Fan Favorite: A Boat, A Fire and the Signature in the Ashes

Summary

America's Crime Lab

Episode: Fan Favorite: A Boat, A Fire and the Signature in the Ashes

Date: October 29, 2025
Host: Aelin Lancelosser, iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope

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Episode Overview

In this gripping episode, the team at America's Crime Lab revisits the haunting 1992 case of an unidentified body discovered inside a burning boat in a field near Ogden, Utah. What began as a routine fire call quickly escalated into a perplexing cold case that spanned more than 30 years. Through interviews with detectives, forensic experts, and the daughter of the victim, this episode explores themes of loss, the persistence of law enforcement, forensic breakthroughs, and the emotional impact of finally finding answers. As the case is revived with advances in forensic DNA technology and help from Othram ("America's crime lab"), the story unfolds into both a triumph of science and a bittersweet reckoning for the family left behind.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Discovery of the Body and the Early Investigation

• Setting the Scene:
  • April 1992, Ogden, Utah — firefighters responded to a large blaze in a field near a gas station and truck stop. Shockingly, at the center of the fire was a boat, not anywhere near water, and inside was a body burned beyond recognition.
    • “So it’s not like we’re near a body of water… maybe this boat has been in this field abandoned for quite some time.” — [Narrator/Host, 05:15]
• Initial Police Work:
  • Minimal evidence survived the blaze: some beer cans, but no ID or personal items.
  • Autopsy revealed the victim was a male (approx. 6 feet tall, age 30–45) and had smoke inhalation, confirming he was alive as the fire started.
    • “He burned up alive whether it was an accident or a homicide. So we gotta solve this case for these guys. So, yeah, let’s collaborate…” — Detective Steve Ocam [16:38]
• Stymied Investigation:
  • Missing persons and dental records yielded no matches; the case went cold.

2. Challenges with Unidentified Human Remains (UHR)

• A National Issue:
  • Thousands of unidentified bodies are stored in medical examiners' offices nationwide, sometimes for decades.
    • “People are laying in the freezer. For decades, they've been sitting in the walk-in cooler… I just think that we, as society, we should send those people home.” — Detective Steve Ocam [03:18]
• Obstacles to Solving UHR Cases:
  • Old practices included donating bodies to medical schools, burying in unmarked graves, or cremation, complicating future identification.
  • Limitations of databases like NAMUS and CODIS—most missing persons don't have DNA profiles on file, making matches rare.
    • “There’s a 67% chance right out of the gate someone’s not going to hit to anything.” — Detective Steve Ocam [20:33]

3. Breakthrough through Preservation and Modern Forensics

• Critical Evidence Preserved:
  • The “forward thinking” of the 1992 medical examiner: vials of the victim’s blood and a bag of pubic hair were kept.
    • “One of the most unique factors of this case was… they drew some fluids. The victim was burnt so severely that there maybe wasn’t any, like, viable tissue… and they had that evidence still on file.” — Detective Steve Ocam [17:27]
• Detective Hebden Reopens the Case (2024):
  • Driven by the possibility of solving both the victim’s identity and his death, he organizes evidence and seeks help from state investigators and Othram, a private DNA lab.
• Genetic Genealogy & A Break in the Case:
  • Othram receives the blood sample and constructs a genetic profile, ultimately identifying the victim as Kevin Capps.
    • “They sent me a document with all of the genetic makeup… He’s got all this genetic makeup that brings it back to a pretty solid match that it was him.” — Investigator/Reporter [23:35]

4. Impact on the Family: A Daughter’s Story

• Finding Family:
  • Confirming the ID required contacting living relatives, including Chelsea Laro, Kevin's daughter, who was only 4 when he vanished.
• Chelsea’s Experience:
  • Chelsea had believed her father might still be alive; a police visit in adulthood shattered that hope, but also brought closure.
    • “This whole time I thought my dad was alive and he was no longer with us, which brought peace. The not knowing… to know he had been in heaven this whole time.” — Chelsea Laro [31:56]
  • She described emotional struggles, a sense of abandonment, and ultimately relief after decades of uncertainty.
    • “It’s relieving to know he didn’t abandon me, to know that, you know, he really did love me… It’s a big weight off my shoulders.” — Chelsea Laro [34:35]

5. The Continuing Mystery: Accident or Homicide?

• Open Questions:
  • Due to severe burning, it is difficult to rule if Capps suffered additional injuries or to determine definitively if this was homicide or accident.
    • “It makes it very difficult for us to be able to determine if there were other injuries… something that we just weren’t able to really say for certain…” — Investigator/Reporter [37:18]
  • New information has been found but is not yet public; the investigation continues, energized by finally knowing the victim’s identity.

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Notable Quotes

• On the dignity owed to unidentified remains:

  • “Bodies need to be returned to their families.” — Detective Steve Ocam [03:18]

• On the challenges of cold cases and missing persons databases:

  • “So there’s a 67% chance right out of the gate someone’s not going to hit to anything… your chances, mathematics is going down, down, down.” — Detective Steve Ocam [20:33]

• On the emotional impact for the family:

  • “It’s relieving. It’s a big weight off my shoulders. It is such a blessing. It is a close of a chapter that needed to be closed a long time ago.” — Chelsea Laro [34:35]

• On the breakthrough moment:

  • “The fact that they can identify a match like that… this body was a person and that person can actually be found.” — Aelin Lancelosser [24:00]

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

• [03:18] — Detective Steve Ocam describes the dignity owed to the dead and the emotional drive behind UHR work.
• [05:15] — Setting the Utah crime scene; the boat in the middle of a flame-engulfed field.
• [09:29] — Discovery that the victim was alive during the fire.
• [16:38 – 17:27] — Investigators discuss the unusual preservation of blood and hair samples; DNA as the game-changer.
• [23:29 – 24:13] — The identification of Kevin Capps and discovery that he had family close by, including a young daughter at the time of his death.
• [30:57 – 34:35] — The emotional interview with Chelsea Laro as she learns the truth about her father, reflecting on her childhood questions and feeling of peace at last.
• [37:11 – 38:12] — Recap and the ongoing mystery: how did Kevin end up burning in the field, and is this truly a closed case?

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Episode Reflection & Tone

America’s Crime Lab brings a balanced, conversational tone while never losing sight of the deeply human threads running through the investigative process. The story moves smoothly from forensics to family, incorporating expert commentary and personal testimony. The episode is rich in empathy, technical insight, and the messy reality of solving decades-old mysteries—leaving listeners with both answers and a sense of the challenges that still remain.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

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[Detective Steve Ocam]

People are laying in the freezer. For decades, they've been sitting in the walk in cooler at the medical examiner's office. And it's just up and down, up and down of bodies and bankers boxes. And I, I just think that we, as society, we should send those, those people home. You know, ultimately this effort, especially in unidentified human remains, is about people and human dignity. I mean, bodies need to be returned to their families.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

There's a silent epidemic in this country. Every year thousands of people die and we have no idea who they are. There's no identification found with a body, no family to claim them. The remains are often reduced to a box of bones and stored in a medical examiner's office. And the longer the human remains sit on a shelf, the less likely it is that we'll ever know who they are. This is America's crime Lab. I'm Aelin Lancelosser. Our producer Kathryn Fenollosa is here. So Katherine, what case do you have for me today?

[Narrator/Host]

So, Aylin, I want to talk about a case from 1992. It's springtime April, and firefighters are called to a fire in a field in Ogden, Utah, which is about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

So this is Mormon country and it's, I'm guessing, one of the most beautiful places in the world where mountains in the background and just expansive land and red rocks.

[Narrator/Host]

It's beautiful. There are snow capped mountains sort of surrounding this very historic old town, which if you picture like old westerns. Right. And the area was actually known during the prohibition for having these speakeasies. So there's a very like wild west vibe of this town.

[Chelsea Laro]

Yeah.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

And like you kind of feel like you're in the middle of nowhere, but also things are happening here.

[Narrator/Host]

Exactly. And so the area where the firefighters are called to is actually a field which is next to one of the main highways and it's behind a gas station and truck stop. Firefighters get there and they realize it's actually kind of a large fire at this point. And there's a boat in the middle of the field that is also fully engulfed in flames. A boat? A boat. So it's not like we're near a body of water. As far as first responders can tell, maybe this boat has been in this field abandoned for quite some time. So I was curious to hear about the original crime scene. So I called Detective Ty Hebden. He's with the Weber County Sheriff's Office.

[Investigator/Reporter]

So initially, it was just a grass fire or a field fire that then as they got there and saw that it was a boat, and then that's when they notice that there's actually a burned body within the fire itself.

[Narrator/Host]

There's somebody on the boat.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Oh, my God.

[Narrator/Host]

Suddenly, this has gone from a somewhat routine fire call to a possible homicide investigation.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Whoa.

[Narrator/Host]

So detectives collect whatever evidence they can find. Now, since this was a pretty large fire, there's really not that much that they can find. There are some beer cans that are scattered in the field.

[Investigator/Reporter]

They brought in some canines to kind of combed through the weeds in the trees, seeing if there was any other persons or people in the area, but no other person was located. And most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire, that not a whole lot was salvageable or recognizable.

[Narrator/Host]

They don't find any ID Nothing that tells them, you know, who this person might be. They go to the gas station and the truck stop. Nobody saw anything suspicious. The body was burned beyond recognition. So they're completely confused, Right. They now are looking at a potential homicide. They have an unidentified victim, and they have zero leads.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Gosh, I mean, that's such a nightmare. When you can't even identify the victim, where do you possibly begin? And there's something so tragic to me about someone who has passed away, and nobody knows their family, their friends. Everybody has no idea what happened. That that's one of the worst kinds of stories to start out with.

[Narrator/Host]

They're trying to figure out, was this an accident? Was it intentional? Did this victim actually die on the boat? Did they die somewhere else and the body was placed on the boat, and then the boat was set on fire? I mean, there's so many questions, and there's so few answers at this point. The one thing that they can do is they send it for an autopsy. And the autopsy determines that the victim is a male, approximately six feet tall. And they estimate he was between the ages of 30 and 45 when he died.

[Investigator/Reporter]

They were able to determine that he did have some smoke inhalation. They were able to see that in his lungs to show that he would have been alive at the time of the fire based on the fact that he was breathing in smoke.

[Narrator/Host]

Oh, so now this is definitely suspicious death. In the autopsy, they do collect a few things. Now, Remember, this is 1992, so there is some very basic DNA testing happening. They're able to collect his teeth. They match the dental records with missing persons databases, and there are no links made, so that doesn't lead them anywhere.

[Investigator/Reporter]

They did put him into the national missing persons database, and nothing ever came back as a match.

[Narrator/Host]

The police reach out to news stations to publicize the case. You know, they're hoping that someone will come forward and say, oh, my God, yes, I happen to be getting gas in that gas station. And now I'm realizing I did see something, or my uncle went missing.

[Investigator/Reporter]

There wasn't really anything to do except, you know, hope that maybe someone would come forward or. Or something. You know, as soon as we could identify him, then that would give us, hopefully, some people to go talk to. But outside of that, without. Without anything else, there was. There was kind of nothing to do. There's a possibility that. That it is a homicide, that someone did this. There's a possibility that it could have been self initiated or there's also the possibility that it could have been an accident.

[Narrator/Host]

So with no leads about the victim or the circumstances of his death, the case goes cold.

[Investigator/Reporter]

I definitely, definitely always kept homicide there on my mind as a strong possibility.

[Narrator/Host]

Now in 2024, the Weber County Sheriff's Office in Ogden, Utah, creates a cold case unit for the very first time. And Detective Hebden is looking through the 20 cold cases they have. And this one, the body on the boat, catches his eye.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Oh, wow.

[Narrator/Host]

What intrigued him was you could really be solving essentially two big mysteries at once. Identifying the victim.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Host]

So solving an unidentified human remains cases and also solving a potential homicide.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Yeah, Double whammy.

[Narrator/Host]

Double. So he starts to look into the evidence that was collected, and luck is kind of on his side here.

[Investigator/Reporter]

They laid out kind of everything that they had. And so we were seeing all of these kind of burned and charred things that were collected. Some of the burned and charred ashes and stuff or collected were sealed in paint cans.

[Narrator/Host]

When the autopsy was done, because the body was so badly burned, there was no tissue to test or take samples of.

[Investigator/Reporter]

But then we actually had the vials of his blood that were collected by the medical examiner's office. We still had them, as well as a bag with the pubic hair.

[Narrator/Host]

And Detective Hebden is thinking, I have some usable DNA from the victim, and if we can figure out who he is, maybe we can also solve the mystery of his death.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Yeah. Was it an accident or was it a homicide?

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[Aelin Lancelosser]

So now detective Hebden knows he has some blood and hair he can test.

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah. So he reaches out to Agent Steve Ocam, who's an investigator with the Utah State Bureau of Investigations. Steve Ocam has a history in investigating sex crimes. Now he's helping smaller police departments with their cold cases.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

He's like, hey, we've got this old case from 1992. Do you think we could maybe solve the case? And I'm like, yeah, tell me about what happened. So I got a copy of the death report and, man, this guy burned alive in this boat. Like, I was like, man, that is heinous. Right? Like, there was no if, ands or buts.

[Narrator/Host]

He.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

He burned up alive whether it was an accident or a homicide. So we gotta solve this case for these guys. So, yeah, let's. Let's collaborate and see what we can do.

[Narrator/Host]

Detective Hebton fills him in on what evidence is available, namely the vials of blood and the bag of pubic hair. And now Steve Ocam is even more invested in solving this case.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

One of the most unique factors of this case was the forward thinking of the medical Examiner's office in 1992. I mean, they drew some fluids. The victim was burnt so severely that there maybe wasn't any, like, viable tissue Right. To DNA test. So they just thought back in the day, let's draw some of these fluids, anything we can from inside that was protected from the fire. And they had that evidence still on file.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

It kind of reminds me of the Carla Walker case, where they were really good at preserving so much of the evidence, the clothes she was wearing. And they were able to get DNA off of those clothes because of how they restored it shows how valuable that foresight and correct storage can be.

[Narrator/Host]

And to your point that Agent Ocam said, just the fact that they still had the evidence, he's like, you know, we all think that evidence is perfectly collected, stored, preserved, labeled, kept track of. You know, there are so many things that happen.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Host]

Like there's a flood, there's a fire, a police department or medical examiner's office moves, things get lost in moves.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

And the reality is that also affects whether you can convict someone. And I mean I even think about the O.J. case and how they were able to poke holes in just chain of custody. Did someone plant the glove? Did someone plant the blood? I mean, yeah. The reality of humans interacting with evidence, inevitably questions arise that have real world implications.

[Narrator/Host]

And there's another thing to think about. Steve OCAM said it used to be fairly routine that if a body went unidentified for a while it was donated to a medical school to be used as a cadaver.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

They could literally donate it to do tests on, like to have their medical school learn how to work with bodies. And then they, for a while they buried them all in unmarked graves. Right. And then there was a while where they just cremated them all and they don't exist. So the challenges with these UHRs is to really see where is the body. Do we need the bones to be analyzed? Do we need to consider exhuming someone if they were a victim of a homicide?

[Aelin Lancelosser]

So if unidentified human remains were donated to science or cremated, there's no chance we'll ever know who they are?

[Narrator/Host]

No. And thankfully those practices are much less common now.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

So I have a question. I know early on detectives did check the National Missing and Unidentified Person System, which is also called namus, and there were no hits. But what about codis?

[Narrator/Host]

So I asked Steve OCAM about that. He said it has its limitations with missing persons or unidentified remains. In Utah right now There are roughly 150 missing persons in their database.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

And I don't think a third of them have any DNA in codis. Like no one, the missing person, their family members, anything. So there's a 67% chance right out of the gate someone's not going to hit to anything. And I would argue it's even higher than that because tons of missing people aren't even listed in namus. So of our, in our state at any given time, you've got runaways, you've got adults who just, you know, have got mental health or some type of substance issues. And they're in, they're out, they're in, they're out in terms of missing people.

[Narrator/Host]

And because of that, Steve said there are probably closer to 450 missing persons in Utah at any given time.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

And if you only have A third of the people have DNA in there who are in the database. I mean, your chances, mathematics is going down, down, down. And I think our experience and our results and our success with the testing we've done so far absolutely reinforces that you're not going to get a CODA set. So you have to do your due diligence and follow the steps. So once Ty dug through the evidence room and found the actual vials of the flu that had been extracted back in the day, and we were ready to roll.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

So what happens now?

[Narrator/Host]

Well, Steve helps to find funding for cold cases when there are deaths under suspicious circumstances, and this is also a passion project for him.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

In the last probably 18 months, we've really been hitting the. The unidentified remains hard in Utah. People are laying in the freezer for decades just because no one knows how they died, literally in bankers boxes. Because once all of the flesh and everything's gone from our bodies, most of us will fit in a banker's box. So you walk into the medical examiner, there's a wall in the one walk in cooler, and it's just up and down, up and down, up and down of bodies and bankers boxes. It's almost unconscionable if you just ask the people of any state, hey, did you know there's like hundreds of people laying in the cooler that no one's working the case? They would be like, what. What ultimately happens and happened in Utah is no one tested them, no one did anything with them. They literally tried to identify a body and if they didn't figure it out, they just went in the cooler and case closed. Like, nothing's been done. And some of the agencies, like Weber county, thought, you know, let's give this a shot.

[Narrator/Host]

Now, Steve ocam's office has a relationship with Othram. They're one of the labs that works with the state of Utah to test crime scene evidence and human remains. And remember the burned body on the boat?

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Of course.

[Narrator/Host]

Well, Detective Hebden has vials of his blood and some pubic hair from the autopsy 32 years ago.

[Investigator/Reporter]

We sent them the blood because that was what we found to be probably the highest or strongest DNA standard.

[Narrator/Host]

And about six weeks later, he hears back from Othram with the name Kevin Capps.

[Investigator/Reporter]

So they sent me a document with all of the genetic makeup of the individual and they gave me, like, family, relatives, people that were still alive. It was a pretty cool report that they give just of tracing down that family tree of this relative and this relative, and he's got all of this genetic makeup that brings it back to a pretty solid match that it was him.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

The fact that they can identify a solid match like that, like it's out of nowhere, it's really shocking. I mean, this body was a person and that person can actually be found.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He still has family here in Utah, even not even an hour drive from me. What hit me hard was realizing that he also had a daughter. They told me that he had a daughter that would have only been four years old at the time of his death. And so that's when I immediately just kind of started thinking like, man, does she even know? Does she know where her dad's been this whole time?

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place.

[Narrator/Host]

It's a way of life.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the.

[Narrator/Host]

Importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives.

[Sheryl McCollum]

Prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and.

[Narrator/Host]

Most importantly, victims, family members.

[Sheryl McCollum]

Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

So after 32 years, there's a lead on who this victim is. And I'm guessing this is where the investigation shifts back into the hands of the detectives because they have a name. But how did he end up burning in the middle of a field?

[Narrator/Host]

Well, first, Detective Hebden's got to find family members of Kevin Capps.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Yeah, as I'm starting to kind of imagine this guy and his life and the. The people that were in it and the questions that they've had for the last 30 plus years.

[Narrator/Host]

Alan, this is where Detective Hebden said he had to adjust his investigative process. Because if someone goes missing today, I mean, you could just check their online social media.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Yeah. Facebook, Instagram, things like that, to see if there are any photos or messages. You can probably find clues on what they were up to before they went missing.

[Narrator/Host]

But since this victim went missing in 1992, you have to look for newspaper articles, police reports, marriage certificates, you know, stuff that. And he does find some previous police reports involving the victim from before 92, nothing after. So that supports the information he got from Othram that this guy is actually Kevin Capps. And Detective Hebden decides to reach out to the daughter.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

That's a big call.

[Narrator/Host]

It is. And with these kinds of cases, the calls are always a little tricky because they need to get fresh DNA swabs from living relatives to fully confirm that the body in the boat is actually Kevin Capps. But then there's also the fact that they may be revealing not only that somebody's died, but that that person may have been murdered.

[Investigator/Reporter]

And then also, just because we always have to kind of question and keep on the mind of, you know, if this is a homicide or if there is any other person involvement, the four year old daughter is the least likely suspect. You know, if there is any sort of family involvement in that regard, I imagine she would probably be the one kind of questioning the most of, of what happened.

[Chelsea Laro]

I get a knock at the door and it's kind of funny because I didn't want to answer the door because I thought it was the Mormon missionaries, but it wasn't the Mormon missionaries. It was the Weber detectives from Ogden, Utah.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

We wait, is that his daughter?

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah. Her name is Chelsea Laro and she's 37 now. But the last time she saw her dad, she was only four.

[Chelsea Laro]

And they're like, we need to talk to you about a family member. And I said, a family member? Like what family member? And he's like, we need to talk to you about your dad. I looked at him and I was almost drew a blank. I said, are you serious? They're like, yes. I said, okay, you can come in. And so I yelled to my mom and I'm like, mom, guess what? You know, they, they have information about my dad. And we were just blown away. Absolutely blown away.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Hang on. I mean, you get a knock on the door, thinking maybe someone's selling something and this is what you hear after all these years, that would be jarring.

[Chelsea Laro]

I was a little taken back by that because this whole time I thought that my dad was alive and he was no longer with us, which brought peace. The not knowing of where Kevin was my whole life, to know that he had been in heaven this whole time.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

What did she know about her dad?

[Narrator/Host]

Well, Chelsea grew up with her mom as an only child and she'd seen pictures of her dad. She was actually really close to his parents. But since she was so young when he disappeared, most of what she knew were stories that her family had told her that he was funny, he liked to play soccer. She still has a purple teddy bear he had given her. She did know that he'd had some brushes with the police and he'd spent time in jail, but as far as.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

She knew, he just disappeared.

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah. Chelsea says her grandmother, Kevin Capps mother, is the last person in their family who saw him alive.

[Chelsea Laro]

So my dad was getting into trouble.

[Narrator/Host]

And.

[Chelsea Laro]

My grandma just couldn't really handle him anymore. And so she dropped him off down the street from their house with a hundred dollars and just told him to go live his life. And unfortunately, he never came back.

[Narrator/Host]

Chelsea thinks that was April of 1992, the same month his body was found on the boat. And over the years, Chelsea's family was always searching for Kevin. Detective Hebden says Kevin's sister would drive around. She was just constantly on the lookout for him.

[Investigator/Reporter]

You know, kind of every time she saw a homeless guy on the street corner, she would be kind of jumping out and being like, hey, are you Kevin? Are you Kevin? Like, just wondering, you know, is he here?

[Narrator/Host]

At one point, Kevin's sister saw a photo of a man named Kevin Capps, I think it was. May have been in the newspaper or a police report who was living on the streets in New Mexico. And she becomes convinced that this is her brother. So she tries to track him down, and she can't find him. But she carries that photo around with her for years. And Chelsea says the hardest part was wondering where her dad was and why he wasn't with her.

[Chelsea Laro]

I did always wonder what it would be like to have a dad in my life. The daddy daughter dances, that he missed all my soccer games. I mean, he missed my whole life. So for me, it was really hard not having him around. It's relieving to know he didn't abandon me, to know that, you know, he really did love me. You know, growing up, you think there's something wrong with you. You know, like, gosh, am I not good enough? You know, struggled with, you know, daddy issues forever, you know, being more attached to men than women. So it's relieving. It's a big weight off my shoulders. It is such a blessing. It is a close of a chapter that needed to be closed a long time ago.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Wow. And how did Othram even find Chelsea?

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah, I was curious about that, too.

[Chelsea Laro]

In 2020, something just came to me that I needed to take my ancestry. And so my mom's like, hey, Charles, what would you like for Christmas? I was like, you know, I would love to do my ancestry, thinking that I was going to maybe find a brother, sister, extended family, you know, and lo and behold, I got a different treat. My treat was that I got to find out what happened to Kevin.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

So Detective Hebton and the investigator Steve Ocam solved one big part of this mystery. Who the person found burned on the boat was. But there's also this question of how he ended up there. Was it an accident or was he murdered?

[Narrator/Host]

So it is still an open investigation. And Detective Hebden says there are actually a lot of other mysteries, too.

[Investigator/Reporter]

One of the things with dealing with a body that's burned up to that extent is it makes it very difficult for us to be able to determine if there were other injuries. Right. If he had some sort of blunt force trauma or we still had the bones that we could look at, was there a knife wound or a this or that or something that we, we just weren't able to really say for certain if there was other injuries that contributed to his death.

[Narrator/Host]

He says his office has new information, but they're not ready to release it to the public yet. But after 32 years, Chelsea finally knows what happened to her father. And, you know, knowing who he is heats the case up even more.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

Next time on America's Crime Lab.

[Investigator/Reporter]

He takes a rock and bashes in.

[Narrator/Host]

Her head and leaves her to die.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

This person has left DNA at a crime scene that's unsolved and has committed another crime. And now their DNA has been collected directly from them.

[Investigator/Reporter]

There's a little blood spot on the jacket. Whose DNA do you think that was? It was the victim's DNA.

[Aelin Lancelosser]

America's Crime Lab is produced by Rococo Punch for Kaleidoscope. Erica Lantz is our story editor and sound design is by David Woje. Our producing team is Catherine Fenollosa and Jessica Albert. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne, Mangesh Hadikidur and David and Kristen Mittleman. And from iHeart, Katrina Norville and Ally Perry. Special thanks to Connell Byrne, Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman, Nikki Itor, Nathan Netoski, John Burbank and the entire team at othram. I'm Alin Lance Lesser. Thanks for listening.

[Sheryl McCollum]

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[Detective Steve Ocam]

Get ready to power up your play with Nintendo Switch 2. Power up the visuals with 4K support and a bigger, more vivid screen. Power up the fun with exclusive new games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong bonanza. Nintendo Switch 2 all together anytime anywhere games rated E to E10 games and systems sold separately. Compatible TV required for 4K display.

[Narrator/Host]

What kind of man would let this.

[Chelsea Laro]

Happen to his family?

[Investigator/Reporter]

Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working.

[Sheryl McCollum]

On a story about the Murdochs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

It's only cheating if you get caught. Hulu Original Series Murdoc Death in the.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Family New episodes Wednesdays on Hulu and.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

[Narrator/Host]

Ah, greetings from my bath festive friends.

[Investigator/Reporter]

The holidays are overwhelming, but I'm tackling.

[Narrator/Host]

This season with PayPal and making the most of my money.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Getting 5% cash back when I pay in 4. No fees, no interest. I used it to get this portable spa with jets. Now the bubbles can cling to my sculpted but pruny body.

[Narrator/Host]

Make the most of your money this holiday with PayPal. Save the offer in the app.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Ends1231 See paypal.com promoter points can be.

[Detective Steve Ocam]

Redeemed for cash and more paying for.

[Investigator/Reporter]

Subject to terms and approval. PayPal Inc. And MLS 910457 this is.

[Narrator/Host]

An I Heart podcast.