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You're listening to DNAID brought to you by ABJEC Entertainment. Be sure to check out some of the other great true crime podcasts from this network, including the Murder in My Family, Missing Persons, Scene of the Crime, Zodiac Speaking Beyond Bizarre True Crime, Campus Killings, Below the Surface, and Killer Communications. All of these podcasts are available for you to binge on right now, wherever you listen to podcasts or subscribe where you're listening to this podcast so you don't miss an episode.
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Episode 3 Christy Marack it was 1992. Christy Ann Marack was a 25 year old elementary school teacher in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Many people associate Lancaster with the quaint Amish culture which has settled on the outskirts of town, but Lancaster is actually the eighth largest city in the state of Pennsylvania with a population in 1992 of over 50,000. The Lancaster Metropolitan area includes over half a million residents. Christy had been born in Shamokin, a tiny coal town of fewer than 10,000 residents about 80 miles from Lancaster. Her parents were Vince and Geraldine Marack, who went by Jerry. She had a sister named Alicia, and her younger brother was also named Vince after their dad. Christy graduated from Our lady of Lourdes Regional high school in 1985, where she was in the pep Club and was on the student council and yearbook staff, and she went on to Millersville University to get her teaching degree in 1989. Once she did, she started out teaching remedial reading at Roerstown elementary in Lancaster. Christy's family says that she always wanted to be a teacher and that she had a lifelong passion for education. Her dedication paid off when she was awarded her very own first grade class halfway through the 1991-1992 school year when the regular teacher went out on leave and then her own sixth grade class in 1992. Plus, Christy was a science teacher for the entire sixth grade, comprising three classes of kids. So she was a very familiar face to all the students and faculty at Roorestown Elementary. Christy was a beautiful, bubbly blonde who was described by everyone as caring, energetic and always smiling. She adored her students and they her her colleagues loved and respected her. Everyone called her the All American Girl. She was close with her family, particularly her mom, and Christie was planning on spending the upcoming Christmas holidays with them. Back in her hometown, she had a core group of friends whom she was close with, one of whom had spent the weekend with her just before she was killed. They describe her as being funny and someone who loved to dance and hang out at the pool. But Christie was also known to be a private person, at least where her family was concerned. According to the Titusville Herald, Christie's mother, Jerry, said that her daughter told her nothing about her personal life and she was clueless about Christie's friends or romances, if any. There was a reason for that, as we will later learn. The last time Jerry saw her daughter was on Friday, December 18, when they met for dinner at Lancaster City mall with Christie's 21 year old brother, Vince. Vince was a nursing student and he was going home to his parents for the holidays. Christy would join them as soon as school got out of session for Christmas on the following Wednesday. On the weekend before she died, Christy had an overnight visitor, a close friend from her days at Millersville University. The two girls, along with Christie's roommate and another friend, bar hopped on Saturday night, visiting some favorite college hangouts like Carlos and Charlie's, Quip's Pub and Grandstand Bar and Grill. They also stopped briefly at City Lights Club. It was a fun, totally normal night for the young women. On Sunday, around 1pm Christy got a visit from a neighbor who was acting as an intermediary for a male friend who had seen Christie at Quips the night before and wanted to ask her out. Christy declined politely. She was in a relationship, although she did not tell the neighbor this. This relationship was with a married 20 years older boyfriend, a man named Ken, whom she had met at a bar she frequented with friends. But after nearly five years together, Christy had recently discovered that Ken had been stringing her along and he was not married in name only as he had led her to believe all these years. In fact, Ken was moving to Virginia with his wife and their relationship was coming to an end. Christie was trying to move on, but she was sad. That Sunday night she wrapped presents for her family and the kids in her class for each of her students. She had purchased a copy of the book Miracles on Maple Hill and jotted the same message inside. Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a great 1993 love, Ms. Marack. She also chatted with friends on the phone and decorated her townhouse. She had lived in the same three bedroom townhouse apartment at 2071 William Penn Way in the Greenfield Estates complex in East Lampeter Township, a suburb of Lancaster, for about four years. This was right off Pitney Road. She lived with her roommate and friend Mary Lesko. Another roommate had gotten married and moved out that summer. It was Christie and Mary's last Christmas in the townhouse as they were moving to a smaller place in in the same complex after the first of the year they had moved to the Greenfield Estates complex because they decided that it was generally safer to live in the suburban area than the city. Only one person knows exactly what happened on the morning of Monday, December 21, 1992. As always on a weekday, Christy woke up around 5:30am ate breakfast while watching the 6am news and got ready for work. Christy's roommate Mary left for work just after seven while Christy was still upstairs getting ready for her day. She was notorious among her friends for taking forever to get ready to go out. This particular morning, Christy dressed for school and placed the wrapped gifts for her students near the front door. With the gifts was a small tree for her classroom. Around 7:15am two neighbors named sue and Jean were walking their dog outside number 2071. They heard a single high pitched scream come from the condo. Since it wasn't repeated, they chalked it up to Christmas excitement. Christy failed to show up for work that morning. The principal of Rosetown Elementary, Harry Goodman, who considered Christy a friend, was very concerned when she did not come into her classroom that morning, did not call in and did not answer her phone. She was always there by 7:45 but on this day she was MIA. This was totally and completely out of character for Christy. After waiting for a while, Harry called her mom who had not heard from her daughter and and the state police non emergency line. He decided to jump in his car and check on Christy himself. Harry drove over to her apartment complex about a 15 minute trip. Christie's townhome had an entrance directly to the street. Her car was parked in the driveway. Harry found the door slightly open and hesitantly walked in calling Christy by name. It wasn't until he peered into the living room that he found her. A panicked Harry ran next door and used the home phone of some neighbors and Anthony and Nancy orsi to call 911 at 9:22am According to the Orsis. He was shaking and he kept saying I know she's dead. I know she's dead. He said later that there was blood everywhere. When the Police arrived at 9:26am Officer Ronald Yockey had to kick down the door. Harry had slammed it behind him and it locked automatically. Harry did not re enter the apartment with the officer. He had seen enough. Christy was pronounced dead on the scene at 9:55am by the county coroner, Dr. Barry Waup. Her death was immediately declared suspicious because it was evident to everyone who saw her body that she had been murdered. Christie was lying on her back. She had been so badly beaten that her face was almost unrecognizable later court documents would say, quote, the position and condition of Ms. Marack was not consistent with a consensual encounter, but instead pointed to a violent sexual assault that ultimately resulted in her death. Investigators determined that Kristi was most likely killed between 7am when Mary left the home and 7:45am the time when she usually left for work herself. But since we know that there was a scream at 7:15, it seems likely that she was attacked by her assailant at that time. Meanwhile, Christie's mom, Jerry, who had been alerted by the principal, Harry, that Christie had not showed up that morning, repeatedly tried to call her daughter at the townhouse. There was no answer for three hours. Then, at 11:45am a police officer answered the ringing phone and told Jerry that the family needed to come to Lancaster right away. There had been an accident and Kristi was dead. Christie's roommate, Mary, arrived back at the townhouse around noon. It's unclear whether she had received a call from police summoning her home, but she was seen sitting in the police car crying as East Lampeter Township Police Sergeant Ron Savage spoke with her. She must have felt terrified about how narrowly she had avoided being present for the attack. Teachers at Christie's school were pulled aside and notified of the tragedy during the school day, while the kids were watching the school holiday play. Trouble in Toyland. Police investigating the crime, the only murder in East Lampeter Township in 1992, quickly came to believe that Christie was killed by someone she knew. There was no sign of forced entry to the home or of any kind of robbery. And it seemed that she must have opened the door to someone after 7am when her roommate left for work.
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Work.
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Sergeant Savage was the chief investigator on the case. He told the Titusville Herald, this is definitely not a random crime. A headline in the Lebanon Daily News blared, teacher, New Killer. But it's unclear whether Christy knowingly opened the door to someone since she had a peephole and could see who was there, or opened the door to exit as she was leaving for work and someone forced his way in. It was suspected from the outset that Christie's assailant was a male because Sergeant Savage said of the quote, violence and sheer strength that was required to cause the injuries Christie suffered. But there was other evidence that her assailant was a male. Police did not reveal this at the time, but Christie had been raped. She had been found without her shoes, pants or underwear on, although her socks, brown leather jacket and burgundy gloves were still on, and her shirt, sweater and Jacket were pushed up on her torso. Because she was wearing gloves. There was no DNA under her fingernails. The but plenty of DNA was left behind by the perpetrator in the form of semen both on Christy and on the carpeted floor. She had been brutalized, raped repeatedly by her assailant. The crime scene was chaotic. Scrape marks and scuffs on the back of the front door and the hallway floor indicated that Christie was attacked at the front door and dragged back into the living room. Her shoe buckles made the marks on the floor. Her knees and elbows were bruised. At 115 pounds, Christie was no match for her attacker, who clearly waylaid her right at her entranceway. But she put up a struggle in the living room. The couch was slashed. The packages, cushions and sofa blanket were thrown on the floor. A button from the inside of Christie's pants had been ripped off and was found next to her as she fought. She was hit on the head and in the face multiple times with an object police would not identify, but was later confirmed to have been the kitchen cutting board, which was found right next to her head. Perhaps it was thought Christy had run and grabbed it to wield fruitlessly at her assailant and he had turned it against her. No weapons were found at the scene, which was processed for days. The piece of carpeting under Christie's body, which had visible stains on it, was cut out and collected into evidence and everything was dusted for prints and photographed. Christie's autopsy confirmed the police theory that Christie had been raped. She was found to have semen in her vaginal and anal cavities as well as on her legs and lower back and in her mouth. Swabs of all of these areas were taken and carefully preserved. The autopsy also detailed how badly Christy had been brutalized. A front tooth was knocked out. Her jaw was broken. There were wounds on her neck, arms, back and chest. Her facial region exhibited evidence of severe blunt force trauma, almost certainly from the cutting board. The cause of death was manual strangulation, a homicidal act. She had been strangled repeatedly from different angles. There were marks from seven distinguishable hand positions on her neck. She likely suffered for quite some time as her attackers suffocated her over and over. Despite the fact that investigators removed multiple boxes of Christie's personal items from the home to sift through at the time, none of these things appear to have led anywhere. Remember, this was in the pre cell phone era. Investigators had to do a lot of legwork to establish all the contacts in Christy's life in the Summer, when she wasn't teaching, she worked as a waitress at Conestoga Country Club and as cashier at Neffsville Pharmacy. The pretty, outgoing blonde could have attracted the eye of almost anyone in these public settings. Stymied, police went door to door and stopped everyone walking or driving in Christie's townhouse development the day after the murders, trying to get a sense of who lived in or frequented the area. But they hit a brick wall. But then, at the end of December, witness information provided a new lead. A man had been seen parking directly across William Penn Way from Christie's townhouse in an overflow lot early on the morning Christie died. The parking lot was used by visitors to the complex, and cars there could easily observe Christie's condo located on the end of the units. A witness had seen a man parking a medium sized sedan in the lot and then jogging up to Christie's front door sometime after 7am since it was believed that she died shortly around this time, this seemed like an important tip. It was possible that the man had been watching, observed Christie's roommate depart for work and then struck. Yet this lead also went nowhere. Despite the assistant DA stating that the investigation was narrowing in on those persons who knew Christie and had an opportunity to kill her, no persons of interest were identified. Sergeant Savage stated that despite the lack of a suspect, he still felt that they would be able to solve the case. And using good old fashioned police work, he would prove to be wrong about this. By April 1993, four months after Christie's brutal slaying, 18 detectives from five different law enforcement agencies and the Assistant DA had conducted more than 500 interviews, confirmed the alibis of 50 potential suspects, subjected five people to polygraph exams, collected blood and hair samples from a number of people, and eliminated three, quote, strong suspects through DNA testing. They had developed a DNA profile from the sample taken from the carpet under Christie's body. It was consistent with the contributor of DNA found in the swabs taken during the autopsy. The DNA was not a match to anyone known to investigators. The man that Christie had been dating for the past five years, who had been president of the Teamsters Local 771 for eight years, was ruled out upon finding out about Christie's murder on the 22nd, when he stopped by the school with flowers for her, he agreed to talk to police, cooperated, and submitted to a polygraph, which he passed. He had also been out of state on the morning of the murder. He was not their man. The Marack family announced a $10,000 reward for information in May, five months after Christy's shocking murder, her family and friends were finally permitted to enter her condo and clean out her things. They found the small Christmas tree, brown and bare. The gifts for the children in Christy's class were still sitting there, beautifully wrapped and each with its candy cane still intact. The books were turned over to Harry Goodman, who kept them in his office and allowed each of Christy's student families to decide whether to claim their child's gift from the beloved teacher or whether perhaps to do so would be too traumatic for the kids. Christie's roommate, meanwhile, was so scarred by the murder that she moved out of the area very soon after the crime. As time went on, more information was revealed about the circumstances under which Christie was killed and what investigators believe actually happened that day. More than one witness had observed the vehicle parking in the overflow lot across from Christie's apartment. It had come from the direction of Pitney Road, a major road out of the city. The car was a white or silver 1987-1991 Dodge Daytona, Toyota Celica, or Turismo hatchback with sunshades in the rear window that looked a little beat up. The driver parked, got out and jogged across the street toward Christie's door. But it was not clear whether he actually went inside. No one actually saw him go in the door. This man was described as white, in his 20s, tall, sandy or dark haired, with an athletic, muscular build. Later, police weren't certain that the man seen wasn't the son of the Orces, the couple next door whose phone Harry had used to call the police. The son's car was parked in the overflow lot that morning and he had gone out to start it up, to warm it up, and came back to his parents house a few doors down. Sunrise that day was not until 7:29, so it was not at all clear whether the witness who saw the man parking the car actually had a good view of him. In a shocking twist, this young Orsi had testified in the murder trial relating to the killing of Laurie Sho, who also lived in East Lampeter Township and had been murdered in a sensational crime the year before. This appears to have been nothing but a coincidence, albeit a weird one. Christy and her roommate were known to be very security conscious. They kept the door locked, had one of those wooden planks that block the opening of the slider to the outside and kept the downstairs windows closed. And there was no sign of forced entry to the condo. So it was theorized that Christy had opened the door to her killer for one of three Reasons either she knew the man who was at the door. She possibly believed it was a Christmas present delivery from her boyfriend, which she was expecting, but which ended up arriving the day after her murder, or she was leaving for work and she was jumped. But no one really knows how her attacker gained entry. Her family says that she was careful not to open her door to strangers. In fact, Christie's brother Vince said that when he stopped by her home, he had to ring the doorbell and identify himself before she would let him in. But Christy was also a little naive in the way that small town girls often are. Perhaps she fell for a ruse. And most people don't expect to be attacked at their own front door at 7am on a Monday a few days before Christmas. Meanwhile, witnesses were fairly certain that the light colored Dodge was gone from the overflow lot by 9am but there was more. Investigators had reason to believe that Christy had been watched prior to her murder. It was not considered a coincidence that the attack occurred as soon as Mary left the house that day. This was the first day in several weeks that Mary had left early. Usually she left a little later. Someone had been watching the house and sprung as soon as he got the opportunity. In fact, the witnesses who had observed the light colored vehicle had seen it driving slowly through the complex and parked in various spots that morning between 6 and 7am Police believed that someone was in the vehicle watching the house to see when the roommate left. Further, the same light colored vehicle that was parked in the overflow lot that day had been seen there during the two week period leading up to the murder. After Christy died, it was never seen there again. Christy never told anyone that she felt she was being watched. But there was something else. Christy's boyfriend told investigators that there had been a peeping Tom at her apartment window before her murder. The peeper was seen at the window hiding in the bushes outside Christie's condo. When Christie's roommate screamed, the guy ran. They never reported it. And after Christie's murder, her roommates could give only vague descriptions of a white male, about 5 foot 9 with dark hair. But to investigators, this was an intriguing clue. It looked like Christy had been targeted. They worked to find young, white, muscular men who knew Christie, who might have driven a light colored Dodge or possibly a Toyota sedan. At the end of 1992, the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit put together a profile of Christie's likely murderer. He was someone who had not killed before, but might have raped before. They believed he flew into a rage when Christie rejected his advances or fought back he was someone who preferred to observe things rather than be the center of attention or the life of the party. This profile would prove to be wrong about this. In May 1993, police released a composite sketch of a man who was seen walking along Pitney Road on the morning of December 21, 1992, around 7:30am this was only about 150ft from Christie's home. The man was described as white, late 20s, with a muscular build and long, stringy dark hair. Two months later, police updated the description of the suspect's vehicle, stating that it was believed to be a 1987 or 1991 silver Dodge Daytona hatchback. The police continued to track down every lead and run down every tip, but their efforts were in vain. There was just not enough to go on, and they had eliminated everyone who they could connect in any way to Kristi Marack. Despite the impact Christy's unsolved murder had on the town where people now lived in fear, locked their doors and tried desperately to make sense of it all, the case started to grow cold. By 1995, more than 60 potential suspects had been eliminated and 1,500 persons interviewed. That year, an East Lampeter Township investigator named Renee Shuler attended an 11 week training course at the FBI Academy in Quantico. While she was there, she put together and circulated a 59 page presentation on Christie's case. Experts at the nation's top law enforcement agency gave her their two cents and made suggestions for investigative avenues that could be pursued. When Shuler returned to East Lampeter, investigators began reviewing the case afresh, reinterviewing 24 men who knew Christie socially, trying to establish her movements and understand her habits. Schuller told the Lancaster New Era. Quote, we're starting at book one, making no assumptions whatsoever because we want to be open minded. We're starting at the time police got the initial call. We're going to study the photos and the crime scene again. It is still our feeling that the killer knew her or knew of her. It went nowhere. In May 2002, the Lancaster Sunday News received a phone call from a man who said that he knew Christy Marack and was friends with her brother Vince. He claimed that he knew of a barn on the Marack family property where Christie would take men, and he called her a derogatory name, implying that she was a loose woman. Such women didn't necessarily deserve to die, the caller said. But he asked, what else did they expect living that kind of lifestyle while there was no barn on the Marack family property and this phone call did not lead the investigation anywhere. The the FBI felt it possible that the caller was indeed Christie's killer. Feeling remorse as the 10th anniversary of her murder approached in September 2002, Jerry Marack, Christie's mother, knew that she was dying of metastatic breast cancer. Anticipating the 10th anniversary of her daughter's unsolved murder, she reached out to a local paper, LNP Lancaster, to make one last public plea for information about the case. It had been years after the murder before Jerry was even able to discuss it. Now she was afraid she would not live to see justice for her daughter. She was right. Jerry passed away on November 4, 2002, at age 59. It was one day after what would have been Christie's 35th birthday in 2003. The complete FBI profile of Christie's killer was released in hopes that it would generate some new tips. He was someone with a short temper, who may have hurt women before, Someone who was likely reading everything about the case and who spoke disparagingly of the investigators. He might have altered his appearance around the time of the murder 11 years earlier. Years passed with no real news. Articles continued to appear commemorating Christie interviewing her friends and family, discussing the Facebook page set up for her. Her brother Vince paid to erect a billboard on Route 30 asking for tips. The FBI listed Christie on their seeking information website. The Lancaster County DA's office took over the case from east lampeter police and reviewed it with fresh eyes in 2016. But none of this would amount to any tangible leads. So behind the scenes, investigators were determined to maximize the potential of the one real piece of evidence they had in Christy's case. DNA. While no matches were ever found in the regular searches they ran against CODIS. By 2016, 25 years after Christy's death, DNA technology had made major advancements and was able to do more than just link two known samples. Detective Christopher Erb of the DA's office attended a cold case training course and there watched a presentation on parabon nanolabs and their newly emergent forensic genealogy tool. After discussing the methodology in light of the stalled nature of Christie's case, the DA's office contracted with Parabon to conduct phenotype analysis. Using the killer's DNA, Parabon created computer generated images of the killer ranging in age from 25 to 55. Parabon's phenotype of the killer found that he was likely 3/4 Caucasian and 1/4 Latino, with fair skin and brown or hazel eyes and brown or black hair. The image was enough to renew hope for Christie's family that one day her killer would be caught. Her brother Vince said, I've been hopeful for all these years, and I don't ever plan on giving up. This new information makes it even more possible. I feel very confident that someday this is going to be solved. He was right. On June 26, 2018, in a press conference, Lancaster county district attorney now Judge Craig Stedman announced that Lancaster county authorities had made an arrest in the Christy Marack murder case. The DA's office had proceeded to further engage Parabon Nanolabs to perform genetic genealogical tracing analysis using the DNA left behind by the killer 26 years earlier. And the genetic trail led them to someone with no known connection whatsoever to Kristi Marack. Here's what happened. Parabon Nanolabs uploaded the suspect DNA found on Kristy Marack's body and on the carpet underneath her to Gedmatch. And then Parabon's tracers went to work, locating a near match with the same familial lineage as the suspect, a half sister of their unknown killer. This woman named Georgia in Ohio had entered her DNA into Gedmatch because she had been adopted in 1970 and was trying to find her birth mother. And her birth mother turned out to be a woman named Linda. After recreating the family tree, Parabon's tracers realized that Georgia shared a mother, Linda, with two male half siblings. And one of these two males was likely Kristi Marack's killer. Investigators learned that both of Linda's sons were viable suspects. They were both of age in 1992, one being 24 and the other being 16. But the man who had been in his teens at the time, named Troy, had vanished. There was no record of his whereabouts. Investigators decided to start with the other brother, who was a lot easier to track down because he lived in Lancaster. He also had Puerto Rican heritage, just as Parabon had predicted. And not only that, this guy lived four miles from Christy Marack at the time of her murder. Once they had a name to match the sample, police set to work confirming the killer's identity. They started surveilling him, setting up a video camera on a pole outside his house at 249 Whittier Lane so they could monitor his comings and goings. They surreptitiously confiscated his trash, going through it and finding stuff like broken sunglasses and 600 photo negatives that they developed looking for clues. Unbeknownst to the suspect, officers from the Pennsylvania State Police went undercover and staked him out, following him around and hoping to confiscate something he had deposited his DNA on. This was relatively easy as he regularly made public appearances. He was a local celebrity of sorts, in fact, a popular disc jockey known as DJ Freeze. On Thursday, May 31, 2018, he played a gig at Smoketown Elementary School and an undercover officer from the State police was there hoping to grab a sample. Think about that for a second. Police went undercover at a school to watch an alleged brutal rapist and murderer perform for a bunch of elementary age kids, something he did regularly. The female officer even posed with the killer in the photo booth at the event with her police hat on. So I guess she was not so undercover. When DJ Freeze finished his gig and left, he left behind an empty Kirkland brand water bottle he had brought along. And he also left behind a wad of chewed gum inside an empty cup which provided a smorgasbord of DNA. The officers scooped them up and bagged them. All these items were sent to the Pennsylvania State Police crime lab for testing. Meanwhile, as the DNA testing was being done to confirm that the forensic genealogy had been correct, after the police confiscated the items from the event at the elementary school, DJ Freeze and his wife and their daughter left on a three week long family vacation. They went on a road trip to see the National Parks. Police had to cool their jets and wait for him to get back, which the DA later said was nerve wracking. But he eventually returned on June 18. Meanwhile, the state Police crime lab expedited the testing and had results by June 22. There was a match. The DNA on the carpet sample and the swabs taken from the body of Christy Marack matched the DNA on the gum and the water bottle. DJ Freeze, AKA Raymond Charles Rowe had killed Christy Marack. There was a 1 in 200 octillion chance that the DNA found at Christie's crime scene belonged to someone else. Police had all they needed to arrest 49 year old Rowe on 25 June 2018. Police watched Raymond Rowe as he mowed his lawn in a T shirt and shorts. They decided that the time was right. Roe couldn't access a weapon or barricade himself in his home. Detective Erb approached and said, Raymond Rowe, we have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Christy Marack, Roe said. Who? Christy Marack, said the detective. I don't know her, said Roe. He allowed himself to be arrested without incident and they proceeded down to the station for a lengthy interview which commenced at 1:44pm. In the interview room, Rowe waived his Miranda rights. He was relatively chatty. He didn't seem to have absorbed what they told him he was there for. In an interview transcribed in 101 pages, which I read every word of, Detectives Herb and Martin talked with him about his life, his work experience, his education, his recent trip out west, and so on. It was all very convivial. Detectives masterfully managed to bring the conversation around to what cars he had driven back in the day. And Rose said that he had a Celica. He believed it was white and it had a big fin on the back because he said, quote, I have my own big fin. Yes, this creep was wink, wink, nudge, nudging with detectives about the size of his man parts. He also made sure to point out that he is, quote, pro police. Then they got down to it and repeated to him that the warrant he had been shown was an arrest warrant against him for the murder of Christy Marack. He said he didn't know the name. He denied knowing her. They showed him pictures of Christie, and he said, she didn't look familiar. She looked like, quote, a typical girl. In fact, he said that based on the photos, Christie was, quote, not my type of girl. She is kind of country club rich daddy's girl. It looks like you can tell by the pleated pants. Not my type of girl. Rowe would not budge when confronted with questions about Christy. He said he had never been to Greenfield Estates, even though his drive to work at Servicemaster, which he acknowledged would have taken him through there. After being pressed, he did acknowledge some information about his vehicle in 1992 that I will get into in a bit. He admitted to having one violent episode and hitting an old girlfriend, but in general, he denied having anything to do with Christy Marack. He didn't do it or know anything about it. He even continued to deny knowing Christie after being told that his DNA had been found at the scene. When shown the phenotype images of the suspect, he said, he doesn't look like anybody I know. And when Detective Erbs said to him, quote, it came back and you matched 100%. There's no question you did this. Roe acted incredulous, saying, only, I match this. He continued to deny knowing Christie and said this was all really shocking, baffling, and confusing. When Detective Herb pointed out that they had found his semen all over the condo, it was a lot of semen, and it couldn't have teleported there. Roe gave a nervous laugh and said, well, I don't have that much semen. But he recovered himself, saying, I shouldn't be laughing. Sorry. At one point, he said, if you're trying to get some type of confession. I don't know what to say to you. They didn't need one. They had him dead to rights. Toward the end of the interview, when it sank in that he was going straight to jail, Rowe said, this feels like a dream. This is really happening. Like a nightmare. My brain is collapsing. After some discussion of the next steps, Roe's legal rights to an attorney and how he would afford one, the interview was halted after several hours. Once they had Roe in custody, detectives dotted their I's and crossed their T's. They obtained a DNA sample from Roe's brother Troy that excluded the younger man as Christie's killer. And a warrant to draw Roe's blood and obtain a DNA sample proved conclusively that he was their man. Roe was held without bail pending arraignment and then trial. Announcing the arrest, DA Craig Stedman said this killer was at liberty for this brutal crime longer than Christy Marack was on earth. Alive. His apprehension was long overdue. Stedman went on to credit Parabon for their indispensable role in solving the 26 year old case. Stedman said, quote, we didn't have any more leads. We didn't have any suspects. Parabon was the last shot and it turned out to be our best. We didn't feel like we had any more arrows in the quiver. Vince Marack said that the moment he learned of the arrest of Raymond Roe was bittersweet. He told the media, you're relieved in one way, but the pain starts all over again. He had known nothing about the arrest until it was over when he got a call from the DA asking him to come to Lancaster. In a statement, Parabon CC Morris said of the arrest, quote, we do not solve these cases. We provide a highly scientific tip and law enforcement performs their traditional investigation to confirm or refute our theory. No arrests are made on our work alone. That said, our genetic genealogical technique and research on this case led right back to Lancaster and to the suspect. This is one case in which the genetic genealogist got lucky. A first degree relative of their suspect was in Gedmatch, making their job a little easier. But Detective Erb and his colleagues still had to do the legwork to ensure that the potential suspect named by Parabon was their killer. So who was this DJ Freeze. Raymond Charles Rowe was born in Lancaster on October 22, 1968. According to him, his father cheated on his mother and left when he was born. When he was a preteen, his mother gave him up for adoption to another family. But they were abusive because they were racist and he had Puerto Rican heritage. He was called Spic and span and accused of all sorts of things. He ran away and lived under a bridge for a time, he said. Then he lived in a friend's attic and started running with breakdance and hip hop guys who were thugs. He said he lived only for today and didn't think about his future. It took him a while to break out of this scene and pull his life together, he told detectives. An English teacher who was a DJ in his off hours mentored him and taught him the business. By the time he was arrested, Rowe was a popular DJ and radio personality in the Lancaster area. At the time of the murder, he was 24 years old, working at ServiceMaster and moonlighting as a DJ and living at 422 East Chestnut street four miles from Christie. In the ultimate irony, just four months before he had killed her, Rowe had DJed for a stop the Violence event in lancaster. And in 1992, he produced a hip hop song with rapper Be Original titled Don't yout Ever Resist Me, with lyrics about the violence that will befall people who try to fight back against the rapper's will. What's most shocking is that when he killed Christie, Rowe had a fiance whom he lived with. The two were married four months later. The fiance who became his second wife, Monica Whelan, told dateline's Angela Cannon, I mean, he slept in my bed that night. You know, we had Christmas four days later and we got married months later. Even more disturbingly, when Christie's case hit the media, Monica said that Roe had pretended to be concerned for her safety because of the lethal attack on the young local teacher being covered in the media. According to Rowe, his first wife, Sandra, had cheated on him, so they broke up. But he didn't officially divorce Sandra until 1993, when he married Monica. During Rowe's marriage to Monica from 1996 to 1997, Roe secretly dated a 25 year old cocktail waitress named Emily Noble. The two met at Lancaster's Chameleon Club, where they both worked. Back then, Emily looked startlingly like Christy Marack, with blonde hair, green eyes and a wholesome beauty. She says that Roe was good looking, very friendly and was a real music lover. He also had a very strong personality. The two got serious and after two months together, Emily asked Rowe to choose between her and his wife. He and his wife separated and Rowe and Emily became exclusive and things started to go downhill. Emily has said in several interviews that Roe was very controlling, abusive and possessive. He would put her down and repeatedly tell her she was worthless or useless. She got away from him when he accepted a three month long DJ stint in Chile in South America, and they broke up. Emily has stated that when she heard that Roe had been arrested for killing Christy Marack, she was stunned, but not altogether surprised. And of course, she felt that she had dodged a bullet. Emily told prosecutors preparing the case against Roe that he was emotionally abusive. And friends who grew up with Roe said that he had a lot of anger issues against his mother. They also said that even though he had dropped out of high school, he was intelligent. He later earned his ged. Others recalled that Rowe on occasion mentioned that he had lived a different life in the past. He told one woman he was friends with that he had a hoodlum past. He was known to have a thing for blondes. He had called the police a couple of times for things like a stolen car radio and for shots fired at a club he was deejaying at. But he had no record to speak of other than one juvie arrest for shoplifting and an arrest in 2001 stemming from a police raid of a club he was working pertaining to a crackdown on underage drinking. Rowe was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. It seems likely that he resisted arrest because he was terrified to be arrested in this incident lest his secret be found out. But it was not found out for another 17 years. And in a remarkable display of arrogance, Roe sued several agencies over this arrest, claiming that his civil rights were violated simply because he refused to turn down the music. According to the Associated Press, quote, his criminal charges were resolved through a program for first time offenders and the federal civil rights lawsuit was settled out of court, end quote. It sounds like Roe accepted a payment from the government to drop his lawsuit over this 2001 arrest. He must have been secretly enjoying that irony for nearly two decades until his final arrest on charges that could not be negotiated away. By the time of his arrest in 2018, Rowe was on his fourth wife, whom he had married in 2015. He was also one of the most renowned DJs in central Pennsylvania, providing music to more than 150 events a year, like proms, weddings, parties. At one point, he owned a retail shop in Lancaster that sold music and DJ related paraphernalia. His social media showed him with celebrities such as Sean Paul, Hulk Hogan, Paris Hilton. Rowe had DJed at events featuring Sting and the Eagles and worked events at New York's Madison Square Garden. He was the chief executive officer of his own company, Freeze Entertainment, which employed two other DJs as well as his wife. Two of Christie's students, who ended up getting married much later, narrowly avoided using DJ Freeze as the DJ at their wedding because he was booked. People who worked with Rose said he was the consummate professional. One colleague who had known him for years called him a godly man, someone who was kind, caring, a loving family man, a great friend. Rose neighbors told the media that they were shocked at the news of his arrest. One person who had known him for 10 years said, quote, he was the nicest guy I'd ever met. Raymond's fourth wife, Olena, who was from the Ukraine, had a daughter from a previous relationship and Roe adopted her. He also had a daughter with his first wife, Sandra, who was born in 1986 and with whom he still maintained a relationship. Speaking of Rose wife, Elena, she has stood by her man. At the end of July 2018, right after his arrest, he sold her their home for the sum of $1. And she still lives there and uses the last name of Roe. She continues to visit her husband in prison regularly and often. And in fact, recorded prison phone calls show that she has been 100% involved in trying to find ways to exonerate him. They even made fun of some of the investigators and brainstormed together about how to poke holes in the state's case against Roe. Raymond Roe was never on investigators radar in Christie's case. There was no mention of him in the case file. After the DNA connected him to the crime, investigators dug into his past and interviewed many people who knew him, but were never able to determine for certain whether he and Christie knew each other. To this day, there is no confirmed connection between the two. We know that Rose, daily route to work at servicemaster back in 1992, took him right past Christie's apartment complex. The service master was located in an industrial park right near Christie's apartment. He could have seen her on any one of his commutes. Interviews with Christie's old friends told detectives that Christy liked to sunbathe outside her condo on the grass. And this would have put her in plain view of Roe on his daily drive to and from work. And further in the months leading up to her murder. There was the Peeping Tom. Detective Erb told me that he is certain that Roe was the peeper based on his shifty body language when the incident was discussed. And it seems too much of a coincidence for there to have been two separate men spying on Christie's condo in 1992. But there was one tangible piece of evidence hinting that perhaps Christie and Roe knew each other or were at least acquainted. In Christie's wallet was found a complimentary pass to the Chameleon Club in downtown Lancaster. Ro was the house DJ at that club on Friday evenings for 15 years, including in 1992. Christie's girlfriends told police that the Chameleon Club was one of the clubs the group of young women like to go to. We don't know if Roe and Christy met there or how she obtained the exclusive complimentary pass. Perhaps he personally gave it to her, hoping to see her again. It's also not known whether investigators back in 1992 went to the club and spoke to people affiliated with it. If they had, there's no indication that their suspicions would have been raised by speaking with Raymond Rowe, who by all accounts was very likable and normal. Since his name was not jotted down anywhere in the file and he was not interviewed, the club owner had nothing but good things to say about him when interviewed after his arrest. In any event, this circumstantial link provides reinforcement for the theory that Christie and Roe came across each other at a club. But we may never know for sure the extent of their interaction. One final piece of evidence linking Roe to Christy. Investigators learned that at the time of the murder, Roe drove a white Toyota Celica, which looks very similar to the Dodge Daytona witnesses believed they had seen parked in the overflow lot outside her condo on the morning of her murder. Roe admitted that he drove this car in his interview with police after his arrest, but only after Detective Earb pressed him and showed him a traffic citation he had received in 1991 while driving that car for driving 78 in a 55 zone. In a plea deal agreed to by the Marack family, on January 8, 2019, Roe pleaded guilty to first degree murder, rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and burglary. He agreed to the deal in order to avoid the death penalty, which was called for by the aggravating circumstances in the case of. Prosecutors had filed a notice of intent to seek a sentence of death on July 26, 2018. As part of the plea deal, Roe was required to verbally plead guilty in court. He directly addressed Christie's family, saying dispassionately, I'm sorry, sir, to the family, I can't imagine what you're going through. I apologize. This was as close as the alleged born again Christian came to publicly expressing remorse. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 60 to 120 years. This sentence was intended to ensure that he will never be released. Christie's murder is the only crime that has been attributed to Roe. So far. There is no evidence connecting him to any other murders, although the DA said they cannot rule out that he killed or assaulted other women. Roe lived and worked as a DJ in Chile, South America, for three months in 1996, and has traveled extensively as part of his DJing business. Christie's father wanted to speak in court that day to address his daughter's killer, but he was overcome with emotion and unable to speak. Christie's brother, Vince Maraque, spoke up. He said to the man who murdered his sister, quote, I've searched for who could do such a horrific thing, who could do something so heinous to another person and walk away with no regret. Now I know who you took away. Our joy, security, love for the Christmas holiday. Most of all, you took away our Christie. Vince also asked the question that so many of us have even to this day. The question I have to ask you is why, as Harry Goodman, who found Christie's body, said, quote, why would he do this to such a wonderful person? We're all very disappointed that that wasn't addressed in connection with his plea deal. Roe was under no obligation to provide answers as to why he killed Christie, and he didn't. His silence on this point leaves Christie's family and those who knew her feeling unsatisfied, despite knowing that her killer is behind bars forever. Vince Marax said to him as he was sentenced, I can only hope that the remainder of your life is as painful to you as the last 26 years have been to my family. As DA Steadman said after the sentencing, there's no celebrating or high fives in cases like this. Seeing justice serve provides some satisfaction, but it is tempered with the knowledge that Christie's life was taken by someone who went on to live much of his own in freedom. After I had written this entire script, I received word that Raymond Roe had filed an appeal of his conviction under Pennsylvania's Post Conviction Relief act, or pcra. Even though he took a plea deal and the one year window to appeal had lapsed, the grounds for his appeal are bizarre. Roe claims that a TV news show that covered Christie's case and his arrest and conviction was on. The Case with Paul Azan, which aired on November 24, 2019, revealed new facts that, if he had known, would have caused him not to plead guilty. He argued that these were not facts that he could have discovered through his own due diligence. And the new facts were, first, that investigators believed that Christie was Being stalked. Paula Zahn's word, not that used by law enforcement. This is ridiculous, because at the hearing where Roe entered his plea of guilty, prosecutors maintained that they believed Christie was targeted by her killer. The use of the term stalked is not a new fact, but merely a different terminology for the same concept. The second new fact in air quotes, was stated on the show by one investigator that he believed Christie was raped right inside the door. Rowe claims that he wasn't told this, but of course, all the documentation about the case was provided to his attorney in the course of discovery, and it's not clear that it would have impacted his guilty plea whether Christie was raped at the door or in the living room. Except clearly, he's trying to discount the living room carpet with his DNA on it as probative evidence. Speaking of DNA, Roe is also requesting additional DNA testing, specifically requesting testing of the following. The cutting board, a toaster that was nearby, Christy's pants, sweater, and shirt, the door and the doorknobs to the condo, and some of the swabs taken from Christy's body. He was requesting these because he said touch DNA testing was not available when these things were tested. And he maintained another male's DNA was likely to be found on these items. He was wrong about the testing that was done. Per the Commonwealth's response to Roe's motion. The testing conducted by the Pennsylvania State Police DNA lab in 2018 was state of the art, and the autosomal DNA profile that came up belonged unequivocally to Roe. There was no one else. But it gets worse. In his motion, a desperate Roe came up with a new story. And that story was that he and Kristi Marack were in a relationship and had had sex the morning that she died. I really, really detest these slanderous lies spewed by shameless offenders that revictimize their victims to their own benefit. And frankly, this one's laughable. If that tale were true, why would Roe have denied knowing Christie over and over again for hours when confronted by police with his DNA being found on her? His refusal to acknowledge knowing Christy in his interview does have an upside. It totally undermines this afterthought of a defense. Raymond Roe's PCRA petition and the responses of both parties will be reviewed by the judge. He or she will determine how to proceed by either dismissing the petition as baseless or granting a hearing to hear the claims of both parties. It will be fascinating to watch this unfold, but I, for one, am hoping the judge throws out the motion and throws away the key. Christy is buried in All Saints Cemetery in Elysburg, Pennsylvania. Jerry is buried next to her. Christy's case was the first to be solved using this novel crime solving tool in Pennsylvania, and only the third in the United States. DA Stedman called the case groundbreaking and monumental. After 26 years, Christy Marack's case is finally closed, thanks to forensic genealogy. And if you're one of the bad guys, they're coming for you. Many thanks to Christopher Erb, County Detective with the Office of the Lancaster DA Criminal Investigations Unit for speaking me with me about this case. Thanks for listening to this episode of dnaid.
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