AKA 137F - Part 1 (Brook Baker)

Summary

Anatomy of Murder – AKA 137F, Part 1 (Brook Baker)

Podcast: Anatomy of Murder
Hosts: Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, Scott Weinberger
Original Air Date: August 26, 2025 (Rerelease from 2021)
Episode Theme: The brutal murder of Brooke Baker, the complexities of the investigation, and why answers proved so elusive.

Overview

This episode meticulously dissects the 1997 murder of 18-year-old Brooke Baker, a journalism student at Vincennes University in Indiana. Hosts Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger, alongside retired prosecutor Hal Johnston, explore the layers of the victim, the crime, and the investigation. The episode captures the frustrations and dead ends encountered by investigators and discusses the persistent rumor-mill in a small college town, the painstaking effort to match forensic evidence, and the impact of a cold case on a community. The discussion culminates in drawing connections to a possible serial killer.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing the Investigation

• Prosecutor Hal Johnston's Background
  • Extensive service in law and military (03:50–05:08).
  • “2001, 9/11 hit, my brigade was activated and I’ve done three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.” — Hal Johnston (04:58)
• Brooke Baker: The Victim
  • 18-year-old journalism student, “wanted to be a woman in control of herself” (05:35, 05:52).
  • Lived off-campus, often couch-surfing, no roommate at time of murder (06:07).
  • “She did not drink alcohol at all and she was not involved in drugs at all.” — Hal Johnston (05:35)

2. Discovery of the Crime

• Brother’s Discovery
  • Braun Baker couldn’t reach Brooke, let himself into her dark, quiet apartment (06:32–06:48).
  • Found water running in the bathroom, towels in an overflowing tub (06:48–07:00).
  • Discovered Brooke motionless; initially thought she was asleep (07:00–07:19).
• Crime Scene Description
  • Brooke stabbed (almost a dozen times), nude, body posed (08:08–08:51).
  • “Her arms were literally spread out, almost in a crucifix position.” — Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi (08:45)
  • No forced entry; led investigators to suspect someone she knew (09:03).
  • No signs of theft but indications the killer cleaned up (09:54–10:17).
  • Knife with a bent blade left in the sink (10:28–10:43).

3. Initial Theories and Suspicions

• Profiling the Crime

  • Signs of both organization (clean-up, no forced entry) and disorganization (murder weapon left behind, water running) (10:43–11:55).
  • “Posing of the bodies are more often than not… men.” — Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi (10:43)
  • Marks on wrists/ankles — belief she was bound (12:02).
  • The expectation it would be "solved quickly" due to the nature of the scene (12:17–13:13).

• Community Impact and Pressure

  • Murder rocked the “safe” town and university (13:52–14:16).
  • Public meetings, student outrage, and political pressure (14:23).
  • DNA evidence confirmed sexual assault; wide net cast for suspects (14:31).

4. Dead Ends and DNA Frustrations

• DNA Analysis Challenges

  • Systematic DNA collection; all initial, known potential partners/cohorts “no match” (14:51–15:35).
  • Reference to the unidentified DNA as “137F” (15:55).
  • “No match on 137F. That’s what we heard over and over and over again.” — Hal Johnston (16:41)
  • Avoiding confirmation bias while pursuing leads and DNA samples (16:58–17:20).
  • 13 suspects eliminated by December 1997; the investigation “seemingly endless” (18:19).

• Rumor Mill and Unreliable Leads

  • “The rumor mill is just going wild” at the university (18:47).
  • Community and campus tipped possible perpetrators, leading to repeated dead ends (19:12).

5. Turning to New Suspects and Theories

• Landlord Suspicion

  • Suspicion fell on Mike Nardine, landlord and college law enforcement member (22:02).
  • Rumors of inappropriate behavior, unannounced visits—he was cleared by DNA (23:42).
  • Importance of following every lead for prosecutorial thoroughness (24:22).

• Narrowing Timeline and Last Known Encounters

  • Challenge reconstructing Brooke’s final hours due to college-party chaos (25:13).
  • Last man with her admitted consensual sex but was DNA excluded (25:49–26:52).
  • Scientific analysis excluded him; his DNA didn’t match the semen sample (27:19).

• Investigating Brooke’s Journalist Aspirations

  • Rumor Brooke was working on an expose about a fraternity rape—had reported feeling threatened (29:22–31:06).
  • Police confirmed the alleged assault was consensual, not a rape (32:40).
  • Ruling out murder as retaliation for her investigative work (33:20).

6. Case Goes Cold & Investigative Strategies

• Cold Case Status
  • After 18 months, the case stagnated; community and law enforcement faced frustration (33:44–34:19).
  • “You have to go back to the beginning”—re-interviewing friends, acquaintances, and anyone with access to the apartment (34:19).
• Chasing an Out-of-State Lead
  • Focus on former roommate’s boyfriend in LA (significant drug dealer); complex cooperation with LA PD and DA to get DNA (34:39–36:10).
  • Hal Johnston recounts navigating legal hurdles and cultural differences with LA police (37:05–38:21).
  • After all the effort, he’s cleared — another “negative on 137F” (41:20).

7. Psychological Profiling & Looking for Patterns

• FBI Behavioral Science Unit Involvement

  • Team from Quantico provides a meaningful profile (43:05–44:41):
    • Likely a white male, known to Brooke, a university student living nearby.
    • “Most likely his first kill.” — FBI profilers via Hal Johnston (46:26)
    • Predicted sexually aggressive/offender; attack personal, with some crime scene mistakes (46:09–46:42).
    • Posing deemed to be “for shock value” (46:57).
    • Urged not to rule out transients, but focus narrowed (47:05).

• Link to Prior Unsolved Case

  • Investigators consider a similar murder from almost a decade prior — another young, white, female student, alone, stabbed and sexually assaulted (47:23–47:37).
  • The notion arises that a serial killer might be at work, with chilling foreshadowing: “There will be another tragedy in Vincennes, Indiana.” — Scott Weinberger (47:51).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Investigative Process:

  • “All these leads, all these rumors…it was time-consuming. But one of those leads ultimately comes back to someone who has nothing to do with being a student at all.” — Hal Johnston (19:12)
  • “We interviewed him, we determined he was working that night. He voluntarily gave a DNA sample and he was excluded.” — Hal Johnston, on the landlord (23:42)
  • “I had to write a search warrant for California. So I ended up with like a 60-page document…because I’m going to be in front of a LA Superior Court judge like, ‘Where the hell’s Vincennes, Indiana?’” — Hal Johnston (37:05)

• On Community Impact:

  • “It was the kind of town in which you really feel you can walk around and crimes like this just don’t happen.” — Hal Johnston (13:52)

• On Psychological Profiling:

  • “An organized killer is more likely to cover their tracks…disorganized is maybe something like leaving a knife floating in the sink…” — Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi (45:01)
  • “They said, here’s what you’re probably looking for. They said it’s most likely a white male that she knows, most likely a university student and he lives close to Brooke.” — Hal Johnston on FBI profile (45:42–45:53)
  • “They said it’s most likely his first kill.” — Hal Johnston (46:26)

• On Cold Case Frustration:

  • “Every one of those investigators is picturing the way Brooke Baker’s body was left. And so they want every one of them to be the answer, just to give Brooke and her family that closure…” — Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi (42:09)

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Important Timestamps

• 06:07–08:08: Discovery of the crime scene and condition of Brooke’s apartment/body.
• 10:28–11:55: Examination of the murder weapon and its significance.
• 15:55–16:41: Adoption of “137F” as the shorthand for the unknown DNA contributor.
• 18:19–19:12: Massive scope of DNA testing and its dead ends.
• 22:02–23:42: Rumors and suspicion focused on landlord/law enforcement figure.
• 25:30–27:57: Tracking Brooke’s last seen, ruling out last partner.
• 29:22–33:23: Exploring rumors that Brooke was targeted for her journalistic investigation.
• 34:19–37:05: Cross-country efforts to obtain a DNA sample from a suspicious ex-roommate’s boyfriend.
• 43:05–46:57: Detailed report on FBI profilers’ analysis and guidance.
• 47:23–47:51: Link considered to an earlier unsolved murder and speculation about a serial killer.

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Episode Flow and Tone

The tone is methodical, serious, and deeply empathetic, especially regarding Brooke Baker and her family's suffering. The hosts provide professional insights without sensationalism, guiding listeners through every frustrating setback. Hal Johnston’s firsthand recollections lend a matter-of-fact, sometimes weary candor (“enormous amount of work, but that's how painstaking we were,” (41:20)), and Anna-Sigga’s legal perspective highlights both investigative rigor and the emotional toll.

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Conclusion

This episode captures the emotional and procedural labyrinth of investigating a cold-case college murder—chronicling every logical lead, every procedural cross-check, and every heartbreak of another “no match.” The use of the codename “137F” for the unknown DNA symbolizes both the hope and the limitations of forensic science at the time. The case’s complexity, the deep wounds to a small town, and the razor-thin margins for error when investigating such a crime all underscore why the Anatomy of Murder return to this episode remains so compelling. The case remains unsolved at episode’s end, with the ominous suggestion that another tragedy in Vincennes is on the horizon—setting up for further developments in Part 2.

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Transcript

[Kylie Lowe]

Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too. I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling. Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light. Let Listen to Dark down east wherever you get your podcasts.

[Scott Weinberger]

Anatomy of Murder is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. As Amica says, empathy is our best policy. From listening to your insurance needs to following up after a claim, Amica provides coverage with care and compassion. Because as a mutual insurer, Amica is built for its customers and prioritizes you. Isn't that the way insurance should be? At Amica, your peace of mind matters. Visit ameca.com and get your quote Today.

[Hal Johnston]

The future of Downton Abbey is now in Mary's hands.

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It's the grand finale we've been waiting for. See it on the biggest screen possible.

[Kylie Lowe]

It will be a sensation with scandalous.

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Twists and shocking revelations.

[Hal Johnston]

Should wives have secrets from their husbands?

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Definitely, but not the other way around.

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The best is yet to come, so.

[Scott Weinberger]

Off we go for our next adventure.

[Hal Johnston]

I like the sound of that.

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Downton Abbey the grand finale. Gritty PG parental guidance suggested only in theater September 12th. Get tickets now.

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[Scott Weinberger]

AOM is off this week, but we thought we'd reintroduce you to a previous Anatomy of murder episode.

[Advertisement Voice]

Actually two AKA 137F and the second.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Part AKA 137F strikes again.

[Advertisement Voice]

They aired this very same month four years ago.

[Scott Weinberger]

The three homicide cases featured in those episodes are an important reminder that cold cases can be solved. They're a great example for families that are still waiting for answers in cases of their own loved ones. Don't give up hope.

[Advertisement Voice]

If you've never listened to these episodes, here you go. Both episodes will be re released today. If you listened when they originally aired.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Back in 2021, they're worth the re listen.

[Hal Johnston]

It was the case. TV stations in Indianapolis, TV stations in Chicago carried stories about it for the first time. I get a phone call one night from my sister in Texas and said, were you just on tv? I've got one defendant, two separate murders linked. Now everybody's looking at me because if he's found not guilty, guess who gets blamed? Me.

[Scott Weinberger]

I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

I'm Anna Sega Nicolasi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

[Scott Weinberger]

And this is Anatomy of Murder.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Homicide cases have many complexities, but this is one of those true whodunits. For today's case, I spoke with Hal Johnston, who's a retired Madison County, Indiana prosecutor.

[Hal Johnston]

My father was a U.S. navy veteran, World War II became circuit judge. So I grew up in a law family. A friend of mine one day over lunch, he said, you know, he said, you've got a really good temperament. I think you'd make a good policeman. I had never thought in my life of being a policeman. I went through the academy, was trained, commissioned, and spent three years as a uniformed officer in Bloomington. And my family wasn't very happy about that. So I went ahead and started law school. And that's when, when I discovered the prosecutor and was like, these are the guys who really put him in prison. So that led me into the prosecution.

[Scott Weinberger]

Not only had Hal been a career homicide prosecutor, he also served a distinguished career in the military.

[Hal Johnston]

After a couple of years, I really wanted to get in the military, so I volunteered for Naval aviation and went into US Navy. So I put my law degree inactive for four years because I was on an aircraft carrier serving as what's called a tactical aviation intelligence officer. Served in the Persian Gulf and I'd been a paratrooper also in the Navy. I'd gone through army airborne school, so I transferred over to an infantry brigade with the National Guard.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

He has been a true public servant for many, many years.

[Hal Johnston]

2001, 9, 11 hit my brigade was activated and I've done three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and then retired out of the army as a lieutenant colonel in 2014.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

His background really works into making him the powerhouse that you'll see that he is.

[Scott Weinberger]

Our case begins on September 7, 1997.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Braun Baker, an 18 year old, would often go to visit his sister Brooke, who was a student at Vincennes University.

[Scott Weinberger]

Brooke was a really well liked student at Vincennes University. She was studying journalism and her dream was to be an investigative journalist.

[Hal Johnston]

Brooke was interesting. She did not drink alcohol at all and she was not involved in drugs at all. She would go to parties, but she wouldn't consume anything. And part of that, I think, from the more I learned about her, she really wanted to be a woman in control of herself.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And Vincennes University, for those that aren't familiar with it, it's a school of about 5,500. So while it's a large school, being where it is, it still has a small town feel. And she lived off campus in a.

[Advertisement Voice]

Home that was only about a block away.

[Hal Johnston]

She had gone through a series of roommates. She didn't move into a dormitory, but she found friends to kind of stay with. She was almost like she was couch surfing. The summer she stayed with her cousin for a few weeks, and then the cousin graduated from Indiana University and she moved out to Los Angeles. So at the time, she did not have a roommate.

[Scott Weinberger]

So Bron Baker went to his sister's house.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

19 years old, she would leave her.

[Advertisement Voice]

Door often unlocked for him.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But he also had a key, just in case. And he'd gone by to see his sister that day multiple times. No one answered. And so eventually he just let himself in. The apartment was dark and quiet, and he sat down and assumed she wasn't home and started to watch some tv.

[Hal Johnston]

Here's the thing, though, that was really interesting. When Braun came in, he heard water running in the bathroom. And he went back and the bathtub was almost overflowing, and in it were towels.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And as he found water in the bathroom, he also saw into the bedroom where he saw his sister. At first he thought she was asleep because her body lay motionless, looking from afar, peaceful. But as he got closer, he saw that she was anything but.

[Scott Weinberger]

After he realized she was unresponsive and what had happened to her, he immediately called police.

[Hal Johnston]

Well, I received a call at home that there had been a homicide. One of the things I've done over the years is to go to the scene. I'm not there to interfere with the police, but I'm already trying to learn as much as I can about the case. She was in her bedroom. Now, the house was an older house, so it was like a series of small rooms. And she had turned the front room into her bedroom. And there was a doorway then leading into what she was using as essentially a living room. Then another small room off to the side, and then the kitchen in the back. This is a small house built probably around 1910. Wood frame, single family dwelling. Would have been 1910, 1920s. Her bedroom, she simply had a mattress on the floor. There was no real furniture and just piles of clothing everywhere.

[Scott Weinberger]

First Officers to arrive at Brooke's apartment quickly established Brooke dead and stabbed in what looked like a vicious attack.

[Hal Johnston]

It was very, very violent. And I've seen a lot of different homicides. She was nude, she was displayed, she was on. But the stab wounds were almost all in her back.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

When Hal Johnson talks about her being displayed, we're really talking about the body being positioned or posed by the killer.

[Scott Weinberger]

Although she had been stabbed almost a dozen times, the killer chose to flip her on her back, placing her in that posed position.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Her arms were literally spread out, almost in a crucifix position.

[Scott Weinberger]

In the cases of female victims, pose bodies are more likely to include a sexual assault component and sometimes just to shock the investigators. Almost a catch me if you can type of element.

[Hal Johnston]

Our assumption was at this point that it was most likely a sexual offense. But we saw no evidence of forced entry. So our first thought is this is someone who knows her.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And so you really have to start to wonder about the makeup of the killer, whoever it was. Is it to shock the finder? Is it to give some sort of pleasure to the killer, him or herself?

[Hal Johnston]

She had severe bruising around the head. She's been beaten. I think there were 11 stab wounds. But what the doctor discovered was that there was evidence of hesitancy. So some of the wounds were maybe half inch or half inch deep, and then a couple of them went really deep in.

[Scott Weinberger]

So let's just add a few of the crime scene facts together. You know, no forced entry. As we've said, the victim had extensive bruising around her face. She had defensive wounds. You know, a real sign of a violent struggle.

[Hal Johnston]

And when police came to process the scene, the towels appeared to have blood on them. And so what we appeared to have was a scene in which the individual had cleaned up. So what this indicated to us is with no forced entry, the perpetrator felt comfortable enough to have the time to go back and clean things up, that he knows that she doesn't have a roommate, so no one's going to come by.

[Scott Weinberger]

Adding to the discovery inside the crime scene was in the sink. There was water running, and there were several utensils floating around in that water in the sink.

[Hal Johnston]

They photographed it. They took all of the materials out of the sink and as they removed them, one was a very, very long, looked like a bread knife, maybe had a 12 inch blade to it, wooden handle, and it was bent.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And just to hypothesize for a moment about this killer, there are certain things that at least start to have you go in various Directions. There are certain things that are somewhat disorganized and other things that are organized. Killers that are highly organized often don't leave many clues behind. But yet there was still the water was running. That knife was found in the sink. And if that knife is actually the murder weapon, the fact that it's left behind really kind of goes to someone who may not go with the organized component of a killer that actually goes to the lengths of posing or displaying his or her victim. Now I'll use his, because killers that do these things, the posing of the bodies are more often than not based on the numbers men. But I want to look at the murder weapon for a moment, or at least what is thought maybe to be the murder weapon, this knife found in the sink. And not to get overly gruesome, but if we just want to talk evidence and meaning for a moment, that bending of the knife, if it was in fact used, then that means the bending was probably because it was hitting off of some type of bone.

[Hal Johnston]

You know, she'd been stabbed in the back. It's possible that this is the weapon and he hit a rib and bent it or something.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And one more thing to note about Brooke Baker's body. She had markings, bruising around her ankles and her wrists, which led investigators to quickly deduce that she had likely also been bound.

[Hal Johnston]

My initial thought was this should be solved fairly quickly. It's going to be somebody she knows, and I'm confident that within a day or two, you know, we're going to have somebody under arrest. That, of course, didn't quite turn out that way.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Scott, Hal's comment really goes to the truth of it, that none of this is an actual science. And I think all of us in this line of work can think back to various instances that we have had similar thoughts and been sorely disappointed in the actuality. How about you?

[Scott Weinberger]

That's 100% true. Especially when a murder weapon is found at the scene of a murder, you know, there are several forensic things that you can take advantage of. If it's a handgun, clearly you've got shell casings, fingerprints. Things that are associated with a quick clearance of a crime usually involve the murder weapon being found at the scene. So, you know, it's coming together pretty quick, but it was an aggressive statement to be made.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Let's talk a little bit about where this is taking place.

[Hal Johnston]

Vincennes, Indiana, which is the county seat of Knox County. It's a town of about 20,000 people, but it also has a university, Vincennes University. Brooke was Born and raised in Knox county, she graduated from high school and she was attending Vincennes University, trying to get a degree in journalism. Our focus then on interviews was people from the university who she knew, potential boyfriends and that type of thing.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, I really see two communities to speak of in this case. You know, the small town of Vincennes, but the community of the university she was attending, both clearly rocked by the murder of Brooke Baker.

[Hal Johnston]

It's the kind of town in which you really feel you can walk around and crimes like this just don't happen. I mean, the murders were infrequent, so it really sent shockwaves through the community and really sent shockwaves through the university, because this is the type of town you could walk around at 3 or 4 in the morning, and you really didn't have to worry about anything like this happening. So it was a community that felt safe, and suddenly it didn't feel safe anymore.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And everyone takes anything that happens within those community walls, those college walls, if you will, very seriously.

[Hal Johnston]

There were public meetings held, and there was outrage. You know, why aren't the police doing anything? And politicians wanting to kind of go at each other.

[Scott Weinberger]

With a fully processed crime scene and now serological evidence collected in the autopsy confirming this was a sexual assault, homicide investigators began to develop their plan and throw out a wide net of potential suspects. But obviously, in these cases, you always allow the evidence to lead the way.

[Hal Johnston]

We're investigating a male who knows her because he's able to get in. So we began investigating some of the men with whom she had had intercourse. And we would have to track them down and do a DNA analysis. And almost all of them cooperated. Then we had to wait for the DNA to come back. And that could take anywhere from, you know, three to four weeks because the laboratory is not going to rush things. They've got a protocol. And one of the things I said was, follow the protocol, because if I ever have to present this in court, I don't want to have a problem.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

That is so at the top of our list as prosecutors and often law enforcement. We think about down the line.

[Hal Johnston]

And so I'd get a phone call. No match. Another month, another individual, send in the sample. No match.

[Scott Weinberger]

You can hear the frustration in Hal's voice. Another no match. You know, we've talked at length on this podcast about the collection of DNA and how the slow but effective advancements in the technology has occurred over years. But this, this still is 1997, and that is moving slowly. For this investigation.

[Hal Johnston]

We did Visit Indianapolis state police headquarters. Because DNA analysis at that time was being conducted by the state police in Indianapolis. They were showing me the actual evidence itself because I wanted to make sure the chain of custody had been handled correctly. The rape kit used during the autopsy. So the box itself with the rape kit is 137. The components within it then have. There's 137A. 137. The Siemens sample had been given the designation 137F. And I said, well, at least we have a name for the guy. I said, It's 137F. Through the rest of the investigation, if I got a phone call or a message, it would be no match on 137F. That's what we heard over and over and over again.

[Scott Weinberger]

This is a great detail, and I think an important one. It puts the investigator into a mindset. The owner of DNA137F was likely the killer, the target of this investigation, and their sole focus of connecting 137F to a name.

[Hal Johnston]

So we're looking now for 137F. Now, what we wanted to do, though, was be careful to not make any assumptions, because we just didn't know. I mean, was Brooke killed by some girlfriend who was angry because Brooke had had a relationship? We just don't know. In any homicide investigation, you want to be careful about making assumptions and sticking to it, because then you. You get confirmation bias.

[Scott Weinberger]

Confirmation bias is a tendency to selectively search for emphasized information that's consistent with a preferred hypothesis. And that sounds like a lot of words. You know, it's where opposing information is ignored or dismissed. And, you know, it works really on both sides when investigators are talking to witnesses and they're not listening to all of the information, because sometimes the investigators are themselves may have a mindset of what they think may be or may be important to the investigation. And so confirmed bias is a theory. It works on both sides of witnesses giving information and investigators developing that information. So, you know, I think everyone needs to be aware of that, But I don't think it plays very much into the average homicide case.

[Hal Johnston]

The complexity of DNA analysis and trying to track down all these different boyfriends or potential boyfriends. And then over and over and over again, the sample was inconsistent with the contributor.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And over and over, they just keep hitting dead ends. By the end of that year in December, they had already asked for samples and gotten DNA samples from 13 potential suspects, and every single one of them ended up no match. But with this being a college community, there are so many potential leads. So many rumors feeding into all of this that really the paths they have to go down is seemingly endless.

[Hal Johnston]

The problem with Vincennes University, the rumor mill is just going wild over there and people would call and say, oh, I have information. You know, you need to look at this person because he said such and such. Well, then you would spend days trying to track that person down. Or they might have moved back home by then and we got to travel all over the state to interview them and you find out they didn't quite say what somebody claimed they said. So a lot of dead ends. In this case, it was time consuming.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But one of those leads ultimately comes back to someone who has nothing to do with being a student at all.

[Advertisement Voice]

But very much someone who was at.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Least supposed to be on the right side of the law.

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[Scott Weinberger]

As investigators looking into the murder of Brooke Baker clearly found out solving her murder was going to be easy. And several potential leads had already been cleared by DNA. Then a turn in the form of a brand new lead.

[Hal Johnston]

Some of Brooke's friends were talking about Mike Nardine, who was the landlord, and that Brooke had made comments that he felt uneasy around her.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

This landlord was also part of the college law enforcement.

[Hal Johnston]

Sometimes he would drive by at night and shine the light up on the house.

[Scott Weinberger]

And then there was more. It seems the landlord may have made a few unannounced visits to collect back rent, even reportedly while she was in the shower.

[Hal Johnston]

Now, some people in the community seized on this. The rumors are running rampant. They're pointing at him, saying he's the one who did this.

[Scott Weinberger]

Now this could be a huge problem for investigators, members of the public likely trying to do the right thing, getting caught up in the so called telephone game tips, hearing something or adding opinion as if it was a fact or a detail.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Remember, Hal Johnson's background helped him in lots of ways. First of all, this is a guy who in many ways has seen it all. He has been in combat more than once. He has seen people turn right when everyone else thought they were going to turn left. And I think being able to take a step back and be much more methodical really helps in the investigation to make sure that he too, together with the other team members working on this case, aren't going to get that tunnel vision. They're going to stay open minded because when the public starts to decide who it has to be, well, we can all imagine why that can be potentially very dangerous, not only for the investigation, but for the person who is targeted as the focus of that community interest.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, we've seen cases where people have taken the law into their own hands only to learn that someone else had been arrested.

[Hal Johnston]

We interviewed him, we determined he was working that night. He voluntarily gave a DNA sample and he was excluded. There was no evidence that he had made any sexual advances to her or anything like that. No indication that he had Ever suggested having sex or anything like that.

[Scott Weinberger]

Another seemingly solid lead that really went nowhere. And there is a real important point to be made here, and I know one Ana Siga that you have looked into in your cases as well. You need to run down every lead. As you know, not only doing that to limit your ability to find a new suspect, but if it comes back in a prosecution of the case that you did not follow every lead, that could be an opportunity for a defense.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

I can't tell you how many times I've had to literally hit my forehead while I'm investigating saying, oh my gosh, how did they not follow up on this? And again, there's always so many moving parts in the investigation. But as a prosecutor, we know that when you go into court that the defense may very well use that open ended question to their advantage.

[Hal Johnston]

We have to go through everything because we can't receive information and do nothing. Because if I go to trial and the defense attorney comes in and says, did you receive a report on this date indicating that a witness was willing to give a statement and you didn't interview that person? That's what I didn't want to have. I wanted the police people to say, yes, we interviewed that person. It was tape recorded. Here's the conversation, here's what we learned. It was another dead end. So no matter what the information was, no matter how crazy it sounded, we would follow that up. And so that's very time consuming.

[Scott Weinberger]

One obvious thing for investigators was still trying to develop a timeline on the night that Brooke was murdered. Some of the interviews pointed towards a possible sighting of Brooke that night, hours before the murder. Then other information and witnesses gave different accounts. It was really wasn't becoming crystal clear.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And just think about the difficulty in that. I mean, it's a night that college kids are out and about. There is just party after party down fraternity row and the various houses that are near the campus. So it's really having to go to the students to say, who remembers where Brooke was? Did you see her?

[Advertisement Voice]

Where was she?

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Not only if they saw her, but.

[Hal Johnston]

When we did find a young man that she had met at one of the parties on the north side of the campus, she walked with him back home and they had consensual intercourse.

[Scott Weinberger]

Obviously this is a big deal. Remember, the autopsy did recover semen which could confirm and connect that potential suspect to our victim.

[Hal Johnston]

We tracked him down and he gave us the clothes he was wearing. He gave us a DNA sample. He gave us a full statement. He said, look, I was in There, Brooke and I had sex. We were done, and I left.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So you have a name, you know, someone who had, by their own words, a sexual experience with her that night and, you know, have DNA that, you know is from semen. So is that going to connect? But let's just say that it does. Now, was that consensual and then someone came afterwards, or is this just a ruse on the part of this guy to try to cover his tracks for the brutal acts he committed that night?

[Hal Johnston]

So we did the DNA analysis. It was not consistent with him. So that was the last person that she was with. He put the time he left around 1 to 1:30am so for interval of death purposes, this is 1:30 in the morning on Sunday. And then Braun found her in the early evening. So probably a good 15 hours had passed.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So the question you might have is, well, if he says that they had sex that night, well, why wasn't his DNA on her body? Well, okay, let's go back to Health Class 101, which we may remember from junior high. There are different ways to cover that. First of all, was a condom worn? Also, they are partying that night. They are drinking. Because there is some sort of sexual relationship between them doesn't mean that it was fully consummated or that there would ultimately be any biological matter, for lack of a better word, left behind. And I think we can leave it there.

[Scott Weinberger]

And they also use science to confirm his story because they were able to determine in the timeline of when they spent time and when they may have had consensual sex that even if it was involving him, the timeline wouldn't match the serological sample.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So a couple of things here. You know, we are letting out some of Brooke's more personal details, if you will. And I just want us to remember this is. We're talking about this because we're trying to figure out about who brutally killed her that night.

[Advertisement Voice]

She was a young woman.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Whether she was a young woman or a man, whatever a person, people have the right to have whatever type of relationships they want. But investigators only care because they're trying to figure out who killed her. But every bit of everyone is relevant in trying to come to that end. But nothing is panning out. None of the people she had been intimate with are responsible. None of these friends or people that would have had access to her apartment are panning out. And so if it's not a jilted ex lover, if it's not a someone who had a key, then is there something else, maybe more complex at the root of this all. And there's another rumor floating out there that paints a different picture about what may have happened to Brooke, and that is talk about a secret on that campus.

[Hal Johnston]

People we interviewed that knew her talked about a story that she was working on where she claimed there had been a rape at a local fraternity.

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[Scott Weinberger]

With weeks now leading into months, police were on to a new potential theory. Could this murder have been an attempt to silence Brooke as she was about to break a story as an investigative journalist about a potential unsolved sexual assault.

[Hal Johnston]

On campus and that nothing was being done about this? And she said she was going to blow the lid off this case and the whole thing. And she was telling people about this.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And there was a definite fear factor within Brooke to the point that she actually reached out to the head of the journalism department department to say that she was being threatened.

[Advertisement Voice]

And the head of the journalism department.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Over at Vincennes took it so seriously that he actually walked her over to the campus police to file a report.

[Scott Weinberger]

So, you know, Anasega, this also adds another level of the focus that investigators need to maintain. You know, a lot of people on campus are pointing fingers. We've heard this already in this podcast. But now we have another case of a potential assault on campus, and investigators really need to remain focused on the evidence that's in front of them.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And it also makes it messier on other levels because whether this is true or not, whether there was this actual sexual assault or it was, again, just.

[Advertisement Voice]

A product of the rumor mill.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The university itself may put their back up, because in today's day and age, we all know that there can be potential liability, there can be lawsuits, there could be claims, whether from the survivor, if that was in fact a sexual assault, or even if it is from Brooke's own family, if there is liability on the part of the university for knowing that as part of her work there and time as a student, that she was ultimately victimized because of something she was doing on behalf of the university. So it really starts to add these complex layers that have to be waded through to see if there is a validity in this being the cause are part of the reason she was killed.

[Hal Johnston]

What happened was, as we interviewed people about this alleged rape, they identified the fraternity involved in it. We found a police report on it. A boy and girl had consensual sex on the front porch of this fraternity during a drunken party. And the boy's girlfriend caught them at it, and they had a big blow up. And so the other girl went home and told her roommates about it. It was consensual. But then the next day, she decided, well, I'm gonna go tell the police about it. And he came in and said, we had consensual sex. She basically said it was consensual sex. There was no rape case. It didn't happen.

[Advertisement Voice]

So this really throws cold water onto.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

That theory being a reason why someone would murder Brooke.

[Scott Weinberger]

And if you really think about the crime scene, does it seem likely that if the killer was wanted to silence Brooke because of a story she may have been working on, which wasn't even true, would he stab her multiple times and take the time to post the body? To me, not really.

[Hal Johnston]

It was about a year and a half in. The case is getting colder and colder.

[Scott Weinberger]

After multiple failed DNA matches and no real conclusive evidence and waning theories for the Baker family and investigators, the level of frustration was high.

[Hal Johnston]

The university students are moving on. It's harder to find them. The conspiracy theories in the community are kind of talking themselves out. The number of phone calls we're getting to bleeds is drying up to where we're not really getting any at all.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And this case is going even beyond the borders of Indiana, while Illinois, we obviously know, is the state next door. It's going as far as California.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, it's a very familiar move in cold case investigation, and in some circles, they call it bttb, which is back to the beginning. All of the friends and acquaintances that one Brooke spent time with. And number two, had access to her apartment. And that's when investigators sent it into the former roommate at her apartment.

[Hal Johnston]

Brooke's roommate, who had lived with her for a couple of weeks, who had just graduated from Indiana University, had a boyfriend, and she and the boyfriend had moved to Los Angeles. Well, the boyfriend was a person of interest because he knew Brooke, they had been together, he had access to the house.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And you start to maybe ask yourselves, well, are they just grasping at straws, looking at anyone who could potentially have had contact with her, or is this a person that, because of their history, is putting them on police radar, or is there something more? And just maybe taking these various shot in the darks will lead to Brooks killer.

[Hal Johnston]

At Indiana University. He was known as a significant drug dealer. He had been stopped one night and arrested for some minor misdemeanor. He had like $5,000 in cash on him and a gun. The local authorities in Bloomington are like, this guy's no good. He's a cocaine dealer. He's going to school. But this is all just a front for him to run cocaine. So he ends up out in Los Angeles. So, I mean, talk about a creepy guy. This is him. And he had been to Vincennes, and we had witnesses where he had been there with this cousin and their boyfriend, girlfriend. So based on that, we were able to say, who knows? I mean, we just don't know what had happened here. So I was able to generate probable cause to get. And the warrant was simply to take him into custody long enough to obtain a DNA sample and then let him go. It was not an arrest warrant, you know, anesthetic.

[Scott Weinberger]

A California. California search warrant based on Indiana probable cause. That may sound tricky, but as you know, actually it's really not.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

At the end of the day, probable cause is probable cause. You have to get the information from the jurisdiction it's in. But then it's a judge in the other jurisdiction in this case, California, that has to consider it. And it's actually something that is not that uncommon. You know, we have to go to other states for various reasons, whether it's to pick someone up. There's an arrest warrant in this case, like a search warrant. And you. And while we are asking for something to be done there, you have to give the basis, which is what occurred in often another state. So there is that level of unfamiliarity with the case and the way things.

[Advertisement Voice]

Are done in the other place that.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Potentially factors into the judge that's making the decision always is an extra reason why you Always have to cross your T's and dot your I's, you know.

[Scott Weinberger]

All of the Affians are standing in front of the judge. Who are the investigators? Right, they're the Affians. And this was a warrant only to obtain a sample and wait for the results.

[Hal Johnston]

So we contact LA Homicide and LA Homicide contacts the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. And they said, okay, fly a team out here, bring your prosecutor. Which LA police thought was interesting to have the prosecutor along, but I had to write a search warrant for California. So I ended up with like a 60 page document because it started with a map of, of Indiana because I'm going to be in front of a, you know, Los Angeles Superior Court judge, like, where the hell's Vincennes? Indiana? And it outlined everything in the case. The judge read it and signed a California search warrant based upon the Indiana probable cause. It was an interesting legal proceeding. I'd never done anything like that before. We identified this boyfriend and knew where he lived. So now we're going to go out with LA Homicide Police, which is interesting because these guys drive real fast and they don't care about red light. We're like from Indiana. Like, well, you know, we kind of obey the traffic laws here. And they told us, they said, hold on because we're going.

[Advertisement Voice]

I had to laugh when Hal's talking.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

About that because there is something to it.

[Scott Weinberger]

I had to laugh too. I myself have traveled to other jurisdictions to effect an arrest with the help of local law enforcement as they know the lay of the land. And it can be quite the colorful experience. But the mission in this case is to get that sample. That's what's most important.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Now I, coming out of New York City, I think the homicide detectives I've driven with probably drive very much like the homicide detectives in la. I can't tell you how many times I've told them, like, wear your seatbelt. And their answer is always the same. Well, if we're wearing a seatbelt, maybe we don't get out in time if someone's pointing a gun at us or if we're about to go catch that person that we're chasing. And so while I don't know it's the safest, they definitely drive differently. But it also goes towards the difference in mentality based on where the crime occurs.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, when you're in a different city, they want to impress you. Those detectives in those other cities want to show you that they really know the ropes in their own town. But it's also reassuring that they know the streets, they know the shortcuts of getting in and getting out of places without being known, without being seen, without being detected. And I'm sure in this case that's exactly what they wanted to do was at least get this sample as soon as possible to see could this actually be the guy thousands of miles away?

[Hal Johnston]

So like six LA detectives go out and basically grab this guy and bring him in and we get the DNA sample from him.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Now, while they're all in California, the question is going to be, after all this effort, what is going to be the result when they now finally get to this guy?

[Scott Weinberger]

Would it actually bring a killer to justice?

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[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

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[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

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[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

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[Hal Johnston]

Detectives go out and basically grab this guy and of course he said, hey, I didn't have anything to do with this. You know, the cops in Indiana and that's why I moved out here and this is my girlfriend and all that. So.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So investigators are back from California and all they can do is wait. Will there be a match to 137F? This DNA profile has actually taken on a life a name of its own.

[Hal Johnston]

We had to wait several weeks and once again, negative on 137F. So an enormous amount of work, but that's how painstaking we were in this case.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, Anastinga, you and I know you always go where the evidence leads you. And in this case it led to disappointment. And I'm sure they maybe question the validity of the sample. They were using dozens of potential leads over 18 months resulted in no match. I'm sure they were questioning that.

[Hal Johnston]

You have to follow the physical evidence. You can't discount anything on a pathology report. And so you have to come up with, with an explanation. Already I'm thinking about a charge of rape and a charge of murder. But of course, rape is difficult to prove when you don't have the victim there to say it was non consensual. So I'm going to have to really build this base solely on physical evidence.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The frustration level in these cases can really almost feel overwhelming sometimes because every one of those investigators, I'm confident, is picturing the way Brooke Baker's body was left. And so they want every one of them to be the answer, just to give Brooke and her family that closure, that sense of justice that she deserves. But over and over, no matter where they go and what they do, they are still just hitting roadblocks and dead ends. And it really takes that inner strength of these investigators to say, you know.

[Advertisement Voice]

What, this one didn't work out again.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But we're just going to pick ourselves up, back up and look somewhere else. Because they were just determined to get those answers.

[Scott Weinberger]

Then a decision was made to take another approach. Move from DNA science to forensic psychology, also known as behavioral science.

[Hal Johnston]

This is a good year and a half into the investigation, we arranged to travel to Quantico, Virginia and meet with the FBI profiling team. It's very, very interesting. Here is how the FBI profiling team works. The team consists of a variety of experts in a variety of areas. So they have pathologists, they have forensic psychiatrists, they have crime scene reconstructionists, all types of experts. There are probably eight or nine people. I basically had to prepare the case as though I were going to trial. We went through everything. We had the crime scene diagram, the victimology, photographs, pathology, all these reports, all of the investigations that we had done. And it took us several hours to present this. And then they had us leave the room and they kind of deliberate. It was interesting. So we're like sitting out in the waiting room for a couple hours and they called us back in. And the idea is they want to be able to critique what you're doing and then try to give us their sense of who we're looking for.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, at a Sega. As you know, we recently featured one of the FBI's top profilers on one of our episodes of True Conviction. It could be such an effective tool. And it's so interesting when you're attempting to profile, you know, maybe look at a certain type of person or a habit of somebody that you may have looked over before.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

I've always been fascinated by it, and I'm the first one to say this is not my area of expertise. But I know hopefully how to ask the questions of those that have it. And while I have had individuals profiled my cases, I've never gone through one of those basic procedures, those interviews, if you will, with the profilers.

[Hal Johnston]

The first thing they said is you're doing a good job of not focusing on one person. You're keeping your options open. They said, that's good. There's no confirmation bias here. You're doing a good job of excluding people. You're doing a good job of tracking down leads, no matter how crazy they are. What you're doing is good. Your text technique is good. Your tactics are good. Keep going on that.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

When you think about the psychology, the way it plays in, you know, there's an art to it I've always found very interesting. When you look at these killers, there is aspects that the FBI profilers look at whether killers are organized and disorganized, and that helps answer some of their questions. An organized killer is more likely to cover their tracks. They're often more premeditated where disorganized. It is maybe something like leaving a knife still floating in the sink, that it's not as planned as other crime scenes speak to, but this one really has. Again, in my very amateur view, based on what I've read, signs of both.

[Hal Johnston]

Then they said, here's what you're probably looking for. They said, it's most likely a white male that she knows, most likely a university student and he lives close to Brooke.

[Scott Weinberger]

Why would they determine that? The killer may have lived or resided a few blocks away from the homicide. You know, no one saw any vehicles in the area at the time, and he probably arrived and fled on foot.

[Hal Johnston]

Most likely very sexually active and very sexually aggressive.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, this was an extremely violent attack. Clearly overkill stabbing, which is very personal. We've talked about it a lot in this podcast over recent episodes and the sexual assault component, like Anna Sega, you said leaning or posing the body in a post mortem way.

[Hal Johnston]

They said it's most likely his first kill.

[Scott Weinberger]

Why did they think it was the first kill? You know, for me, several mistakes were made here and evidence was left at the scene. So that leads me to believe it may have been the killer's first strike.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Just for a moment to back up to the questioning of why the killer posed the body, whether it was from some sort of sexual satisfaction or for shock value. Just as an interesting note that the profilers in this case concluded that it.

[Advertisement Voice]

Was for shock value.

[Hal Johnston]

They said, no, don't rule anything out. You know, could have been a transient Brooke, lived near some railroad tracks, never knew somebody got off a train.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So now they're armed with this profile and they really have to go back to square miles one, and they do.

[Hal Johnston]

If you're a year and a half into a murder case and you've interviewed scores of people and done dozens of DNA analysis and you're not getting any closer to anything, it was really feeling cold.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

They actually get an idea that leads them looking into the past. Almost 10 years before, there was actually another unsolved murder from years earlier with similar circumstances.

[Hal Johnston]

Once again, a young college student, white female, lived alone, sexually assaulted, stabbed. Yeah, a lot of similarities there. I mean, similar victimology and the like. And that had never been solved.

[Scott Weinberger]

And now the question is, is this all the work of a serial killer?

[Hal Johnston]

I said, well, there's one way we'll catch him if he kills again.

[Scott Weinberger]

And before, before this case is over, there will be another tragedy in Vincennes, Indiana. Anatomy of Murder is an audio Chuck.

[Advertisement Voice]

Original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

[Scott Weinberger]

Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

I think Chuck would approve.

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