REOPENED: The Closers

Summary

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Cold Case Files – REOPENED: The Closers

Date: August 28, 2025
Host: Brooke Giddings (with archival narration by Bill Curtis)
Podcast: A&E / PodcastOne

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the 1983 cold case murder of Elaine Graham, a young nurse and mother from Los Angeles, whose killer eluded authorities for decades. Through detective interviews, family member perspectives, and advances in forensic science, the story reveals how dogged investigators and emerging DNA technology finally closed the case. The episode delves into the emotional toll on detectives and families, highlighting the long-term effects of unsolved murders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Disappearance of Elaine Graham

• Background: Elaine met her husband Stephen while working at Cedars Sinai. By 1983, they had settled into their dream home with their two-year-old daughter, Elise.
• The Day of Disappearance: On March 17, 1983, Elaine dropped off her daughter at a babysitter’s house and went to her university classes. She never returned to pick up Elise.
• Initial Discovery: By evening, her absence raised alarms. Her husband, Dr. Stephen Graham, reported her missing.
  • “If she didn’t pick up our daughter, I think she’s dead.” – Dr. Graham to Detective Buck [05:15]
• Media Interest: With a respected doctor for a husband and a missing young mother, the case quickly grabbed LA media attention.

2. The Investigation Begins

• Red Flags & Early Suspects: Detectives immediately began checking hospitals and the morgue, suspecting foul play due to Elaine's reliable habits.
• Discovery of Elaine’s Car: Five days later, Elaine’s yellow Volkswagen Bug was found abandoned 60 miles away in Santa Ana.
  • “Nothing inside the car tells detectives how it got there or where its owner might be.” [07:57]
• Forensic Efforts: Despite extensive searches and luminol tests, investigators found no useful evidence in the car.

3. A New Suspect: Edmund Marr

• Anonymous Tip: An informant pointed detectives toward Edmund Marr, whose troubled background included drug abuse, violence, and a recent Army discharge.
• Family Member Accounts: Marr’s sister, Cat Stevenson, detailed his strange and despondent behavior the night of Elaine’s disappearance.
  • “He was very reserved, almost depressed and quiet.” – Cat Stevenson [10:13]
• Background Checking: Detectives learned Marr was recently arrested for armed robbery.
• Interrogation: Marr denied ever knowing or seeing Elaine Graham. His lack of emotion unsettled detectives.

4. Finding Elaine Graham’s Remains

• Discovery: Eight months after the disappearance, hikers found a skeleton in nearby hills, which dental records confirmed as Elaine.
• Forensic Evidence: Toolmark experts detected stab wounds in Elaine’s vertebrae, indicating a stabbing death matching the profile of a particular dagger.
  • “This defect… was recognized as a linear crack in the bone on the front surface.” – Detective Bill Buck [14:11]
• Key Evidence: A dagger found among Marr’s belongings at the time of his robbery arrest closely matched the wounds.

5. The Long Road to Charge Marr

• Knife Analysis: Forensic tests on the dagger revealed type A blood (Elaine’s blood type), but technology in 1983 could go no further.
  • “Inside of the handle, you could physically see what looked to be a kind of dark red, dried, flaky material…” – Detective Bill Buck [17:12]
• Frustration: Without more, the DA declined to file charges, a severe disappointment for detectives who had invested years into the case.
  • “It was a bad feeling, but we just continued working it. Homicide detectives… just continue to grind.” – Detective Bill Buck [18:04]

6. Cold Case Resurrection & Breakthroughs

• New Cold Case Unit: Nineteen years later, LAPD reopens Elaine’s case, bringing fresh eyes and DNA technology to the long-dormant file.
• DNA Testing: Advanced testing on the dagger’s blood established it as female type A blood, but Elaine's cremation prevented direct DNA matching.
  • “And now the defendant was in the position of, even if it’s not Elaine’s blood, well, whose female blood is underneath your dagger?” – Detective Bill Buck [23:05]
• Reverse Paternity: Investigators used a sample from Elaine's daughter Elise, stripping out her father’s DNA, to show the blood could plausibly be from Elise’s biological mother.

7. Family Surveillance and Marr’s Slip-up

• Renewed Pressure: Detectives warned Marr’s family by planting news stories and monitored their calls, re-engaging old suspicions.
• Crucial Admission: In a secretly recorded family conversation, Marr’s cousin admitted he had confessed to stealing Elaine’s car—a detail he’d previously denied.
  • “Yeah, he said he took the car right away.” – Edward Cardona [28:11]
• Arrest: With the new evidence, detectives finally arrested Edmund Marr in 2005.

8. Justice & Impact

• Conviction: Marr avoided trial by pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
• The Victim’s Daughter Confronts The Killer:
  • “I would wish to see her the way you saw her, Edmund. Did she look something like I do now? I've been told that I have her cheekbones.” – Elise Graham [28:49]
  • “But I ask you, where was that mercy from my mother 22 years ago when you so selfishly and unnecessarily took her life?” – Elise Graham [29:25]
• Detective Reflection:
  • “This case was the only one that I left behind that I really wanted to see solved.” – Detective Bill Buck [29:34]
• LAPD’s ‘Closers’: The episode closes on a tribute to cold case detectives, described as "closers," who make it their life’s mission to bring resolution to victims' families.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Detective Bill Buck on the emotional toll of cold cases:
  “When you come over here, you don’t get too wrapped up into it until you actually pull out the book and start going through the photographs... the ones that get you are the ones of the victim while he or she was alive.” [02:53]

• On the importance of persistence:
  “Homicide detectives are guys that just continue to grind, and they just keep looking for that thread…” [18:04]

• On the calling of cold case work:
  “And when I was assigned this unit and we started working these cases, I think I figured it out.” – Detective Bill Buck [29:59]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–05:35 – Background on Elaine Graham’s life and disappearance
• 06:01–07:57 – Car is found, initial investigation details
• 09:40–11:28 – Introduction of Edmund Marr as a suspect
• 13:06–14:30 – Discovery and identification of Elaine’s remains
• 15:31–18:51 – Evidence against Marr, frustration at lack of strong case
• 19:47–24:23 – Cold case unit uses new forensic tools; reverse paternity test
• 25:01–27:07 – Detectives revive public interest to pressure Marr’s family
• 27:22–28:11 – Marr’s cousin admits knowledge about Elaine's car
• 28:49–29:34 – Elise Graham confronts Marr in court
• 29:59–30:33 – Reflections on the significance of cold case closure

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Tone & Style

The episode is empathetic but matter-of-fact, often somber and deeply respectful to victims and law enforcement. The perspective of both detectives and family members is presented with care, highlighting both procedural detail and the intense emotional impact.

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Conclusion

“REOPENED: The Closers” is a powerful testament to the enduring work of cold case detectives. Through persistence, evolving technology, and the unwavering support of victims’ families, justice was finally served for Elaine Graham, decades after her life was tragically cut short.

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Transcript

[Detective Bill Buck]

An A and E original podcast.

[Cat Stevenson]

This episode contains descriptions of violence. Use your best judgment. Elaine Graham met her husband Stephen in 1976 while working at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. She had just moved there after completing nursing school in Connecticut. Stephen was an intern at the time, but he graduated and became a doctor. He and Elaine married in 1976. They had what seemed like the perfect life. They honeymooned in Europe for several weeks and then came home and worked at the respective jobs. Elaine a nurse at the hospital and Stephen a doctor at his own practice across the street. Two years later, in 1981, they had a daughter, Elise. And six months after that, the family moved into their dream home. Elaine loved learning, so she enrolled in classes at California State University. During the spring semester of 1983, Elaine had classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesdays, Elaine's mother in law looked after two year old Elise. On Thursdays, Elise was cared for by a babysitter who lived close to the College campus. On April 17, 1983, St. Patrick's Day, Elaine dressed herself in jeans and a plaid shirt. She filled the diaper bag and her own backpack and took her daughter to the babysitter's house. Elaine left Elise with the babysitter around 9:30am promising to be back around 2pm when her classes ended, Elise waited for her mother to come pick her up. But two o' clock passed, and then three, and then four. Elaine had been murdered, but Elise was too young to understand why her mommy would never come pick her up again. From A and E, this is Cold Case Files. I'm Brooke and here's the spectacular Bill Curtis with a classic case, the Closers.

[Detective Bill Buck]

This is the archive center for police department records, the murder cases that have occurred in the past. Most of them are over here.

[Narrator]

Cold Case detective Rick Jackson and his partner Tim Marcia are taking a stroll through history. Row after row, shelf after shelf of boxes, each containing evidence from an unsolved murder, each waiting for its own hero.

[Detective Bill Buck]

Cold cases affect you a lot differently. At least they do me and I know they affect him differently than a fresh case. When you come over here, you don't get, you know, you look and you kind of shake your head, but you don't get too wrapped up into it until you actually pull out the book and you start going through the photographs, you know, of the of the crime scene photos and the ones that get you are the looking at the pictures of the victim while he or she.

[Narrator]

Was alive on April 19, 2002. Jackson and Marsha pull out a murder almost 20 years cold.

[Detective Bill Buck]

I remembered the case happening because it was one of those cases that just if you read about it, it just stuck with you. It was just such a tragedy.

[Narrator]

The victim's name is Elaine Graham. The first act in her tragedy unfolded in the early morning hours of March 18, 1983.

[Detective Bill Buck]

I'd been working detective headquarters and I was on the morning watch roughly midnight to 8, and on that particular night I was working the missing person's desk.

[Narrator]

At about 4am, Detective Bill Buck catches a call from Sherman Oaks, a suburb north of LA. On the line is Dr. Steven Graham, who says his wife Elaine has gone missing.

[Detective Bill Buck]

Dr. Graham mentioned that his wife had not come home and he had been checking some locations already and had not heard from her.

[Narrator]

Graham tells Buck that Elaine left home the previous morning traveling in her yellow VW Bug. She dropped off their two year old daughter at daycare and headed to classes at Cal state Northridge. By 6pm that evening, Elaine and her VW were nowhere to be found.

[Detective Bill Buck]

This itinerary was the biggest red flag that something was the matter because she never picked up her young daughter from daycare. Then you have to start asking, has there been an argument? Are there marital problems? Is there any kind of a history of abuse or drinking or arrests?

[Narrator]

Dr. Graham tells Detective Buck that nothing in his relationship with Elaine would cause her to leave.

[Detective Bill Buck]

He says, look, I know you have to ask me questions about my wife's habits or substance abuse or drinking. He says, I can assure you that everything is fine with her and we're not having any fights. And that's when he said, if she didn't pick up our daughter, I think she's dead.

[Narrator]

Buck checks with local hospitals, then he checks the morgue. Elaine Graham hasn't turned up in either place. Her husband was on duty at Cedars Sinai Hospital when Elaine most likely disappeared, making the doctor less of a suspect. But only by a little. Tomorrow arrives with still no signs of Mrs. Graham. And that's when the media gets wind of the story.

[Detective Bill Buck]

They've been married four years, have a healthy two year old daughter, a nice home, a comfortable life, no serious problems. Yet Elaine Graham has vanished. This was one that caught media interest almost from day one when she disappeared.

[Narrator]

Pete Noyes is a local news reporter.

[Detective Bill Buck]

One you had a doctor working at one of LA's most prominent hospitals, Cedars Sinai Hospital. He had a beautiful young mother and she disappeared one day off the campus of Cal State Northridge. Investigators must find her car, a 1971 pale yellow Volkswagen, much like this one. License number 829 KVG. It became one of these mysteries that.

[Narrator]

Seemed to build and build and build for five days. The mystery deepens until a yellow VW surfaces in a parking lot 60 miles away.

[Detective Bill Buck]

According to her husband, there is no reason why 29 year old Elaine Graham would go to Santa Ana. Yet her yellow Volkswagen Bug was found abandoned in a Santa Ana shopping center late last night. A witness found the car here, saw it the day before, the morning after it came because it was raining, came by and rolled up the windows so the car would we know was Here on the 17th, the day she disappeared for more than two hours today, investigators from the LAPD Homicide Bureau, along with detectives from the Missing Persons unit looked in. The Volkswagen took fingerprints from every possible spot in and outside the little Volkswagen Bug.

[Narrator]

Paul Tippen and Leroy Orozco head up a team that takes apart the Volkswagen.

[Detective Bill Buck]

We went as far as to do luminol and luminoled the interior of the car to see if there was any blood, any evidence that could be obtained through that method and there was nothing.

[Narrator]

Nothing inside the car tells detectives how it got there or more importantly, where its owner might be.

[Podcast Host Brooke Giddings]

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[Narrator]

On a July morning, Tippin and Orozco arrive at an apartment complex a few blocks from where Elaine Graham's car was recovered.

[Detective Bill Buck]

We came to this location after we received information from an anonymous caller that said that we should look into Edmund Mar as a suspect.

[Narrator]

According to their source, Edmund Mar's sister has information connecting her brother to the Graham disappearance.

[Cat Stevenson]

When I saw them, I just kind of went, oh, okay, let's get the skinny on this. What do you want to know?

[Detective Bill Buck]

She said that Edmund, her brother, had showed up at her House around 5:30 in the evening on the 17th of March. It was more unexpected than anything. And he was very reserved, almost depressed and quiet.

[Narrator]

Cat tells the detectives that her brother has a history of drug abuse and violence. Two days before Elaine Graham disappeared, he was discharged from the Army.

[Cat Stevenson]

And it wasn't a dishonorable discharge, but it was basically, we're letting you go kind of a discharge. They couldn't reform him, apparently because of his drug habits.

[Narrator]

The day before Elaine Graham disappeared, Edmund Marr showed up at his mother's home in Northridge, just blocks from the campus where Elaine Graham vanished. The following day, and 60 miles down the road, Cat got an unexpected knock on her door.

[Cat Stevenson]

When I opened my door, my brother was standing there and he just was like, very despondent, just not together. I could tell his mind was a million miles away.

[Narrator]

Shortly after Edmund Mars visit with his sister, he slipped out of the city of Orange. Cat didn't start to suspect anything until news reports filtered in about Elaine Graham. Late this afternoon, Elaine Graham's husband, Dr.

[Detective Bill Buck]

Stephen Graham, told me that friends and neighbors have combined to up the Reward money to 15,000.

[Cat Stevenson]

She disappeared from CSUN. Her car's around the corner from my apartment. He shows up on St Patrick's Day and he's not himself. I go, something doesn't add up here.

[Narrator]

Cat Stevenson doesn't believe in coincidences. Neither do Detectives Tippin and Orozco.

[Detective Bill Buck]

To us, it was unique because he was at one location on the 17th where our victim was supposed to go to class. And then looking at where the car was found, the car was within walking distance of this location.

[Narrator]

Tippen and Orozco run a background check on Mar and find he was recently Arrested for armed robbery, the detectives meet with Mar in a state lockup and show him a photo of Elaine Graham.

[Detective Bill Buck]

He showed no emotion whatsoever and denied ever knowing her or ever seeing her.

[Narrator]

The answers provided by Marr leave investigators with more suspicions than answers.

[Detective Bill Buck]

And started hiking, crossing the creek bed and then started to climb up into the hill over here.

[Narrator]

It's Thanksgiving weekend in Southern California and Bob Lavin decides to stretch his legs.

[Detective Bill Buck]

When I got down about 75 yards, I heard this blood curdling scream and I rushed back along the trail to see what was happening.

[Narrator]

A couple hiking runs down the hill.

[Detective Bill Buck]

Towards Levin and they were halfway down the hill to where I was as I was coming up and said they found a skeleton.

[Narrator]

The couple directs Lavin up the hill to a shaded area.

[Detective Bill Buck]

I looked underneath the shrubs and very clearly there was a human skeleton. To the right was a pile of clothing. I was really blown away.

[Narrator]

The bones are transported to the LA County Coroner's office where dental records confirm the remains to be those of Elaine Graham, who's been missing now for eight months. At autopsy, scratch marks are noted on Graham's vertebrae. Toolmark examiner Steve Dowell tries to determine how they might have gotten there.

[Detective Bill Buck]

These are actually the vertebrae of Elaine Graham. The defect initially was recognized as a linear or a straight, somewhat straight crack in the bone on the front surface of the bone.

[Narrator]

Dowell takes a saw and cuts through the vertebrae for a closer look.

[Detective Bill Buck]

In doing that, what you can see in the bottom half of the vertebra is basically a straight line that cuts, connects the front of the vertebra to the back of the vertebra. And it involves both the fracture on the anterior or the front surface and that small fracture which is now visible on the back surface.

[Narrator]

The marks are consistent with a stab wound. Dowell gets on the phone with detectives and brings them up to speed.

[Detective Bill Buck]

Sister Stamborn, which was amazing because I'd seen numerous bodies and skeletal remains and to me it looked. I'm not a medical expert, but it looked like something deterred because of the weather conditions. But the doctor was very happy to stab one. Any knives that you find or that you find might be associated with this case. I would like to see those knives.

[Narrator]

Detectives have one suspect in the case, a convicted felon named Edmund Marr. By chance, he was arrested on a robbery charge just months after Graham disappeared. Among his personal belongings at the time of the arrest, a black bag in.

[Detective Bill Buck]

That backpack was a dagger type knife, which was significant to us because now we had a victim who was obviously stabbed to Death. The knife is essentially going through the chest wall, through the chest cavity, and into the body and through the body of the vertebra and emerging out into what is essentially the spinal column.

[Narrator]

Dowell takes custody of Edmund Marr's knife and compares it to his autopsy findings.

[Detective Bill Buck]

The suspect knife, in fact, had a long enough knife blade to actually produce the kind of trauma that was found in the vertebra of Elaine Graham.

[Narrator]

The knife is long enough, but is its shape consistent with the scratch marks seen on Elaine Graham's vertebrae?

[Detective Bill Buck]

The knife would have penetrated this body of the vertebra like this. So we can measure this backside, see what the length of that mark is, and put it here. And it actually is the same dimensions, or essentially the same. The same dimensions.

[Narrator]

Detectives believe this is the knife that killed Elaine Graham. They will need more, however, to convince a district attorney to file charges. They take the knife to criminalist Greg Matheson, who takes the handle of the knife apart and finds a second clue inside.

[Detective Bill Buck]

Inside of the handle, you could physically see what looked to be a kind of dark red, dried, flaky material, which is what blood looks like after it's been there for a while. So it appeared that something did seep down inside of the handle. Dampened. Another swab removed a very small portion of that, ran the phenolphthalein test on it, and it gave me an indication that that was blood, it was type A, and our victim was type A. So it was just another little piece of the puzzle. Circumstantial, yes, but it was still a piece of the puzzle that was. Was still fitting in there in 1983.

[Narrator]

DNA testing is still a decade away. In the meantime, the case against Edmund Marr is close, but still not quite good enough for the local da. Detectives Tippen and Orozco take the news hard.

[Detective Bill Buck]

You know, it's a great disappointment when it wasn't found because of all your work that you put into it. And then it was a bad feeling, but we just continued working it. Homicide detectives are guys that just continue to grind, and they just keep looking for that thread, looking for that little thing that might pull the case together. So you can't get too down because you have to just keep scratching for more as you come in here. And you realize that there's usually only a few people that remember these cases. It's the detectives, the family, and ultimately the perpetrator. But everybody else has just put them in a box and put them on a shelf.

[Narrator]

19 years after investigators first opened a file on Elaine Graham's murder, the LAPD forms a cold case unit, and a new generation of detectives picks up the investigation.

[Detective Bill Buck]

And now we come along and we resurrect the case. And now you're part of the cog. You're responsible, and hopefully we'll be able to close it and not really bring closure, but maybe provide some answers. The thing that gets me about the cold case is you wonder, you know, what would have happened to this person, whether it was a person that was a grandfather already or whether it was a child or a young mother or son or whatever. You wonder where their life would have gone. And especially when we have the totally innocent victim, which is the one that generally cold case detectives gravitate to in the evidence boxes.

[Narrator]

Detectives Marsha and Jackson are drawn to Edmund Marr's knife and the blood found on it.

[Detective Bill Buck]

All they could tell us was it was type A blood, which is what, 40% of the population? And it excluded Marr's own blood being in there because he was type O, but it included Elaine Graham's. The first thing is, what can we do forensically?

[Narrator]

John Lewin is a deputy DA with L. A County. He reviews the Graham evidence and agrees with detectives the emerging science of DNA might be just the tool they need to put Edmund Marr behind bars.

[Detective Bill Buck]

I looked at this case, I looked at Rick and Tim, and I thought, oh, my God, I think we have enough right where we're at. I mean, let's see if we can get more. But this is a case that definitely needs to be pursued.

[Podcast Host Brooke Giddings]

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[Detective Bill Buck]

This is the knife I was asked to examine. The knife, also known as item 32.

[Narrator]

On December 11, 2002, criminalist Nick Sanchez takes custody of a knife pulled from the backpack of Edmund Marr, a convicted felon as well as a suspect in the 1983 abduction and murder of Elaine Graham.

[Detective Bill Buck]

I was asked to examine the knife for the presence of blood and, if possible, follow up that examination with DNA testing.

[Narrator]

Sanchez places the knife under a microscope and locates what appears to be a small blood stain near the knife's hilt.

[Detective Bill Buck]

It was probably about the size of a period on a newspaper page, maybe even a little smaller. So that sample was then collected onto a cotton swab. The cotton swab was extracted for DNA. I obtained what's normally known as gender typing.

[Narrator]

While the sample is too degraded to extract a full DNA profile, Sanchez does identify the blood as belonging to a female. It is a first and significant step in the case against Mar.

[Detective Bill Buck]

And that ended up being really important because what we learned was, without question, the blood from inside of the knife not only was type A, but it was female. And now the defendant was in the position of, even if it's not Elaine's blood, well, whose female blood is underneath your dagger?

[Narrator]

Forensically, the next step would be to compare blood from the knife to a sample from Elaine Graham. And that is where the cold case runs into a problem.

[Detective Bill Buck]

We did not have Elaine Graham's DNA. She was cremated. We had nothing. 20 years later, that was booked into evidence that we could get DNA from. Since we did not have a reference sample from Elaine Graham, I asked Detective Jackson about her family and if we could possibly obtain samples from them.

[Narrator]

Sanchez conducts a reverse paternity test, taking DNA from Elaine Graham's daughter Elise, stripping out the paternal DNA from her father, Steven, and seeing if what's left is consistent with genetic markers found on the knife.

[Detective Bill Buck]

Once I typed the reference samples, I determined that the person who contributed the blood to the knife could have been the mother, the biological mother.

[Narrator]

Sanchez's could have been keeps the focus on Edmund Marr, but it's not good enough by itself to support a charge of murder. Investigators need more and turn their attention to the suspect's family.

[Detective Bill Buck]

The question becomes, number one, did they give us the whole story 20 years ago? Number two, even if they did, have they learned something since then that maybe we don't know about?

[Narrator]

Investigators need to shake up the Mara family. First step, plant a story about Elaine Graham in the LA Times.

[Cat Stevenson]

My mom called me and she says, do you have a newspaper? I said, nope, and I'm not going to go. I'm running out the door to go get one. All she had to do was say they reopened the case.

[Narrator]

Cat Stevenson is Edmund Mars sister. In 1983, she told investigators she believed her brother might be involved in Elaine Graham's murder. Twenty years later, the article gets her attention.

[Cat Stevenson]

And I sat straight up and I went, elaine Graham? And she said, yes. I went, no way. I flew off that couch, flew down a Rite Aid, grabbed the newspaper, went to the California section, and there it was.

[Narrator]

As she reads the LA Times, Stevenson relives the old investigation and waits for a second visit from the men in suits.

[Cat Stevenson]

They go, hi, we're Officer Tim Marcia and Rick Jackson. I go, I was expecting you. Come on in.

[Detective Bill Buck]

She was very consistent with what she told the police back then, which is actually damaging information when you accumulate all the information.

[Narrator]

Jackson believes Stevenson is telling them all she knows. But what about other family members? Investigators begin secretly monitoring phone conversations between Mar and his family. One of the calls they intercept is between Cat Stevenson and the suspect himself.

[Cat Stevenson]

I kept asking you for years. All I need to keep saying that's just a coincidence. It's just a coincidence. You know, her car doesn't just coincidentally end up around the corner from my house. They said they found DNA. Okay, they said they found it in. According to the article, they found it in the hills of the knife, you know, and when I asked them, I go, what do you mean you found a bloodied knife in his bag? I go, wouldn't it have been cleaned off or something? Yeah, exactly. And they said it was cleaned off to some degree, but blood has a way of creeping into crevices.

[Narrator]

Edmund Marr sounds nervous, but says nothing that implicates him any further in Elaine Graham's murder. It's a conversation between Marr's mother, Frances, and his cousin Edward Cardona that gives police the handle they are looking for.

[Detective Bill Buck]

He was contacting Frances Marr to tell her, you know, how sorry he felt to see that this is all coming about in the newspaper again. And so they Started discussing what had transpired over the past 20 years.

[Cat Stevenson]

I even asked him point blank, I think about 10 years ago, did you do it? You asked him? I asked him for him. Hey, fella, you know, between you and me, I don't care about nobody else. Did you do this? No, I didn't do that. He was tired of walking, didn't have no money for a bus there. And he said he was looking to get in the car, steal a car. So he, you know, he's going through the parking lot. He said, so he saw a Volkswagen with the keys in it. So he said he got in. He said, man, I get keys and I got a car. It's the Volkswagen, you know. You know, long, long ways. No. So he did take the car, huh? Yeah, he said he took the car right away.

[Detective Bill Buck]

We knew that. That's not the same statement he gave to Paul Tippen and Leroy Orozco when he was interviewed back in 1983.

[Narrator]

Cold case detectives can now place Edmund Marr inside Elaine Graham's car and the suspected murder weapon in his hands. Marr is arrested outside of his home in Cathedral City in March of 2005. He avoids a trial by pleading guilty to second degree murder charges. At sentencing, Elise Graham, only two years old at the time of the murder, confronts her mother's killer.

[Podcast Host Brooke Giddings]

I would wish to see her the way you saw her, Edmund. Did she look something like I do now? I've been told that I have her cheekbones. Did she tell you about me when she begged for her life for just.

[Cat Stevenson]

One more moment with her baby girl?

[Detective Bill Buck]

You know, I sat at the console table, but you could hear the sniffling in the back. That was one of the toughest days, listening to her talk. Oh, that's tough.

[Podcast Host Brooke Giddings]

Today, Edmund, you asked this court for.

[Cat Stevenson]

Mercy for one more year with your mother.

[Podcast Host Brooke Giddings]

But I ask you, where was that mercy from my mother 22 years ago when you so selfishly and unnecessarily took her life?

[Detective Bill Buck]

Very gratifying. This case was the only one that I left behind that I really wanted to see solved.

[Narrator]

In the lapd, they called Cold Case detectives closers, a badge of honor worn by men and women who go into a room full of old evidence boxes and come out with the answers.

[Detective Bill Buck]

Before I came on the job, I had a friend of the family that happened to be a priest, and he was from the east coast, from Boston, and his whole family were police officers. And the day that I became a police officer and was sworn in, he took me to the side and he says, I hope you understand that this is a calling and someday you're going to figure out why you have become a police officer. And when I was assigned this unit and we started working these cases, I think I figured it out.

[Cat Stevenson]

Edmund Marr is currently 60 years old and serving out his sentence in a California prison. He gave up his right to a parole hearing in2020, and in 2019 he was denied parole. Maher will have another parole hearing in 2024 when he's 64 years old. Cold Case Files the podcast is hosted by Brooke giddings, produced by McKamey, Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our Executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast one. The the Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me brookegiddings on Twitter and brookthepodcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold case [e-mail] or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the AE Real Crime blog at aetv.com realcrime just when you thought.

[Narrator]

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[Detective Bill Buck]

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[Narrator]

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[Detective Bill Buck]

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[Narrator]

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