REOPENED: Remains of Murder

Summary

Cold Case Files: REOPENED – Remains of Murder

Hosted by Paula Barros

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Introduction: The Disappearance of Jamie Trotter

In the April of 1979, Jamie Trotter, a 13-year-old boy, vanished under mysterious circumstances in Costa Mesa, California. On the morning of April 19th, after his parents' recent divorce, Jamie and his mother, Barb Trotter, spent a few nights in a local hotel. While Barb went to work and Jamie was supposed to attend school, he never made it to his classroom.

Barb Trotter recounts the last moments she saw her son:

[01:39] Barb Trotter: "He had his lunch money and his bus fare and a book bag and a skateboard. And last thing he said was goodbye and I love you mom. See you tonight. And that was the last time I ever saw him."

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Initial Investigation: Police Response and Early Theories

Upon realizing Jamie was missing, Barb immediately contacted his friends and the police. However, due to the protocols of the time, Jamie was not officially reported missing until three days after his disappearance unless an abduction was reported.

Barb Trotter expressed her frustration with the process:

[02:20] Barb Trotter: "Back then it was 72 hours before they would take a report. And then if they wouldn't consider him a missing person unless they were seen being abducted, they were considered runaways."

Detective Dave Walker explains the typical handling of such cases:

[02:33] Detective Dave Walker: "A lot of times, you know, you get a case like this and if there is a typical runaway where they're gone for a few days and then one of their relatives or friends will spot them and you'll hear about them."

Despite extensive interviews and investigations over six weeks, no concrete leads emerged, leading Detective Walker to suspect foul play.

[03:27] Detective Dave Walker: "At that point, I'm thinking that there's probably foul play involved in the case, that someone has taken him against his will. That's based on the fact that he has not voluntarily contacted any of his friends or relatives."

As time passed without new information, Jamie's case went cold, leaving Barb without answers.

Barb Trotter:

[03:50] "That's the worst part is year after year of looking and not knowing."

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The Cold Case and Reopening: Discovery of Remains

In January 1990, over a decade after Jamie's disappearance, a hiker named James Crummell discovered human remains in the mountains near Costa Mesa. Investigator Larry Nielsen received the call and, upon examination, identified a jawbone with braces—a potential link to Jamie.

Investigator Larry Nielsen describes the discovery:

[04:17] Investigator Larry Nielsen: "Crummel said that he had found what he thought were human bones because it was a jawbone with braces or dental appliances."

The remains were sent to forensic anthropologist Dr. Robert Hagler, who initially thought they belonged to a young female based on the braces and pelvic measurements. However, Dr. Judy Suchey later reclassified the remains as having an undetermined sex due to the unreliable nature of the initial assessment.

Dr. Judy Suchey explains the reclassification:

[06:22] "And this particular method, we're running around 80%, which isn't too good. An 80% method I would not use in forensic cases."

With the reclassification, the Riverside County Sheriff's Office reopened Jamie's case. Entering Jamie's dental records into the MUPPS database yielded a matching hit.

Investigator Larry Nielsen:

[07:38] "We immediately got a hit out of Orange County on Jamie Trotter."

Forensic ID specialist Dr. Doug Weiler compared the dental records to the remains. Despite incomplete jaw recovery, similarities in braces confirmed the identity.

Dr. Doug Weiler:

[08:06] "You couldn't tell anything definitive. You couldn't tell if it was him for certain, but you could not eliminate him."

Jamie's orthodontist verified the braces as his work, and DNA testing confirmed the remains were indeed Jamie.

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Linking James Crummell: The Suspicious Hiker

A year after the remains were found, Detective Paul Cappuccilli made a routine traffic stop on James Crummell, the same hiker who discovered Jamie's bones. Recognizing the name from past criminal records, Cappuccilli delved deeper into Crummell's history.

Detective Paul Cappuccilli:

[11:21] "He got out of the car and gave me his driver's license and as I'm writing him this ticket, I looked at it and I said to him, Mr. Krummel, how do I know you? He says, I don't know. We never met before."

Investigations revealed Crummell's prior arrests for child molestation and a pattern of violent crimes against children.

Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell:

[13:04] "What we looked at is his prior crimes. We looked to see were there any similarities there. And we were actually shocked to find that there were many, many similarities."

Crummell had a history of murdering young boys, including a 1967 murder in Arizona and an assault in Wisconsin, where he inflicted severe harm on victims.

Investigator Tim Johnson:

[16:26] "He learned that dead kids don't talk. He learned that the next time this happens, that he's going to make sure he kills the kid."

Crummell had moved to Costa Mesa in 1979, living just blocks away from Jamie's residence, increasing the likelihood of his involvement.

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The Trial and Conviction: Building the Case Without Physical Evidence

Despite the lack of direct physical evidence tying Crummell to Jamie's murder, investigators leveraged his criminal history and behavioral patterns to build a circumstantial case.

Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell:

[17:40] "The law, the evidence code, allows you to consider the defendant's prior crimes to even actually prove what they call the corpus delicti, or the body of the crime. And we can infer from his prior crimes and the types of sex acts that he committed against those other boys what he did to Jamie."

After a four-week trial, Crummell was found guilty of Jamie's murder. The prosecution sought the death penalty.

Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell:

[18:12] "There is no more heinous crime, no one more deserving of the death penalty than someone like James Crummell."

Crummell was sentenced to death by lethal injection on June 7, 2004. While this brought a semblance of justice, Barb Trotter expressed that true justice remains elusive.

Barb Trotter:

[18:41] "Well, I don't think you ever feel justice is done when it takes the life of a loved one. ... Jamie, it was just like he deserves whatever he gets. That's my opinion."

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Ongoing Mystery: Crummell's Motives and Final Days

Despite Crummell's conviction, questions lingered about his motives, particularly why he led investigators to Jamie's remains. Investigators speculated that Crummell may have sought attention or relished the psychological impact on those pursuing him.

Investigator Tim Johnson:

[19:15] "When you talk to people who study these people's minds, they'll tell you that a lot of times these guys will interject themselves into the investigation. They want to know what's going on. They can't leave it alone. Some of them like the attention."

Investigator Larry Nielsen:

[19:26] "He led us to the bones on his 45th birthday. I believe that he was giving us or giving himself a birthday present. ... I think he got a good laugh at us."

Crummell ultimately took his own life in May 2012 while in custody, leaving the full extent of his motives shrouded in mystery.

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Conclusion

The case of Jamie Trotter highlights the intricate challenges of solving cold cases, the evolution of forensic technology, and the relentless pursuit of justice by dedicated investigators. While the conviction of James Crummell brought some closure, the enduring questions about his motives and the true circumstances of Jamie's death remain unanswered.

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Notable Quotes:

• Barb Trotter at [01:39]: "He had his lunch money and his bus fare and a book bag and a skateboard. And last thing he said was goodbye and I love you mom. See you tonight. And that was the last time I ever saw him."

• Detective Dave Walker at [03:27]: "At that point, I'm thinking that there's probably foul play involved in the case, that someone has taken him against his will."

• Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell at [17:40]: "We can infer from his prior crimes and the types of sex acts that he committed against those other boys what he did to Jamie."

• Barb Trotter at [18:41]: "I don't think you ever feel justice is done when it takes the life of a loved one."

---

Produced by: McKamey Lin and Steve Delamater
Associate Producer: Julie McGruder
Executive Producer: Ted Butler
Music by: Blake Maples
Distributed by: PodcastOne
More Information: Visit Cold Case Files on A&E or explore the AE RealCrime blog.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

Jamie Trotter was 13 years old in April of 1979 when his parents got divorced. Jamie and his mother were spending a few nights in a local hotel near their home in Costa Mesa, California. On the morning of April 19th, Jamie's mom woke up and got ready for work while Jamie got ready for school. Then the two went their separate ways. Jamie never made it to school though. This is his mother, Barb.

[Barb Trotter]

He had his lunch money and his bus fare and a book bag and a skateboard. And last thing he said was goodbye and I love you mom. See you tonight. And that was the last time I ever saw him.

[Narrator]

From A and E. This is Cold Case Files. When Barb got home from work and couldn't find Jamie, she called his friends. But it turned out he hadn't made it to school that day. Barb called the police in a panic for help finding her missing son. Help didn't arrive in time, though.

[Barb Trotter]

Back then it was 72 hours before they would take a report. And then if they wouldn't consider him a missing person unless they were seen being abducted, they were considered runaways.

[Detective Dave Walker]

A lot of times, you know, you get a case like this and if there is a typical runaway where they're gone for a few days and then one of their relatives or friends will spot them and you'll hear about them.

[Narrator]

That was Detective Dave Walker, who after three days began to investigate Jamie's disappearance. He started at the school that Jamie hadn't made it to and interviewed some of his classmates.

[Detective Dave Walker]

I'd received several different scenarios. One of them being that he'd been kidnapped. Another one was that he'd merely ran away from home. Another one was he'd been injured and was in the hospital somewhere. Long story short, nobody had actually seen any of this. It was all rumors.

[Narrator]

After six weeks of looking for information that might lead him to Jamie, the detective became convinced of what Jamie's mother had feared all along.

[Detective Dave Walker]

At that point, I'm thinking that there's probably foul play involved in the case, that someone has taken him against his will. That's based on the fact that he has not voluntarily contacted any of his friends or relatives.

[Narrator]

As more time passed without any new leads, Jamie's case became cold and his mother was left without any answers.

[Barb Trotter]

That's the worst part is year after year of looking and not knowing.

[Narrator]

In January of 1990, 11 years after Jamie had gone missing, a call came into the Riverside County Sheriff's Office that brought new attention to the case. The call was taken by investigator Larry Nielsen from a hiker named James Crummell. This is investigator Nielsen.

[Investigator Larry Nielsen]

Krummel said that he had found what he thought were human bones because it was a jawbone with braces or dental appliances.

[Narrator]

The next day, the hiker took Investigator Nielsen and his partner to the place where he had found the bones.

[Investigator Larry Nielsen]

Well, he brought us to one location on the side of the hill, and he pointed down onto the ground, and there was a portion of the skull that was visible. Near that portion of the skull, there was the upper jawbone. And a little bit farther away, we found the lower jawbone with the braces on it.

[Narrator]

They saw other smaller bones scattered around the hill. The bones were collected and then sent to Dr. Robert Hagler, a forensic anthropologist. Here's Investigator Nielsen.

[Investigator Larry Nielsen]

Seeing the braces, my initial reaction was that it was probably a young person, and that bothered me. Somebody was missing a son or a daughter. He concluded that we had a female, and it was a young female, early teens.

[Narrator]

The investigators began their search for a missing girl. But none of their open cases matched the teeth that the hiker had found. They labeled the bones as Jane Doe, and the case was pushed aside. In the early 1990s, the state of California began using a new computer database to process unidentified remains. The database is called MUPPS, which stands for Missing Unidentified Person System. In 1995, Judy Suchey, a forensic anthropologist, was entering Information unrelated to Jamie's case. Into mupps, she came across the Jane Doe records and the report that had determined they were female. Here's Dr.

[Dr. Robert Hagler]

I was rather surprised that he had tried to determine a sex. This particular individual was 10 to 1213 in that vicinity, which is virtually impossible to sex accurately.

[Narrator]

As Dr. Seshi looked further into the report, she realized that the sex of the remains had been determined using a pelvic measurement system known as the weaver method. The problem is that the weaver method isn't extremely reliable, especially in adolescence, because while girls tend to grow faster, the boys tend to be larger.

[Dr. Robert Hagler]

And this particular method, we're running around 80%, which isn't too good. An 80% method I would not use in forensic cases. And I actually talked to Dr. Weaver and said, well, would you use this method in a forensic case? And he said, no, I would only use it for archaeological material or maybe not at all. So he was the first to say, it's an interesting method, but not too reliable.

[Narrator]

Dr. Suchey reclassifies the remains as having an undetermined sex and sends the information back to riverside county. The investigation is reopened. Five years after the remains were found and 16 years after Jamie went missing, There was a hit Almost immediately When.

[Investigator Larry Nielsen]

We were able to enter the correct identification into the mupp system, we immediately got a hit out of orange county on Jamie trotter.

[Narrator]

The investigator sent a copy of Jamie's dental records to Dr. Doug Weiler, a forensic ID specialist, so that he can compare them to the remains. In most cases, dental records can be used for a conclusive ID. Here's Dr. Doug Weiler right here.

[Dr. Robert Hagler]

He has a small filling. These are the post mortem.

[Narrator]

In this case, though, the entire jaw hadn't been recovered, so it made the comparison more difficult. Here's Dr. Weiler again.

[Dr. Robert Hagler]

You couldn't tell anything definitive. You couldn't tell if it was him for certain, but you could not eliminate him.

[Narrator]

Dr. Wyler, who was also a dentist, looked to the braces for clues. He realized that there were certain signature characteristics that could distinguish one doctor's work from another.

[Dr. Robert Hagler]

As I looked at the teeth and the braces, I immediately knew that I did not do the work. And so it hit me that his orthodontist would know whether that was his work or not.

[Narrator]

Jamie's orthodontist confirmed that the braces were his work. So Jamie's family provided a DNA sample, and forensic testing confirmed that the remains were Jamie. Detective Paul cappuccilli from the Costa mesa police department was the new lead investigator on Jamie's case.

[Detective Paul Cappuccilli]

As a parent, I really wanted to find Jamie. You know, we closed one chapter on this incident because now we had him. But we also got a new chapter in that we didn't know how we got there.

[Narrator]

Though the bones had been useful in making an identification, there just wasn't enough information to determine how Jamie died.

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[Narrator]

Around a year later, while Detective Cappuccilli is working patrol, he stops the car in front of him for an expired license plate.

[Detective Paul Cappuccilli]

He got out of the car and gave me his driver's license and as I'm writing him this ticket, I looked at it and I said to him, Mr. Krummel, how do I know you? He says, I don't know. We never met before.

[Narrator]

It turned out that James Crummell, the hiker that had discovered Jamie Trotter's bones, was the driver of the car.

[Detective Paul Cappuccilli]

I thought, what a coincidence. This is incredible. And I was thinking about that car stop. All day long I'm thinking, I know him from someplace. How in the world do I know him?

[Narrator]

To satisfy his curiosity, Detective Cappuccini did some checks on James Kremmel to see if anything would jog his memory. He discovered that in 1982, Kremmel had been investigated on a charge of child molestation. Maybe it had been more than a coincidence that Kremmel had found the bones.

[Detective Paul Cappuccilli]

When I saw his name in there and that arrest, it all came back to me. I remembered in 1982 that I ran a records check on Mr. Crummell and learned that he had been arrested in Wisconsin for attempted murder on a child. And he had been arrested for murder of a child in Arizona.

[Narrator]

The detective contacted the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, where the bones had first been reported. He wanted to share the information that he had discovered on James Kremmel. He talked to Investigator Tim Johnson.

[Investigator Tim Johnson]

Automatically, we make him a person of interest in the case.

[Narrator]

Investigator Johnson and Deputy District Attorney Bill Mitchell did a deep dive into James Crummell's past. They put together a timeline that pointed to Crummell for more than just Jamie Trotter's murder. Here's Deputy D.A. mitchell.

[Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell]

What we looked at is his prior crimes. We looked to see were there any similarities there. And we were actually shocked to find that there were many, many similarities.

[Narrator]

In February of 1967, a boy was found murdered in Pima County, Arizona. James Kremmel had been a suspect, but left town before he could be fully investigated. Six months after that, in Maquon, Wisconsin, a boy on the way home from football practice had been picked up by Kremmel driving a laundry truck. Here's DA Mitchell again.

[Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell]

He was driven to a wooded area on the shores of Lake Michigan, tied up, sexually assaulted. This boy, he beat over the head and then strangled and left for dead.

[Narrator]

The boy lived and was able to identify James Kreml, who did five years for assault and was then released on parole. Unfortunately, Crummell learned the wrong lesson from his prison sentence. This is Investigator Johnson.

[Investigator Tim Johnson]

He learned that dead kids don't talk. He learned that the next time this happens, that he's going to make sure he kills the kid.

[Narrator]

In 1979, James Crummell moved to Costa Mesa and lives only a few blocks from Jamie Trotter.

[Investigator Tim Johnson]

And that address, which I didn't know personally, but when I started looking at a map and then I later drove out there, was right down the street from where Jamie Trotter left lived and was actually on the same side of the street where he would have had to walk to go to his school that morning. That means that these two people had crossed paths within a few feet of each other their residences.

[Narrator]

The detective found it a little too coincidental that James Kremel then found himself in the mountains and happened to stumble upon Jamie's remains. The problem was that they didn't have any physical evidence tying him to the crime. The investigators made a phone call to James Kremmel and gave him the impression that it was just a routine follow up to the discovery of the remains. Here's investigator Johnson again.

[Investigator Tim Johnson]

He's an experienced criminal and he wasn't the type of person that you could, you know, bring into the office and interview. He's going to deny, deny. He's not going to come. He knows he doesn't have to. He's going to get a lawyer he's not going to talk to. So we wanted to kind of make an ally of him and try to set up a meeting with him to have him take me back up to the crime scene.

[Narrator]

Here's some of the audio from the call to Crummell.

[Investigator Tim Johnson]

Hello. So we thought of calling you and asking if you could maybe meet us up there or meet us somewhere and point the area out to us again.

[Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell]

I wouldn't even have any idea where it was.

[Investigator Larry Nielsen]

No, it's been so long ago I.

[Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell]

Don'T even remember where it was.

[Narrator]

It was somewhere right along in there.

[Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell]

But I really couldn't tell you exactly.

[Narrator]

That's too bad. The detective asked Crummell if he would accompany them to the area to see if it would jog his memory. But James Crummell declined. The detectives didn't believe that James, sometimes referred to as Jim, wouldn't remember where the remains had been located. They also believed that the mountains might have been a place that he went often. So the investigator located someone that Crummell had known intimately and interviewed him. Here's investigator Johnson.

[Investigator Tim Johnson]

It was strange that every time they went to a location, Jim would want to have sex with him at that location. It was a place where Jim enjoyed having sex up there in the mountains. So I took him in towards the area where we knew that Jamie's body was found. And as we hiked into the area he pointed it out and said, I've been here before with Jim.

[Narrator]

Deputy DA Mitchell believed that he finally had enough evidence, though circumstantial, to charge James Crummell.

[Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell]

It's too incredible to be a coincidence. There's no way that lightning can strike that many times on one person.

[Narrator]

On May 30, James Crummell was arrested for child molestation and the murder of Jamie Lee Trotter. The defense attorney in this case was Marianne Galanti from the Riverside County Public Defender's Office. This is not a case where there was any physical evidence at all linking Crummell to the crime. There's no blood, there's no witness, there's no smoking gun. There is no physical evidence. Crummell's attorney was correct. But Deputy D.A. mitchell was ready to face that argument in court.

[Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell]

The law, the evidence code, allows you to consider the defendant's prior crimes to even actually prove what they call the corpus delicti, or the body of the crime. And we can infer from his prior crimes and the types of sex acts that he committed against those other boys what he did to Jamie.

[Narrator]

After a four week trial and four days of deliberation, the jury found James Crummell guilty for the murder of Jamie Trotter. The state requested the death penalty in this case.

[Deputy D.A. Bill Mitchell]

As I told the jury from the opening statement on you know what he did, you know why he did it, and you know what he deserves. There is no more heinous crime, no one more deserving of the death penalty than someone like James Crummell.

[Narrator]

On June 7, 2004, James Crummell was sentenced to die by lethal injection. I have to wonder if that sentence was any comfort to Barb, Jamie's mother.

[Barb Trotter]

Well, I don't think you ever feel justice is done when it takes the life of a loved one. After the judge had read over all these things that he had done over the years, and then Jamie, it was just like he deserves whatever he gets. That's my opinion.

[Narrator]

The case was closed, but there is still an unsolved mystery. Why did James Crummell lead the police to Jamie's remains? Investigators Johnson and Nielsen share their opinions.

[Investigator Tim Johnson]

When you talk to people who study these people's minds, they'll tell you that a lot of times these guys will interject themselves into the investigation. They want to know what's going on. They can't leave it alone. Some of them like the attention.

[Investigator Larry Nielsen]

He led us to the bones on his 45th birthday. I believe that he was giving us or giving himself a birthday present. By watching our reaction to discovery, his work, and us not being able to do anything about it, I think he got a good laugh at us.

[Narrator]

If he did get a laugh from the detectives, Crummell isn't laughing anymore. In May of 2012, 68 year old James Crummell hanged himself in his cell. Cold Case Files the podcast is hosted by Brooke giddings, produced by McKamey Lin and Steve Delamater. Our associate producer is Julie McGruder. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast one. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold case [e-mail] or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the AE RealCrime blog at aetv.com realcrime.