S1:EP 6 - The Mount Everest of Cold Cases Part 1

Summary

America's Crime Lab: S1E6 - The Mount Everest of Cold Cases Part 1

Hosts: iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
Release Date: August 13, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Case

The episode opens with host Aylin Lance Lesser introducing one of Spokane, Washington's most haunting unsolved crimes—the disappearance and murder of nine-year-old Candy Rogers in March 1959. Described by local law enforcement as the "Mount Everest of cold cases," Candy's case has remained unsolved for over six decades, deeply affecting generations in the Spokane community.

Aylin Lance Lesser [00:33]: "For 62 years, no one knew who had taken her and dumped her body in the woods."

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2. Candy Rogers' Background and Disappearance

Candy Rogers lived with her mother, Elaine, a high school teacher, and her grandparents, who owned the family grocery store adjacent to their home. Candy was an active member of the Campfire Girls of America, known as the Bluebirds, where she enthusiastically sold mints door-to-door.

On a routine day of selling mints, Candy adhered strictly to her rules: she wouldn't sell before 4 PM and had to be home before dark. However, on this particular evening, despite following her planned route, Candy failed to return home, sparking immediate concern among her family.

Kathryn Fenollosa [01:49]: "People describe Candy as kind of small for her age. She was just shy of four and a half feet tall."

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3. The Massive Search Efforts

Responding swiftly, Spokane police initiated a comprehensive search operation. Sergeant Zach Stormant recounted the intense efforts, which included setting up a command post in Doomsday Hill and deploying hundreds of volunteers, military personnel, and law enforcement units to scour the area.

Within hours, mints Candy was selling were found scattered along the streets, indicating her presence in various neighborhoods. Despite these efforts, Candy remained missing as night fell, leading to an expanded search involving over 1,500 individuals, including Marines, Air Force veterans, and postal workers.

David Mittleman [05:07]: "They do a pretty good job tracking the homes where she showed up."

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4. Initial Investigation and Suspects

As days passed with no sign of Candy, Sergeant Stormant highlighted the community's determination to find her. Early investigations focused on local suspects, especially convicted sex offenders. However, two potential suspects tragically took their own lives, leaving detectives with limited leads.

Attention then turned to Hugh Morris, a known serial killer who had a history of sexual offenses and murders across multiple states. While Morris was a prime suspect, he denied involvement in Candy's case, and no charges were filed, causing the investigation to stall and the case to go cold.

Aylin Lance Lesser [14:15]: "He was in fact a serial killer, did live in Spokane, and did kill women in Spokane proximate to Candy's death."

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5. Cold Case and Preserved Evidence

Despite years of investigation, Candy's case remained unsolved. A pivotal moment came when an investigator prudently preserved Candy's underwear in a glass mason jar, inadvertently preserving crucial evidence. However, initial DNA testing in the early 2000s yielded no matches in federal databases, partly due to the degraded state of the evidence and the limitations of DNA technology at the time.

Aylin Lance Lesser [12:00]: "They can't find any evidence of who may have done this."

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6. Advances in DNA Technology and Othram's Involvement

Fast forward to 2018-2019, with significant advancements in DNA technology, Sergeant Stormant revisited Candy's case. Inspired by breakthroughs like the identification of the Golden State Killer, he sought assistance from Othram, a cutting-edge forensic lab led by David and Kristen Mittleman. Despite skepticism from traditional labs regarding the degraded evidence, Othram's expertise in handling challenging DNA samples offered new hope.

Kristen Mittleman [21:33]: "There's like 60 years of investigative work going into figuring out what they can learn from that crime scene, and none of it led to the answer."

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7. Genetic Genealogy Breakthroughs

Othram's team meticulously processed Candy's preserved evidence, developing a comprehensive SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) profile despite the limited and degraded DNA. This advanced profiling allowed them to upload the genetic information to specialized genealogy databases, tracing distant relatives and building extensive family trees to identify potential suspects.

Kristen Mittleman [24:51]: "We were able to identify distant relatives that were both genetically related to the sample that we were trying to identify and also consented for being used in a forensic investigation."

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8. Contacting Potential Relatives

The genetic genealogy efforts led Othram to focus on a specific family line connected to a juvenile home for boys in Chehalis, Washington. This breakthrough pointed towards three brothers, siblings of John Ray Hoff, whose past included troubling criminal behavior. Although the brothers had all passed away, their living relatives, particularly Kathy Hoff, came into focus.

Sergeant Stormant reached out to Kathy in a sensitive manner, leaving a carefully crafted message to initiate contact without alarming her. Understanding the gravity of the situation, Kathy responded promptly, leading to a crucial meeting at the police station.

David Mittleman [34:31]: "There's going to be a moment in time where you as the cold case detective are the only person in the world that knows who killed that person. This is it."

The episode concludes with the tension of this pivotal meeting, leaving listeners eager for Part 2 to uncover whether this new lead will finally bring closure to Candy Rogers' tragic story.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Aylin Lance Lesser [00:33]: "For 62 years, no one knew who had taken her and dumped her body in the woods."

• Kathryn Fenollosa [01:49]: "People describe Candy as kind of small for her age. She was just shy of four and a half feet tall."

• David Mittleman [05:07]: "They do a pretty good job tracking the homes where she showed up."

• Aylin Lance Lesser [14:15]: "He was in fact a serial killer, did live in Spokane, and did kill women in Spokane proximate to Candy's death."

• Kristen Mittleman [21:33]: "There's like 60 years of investigative work going into figuring out what they can learn from that crime scene, and none of it led to the answer."

• Kristen Mittleman [24:51]: "We were able to identify distant relatives that were both genetically related to the sample that we were trying to identify and also consented for being used in a forensic investigation."

• David Mittleman [34:31]: "There's going to be a moment in time where you as the cold case detective are the only person in the world that knows who killed that person. This is it."

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This episode of America's Crime Lab masterfully intertwines historical context, emotional depth, and cutting-edge forensic science to shed light on a decades-old mystery. As the story progresses into Part 2, listeners can anticipate uncovering whether modern technology and unwavering determination can finally bring justice for young Candy Rogers and her grieving family.

Transcript

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[David Mittleman]

This is a case that we had supervisors, we had people here who said, quit wasting time on that case. This is not going to be solved. I got nervous about being the one carrying the ball right there on the one yard line because, oh God, I got to go through something that really good detectives have already failed at and hope that you can somehow find that needle in a haystack.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

In March of 1959, police in Spokane, Washington began searching for nine year old candy Rogers. The investigation would turn into one of the largest in Spokane's history. For 62 years, no one knew who had taken her and dumped her body in the woods. Local law enforcement call it the Mount Everest of cold cases. It was the crime that every officer was desperate to investigate, but no one could solve. This is America's crime Lab. I'm Aylin Lance Lesser. Producer Kathryn Fenollosa is here. This case really affected generations of people who lived in Spokane.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So, Alin, this is one of the oldest sexual assault cases ever to be solved with Othram's new DNA technology. And it's a case that no other lab would touch because of the age and condition of the evidence, which I'll get to in a second.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

So what's the story?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

This is 1959, Spokane, Washington. Candy Rogers is a nine year old girl and she lives with her mother above a grocery store. And her grandparents actually own the grocery store and they live next door.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh, I love when the family can be all close together and convenient to have the grocery store there. I can picture it. It's friendly. Probably more rural than it is today.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah. And Candy was an only child. Her mom, Elaine was a high school teacher and she also coached the boys tennis team. Candy's grandparents were super involved in her life, really helping to raise her. People describe Candy as kind of small for her age. She was just shy of four and a half feet tall. And Candy is a junior member of the Campfire Girls of America. Her group is called the Bluebirds.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh, yeah, the Campfire Girls. I think my mom was a part of that back in the day. It's kind of like the Girl Scouts.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah. And just like the Girl Scouts, they have a program to sell, instead of cookies, they sell mints. So she has seven boxes of mints to sell and she, she's super excited. She's come up with a plan with her mom that on the very first day of mint sales, she's gonna go door to door after school. So, you know, you can kind of get the picture. I don't know if you were a Girl Scout.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

I did brownies and then quit, so.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Oh.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Kind of, in a sense, failed.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So the Bluebirds are sort of the brownies, I think, of the Campfire girls.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh, okay. So I can relate.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

It's too perfect that her name is Candy, too, and she's selling mints.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

I know. It's very sweet. So she goes to school, and on her way home, she sees some neighbors. She gets home, they have a dog. She plays with the dog in the backyard. She has a little snack. And they have a rule with the campfire Girls, I think, that you're not allowed to sell mints before 4pm so even though some of the neighbors on her way home who saw her were like, hey, Candy, we want to buy mints. She sticks to the rules. And she's like, I will come back after four. So four o' clock comes around, and she heads out, and she starts going door to door.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

A woman of her word.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

She also has a rule with her mom that she needs to be home before dark. And at this time of year, dark is sort of 5, 35, 45. So the sun is setting, and Candy does not come home. And it's getting later, and she's still not home. Her grandparents and her mom, obviously are very worried, and they start going door to door. They find a neighbor who says, oh, yeah, she came by and we bought some mints. They go to some other houses where they're told, oh, a little girl came, but we didn't buy any mints. So she's definitely been in the neighborhood, but they still can't find her. And now Candy's family is really worried, and they call the police.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

So her family felt in their gut that she wasn't, like, hanging out at a friend's house.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah, I guess she was really good about being home before dark, the whole role she had with her mom. But I called Sergeant Zach Stormant with the Spokane Police Department to find out more. He said once police got the call from Candy's family, and they pretty much immediately started canvassing the neighborhood.

[David Mittleman]

Initially, patrol officers respond, and they recognize it as a big deal right away. So they do a pretty good job tracking the homes where she showed up. They found a home where she did sell a box of mints. They found others where she tried, and they said no.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So police are trying to create a map of what route Candy may have walked, and they establish a command post in this area of town, town called Doomsday Hill, where they actually set up a roadblock to Stop cars.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Seems like very quick action by the police.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And within hours, they have hundreds and hundreds of people looking for her. They're volunteers on horseback, motorcycles, their police cars going around. There are no signs of Candy, but eventually they do find boxes of the mints that she was selling. And they find them scattered on the side of the road. And based on what they find and how many homes they know she went to, they can determine that these are the mints that Candy was selling. They don't know why they were scattered.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

That's so haunting to imagine. We have a crumb of her path or what happened to her, but she's disappeared.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So night falls, and there's still really no sign of Candy. For the next two days, more people turn out to help. At one point, there are like 1500 people involved in the search. There's the Marines, Air Force veterans, the postal workers. Police are even ferrying neighbors on the backs of motorcycles and dropping them off to conduct grid searches.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Whoa. I feel like it just shows how difficult these types of searches can be.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And every morning, the two local newspapers are running front page stories on Candy's disappearance. Basically, all of Spokane is searching for this little girl. And then Sergeant Storman says something happens.

[David Mittleman]

As bad as it was, things got worse. The army sent a helicopter to help.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So the Spokane river cuts right through the city. And it's really impressive, Ailin. Parts of the river are really wide with these steep, rocky banks, and there are falls that tumble over rocks right in the heart of Spokane. And so the thinking is maybe Candy walked down near the river and she could have possibly fallen into the water. So the military deploys a helicopter to search above the river and its banks.

[David Mittleman]

Everybody that knows this area knows that river. One of the features of it is high tension power lines crossing it because there's so much hydroelectric power in this area. The helicopter hit those lines, went down into the water. There were a lot of people out searching the river banks already, and they saw it and described it as an explosion when it would hit the power lines.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

The helicopter tumbles down into the river. There are people searching along the riverbanks for Candy and in boats on the water. So they quickly rush to the crash site.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Were they okay?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So there are five airmen on board and only two survive.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh, God.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah. And it seems like everyone in Spokane either has a connection to Candy or to one of the airmen. And now the entire city is grief stricken, and there's still no signs of Candy.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

It makes me think that she's somehow hidden or she was taken Somewhere and is being held by someone. You know, if they're searching that thoroughly with that big of a team, it's kind of spooky.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

About 16 days after candy is last seen, there's a break in the case.

[David Mittleman]

There's a couple of airmen from Fairchild Air Force Base who decided to go hunting.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So a couple of guys from the nearby base head to a wooded area to hunt. And it's about seven miles from Candy's home. And as they're making their way through the brush and pine needles, they notice a pair of girls shoes.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

I feel like it's surprisingly common to see random things when you're on a hike.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah. And actually, these airmen don't really think anything of it, and so they go on hunting. But at the end of the day, one of the airmen is like, you know what? That's kind of bothering me. And these two shoes are placed very neatly and perfectly next to each other. And the airmen think, okay, that is super odd. They definitely did not drop out of a bag.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

That is so creepy.

[David Mittleman]

And they were aware of what was going on enough that it concerned them. They didn't report it immediately. But as the day progressed, they thought, we need to call somebody about that. So they called police, and graveyard officers went out for first light to search in that area. The search did not have to go far.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

So the police go to search this area in the woods where the hunters found a pair of very carefully placed girl shoes.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah. And Sergeant Stormant says officers from the overnight shift were the first ones to arrive. And they start looking around the area, which was covered in, like, a bed of pine needles and brushes.

[David Mittleman]

A patrolman noticed the little girl's knees sticking out from a slash pile. And this was in the immediate vicinity of where the shoes were found. So with that, it becomes a homicide investigation.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

The autopsy shows that Candy has been strangled with a piece of her own slip. Her feet are tied together, and she has been savagely raped.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

How horrific. We've done so many of these cases, but it still gets me. Are there any clues at the crime scene?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

This is 1959. The evidence that they have to work with are Candy's clothes. They can't find any evidence of who may have done this. One of the investigators working on the case at the time decides to put Candy's underwear into a glass mason jar to store it in the evidence room. The detectives I've spoken to said that was really a stroke of genius. It's not how evidence was stored at the time, but the fact that somebody did that enabled the evidence to be as well preserved as it possibly could be.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

It's just by chance in a way, I'm guessing.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Just by chance. Yeah. Isn't that wild?

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

And also in general, it seems like it strikes me that this whole community is invested in what's happened with Candy at this point. In some ways, it seems like a lot of things have gone right. Because you always hear about how when a child goes missing, those first few hours, those first 24 hours are so critical. And it sounds like everyone jumped to looking for her. And in a lot of ways, things were done thoroughly. People lost their lives in the search for Candy. It was quite a search. But then where do you go from there?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Sergeant Stormant says the entire community is determined to find out who killed Candy.

[David Mittleman]

Everybody has complete vested interest in this. And there's no issue in who's going to work it. Everybody's working it for quite a while. And they followed up on many, many leads. Tips came in from as far away as Florida.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So they start by looking at convicted sex offenders. But two people that pop up on the authorities radar, they each end up taking their own lives. Then detectives focus on one suspect.

[David Mittleman]

Eventually, a character named Hugh Morris became interesting, and for good reason. Because he was in fact a serial killer, did live in Spokane, and did kill women in Spokane proximate to Candy's death.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh, he sounds like a prime suspect.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah. Before Candy's murder, Hugh Morse had been picked up for indecent exposure and a string of burglaries in California. He spent six months in jail. And after he's released, he lures two eight year old girls into an alley with the promise of ice cream and he molests them.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

That sounds like a story you hear as a kid to scare you, but he's actually doing it.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah, no kidding. He's eventually declared a sexual psychopath and he's hospitalized. But then he's released a few years before Candy disappears. And that's when he shows up in Spokane.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

So the timing lines up.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

The timing totally lines up. And within a year of Candy's murder, Hugh Morris is suspecting of raping and murdering at least three women. And then he's all over the place. He moves from Spokane back to California, then Georgia, Ohio, Alabama. All along the way, he's breaking into women's homes, raping and beating them to death. Though a few women do survive, he's eventually put on the FBI's most wanted list. Whoa.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Yeah, it feels like he's totally unafraid to commit a slew of crimes. He's clearly a really dangerous person.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

He's finally caught two years after Candy's murder for the rape and murder of a woman in Minnesota, and he's sentenced to life. And that's where investigators in Candy's murder catch up with him.

[David Mittleman]

He became the best suspect for a long time, and they interviewed him in Minnesota, where he was eventually caught and serving time. And he acknowledged doing a lot of bad things, including victimizing children and women and murder, but he would not admit to Candy.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Hmm. So maybe he didn't do it if he's willing to admit to all these other things. But then again, I mean, maybe he somehow doesn't remember, considering he's committed so many crimes. Or you just never know what people's underlying motivations might be for lying about something like this. So who knows?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And I'm thinking of Carla Walker's case from our first four episodes, you know, where initially Glenn McCurley says he didn't do it, and then he just gets confused about all his various suspected victims.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

That whole concept is so dark that you've committed so many violent crimes. You're mixing them up, or you can't remember, or you can't keep them straight. Although I guess we don't know what's happening here.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So with few other suspects, no one is charged in Candy's murder, and the case goes cold.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

I mean, to know that this clearly innocent, sweet girl is gone, knowing also that she was brutally raped and then killed, I mean, it. It's one of the most violent crimes you can imagine.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And you hear about detectives saying, you know, there was a cold case that they always wanted solved before they retired. Candy's case became that case. For every detective that touched that file, it becomes the largest case file in Spokane history. So we're going to jump forward to 2001. DNA testing is becoming more of a thing with crime scene evidence. And the detectives in Spokane decide, hey, listen, let's give this a shot. So they had Candy's underwear preserved in a glass mason jar, and they send some of that off to a lab, and the lab is able to do the standard DNA testing, which is basically, they can pull DNA markers from the evidence, which was semen on her underwear, and they're able to develop a profile, and they load it into the federal FBI database, codis. But it's only helpful if you've committed a crime before and you've been identified.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Yeah.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And there are no hits in codis. It's a setback for everybody because every time you test DNA, you essentially Destroy it. So now they have less evidence to work with, and they really have not advanced the case forward because they still don't know who this is.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

That's so frustrating.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah. The case essentially sits cold again. Now we're going to jump forward again. 2018, 2019.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

So, wait, how long after Candy went missing is that so?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

We're like, roughly 60 years.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh, my goodness.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And Sergeant Zach Storman with the Spokane Police Department, he's picked up this case, he hears about the Golden State Killer being identified through DNA, and he starts to think, you know, what? DNA may have advanced so much. We have a chance to maybe solve this case. So Sergeant Storman reaches out to the same lab as before. They basically say, look, we just don't think that we're going to get anything more from your evidence. The DNA that they have left is a mixture of candies. And her assailants, we don't know exactly how long she was left out in this wooded area. There's plant DNA on it. There could be animal DNA on it. You know, it was exposed to the sun and to the elements. We just don't think that we can work with this degraded DNA. But it turns out that Paul Holes, who worked on the Golden State Killer case, he actually has a connection with the Spokane Police Department.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Of course he does. He's everywhere.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And he says, you've got to call this guy, David Mittleman. He runs a lab called Othram, and I think he might be able to help you out.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Yeah. And as we're starting to realize, not all testing is the same when it comes to dealing with degraded or really old evidence.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And so Sergeant Stormont reaches out to David and Kristen Mittleman, and he fills them in on the case. And Kristin says Candy's murder immediately hit home for them.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

We started looking into the case. Our daughter was nine years old at the time, so reading about. And she's real tiny. And they kept describing Candy Rogers as so small that she could only take a few of the mints at a time when she was delivering them. It just brought chills to both of us, and we knew we wanted to try to help.

[Kristen Mittleman]

There's like 60 years of investigative work going into figuring out what they can learn from that crime scene, and none of it led to the answer.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

But even David Mittleman has some initial questions about the quality of the evidence.

[Kristen Mittleman]

The challenge here is that the crime happened more than a half century ago. There's not a lot of DNA left that's in any decent condition. They had been shopping around the details of this DNA evidence to other groups. Nobody would accept the DNA.

[David Mittleman]

Surprisingly, I got a call from David Mittleman. I think that day or the next day really caught me off guard. I'm concerned about sample size and I don't want to consume it. I won't do that. He was very confident. He said this isn't going to be a problem. And given the fact he was willing to work with partial samples, I didn't see any reason not to try it.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

So what does Sergeant Stormont send?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

He sends Candy's underwear, which, remember, had been stored in that glass mason jar. But Alan, I was really curious how he sends the evidence because this is like a really big deal.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Yeah, I mean, I'd be very nervous, but what else can they do?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah, he's incredibly nervous. And he and Brittany Wright, who's a forensic scientist with the state police, they really have to brainstorm on how to get the DNA to Othram safely.

[David Mittleman]

Brittany built crazy containers. You know, almost like a kid in elementary school. At the egg drop competition, we talked about just putting it on a carry on bag and flying down and just delivering it that way. But Brittany had confidence with her shipping container we could send it that way. We did worry about that a lot because it's a terrible responsibility knowing the time is now. This does look like the technology is finally here to solve this case and worrying about to be the one to screw it up with a stupid error like shipping.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Thankfully, the evidence arrives at the lab and Ailin, all of it is treated just like it's at, like a state crime lab. It's immediately entered into their system and their chain of custody and, and you know, especially in cases like this one where the evidence is so small and so fragile, Othram really has to be precise about everything because, you know, remember once they test the DNA, it's destroyed. It's gone forever. So all of this is why Kristin Mittleman from OTHRAM says forensic scientists open the boxes of evidence in a special section of the lab. And, and it's a highly controlled environment.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

In these vestibules, air is filtered, they dress from head to toe, and then as they go through, they have the negative air that makes that room even more sterile. I get why they're being so careful because not only is this maybe the last chance they have to solve the case, but I mean, if this becomes evidence in a trial, you don't want any contamination or concerns about tampering, chain of custody, that type of thing.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah, I mean, Othram really has to prove that their methods will stand up in a courtroom if that's where it ends up. And now that the evidence is cataloged, David and his team go to work.

[Kristen Mittleman]

So we got a lot of really great data in spite of the fact that the quantity and the quality DNA was very limiting. And once we got that data, we built a SNP profile. This is literally a file that just has a list of all the different markers of DNA that we had collected hundreds of thousands of these markers.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Then the DNA profile is uploaded to genetic genealogy databases that agree to forensic investigations.

[Kristen Mittleman]

And so once we did that, we were able to identify distant relatives that were both genetically related to the sample that we were trying to identify and also consented for being used in a forensic investigation. And that led us to a key number of individuals.

[David Mittleman]

It was Labor Day weekend. I got a couple emails from Middleman saying, hey, can you look into this? Look into that? Small little details that to me were they were completely in a direction the case had no information on.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

David Mittleman wants Sergeant Storman to investigate something.

[David Mittleman]

He asked me to look into a boy's home in the Chehalis, Washington area and see if I could find a roster for it for that time frame.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

And immediately Sergeant Stormont knows. Oh, my God. Othram is onto a completely different suspect path than decades of detectives were.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Wait, what do you mean by boy's home?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So it was a bit of like a juvenile home for boys who were getting into trouble.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Got it. So the DNA led them there. Was it like a specific boy who was staying there?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

The DNA profile that they had built out as they start looking for people who are as closely related to the DNA that they've extracted from her underwear. And some names start popping up. And a boy, young man who attended this home may be related to whomever killed Candy.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

I see.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

But by the time Sergeant Storman has looked into the records of who attended this boy's home during these particular years that David Middleman was interested in, David calls him back and is like, listen, Zach, forget that.

[David Mittleman]

And the phone call came on Labor Day and I want to say it was around 6pm and for him, the CEO of the company be calling me on that time of day on that type of weekend, this was going to be a big deal. And it was one of those tingly neck moments. I'm expecting a big family tree. I'm expecting a of lot of work to do.

[Kristen Mittleman]

I called Zach and I said, I think I have a lead.

[David Mittleman]

He gave me three names, three brothers. And I Felt pretty confident. I think we have the name of Candy Rogers killer in this group.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Sergeant Storman is listening to David Middleman and the three names, all brothers. And one of them might be Candy's killer.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh, my goodness. It also just strikes me that this is 60 years after candy disappeared. So even if Candy were still alive at that point, she would be about 69 years old.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yes.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

And so I'd imagine a lot of the people who are around and deeply affected by this have since passed away or have aged a lot. But the fact that people are still actively trying to think of creative new ways to solve the case just shows what a deep impact this case had because it's almost like a generational thing. Now it's the sons and daughters who have heard this story that are still being affected and still wanting to have answers.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Actually, one of Candy's cousins, a woman named Penny, is still alive.

[David Mittleman]

Her health was fading fast. I actually drove to her house that night to make sure she got to hear that, hey, we're going to figure this out. And she was so, so relieved. It was pretty incredible to see that. The next morning I go in and start doing research on those three brothers.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Now it's on Detective Storman. He needs to find out whether these three brothers are still living and if they're not, if they have survivors, children who are alive. And you are absolutely right, this is a very old case. But some of the detectives that had worked on this when she was abducted are still alive. I mean, it's just incredible.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

It's been following them around for decades.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So Sergeant Stormont learns pretty quickly that the three brothers had all lived in small Spokane, but they've all since died.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh. So they can't ask them for DNA. Are there, like, any relatives they could check with?

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So he learns through the family tree that one of the brothers, John Ray.

[David Mittleman]

Hoff, had children and they were all local. Othram had the names and actually contact information for three of the four. They didn't for daughter named Kathy, which made her a little more interesting to me.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Yeah, I could see that. The one that's the most mysterious catches his attention.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah. So Sergeant Stormont decides to call Kathy, John Rahoff's daughter.

[David Mittleman]

First, she didn't answer, and her voicemail struck me as a super kind person because it simply said, I'm not available. I'll get back to you. And something to the effect of God bless you. Have a great day.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

This is not a call I'd want to make. I mean, you have to call a woman you don't know, out of the blue and say, hey, I think maybe your dad might have been involved in a murder 60 years ago. Oh, and it's also the rape and murder of a little girl. I mean, you're about to potentially ruin someone's life.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Yeah, completely. I mean, he said he absolutely dreads these calls.

[David Mittleman]

I've done a number of them now. They're stressful for me. If you run into the wrong person, they're going to alert the entire family and essentially circle the wagons against you. That's my fear. So finding that right person to be the introduction to this and let them know, we're not going to view you as evil. You are the good guy in this, and you're actually a victim, too. And that I'm about to tear down, your impression of a loved one and what you thought of them is going to be changed forever.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

But there's something about Kathy's voice and the way she says, have a great day. She just feels approachable. So he leaves a message with his phone number.

[David Mittleman]

I was very vague in it. I said, I'm a detective with the Spokane Police Department. Would you please give me a call back? I have something interesting I want to talk to you.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

If I got that voicemail, I would be calling that number right away.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Well, you're right, because Kathy calls back pretty quickly.

[David Mittleman]

And she happened to be at a casino nearby.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Sergeant Storman asked Kathy if she'd come by the police station so they could talk in person.

[David Mittleman]

She brought her daughter with her, but she did come down to the detectives building right away.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

So Sergeant Storman sits down with Kathy and her daughter, and he's asking her questions, but he's really careful not to tip her off right away. He does mention this has to do with an old cold case.

[David Mittleman]

It's hard to be vague on a 1959 case. She knows it's older than her dad's death, and she's very. She's struck by this.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Kathy's daughter has her cell phone with her, and Sergeant Stormant can see she's actually doing an Internet search for cold cases from 1959.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Oh, my God. So much tension in this room.

[David Mittleman]

I don't want to reveal details of the case. I still have that concern that they'll circle the wagons and make it very difficult for me. The horror is hitting her as we're speaking. It's hitting her daughter. Her daughter eventually said, mom, he needs your DNA.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Next time on America's Crime Lab.

[David Mittleman]

It does not take a lot to turn one of these from Stone cold. No one's ever going to solve this. To red hot. Here's a list of names.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

It takes a while for it to.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

Like, sink in and anger sadness.

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

Someone that a little girl murdered in 1959.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

So I knew who it was.

[David Mittleman]

There's going to be a moment in time where you as the cold case detective are the only person in the world that knows who killed that person. This is it.

[Kathryn Fenollosa]

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

[Aylin Lance Lesser]

This is an iHeart podcast.