced that Donna had been in it after she was attacked.
08:35They found what appeared to be blood evidence on the upholstery of the seats.
08:38What did the amount of blood discovered in Donna's car indicate to investigators?
08:46While that evidence was significant, certainly, I don't believe that conclusions could be drawn whether it was a matter of her having continued to bleed from the injury rendered in the bedroom or whether additional injury was rendered in the car.
09:01Now blood has been discovered inside Donna's car.
09:04Now blood has been discovered inside Donna's home and inside her car.
09:10Did investigators think she was still alive?
09:13Yes.
09:14It did not appear to be an amount of blood that would indicate a traumatic injury.
09:18And that meant time was of the essence.
09:24The evidence was sent to the lab for processing.
09:27And an all-hands-on-deck search for Donna was launched.
09:31We were thinking, well, we found her car.
09:33We're going to find her.
09:34She's around there somewhere.
09:35But investigators were not as certain.
09:39They feared that every moment that passed might be the one that cost Donna her life.
09:48Police were racing to find Donna Mako, certain that her life was in danger.
10:09All the evidence investigators found left her family and friends struggling to understand how something this terrible could have happened.
10:24When it sunk in that Donna had been attacked in the basements and abducted, how did you deal with that reality?
10:33Shock is to put it mildly.
10:35We couldn't believe it.
10:36We never saw this coming.
10:39We found her car, but not her.
10:42I mean, is she kidnapped?
10:44Nobody knew what to think.
10:46It's just sheer terror.
10:53And residents of the upscale town of East Windsor were not used to being afraid.
10:59How would you describe the community back then?
11:02Everybody knew everybody.
11:04We didn't lock our doors.
11:06We just didn't feel the need.
11:07There was never any crime.
11:08Donna was an unlikely target for something as unthinkable as a home invasion.
11:22She was hardworking, mature, and giving.
11:26What was Donna like?
11:27She had such a kind heart.
11:29She always just made sure everybody around her was happy.
11:32A caring soul.
11:33She was a very genuine person, friendly to everyone.
11:38You can talk to her about anything.
11:40She was beautiful.
11:41Just as beautiful inside as she was outside.
11:50Donna had recently given up on a potential career in modeling to go back to school.
11:55She kind of felt like that wasn't her scene.
11:59She was too kind hearted for that world.
12:01She just felt like she didn't belong in it.
12:03And that mindset had been reinforced by her return to college and a new job working at a nearby law firm.
12:11What was she studying at school?
12:13It started out in business and bookkeeping and that sort of thing.
12:16It was taking a hard turn toward the legal.
12:19She really enjoyed it.
12:22She just wanted to live a grown-up life.
12:26She said it's time to look towards the future.
12:28And that's what she was doing.
12:30Donna's life had a clear direction, and she had discussed those plans with her younger sister the night before she went missing.
12:45The two had a long conversation that now seemed critical to police.
12:50Do you know what time that was about?
12:52I'd have been close to one.
12:53And we sat down in her bedroom and talked for two hours just about boyfriends, what we want to do for the future.
13:01It's what teenage sisters do.
13:05Julie told detectives she had said goodnight to Donna around 2.45 a.m.
13:11As she crept up the two flights of stairs to her bedroom, she was careful not to wake up her parents.
13:18After you went upstairs, did you hear any strange noises in the house?
13:23No, nothing.
13:24I didn't hear a sound.
13:26None of us did.
13:32But detectives were convinced that's when the attack had begun.
13:39How shocking was the possibility that Donna had been attacked in her own home at the same time the rest of her family was sleeping?
13:51Very shocking.
13:52It's very unusual.
13:55How would you describe someone who would do that?
13:59To enter a household that was full of people in the middle of the night, it's a very brazen act.
14:09Detectives hoped that a neighborhood canvas would reveal that a perpetrator who was willing to take such huge risks was careless as well.
14:18Did any of Donna's neighbors hear or see anything suspicious that night?
14:24No neighbors heard anything unusual that night.
14:31Investigators quickly widened their search for the missing team.
14:34The pressure was on to find her before it was too late.
14:39They conducted extensive searches.
14:42They used the New Jersey State Police Aviation Unit to conduct aerial searches.
14:49They organized parties to search the area where the car was found.
14:53She wasn't anywhere.
14:55She wasn't anywhere.
14:56She was gone.
15:01Police were frustrated.
15:03It seemed like Donna had simply vanished.
15:06With no clues about Donna's whereabouts, nor who had taken her, investigators turned their attention to the crime lapse report.
15:17Did all of the blood found at the crime scene belong to Donna?
15:22Yes, the blood at the crime scene, meaning Donna's bedroom, was attributed to Donna, as was blood found in her car.
15:34Although biological evidence had been recovered, DNA technology was still years away in 1984.
15:43The testing that could be done at that time was obviously more limited.
15:52Then, just when it seemed like the investigation might stall, police were given the name of a potential suspect.
16:01Someone in Donna's life who had the means and the motive to commit the diabolical crime.
16:08Police investigating Donna Mako's abduction had no leads on a suspect, until her loved one shared their theory.
16:29Our whole family thought it was somebody that she knew because why didn't she yell?
16:34Why didn't she bang on something, make noise, wake us up?
16:38Who did you think could have been responsible?
16:41Her ex-boyfriend, Dave. She had gone out with him for a couple of years.
16:46Would you characterize their relationship as having been turbulent?
16:51Very much, yeah.
16:53I had seen him go from being happy-go-lucky to angry to sad, back to angry, all in five minutes.
17:03We all thought it was her ex-boyfriend. He was just so into her.
17:06She broke his heart, and he took it pretty hard.
17:16Donna's friends also revealed that Donna had been supporting her boyfriend financially, even as their relationship fell apart.
17:24Some of this stuff I learned she didn't share with the family at the time, but she was giving him money.
17:30She was writing checks to him that we didn't know about.
17:33And just before she disappeared, Donna had brought the money train to a halt.
17:41She was moving forward in her life.
17:44She had gotten a good job, and he was still partying and not working, getting in trouble with the cops.
17:50And she didn't want that for her life.
17:52She wanted to think about her future.
17:56She told him straight up, I'm done with this. I'm leaving you. I can't do this anymore. And it was over.
18:03How would you describe Donna's ex-boyfriend's reaction to their breakup?
18:08Bad.
18:08In fact, friends had to restrain Donna's boyfriend until she could leave.
18:19The bottom line was that he did not take the breakup well.
18:22Not at all.
18:24He was very jealous.
18:25Police knew Donna's ex also had a bad temper.
18:32It had led to an assault charge unrelated to his relationship with Donna.
18:36He got arrested and was actually in jail.
18:42Detectives were intrigued when they discovered that the 21-year-old had been released just days before Donna went missing.
18:51He gets out of jail. All of this happens.
18:54Obviously, that's your number one thought.
19:00Police believe there were other investigative details that fit with Donna's ex being a suspect.
19:06Would he have known the layout of Donna's house?
19:10He would have, yes.
19:16Donna's ex also knew that the Makos left their doors unlocked.
19:19In fact, investigators considered the possibility that he had been stalking Donna that night.
19:27Perhaps even hiding in the basement, waiting to strike.
19:31He could have been down there the whole time we were down there talking.
19:35Was he already down there, waiting for me to leave?
19:38And Julie told police that if her sister's ex had been close by, the conversation he had overheard would fill him with rage.
19:53How chilling is that for you to think about?
19:57Very, that's one of those things you don't recover from.
20:01I could see him going over there just to talk to her.
20:05He would say, come back to me, give me another chance.
20:08And it just going bad from there.
20:11I could definitely see that happening.
20:12Detectives brought Donna's ex-boyfriend to the station for questioning.
20:23He immediately denied any rule in the crime.
20:27He said he was sick the night this happened.
20:31But he had no one who could verify his alibi.
20:35His roommates never saw him after 10 p.m.
20:38And said it was possible he could have snuck out without them knowing.
20:43They weren't able to account for his time during the entire night.
20:47Investigators asked him to take a lie detector test.
20:51And he failed.
20:53The one-time love of Donna's life was now the prime suspect in her abduction.
20:59As investigators continued to look for evidence or a witness who could place Donna's ex at the Mako's home,
21:10the 21-year-old made a personal appeal to her family.
21:15He came over to our house and my mother said,
21:19if you know of anything, just please tell me.
21:24And he cried and he said, I didn't do this.
21:27I don't know what happened.
21:29I don't know what could have happened.
21:30He was so upset.
21:32He couldn't even hardly speak.
21:34The emotional exchange had a huge impact on Donna's loved ones.
21:39I remember my mom telling the police it couldn't have been him.
21:42He's just, he's just falling apart like all of us are.
21:44He wants to find her as bad as we all do.
21:47And there was more than just tears that stalled the case against Donna's ex.
21:57Could detectives find any physical evidence that linked him to the attack?
22:02There was no physical evidence that linked him to the attack at all.
22:07And that forced police and loved ones to confront terrifying questions.
22:11If her ex-boyfriend wasn't responsible, who was?
22:18And how could he have snatched their precious Donna out of her own bed?
22:23To do what he did in the basement, which we know was violent.
22:29Get out that back door, get in her car and leave.
22:34And nobody heard a thing.
22:36It destroyed us.
22:38Destroyed us.
22:41Detectives investigating Donna Mako's attack
22:56believe that a dangerous predator was loose in their community.
23:03A man with no fear of confrontation nor getting caught.
23:08I believe that he entered her home.
23:12She was assaulted both physically and sexually in her bedroom.
23:17I do not know if she left the home alive or dead.
23:23And until he was brought to justice, no one was safe.
23:28Not even in their own home.
23:31Were you afraid that whoever attacked Donna might strike again?
23:35Yes.
23:36Yes.
23:37Yes.
23:37Very much so.
23:39People started locking doors then.
23:43We didn't know who to trust.
23:47It had to be really scary to live that way.
23:50It really was.
23:51It was terrifying.
23:54You didn't know if there was somebody, you know, hiding behind the bushes.
23:57We were all scared.
24:00Neither justice nor public safety are assured when there is a violent, unsolved crime.
24:07Police recovered valuable evidence from Donna's bedroom and car.
24:16But none of it pointed them to a suspect.
24:18Law enforcement chased every lead and offered a reward for information leading to an arrest.
24:26But those efforts failed to move the case forward.
24:30How frustrated were investigators when the case stalled?
24:34There are times when there is no longer strings to pull and the investigation stalls out.
24:41You want to get answers for the family.
24:43It's extremely frustrating when you cannot get those answers.
24:51How heavily did it weigh on your family not knowing what had happened to Donna?
24:58You're stuck.
24:59You're frozen.
25:00And the only thing you care about is finding her.
25:02There's no healing.
25:04There's no getting back to normal.
25:06The Magos pain was magnified by their uncertainty.
25:11Even though it was clear that Donna had been hurt, no one could say, how badly?
25:18Could you maintain any hope that she was still alive?
25:23We always had that hope.
25:26Everybody always held out hope that she was still alive.
25:30Donna's mother posted flyers all over town and was very direct with the message she sent through the media.
25:39My mom was just begging and pleading, please just let us know where she's at.
25:43We don't even want to see you in jail.
25:44We don't care.
25:45We just want to find her.
25:46Donna's mother and stepfather did everything they could to find the clue that would solve the mystery.
25:58My stepfather hired trackers.
26:01We had divers and sewers and water.
26:03Helicopters were used.
26:05Anything that the police couldn't do, he did.
26:07The family hired psychics and cadaver dogs.
26:14They exhausted all of their money.
26:17And as weeks turned into months and then years, they began to accept that their pain was never going to end.
26:25Did you begin to fear that you would never know what had happened to Donna?
26:30Yeah.
26:30As the time kept going by, you start losing hope.
26:39Sadly, Donna's mother died without learning her daughter's fate.
26:44How tormenting has it been to you to know that your mother passed away without any of the answers she deserved?
26:52That's torture because that's all she wanted to know.
26:54Still, Julie never gave up.
26:59You don't quit.
27:00And you let somebody know that this matters.
27:04She matters.
27:05What my mother went through mattered.
27:11And then, on April 2nd, 1995, a man walking in the woods made a terrifying discovery
27:18that would change the course of the investigation and forever alter the lives of Donna Mako's loved ones.
27:28What did he report?
27:29An individual going to pick up his son from the Boy Scouts cut through a wooded area and wound up finding black boots.
27:39Upon further investigation, there were remains by those boots.
27:44Skeletal remains that appear to have been hidden for years.
27:50There appeared to be a carpet that was held down by two rotting logs over those remains, almost hiding them.
27:58Within minutes, investigators arrived at the scene, just two miles from where Donna's abandoned car had been discovered.
28:0850 yards from the road into the woods over there is where he found the remains and the black boots.
28:14When investigators removed the carpet, they made another grim discovery.
28:22A human skull.
28:25Police already sensed they knew who the victim was.
28:29Given the period of time that had elapsed, obviously there was great decomposition to the body.
28:36How were they ultimately able to confirm that these were the remains of Donna Mako?
28:44Dental records showed that the remains belonged to Donna Mako.
28:47An autopsy was performed that helped provide some insight into Donna's terrifying last moments alive.
29:00Could the medical examiner make a determination about what had happened to Donna?
29:05Homicidal violence.
29:06There was some type of violent trauma to the victim's head.
29:13Injuries that could have been caused by a bullet or severe blood force trauma.
29:19The object could not be determined.
29:21Loved ones were asked to identify the clothing found along with Donna's remains, including the black boots and other personal items.
29:36I met with the detectives to give me all of the details, and I saw pictures of her jewelry.
29:41And there was no mistaking in your mind that you were looking at her jewelry.
29:48Correct.
29:50It was the final confirmation that Donna Mako had been found.
29:59And that raised a lot of new questions.
30:03You just think, what happened? How did she get there?
30:08I actually lived right over the bridge where they found her.
30:11Never knowing that it was there.
30:13I was reliving all the fear that you had as a teenager.
30:19Did detectives believe it was likely that Donna had been killed the night she was abducted from her home?
30:27There's no way to say for certain.
30:29But there was one heartbreaking truth that could no longer be denied.
30:35Reality said to him that, you know, she was gone and she wasn't ever coming back.
30:39It was quite tragic.
30:48For investigators, the discovery of Donna's body meant something else.
30:53The case was now officially a homicide investigation, and they were more determined than ever to solve it.
31:03We approached it almost as a clean slate to basically take a look at it with an open mind.
31:08It was important to me to speak with Donna's family and to let them know we did not forget about Donna.
31:18As detectives restarted an investigation that had been cold for over a decade,
31:39Donna Mako's loved ones were still trying to come to terms with the painful possibility that her killer might get away with murder.
31:49Where did you find the strength to move forward?
31:54I'm the last family member.
31:56My goal was to see this through.
31:59If I didn't, nobody else was going to do it.
32:05And that meant that Julie had to let law enforcement know just how committed she was to justice.
32:11You don't quit.
32:13This horrible person needs to come to light.
32:17How would you describe your efforts over the years to constantly push law enforcement to focus on Donna's case?
32:26I'm always bugging the police.
32:28Detectives retire.
32:29I introduce myself to the new ones coming on board.
32:32What's happening?
32:33What's being done?
32:33That process went on for more than 20 years after Donna's remains were found.
32:43Then, investigators from the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office heard Donna's story.
32:49And something clicked.
32:51I just was begging them.
32:53I said, you know, is there anything that can be done?
32:55And they said, well, actually, we're starting a cold case division.
32:58And this is going to be one of the first cases that we look at.
33:00How did Donna's case rise to the top of your list to investigate?
33:08You have this young girl, loved by all.
33:11Disappeared for 11 years and then finally found.
33:15The DNA was already collected from the previous detectives.
33:18So we knew we had the DNA there to make that next step forward.
33:22But to take that step, investigators had to first go back to the beginning and look for any element of the crime that might help them identify a suspect.
33:39As he studied the case file, Detective Taylor Bonner focused on just how brazen this attack had been.
33:46He went into her house while she was in her room, living her life with her family.
33:52You think you're safe in your own home.
33:55You learn how gruesome it was.
34:00Such a young girl to have to go through that.
34:03It's heart-wrenching.
34:04And those long-standing details now seem to be a starting point for a new investigation.
34:14What did you think you could do that would crack this case?
34:18The way we approach it is, can we relaunch some physical evidence to see if there's a suspect that was previously identified?
34:26Technology has changed so much over the years.
34:29How far has the science of DNA come since then?
34:33Leaps and bounds.
34:38And those modern advances guided forensic scientist Christine Schlenker as she examined the decades-old evidence.
34:47We're able to tell more information about individuals who have left biological evidence.
34:52And the hard work she did analyzing the DNA found in Donna's bedroom led to a suspect.
35:01Whose biological evidence was found in Donna's bedroom?
35:06The seminal stain that was found on the rug was linked to Nathaniel Harvey.
35:13Nathaniel Harvey.
35:15The name was nowhere in the case file, but it was still familiar to police in East Windsor.
35:21Who was Nathaniel Harvey?
35:24Nathaniel Harvey had committed a number of burglaries and sexual assaults during that time frame.
35:35Police found that Harvey had no known connection to Donna Mako, but his crimes had striking similarities to her abduction.
35:44What was his MO?
35:46Mr. Harvey would enter unlocked doors and subsequently take property that he found inside.
35:52He was also known to sexually assault victims, even if they had family members inside the household.
36:02And Harvey, who was 32 years old the night Donna disappeared, lived just a short distance away from all the critical locations involved in the crime.
36:12The car was abandoned roughly a mile from where Nathaniel Harvey was living.
36:19The location where her body was discovered was in a farm area that Mr. Harvey, at one point, had employment.
36:27As investigators studied Harvey's other crimes, it helped them formulate a theory of how the attack on Donna had played out.
36:42What do you think Nathaniel Harvey did on the night of Donna's murder?
36:48I believe that Mr. Harvey was able to gain access to the home through the unlocked rear door.
36:56And subsequently, he went down in the basement.
37:00My belief is based on the blood evidence found that there was an injury inflicted to Donna,
37:07as well as a sexual assault that took place in the basement.
37:14Do you think he was aware that her family was sleeping in the same house?
37:20I do not know, and I am speculating, but I believe he either did not know or did not care.
37:25It appeared that after the assault, Harvey forced Donna to get dressed, and he abducted her at gunpoint.
37:37Then, sometime after murdering Donna, he went to work trying to cover up his crime.
37:43I believe that in order to try to evade responsibility, her body was left in the woods.
37:48Investigators were certain that they had compiled a powerful case against Harvey.
37:59I am confident in the evidence.
38:02In fact, the cold case team believed it was now time to share what they had found with Donna's sister, Julie,
38:09to provide the answers that she had waited for for more than 38 painful years.
38:16Learning that it was his DNA in the basement was a complete shock.
38:25But investigators also had a crushing blow to deliver.
38:30Nathaniel Harvey had died behind bars in 2020 while serving a life sentence for another brutal crime.
38:41What was your reaction when you found out Harvey had died in prison?
38:44Devastating.
38:46Devastating. Absolutely devastating.
38:48But once the initial shock and disappointment wore off,
38:53Julie was able to focus on something far more important to her.
38:57The feeling she had for a team of investigators who never gave up on her or Donna.
39:03How much gratitude do you have for all the members of law enforcement who worked on this case over decades
39:12and finally ended up solving the case?
39:15I don't know how to put that into words.
39:17These stories need to be told.
39:19It's like getting a piece of your life back.
39:22Now you can move forward.
39:24At least I can bury her.
39:25This is what my mom would have wanted.
39:26How much did it mean to you to allow Donna's family to finally put her to rest?
39:39It meant a lot.
39:40It's the most important part of the job.
39:42I cannot give somebody their loved one back,
39:45but to even give them a little bit of peace of mind means the world to me.
39:48And Julie believes that feeling of peace she now has is a big part of Donna's legacy.
40:00If anybody's going through anything like this, it can seem hopeless at times,
40:04but don't give up.
40:06Don't give up.
40:07Keep going.
40:07Keep looking for answers.
40:09Try to undo some of the evil that was done.
40:11What kind of woman do you think she would have become
40:20if her life hadn't been cut so tragically short?
40:25Her goal was to find a way to not only grow from who she was to become a better person,
40:32but to help people around her.
40:34A lot was taken away when this happened.
40:37The possibilities for her were just endless.
40:40She could matter and make a difference.
40:43It meant everything to her.
40:45We lost somebody really good.
40:53After the investigation was officially closed,
40:57Julie held a formal burial for her sister at a gravesite close to their mother's.
41:04I'm Paula Zahn.
41:05Please join us again next time when we're back on The Case.
41:10On the next On The Case.
41:13How would you characterize the brutality of the attack?
41:18To have abducted her and then to strangle somebody to death.
41:21It was absolutely shocking.
41:22He's got injuries.
41:24We need to look at him a lot closer.
41:26It's horrible to say, but I hope he burns in hell.
41:29We break down.
41:31We're off to him again next time.
41:34태ori katika.
41:34I'm just sorry.
41:35You're off to her.
41:35Every morning on The Case.
41:37We'll be back.
41:38First on the Case.
41:39Cause we'll be back.
41:40We'll be back.
41:45We'll be back.
41:46We'll be back.
41:47Just stay in this on the back.
41:48We'll be back.
41:48Next Again.
41:49Do you have me first thing?
41:50We'll get you all.
41:51You'll be back.
41:51Just stay in this yard.
41:52We can rest.
41:53But we'll be back.
41:53We'll be back over.
41:54Listen.
41:55operating cuts with the mismokg Self‑
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