Marilyn Decker

Summary

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DNA: ID – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Marilyn Decker

Host: Jessica Betancourt (AbJack Entertainment)

Air Date: February 23, 2026

Main Theme:

This episode explores the decades-old cold case murder of Marilyn Decker, ultimately solved through investigative genetic genealogy (IGG). The podcast meticulously uncovers Marilyn's tragic fate, the struggles of her life, and how modern forensic science finally identified her killer as Donald Lawless. The episode also delves into the victim/killer dynamics, family impact, and the real-world implications for cold case legislation.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

Discovery of Marilyn Decker’s Body

• [02:55] Marilyn’s body was discovered on October 22, 1987, in a canal off Flamingo Road, Davie, Florida, by a passing motorist.

  • The body was wrapped in a large, pink, transparent plastic bag, with an orange towel inside.
  • She wore only a Camel Lights T-shirt from Fort Lauderdale (1980).
  • The nature of her injuries, including severe post-mortem mutilation and signs of asphyxia, indicated homicide rather than accidental drowning.
  • “The whole thing surrounded by what looked like a diaphanous pink cloud.” — Jessica Betancourt [03:29]

• Scene Analysis

  • Investigators found the site was likely only a disposal site; the murder occurred elsewhere.
  • Forensic analysis turned up Marilyn’s fingerprints, blood samples, and various hairs (some animal, some human).

Marilyn’s Life and Circumstances

• [12:17] Marilyn was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts in 1959, moved to Florida in 1972, and struggled with addiction and instability throughout her adult life.
  • After early promise, she became involved in sex work to support a crack habit.
  • She became estranged from her family in her last years, living transiently and isolated.
  • "[Marilyn] didn’t fit. Most classified her as too nice to be on the streets." — Quote from area locals, [20:28]
  • Family and friends remembered her as empathetic and out of place in the environment where she died.

Early Investigation & Obstructed Leads

• [15:00–27:00]
  • Investigators meticulously tracked down potential leads via the plastic bag and towel with manufacturer's marks, but distribution of such products was too widespread to be traced to a suspect.
  • Multiple suspects—ranging from Marilyn’s acquaintances and fellow sex workers to violent johns and a previous attacker—were considered.
  • Noted obstacles included the transient nature of Marilyn’s associates, unreliable witnesses, and lack of identifiable physical evidence.
  • “[The suspect pool] was very transient. The people Marilyn was associating with distrusted the police and were unreliable and scattered.” — Jessica Betancourt [25:10]

Case Grows Cold, Rumors & Suspects

• [27:35–42:00] A variety of avenues were probed:
  • Acquaintances with violent histories, like “Bob” and Richard P., were investigated, but no direct links were found.
  • Rumors linked Marilyn’s murder to police corruption or retaliation by drug dealers, especially around a dealer named Ernie. However, documentation is unclear on whether Ernie was rigorously investigated.
  • The case lay dormant after unsuccessful reinvestigations in 1994 and 1995.

Case Reopened & Breakthrough via Genetic Genealogy

• [42:37] In 2021, the Davie PD Cold Case Unit, led by Detective Eddie Velazquez, re-examined evidence:

  • Rootless hairs (collected decades prior from Marilyn’s clothing and the orange towel) were sent to Estrella Forensics, which could extract autosomal DNA.
  • Two hair samples yielded DNA profiles.

• [45:32–57:14] CeCe Moore, Parabon genetic genealogist, details the complicated process:

  • Initial matches on GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA were confounded by distant relationships and adoption in top matches’ trees.
  • Through extensive family tree building, the team connected the profile to the Lawless family of Ohio—specifically, to Donald Lawless.
  • “I typically will build out to at least the third great grandparent level... because I’m trying to connect really distant matches.” — CeCe Moore [48:55]
  • Moore credits fellow genealogist Misty Gillis for helping to extend the crucial branch and solve a generations-old paper trail impasse.

• [57:14–61:45]

  • By confirming the relationship with a living great-nephew of Lawless, they established that Donald Lawless was the source of the DNA profile from the crime scene.

Who Was Donald Lawless?

• [62:26] Lawless: A career criminal from Ohio, born in 1925.
  • Raised in a chaotic, violent family; incarcerated for a variety of burglaries, auto theft, and robberies starting in the 1940s.
  • Moved to Florida in the early 1980s; records put him in close geographic proximity to Marilyn's work area and at the scene via traffic and solicitation offenses.
    • “He was the only one in the family who had any connections to Florida.” — CeCe Moore [74:28]

Culmination: Linking Lawless to the Crime

• [76:29–79:16]

  • Lawless’s proximity, lifestyle, and direct evidence (the two hairs) link him to Marilyn’s murder.
  • With Lawless deceased since 1995 and cremated, DNA confirmation rested on analyzing living relatives—ultimately confirming his identity as the murderer.

• [81:30–85:00]

  • Lawless’s pattern of criminality and proximity to other unsolved cases in south Florida suggests he may have killed other women, particularly sex workers.

Impact on Family and Legislation

• [85:00–88:00]
  • Marilyn’s family, especially her sister Gail, expressed grief and anger that Lawless died unpunished.
    • “It just keeps coming back. I wish he had paid for his crime.” — Gail Demore [83:30]
  • Marilyn’s case inspired the Decker Backman Act, intended to bolster cold case investigations in Florida. Although the bill failed, it spotlighted the enduring needs of victims’ families and legislative apathy toward unsolved homicides.
    • “Justice delayed is justice denied, not only to the victims, but to the families who live every day with their absence.” — Ryan Backman [85:30]

Reflections and Legacy

• [89:13]
  • “Somebody does not do this for the first time when they’re 62 years old.” — CeCe Moore [89:13]
  • The case demonstrates the transformative power of genetic genealogy and its potential to solve cold cases once thought unsolvable.
  • Marilyn’s vulnerability due to addiction highlighted as a root cause of her exposure to danger.
  • “If it were not for her addiction, Marilyn, who had a loving and supportive family, would not have had anything to do with Lawless.” — Jessica Betancourt [90:00]
  • Hope remains that Lawless will be definitively linked to other unsolved murders as science and investigation advance.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The whole thing surrounded by what looked like a diaphanous pink cloud.” — Jessica Betancourt [03:29]
• “Marilyn didn’t fit. Most classified her as too nice to be on the streets.” — area locals via investigators [20:28]
• “Somebody does not do this for the first time when they’re 62 years old.” — CeCe Moore [89:13]
• “Justice delayed is justice denied, not only to the victims, but to the families who live every day with their absence.” — Ryan Backman [85:30]
• “It just keeps coming back. I wish he had paid for his crime.” — Gail Demore, sister [83:30]
• “If it were not for her addiction, Marilyn… would not have had anything to do with Lawless.” — Jessica Betancourt [90:00]
• “The [DNA] technology… opens up tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of cases… Yet two rootless hairs still clung to fabric found with her or on her and were able, decades later, to generate genetic profiles of the man they belonged to. It’s absolutely staggering...” — Jessica Betancourt [44:57]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:55] – Crime scene, body discovery, and investigative process
• [12:17] – Marilyn’s life story and family background
• [18:40] – Investigation into Marilyn’s community and lifestyle
• [27:35 – 42:00] – Suspect interviews, rumors, and dead ends
• [42:37] – Case reopened: introduction of IGG and forensic breakthrough
• [45:32 – 57:14] – CeCe Moore’s detailed genetic genealogy process
• [57:14] – The Lawless family revealed, confirming Donald Lawless
• [74:28 – 79:16] – Lawless’s connection to the crime scene, Florida
• [81:30] – Potential links to other unsolved murders
• [85:00] – Family impact and the Decker Backman Act
• [89:13 – end] – Reflections on criminal patterns, legacy, and hope for future cases

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• The decades-cold case of Marilyn Decker is solved with the intersection of perseverance, new technology, and genealogical expertise.
• Marilyn’s personal struggles and marginalization made her vulnerable—but the ultimate responsibility lay with her murderer’s lifelong pattern of violence.
• The case highlights the transformative impact of investigative genetic genealogy, unrelenting family pain, and the pressing need for dedicated cold case resources.

If you’re passionate about true crime, forensic innovation, or criminal justice reform, this episode is both a riveting narrative and a call for renewed advocacy and compassion for victims and their families.

Transcript

[Jessica Betancourt]

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[CeCe Moore]

Sam.

[Jessica Betancourt]

It was 1987. On October 22nd. At around 9:20am, Ted S was driving to work at the Broward County School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. As he drove along Flamingo Road in Davie, his eye caught a glimpse of something very out of place in the canal on the west side of the road. Ted drove to the nearest fire station, Fire Station 2, located at 3600 Flamingo Road. He walked in and got the attention of one of the firefighters. Ted said, there's a body floating in the canal. Okay, where? He was asked. 3000 block, he said. At 9:25am Fire Lt. P. Lloyd radioed fire control to notify Davey PD and EMS to send people out to the canal. Davey Police patrol officer Wesley Griffin was dispatched to the scene. Arriving at 9:38, he immediately saw what Ted was talking about. Let me explain this canal. It runs parallel to the roadway, its verdant grassy banks in stark contrast to the almost black still water. And in the brackish standing water was an almost ethereal looking body, arms floating up over her head, completely still. The whole thing surrounded by what looked like a diaphanous pink cloud. It was a white woman floating face down three feet from the east bank. The pink cloud was a very large clear white pink plastic bag. Officer Griffin requested detectives to report to the scene. EMS and firefighters from Station 2 just blocks away arrived quickly as well. Davey Police Detective Dennis Morkarski and PSAM Van Heusen were on the scene within minutes. It was immediately apparent that the woman in the canal had not just drowned in some kind of accident. The top half of her body was covered with a transparent pink plastic bag which was was filled with water. The bottom half, the visible one, was nude. Her vaginal area had been lacerated and cut so deeply that her bowels were visible through the perforation. Detective Markowski secured the scene. At 10:18am Broward Sheriff's Office Forensics division Detective George Miller arrived to commence an investigation of the scene. Davey Detective Linda Deckinger was present as well. Detective Markarski filled them in on the body being discovered by a passing motorist and that Detective Markarski had secured the scene. But nothing else had yet been done and the victim had not been identified. After observing the body in the water, Detective Miller surveyed the landscape and made some important observations. Only a metal guardrail separated two lane Flamingo Road from the canal bank. There was no shoulder on which to pull a vehicle off the roadway on either side of Flamingo Road. On the canal side of the guardrail, the bank was three to four feet wide and descended from the rail in a sharp drop off into the into the canal water. Inspection of the bank on the east side of the canal showed no indication of the body having been rolled or slid down the bank into the water. Detective Miller concluded it was most likely the body was thrown into the canal from the edge of the roadway, probably from a car that was stopped in the road. Detective Miller took special note of the location of the body and reported that there appeared to be no current in the canal because the body did not drift at all from its location after the area had been staked off. Further, the plastic bag not secured around the victim had filled with water and was a dead weight that, given the absence of a current, anchored the victim where she was found floating. A search of the area revealed no other evidence that appeared to be related to the crime. Detective Miller photographed the scene and arranged for aerial photos to be taken as well. After this was all done, the medical examiner's office was contacted by radio and instructed Dennis Harrison of Professional Body to pull the body from the water. When the waterlogged body was lodged canalside, it was not removed from the pink bag over her upper half so as to preserve evidence, but the water was carefully drained out. An orange towel was discovered to be inside the bag as well. Then EMTs confirmed that the woman was deceased. She was wearing nothing but a tan T shirt with a camel on it that said Camel Lights. Fort Lauderdale, 1980. PSA Reyes called the medical examiner's office to report that a body was headed their way, and Harrison transported the body to the medical Examiner's office. At 11:30, the victim was brought into the Broward County Medical Examiner's office, still inside the wet plastic. Once she was removed, Dr. Ronald Wright noted that the Jane Doe's sodden hair was dark brown. She had blue eyes. She measured at 5 foot 6 inches tall and weighed just 118 pounds. She looked to be in her 20s. She wore no jewelry, only the Camel Lights T shirt on which were located several strands of hair, some of which appeared to be animal and some human. Several strands of suspected human hair were also attached to the bulb of the victim's right thumb. These were all collected. Then her T shirt was removed and Detective Miller, who was observing and documenting the autopsy, took color photographs. The victim had an abrasion on her left hip measuring four and a half by three inches. She had multiple abrasions over her mid back. These were minor injuries compared to the remainder. She had been struck twice on the left side of the head, resulting in two lacerations of greater than 1 inch and underlying contusions. And she had been cut with three incised wounds in the pelvic area, one in the rectum and two in the vagina, with the cuts extending up into the vaginal area. Dr. Wright found no evidence of hemorrhage associated with this mutilation, indicating that the cuts were inflicted post mortem. Thank God. The knife was believed to be a single edged thin blade, 3 to 4 inches long. The cause of death was asphyxia. And the manner of death, homicide. Maddeningly, the report I received does not indicate why asphyxia was named as cause of death. The report specifically states there were no signs of damage to the neck structure and no ligature marks. And Dr. Wright estimated that the victim had been dead plus or minus 36 hours. But I was told that the pink bag encased victim was significantly decomposed when she was found. It's hot in Florida, but even so, 36 hours does not seem to be a sufficient amount of time for a body to become significantly decomposed. Investigators feel that the victim had been dead for longer than that time by the time she was found. Despite the decomp, the deceased woman still had identifiable fingerprints. Detective Miller collected a set of 10 prints from her in case her prints were on file and they could possibly identify her. Dr. Wright also collected blood and hair samples from the victim. He noted that her fingernails were clean and neatly manicured and that she had recently eaten a large meal. Collected into evidence that the conclusion of the autopsy were the T shirt, the orange towel, blood, and head and pubic hair standards from the victim, loose hairs on her body, and the hairs on her thumb. These hairs were submitted to the Broward County Sheriff's Office lab. The loose hairs proved to be microscopically similar to the victim's own hair standards. The hairs on her thumb were human from an undetermined body region and lacked sufficient microscopic characteristics for comparison. Detective Miller also collected the pink plastic bag and and submitted it for latent print processing. Blood tests revealed that the victim had no drugs in her system, but her BAC was.05. Detective Miller submitted the fingerprints taken from the deceased woman to the classification section of the Broward County Sheriff's Office, where fingerprint analyst Doreen Concannon identified them as matching the fingerprints belonging to a Marilyn Decker. Guys, in this very cold and dreary winter of 2026, we're all looking for mood boosters. What better way to lift yourself out of the doldrums and improve your daily life than working on bettering yourself? And that's where masterclass comes in. You know, I'm a big fan of all masterclasses offerings. It feels really good to take time to absorb the wisdom and positive energy so many masterclass instructors share with their members. Classes that I'm enjoying right now include the series taught by Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist and professor whose passion is sleep science. I can't take his class at UC Berkeley, but I can take his masterclass and benefit from his teachings about using science to help me improve my sleep. 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[CeCe Moore]

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[Jessica Betancourt]

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[CeCe Moore]

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[Jessica Betancourt]

Just download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts ad free included with Prime Marilyn Ann Decker was born on August 15, 1959 in Stoneham, Massachusetts to parents Jean G E N E and Jean J E A N Decker. I'm sure that caused a lot of hilarity. Her older sisters were Gail and Laura. Marilyn attended private Catholic schools in Massachusetts and was described as a tomboy who was not afraid to stand up for herself. The Decker family moved to Florida in 1972 and the Jeans divorced in 1975. 16 year old Marilyn opted to live with her paternal gene, although detectives notes indicate that her father, a former Marine, was quite strict. Marilyn attended Stranahan High School in Fort Lauderdale. Her family told detectives that she started running with the wrong crowd, but she graduated and started working various jobs like waitressing. But Marilyn was not able to hold down a job for more than six months and her father later said she began using drugs and being becoming unreliable and unpredictable. She had one felony drug related arrest for possession of marijuana in 1981 and several misdemeanor offenses six years later. At age 28, she became a murder victim, discarded like trash in a Davie canal. Marilyn was identified on October 23rd. Detective Markarski went to the family home in Fort Lauderdale and notified her father, Gene Decker, of his daughter's demise. Apparently Jean had known about some of the arrests and the drug problem, but he did not share this with his other daughters. They knew Marilyn had her troubles, but they didn't know how bad things were until she was killed, her sister Gail told the South Florida Sun Sentinel quote Before she died. Every Friday night she would call me with another problem. And it wasn't a little problem, it was a big problem. I would tell her, just keep your nose clean. We didn't know that she was out on the streets doing what she was doing. End quote. Let's talk about the location where Maryland was found. Flamingo Road was described as a well traveled north south roadway through western Davie and Broward counties. At the time, Flamingo Road consisted of just one northbound lane and one southbound lane. The body was found in the canal two and a half miles south of State Road 84. At the time a major east west roadway with a 12 mile long segment in Broward county that's now primarily a service road for Interstate 595. The canal was on the west side of Flamingo Road. It was about 30 to 35ft wide and the water temperature when Maryland was found was 80 degrees. A large orange grove affiliated with Everglades Botanical citrus growers sat west of the canal. That area exhibited no fresh tracks or other disturbed areas of ground which were noted to be used consistently by tractors and trucks driven by Grove workers. All the investigators at the scene concluded the same thing. Marilyn had been killed elsewhere. The canal was the quickest disposal site available to her killer, who had probably stuffed her in the pink bag, thrown her in his car and driven her out to Flamingo Road to ditch the evidence. He would have had to pull over in the roadway to conduct a hasty disposal. The whole thing was almost certainly done at night when the area would have been deserted. Davey PD CID led the investigation into Marilyn's murder with significant involvement from Detective Miller of the Broward County Sheriff's Office. They started by getting the physical evidence submitted for testing. The plastic bag Marilyn had been encased in was subjected to superglue fuming. But no usable prints were obtained from the bag. The investigators spent a lot of time attempting to track down the source of this large pink plastic bag. It was described to me as a large industrial bag sized about 3ft by 7ft that might be used for packaging and shipping larger items. The bag was found to bear a manufacturer's mark, the word Clairson. This logo led investigators to manufacture Clairsen International in Ocala, Florida. A Clairson employee was able to tell them that the bag had recently been manufactured, filled with white Styrofoam packing peanuts and distributed in South Florida. 50 bags were shipped to Brain Power Inc. In Miami on September 22nd. And 150 bags were sent to a distributor called Unijax, which in turn had sent the bags to eight businesses throughout Miami. Detective Gerald todoroff went about the extremely tedious process of contacting each of these companies and trying to determine what they had done with their pink bags of packing peanuts. For example, withers, moving in storage, had disposed of the bags. After removing and using the packing peanuts, they threw the bags in the dumpster behind their business on Northwest 74th Avenue. The same was true of brain power, inc. They used the peanuts as packing material and hucked the empty bags into the dumpster. Detective todorov gathered a massive list of all employees of all eight of these businesses, but wrote in his report, quote, after scrutinizing the employee list and taking into consideration the. The sheer amount of employees of these companies, this lead was terminated. End quote. In other words, there was just no way to question everyone who might have had access to these bags. And the reality was, anyone might have been able to pull a bag out of a dumpster or obtain one some other way. There was no way to track down each of the 200 bags spread around Miami. Then there was the orange bath towel. The brownish orange towel found inside the bag with Marilyn's body Was sent to broward county sheriff's office crime lab and tested for semen and blood. Blood was detected on the towel, but semen was not. The blood was consistent with Marilyn's own. The towel still had a manufacturing tag, which indicated it came from Dominion textiles in Toronto. Detective deckinger spoke with the merchandising manager at dominion, who informed her that the towel in question Was made exclusively for Canadian pacific hotels located in Canada. The towel was not sold in the united States, and the Canadian hotel chain Was the largest in Canada. This lead was abandoned when the detectives concluded that, given the size of the hotel chain, There was simply no way to trace the origin of the towel. How it made its way to south Florida Remained a mystery. Having no success with the physical evidence, Detectives started to dig into Marilyn's life, Fleshing out the victimology to try to figure out who killed her. Marilyn was last known to be living in her father's home at 1432 Southwest 49th Avenue in Fort Lauderdale. But it had been a while since she'd actually stayed there. After high school, as I mentioned earlier, Marilyn struggled with a drug habit and was unable to maintain long term employment. She bounced around from job to job and was in and out of treatment for her addiction. But in early 1987, Marilyn seemed like she was trying to straighten her life out. She adored animals, and when she landed a job at a veterinary Clinic. I imagine she was thrilled. She worked a second job at a convenience store. But then things took a turn. Marilyn's addiction really took hold, and she was caught stealing syringes from work. They didn't fire her, but she ended up quitting the veterinary job on July 9, 1987. That was the beginning of the end. A report by Detective Todoroff says, quote, efforts to locate recent close friends and significant persons in Marilyn's life met with negative results. There is no indication that she was maintaining any type of close relationships with anyone during this time in her life. End quote. After she left the veterinary job, Marilyn became increasingly isolated from her family, even though she was technically still living at her father's house. Her father told the investigators Marilyn became belligerent toward him, began staying out all night and escalated her narcotics intake. And she took up sex work to feed her crack habit. Jean staged interventions and tried to get help for the young woman. But when these efforts were unsuccessful, her frustrated father finally asked her to leave his home. In September of 1987, police reviewed Marilyn's multiple arrest records and records of police contact to try to learn her habits and associates. She had been arrested in Fort Lauderdale for solicitation of prostitution in 1986, and had previous arrests for burglary, auto theft, larceny and fraud. Very recently, on October 3rd, she'd been arrested by Fort Lauderdale police for loitering and solicitation. And she'd been released from the Broward county jail just 12 days before her body was found after being arrested by that agency on October 13th for solicitation. Based on this and other reports, investigators were able to identify the locations Marilyn was known to frequent to get clients. They learned she worked two areas of town. One was the area of Davie Boulevard and State Road 7, 1987 detectives notes say, quote, the area of Davie Boulevard and State Road 7 is a mix of business and residential, as well as black, white and Hispanic. Middle to lower class narcotics dealers sell out of residences and businesses, as well as some street activity. Street level prostitution is based out of a laundry room on the corner of Davie Boulevard two blocks east of State Road 7. The prostitutes also walked the residential streets in a four block radius surrounding the laundry room. Potential customers cruise the residential streets and their vehicles, stopping the girls and propositioning same end quote. The notes indicate that the sex workers were often paid in drugs, an arrangement that was apparently satisfactory to all participants. The other area of town that Maryland worked was Broward boulevard on Northwest 35th Street. Again from the report, quote, the Broward Boulevard location is mostly black residents and businesses. There are also numerous adult nightclubs and bookstores, end quote. It was in this location that Marilyn's last known arrest occurred on November 12, 1987. She was cited for loitering and for prostitution. During this law enforcement contact, Marilyn admitted she was addicted to crack and that she wanted help kicking her crack habit. I said a moment ago that Marilyn had not been staying at her father's house. Of late, investigators learned that she was crashing at various flop houses and unknown locations in the Davie Boulevard area. Detectives went to these areas of town and inquired about Marilyn. Many of the sex workers knew her and were able to share information. The investigative report says, quote, according to area locals, Marilyn was different than most of the other girls working in the area in that she didn't fit. Most classified her as too nice to be on the streets. Marilyn did not team up with any of the other girls working the area, preferring to keep to herself. Marilyn was not known to pull rip offs of customers as did most of the other girls, and she did not have any problems with her customers that were reported, end quote. While detectives Deckinger and Todoroff were canvassing the area where Marilyn was known to solicit, johns, two sex workers who knew Marilyn from this so called laundry room approached them saying they were friends of Marilyn. The women were Kim M. And Janice H. Kim was determined to be the person who knew Marilyn the best. Although they'd been friends for just seven months, Kim was interviewed under oath on October 26. She said Marilyn was very green and she had worried about Marilyn, that she wouldn't survive on the streets because she was so naive. Kim gave the detectives some places to start. The names of men Marilyn interacted with in the recent past. One of these was named Theodore L. Detectives found this Ted at one of the seedy motels frequented by the Fort Lauderdale sex workers. He said he knew Marilyn and that he had last seen her on the Saturday before she was found dead. She had actually knocked on his door and said she was looking for a place to stay. She seemed upset and told Ted she wanted to get off the streets. As an aside, this part of the story, a tale as old as time, but one we rarely contemplate through an empathetic lens, is very sad to me because it's evident that Marilyn was unhappy. She wanted to kick her crack habit and she wanted off the streets. But she was helpless to do it herself. And then someone killed her before she could escape the lifestyle that was her undoing. It's tragic anyway. When Marilyn came seeking shelter, Ted was leaving for work. But he told Marilyn if she came back later, they could discuss things. She never returned. She was dead within the week. Detectives wondered whether Ted could be the one who killed Marilyn, but he didn't trigger their hinky meters at all. During the interview, Ted was visibly upset about Marilyn's death. He said, quote, if I find the guy, I'll cut off his you know what and stick it up his ass. Detective Todorov's notes say no connection could be made between Ted and the physical evidence they had to work with. He noted that Ted worked at the local flea market and had no access to packing material manufactured by Clairson. Another lead detectives Deckinger and Todorov pursued was a tip from a woman who claimed to know Marilyn and said she saw her on the day she was killed. Marilyn had come by Delores Johnson's home looking for her two sons, Andrew and Ernie. Ernie was apparently sort of the predominant crack dealer who supplied Marilyn and the other sex workers with their drug of choice. Ernie wasn't home, but Dolores told the investigators that Marilyn was with two men in a white over green Monte Carlo. She was able to describe these two men. The clothing she described Marilyn wearing did not include the camel lights T shirt she was found in, but still, it was a place to start. The detectives started looking around for the white over green Monte Carlo, but never found one. And none of the women working this ship near the laundry room were called such a car. That lead fizzled quickly. Detective Todorov learned of a potential suspect when he reviewed Marilyn's file and discovered that in December 1986, she had reported a burglary and an attempted sexual assault at her house. The men she alleged had broken in and tried to rape her was a neighbor and his friend. These were Johnny Wayne, Tant and James Hull. Marilyn told the investigating officers that Johnny Wayne had been pestering her, and when she repeatedly denied him, he finally broke in in order to rape her. For this incident, Johnny Wayne got two years and six months for burglary of an occupied dwelling. But he was out by the time Marilyn was killed less than a year later. But when detective Todorov tried to pursue this lead, he couldn't find Johnny Wayne or his accomplice James anywhere. And that epitomized the problem investigators continually confronted. In this case, the pool of suspects was very transient. The people Marilyn was associating with distrusted the police and were unreliable and scattered. And Marilyn herself had no fixed address, no confidants, and no personal items. That detectives could garner clues from. Whether you're solving murders during breakfast, cracking cold cases on your commute, or playing amateur detective at bedtime, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting. Just download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite true crime podcasts ad free included with Prime.

[CeCe Moore]

Can you grab one more thing?

[Jessica Betancourt]

I'll come back up for you.

[CeCe Moore]

At Amica Insurance, we know you'll always find ways to look out for the people you love.

[Jessica Betancourt]

And with Amica Life Insurance, we'll help build a plan to make sure you always can. We're here to help protect the life you've built.

[CeCe Moore]

Really?

[Jessica Betancourt]

I'm gonna have another one. Amica empathy is our best policy.

[CeCe Moore]

Visit ameca.com and get a quote. Today,

[Jessica Betancourt]

On November 20, Detective Todoroff received a report that Kim M. Had reported to Fort Lauderdale police a sexual battery committed her by two men, Francisco Baez and Victor Campagna. Kim said in her report that police should consider these two men as suspects in Marilyn's murder. This was because she claimed Baez, known as Poncho, had beaten her and made a statement to the effect of you might end up like that other girl. They also cut off her clothing and threatened to cut her up with a large buck knife, which could have been the knife used on Marilyn. Poncho hit Kim hard with his large belt buckle, which could have been what caused the lacerations on Marilyn's head. All of this happened in a vehicle parked on Flamingo Road where Marilyn was dumped. Detective Markarski interviewed Pancho and Campagna, but they denied killing Marilyn, and the detective came away feeling that they were not involved in her murder. I don't know why. The state's attorney dropped the charges for the rape of Kim and Pancho, and Campagna faded from the investigators focus. Okay, let's get into some very strong suspects. Kim M. And Janice H. The two friends of Marilyn's who also worked the streets, named someone called Bob as a guy they were afraid of. After some very negative interactions with him, they said he was weird, someone who became a different person when he was drunk and he was prone to violence. In fact, in one incident very soon after Marilyn's murder, Bob had become enraged about something, grabbed Janiece by the hair and yelled, I killed Marilyn and I'll kill you too. At Bob's trailer where he lived, Janiece said she saw some shoes she recognized as the pink jelly sandals Marilyn wore. Remember, Marilyn was found shoeless at her autopsy. Plaster casts had been made of her feet in case Shoes were found in possession of a suspect. The report says, quote, When Janiece commented on the shoes, Bob became very upset, screaming and yelling, I killed Marilyn. Bob then began babbling about killing and then stated, don't hurt me, don't hurt me, Mommy. Bob then fell on the floor sobbing, end quote. He began battering Janiece and she ran out and hitchhiked back to Davey Boulevard. Bob found her on the street there and tried unsuccessfully to run her over with his truck. Janiece had one more piece of information. When she was in Bob's truck, she said she saw a butcher knife and a white nylon jacket that she recognized as being Marilyn's. This next part is a little shocking given how violent Kim and Janice were alleging Bob was. The Davey investigators asked the two to wear wires and go to Bob's trailer to see if they could get him to talk about the murder. This endeavor was kind of a fail. When they got there, Bob was already with two other sex workers they knew. Attempts to bring up the murder were shot down by Bob, who was not interested in talking about it. So they left. But Janiece grabbed the white jacket out of Bob's truck as she passed by and handed it over to detectives. Bob turned out to be a man named Robert S. Davey. Detectives obtained a search warrant based on the information imparted by Janiece and Kim. The search warrant called Robert a suspect in Marilyn's murder. On Thursday, October 27, just five days after Marilyn was found deceased, Detective Todoroff executed the search warrant at Bob's home at 3701 Southwest 31st Court, Fort Lauderdale. He was assisted by Detective George Miller of the Broward County Sheriff's Office Forensic Services Unit. They searched the home, two vehicles and an El Dorado travel trailer. In the travel trailer, several items of clothing with suspected blood on them were found along with several hairs that were not Roberts. While applying for the search warrant, detectives had discovered that Robert had an outstanding capius for a traffic related offense. So they arrested him and took him to Davy PD There, they questioned him extensively about Marilyn's murder, confronting him with the inculpatory statements Kim and Janese claimed he had made. He denied having anything to do with it and he passed a polygraph. Multiple sets of latent prints lifted from his trailer and vehicles did not match to Marilyn. And Marilyn's father did not recognize the white nylon jacket Janiece thought was hers. No pink jelly shoes were found at the house either. Detective Todoroff's report says, quote, the warrant search revealed no specific evidence related to the Decker homicide. They let Robert Go. On October 27, Detective Todoroff received a call from the Broward county jail informing him that an inmate claimed to have information about Marilyn's murder. This was Richard P. Detective Todoroff and Detective Deckinger went to the jail for a chat with this guy. When they sat down with Richard, he surprised them by saying that he knew Marilyn well. They were very close and he had even dated her for a while. He claimed to have given her a gold necklace that she always wore. Remember, no jewelry was found on her. He said he met Marilyn in the State Road 7 Davie Boulevard area, and that's where he last saw her. Detectives, after hearing what he had to say, concluded that Richard was the last person to have seen Marilyn alive. He claimed to have seen her walking north on State Road 7 toward Broward Boulevard at 3:30pm on Monday, Oct. 19, three days before she was found in the canal. He pulled over and asked her if she wanted to drive down to Miami with him, but she said she needed to go make some money. Richard seemed like a good source of information about Marilyn, but detectives quickly learned to side eye him and take everything he said with a grain of salt. One of course, he was in jail and had a record, so he clearly had criminal propensities. His probation officer, Sherry McBrayer, told Detective Todoroff that Richard pe was not to be trusted. He was a known liar and was also capable of extreme violence. She said as far as he knew, he didn't have a car. So his story about driving to Miami and seeing Marilyn was of suspect veracity. And boy, was the parole officer McBryer right. As soon as Richard got out of jail, a day or so later, he split town. She could not find him and neither could the detectives. He violated his probation and was in the wind. Last the detectives heard, he was somewhere in North Carolina and had changed his appearance, altering his hair color, growing a goatee and sideburns, and even losing weight. They had to table Richard for the time being. In January of 1988, they still had not found Richard P. Detective Todorov interviewed a woman named Angela B. In the Broward County Jail. She knew Marilyn and told Detective Todoroff that she was the one who introduced Marilyn to Richard. Sometime in mid-1987, Angela said Richard was violent and had tried to strangle her. Richard then moved on to Maryland, and Marilyn had ripped him off by stealing some cash from him. When he found her, he beat her up pretty good. Once again, police issued a bolo For Richard P. Whom Angela said she had seen back in town recently. Angela was not the only one who pointed the finger at Richard P. Marilyn's friend Kim M. Told them Marilyn was dating Richard P. Shortly before she was found dead and that Richard was the last person to see her alive. Richard had told her he had last seen Marilyn walking down the road by herself the night before her body was found in the canal. According to Kim, Richard was very abusive toward women, and when they had dated, he had threatened to kill her with a knife. Kim warned Marilyn about Richard and told her he was mentally and physically abusive. But Marilyn had not stayed away from him, and Kim thought he had killed her. Detectives thought that was a real possibility, but they couldn't find Richard P. They eventually moved on. Detective Todorov continued to follow up with other potential suspects Marilyn was rumored to have spent time with. He learned she had possibly been partying and doing cocaine with a Latino man in one of the motels. Kim Miller thought this was a guy named Carlos or possibly another guy named Poco. Detective Todorov contacted the motels. These two patronized the Plantation and the Haven, but was never able to identify them or learn anything new about Marilyn. His efforts continued well into 1988, but Detective Todorov was not able to make an arrest in Marilyn's case. The case stagnated for several months. Then another lead surfaced when in April 1989, Detective Todorov received a call from Marilyn's sister Gail, and she came in for an interview. She had heard a rumor that her sister had been killed by a Broward sheriff's deputy or a Fort Lauderdale police officer, and police corruption and the illegal drug trade were involved. She got this information from a bartender at a bar she and Marilyn both frequented. His name was Jack M. Jack told her he could not share more info with her as he didn't want to get his source, the Fort Lauderdale police officer, in trouble. Detective Todorov took this information seriously. He subpoenaed Jack M. To meet with the police and an assistant state's attorney, Brian Kavanaugh. Jack said that Gail was a dear friend of his, but he had a problem with her sister Marilyn, who had bounced three separate checks at the bar where he worked. Her father, Gene, had come in and requested that the bar press charges against his daughter Marilyn so he could use the arrest to get her off the streets. That did not happen, but Gene later came back in and said he had gotten Marilyn into some kind of treatment program. Jack said he hadn't really told Gail any concrete information. About her sister being killed by drug dealers. He said he told her simply that her sister's murder was probably drug related, which was a guess on his part, Based on Marilyn's history. He didn't realize that Gail really was unaware of the extent of Marilyn's drug problem. But this rumor about Marilyn's murder being tied to drugs and police corruption Led detective Todorov down another avenue of investigation. He interviewed a deputy, Sherwood P. A road patrol officer for the BCSO in August 1989. I was surprised to hear that this Sherwood P. Had not been interviewed before this time because he was pretty tangled up in the whole scene. He said he had known Marilyn for about five years before she was killed. They had met when she was a clerk at the 7:11, and he conducted some burglary investigations at her house. He said that she became involved in crack and had gone downhill quickly after that. Sherwood said Marilyn got her crack from this dealer named Ernie. Ernie was also suspected of burglary and dealing and stolen property in the Melrose park area. Ernie was bad news, and the BCSO was looking to get information they could use to prosecute him. So they asked Marilyn to work with their agency. Marilyn liked all the District 2 officers, Sherwood said, Because they were really nice to her and they didn't really bother her. I don't know how true this was because Marilyn was arrested by the agency a number of times, but okay. Sherwood said of Marilyn, quote, she wasn't your run of the mill hooker, end quote. Anyway, Marilyn was apparently providing information To Broward county sheriff's detective Tony Verona on this drug dealer guy. Ernie and the BCSO used that information to execute a search warrant at his house, through which they located stolen goods in his possession. Deputy Sherwood P. Said he believed Ernie found out about Marilyn's involvement, which was she was going to set Ernie up for us. She disappeared shortly after that. Sherwood told detective Todorov, quote, people have come and told me that the guy that committed the crime was Ernie, end quote. Ernie and the other drug dealers knew Marilyn was friendly with the cops, and they did not like that. I have to say it's very unclear what happened to this very promising lead. Detective Todorov knew who Ernie was. He knew Marilyn had gone looking for him at his mom's house Shortly before she was killed. And it sounded like Ernie had very good reason to have a serious beef with Marilyn. If he blamed her for the police getting a search warrant at his house, that got him arrested. But if detective Todorov investigated Ernie as a suspect in Marilyn's murder. It is not documented in the case file I was provided. When Modern Investigators reopened Marilyn's case, Ernie's name was one that remained at the top of the possible suspect list in the 1994-1995 timeframe. Marilyn's case was briefly revisited as the FDLE put together a Cold Case Task Force comprising that agency and various local police agencies that had cold case homicides, which was a lot of on Wednesday, May 4, 1994, Detective Robert Sarat of the BCSO met with Davie Police Detective Gary Silvestri and Special Agent Donald McCrindle of the FDLE. They pulled out the pink plastic bag and used Polylite to examine it for trace evidence that might have been missed back in 1987, but they found nothing. Detective Silvestri re interviewed Kim M. On July 21, 1995. She hadn't been talked to since early 1988. He asked her for names of any people that might have headed out for Marilyn or whom she thought might have harmed her. Once again, she named Richard P. The word on the street was that he did it. She said Kim didn't have any new information about Richard and Marilyn. She basically repeated her statement from 1987. She said when Marilyn died or right before then, she was dating Richard P. And Richard P. Was a nut. According to Kim, he held a knife on her one time when she tried to leave his motel room. He got incredibly violent when he drank or did drugs, which was often. Well, this time investigators were able to find Richard P. He had an extensive criminal history that included burglary, grand theft, assault, battery and threats to kill. They interviewed him and he basically said Kim was exaggerating her claims and he denied having anything to do with Marilyn's death. There was nothing linking him to the pink plastic bag or to the murder. He did not have access to a vehicle in 1987, so he could not have transported Marilyn's body. Investigators had no evidence to prove that Richard P. Was involved, so this angle failed to progress the case. The case went dormant for more than 20 years for everyone who solves crime from their couch, knows more about forensics than their own job, and has trust issues with small town sheriffs. Amazon Music's millions of podcast episodes are calling. Just download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite true crime podcasts ad free included with Prime. So you're running out of closet space. The good news? You don't need to stop shopping. You just need to start selling with the RealReal. The RealReal is the world's largest and most trusted resource for authenticated luxury resale. Whether it's that mini bag that can't even fit your phone or those boots you never fully broke in, the RealReal handles everything from photography and copywriting to shipping and pricing. So you can just sit back, get paid, and make room for things that actually feel like you. 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[CeCe Moore]

Can you grab one more thing?

[Jessica Betancourt]

I'll come back up for you.

[CeCe Moore]

At Ameca Insurance, we know you'll always find ways to look out for the people you love.

[Jessica Betancourt]

And with Amica Life Insurance, we'll help build a plan to make sure you always can. We're here to help protect the life you've built.

[CeCe Moore]

Really?

[Jessica Betancourt]

I'm gonna have another one. Amica Empathy is our best policy.

[CeCe Moore]

Visit amica.com and get a quote. Today.

[Jessica Betancourt]

In 2021, Marilyn Decker's case was reopened. Davey PD Cold Case Unit Detective Eddie Velazquez reviewed the case file and the crime scene photos and reinterved Marilyn's family and friends who were still alive. Detective Velazquez and Detective Brad Hyatt located and interviewed Richard P at his residence in Hallandale Beach. This time, he denied knowing Marilyn or having any knowledge about her death. It was evident he was lying about not knowing Marilyn or was suffering from memory loss because Richard P. Had told a lot of people in 1987 that he was the last one to see her alive. And several witnesses said he and Marilyn had been dating. He definitely knew her. Detective Velazquez's report says Richard P's mental and physical health seemed to be declining. They came away from the interview with no more on Richard than they had before. At this time, the Davey PD arranged for Crime Stoppers billboards to be erected across Broward county with a photo of Marilyn, an announcement of a $5,000 reward, and a hotline number for public tips. And Detective Velazquez considered the physical evidence that still existed. This consisted of the T shirt Marilyn was wearing, the plastic bag, and the orange towel. The crime lab processed the T shirt and towel anew. They collected several hairs, including foreign hairs inconsistent with Marilyn from the towel and from the inside of the T shirt. These hairs did not have roots. But by this point, it was 2022, and technology had advanced to the point that DNA can be obtained from rootless hair. Upon the recommendation of Parabon genealogist Cece Moore, who had worked with Davie Police on previous cases, it was decided to send the hairs to Estrella Forensics in California. You've heard me talk about Estrella in a number of episodes. They are very well known for pioneering a technique to obtain autosomal DNA from rootless hairs that in the past would have yielded only mitochondrial DNA. Davie Police have a budget that pays for private lab testing in unsolved cases like Marilyn's with DNA. A commitment to solving cases using science, no matter the expense. That is very commendable. Of 16 hairs that were sent to Estrella, two yielded snip profiles that were consistent. One was from the inside of the T shirt Marilyn was found wearing, and one was from the orange bath towel found with her. I know I've covered rootless hair cases before, but just stop and think how incredible this is for a minute. Marilyn was found floating in water and had been dead for several days. Yet two rootless hairs still clung to fabric found with her or on her and were able, decades later, to generate genetic profiles of the man they belonged to. It's absolutely staggering when you think about it. Estrella uploaded the SNP profile obtained from the Harris to Gedmatch and provided the kit to the parabon so CeCe Moore could conduct the genealogy analysis. CeCe spoke with me at length about the work identifying the suspect in Marilyn's murder. Why don't you start by telling me how this case came to you?

[CeCe Moore]

So, I had worked with Eddie on a couple of cases previously, and he told me about Marilyn's case and the fact that they only had rootless hair. So we talked about him sending that hair to Australia and getting that SNP profile created that way.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Estrella, I think it's safe to say Maryland was floating in the water for at least, they think, at least 24 hours. You know, if it were not for these hairs, I. You know, I don't think that this case would have been solved.

[CeCe Moore]

I agree. Yeah. I mean, the fact that we can work cases that only have rootless hairs is incredible. And it opens up tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of cases out there that don't have. Don't think they have DNA evidence, but they actually do, thanks to the brilliant Ed Green from Santa Cruz. I mean, he's just opened up. I don't even know how many more cases, but definitely thousands and thousands of cases will be able to be worked thanks to his innovation.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Right. Okay. All right. So the SNP profile was prepared and then it was provided to you. And how did you go about. Did you upload to GEDmatch and family tree DNA or how did you. What was your first step?

[CeCe Moore]

So Estrella provided Parabon with the snip profile in March 2024, and they had already uploaded it to GEDmatch, so they shared us to the GEDmatch profile. So those matches were already there. And then we uploaded to Family Tree DNA and got those results in April 2024. So my top matches were 118 centimorgans, 117 centimorgans and 79 centimorgans. Unfortunately, adoption affected the first two matches.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Wow. Oh, my gosh.

[CeCe Moore]

So, I mean, we were able to work it out, but they're, you know, that's always a complication. And as you know, we run into that all the time. Where the people in GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA have their own family mysteries they're trying to resolve.

[Jessica Betancourt]

So when you say adoption, were you. Were there records of this or was this something you were able to tell simply because the DNA did not align with the family that you were seeing?

[CeCe Moore]

Well, with the top match, her mitochondrial DNA was Native American and her direct maternal line was not Native American. It was very clear. So I knew something was off. Now, she wasn't the one who was adopted. It was further back in her tree. Her grandmother was adopted. Okay, that was in. That was important because I hadn't been able to connect to any of her ancestors. There weren't any significant matches that shared DNA with that top match. So I was building down from all of her great and great great grandparents, trying to find a connection to my one genetic network, which was matches two, three and six. Okay, so the fact that her grandmother's parents were not who they were through the paper trail was significant because I had been doing that descendancy research from every branch of her family tree.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Because the top match shared so little DNA with the suspect, you had to build out then probably to the third great grandparent level. Does that sound about right?

[CeCe Moore]

Yeah, I typically will build out to at least the third great grandparent level because I'm trying to connect really distant matches to the branches of the top matches family tree. So even if they share quite A bit of DNA I still will build way back, usually into the 1700s, because of course, I'm trying to determine which branch of their family tree is relevant to our research.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Okay, and when you say you determine specific genetic networks are those, then those are based on a most recent common ancestor couple that's at that. Sort of the. At the top of that network. Is that how that works?

[CeCe Moore]

Well, genetic networks are match clusters who share DNA with our unknown suspect and also with each other. So they're defined by the fact they share DNA with each other. So matches 2, 3 and 6 share DNA. That tells me they have to have a common ancestor in their family trees, and that very likely is going to be an ancestor of our unknown suspect as well. So that's really the basis of genetic networks. So even before I've identified their common ancestor or ancestors, I am looking for that piece of the puzzle. That's one piece of our suspect's family tree.

[Jessica Betancourt]

So were you finding any of these matches at all were located in Florida?

[CeCe Moore]

No, though some descendants were of the genetic network. So when I built the matches back, I connected to a Brown Gillespie couple in the 1850s. And because I know Eddie is so proactive in these cases, I know that if I give him some tasks, he will go do them. And that's not always the case, but that is definitely the case with him. And I actually worked on this for months before I finally wrote a report for him. And I didn't, had not come to the conclusion yet. I was hitting my head against the wall all the way until August 2024. And I was like, look, I need to write this report because I know he's going to help. You know, a lot of cases, I go away, I do the genetic genealogy, I come back, I hand them a name or two, but I wasn't able to do that in this case. So I had to remind myself to just stop and ask Eddie to do some things to try to push it forward. So once I wrote that report in August, I had some potential target uploaders or testers that I asked him to go talk to. So he did that. And he's really good at getting people to participate. And so those people that I wanted uploaded the DNA to GEDmatch and unfortunately, they shared way less DNA than I had hoped.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Oh, okay.

[CeCe Moore]

So that told me I had to go further back in the genetic network. So it wasn't my common ancestral couple, it wasn't the Brown Gillespies. It was either going to be on the Brown side or the Gillespie side. Further back.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Wow.

[CeCe Moore]

The problem with the Gillespie side. Well, let me say I then connected a very distant match to the Gillespie side, I thought. But it wasn't definitive because the Gillespie side stopped in the paper trail for both my genetic networks tree and for this matches tree. So they both stopped at a Gillespie in Xenia, Ohio. And I found them in the census living near each other in the same ward. But I couldn't find either of their parents. So my theory was that they connected a generation OR 2. Well, two generations back, because they were both females with the last name Gillespie.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Okay.

[CeCe Moore]

And I knew that they weren't sisters because one was much older. So I thought they were probably aunt and niece and connected at my genetic network's grandparents level, meaning I had to go back two more generations. And on the matches side, it was probably her parents. But I just was stuck. Sometimes, you know, we run into brick walls in the paper trail, which is one of the great things about genetic genealogy is we're able to often blow past those brick walls. But I was just stuck. So that was concerning because it certainly looked like it was going to be on that Gillespie side, and I needed to perform descendancy research from that Gillespie. Distant ancestors. Right. That I couldn't identify. So I was working on that match number one, building down from all of her great grandparents, great great grandparents and great great great grandparents, trying to find that intersection with the Gillespie family. And I just wasn't finding it.

[Jessica Betancourt]

And now we're talking you're way back in, like the eight. You're way back in early 1800s, probably

[CeCe Moore]

at this point, and even 1700s. Wow. Trying to find those Gillespie ancestors that I needed to build down from.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Okay.

[CeCe Moore]

And so sometimes, you know, when you've got matches that are around 100 centimorgans, it gets more difficult to predict the relationships.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Yeah.

[CeCe Moore]

The broader range. And so I was hoping those 118 were like second cousins or second cousins once removed, but clearly they were more distantly related. And so that made things much more difficult because, of course, the further you get back in the paper trail, the harder it is to not only find what you're looking for, but also to feel really confident about it.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Yep.

[CeCe Moore]

So after working on this for a very long time, I asked my. Well, let me backtrack and say at Parabon, we work our own cases there. There aren't team cases. I assign cases to our various brilliant genetic genealogists and we work our cases alone. But Misty Gillis had joined our team and she's actually been looking at some of my cases for me, at my request. Because sometimes it is good to have a second set of eyes. We all have slightly different skills. Also, when you've been hitting your head against the wall on a case for months and months and months, it's good to get fresh eyes. So I asked her to look at that Gillespie branch and anything else in the case to see if she could find something that I didn't. And you know what she did? She actually was able to extend that Gillespie branch back for me, and that was the key. It was amazing, actually. I. I'm so thankful and proud of her because obviously, I've done this, I guess, probably more than anybody in the world. But a fresh set of second eyes and a unique approach I still, you know, find to be helpful sometimes. And I really haven't had someone do that much in my past cases, but on the ones that I've been stuck on, I've been having her come in and look at them as well.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Okay. I can't imagine how difficult that is to try to get up to speed on a case where you've built out generations and generations and the different names, you know, just because I know so many cases are solved when you say, wait a minute, I saw that name somewhere in a tiny little reference, in a footnote. But she doesn't have that background. Right. So she's got to get up to speed with all that.

[CeCe Moore]

And that's exactly why we don't work team cases. Was super helpful. So then we. We both started building forward from her discovery, and we finally found the connection between the matches between the genetic network, the Gillespie side, and match number one and match number five. So that's what we needed. Right? We needed those top matches to all converge into one family tree. And so when we finally found that connection, we were able to connect to an individual's mother and father's side and three of their grandparents. And we always feel really confident when we're able to connect to both sides and to multiple grandparent lines.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Okay, so, so give us the big reveal. What did you. What did you guys come up with on your in report?

[CeCe Moore]

So we. We ended up coming down to this lawless family, ironically, from Ohio. And initially there were no connections to Florida, so that was a little confusing. Also, the brothers in that family were born way back in the 1920s. So typically when we're finding a suspect in these cases, they're young men, their 20s, 30s, maybe 40s. But this individual, the one we ended up zeroing in on, was 62 years old at the time of Marilyn's murder. But it couldn't be younger generations because of the statistics with the matches. These brothers were second cousins twice removed to match number one. They were third cousins once removed to match number two. They were third cousins twice removed to match number three. Second cousins twice removed to match number five and six. So that removal is why this case was hard, because he was born so long ago that it was his great grandparents and great great grandparents we were connecting to. Right. But it was the matches. Two generations, in almost every case, two generations younger.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Wow.

[CeCe Moore]

So his great grandparents were their great great great grandparents, and his second great grandparents were their fourth great grandparents. And that's why we were having to go so much further back in the tree than I had initially anticipated. He didn't have any sons. His brother had children. But nobody was connecting to Florida until I dug really deeply into. Into Donald Raphael Lawless's history.

[Jessica Betancourt]

When Parabon's report was delivered to Davey PD on May 8, 2025, it named two brothers as possible candidates to be the suspect. But the report pointed to Donald Lawless as the more likely suspect. Based on his significant criminal record and an address registered to him in Florida in the 1980s. Both Donald Lawless and his brother, Joseph Lawless, were deceased. Detective Velazquez now had the challenge of obtaining DNA profiles for two dead men who had both been cremated. And even more frustratingly, Donald Lawless had no known children. It was going to be an uphill battle to obtain STR confirmation of Donald's involvement. Detective Velazquez turned to Donald's brother Joseph in hopes that he had kids. Joseph Lawless was born in Ohio on July 18, 1928, and died April 18, 1993. And indeed, unlike his brother, he had children, a daughter named Linda Lawless Cartwright. He had not raised Linda. She grew up with her mom and stepdad, but she still shared 50% of his DNA, since she was his biological daughter. But Detective Velazquez was five years too late. Linda had passed away from cancer. In 2020. They moved down the tree. Linda had a living son. Detective Velazquez called up this son, whose initials are B.B. and he was living in Junction City, Kansas. Quote I was able to locate BB via telephone, and I introduced myself and explained the reasons why I was calling him. BB confirmed that his mother had passed away in 2020 and that her biological father was Joseph Lawless. Beebe agreed to submit his DNA in order to upload it to GEDmatch, end quote. Contact was made with Senior Special Agent Crystal Hornseth from the Kansas Bureau of Investigations to assist with the collection of BB's DNA. On May 27, 2025, Agent Horseth met with BB in the parking lot of the Geary county office building on 8th street in Junction City, Kansas. Special Agent Hornseth collected buckle swabs from Brad and sent them to the Debut Police Department via ups. Once Detective Velazquez received the swabs, he entered them into evidence and then shipped them to LabCorp in North Carolina. The results were sent to CC Moore. Quote. On June 17, 2025, I was contacted by Chief Genealogist CeCe Moore. CeCe advised that she received the results from BB's DNA which revealed that Donald Lawless was a match to the two hairs collected from the inside of Marilyn's shirt and the orange towel. End quote. What Detective Velazquez meant in that report was the amount of DNA BB shared with the suspect in Marilyn's case was consistent with him having a biological great nephew, great uncle relationship to the suspect. The testing ruled BB and his grandfather Joseph out and ruled Donald Lawless in.

[CeCe Moore]

And so the result was consistent with the great nephew. And the way the lack of ex DNA was, well, there were multiple factors then that led to the conclusion there was nobody else that would match the great nephew in the same way as the suspect. So the only great uncle or person of that relationship degree that could fit would be Donald. And so the way that all the matches plus the great nephew's DNA fit, it eliminated the rest of the world.

[Jessica Betancourt]

That suspect, unnamed for decades, was now known to be Donald Lawless. Lawless. Donald Raphael Lawless was born in Ohio on September 2, 1925 to Father Raphael M. Lawless and mother Hazel Bainter Lawless. He had one brother, Joseph, and three sisters. Lawless's nephew BB told Detective Velazquez the family didn't have anything to do with his uncle. His mother Linda was not even close at all with her own father, Donald's brother Joseph. Donald's mother died in 1929 at age 27 during an influenza epidemic, leaving Raphael a widower with five small children, the youngest of whom was only one year old in 1930, US census data reflects that five year old Donald Lawless was living with his father on East Ehrlich Road in Springfield, Ohio in his paternal grandmother Bridget's home. Also in the home were Bridget's daughters Marguerite and Helen, and Donald's four young siblings, Helen, Joseph, Margie and Mary. It's worth noting that Donald's father Raphael had been imprisoned for forgery in 1920. He forged the signatures on paychecks issued to railroad employees and cashed them. In 1923, he was charged with stealing a car. Later in life, he appeared to get an actual job working as oppressor at grumbly cleaners and joining a church. He was also a drunk and domestic abuser, cited in a divorce petition for striking his wife. He was once mentioned in the papers for needing 15 stitches in his head after he hit his wife and she smacked him with an iron. He was charged with drunk and disorderly. He died in 1960. His obituary says his sons Donald and Joseph were both living in Springfield, Ohio at this time.

[CeCe Moore]

Yeah, it didn't look like he had a very stable upbringing.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Right.

[CeCe Moore]

That was my impression, and that is pretty typical. You know, we see an awful lot of that inherited dysfunction in these cases. In fact, so much so that I often will go down a certain branch of the family tree versus another because I'm seeing that generational dysfunction there. And more often than not, that does lead to the suspect in these cases.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Donald seemed to take after his father. With an extensive criminal record dating from a very young age. He spent several years in prison as a young man beginning in the mid-1940s. In October 1943, at age 18, he and two other young men were arrested for auto theft. They had boosted a car belonging to Leo Knotts in the parking lot of an Urbana theater. Lawless was the one driving when the cops caught up with the crew, and he was held in jail without bail while the grand jury met to consider an indictment, even though he admitted his role in the theft. At the time, Lawless was living at 208 Miami Street. He was indicted on January 10, 1944, and on January 15 was given a one to 20 year term in the Mansfield Reformatory, referred to as a reform school. Now, I've got to confess, when I read this in the articles, I thought, can they sentence an 18 year old to a reform school? Isn't that for juveniles? But the Mansfield Reformatory was actually a prison. Here's a little history from ohiohistory.org's the Ohio State Reformatory, also known as the Mansfield Reformatory, opened its doors on September 15, 1886. As the name implies, the reformatory was first imagined as a place for reforming inmates, giving them an opportunity to recreate their lives, becoming productive citizens and better versions of themselves. The prison's population was just 150 men between the ages of 16 and 30 when it initially opened. These first inmates were immediately put to work, with reformation being the goal. However, inmates were also provided with an education Subjects included what we would consider core classes like reading, writing, mathematics and social sciences, as well as trades such as engineering, plumbing and electrical mechanics. Thus, early inmates were provided with rehabilitation tools as well as the means of self support after parole. The reformatory's cell block stands five and six stories high, originally designed to hold up to nearly 2,000 inmates with one inmate per cell. By 1934, however, some held two, even three men. And while the reformatory was originally imagined as an intermediate prison, an intermediate step between reform schools and penitentiaries, violence was common, particularly as the prison became overcrowded. Life for the prisoners was anything but ideal. Shivs, shanks, dice and other contraband were found within the crevices of the prisoners walls. According to the Ohio State Reformatory's website. One former inmate said, the reformatory is not a reform school, it's a crime school. So off to this air quote reformatory Lawless went. A 1944 article in the Urbana Daily Citizen reports that Lawless harsh term was based on his previous record in Springfield, meaning he had already gotten into trouble with the law. The other guy, who was not a minor, just got probation. They should have sent Lawless over to fight in World War II, which was still raging at this time. But they didn't, and Lawless was up for parole at age 21 in February 1946. In May 1946, he was in trouble again. Lawless was indicted in Springfield for three burglaries. He broke into the Trainor Motor Company on April 27 and stole an electric adding machine and some other items totaling $185 in value. He also burgled Albright Engineering and Manufacturing Co. And Dunn Cleaners, from which he stole from $44 worth of presumably clean clothing. He was described as having no fixed address and having a long police record in Urbana. Although he pleaded not guilty to the train or break in, he told the prosecutor that he intended to come clean about additional burglaries he had committed. And he did, confessing to four auto thefts and another burglary. That burglary involved Ullman's Notion Store, from which Lawless stole merchandise valued at over $19 in 1940. Note that he was just 15 at the time. Anyway, in July of 1946, he was sentenced for the burglaries, again being remanded to the Mansfield Reformatory for an indeterminate term. Lawless was not too happy about this. He had requested that the judge send him to the penitentiary instead of sentencing him to the reformatory because, as he put it, quote, the Work was easier in the penitentiary and the cigarettes were free, whereas young men at Mansfield were required to work and learn a trade and do not receive free cigarettes. End quote. That from the Urbana Daily Citizen. So it sounds like even from a young age, Lawless was not interested in trying to better himself or contribute in any positive way to society. Lawless probably deliberately broke the rules of the reformatory in order to get relocated to the actual prison because he was in the penitentiary when the local papers reported on his parole attempt on April 24, 1947. The notice reads, quote, Donald Lawless, a prisoner now confined in the Ohio Penitentiary, convicted May 1946 of the crime of breaking and entering and serving a sentence of one to 15 concurrent years as eligible for a hearing before the Pardon and Parole Commission on or after June 1, 1947. End quote. Lawless was paroled from the Ohio Penitentiary but not then three years later, on July 19, 1950. In September 1952, he was arrested again, this time in Newcastle, Pennsylvania. He and an accomplice smashed the front window of Frangle's nightclub on Route 422 and emptied the jukebox and cigarette machine. The burglar alarm was triggered and the two men escaped, but were later nabbed by the police at the bus station. They were charged with B and E and robbery. Lawless entered a plea of no defense and was sentenced to between one and a half to three years in the Allegheny County Workhouse. He served 689 days of hard labor time before being released, but then he had to report to prison in Ohio. The Call and Post reported that on July 23, 1955, Donald Lawless, a prisoner at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, convicted in September 1952 of unarmed robbery and serving a sentence of one to 25 years, was eligible for a hearing before the Pardon and Parole Commission on or after September 1, 1955. End quote. So Lawless had also committed a crime in Ohio in September 1952 and sent to prison there. I don't know for certain when he got out. There are a lot of years unaccounted for before Lawless turned back up. On October 23, 1966, Lawless was unfortunate enough to be pulled over in a 12:30am traffic stop by Fayette County, Ohio Sheriff's Deputy Bill Crooks. So Crooks arrested Lawless. You can't make this stuff up. Lawless was driving in the middle of the road and the deputy's oncoming car had to swerve off the road to avoid hitting him. Not smart anyway. Lawless was found to have a sawed off shotgun hidden in his car. A no, no. Not only because it was illegally altered in violation of federal law, but also because Lawless was a serial criminal who'd been convicted of more than a dozen felonies and served time in six state penal institutions. According to the Washington Record Herald, these felonies dated back to the 1930s. That means that Lawless had committed some of these crimes back when he was not yet 15. They included several charges of auto larceny, bank robbery, safe burglary, parole violations, petty larceny, grand larceny and forgery. Lawless seems like he just did not give one F whatsoever about egregiously breaking into places and helping himself to whatever he wanted. And Lawless was on parole when he was arrested by crooks, having been convicted of an unarmed bank robbery in Cuyahoga County. Sheriff Don Thompson told the media that Lawless was the prime suspect in several other Ohio bank robberies. And the sawed off shotgun resembled the gun described by the one used by the fugitive bank robber. Lawless was charged after this incident with traffic violations, a weapons charge and a parole violation to keep him in jail pending the arrival of the FBI and federal alcohol tax agents, which, I'll be honest, do not sound that intimidating. Lawless was also slapped with a charge for stealing the rental car he was driving, which he failed to return ever. The FBI arrived and questioned Lawless for hours about these bank robberies, but he didn't give them anything that we know of. The federal alcohol tax agents were the ones who were going to levy the illegal firearms charge against Lawless, even though when he was questioned by both local and federal law enforcement officers, he said the gun wasn't his and someone must have put it in his car. This was just a glimpse of the hubris Lawless would exhibit in his bench trial on the state charges of carrying a concealed weapon. He declined assistance of an attorney and argued his own case in court. Instead, he called deputy crooks to the stand and challenged him about whether he illegally searched Lawless car without a search warrant. He called an auxiliary officer to the stand even though he didn't take the stand himself and maintained that there was no proof the gun was his. He didn't even know it was in the rental car, he claimed. Court of Common Pleas Judge Evelyn Kaufman was not persuaded. She found Lawless guilty and sentenced him to one to three years in the Ohio penitentiary. So at best, Lawless was in prison until about 1969, 1970. If he did any time on the Federal gun charge. We don't know about it. And that's concerning because we have zero record of where Donald Lawless was for the entire 1970s. Even Detective Eddie Velazquez was not able to place Lawless anywhere during that decade. The next record I found for him was Lawless sister Margie's obituary in 1982, which lists him as living in Gallipolis, Ohio. And I found a record of a marriage between Donald Lawless, age 58, and Barbara Sidlak in Gallipolis on September 17, 1982. Investigators believe Lawless moved to South Florida. Shortly thereafter, I located a divorce decree in Athens, Ohio, ending the marriage to Barbara on August 29, 1985. She petitioned for the divorce based on gross neglect of duty. Lawless was listed as living out of state at the time. This appears to be the first and only marriage for Donald Lawless. Unfortunately, Barbara is deceased and was not available for an interview. So how did Donald Lawless cross paths with Marilyn Decker?

[CeCe Moore]

I finally found a 1987 Florida driver's license with a address on it in Davie that was only about half a mile where Marilyn Decker was known to hang out. Wow. So that finally pretty much cinched. Cinched it. He was the only one in the family who had any connections to Florida. But again, he was 62 years old. But we connected to both mom and dad's side and three grandparents, as I said. So this was a highly confident theory, but just very, very odd to find someone this old who was perpetrating a crime with such incredible violence. So when I was researching Donald, I found him in jail all the way back in the 1940s, and then many times after that. They didn't really look like the type of crimes that Maryland's was. Wasn't certainly not the same MO but he had a lot of law enforcement interaction going all the way back to the 1940s and forward. So that was part of it as well, but it was really the address. Because with investigative genetic genealogy, location, location, location is so important. Just like in real estate, you know, we. 99% of the time, the genetic genealogy leads us to within a few miles of the crime scene, or at least within, say, 50 miles of the crime scene. And that just wasn't happening in this family tree with anyone except Donald. And it was so close. I mean, this was in Davie, and it was so close to Maryland's known hangout. So it was a industrial park. Actually, it wasn't even a real residence. So I'm not, you know, we. I don't think we were able to determine exactly what was going on, if he was working in that industrial park or exactly why he was tied to that address. But it was in 1987, so it felt very, very compelling.

[Jessica Betancourt]

And.

[CeCe Moore]

But, you know, you can never be sure without the DNA comparison. And so then it becomes Eddie's job. From there, I'm just providing him that tip, that highly scientific tip that IGG provides. But he's got to do the full investigation from there to determine whether this is a viable lead or not.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Investigators believe Lawless relocated to Florida in the early 1980s, since we know he married in Ohio in 1982, but was listed as out of state by the time of his divorce in 1985. That makes sense. In Florida, it appears he worked odd jobs as a handyman, so there are no recurring employment records for him there. But investigators have been able to place him at several addresses in South Florida. One of these was at 4153 Southwest 47th Avenue in Davie. This was not a residence, but the location of commercial warehouses. Detective Velazquez told me this Southwest 47th Avenue address associated with Lawless was just down the street from where Marilyn worked the streets. And Lawless generally was rooted within a three mile radius from that area during his time in Florida. But his connection to Maryland is not all speculation, just based on geographic proximity. There is actual evidence that Lawless was a patron of the sex workers in the very area Marilyn worked. Detective Velazquez located a record from Oct. 10, 1986, when Lawless was arrested for prostitution by Fort Lauderdale police. Two other incidents of law enforcement contact also placed him in the area where the sex workers plied their trade in the mid to late 1980s. In 1984, he was cited for an unlawful license plate and an obscured license plate. In 1989, he was cited again for traffic violations, including no valid license, a seatbelt violation, and operating an unsafe vehicle. Since we're on the topic of Donald Lawless traffic violations, let's revisit the Florida driver's license reference for lawless that CeCe Moore found. Eddie actually didn't mention to me the driver's license. I know that he did find some citations that Lawless had been pulled over and cited for solicitation of prostitution in the area where Marilyn was, because that's

[CeCe Moore]

what he thinks created the driver's license he pulled. So I found the record of a driver's license and put that in my report. But when he went to go find the driver's license, it didn't actually exist. We Wanted a photo. There was no photo of Donald. And what he thinks happened is when he was pulled over, they asked him for his information, and they inputted it. And it created, like, a temporary Florida driver's license. So he doesn't think he ever went in and applied for one. He thinks it somehow was generated from one of those stops.

[Jessica Betancourt]

That makes sense because I don't see Lawless going in and doing that. Investigators believe Marilyn and Lawless would have encountered each other in this seedy underbelly of Fort Lauderdale. Detective Velazquez told me that they think Marilyn and Lawless knew each other and that she was comfortable enough with him, that she must have gone with him that one last time. No one alive knows what happened between the two, but Marilyn's family said that she was the kind of person who would not let anyone take advantage of her. Perhaps she and Lawless had a dispute over payment, or perhaps he just enjoyed killing. Investigators believed that Lawless had access to private space in which he held and then killed a mutilated Marilyn before wrapping her in the pink bag and driving her to the canal off Flamingo Road. In or shortly before 1993, Lawless moved back to Ohio. It's unknown whether he had any relationship with his brother Joseph, an Air Force veteran and musician who died in a Springfield hospital in April of that year. In Joseph's obituary, Donald Lawless is listed as living in Columbus. Lawless passed away a free man in Ohio on May 4, 1995. He was cremated. So to reiterate, Donald Lawless can be placed in Davie, Florida. Around the time of the homicide, he lived relatively close to where Marilyn hung out. His criminal history establishes that he picked up sex workers. Marilyn's family and her record confirmed that in the final months of her life, she was involved in risky behavior such as sex work and drugs. The two hairs found on the orange towel and on Marilyn's T shirt match Lawless DNA. The totality of the evidence proves that Donald Lawless was the man who was present when Marilyn was placed inside the plastic bag with the towel. Detective Velazquez would have had probable cause to arrest Donald Lawless for Marilyn's murder were he alive. The detective met with ASA Steven Zacor and reviewed the case. And Zacor issued a letter stating that if Donald Lawless were alive, he would be arrested for the murder of Marilyn Decker. Since he was deceased, the case was closed for death of the offender. A press conference was held in October of 2025 in which Davie Police Chief Steve Kinsey announced, quote, we have solved the cold case after 38 years of intensive investigation, end quote. Detective Eddie Velazquez gave a rundown of the case and how the investigation led them to Donald Lawless, who, quote, was not on our or anybody's radar. Gail Demore, Marilyn's sister, gave a prepared statement. She talked about their mom, who did not like to talk about the murder of her daughter. But, quote, kept saying, I wish I found out who killed your sister. It's not right what they did. They took her away from us. I wish I knew. Gail said, quote, it just keeps coming back. I wish he had paid for his crime, end quote. Unfortunately, Jean died before Marilyn's murderer was identified. Gail concluded with, it infuriates me that my sister's murderer, with such a long history of violent acts against innocent victims, was left unpunished. Gail expounded on these comments in interviews with some media outlets. She told NBC Miami, quote, to find this out. I mean, it's good, but unfortunately, he didn't pay for his sins. She told Local 10 News, quote, It just makes me angry. How dare you take my sister away from me. Investigators in South Florida believe that Marilyn is not the only woman that Lawless took away from her family. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported, quote, there are similar unsolved cases in the Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood areas, as well as cases in the Broward Sheriff's Office jurisdiction where discarded victims were found to be stabbed after they were killed, end quote. Detective Velazquez told me, we found out that areas like Fort Lauderdale, Broward, Hollywood had similar cases where women were found dumped and kind of killed in the same manner. There is no doubt, we believe he, referring to Lawless, has ties to some other cases. Detective Velazquez confirmed for me that these other possibly related victims were sex workers like Marilyn, and their bodies were mutilated postmortem like hers. But this behavioral pattern appears to be a signature of Donald Lawless, although those other cases have not definitively been linked to him yet by DNA. Investigators in South Florida are working to see if they can officially tie those other crimes to Lawless. But they are also reaching out to investigators in other jurisdictions where Lawless is known to have spent time, like Chicago. A 1943 handwritten draft registration card in the name of Donald Trump Raphael Lawless showed a mailing address on Troy street in Chicago with a permanent address in Urbana, Ohio. It also reflected that he was unemployed. Shocker. I think it's safe to say we don't yet know the extent of the crimes of Donald Lawless in 2020. 3. Before Maryland's case was solved, a press conference was held announcing proposed Florida legislation that intended to codify the state's commitment to solving cold cases. This was the Decker Backman Act. As Detective Eddie Velazquez and Bertha Hurtado of the DAVPD worked multiple cold cases, they confronted the reality of the lack of resources earmarked for cold case investigations in smaller agencies. A law had been passed in Georgia requiring the commitment of manpower and resources in cold cases, and they wanted to enact something similar in Florida. They were connected with Ryan Backman of Project Cold Case. Backman founded Project Cold Case, a nonprofit advocacy group for families of cold case homicide victims and missing persons in Florida after the shooting murder of his father Cliff in 2009, remained unsolved. Backman and the debut detectives, having aligned interests, joined forces, got a bill written and obtained sponsors in the Florida House and Senate when Marilyn's case was solved. Because Backman and the Davies detectives became the public faces of the bill, and the Davy detectives used the Maryland Decker case to draw attention to their efforts, the bill became known as the Decker Backman Act. The official summary of the bill says that it requires law enforcement agencies to review certain cold cases upon receiving a written application from a family member or their representative. It provides requirements for such reviews to occur within a year. It requires analysis of any items of forensic value and requires law enforcement agencies to provide specified training in cold case techniques. Essentially, the bill permits family members to demand that their loved ones cases be reopened if they have been inactive for five years or more and dedicates resources to support those reviews. Well, the bill failed. Lawmakers in Florida failed to advance the law, and it has stalled. Ryan Backman, whose murdered father was one of the namesakes of the act and who started the victims advocacy group Project Cold Case, wrote the following in an opinion piece in the Florida Times unit after the failure of the bill, quote, in the wake of legislative inaction, families of unsolved homicide victims in Florida find themselves trapped in a perpetual state of limbo, their hopes dashed by the failure of the Decker Backman Act. This bill, which promised to provide much needed accountability, prioritization and resources to those left behind by tragedy, was a casualty of what can only be described as legislative apathy, visions of financial gain and partisan gridlock. The real cost of this failure, however, is not measured in political points or increased budgets, but in the compounded suffering of countless families. The narrative surrounding unsolved homicides are often focuses only on investigative milestones. The crime, the investigation, the case going cold, the case being reopened and rarely a resolution. Rarely do we consider the relentless grief and frustration of the victims. Families who watch as their loved ones cases languish in obscurity, only acknowledged if they're solved. The Decker Backman act represented a chance to change this narrative, to offer a glimmer of hope to those who have endured years, sometimes decades of uncertainty. It is time for a renewed focus on the human aspect of unsolved homicides. Behind every cold case is a family caught in a relentless cycle of hope and despair. Families who deserve more than to be collateral damage in political gamesmanship. The rejection of the Decker Backman act is not merely a legislative failure. It's a failure to acknowledge and address the enduring pain of families of unsolved homicide victims. It's a failure to recognize that justice delayed is justice denied, not only to the victims, but to the families who live every day with their absence. All that from Ryan Backman. I met Ryan Backman at an IGG conference and have corresponded with him about some specific cases on occasion since our meeting. He wrote to me of this failure of the Decker Backman Act. Hey, Jessica. As you saw, I wrote the op ed for the Florida Times Tribune expressing my displeasure regarding law enforcement and legislators apathy behind the scenes. I requested that future legislation remove my dad's name as the betrayal from elected allies in quotes took a huge emotional toll on me. However, Ryan tells me that all hope is not lost now that the Marilyn Decker case has been solved. Detective Velazquez, with the support of Project Cold Case, is hoping to use the case as a bellwether to illustrate the importance of dedicating law enforcement resources to providing resolution to families whose loved ones murder investigations have gone cold. If you live in Florida, perhaps consider sending a note to your state representative requesting that they support the bill should the investigators and Project Cole case succeed in having it reintroduced. Okay, let's circle back to Marilyn's case. As you heard me touch on earlier, it's strongly believed that Donald Lawless committed other murders that remain unknown. Get this. He killed Marilyn when he was 62 years old. Very probably the oldest active killer I have covered. I think most criminologists would agree that it's very unlikely that he started killing and sexually mutilating in his seventh decade, an age at which most killers have hung him up.

[CeCe Moore]

Somebody does not do this for the first time when they're 62 years old.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Absolutely not.

[CeCe Moore]

Come on. This had to be something that he had done before. I can't even imagine somebody doing something like that for the first time. I mean, we don't even see 62 year olds typically doing this, even if they had a history of it. No, most of them seem to have stopped by the time they're that age.

[Jessica Betancourt]

Yep. It's crazy. I think I told Eddie I think he's the oldest killer that I have done in 160 episodes.

[CeCe Moore]

Oh, I hadn't thought about that. You know, he's probably the oldest killer I've identified through investigative genetic genealogy. Yeah, now that you mention it, we

[Jessica Betancourt]

know Lawless was a lifelong hardened criminal, incarcerated countless times since the 1940s. As the case closing report states, quote, his criminal path continued throughout the years and was primarily consistent with burglary, auto theft, larceny, fraud and robbery. Well, none of those convictions were for murders. But of course, in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s, murders were much harder to solve. And for all we know, Lawless was killing that entire time. The reality is that we just don't know much of what he was up to. And there are entire decades in which his whereabouts and activities are completely unaccounted for. I'm hoping that science and dedicated cold case investigators like Detective Velazquez will help us fill in some of the blanks. As for Marilyn, her case is especially tragic because she was twice a victim. Once of Donald Lawless, but before that of a devastating drug addiction that left her vulnerable and exposed her to things and people she would not otherwise have come in contact with. People like Donald Lawless. I would venture to say that if it were not for her addiction, Marilyn, who had a loving and supportive family, would not have had anything to do with Lawless. Unfortunately, she became easy prey for his depraved urges and she paid the ultimate price. After 42 years, Marilyn Decker's case is resolved thanks to IGG. And if you are one of the bad guys, they are coming for you. Thank you so much to Davie Police cold case detective Eddie Velazquezquez for speaking with me about this case, and of course to Cece Moore for sharing her brilliant work on the genealogy component. This is a reminder that CrimeCon 2026 is coming up at Caesars palace in Las Vegas at the end of May. Please join me there. There is so much to see and do, and I would love to see you all at my booth on Creators Row. Be sure to use my voucher code DNAID at checkout when purchasing your badge on the CrimeCon website to get 10% off your purchase price. See you in Vegas. Thanks for listening to this episode of dnaid. Before you leave, please let me tell you about some important things related to the show. If you'd like to support this podcast and in the process get access to early and ad free episodes as well as bonus content like crime scene photos, you can sign up for a Patreon subscription for only $5 a month by heading over to patreon.com dnaid. Of course, you're welcome to contribute more than $5 a month. We rely on Patreon funds to pay for the original source materials I use to research each episode. If Patreon isn't your thing, you can also show your Support with an ABJack Insider subscription through Apple Podcasts. It costs just $4.99 a month or 49. Your ABJac Insider subscription will give you the same benefits for not only dnaid but for all of the shows on the ABJAC Network like Killer Communications and Campus Killings. Head over to Apple Podcasts and find the DNAID page or look for the ABJAC Network to get started. If you're on social media, we'd love to interact with you there. DNAID is on every major social media platform. Search your favorite platforms for DNAID podcasts to find us. We also have a YouTube channel and our website is DNAIDpodcast.com you can find links to all of these anytime in our show notes. If you need to reach the show, contact us by emailing dnaidpodcastmail.com finally, if you want to pick up some fun DNAID merch and represent the show, visit the store at www.com Customized Girl.coms DNAID podcast DNAID is researched, written and hosted by me, Jessica Betancourt. It's produced by me and Mike Morford of abjack Entertainment Music by Connor Bettencourt.