- 4 months ago
"It’s the first and, I believe, the only serial homicide case in Hawaii," Mohandie said of The Honolulu Strangler.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00You're watching another episode of In Studio. I'm Brian Perica, and today we're joined with
00:07Derek Levasseur and Chris Mohandy of Investigation Discoveries, Breaking Homicide. That was a
00:13mouthful, but thanks for coming in. Thanks for coming in. How are you guys doing? Great,
00:16thanks for having us. Now, for those who haven't, I guess, watched the series yet,
00:20can kind of talk us through it and kind of explain, like, what your backgrounds are that
00:24make you qualified to open up these cases again and re-examine them? Sure. I'm a clinical police
00:29and forensic psychologist. I've been doing this kind of work for over 25 years, and I've interviewed
00:35hundreds of offenders who've killed a lot of people, and I've interviewed a lot of victims and
00:41looked at a lot of crime scenes, and I've testified in all kinds of murder cases and regularly consult
00:47to investigations throughout my career. I was an investigator for 13 years. I spent time in the
00:52patrol division, investigative division, special investigations unit. I was undercover for three
00:57years. Had the opportunity to supervise a couple different task force, worked with the FBI, DEA,
01:02Secret Service, ATF, and yeah, it was a good experience. A lot of advanced training and
01:07interviewed interrogation tactics as well. That's great. Now, in terms of breaking homicide,
01:11how did you guys go about, like, which cases you would re-examine? I know the first one for you was
01:15a personal one. That was a, yeah. You talk about that. That was a no-brainer, yeah. The first one was
01:19going back to my hometown and working on a case that I've known about for years,
01:23and just taking a fresh look at it with Chris after doing the OJ series together. I'll let you
01:28explain the other one. Yeah, yeah. What happened was we were in the car on the OJ case, and Derek
01:33said, I got a case you absolutely have to see, and it was the Michelle Norris case, and so even before
01:39this show was even conceived, it was already on Derek's mind, and both of us have a commitment to
01:45doing cases that speak to, you know, the average person's experience as opposed to something that's,
01:49you know, some super high-profile, you know, celebrity-type case, if you will, and what ended
01:54up happening as the OJ series rolled out was a number of people reached out to us, and that led
02:00us to start taking in cases that, you know, viewers were experiencing that they'd had unresolved,
02:07and that was how this series was born. Yeah, and as far as selecting, we wanted to go with cases that
02:13we felt there was some solvability there, something we could do with the advancement in technology
02:17and science that maybe had different from what was done when it originally occurred, so we went
02:22through the list. We picked an eclectic group of cases to try to show a range, and we wish we could
02:27have done more, but we, you know, we went with six for the first season. Now, in the Michelle Norris case,
02:31you talk about how Julie had, her mother, Julie, had reached out to you about kind of looking at this
02:35case again. Yeah. In terms of the other cases, though, what were the challenges of getting people to
02:39reopen these wounds, talk about these cases again, and... Well, the idea of reopening... And being filmed.
02:45Yeah, the idea of reopening wounds, these victims' families live with this every single day of their lives.
02:53This is not something that goes away. It may be on a back burner at a police department, not because
02:58they don't want to solve it, but because there's nothing new to help them solve it, and maybe they need
03:02a fresh perspective, maybe. But for the victims, for the families that are wondering what happened,
03:10they're living with it every day. And so, they were very interested in getting some answers,
03:16and that's how it happened, you know. It was... Some people may not want to go on camera and talk
03:22about it, and that's understandable, and that's certainly respected, but there's a lot of people
03:26that say, you know, we've tried other things. Let's see what happens.
03:29And you will see with all the cases, as you saw, you're going to talk about Hawaii a little bit,
03:33that for most of these cases, they wanted our help. So, we went there knowing that this is something
03:39they wanted to happen. They wanted to bring a new level of exposure to their loved one's case.
03:43So, it wasn't too hard to speak with them at all, and for the most part.
03:47Were there any cases that you weren't able to kind of re-examine because people didn't want to be
03:51involved and be filmed, or...?
03:53No, I mean, honestly, we wouldn't have taken a case on that didn't want our help.
03:56It wasn't something where we're like, hey, listen, we're just going to highlight this case and hope
03:59we can help without their permission. Either a friend or family member or a community member reached out
04:04to us and said, listen, we really think there's something here. Will you help?
04:08And that's kind of what this is. Investigation Discovery has been receiving calls from their
04:12audiences and emails from their audiences for years saying, will you help us? We relate to
04:16your shows because we've had similar situations happen to us. Will you help? And we think Breaking
04:21Homicide is a start to answering those calls for help.
04:23Now, in terms of the Honolulu Strangler, what was it about that case that got you to want to
04:28re-examine it?
04:29Well, it's the first, and I believe only, serial homicide case in Hawaii.
04:33There may have been another one, but this is kind of the first one. It was unsolved. And it affected
04:40that community significantly, and it was never solved. Interestingly, it came up on the heels
04:46in the time period of the Green River killing case, which was in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
04:51But, you know, paradise, a place that you're supposed to go to to feel safe. And here you have,
04:57you know, a number of people that have turned up dead murdered, and it needed to be answered.
05:03I've done a lot of work in Hawaii throughout the years. I have family there, and I had friends
05:09that worked at the police department, one of whom I reached out to.
05:12Because the police didn't cooperate in terms of this case.
05:14Well, I wouldn't say that. I'd say the police were very cooperative.
05:17They didn't give you files, though.
05:18They didn't give us files, but I will say, and it didn't make the episode, but we actually did sit down
05:22with the active chief of police in the Honolulu Police Department, and she was amazing.
05:26And she told us some things that we kind of know from our own investigation, but she basically
05:30said to us, hey, listen, like all the departments said, hey, listen, this is an open investigation.
05:34We can't divulge information to anyone. However, if you have something that's compelling that may
05:38lead us in a certain direction that could help close this, we're all ears, as they should be.
05:42So I think as far as openness, nobody ever obstructed our ability to investigate in any of the cases,
05:47and that's all you can ask for.
05:48And, you know, I had several friends that I've known through the years, Honolulu Police Department,
05:54former detectives. They were fantastic, and they opened up as much as they could.
06:00I felt like, you know, we got the aloha spirit as we were doing our investigation there.
06:05They wanted answers, and it's not just the families of the victims that suffer with this being unresolved
06:12and not having the questions answered, but it's, as you'll see, the detectives themselves
06:17carry this burden of wanting to be able to share this information.
06:21And you worked with Peter Carlisle. That's his name, correct?
06:24Yeah, Peter Carlisle.
06:25And you and him come up with a conclusion of who you believe to have done it, who has also passed away.
06:32Yeah, we didn't even come up to that conclusion collectively.
06:35We wanted the answers to certain hard questions, and I'll be honest, going into it, I had spoken to Chris off camera
06:41and said, this guy was a politician. He was the mayor of Honolulu for a while.
06:44He's going to be polished. He's going to give us the politically correct answer.
06:47He's not going to say anything.
06:48And then we asked the big question, do you think this individual did it?
06:51And he looked us right in the face and said yes.
06:53And you could see the emotion, and he felt from that, knowing that he wasn't able to really put the nail in the coffin,
07:00so to speak, on this case.
07:01But I was so impressed with his candor and his willingness to go on camera and say what he did
07:06because I can tell you right now, a lot of the families involved with this, you know, the victim's families,
07:11I think they'll really respect that. I really, really do.
07:13He didn't pull any punches. He was direct. He didn't equivocate.
07:17It was, here's what I think, and it was very emotional.
07:22Our primary homicide investigator who pursued this initially had the original task force.
07:29Similarly, fantastic human being, but he had been carrying the weight of this for all these years.
07:33You see that, yeah.
07:34Yeah.
07:35In terms of re-examining these cases, how troubling is it to you that these cases are unsolved,
07:42and these cases back then, they weren't, I guess, investigated the same way you guys are looking into it?
07:47For the Honolulu case, I think, Dirk, you said,
07:51I don't think this case will ever be classified as closed.
07:53Solved.
07:54Well, the reason I would say that is because in this situation, our primary person of interest is deceased.
08:00So the bottom line is this.
08:02You can't consider a case closed because there's never going to be a conviction.
08:07But as far as it being solved with the conclusion of the show and the chance that we gave Detective Louis Sousa
08:12to speak to one of the victim's brothers and actually tell him right out who did it,
08:16why he thought he did it, I could tell from the reaction.
08:19We wanted to give him that respect and let him do it because he'd been wanting to do it for years.
08:22And you could tell by Regina Sakamoto's brother's reaction, that was what he's been waiting for all this time.
08:28And I said to him, hey, listen, this case may never be classified as closed, but in our opinion, it's solved.
08:33And we wanted him to have his day and his opportunity to do that.
08:37This is a man that worked very hard, Louis Sousa, to get answers.
08:44There's a misunderstanding sometimes that law enforcement isn't motivated to resolve these cases.
08:51And while in some cases that may be, I haven't seen it yet in any of ours, these professionals want these cases solved.
09:00And sometimes there's an impasse because of technology.
09:04A lot of times it's because people aren't coming forward.
09:06Maybe at the time they didn't think their information was important.
09:11And going in and getting a fresh perspective, talking to people anew, reexamining crime scenes and data fresh,
09:19that ends up kind of uncovering things that need to be uncovered.
09:22Obviously, the Michelle Norris case was personal to you.
09:24It became personal for you.
09:25Right.
09:26How do you separate that?
09:28Well, when we say personal, when I say personal, I mean that I'm allowing myself to feel and empathize with the experience of the losses that these people,
09:41Julie, Nate, Billy, the community, have experienced.
09:46And I don't think that that should necessarily cloud your objectivity.
09:49In fact, it should enhance your objectivity because what you're doing is saying, I am now even more motivated.
09:57Apart from this being some anonymous case number in a file someplace, this is a human being who meant something to all these people who should not be forgotten.
10:08And we owe it to the community and especially to this family to get answers.
10:13So to make it personal means I'm not going to distance myself from my responsibility to do the best job that I can.
10:20And I'm not interested in getting it wrong.
10:22Right.
10:22You say you guys don't have tunnel vision.
10:25Like you don't go into it.
10:25No.
10:26I want the truth.
10:27I want the truth.
10:28When it comes to trying to decipher fact from fiction, you're not swayed by your emotions.
10:32But what we're saying is you're raising the level of expectation.
10:35So if this were someone I cared about, if it involved me, what type of investigation would I want these detectives to conduct?
10:42How far would I want them to go?
10:44Am I all in?
10:45Yeah, am I all in?
10:46And that's when you put that level of expectation on yourself.
10:49You do.
10:50And when you put that level of expectation as if it was my daughter or my son or my wife, what would I do?
10:55What lengths would I go to within the confines of the law?
10:58You go all the way.
10:59And that's what we try to do for these families.
11:00Now in terms of the season finale, the Michelle O'Keefe case, can you talk about that and how it was first presented to you?
11:07You know, it's funny because the show is called Breaking Homicide, right?
11:11But you also have to remember that there are cases where people are wrongfully convicted of a crime that they didn't commit.
11:18And in this situation, you have an individual who did 11 years in prison and was ultimately found factually innocent.
11:25So what we always look at it as, and all investigators should look at it this way, is I'd rather see 100 guilty men go free than one innocent man go to jail for something he didn't do.
11:33So there's two stories here.
11:35There's two real great stories about someone who—there's two victims here.
11:39You have an individual who did 11 years in prison for something he didn't do, and you have someone who is still walking the streets today who committed a heinous act.
11:46And we're trying to bring light to both situations because there are still a lot of people out there who believe this individual who was found factually innocent is guilty.
11:54So we look into that as well as the other avenues as far as who may have possibly done it.
12:00The Michelle O'Keefe story has so many important aspects to it, not the least of which is making sure you get it right.
12:07And that there's enough integrity within the system to admit when it's made a mistake, and now you have a problem of who did it.
12:15And that's what we investigate and delve into.
12:18What other cases out there would you want to reexamine?
12:21Something that you've come across over the years that you've said?
12:24We've had so many different cases that have been presented to us by individuals across our country.
12:30There are thousands of unsolved cases.
12:32And part of what we want to accomplish in this series, in our efforts, is to inspire those whose cases we may not take to not give up and to still have hope.
12:41I've got a couple in mind.
12:42There's one in Ohio that I'm very much into, as is Derek.
12:46Can you talk about it?
12:47No, I don't want to.
12:49Because we want to solve it.
12:50We want to solve it.
12:51And then there's one here in Los Angeles that I'm actually very interested in, in which a boy's body was found in a chimney many years ago after he'd been murdered.
13:00And I'm very interested in that case as well.
13:02But like you said, he nailed it.
13:04You know, the main focus here is to know we're going to take the cases as far as we can.
13:08We also want you, the viewers, to know that society today allows for you to have a voice.
13:12And as far as we're going to take it, you can take it even further.
13:15You have a voice.
13:16If you see something, say something.
13:18And if you feel that there's an injustice here or someone may, you know, should be looked into further, use that voice.
13:23There are movements happening every day for people that really stand behind certain causes.
13:27Let's get together and do that.
13:29Let's hold the judicial system accountable.
13:31And also understand that if you have something that you've been personally affected by, no matter how many years has passed, there's always a chance that it could be solved.
13:38And people like us are out there.
13:39It's not just me and him.
13:40And you never know.
13:41We may be coming or calling you next.
13:43Now, are there any updates you can provide?
13:45On some of these cases, they can share?
13:47So every case that we work, we can complete a letter.
13:50We turn it over to the police department.
13:51In some cases, we show them the footage prior to it.
13:53And at that point, it goes from being our investigation to their investigation because it's a partnership.
13:59It's a collaboration.
14:00And we want to solve these cases.
14:01And those are the individuals who have the opportunity to do that.
14:03So we are not going to divulge what we know now for the integrity of the case.
14:08But if there's an update, if or when there's an arrest in any of these cases, we will 100% make sure that everyone knows the status of that investigation.
14:16Breaking Homicide Final Theory on ID.Go is the place to get those kinds of updates.
14:21But I'll tell you this.
14:22We've done a number of these interviews.
14:24And after one of the first interviews we did, Derek gets a text from somebody watching that show that had additional information about our first case.
14:33And that has been turned over.
14:34So what I'll tell you is, while we take these investigations forward, that momentum has been propped up and accelerated by other people out there watching this that have actually done the right thing and called out.
14:48Before we go, is there anything you want to say?
14:49No, I just, I hope people check out the show.
14:51And again, if you have something that could help the case go further, use your voice.
14:55Let's make it a movement.
14:57Let's get these cases solved for these individuals.
14:58That's what it's about.
14:59A lot of shows you watch out there, there's already an ending.
15:02You're just watching the show and there's a conclusion.
15:03That's not always going to be the case in this.
15:05It's up to you to get there.
15:06And we're going to help as much as we can.
15:08But let's give these families the justice they deserve.
15:10You are part of this.
15:12And it's partnerships that solve cases today.
15:16Thanks for watching.
15:17Thanks for watching.
15:18Thank you, guys.
Comments