- 8 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Valentine's Day 1985 a young woman is found dead in her fiance's Arlington apartment
00:09she was very scared she had written letters to her mom sent her clippings of some of the news
00:16from murders that were happening in the area the apartment complex wasn't always occupied
00:22so not a lot of watchful eyes on what was going on suspect number ones are the partners and people
00:29closest to you rarely are there someone that is an unknown perpetrator in a case this seemed
00:36to be a very targeted personal attack somebody dying in that fashion even in 1985 just wasn't
00:42the norm community especially young woman was very on edge and very scared it goes cold again
00:49and then you think that it's just not gonna happen we just thought we're gonna be one of those families
00:55that doesn't ever get those answers the case goes cold for decades until a revolutionary DNA
01:03technology becomes available it was just a lot more challenging in 1985 because the tools that
01:09we have in 2025 were not available then digital forensics is evolving DNA technology is evolving
01:17and we need to be on the cutting edge of those technologies and to continue to move forward to
01:23try to provide answers for families I believe there's always something that can be found it may
01:29not be something that we realize at the time but we leave traces of ourselves wherever we go I believe
01:37investigative genetic genealogy is the present and future of solving these cold case when there's
01:43no tools left available if there's raw DNA present I believe any case can be solved criminals who have
01:51hidden in the shadows for years find there's no escaping science and their own family DNA welcome to
01:58bloodline detectives
02:28in 1985 Arlington Texas was a rapidly growing Dallas Fort Worth suburb known for its affordability
02:35family-friendly neighborhoods and attractions like Arlington Stadium home to the Texas Rangers
02:40Arlington is great it is a very diverse set of individuals from all walks of life I think it's a
02:49very diverse city and I really think that that helps Arlington shine the way that it does
02:54Arlington is a very popular city we have approximately 400,000 residents
03:01spanned over 100,000 miles it's a very vibrant community
03:08Arlington's the 48th biggest city in the United States
03:13we're the home of the Dallas Cowboys the home of the Texas Rangers and it really makes for a
03:21community that it has a small town feel but it's really a big city
03:25in 1985 the population was less than 200,000
03:33there was an uptick in murders and violence against women at the time
03:42so there were a couple of serial killers that were around
03:47during 1985 especially in this area I think crime has always kind of been prevalent no matter where
03:57you go we just do our best to kind of kind of stamp that out because there was no DNA evidence because
04:04there was no camera systems because policing was much more challenging it was asking the public for
04:10help it was just a lot more challenging in 1985 because the tools that we have in 2025 were not available
04:17then the city is home to Terry McAdams a 22 year old woman who is studying at UT Arlington
04:26Terry McAdams was a sister and a friend she was a community member she was a student at the
04:33University of Texas at Arlington she was very high energy so she loved to do just about anything
04:39anything we were a family of five there were three daughters but it was such a magical time to be a
04:49child because the 1960s and 70s just everything was just so carefree a little rock was not very big and we
04:56just lived in a beautiful neighborhood and just had the time of our lives she started her college career
05:03at the University of Arkansas so she was there her freshman and sophomore years and just enjoyed the
05:09college life of a young lady for those two years but that's where she met her fiance and that's what
05:15brought her here to Arlington he was nice very soft-spoken I didn't really know him that well he gave
05:22her a really nice engagement ring and she was happy she was excited about it Terry moved here from Arkansas
05:30for her boyfriend who became her fiance she really wasn't sure still what she wanted to do for a
05:37degree she had dabbled in different areas but it seemed like her focus could be in finance it could be
05:43in marketing she had a lot of different interests she was a very creative person they lived in different
05:50apartments because Terry came from a conservative family and I don't think she had the intention of
05:56living with her fiance before they got married so she spent time in both apartments but in 1984
06:06Terry grew increasingly fearful for her safety after a string of young women were murdered in the city
06:12she was very scared she had written letters to her mom sent her clippings of some of the news from
06:20murders that were happening in the area and she had left a job because she didn't like being out after
06:27dark she liked to come home and lock herself inside the apartment to feel safe it was an upscale apartment
06:34complex a lot of flight crew lived in that apartment complex which also meant that the apartment complex
06:41wasn't always occupied so not a lot of watchful eyes on what was going on on Valentine's Day 1985
06:49Terry's worst fears become a reality a gruesome discovery is made by a maintenance worker who
06:56enters her fiance's apartment well they had come in to do some routine spraying or insects and when
07:04they walked into the apartment the television was on and the stove was on which seemed strange clearly
07:11someone had left in a hurry but when they went into the bedroom they discovered a terrible scene he
07:18unfortunately saw Terry McAdams lifeless body a very bloody and it was a horrific scene her face was
07:27beaten severely she had several broken bones looks like her like eye socket had significant trauma her body
07:36she was found in a kind of a fetal position there was blood everywhere she was brutally sexually assaulted
07:43and she was unclothed so originally of course patrol comes out once they make the evaluation our homicide
07:52detectives responded they kind of take control from the scene there and resources that they need
07:57so initially it would have been a patrol response and in this case we actually had what's called a
08:02courtesy officer that resided at that apartment complex it's a very tough scene I can only imagine
08:07what those officers felt when they walked into that scene there was blood everywhere nothing appeared to
08:14be ransacked or anything the only thing that we could find that had been stolen from the apartment was
08:20Terry's engagement ring the apartment that she was in belonged to her fiance at the time we didn't know
08:26where he was so based on the fact that it was in his apartment it was a very violent personal attack
08:32her fiance became suspect number one statistically a lot of times suspect number ones are the partners
08:40and people closest to you
08:41rarely are there someone that is an unknown perpetrator in a case
08:52police launch a homicide investigation and work quickly to locate the victim's fiancee
08:58news of the murder spreads quickly and residents of arlington are gripped by fear
09:04it did hit the community very hard it was in all the newspapers they even had flyers up in arkansas
09:11where she was from saying if you have any information please contact the arlington police department
09:16to try to find her killer people were very scared especially young women even terry herself was scared
09:24knew about the serial killers in the area community especially young women was very on edge and very
09:30scared women at the time were taking self-defense classes stun guns had come on the market they were
09:37snapping them up gun sales skyrocketed and a lot of the women particularly on the college campuses
09:45just had this annoying sense of fear that never went away women were talking about how afraid they were
09:53young women in arlington are locking their doors at night wary and on edge police understand the urgency
10:00and immediately focus on retracing terry's final movements and bringing her fiancee in for questioning
10:19on valentine's day 1985 22 year old uta student terry mcadams is found beaten to death in her
10:26fiancee's apartment in arlington texas police quickly launch a homicide investigation and appeal to
10:33neighbors for any information locating terry's fiancee is another vital line of inquiry
10:41the interesting part about terry being found in her boyfriend's apartment was terry also had an
10:47apartment in that same complex terry has her own apartment here why would she be at her boyfriend's
10:51apartment when he's not here we started talking to all the you know neighbors and and friends and
10:58family and things of that nature and we kind of learned that terry and the fiancee did have a little
11:04bit of a tumultuous relationship to where they would get into fights and they would get into arguments
11:11it was a very just kind of back and forth type of relationship
11:15then terry's fiancee arrives back at his apartment and is met with a crime scene
11:23we took him to the police station and asked him to come in for an interview so we got his statement
11:29on where he was what he was doing and our next job was to verify his statement his statement was that he
11:37was out of town during this happening for work we were able to verify that later on with his employer
11:48but to be on the safe sign we also did a polygraph for him which he passed so we were able to rule him
11:53out fairly quickly they did extensive searches of his bank account of his travel records they verified
12:03where he was at the time and could not find anything to link him to what happened to terry i think it is
12:11important to rule out individuals that are innocent just as important as it is to find the suspect
12:18terry's fiancee is officially ruled out as a suspect investigators return their focus to the crime scene
12:25hopeful for clues left behind by the killer
12:28getting evidence in this crime was uh vital due to back then in 1985 you know you don't think about
12:36phones you don't think about video surveillance or anything like that so they did a lot of work in
12:40the scene you know they confiscated everything that they can get and that included you know samples of
12:46hair footprints bed sheets and cloths and clothes they gathered everything that they can get
12:53they got one solid fingerprint back and that was immediately put into an aphys database system
12:59aphys works it's pretty much a regional database system that all of our fingerprints get uploaded into
13:04it'd be able to tell if the suspect has already been in our custody or custody of law enforcement
13:09they didn't get a return from that aphys database system we did a sexual assault kit to see
13:16if that would you know produce any results and we were able to get a hair sample from that sexual
13:21assault kit we did locate a cigarette butt that was in the apartment so the cigarette butt actually
13:29ended up being very significant as we continued our investigation the cigarette butt was left in the
13:36apartment but it was great that it was left because terry didn't smoke so that was very beneficial that
13:43that was left there we believe that the point of entry for the suspect was going to be a balcony door
13:48that was not secure and we were able to kind of further that belief based on a muddy footprint that
13:55we saw outside of the apartment as well ultimately we were able to send photos of that shoe to
14:02different manufacturers to try to determine what kind of shoe that it was and unfortunately i don't
14:07think we were ever able to get that figured out terry's body is removed from the scene and transported to
14:14the morgue for an autopsy an autopsy report examines the body from head to toe and the reports that we
14:22get back from the medical examiner's doctors are very thorough and it's going to tell you everything
14:27because it also gathers even more dna which is the hair samples and the fingernail samples and the
14:34fingerprints and the sexual assault kits and things like that there did appear to be defensive injury she
14:40did appear to fight back and i i think that is why the scene was so horrific was because the attacker
14:48really took that personally positive death was blunt force trauma murder weapon was a hammer
14:55detectives looked for that hammer in the scene out the scene throughout the exterior of the whole
14:59apartment complex unfortunately the hammer was never located i believe that the individual responsible
15:08for her death immediately discarded it with the amount of blood that was in that scene i can't see
15:15how that hammer was going to be able to be used again without somebody asking questions
15:23back at the crime scene investigators learned that terry had been preparing to surprise her fiance for
15:28valentine's day unfortunately terry passed on on valentine's day in 1985 so february 14th
15:371985 while detectives were moving through their investigation they had learned that her boyfriend
15:43was supposed to be coming back from being out of town and terry took the time to go through and bake
15:51him a cake she was trying to be you know the loving fiance he's been out of town i haven't seen him i'm
15:55going to go to his apartment i'm going to bake him this cake for valentine's day and she was really just
16:00trying to do everything she could so that her and her fiance would have a romantic evening in for
16:05valentine's day and unfortunately she never got to experience that police have the devastating task
16:12of notifying terry's family of her murder just a frantic phone call from my mother all i really
16:22remember is just a very panicked sound and just repeating over and over terry's dead terry's dead
16:31terry's dead well i stopped what i was doing and drove all the way to little rock to her house
16:36and i remember walking in and just collapsing on the floor in my mother's arms i don't really
16:45know what i did during that time i think i just was in survival mode and my mother was
16:53i can't even imagine what she was going through but i so admire her strength because she really did
16:58try so hard to protect i remember the church i remember sitting on the front row i remember
17:04holding hands with my grandmother i do remember that there was a huge turnout yeah i don't know how
17:11i would have done it without the number of friends that rallied around me i do remember days of people
17:17just coming over to the house and sitting up on my bed and sitting in the room and everybody just being
17:24together just being there for me it had to have been devastating terry was planning a wedding in the
17:32church where her funeral was held it was a shock and it was a stunning thing to get over
17:41suddenly this person is ripped from your life it didn't make sense and there were no answers
17:47investigators are determined to get justice for terry's heartbroken loved ones they start compiling
17:56a list of potential killers i would describe the the work from the original detectives as amazing
18:04police work based on the investigative techniques that were used in the 80s detectives back then which
18:12it was two of them they knocked on every door in that apartment complex and also going to her school
18:18uta talking with all her classmates they're writing as they're you know getting all of this notes from
18:24every person that they done talked to came back to be hundreds so if you were a sex offender in the
18:32area you were interviewed i mean it's really just knocking on doors and trying to get a timeline for all
18:40of these people on where were you during this time is there anybody that can verify and validate that
18:47one by one investigative leads dry up police have seemingly hit a dead end
18:54a case would typically go cold when if at that time there is no new technology or nothing to push
19:01the case forward to a satisfactory conclusion you go cold after 120 days going cold doesn't mean
19:09case stops it didn't stop and they never stopped continuing to look into this case continuing to
19:15re-examine evidence and look for other bna companies and things like that
19:22the investigation into terry's sexual assault and murder goes cold for over 15 years
19:27until advancements in forensic science prompt police to take the case off the shelf
19:32we do understand that technology advances and technology advances very rapidly and in this
19:40particular case in 2001 the decision was made to resubmit items for processing the goal was would we be
19:50able to get a stronger dna profile that could be uploaded into codis codis is the combined dna index
19:59system it's a repository of all dna input so you put suspect dna in it you put people who have been
20:06arrested in it and you put unknown dna profiles into it to potentially give you a match it's much like
20:13apis is with fingerprints where you upload someone's dna and you look for a match we had a full dna
20:20profile of the suspect so we were really looking for something to generate a lead for us to get us to
20:26the next step in the case so in 2001 they retested a cigarette butt that had been found in the room
20:36and they discovered the dna of an unknown man the initial detectives did a great job tracking
20:43everybody down that they possibly could and then when codis came around even processing items from the
20:49scene and getting that entered unfortunately we just never got a hit the dna profile was in codis for
21:02many years without a hit and so we were at a standstill they reopened the case back in the early 2000s and
21:09there was no match in codis or anywhere and so you get your hopes up you never completely lose hope but
21:15you get your hopes up and then it goes cold again and then you think that it's just not going to
21:21happen we just thought we're going to be one of those families that doesn't ever get those answers
21:27arlington police are frustrated that the codis search produced no matches leaving terry's killer
21:32still at large and her family without answers but they refuse to give up unaware that just a few years
21:40later a newly formed cold case unit would harness emerging technology with the potential to finally
21:46break the case wide open
22:00it's been 20 years since 22 year old ut arlington student terry mcadams was found beaten and sexually
22:06assaulted in her fiance's apartment in texas despite the case being revisited throughout the intervening
22:13years police have been unable to identify her killer however a new cold case team is determined to reopen
22:20the investigation and find justice once and for all in 2005 when i became a homicide detective we had a
22:29dedicated cold case unit and terry mcadams case was one of the cases that those detectives went
22:35and looked at so with unsolved homicides we never closed the case it's always assigned to an active
22:42member of the homicide unit probably each time the case changed hands a detective would have called
22:48terry mcadams family introduced themselves and said i'm the detective on the case now and they would
22:53provide their phone number so if the family had something come up they could also call and get that
22:57person on the phone in 2023 the cold case unit sent dna samples from the crime scene and autopsy to be
23:06retested so the dna that we were able to get back from testing for terry was a mixture and basically
23:16we were able to determine that the dna profile that we got back was terry's dna and then an unknown
23:22male dna profile if we're able to determine that we have a mixture now is technology going to get
23:28better to where we're able to kind of split that going down the road that dna was able to be further
23:37tested which created a dna profile that was able to be a good enough candidate for the investigative
23:44genealogy based on the profile that they created that result came back to a black male that's when at
23:51the time detectives was able to exclude all white male and all caucasian and that's when we looked
23:57into further testing with genetic genealogy so i took a look and tried to figure out is there anything
24:03available that we could do to kind of push this case forward any dna evidence that may have been
24:09overlooked fingerprints anything like that and it seemed like our initial detectives had really done
24:15everything that they possibly could then i was told about the fbi's new genetic genealogy program
24:22myself and chief dish go set up that meeting to see if we can make that happen and get this case solved
24:29this emerging dna science was used to identify the infamous golden state killer in 2018
24:35and has since been used to solve hundreds of cold cases across the usa
24:39investigative genetic genealogy combines unknown suspect dna found at the crime scene with genealogy
24:48research and the use of public historical data to help develop new leads for law enforcement agencies
24:56we were really looking for cases that we could take to the fbi to do investigative genetic genealogy
25:02so i called the assistant special agent in charge at the dallas field office
25:06and they agreed to assist us with the case utilizing genetic genealogy for us to be approved to use
25:12investigative genetic genealogy the crime has to be a violent crime usually we look at sexual assaults
25:18homicides and unidentified human remains the suspect dna has to be uploaded into codis and have a negative
25:25result lastly all other investigative leads had to have been exhausted so the fbi got the dna profile
25:34in late 2023 we provided them all the information on the case we submitted a write-up of the case that
25:41was sent to fbi headquarters they assigned a special agent to our case that was assigned as a co-lead
25:47detective with our detective from our homicide unit and the two of them began working the case almost
25:52instantly once the case was accepted by the fbi i would tell you the fbi in the dallas office are
25:59amazing they are a great partner to local law enforcement they have resources and financial
26:07backing that sometimes we don't have they really provided us with leads on this case based on their
26:13technical abilities that we couldn't have done on our own we gave the fbi everything we had created a
26:21synopsis for them based on everything that had been done unfortunately not every case is eligible for
26:27genetic genealogy it is very specific due to the type of dna that is necessary the fbi agreed that
26:34this was a significant case that they wanted to review i think that any time that you want to try
26:41something new i think it's it's not about being proud of yourself it's about providing answers to the
26:48families that's really why we do this job we really do this because we want to provide answers we want to
26:54provide justice digital forensics is evolving dna technology is evolving and we need to be on the
27:01cutting edge of those technologies and to continue to move forward to try to provide answers for families
27:08i know a multitude of evidence was collected in 1985 the key evidence that we ended up looking at
27:16that was a cigarette butt that was found next to the body of the deceased because neither her nor
27:23her fiancee to apartment it was that she was located in smoked and the sexual assault kit that was
27:30performed on miss mcadams police did an amazing job of preserving evidence that they didn't even know
27:37how much value would have at the time dna was in its very early stages of discovery and they managed to
27:46preserve everything meticulously which allowed police to test items for dna multiple times because
27:53every time an item is tested that evidence is used up so they have to preserve as much as they can
28:00during the testing to allow for retesting at a later time the familial testing uses the y short tandem repeat
28:09or the ystr which is more dealing with codis whereas igg uses a snip profile which is just a different
28:18dna profile that has more markers where usually an str looks at one to seventeen markers
28:27a snip profile can look at 750 to a million different markers that doesn't mutate over
28:33time and that's how we measure family lineage we had already created the snip we had reached out to
28:41a private lab prior trying to move the case forward and the fbi was able to get the snip from that private
28:49lab and then from there they began to go through and build out a family tree
28:55they were able to isolate some new dna that was found and then do some genetic genealogy to trace
29:04back who may have been responsible for this and then we're given a match list when the private
29:12laboratory took over so we're going to start looking at that match list and doing what's called match
29:17resolution we're not given any more information than the general public who would be using these same
29:23databases and we have to positively identify the true identity of these matches and then we're
29:30going to start building those individuals into a family tree trying to connect them to the suspect
29:36trying to connect matches to matches and that's exactly what we started doing
29:41by mapping out family trees through genetic genealogy detectives begin building momentum in the terry
29:47mcadams cold case i was excited because the fbi was excited about it special agent webb immediately
29:56kind of got to work from there it was pretty consistent communication with myself and special agent webb
30:03until detective cofer came on board i ended up getting the case in january just a couple months
30:09later like ended up getting the call that he informed me hey we might have turned nothing into
30:15something as the words that he used so our top match that we were given who i believe was between 60
30:22and 81 centimorgans which is not a great match from that report we got from the private laboratory
30:28they stated we should talk to several individuals who could be second cousins to this top match
30:34in the waco area so my partner and i traveled to waco texas and conducted a couple interviews of
30:40individuals who should have been the second cousin of our top match the problem was they were not a
30:46match to our top match which told us he was probably more than likely adopted so a couple weeks later
30:52we gave him a call extremely cooperative extremely nice person but he informed us he did not know who
30:58his biological family was if we can figure out who your biological parents are that will help us and
31:04it'll also help you are you okay with that and he agreed so what we essentially did was perform
31:10investigative genetic genealogy on our top match and we were able to identify his biological mother
31:17and then tie that family line into the suspect's family tree and that's when i told arlington police
31:23department hey we need to meet immediately because there's three suspects that have to be the killer
31:29of terry mcadams the youngest brother had passed in 1985 the middle child had recently passed in 2021
31:37and the oldest brother was still living and he did not have a criminal history what i recommended
31:42arlington and they agreed on is let's find out everything we can about this brother that died in
31:471985 if that individual perished in january of 1985 we can eliminate him as a suspect so i asked arlington
31:54police and detective co for us can you find out everything you can on this individual named bernard
31:59la salle sharp and what was revealed is in november 3rd of 1985 bernard sharp had broken a window of
32:06his soon-to-be ex-wife's home had killed her a cousin and critically wound to the third before turning
32:13the gun on himself it just told us this individual has a propensity for violence and we need to look
32:18further into this individual i was sitting at my desk and i remember special agent webb contacting me
32:29he calls me asking about a murder suicide that had occurred in november of 1985 and he wanted all the
32:36information that i could possibly find on it and i remember being puzzled and i and i ended up calling
32:42him and why do you want information on a on a murder suicide that occurred in 1985 and he tells me no i
32:49i think bernard sharp is who your who your suspect is at last investigators have identified a prime suspect
32:58bernard sharp but can they uncover the conclusive evidence needed to prove he's the man responsible
33:06for the brutal sexual assault and murder of terry mcadams nearly 40 years ago
33:22for nearly 40 years the brutal murder of 22 year old terry mcadams remained a mystery
33:28she was raped and bludgeoned to death in her fiance's arlington apartment in 1985 the case went cold
33:35for decades but in 2023 arlington police joined forces with the fbi to harness the power of
33:41investigative genetic genealogy using a dna sample left by the killer and scouring public ancestral
33:49databases they finally uncovered a possible suspect named bernard sharp
33:58bernard sharp grew up in fort worth he had a criminal record but not an extensive one i believe
34:04he had been arrested for sexual assault of a child possibly a relative and he lived quietly under the
34:12right radar for most of his life his father was a banker and he lived in a very nice home with a good
34:21family there were kind of two sides to bernard sharp there was the side of you know a business owner
34:28maintenance man always having a smile on his face cracking jokes and then there was the other side the
34:34private side that people may not have actually known where he was a very violent person and just
34:41really seemed to not have any regard for women we knew bernard sharp lived in arlington in 1985 we knew
34:49he had been involved in other crimes and we knew that there was a connection to the apartment complex
34:54because he had been doing maintenance work it transpires that bernard sharp was on the original
35:01suspect list back in 1985 and had been interviewed by police prior to his murder suicide bernard sharp was
35:09interviewed based solely on his criminal record and i believe from reading the notes he refused to
35:15provide a hair sample but he was on a long list of suspects at the end of 1985 in november he and his wife
35:27had separated they had had a heated relationship separated multiple times and he had gone back into
35:34their home without her knowledge and waited for her to come home she was there with her best friend
35:40and a cousin and her baby and older daughter were also in the home he had overheard a phone call in
35:47which she had been talking about him he pulled out a gun and she realized what was going to happen
35:52and she begged him to consider their baby that was in the other room and he shot her shot her best friend
35:59shot her cousin and then he killed himself well this individual died in 1885 and public records are
36:06telling me that he killed his ex-wife a cousin of hers critically wounded another one and took his own
36:13life we need to find the case file for this because if that individual has this propensity for violence
36:19he could be our guy when i heard this and when i looked into his case we knew we were onto something
36:28the crimes that he was also arrested for a sexual assault and he also lived in the area and he was a
36:35maintenance man and he really stood out during investigation while detectives grow increasingly
36:42confident that bernard sharp is terry's killer they still need a conclusive dna match to prove it
36:48to achieve that they devise a plan to locate a living relative and obtain a dna sample for comparison
36:57well reading those publicly found articles on the death of bernard sharp and the case file
37:02we knew that there was a three-month-old biological child of bernard sharp present during that homicide
37:08and so i requested the help of university of north texas's center for human identification
37:14i gave them the situation and said if i bring you a known reference sample could you compare
37:20that to our suspect dna and basically run a reverse paternity test and they informed me absolutely we
37:26could do that the hard part was now we have to locate this grown adult who was three months at the
37:32time is not going to remember any of this information of about the homicide of her her mother and the
37:37suicide of her father so we started doing research on where she could be located and once detective
37:45cofer and i located her we had to speak to our chain of commands and get approval to travel to interview
37:51this individual detective cofer came in my office and said chief we we got a lead detective cofer told
37:58me his name was bernard sharp and i could see the excitement on his face and it got me really excited
38:04because i knew this was a chance to to really solve the case they wanted to fly to the northeast
38:11because they had located some potential family members there and that they wanted to go up there
38:15and interview them and see if they could get a dna swab from one of the family members we generally like
38:22to do in-person interviews that shows the the human emotions that a telephone call cannot provide this is a
38:29very serious emotional event for most people and we want to be in front of them when we show them all
38:38the circumstances and brief them on the investigation of why we're here with approval from the higher-ups
38:44the detectives fly out to meet the daughter of bernard sharp to try and confirm a dna match
38:50we landed at approximately 9 a.m and we were not able to locate her until about 4 p.m that afternoon
39:00and that's when we developed a game plan of detective cofer is going to lay out the incidents of terry
39:07mcadams's homicide and then i'm going to come in and explain investigative genetic genealogy and what
39:13brought us to your door today we definitely had to immediately talk to her about why we heard
39:20her door you know why did we fly out and made sure she see our credentials and made sure that
39:26you know she trusted this situation generally these interviews start off a little standoffish
39:32but she was more than welcoming it was not her that answered the door it was another female
39:39during the interview with sharp's daughter detectives learn of another surviving family member
39:44who was present when bernard shot three people killing two of them before turning the gun on himself
39:50the other individual that was in the home ended up being the stepdaughter that was present at the
39:57bernard sharp homicide in 1985 and she was 14 at the time so she remembered the event pretty vividly
40:04but she was able to give us a more in-depth look at bernard sharp and it was an emotional event for both
40:09individuals we immediately started talking about bernard's life i was told that he was a part of his own
40:19maintenance crew i was told that he was a very violent man the way he harassed women you know
40:25exposed himself in front of women in apartment complexes that immediately started standing out
40:32the conclusion of that interview we were able to get additional information on bernard sharp
40:37and obtain a dna sample from that daughter i personally drove that sample from the airport
40:45and dallas fort worth straight to the laboratory and dropped it off and then detective cofer and i
40:50sat and waited because we didn't want to tell anyone too soon we don't want to get anyone's hopes up
40:57until we have that 100 confirmation that this is our suspect investigators deliver the dna sample from
41:05sharp's daughter for testing anxiously awaiting the result
41:09detective cofer and i received an email at the same time confirming that bernard sharp was our suspect
41:18i was in my office when detective cofer came in and told me that it was a match
41:22to bernard sharp that the cigarette butt in the apartment was bernard sharps
41:27we discussed how much of a relief it was and but then we immediately started planning now we need to
41:35notify the sharp family that this information is about to come out and we also need to notify the
41:41terry mcadams family the phone rang i saw arlington pd on the phone and i you know heart started racing
41:48and i had a feeling that it was the call and it was so he just shared with me that
41:57they had found him i didn't know at that moment whether the person was alive or dead but that they
42:03knew for sure who it was i was so joyful but i was so sad too it's just a very i didn't know what to do
42:11with the emotions that i was feeling the motive i you know i don't think that we'll ever really know
42:19i i think the motive was sexual in nature i think his plan was to sexually assault terry and she fought
42:27back and he couldn't have that though investigators and terry's family are disappointed that her killer
42:35will never face justice they share a sense of relief now that the case is finally solved the cold case
42:41team reflects on how this breakthrough would not have been possible without the power of investigative
42:46genetic genealogy it was a great day to see the special agent in charge of the fbi to see the police
42:55chief all come with terry mcadams sister and the rest of her family i truly enjoyed getting to
43:05see how happy their family was i think the reaction was very well received by our community
43:12i think it shows our community the commitment we have to providing answers and justice to victims of
43:19crime i think it also gives other homicide victims hope that we can also solve their case the detectives
43:28in 1985 did everything they could have done and did it well i believe investigative genetic genealogy
43:35is the present and future of solving these cold case homicide and sexual assaults unidentified human
43:42remains when the the leads have have run out when there's no tools left available if there's raw
43:49DNA present i believe any case can be solved i believe there's always something that can be found
43:57it may not be something that we realize at the time but we leave traces of ourselves wherever we go
44:06i never met a family in my career who was so optimistic who was so loving who's so caring not just
44:14checking on the case but would call and just check on me you know how you doing you okay that has never
44:21happened in my career whatsoever and i've been doing it for approximately 10 years and still they still do
44:26it to this day i'm amazed at how they can take something that small and put it into a database and like
44:35building a huge puzzle it's mind-boggling to me but it means everything to me now because it's it's how we
44:43found our answers i'm very grateful for that technology i we wouldn't be here without it
44:50for our department we're always trying to be innovative and trying to find a way to move cases
44:57forward and if it's something that we're able to move forward with genetic genealogy or any new
45:01technology that comes to us we're going to try it do i have closure
45:07that's a word that i don't really think is real because i think to me closure feels like it's
45:16complete um and and this will never go away have i found peace yes i'm at peace with knowing the
45:25answer that we have and i'm at peace with knowing that he's no longer walking this earth my first born
45:32is a daughter and i had said years ago that if i ever had a daughter i would name her
45:37and after terry and so she is she's 28 years old and her name is terry ann she definitely lives on in
45:46our family she's never been forgotten we share stories and my children have always known who their aunt
45:51terry was
46:21Transcription by CastingWords
Recommended
1:19
|
Up next
46:40
46:38
46:36
29:01
28:50
28:58
28:37
28:56
37:33
46:39
46:43
46:37
46:29
21:37
43:48
43:33
43:11
53:15
41:31
41:31
41:31
41:35
29:02
Be the first to comment