Fri, Sep 23, 2022
48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant investigates the 2006 disappearance of a recent college graduate, Lori Ann Slesinski in Auburn, Alabama, and the case against her killer, Rick Ennis. Four days after Slesinski went missing, her car was found engulfed in flames on a deserted street. She was still nowhere to be found. Police believed Rick Ennis was the last person to be with her before she disappeared. But Ennis had moved away from Auburn after he talked with police. It would take 12 years before authorities made a case against him. In 2018, Ennis was charged with Slesinski's murder, even though her body was never found. It was not the first time Ennis was charged with such a horrific crime. In 1993, when he was 12 years old, Ennis murdered his parents.
Fri, Sep 30, 2022
48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant investigates the case against Megan Hargan who was suspected of killing her mother Pam Hargan and her sister Helen Hargan. When investigators entered the McLean, Virginia home of millionaire mother Pam Hargan, they discovered the bodies of Pam and her youngest daughter Helen Hargan, who was found dead with a rifle. Hours later, police told the family that Helen's wound looked self-inflicted, and that it was probably a murder-suicide. Did Helen Hargan shoot her mother dead and then take her own life? Her sister, Megan Hargan, told investigators Helen Hargan had been struggling emotionally. Megan's defense strategy had an unusual theory: that her sister Helen killed their mother and then killed herself with her toe on the trigger.
Fri, Oct 14, 2022
Three friends in a small Georgia town, college professor Marianne Shockley, her boyfriend and a former psychologist, got together one spring night to swim, play and listen to music. Marianne Shockley was a respected University of Georgia professor and renown entomologist. By morning, she and the former psychologist, Clark Heindel, were dead. Only her boyfriend, Marcus Lillard, was alive.
Fri, Nov 11, 2022
This cold case rape/murder crime did indeed seem unsolvable for 34 years, until genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas was able to pinpoint the possible suspect, Patrick Wayne Gilham, in four days. Roxanne Wood, nicknamed "Rock", age 30, had been raped and murdered in February 1987 in her home in South Bend, Indiana. In the end, Patrick Gilham was arrested at age 67 and pleaded "no contest" to the murder. He will have to serve a minimum of 23 years in prison.
Fri, Dec 2, 2022
On September 4, 1981, Jeff Slaten, age 15 and his brother Tim, age 12, were awakened by Lakeland, Florida, police. The boys were told that their mother, Linda Slaten, had been murdered. Investigators collected a rape kit and lifted a palm print from the windowsill where the killer had entered. They questioned a slew of suspects, but no one was charged, and the case went cold for 40 years. Prior to, and after Linda Slaten's murder, Tim's football coach, Joe Mills, would regularly drive Tim to and from football practice. Coach Joe became a role model for the young boy, who proudly hung up his football team photo in his room. In the photo, Coach Mills stood right behind Tim. Linda's sons spent decades living in fear of the man they called "The Monster". Nearly 40 years later, advances in DNA technology revealed Linda Slaten's likely killer: Coach Joe. "I looked up to this guy," Tim tells "48 Hours" contributor Jim Axelrod. "And I had a picture in my house ever since then, and never knew it was him." "He's a cold-hearted monster, that's for sure," says Jeff.
Fri, Dec 9, 2022
Young wife and mother Mengqi Ji Elledge, age 28, was a Chinese foreign exchange student at University of Missouri. She went missing in October 2019. Her husband, Joseph Elledge of Columbia, Missouri, reported her disappearance to the police. Everybody felt that it was strange that Mengqi went missing without her cell phone or her young toddler daughter. Mengqi's parents came to America from China to try to help the investigation. The police asked the public for help and searched exhaustively for Mengqi. In March 2021, her body was found. In the end, Joseph Elledge, now age 26, was brought to trial and was found guilty of killing his wife. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison, the maximum amount allowed by law.
Fri, Feb 4, 2022
Correspondent Erin Moriarty looks at how advances in DNA technology might help solve one of the nation's most heartbreaking cold cases: The Yogurt Shop Murders in Austin, Texas. On Dec. 6, 1991, four teenager girls - 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, 13-year-old Amy Ayers, and two sisters, 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and 15-year-old Sarah Harbison - were found gagged, tied up with their own clothing, and shot in the head in a yogurt shop, which was then set on fire. Eliza and Jennifer worked at the shop and were closing up for the night, and Sarah and Amy had met them there to head home together. Gunshot wounds revealed two different types of guns were used, but there was little other evidence at the scene, and the fire complicated the early investigation. The case is still unsolved.
Fri, Jan 20, 2023
This installment outlines the following murdered women and children left along Interstate 45 from Houston, Texas to south Oklahoma: Laura Kate Smither, age 12, who went missing on April 3, 1997; Kelli Ann Cox, age 20, who went missing on July 15, 1997; Tiffany Johnston, age 19, who went missing on July 26, 1997; Jessica Cain, age 17, who went missing on August 17, 1997. Also detailed is Sandra Sapaugh, who was kidnapped on May 16, 1997 and survived by jumping out of the kidnapper's vehicle. For years, detectives had suspected that sex offender William Reece was behind the crimes. In 2016, Reece agreed to talk to the Texas Rangers. He was arrested and convicted of several of the crimes through his interviews and also DNA. Reece is currently serving a life sentence.
Fri, Jan 27, 2023
Eatonton, Georgia, 2020: The wife of an Eatonton, Georgia Police Department officer, 44-year-old Amanda Perrault, phoned 911 and made allegations on January 28, 2020 of abuse against her husband, Seth Perrault. Days later, she was dead due to a gunshot wound to her head. Seth claimed that she took her own life by shooting herself in the head. The medical examiner ruled Amanda Perrault's death a suicide. But when the Putnam County Sheriff saw the way her body was lying in the couple's bed, he says he didn't see a suicide, he saw a murder. In the end, Seth Perrault was arrested and convicted of Amanda's murder. Perrault was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Fri, Feb 10, 2023
Vista, California, November 2000: Bank manager and mother, Michelle Renee, age 35, is forced to rob her employer, Bank of America, after she and her daughter, Breea Renee, age 7, are held hostage and threatened with guns and dynamite. Things go downhill when the defense attorney falsely accuses her of masterminding the plot. In the end, three of the bank robbers are caught and sent to prison.
Fri, Mar 10, 2023
Worcester, Massachusetts, May 2014: An 11-year-old girl, Angelina Fernandes, woke up to the sound of her screaming mother. Young Angelina peeked out of her bedroom to see blood on the floor and her mother, Stephanie Fernandes, in distress. The blood belonged to Stephanie's fiance, Andrew Wagner, who did not survive the attack. Stephanie was taken to the Worcester Police Department, where she was interviewed for almost three hours. Stephanie claimed she acted in self-defense, and was eventually charged with murder. Now as an adult, Angelina looks back on a night that changed her life, and tells her story.
Fri, Mar 17, 2023
The 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping was the abduction of a school bus driver and 26 children, ages 5 to 14, in Chowchilla, California, on July 15, 1976. The three kidnappers (James Schoenfeld; Richard Schoenfeld; and Frederick Newhall Woods IV) held their captives in a box truck buried in a quarry in Livermore, California, intending to demand a ransom for their return. After about 16 hours underground, the driver and children dug themselves out and escaped, all surviving. The quarry owner's son and two of his friends were convicted of the crime, each receiving a sentence of life with the possibility of parole. In this installment, a kidnapping survivor discusses her Chowchilla ordeal and her fight to keep her kidnappers behind bars.
Fri, Mar 24, 2023
May 2, 2017, Cullman, Alabama: When a young woman, 32-year-old Tiffiney Crawford, is found dead in her car, her husband Jason Crawford claims that she took her own life. However, when the investigation deepens, authorities find that there are two bullet wounds in her head. This cannot be a suicide.
Fri, Sep 16, 2022
48 Hours takes a deeper look at the murder of 'Van Life' video blogger Gabby Petito at the hands of Brian Laundrie, who confessed to her murder in his notebook. He later committed suicide before he could be caught by law enforcement and brought to trial. Also discussed is the importance of the raising of awareness about the warning signs of domestic violence and how to recognize them.