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Bloodline Detectives Season 6 Episode 1
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00:00Daytona Beach Florida 1980 the body of a female is discovered along interstate 95
00:09she was found in between the north and southbound lanes she was out there in the woods and was just
00:18a spot where the perpetrator dumped her off it's sad place to be just discarded she was almost a
00:25complete skeleton an investigation is launched who is this woman and who is her killer you're
00:32going to tape off the scene as large an area as possible we didn't know her name she was
00:36Jane Doe 1980 you've got unidentified human remains but you have no suspect it's extremely difficult
00:41to solve that crime all leads run dry for decades but then a new investigative technique breaks the
00:48case wide open genetic genealogy can be a extremely important tool for law enforcement it is a strong
00:58component to getting answers in some of these cases criminals who have hidden in the shadows for
01:03years find there's no escaping science and their own family DNA welcome to bloodline detectives
01:18Daytona Beach Volusia County this lively city nestled on Florida's Atlantic Coast is a popular
01:44tourist destination in the 1970s and 80s Daytona Beach is famous for what's the world world's most
01:51famous beach in the 70s and the 80s and MTV there was their bread and butter down here every spring
02:01break they came down here I think was for about five or six years stretch it was a big deal like
02:05that I can remember being 15 and 16 and seeing that on TV and going yeah that's where I want to go
02:09for spring break I want to go to Daytona Beach you got bike week there's only a few large bike
02:15gatherings in the United States it was definitely a party town I think it's always been a biker town
02:22we've always had a big biker community so I know that that was definitely prevalent back then spring
02:32break the beaches have always been so I think the core of who Daytona Beach is or what Daytona Beach
02:38has kind of remained the same it's evolved with more people and obviously changed a little bit but
02:42bikes in the beach are very prominent here Daytona bike week is huge and so you've got all these
02:50different draws and all these different people that come here and then of course there's the speedway
02:54the international speedway has been around since the late 50s and has grown exponentially almost
02:59yearly practically I mean it's just a monster of an event down here and it's not the one time a year
03:04that they have them we're just getting through with the Daytona 500 you've got motorcycle events
03:08there they're doing a and they've done it years prior to with rock and roll concerts and things
03:14like that so it's just like a mecca for mass entertainment and that brings people especially
03:19young folks there's a saying come to Daytona come on vacation leave on probation come back on violation
03:25so it kind of speaks for itself I was pretty young at that time but I still remember everything
03:32it's a touristy area so we have a lot of people coming and going with the warm climate
03:38but as Daytona Beach grows in popularity so does its influx of crime
03:48if you were a student of history and you understand the area or know anybody from that area at the
03:54time this area was very much a product of the drug trade at the time I-95 used to be called the
04:00reefer express and in 1975 statistics bear this out probably between 70 to 80 90 percent of the
04:09illegal narcotics coming into this country be it cocaine heroin marijuana or what have you all came
04:15through Florida up 95 they called it the cocaine highway as I said reefer express it was a bit of
04:21a narcotics free-for-all during that time there was a lot of crime that was affiliated with it
04:26because wherever you have drugs or narcotics you have violent crime you have murder you have rapes
04:30and you have abductions though they all take up statistically in those areas when you have
04:35narcotics free-for-all
04:36at 2 p.m. on November the 5th 1980 a shocking discovery is made by Florida Department of Transport
04:46Workers they stumble across a woman's remains just north of Port Orange
04:50she was found in between the north and southbound lanes of interstate 95 which is one of the major
04:58interstates here in Florida it runs north to south it's traveled by a lot of the community here so
05:04she is found in the median between those two in a wooded area it's right there by the highway it's
05:12in the median between 95 so you got cars roaring by each day but she was just down far enough and into
05:18the brush just barely in there enough to where you know they didn't see her for a while when they
05:25first found her obviously it would have started with calling 911 and then law enforcement would have
05:30gone out to investigate when human remains are discovered what we do is first on scene you're
05:36going to tape off the scene there isn't a law enforcement officer or a cop out there who hasn't
05:41either worked a case or heard about a case where a suspect dropped his wallet or his driver's license
05:46fleeing from the scene so the first thing you want to do is cordon off a big area because you never know
05:50what you're going to find out there there may be nothing in the immediate area of the body but there
05:55may be something else so you cordon off a large scene there's a multitude of photographs that are
06:02taken and preserved for later on for reconstruction purposes then we go through a methodical grid search
06:08sometimes several times and in the case of body dump location where you're talking about say in an
06:14area along the side of the road or in the wooded area or something like that depending on how long
06:17it's been there is going to dictate how complicated the physical investigative process is going to be
06:22at the time she had probably been there for several months she was primarily skeletal remains so she had
06:28already gone through the different stages of decomposition it was really a sad situation because
06:35it's basically like a culvert or a retention area for runoff water when it rains a lot it's kind of a
06:42swampy area right there it's sad place to be just discarded during their search for evidence
06:52investigators come across a pair of shoes and a red t-shirt that possibly belonged to the woman
06:57the t-shirt that was found had a slogan do it in the dirt the body has been exposed to the wooded
07:06area with foliage and the seasonal changes and things like that items that are of evidentiary value
07:12could be buried under several inches of dried foliage leaves falling trees you name it so it's not
07:20uncommon for us to go back and do a grid search come up with nothing or come up with a few things that
07:27yield no positive results and go back while the area is still protected and do another search another
07:33layer down and another layer down trying to find something of value obviously a certain point you've
07:38reached your saturation point but that was done we did two grid searches down below each went down
07:45approximately eight to ten inches to see if there was anything else there could possibly be considered
07:50evidence and unfortunately it was met with negative results no further clues about the woman's identity are
07:58found at the scene the next step is to try to determine the cause of death the remains were placed into a
08:07transport pouch that we have and it'll be brought here to the lab from there the forensic pathologist
08:13will do their examination they'll clean up the individual if there's trauma related we do pictures
08:17overall of everything before we clean anything up most times we wait for the pathologist permission to
08:22touch or clean anything in that regard once they've granted that permission and they've laid eyes on the
08:27individual then we'll move through cleaning them up in the manner that the doctor would like and again
08:31once they're clean the doc will take pictures of the decedent all over again just so that you get very
08:36clear margins of exactly what you're looking at from there the doctor will look at the internal organs
08:41if they deem that necessary for the case in this case steps of the autopsy are limited based on the
08:47fact that there's no internal organs left or anything I don't want to say uncharacteristically
08:51but fortunately in our case the body had not been disturbed to any significant degree by any animal
08:56activity so all of the bones the majority of them were still there but during the autopsy it was
09:03discovered there were several marks in the upper rib cage but the thing is is that when you have a
09:09bone and it shows evidence of trauma such as that that trauma would have to have been precipitated by
09:15some sort of serious injury some sort of life and death injury or you know a you know a critical
09:21incident so based on the uh the trauma that was found to have been sustained at her rib cage we determined
09:27that she had been stabbed in the upper torso and that was likely the cause of her death whether she
09:32died immediately from that or there was some other contributing factors but there was no other injuries
09:36to her body unfortunately because of the decomposition level it was unknown if she had also been strangled or
09:43suffocated in any manner but we know she'd been stabbed for someone to just be left on the side of the
09:50the road like that it's pretty horrific the Volusia County Sheriff's Office faces a difficult task can
10:00they identify this Jane Doe who suffered a violent death and find her killer who could still be praying
10:06on Daytona Beach on November the 5th 1980 transport workers in Volusia County Florida locate the
10:24skeletal remains of an unidentifiable woman off interstate 95 an autopsy reveals she had been stabbed
10:31to death before being discarded by the side of the road investigators hope that by uncovering the
10:37name of this Jane Doe they can also catch her killer a Jane or John Doe will not be released from this
10:46office until we know who they are so they'll stay here with us we have the space to do it great we're
10:53very grateful for that fact some places don't but they'll remain here until they've been identified
10:58since no one has been reported missing and the body has been there a significant period of time
11:02immediately you go to the transient body of individuals in the area and you kind of have
11:07to understand the origins of why somebody would be of that transient group so to speak there's two types
11:11of people that are kind of come to an area like Daytona Beach greater Daytona Beach area there are
11:15people who are successful where they are and they're coming here to for opportunity and apply
11:21their trade whatever happens to be those people usually have a lot of connections family friends ties
11:26to communities so they do not fall victim as easily then you've got the other group that are
11:31people looking for a fresh start for whatever reason they've had a bed run of it where they are
11:34sometimes it's their own fall sometimes it's not their products their environments you know they've
11:38been victimized in one way or another children who were abused they grow up and they have trouble
11:42past and whatever and they want to start fresh when you leave an area because you say for instance you
11:46take an individual's having problems at home maybe they had some minor brushes with the law they're not
11:51getting along with family and when they leave sometimes where the family's concerned it's a
11:56harsh reality but it's good riddance we're not interested you know we don't want to have any
12:00more contact with you we're washing our hands of you and these people would come here and they
12:04really don't have anybody checking on them so when you take an individual who preys on people like
12:09that they're aware of that that's something they go in knowing that if they're able to find somebody
12:14like that prey on that person they know that the chances of getting caught are very slim because
12:18who's going to report them missing and in the case of sex workers people involved in that trade
12:23whether it be prostitution or just somebody who's engaging in a legal employment endeavor which would
12:30be the girls working in some of the gentlemen's clubs strip clubs if you will you know but again
12:34these people don't usually statistically have strong family ties so an individual who's preying
12:39on people is going to prey on people like that because they know that there's not going to be a
12:43follow-up behind them in most of our cold cases people never reported them missing they just
12:48assumed they felt victim to some sort of unfortunate act but most likely they didn't care in most cases
12:54they just weren't concerned the investigators started talking to prostitutes bartenders up and
13:01down the strip on the main street people in places who would have knowledge of individuals who maybe they
13:07had saw frequently for a while and then hadn't seen in quite a while or maybe it heard a rumor about
13:11who had disappeared really had an argument with this person argue that person and then I never saw them
13:14again so there was a number of investigative leads that were followed up on in that regard but they
13:19all proved fruitless at that point the case starts turning cold so investigators switch their angle
13:26looking into a potential suspect with a history of violence against women who had been arrested seven
13:31months prior to the discovery of Jane Doe 28 year old New Yorker Gerald Stano
13:37Stan was arrested for a brutal assault on another woman in a Daytona Beach hotel she was a sex worker
13:45he'd picked her up and she knew him she was familiar with him had seen him around he had picked her up
13:50they'd gone to the hotel there was some argument over product for price and it ended in violence and he
13:59stabbed her over 30 times miraculously she was able to escape the hotel room bleeding profusely but
14:08because she knew his identity she was able to provide law enforcement with that and the Daytona Beach
14:13Police Department picked him up not long after that it's just a beast I mean you know to hurt any
14:20person really but a young person like that there's no reason for that no matter what so for someone to
14:29do that they have to be a pretty terrible person he's picked up in the first part of April it wasn't
14:36until November when the deceased body was discovered and again we didn't know her name she was Jane Doe 1980
14:43so he's in jail for seven eight months before that happens in that period of time they had linked him
14:51to a number of murders we had a lot of victims I just remember seeing snippets of it on the news here
14:58and there as I grew in the area I know he had a lot of victims all throughout the state he had the
15:04aggravated battery on the individual where he'd been arrested but he had been linked to a number of others
15:10and they had a lot of evidence at the time which is still the case Florida had the death penalty and
15:15he was being told that they were going to file charges and they were going to seek the death
15:19penalty in those charges for the other murders with a potential death penalty looming investigators
15:25working on the Jane Doe case pay him a visit hoping he'll cooperate so there was a motivation for
15:32him to come forward with anything and what they basically said to him was look we've got a lot of
15:36bodies because by time he was arrested they had bodies in similar circumstances in Holly Hill two
15:44in Port Orange two in Daytona New Smyrna Beach there was a number in say a four or five year period of
15:50unidentified human remains bodies all girls all between the ages of 25 and 35 years of age he was a serial
15:58killer that functioned in this area and he was responsible for the death of over 40 individuals he had a
16:04a typical MO of stabbing as well as strangulation I know that he went after young women blonde brown
16:10hair to kind of fit that demographic he did a lot of bad things in this area so they proposed to him
16:18we've got a mountain of evidence against you and if you're willing to close a couple of these cases
16:23for us we won't seek the death penalty he went along with that the problem in the Jane Doe 1980 case was
16:29by time they talked to him about cooperating he'd already been incarcerated and of course if you go
16:34to any jail they've got TVs on the walls and the guys watch all day long TV there's nothing else to
16:39do and back in in that time frame back in 1980 the only thing that came on at five o'clock at night
16:45was your local news and at six it was the national news and at seven it was a rehash of the local and
16:50that was it so if they're gonna be sitting there they're gonna watch in the local news they're gonna see
16:54what's going on in the community and the sheriff's office at that time had put out many news media
16:59releases and everything else about the fact that this girl was where she was found she was unidentified
17:04what she was wearing specifically even naming the t-shirt and the slogan do it in the dirt that was a
17:09slogan for little taco motorcycles they were a dirt bike made in Mexico at the time so it was very
17:15specific this media release so unfortunately he was likely he saw that sitting in the day room so when
17:21he comes forward with this information while he's incarcerated they're talking to him about solving
17:25crimes and he says oh yeah by the way I did that crime as well and they took him down to the scene
17:30where it was and he said yeah that's where I put her right there and he made a lot of admissions but
17:34again all of the information that provided to him so was he acting on his own behalf did he actually
17:42kill her the glaring problem with that was he said that he strangled her that was the only thing they
17:46did not release to the news in the media report how she died or the results of the autopsy so he
17:53said no I strangled her but if you go back and look at stanow's history those were the two methods that he
17:59used he either strangled stabbed or both so having said that it wasn't entirely a zero as far as
18:07chalking it up to him or not but it was definitely a question you had to ask yourself because history is
18:12rifle court cases where individuals confessed to crimes were motivated by a reason other than the
18:17fact that they did it and what we don't want to do is hang another crime on him not because we don't
18:21want to hang a crime on him believing he deserved everything he got but because if he's not the one
18:27there's somebody out there who is the one and that's what needs to be addressed in this instance
18:32it was questionable did he do it did he not do it it's hard to tell in the investigation he did say
18:37that he picked her up at a bar on main street and it was a pirate themed bar and he mentioned
18:41where the bar was the bar is no longer there but he mentioned where it was he didn't provide any
18:48information other than what we already knew what she was wearing and where he dumped her not knowing
18:52her identity that was of no use detectives did go down there to talk to bartenders in that area
18:57but they didn't have any pictures to show there was nothing they could show them to say do you
19:01remember seeing this girl they simply ask questions very broad questions are like is there anybody that
19:06you maybe haven't seen lately that was hanging around for a bit but hasn't been lately that fits this
19:10general description well look it's daytona beach half the girls here fit that description there was
19:15nothing that pointed them in any one particular direction gerald stano claims he murdered jane doe
19:23but police are unable to decipher whether he is telling the truth a more important question remains
19:28who is this unidentified young woman and does she have loved ones searching for her the case may have
19:36gone cold but advancements in DNA science break this case wide open decades later
19:41it's been nearly 40 years since the remains of an unidentified homicide victim were discovered dumped
19:59along the i-95 in volusia county florida in november 1980 investigators believe she was a victim of the
20:06serial killer gerald stano who confessed to the crime along with numerous others but could have
20:11done so in a bid to avoid the death penalty all efforts to ID the jane doe have failed so far but
20:17advancements in DNA science offer new hope in solving the mystery CODIS came into the picture all of these
20:25different DNA databases came into the picture to try and compare DNA and family members and stuff like
20:30that and that was when things really started to change they were able to use this new technology to
20:37apply it to the old cases and that's really what it was technology evolved CODIS is the combined DNA index
20:44system it has three levels it has a local state and national level there are several different things
20:51that can qualify an individual to be uploaded into CODIS all missing persons are likely uploaded if they
20:57have a DNA profile that can be found family members that kind of thing will contribute to them unidentified
21:01human remains cases or UHR cases when DNA is extracted it's uploaded into CODIS also and then
21:07certain crimes qualify that individual to be uploaded into that as well once an individual has been uploaded
21:14into their their DNA is there for any new submissions to be compared to she did have DNA that was extracted and
21:20uploaded into CODIS didn't have any hits unfortunately so then it was really well what's your next step
21:25the case goes cold yet again then detectives hear of a pioneering forensic technique that is solving the
21:34coldest of cold cases across the country forensic investigative genetic genealogy could this identify the 1980
21:42Jane Doe
21:43genealogy for justice is a nonprofit we help law enforcement agencies with the funding of their DNA testing for unidentified remains as well as homicide cases and sexual assaults
21:55genetic genealogy is the combination of genealogy which is the study of our history and all of the
22:05records that our ancestors have left behind combined with using DNA relatedness to fill in the gaps in those trees
22:14So the DNA is a very good tool to extend what paper tells us and to prove what paper tells us and that's that's essentially what it is when it's used
22:28forensically it's looking for a unique genealogical event that tells you who someone is by the combination of different networks in their matches
22:36their matches we're doing it because we feel called to do it we feel called to help people
22:42and it's extremely gratifying to know something that nobody else in the world knows and that's
22:47who they need to go knock on the door and get a sample from you know or who they need to send a SWAT team
22:52to arrest that's pretty exciting
22:56we reached out to the Volusia County
22:59and spoke with them to see whether there were any cases that would benefit from the testing
23:04and one of these cases was Jane Doe 1980 it was a full skeletonized remains that were found intact
23:12and when I say skeletonized it was approximately 60 percent of the body was skeletonized 30 to 35 percent
23:18was mummified there was dried tissue shoulders back and back of the legs so where the remains were found
23:25the back was lying down in contact with the ground and that was basically what was preserved but the
23:29skeleton was intact and that's where the DNA is going to be harvested from it's going to be harvested from
23:33it would have been the marrow in that area and it was intact so this was a good candidate for us
23:39her remains never left the office so she's always been here for us to have access to when we needed
23:46we just knew she was a Jane Doe and they did her name back
23:50the first step in the process is to collect a viable dna sample from her remains
23:54we started out with teeth and typically teeth are very protected in the jaw and so they've got a rich
24:03source of dna inside the tooth and in this case I don't know what they were doing in the 70s and 80s
24:09but we looked at the autopsy later and saw that they had pulled her teeth out of her jaw sent them to
24:14somebody for x-ray then glued them back in her jaw and so you know I don't know whose dna we would have
24:20gotten but um anyway it didn't work and so but we weren't going to take no for an answer so we then
24:26decided to harvest a petrous bone which is the bone in the face of the skull and those are obviously good
24:33you know as a backup to teeth they got a really good sample for us and it worked like a charm
24:39we got this sample back within about six weeks and it's like christmas that's like the most exciting
24:46day in the life of a case is when you get the dna profile back from the lab because all we have to
24:51do is hit upload and all of a sudden we know who this person's related to it's amazing it is like
24:56christmas so that happened i immediately saw that we had amazing matches she had a first cousin match
25:05one thing i noticed about her matches was that she had a hundred percent exclusive indiana matches
25:12nobody that wasn't in indiana and i thought how is she why do i have somebody in florida and then
25:18i'm going through this one particular family that was related to this first cousin match and i saw
25:23daytona beach divorce for her parents i was like okay that's her that's got to be the family
25:31this couple that had been from indiana but they lived briefly in daytona beach florida and then went
25:37back to indiana and i was like well if i were going to move somewhere i would go where i had been as a
25:42child i believe pamela whitman to be the identity for that 1980s jane doe investigators now need to confirm
25:51this through a dna comparison with a relative of pamela so immediately i told detective weaver once
25:58i let him know who i think it is i write my report and i told them about pam and explained who she was
26:05and she believes this is a girl from indiana and her half sister is still alive and lives up there
26:10and that just blew me away i'm like oh my god how the hell did you do that it was phenomenal so i sent
26:16him the name of the siblings that were alive and i had found denita on facebook and you know facebook
26:21is really a genetic genealogist friend it's amazing how much we use facebook for you wouldn't believe
26:26so uh finding denita on facebook helped he then made the notification and reached out to her
26:35we got a hold of denita she was all about it her family and she had had this nagging question for
26:40years on what happened to their sister because they hadn't heard from her they didn't know it's
26:46like it's an exciting and delicate process these people have had question marks and have been looking
26:51and praying for answers for a long time and so to be able to start to give them some of the answers
26:58has been a blessing my phone's blowing up and my son was calling me and i noticed that my son-in-law had
27:04called me and my daughter had called me and everybody was texting me they're like you really need to
27:08talk to this guy it's a detective he's from florida they think they found pam
27:16and i just remember like being excited at first just because it was just like oh they found her
27:22and it's like i knew what the end result was because she would have been back around we would
27:26have seen her again if she would have been alive but that long wait was finally over but then
27:33i went to work that night and then that's when reality kind of started to set in a little bit
27:38and then realized you know that i'll never have that chance with her she's gone
27:45detective weaver asked her if she would be willing to provide a sample for comparison
27:49and then her local law enforcement agency aided us in the collection of that sample as well as the
27:53submission donita's sample is a match to the jane doe whose remains were discovered along the i-95 back
28:01in 1980 it is believed she was murdered sometime between 1979 and 1980 when she was just 25 years of
28:09age once you know who that individual is you can work backwards from there figure out where they
28:16were last seen and things like that pam was the oldest from my mom's first marriage we lived on a
28:23little it was just a little tiny farmhouse we had our own cattle our own garden basically grew our own
28:29food my sister pam she was in and out a lot i do have like vague memories when i was like younger younger
28:38going and visiting her at like foster care and things like that but i never really understood
28:43the backstory to all of that um it was almost as if my mom kind of had a vendetta against her
28:50but my mom was also the type of person if you didn't walk the walk and talk the talk she was a
28:55very devout christian but she was a little extreme with it so if you did things that she didn't like
29:02you were disowned disbarred basically from the family anytime pam was around there was a lot of
29:06arguing between she and my mom she'd had a bit of a narcotics problem when she was growing up it's not
29:14unheard of a lot of the family had pushed her out of the way pushed her to the side nobody wanted
29:20anything to do with her everybody was listening to my mom's side of the story i was the only one that
29:25would flock to her because i too was craving attention so it was kind of like we fed each other what
29:31we both needed and that was just the love and attention of a sister when my mom was passing
29:35um she passed away of cancer in 2014 and my daughter my youngest daughter at the time was 18
29:42and my mom kept calling her pam they look identical um my daughter tia and pam she was gorgeous she was
29:48beautiful flawless her hair was always you know done i remember any time that i saw her her hair always
29:56looked really cute and she was the older sister she was like a rock star to me
30:01she was the type of person it was a hot summer day and she noticed that a girl didn't have shoes
30:05and she gave her her shoes and then walked around on the hot pavement and got blisters on her feet but
30:10she never complained about it because that little girl needed her shoes and that was just the type of
30:15person that she was loved to sing she was happy-go-lucky i mean she liked to cook and clean and you know do
30:22all the things that she should have been able to have the chance to do but it's like nobody ever really
30:27gave her a chance or taught her how to survive basically she was always shunned for the way she
30:35was i remember the last time i saw her at the time i was like seven eight years old around then that
30:44year we had a local parade and that was in martinsville and it was called the fall foliage festival
30:49and that was in 1978 and we were getting ready to go to the fall foliage festival and pam had stopped
30:54by for a visit and i just remember she was being just extra playful she had me on her lap we were
31:00doing patty cake i could tell she had been crying but that wasn't uncommon because there was always a
31:04lot of accusations from my mom and then i remember my mom coming through the living room and she says
31:11to pam you better be gone by the time we get back we don't want you here and i just remember wrapping
31:16my arms around her neck because for some reason at seven years old i knew that was the last time i was
31:21going to see her and it scared me to hear my mom say that and we never saw her again she came to
31:27florida and i think she liked the beach and the sun and she loved to be outside and outdoors and just
31:32be in nature she was running with a somewhat risky pack lifestyle if you will you know bikers
31:39and dabbling in narcotics here and there i feel like pam felt like she was alone even though she had a
31:45big group of friends i felt like she probably still felt like a void because she just wanted family
31:52she was just trying to survive and she just didn't know how honestly that's my take on it because i know
31:57that was the way i was headed down that road too and you know everybody talks about high school
32:01sweethearts and how awful that is but that saved me he's been my hero but she got into some stuff and
32:11um i just feel like she wasn't given much of an option than to choose the path that she was on but
32:15she was a good-hearted person that just wanted a chance i know that if she had been given a choice
32:21i don't think she woke up and said this is the life that i want i think she would have made better
32:26i know for a fact she would have it was november of 1980 when they found her
32:31the identity of jane doe 1980 is solved but the work of investigators is not yet complete
32:40can they prove that pamela was killed by the infamous serial killer stano
32:44and give pamela's family closure as to what exactly happened to her
32:47after more than 40 years since the discovery of her remains investigators from volusia county
33:05sheriff's office and fhd forensics have utilized investigative genetic genealogy to finally
33:11identify pamela k whitman whose skeletal remains were discovered along the i-95 near port orange florida
33:18back in 1980 detectives are looking into whether serial killer gerald stano murdered her or if he
33:24lied in an attempt to avoid the death penalty he was a serial killer that went after young women
33:30and he did a lot of bad things in this area santa was a very troubled character from start he was born
33:35in schenectady new york in 1951 his mom she had five kids she gave them all up for adoption he was the
33:41third one that she gave up for adoption when he was uh six and a half almost seven months old doctors at
33:46that point ruled him unadoptable until they got him into a foster home of some sort because even at
33:52that age um he couldn't function and do some of the things normal kids do he'd been just left laying
33:57in a crib he was eating his own feces he was malnourished and he was very animalistic is what
34:03the term that they used for him he did go to a loving family they tried to raise him right
34:08but a very rebellious and troubled youth doctors psychologists will say that a person's psyche
34:13is formed in the first few years of their life i don't know if that's true or not but it would
34:16seem to fit with this individual because he was troubled didn't get along in school terrible grades
34:21and everything but music which is not odd because if you look at some of the troubled individuals
34:27that we we read about psychopaths and whatnot like they always seem to excel in either art or music
34:32he didn't graduate until he was 21 from high school so obviously he had some issues in school
34:36had a hard time holding jobs was usually fired for hardiness and theft petty thefts that's from
34:42fellow employees things like that steal items off their desk or out of their drawers and stuff
34:46like that so he was let go repeatedly he moved to ormond beach with his parents early 70s so at
34:52that point he's probably somewhere in the late 20s early 30s he had gotten what would have been
34:57nowadays enough to put him away for life he had sexually abused a mentally handicapped female
35:02i don't know the circumstances behind that i only know that it was in one of the court reports
35:06that he had impregnated her and the parents paid for the abortion and nothing judicially was done on
35:12that for a psychopath like that what they're going to do is they're going to get up in the morning
35:17they're going to be cordial with the people they are close with in this case it was his parents
35:22and then he's going to go out he's going to do his thing his mom or dad waves goodbye as he goes out
35:26the door and they think that gerald isn't involved in anything nefarious but little they know he's going
35:30out basically just roaming the countryside looking for women of opportunity
35:37he was a horrible person you know a human being he just was a killer
35:49in many instances we find out that these people have stalked an individual on multiple occasions
35:54over weeks sometimes of periods to find out the comings and goings who might be around who might
35:59not be around when they do this because they obviously don't want to get caught they want to
36:02be able to capitalize on the anonymity that's created by the situation and then when they feel
36:06it's right and then they strike
36:11detectives speak to pamela's sister danita to get as much information as possible about the events
36:16that led up to pamela's murder to see if they can link her to stano
36:23danita says that she had a sister that lived on the west coast of florida and was here for years
36:30passed away a few years ago though unfortunately or had been a great person to talk to and she said
36:35that she had been in contact with pam while pam was in florida it wasn't an everyday thing but it was
36:42relatively frequently maybe two or three times a month she said the the sister that lived on the west
36:47coast saying that pam was working in a biker bar was when required when necessary prostituting herself
36:56and working at a strip joint when she could when she could get hired there this was information that
37:01we didn't have previously so when we talked to danita and she tells us about this and tells us that the
37:06sister told her yeah it was on main street pirate themed bar she was doing this and doing that when
37:10she needed to to make ends meet this fit the criteria of stano to a t
37:16during his confession he said i saw her in a bar he didn't say she was waitressing
37:25he made mention of the fact that she was just kind of hanging around in there and then eluded the
37:28fact that she was in there looking to make some money
37:34again initially for what he said because we didn't have an identity and we didn't have this back
37:38story we hadn't been told about the sister who knew she was hanging out in a bar on main street
37:43and it identically backs up the back story given by stano
37:49so he's out front he sees her at one point waves at her
37:54he said i asked her if she was working and she said yes
37:57she hops in the car and away they go i think it probably went sour from the minute they got in the car
38:05he had a lot of rage and with sex workers being such a vulnerable population he saw that
38:11and used used them to take his rage out
38:18and in stano's case was very very consistent with almost every woman that he murdered he would get
38:25an argument about money he had no respect for them the women that he murdered and so for him
38:31i think in him this justified his actions to him for him it was like well this is what they deserve i
38:36mean can you imagine arguing with me about what you want to charge me for sex act and so for him
38:41this was just where he came from no remorse
38:46gerald stano didn't have a regard for anybody maybe other than himself so after his experience
38:53with pamela and taking her life he tossed her off the side of the highway like trash
39:06and where her body was found highly doubt he killed her there only because if you pull off
39:11the interstate and you're sitting there with your lights either on or off he's not going to stay there
39:15a long time because he doesn't want to get caught he was smart that's why he got away with it as often
39:18as he did so he's probably going to pull off pull the body into the bushes where it was and get right
39:24back out on the road the only one fact we still have no answers who is he says he strangled her she
39:31was stabbed but with the number of women that this guy murdered could he have gotten them mixed up they
39:37all looked relatively alike they were all 25 to 35 they were all about 125 to 135 pounds brown hair brown eyes
39:44he's linked to approximately the death of 90 females there's approximately 40 that there is
39:52strong evidence that he is believed to have committed and he was tried for a total of 23. he was a mass
39:58murderer on a grand scale given the information on pamela's lifestyle from her sisters and stano's
40:06confession investigators conclude that stano is most likely her killer and that he stabbed her to death
40:12before dumping her body around february of 1980. i know he had a lot of victims all throughout the state
40:20so um and he's already been executed so i'm glad for that he had one death sentence and uh eight like
40:28consecutive life sentences he got what he he deserved and the death sentence i think his actions and his
40:35his decisions put him in the place that he needed to be gerald stano was executed by electrocution in 1998
40:45thanks to the relentless efforts of the volusia county sheriff's office fhd forensics and the power of
40:51investigative genetic genealogy pamela k whitman has her identity back and this case is now closed
40:58this particular one hit really close to home because it was right here in our county very close
41:07really to where we're all from and i still live today very close to that area where she was found
41:12when i saw the exit number and everything where she was found on 95 i'm like wow that was really close
41:18she went disappearing it's a pretty hard experience you know for the whole family when something like
41:25that happens a person goes missing and then the family's left wondering like where did they go
41:32what happened like there's no closure to it feels good in your heart you know to help them and be able
41:39to give that that family some closure so that's the main reason for doing it this case will stick with me
41:45for a number of reasons one donita is so sweet and it was just a privilege to get to meet her and work
41:51with her on this case this is also one of the the first cases that we used forensic genetic genealogy
41:56for here at the office it's not the very first but it's one of the it's the first one that i used
42:01personally and just the circumstances of her case too it's the first serial killer case that i was a part
42:07of and so there there are several reasons that it will stick with me with denita's case i think um the
42:12biggest thing for her was that her sister be remembered and honored that she wasn't trash like
42:19gerald stano had treated her as such pamela was a sweet sweet girl and a great sister and i think
42:26denita wanted to be able to honor her in that way and so we were able to help
42:31and provide funds for a memorial marker for her sister so she could be remembered in the way that
42:36she deserved my sister helped design the memorial it's really hard to explain it was like i said
42:45everything is kind of surreal too because when we laid my brother's memorial it brought like some
42:50kind of closure to the whole issue somewhat that we finally knew like what happened and kind of where
42:56he's at if we can do that for each family that would be really cool each time like we lay a memorial
43:04it's like another healing process you know what i mean for the family and for hopefully the victim
43:09and so having that tangible you know honorable thing for pam because this is someone that was
43:17forgotten she was forgotten by her family just you know abused by a horrible monster and but now the
43:25world's going to remember her and so i know it was a big deal for denita it's now got a place of
43:31honor and the thing that made me know it was the right thing to do was that when we told
43:37denita that had been done and we shot a picture you know bill texted me a picture of it in situ you
43:43know in in its place i sent that photograph to denita and she said i just felt a weight lift
43:50she said i just i think everything's going to be okay it's almost like the weight that had been
43:56hovering over me for the past 43 years i could feel it lift off of me i came to florida to get her
44:03remains i didn't know if i was going to scatter her ashes at first but um i have a friend of mine
44:08she told me she's like well just ask your sister what she wants does she want her ashes scattered
44:13or does she want to stay with you and i was like how do you do that like yeah she just asked her she
44:20just asked her and she goes and tell her that um if she's going to show you a sign that it has to be
44:24something that you will definitely know that is her so i hung up the phone from that phone call and then
44:29i said out loud i kind of like turned around to the box and i was like okay if you want to stay
44:34with me show me a cardinal and make sure that i know that it's you and i walked downstairs and my
44:40kids my grandkids were getting dressed up for halloween and they had made their costumes that year
44:45my granddaughter she had on these like black pants red suspenders and this red tie and then she had
44:51this top hat on with a red bow and she goes pull my string and i pulled the string and up pops a cardinal
44:57and i was like okay so i guess you're staying so i ended up going to um a store that i usually shop
45:04out for like my herbs and stuff um but they had one urn in the back and it had a big cardinal sitting
45:10on top of it so now she's on my altar with the cardinal i'm still working on a lot of healing because
45:17right now i'm kind of in that stage of grieving where i'm just upset at the situation and i'm trying
45:22to practice serenity in it because i can't change what has already happened but i really really wish
45:29i had her here you know especially like in hard times in life it would have been good to have somebody
45:36like a sister the only thing i can think of that i would say is i love you unconditionally i love you
45:45for who you are because i know that's all she ever wanted to hear
46:00so
46:06so
46:08so
46:14so
46:20Transcription by CastingWords
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