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00:24There's nothing in the human language to describe what they did to her.
00:29They had an opportunity to help her or to let her go, and none of them stepped up to do
00:36that.
00:38The cell phone was located at a hotel.
00:42The police had the place surrounded.
00:44These people were very, very dangerous.
00:47They used tear gas.
00:51There was a lot of finger pointing going on.
00:54Detectives knew there was more to the story.
00:57I photographed his hands.
01:00I saw some calluses.
01:02We knew they were from digging the grave.
01:07It was an utterly horrendous, heartless crime.
01:14That's what wakes you up at night.
01:16The jeopardy is that you mess it up, and these people walk free.
01:44Long Highway 2.
01:46Long Highway 2, over the mountains into eastern Washington, is Gold Bar.
01:59It's one of the last towns you come to before you get out in the middle of nowhere.
02:06Very small, narrow, dirt roads, streams flowing across the road.
02:18There is absolutely no one around that could hear anything that was going on.
02:27It was early in the morning, nine days after a missing girl was last seen by her family.
02:33A 17-year-old high school kid took the detectives down a small road that goes into this old forestry
02:42area.
02:42It was very remote.
02:46Investigators searched the ground looking for bullets.
02:50One of the detectives arrived and grabbed a shovel and started scraping away some dirt.
03:02Towards the end of the day, he found a portion of a leg.
03:12They uncovered the body.
03:15They uncovered the body.
03:15She was face down in this hole.
03:17She had several gunshot wounds to the back of the head, wounds on her fingers.
03:23No clothes on.
03:27This woman was small, 4'11", weighed less than 100 pounds.
03:32Brutally murdered?
03:33No question in my mind.
03:35You can't stop looking.
03:37You cannot stop asking questions.
03:41We have to find those responsible for her murder.
04:07Snohomish County, it's a rural part of western Washington.
04:12It's beautiful.
04:15Anybody who loves nature or outdoors, it's paradise.
04:20Beautiful trees, Puget Sound, rivers, lakes, and mountains.
04:38Growing up in Snohomish County was really, really sweet.
04:43We played a lot of sports.
04:45We would go to the beaches.
04:48Lots of bonfires with friends.
04:57My sister Rachel and I were three years apart.
05:01I remember when she came home from the hospital, she was my baby.
05:05It was my job to look out for her, protect her.
05:09We were super, super close.
05:15Our parents divorced when Rachel was probably six years old and I was nine.
05:19Her and I spent countless nights with my dad.
05:24Her laugh was just contagious.
05:27She definitely stood out.
05:29She was amazing.
05:30Beautiful, gorgeous, just a lot of energy.
05:35I always really admired the relationship she had with her father, Bill.
05:40My dad, he was an athlete when he grew up, so he was really in on coaching her.
05:48It was something that bonded them.
05:51Rachel was the total jock.
05:53We always would describe her as a 4'11 giant because she was small in stature, but she was mighty.
06:05Being super athletic, she still loved being all done up.
06:08We had even talked about perhaps working in the beauty industry together.
06:17As Rachel grew into her teen years, she was definitely Miss Popular.
06:23People were just so drawn to her.
06:26In high school, Rachel and Corey were very close.
06:30Corey was definitely her best friend.
06:33He meant the world to her.
06:39On August 5th, 2001, Corey was in a fatal car crash.
06:47It really shook the entire school.
06:50It shook all of our friends.
06:54Rachel had survivor's guilt.
06:57She was supposed to be in that car.
07:04And that's where everything changed.
07:08She went into a heavy depression.
07:11She dropped out of school.
07:13She was self-medicating.
07:16Partying and doing drugs recreationally.
07:19Trying to fill a void.
07:22She kind of started losing herself a little bit.
07:25Started hanging out with people that she may not have been hanging out with before.
07:30Rachel was vulnerable.
07:33Because of her own trauma.
07:35Rachel really, in essence, chose a lifestyle where she's walking on Razor's Edge.
07:42Then one day, she tells me,
07:46Yeah, I met this new guy.
07:47His name's Diggy.
07:48He was a bad boy.
07:50And they met at a high school party.
07:53Luckily, they had only dated for about six months before they broke up.
07:59After that, Rachel had this resurgence.
08:06She knew that she needed to pull her life together.
08:10And start thinking about finishing school.
08:18And one day, she was really, really excited.
08:20She told my dad that she met a new friend named Maurice.
08:25They made a pact that they were going to graduate high school together and turn their lives around.
08:35September 23rd, 2002.
08:41I remember turning around and looking at the kitchen counter.
08:45She always made to-do lists.
08:49So I looked at her list.
08:50It said, be home tonight.
08:53I thought, okay, good.
08:54Like, I'll see her tonight.
08:59By the time I got home from work that evening, I had been calling her.
09:03I had left voicemails.
09:05There was just no communication.
09:09The next morning, I wake up and I don't see her.
09:13I'm looking through a room.
09:14All of her belongings are there.
09:16All of her clothes.
09:18All of her makeup.
09:19If she had planned on being gone for any period of time, she would have taken her things.
09:25I remember my dad said, maybe she just stayed at a friend's house and she'll be back later.
09:36The next morning, I'm up at 6 a.m. and the home phone is ringing.
09:42It's her friend Carrie.
09:43I said, what's going on?
09:44You haven't seen my sister?
09:47She said, no, I've been trying to reach her since Monday.
09:51And I just completely panicked.
09:56I'm getting very freaked out.
10:00And I grabbed my dad and I told him he just went white as a ghost.
10:06He knew there was something really bad going on.
10:10That's when he called the police and reported her missing.
10:16Our patrol officers responded to his address and took the initial report.
10:23We are pleading with them and we're telling them her things are here.
10:27This is out of character.
10:29The information that I got from her father is she was kind of a party girl.
10:35Her ex-boyfriend at the time was Diggy.
10:39His real name was John Anderson.
10:41Her father said when Diggy and Rachel broke up, she started dating this guy JJ.
10:55After we took the report, we run a criminal history check on Diggy.
11:01We learned Diggy had done some time in prison for a robbery.
11:08Police were trying to piece all of this together.
11:11They're already starting to think maybe Diggy or JJ know what happened to Rachel.
11:18After we reported her missing, we got every single friend, family member, church member on board.
11:26We are doing our own searches, searching for her car, searching for anything.
11:32We were checking the morgues, checking the hospitals.
11:35We are posting up missing posters all across the state.
11:48Then on September 30th, I found Rachel's car.
11:53It's parked in an apartment complex.
11:56First thing I notice when I look at the car is that it's backed into a parking spot.
12:03My sister didn't back in anywhere.
12:06The car was unlocked and her wallet with her ID and $80 cash is on the seat.
12:15The driver's seat is really far back and she's short.
12:20My sister wouldn't have been able to reach the pedals.
12:23My sister didn't park this car.
12:26Whoever did something to her, they parked this car.
12:31We knew that everybody on the other side of the duplex was lying to us.
12:36He felt like she had been torturing him and he just wanted to hurt her.
12:41He broke out. He told us Rachel was taken out of the Jeep.
12:47And that he just heard some shots.
13:10On September 30th, I found Rachel's car.
13:19The driver's seat is really far back.
13:23And she's short.
13:25My sister didn't park this car.
13:27Whoever did something to her, they parked this car.
13:31We call the police and the police come out.
13:36One of our deputies learned that an ex-boyfriend of Rachel's by the name of JJ lived in that apartment
13:44complex.
13:46Officers interviewed him.
13:48JJ insisted he had no idea where Rachel was or what happened to her.
13:54He didn't know why Rachel's vehicle was there in that apartment complex.
13:59We learned JJ had some outstanding arrest warrants.
14:04At that point, officers arrested JJ.
14:13We knew that there might be evidence of what happened in Rachel's car.
14:19We processed that car thoroughly.
14:25We didn't find any fingerprints.
14:29Rachel's car was clean.
14:33Next day, I arranged for the family to come into my office.
14:40They were all very, very concerned.
14:44I had found a stack of love letters.
14:48They were from Diggy to Rachel.
14:51He's really obsessive.
14:54Like, I can't live without you.
14:56Talking about if she ever needs protection, he's there.
15:00And no one's ever going to love you like I do.
15:03We determined that it was important for us to locate Diggy.
15:09And then Rachel's dad received information from one of Rachel's friends.
15:16They told us where Diggy was staying.
15:21The extended stay in Everett.
15:30Diggy did allow us to look through his hotel room to make sure that Rachel wasn't there.
15:39Nobody was in the room at the time.
15:45Diggy said he believed that Rachel was hanging out with JJ.
15:51We learned after Rachel and Diggy broke up,
15:55Diggy considered JJ as an enemy when she started dating JJ.
16:00Nothing that took place at the hotel ruled Diggy, John Anderson, out.
16:08That afternoon, we got a call from a female who had information that Rachel had been at her duplex a
16:16few days before
16:17with this group of guys that hung around with Diggy.
16:21They fancied themselves as hardcore gang members.
16:25She was suspicious that there was a problem.
16:29She provided us with some background information on one of Rachel's friends, Yusuf Jihad,
16:37who was living next door in this duplex with Trissa Connor.
16:46We run a criminal history check.
16:50The police discover Yusuf Jihad is the ringleader of a group called the Northwest Mafia.
16:58Most of the other individuals involved were between the ages of about 16 to 18.
17:03The second in line was Diggy Anderson, who was 20.
17:17On October 2nd, we went to the duplex.
17:21A black male came out, identified himself as Yusuf Jihad.
17:26I told him that we were looking for 18-year-old Rachel Berkheimer.
17:31He admitted that he knew Rachel.
17:34They were friends.
17:36He provided us with information that he was supposed to meet with Rachel
17:41the weekend before she had disappeared.
17:44He had last seen Rachel at a hotel party in Everett.
17:48Rachel actually invited Diggie and Yusuf Jihad to the party.
17:54They saw her with some people that they felt threatened by, so they left.
18:01And at that same location, I identified John Whitaker.
18:07He was a very close associate of Diggie and Yusuf Jihad.
18:12He also had last seen Rachel at a hotel party in Everett.
18:21Finally, we met Theresa Connor.
18:23Theresa actually owned the duplex, and her to-be husband was Yusuf Jihad.
18:32Theresa told us that she didn't know Rachel.
18:36She did allow detectives to walk through her side of the duplex.
18:44We located a locked door inside the duplex.
18:49Tris Connor told us that that is the door that leads into the garage.
18:52It was locked, and she didn't have a key to it.
18:56One of the things that we noticed about the locked door is that it was turned to where you could
19:02lock the garage, and nobody from the house could get in there.
19:05That was rather unusual.
19:09To me, that was telling me that there was something going on in that garage.
19:15Then Jeffrey Barth, another gang member, actually came out of the other side of the duplex.
19:20He confronted me, wanting me to leave the property.
19:25We had nothing to arrest anybody on, so we packed our stuff and left.
19:34Something's going on, but we did not have any solid information that they were involved in anything that happened to
19:41Rachel.
19:45The day after we'd made contact at the duplex, we got a phone call from one of the neighbors.
19:52She said, after we had left the duplex, things started going a little crazy.
19:57She told us that she'd heard some of the neighbors talking.
20:01Rachel had, in fact, been at that duplex.
20:07Rachel had been tied up and placed in the garage.
20:13We needed to get inside that garage.
20:40The detectives got a phone call from one of the neighbors.
20:45She told us she'd heard some of the other kids say that Rachel had, in fact, been at that duplex.
20:54She had been tied up and placed in the garage.
20:59She said Rachel had been taken out of the duplex and put in the back of a Jeep.
21:06She also felt it was important that we knew that everybody in the duplex was lying to us.
21:12We knew the background of some of these people.
21:16They thought they were hotshot little gangsters.
21:20I took the information and started working on a search warrant affidavit for that side of the duplex.
21:29Several people needed to be interviewed.
21:32We located a teenager named Maurice Rivas.
21:37Rachel's dad had pointed out that Maurice was encouraging Rachel to go back to school, get her life back on
21:45track.
21:45We located him.
21:48He admitted that he knew Rachel and Diggie.
21:52Maurice said he was trying to disassociate himself with Diggie.
21:56He was supposed to meet with Rachel the weekend before she had disappeared.
22:01But that was the last time that he'd seen her.
22:05He said he didn't know what was going on.
22:08He was worried about Rachel.
22:13That night during the process of the search warrant, we made arrangements for FBI crime scene team to come out
22:21and process the duplex.
22:24But when we arrived at the duplex, there was nobody in there.
22:31Trissa was next door.
22:34She was nervous that we were there.
22:37She told us that there was nobody inside that unit and she didn't have a key to it.
22:43We forcefully entered the duplex and cleared it to make sure there wasn't anybody inside.
22:53Then we turned the duplex over to the FBI crime lab for them to process it for any evidence.
23:02When we processed the scene, there was evidence that the scene had been cleaned up.
23:08But we did not locate any blood or hair that we could associate with Rachel.
23:15Detectives were interviewing Trissa Conner when she was confronted with the witness's story that Rachel had been in the garage.
23:27We discovered Trissa had been holding back.
23:31She told us that at one point, she gets home from work.
23:36She knows that something's going on.
23:40There's people in her garage.
23:42Yusuf Jihad is being very evasive with her.
23:46She tried to get into the garage.
23:49Diggy tried to keep her out of there.
23:52She pushed her way into the garage and found Rachel taped up there and was on the carpet.
24:01Trissa told us that Barth, Diggy, and Whitaker were there.
24:07And a 17-year-old high school guy named Matt Durham.
24:11Rachel had been beat up.
24:14Trissa runs upstairs.
24:17Yusuf followed her to make sure she wasn't going to call 911.
24:22A short time later, Rachel was taken out of the garage in Matt Durham's Jeep.
24:29We established probable cause to secure the Jeep that belonged to Matthew Durham.
24:39Detectives went to Matthew Durham's house.
24:41They talked in the detective's car.
24:44Matthew gave them a story which lacked significant detail.
24:48He told detectives Rachel was taken out of the Jeep and that he drove away.
24:57We took the Jeep for processing.
24:59The detective said, Matthew, there seems to be more to the story here than what you told us.
25:07You've got a little sister.
25:08If something happened to your sister, Matthew, wouldn't you want to know?
25:12The detectives really made him think of his family.
25:15That's when he was really able to let the consequences of his actions sink in.
25:20He broke down.
25:22He told us he was sure that Rachel had been killed.
25:29The SWAT team had the place surrounded.
25:32They were very, very dangerous.
25:35They start turning on each other.
25:39Said this is where she was shot and buried.
25:42It's just your worst nightmare.
26:04It's been approximately nine days after Rachel Borkheimer was last seen by her family.
26:14With every day, you just start losing hope and becoming even more shrouded in terror each day.
26:32We had one subject in custody.
26:3717-year-old Matthew Durham.
26:40He admitted to detectives that Rachel had been killed and buried at a remote location in eastern Snohomish County.
26:53And that was a major break in the case.
26:56The first major piece of evidence that set into motion everything else.
27:02Durham told us that he had received a call from Diggie asking him to bring Rachel to the duplex, Yusuf
27:11Jihad's place.
27:12When they got there, Yusuf Whitaker and Tony Williams, who was Chris's cousin, were there.
27:21Jeff Barth and Maurice Rivas both eventually arrived.
27:25They're playing video games.
27:27There's laughter.
27:28Then the energy completely changed.
27:32Rachel was beat up and was taken out of the garage, put in the Jeep.
27:39They drove her out to the Gold Bar area.
27:43Matthew Durham said Rachel was taken out of the Jeep and that he drove away and just heard some shots.
27:51Based on the information that Matthew Durham provided, we had probable cause to arrest Diggie, John Whitaker, Yusuf Jihad and
28:01Jeffrey Barth.
28:02But we didn't know at the time who shot her.
28:07It was determined that I would go ahead and book Matthew Durham for kidnapping.
28:13We couldn't prove a murder because we hadn't found the body yet.
28:18But we had enough information that we could arrest these guys.
28:22I met with Prosecutor Downs and briefed him.
28:26We knew we needed to find the body.
28:30Matthew Durham agreed to take them to the location where Rachel was buried.
28:36Matthew Durham took the detectives up to Gold Bar.
28:45It's a small little road that goes into this old forestry area over the mountains into eastern Washington.
28:58It was early in the morning when Matthew Durham showed us where the grave site was.
29:17We secured the grave site and brought in the crime scene team.
29:23A detective grabbed a shovel and started scraping away some dirt.
29:29On October 4th, at approximately 5 o'clock in the afternoon,
29:36that's when they located what appeared to be human remains.
29:41They found an exposed part of one of the victim's legs.
29:46They uncovered the body.
29:48She was five foot tall, maybe 90 pounds, face down in this hole.
29:55She had several gunshot wounds to the back and to the back of the head.
30:01She had some wounds on her hands or fingers.
30:04No clothes on.
30:07Once the medical examiner was able to remove her remains, detectives continued to process below and around the grave.
30:18They recovered bullet fragments inside the grave.
30:22And several spent casings.
30:27Next day, I drove to Bill Burkheimer's house.
30:33I told him that the tattoos match and that it was Rachel.
30:39It was afternoon time. Detective pins showed up.
30:44I'll just never forget.
30:47So silent. I mean, you could hear a pin drop.
30:55After about a few minutes, all the tears started just coming.
31:00Everybody's crying.
31:04It's just your worst nightmare.
31:14And at that point, you know there's evidence out there and you've got to get it and you keep pushing
31:20through.
31:21We had to get all of the people that were involved.
31:24They were very dangerous.
31:26That's when the hunt started.
31:47Nine days after Rachel has disappeared, her remains are found in a shallow grave in the Cascade Mountain foothills.
31:57The police are now proceeding to find and arrest those responsible for her murder.
32:06We knew that Rachel had been shot several times.
32:10Detectives weren't working to locate the gun.
32:15The evening of the 5th, Matthew Durham showed us where the pond was that the gun had been disposed of.
32:26We had members of our dive team out there.
32:30It took them several hours to find the handgun.
32:40At this point, Matt Durham was in custody.
32:44He identified several suspects that we were able to tie to Rachel's murder.
32:52We had established probable cause to arrest Maurice Rivas and Diggy Anderson, as well as John Whitaker, Yusuf Jihad, and
33:02Jeffrey Barth.
33:05I received a call from a witness.
33:09He had information that there was this juvenile party going on at an address in Linwood.
33:15They saw Maurice Rivas and Diggy Anderson at this party.
33:21I put out information to our patrol officers that this party was taking place and that Diggy and Rivas were
33:28supposed to be there.
33:29They arrived.
33:31One of our deputies saw somebody in the house that he identified as Diggy.
33:39My supervisor made the decision to call out the SWAT team.
33:44There was lots of young adults, 19, 20 years old there.
33:48The deputies had the place surrounded and eventually they talked many of the people inside into coming out.
33:55One of those persons that came out was identified as Maurice Rivas.
34:00They arrested him.
34:02We got the information from the people inside the house that Diggy had gone up in the attic.
34:10We knew he was in there and he wasn't coming out.
34:15The SWAT team filled the house full of tear gas.
34:18They pulled some sheetrock down and they located John Diggy Anderson in the attic.
34:23He gave himself up and he was taken into custody.
34:31He was very uncooperative.
34:33I saw some calluses.
34:36I photographed his hands.
34:41It was proof of what happened.
34:43They were from digging the grave.
34:45Then I took him to the jail and booked him for murder.
34:52At this point, we needed to arrest John Whitaker, Yusuf Jihad and Jeffrey Barth.
34:59We didn't know where they were at.
35:02We developed information that they probably had fled the state.
35:09Barth had his mother's cell phone.
35:13We were able to locate that cell phone as it was going down the coast in the California area.
35:22A day later, we had information that the cell phone was located in the L.A. area at a hotel.
35:31We contacted the L.A. authorities.
35:34They determined which room Yusuf Jihad was in.
35:44All three were arrested and taken into custody.
35:56Whitaker and Jihad both gave statements to the FBI, downplaying their involvement.
36:04Jeffrey Barth was not as cooperative.
36:09Back in Snohomish County, I had a couple other detectives come in and do the interview on Maurice.
36:16We were sure that he knew what happened that night.
36:20The detectives that had dealt with Maurice had discovered that he had some calluses on his hands as well.
36:33It was one of those physical reminders of how much he really was a part of this crime.
36:41At that point, Maurice realized the horror he was involved in.
36:46He said he was ready to come clean.
36:50The next step is to take Maurice's statement and assess whether you have sufficient information to take it in front
36:57of a jury and persuade the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that these people did it.
37:03But the jeopardy is that you mess it up and these people walk free.
37:24After Rachel Berkheimer's remains are found, there's no question in my mind, seven people were involved in Rachel Berkheimer's death.
37:37At that point, we had Durham, Maurice, Dickey, Whitaker, Jihad, Jeffrey Barth, and Tony Williams in custody.
37:49Yusuf Jihad's girlfriend, Prisa, was never arrested.
37:53We determined that it would be better just to use her as a witness.
37:58We needed to interview everybody involved in it.
38:03Basically, they start turning on each other.
38:06Ultimately, Maurice told detectives the core of what actually happened.
38:14According to Maurice Revis, Dickey asked Matthew to bring Rachel to the house.
38:23Dickey appears and he's really angry.
38:25He gets into it with Jeff Barth and they're both waving guns around and getting in each other's faces.
38:34Dickey felt like she had been torturing him, dangling her happiness around him when they weren't together anymore.
38:41And he just wanted to hurt her.
38:44Rachel headed for the door.
38:47Dickey grabbed her, punched her in the face.
38:50John Whittaker started kicking her.
38:54Tony Williams turned up the stereo to ground out her screams.
39:00They taped her up and put Rachel in the garage.
39:04At some point, Tressa Connor came home.
39:08She was told to get out of there.
39:12Then Rachel was put in a black hockey bag in Matthew Durham's Jeep and taken up to Gold Bar, Washington.
39:21While Rachel was in the bag at the trailhead with Maurice, Maurice unzipped the bag and took the tape off
39:31so she could talk.
39:34Rachel pleaded to him.
39:36He put the tape back on and zipped her up.
39:40Maurice was her friend.
39:42They had plans to go back to high school together.
39:45And she's terrified.
39:48In that moment, he could have just let her go.
39:51And he chose not to.
39:54John Whittaker, Matthew Durham, John Dickey Anderson, and Maurice Rivas dug a grave.
40:02Dickey proceeds to shoot her seven times.
40:05Three times in the head and four times in the back.
40:11And she was buried.
40:17And Dickey reminded everybody in the ride back that loose ends get clipped.
40:29The prosecutor's office, they worked day and night on this case.
40:34They finally decided to go to trial.
40:37The jury was persuaded in all three trials that the murder was premeditated.
40:45Dickey, John Anderson, and John Whittaker were convicted of aggravated murder and their sentencing was life without parole.
40:53Yusuf Jihad was convicted of first-degree murder and received 37 years.
41:02Durham and Maurice Rivas received 26 years.
41:08Tony Williams got a 10-year sentence.
41:14Any number of people could have stopped this.
41:16But they didn't.
41:18This is a point and illustration of what groupthink can be like.
41:23They were too afraid to speak up and to be humiliated by their peers or to be kicked out of
41:28this group.
41:29As a result, Rachel was killed.
41:32The Berkheimer family went through a living hell.
41:37Getting a conviction was important, but that doesn't fix it.
41:40Absolutely nothing that we ever did could fix it.
41:48Everyone that was in her life, friends, family.
41:54She left us with so much love.
41:56She extracted every drop out of every minute out of every day.
42:00And that's something that most of us never achieve in a lifetime.
42:05I know that she knows I was looking out for her.
42:08And I'm so grateful that I got lucky enough to be her sister.
42:14Like, I hit the jackpot.
42:17It was all about her mother's sister.
42:21It's so good that she lost the interest of her mother's mother's father.
42:23But she did not take her to her mother's mother.
42:23To him, she found the contact the mother's mother's mother's mother.
42:35She left us with her mother, her sister.
42:35We were on her mother, and she left her mother's mother.
42:37We were on her side of her.
42:37And she was the father's mother.
42:39They loved her mother's mother.
42:41She left us back.
42:44You
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