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You're listening to DNAID brought to you by Abjec Entertainment. Be sure to check out some of the other great true crime podcasts from this network, including the Murder in My Family, Missing Persons, Scene of the Crime, Zodiac Speaking Beyond Bizarre True Crime, Campus Killings, Below the Surface and Killer Communications. All of these podcasts are available for you to binge on right now. Wherever you listen to podcasts, subscribe where you're listening to this podcast so you don't miss an episode.
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It was 1993 and Sharon Lee was worried. Her 15 year old daughter Melissa had not come home. This was not that unusual for Melissa, but some things didn't seem right to Sharon and she grew increasingly concerned. After calling around to Melissa's friends and failing to find her, Sharon called the Snohomish County, Washington Sheriff's Office at 1:44pm on Wednesday, April 14. When the responding officer, Deputy Stan Breida, called sharon back at 1:52, she told him the following the previous day, Tuesday, Sharon had gone to work at her bartending job at the Pinecone Cafe after work. Her live in fiance Gary McClelland had picked her up and the two had hit some bars, played some darts, gotten some dinner and then gone to a karaoke place. She left her daughter Melissa, age 15, at home and Melissa was having her best friend Krista sleepover. Sharon called the house from work around 9:30pm and spoke to Melissa. Everything was fine, Melissa told her. Her bestie Krista was coming over later to spend the night. But when Sharon and Gary arrived at the house after 2am Melissa wasn't there and it looked like something might have happened. Sharon said that when she and Gary pulled into the driveway, the front door to the house was wide open. It was the middle of the night. That was the first sign that something was seriously wrong, and it only got worse from there. Gary told Sharon to stay there and went inside first. The house was empty, but the living room was a mess with the couch cushions thrown around the floor, the red wooden coffee table overturned and an ashtray, a jar of peanuts and a glass of milk all spilled onto the floor. The brown telephone was off the hook, lying on the floor as well. A radio was lying on its back. The family's pet macaw's cage door was open and the bird was free in the house. Sharon joined Gary inside once he gave the all clear. A thorough search of the house failed to locate Melissa, but a strong chemical smell permeated the house when the couple first walked in, to the point that they opened the windows to air the place out. Sharon did not call the police right then and there because Melissa was a bit of a handful, as she put it, and she assumed her daughter had sneaked out with friends after making a mess in the house. But she was still concerned and grew more so as the hours ticked by. In the morning, when Melissa didn't come home, Sharon started calling around to Melissa's friends. When no one had heard from her and she didn't come home, she finally called the police. She told them Melissa was missing from the family home at 19805 Filbert Road in Bothell, Washington. What was really weird was that all of Melissa's pairs of shoes were in the closet. No shoes were missing, and her coat was still there as well as were her cigarettes, but she was just gone. Deputy Brita called around to Evergreen Hospital, Stevens Hospital and the Denny Youth center, but no one had any record of admitting Melissa. Much later that same day, around 7:30pm Sonja Mountsy of Everett was out for a stroll with her friend and neighbor, enjoying the spring evening. Their walk took them along Mokateo Boulevard and across the Edgewater Creek Bridge, 14 miles from the Lee home in Bothell. I don't know how the women spotted the body. It was 50ft down below the bridge in a very brushy, overgrown gulch. The neighbor peered at it and said to Sonja, is that a mannequin? I don't think so, sonia said. They walked briskly to a nearby convenience store and called the police. Everett Police Officer Jean Innes and Sergeant Wayne Meyer responded and verified that a body lay under the bridge. Sergeant Meyer carefully navigated the steep, brush covered slope leading to the gulch. When he arrived at the body, he took the vitals of the young woman, but she was deceased. Choosing a different route to get back onto the bridge, crossing the gulch and climbing the other embankment, Sgt. Meyer secured the scene and called in reinforcements. Everett PD Detective James Duvall received the call at 8:15pm when he got to the scene in the 3800 block of Mukateo Boulevard, the crime scene van was already there. The CSI set up the generator and the lights on the bridge to illuminate the area for the investigators picking their way gingerly down to the body below. Detectives Fred Anderson and Al Herndon, the Snohomish County Medical examiner, Dr. Eric Kiesel, and officer and photographer Dee Johnson accompanied Detective Duvall down the slope to where the body lay. Officer Johnson photographed the scene and then Dr. Kiesel examined the supine body. The Jane Doe was a white female, approximate age, late teens or early 20s. She had long blonde hair with defined bangs. She was about 5 foot 8 and between 125 and 135 pounds, the medical examiner estimated. She was wearing black socks with no shoes and gym shorts. Her bra and sweatshirt were pushed up over her breasts. She was muddy, scratched up, bruised and bloodied. She'd been lying there for at least several hours. Fly larvae eggs had been deposited in her nose and mouth area. Detectives responding to the scene observed broken vegetation stems and leaves above the victim and near where she lay, indicating that she had been thrown, pushed, or had jumped from the bridge above. They also identified a depression in the ground just below the bridge where presumably the impact had occurred. But they also found three to four strands of blonde hair located on a log 10ft west of the body. Another strand of hair was located on the ground 20ft west of the body, and the vegetation and ground there were disturbed. And finally, one hair clung to the concrete bridge railing directly above the victim's location, which was 30 to 40ft from the west end of the bridge. This all suggested that the young woman had been pushed, thrown, or jumped from the bridge and made contact with the ground in those two spots, 20 and 10ft from the body. Before coming to rest, still inspecting the body, Dr. Kiesel pulled down the sweatshirt the victim wore, exposing her throat. There he saw ugly strangulation marks and a thin, bloody scratch. This girl had not jumped. This was a homicide, Dr. Kiesel took the body's core temperature around midnight, which suggested that she'd been dead about 24 hours. Once the medical examiner was done with his exam, the hands were bagged and the body wrapped in a sheet and zipped into a body bag. And firefighters used a line to pull the body up the slope to the waiting medical examiner van. Police in Everett had seen the Missing Persons bulletin issued earlier that day out of Snohomish County. The description of the girl in the gully was consistent with the Description of missing 15 year old Melissa Lee, called in by her mom, Sharon. On the morning of the 15th, Everett Detective Fred Anderson went to meet with Sharon at her workplace, the Pinecone Cafe. Sharon showed the detective a picture of her daughter and described the ring she was wearing. Hearing all this, Detective Anderson tentatively confirmed the identification. Pending confirmation via dental records or prints. He told Sharon and her fiance Gary that it was very likely Melissa that had been found in the ravine in Everett. Understandably, Sharon and Gary were too distraught to give a statement at that time. Snohomish County Chief Medical examiner Dr. Eric Kiesel conducted the autopsy on Melissa on April 15th. She was brought in for autopsy wearing a gold ring and the clothes she was found in. These consisted of a San Jose Shark sweatshirt, a pair of oversized orange and pink gym shorts, a white bra, black socks and blue underwear. As I mentioned earlier, the sweatshirt and bra had been found pushed up over her breasts. Her underpants were found to be on backwards and pulled unnaturally high up in her groin area. She had mud and dirt pretty much all over her I on her clothes, on her legs, face, torso, arms and in her hair. She had pieces of vegetation stuck to her and caught up in her tank top. The damage to Melissa's body was shocking. She was covered in heavy scrapes and bruises, bloodied and scratched from the underbrush her body had come in contact with. I noted a significant bruise behind her right ear, on her left breast and on her left arm on her throat she had scratch marks that appeared to be from fingernails as well as an ugly red area and a thin line where something had possibly been placed around around her throat. Dr. Kiesel noted the marks around Melissa's throat, the internal damage to the strap muscles of her neck and her broken hyoid bone, and concluded that she died from asphyxia due to manual and ligature strangulation. Observing the drag marks on her back, Dr. Kiesel concluded that she'd been dead before she was tossed over the bridge. It was notable that Melissa had no recreational drugs or alcohol in her system. But ethyl ether, acetone and heptane were detected. Ether is a debilitating intoxicant that was used as an anesthetic at one time. It can render someone inhaling it unconscious and helpless. The manner of death was homicide. Dr. Kiesel noted one strange mark on Melissa. It appeared to be a rough letter C burned into the webbing of her hand. A rape kit was done and fingernail clippings, head and pubic hair samples and combings and a blood sample were collected, as well as the items of vegetation found on the body and in her hair and foreign fibers from her clothing. So who was Melissa? Melissa Ann Lee was born in Artesia, New Mexico on February 2, 1978 to parents Sharon and Erin Lee. Aaron passed away, leaving Sharon with three kids, Eric, who was 17 when Melissa died, Melissa and her sister Kelly, four years younger. Melissa's obituary says that she loved camping, fishing and anything outdoors. She adored animals and enjoyed the company of elderly people. She attended Explorer Middle School and then Skyview Middle School, which went through ninth grade. She hadn't even made it to high school yet. As a very precocious teen, Melissa did not benefit from a significant lack of structure in her household. Her mother, a bartender, worked long hours and was often absent. Melissa apparently did not really get along with Gary, her soon to be stepfather, and she had proven to be a handful for her mom and Gary. Lately, many people reported that she was boy crazy. She'd run away a few times and she was hanging with some unsavory types. She had dropped out of Skyview Middle School and had most recently run away on January 11, 1993, just three months before her death. Police had responded to this runaway incident and Melissa was located and returned home. A lot of the behavior I read about would be egregious, even for an older teen. But Melissa was just 15 and it's important to remember that you will hear a lot of mention about a small amusement park in Edmonds, Washington called Fantasia, which was an arcade and gaming facility very popular with teenagers. Melissa spent a lot of time at this place and at the roller rink and the mall. Despite the precocious reputation, she had. Reportedly a flirt and a teaser and her very mature physique, she really was just a girl. Melissa had been going with a 16 year old boy named TJ Peters for a few months. However, TJ had broken things off with her. Around April 10th or 11th, you will hear TJ's name quite a bit as investigators tried to piece together Melissa's complicated personal life. Have you ever had to wait on a paycheck to buy groceries, cover a bill, or gas up your car? 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investigators at the dump scene at the bridge did their best to collect all evidence. Several fibers were collected from the bridge railing and and I already mentioned the hairs collected suspected to be Melissa's. It was not easygoing as the ravine and both slopes were thick with underbrush and littered heavily with debris including bottles, beer cans, old real estate signs and other types of garbage. They finally cleared the scene at 2:15am Detective Duvall and Detective Johns returned to the bridge on the 17th and searched both sides of the bridge as well as the bottom of the gully in case anything had been missed. Detective Johns wrote, quote, after much slicing and hacking through the vegetation down in that area, we were unable to discover anything that might be in connection with Melissa Lee. End quote. They photographed some graffiti painted on the other side of the bridge bolsters, but found no additional evidence. Once they put together that the victim was the subject of a missing persons report. The Snohomish County Sheriff's office and the Everett PD began a joint investigation into the murder of Melissa Lee. At 3pm on April 15, Detective Greg Rinta and Detective Rick Blake from the sheriff's office and Detective Fred Anderson, Detective Robert Johns and evidence custodian Deb Richardson from Everett PD went to the Lee home to perform an extensive search. Unfortunately, Sharon had already cleaned up all the mess that she and Gary had found when they returned home and found Melissa missing. Possibly for that reason, no helpful latent fingerprints were found, but the investigators searched Melissa's room and found some stuff. And they collected items found in the living room as well. Here are the items that were collected into evidence. A pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a lighter that did not belong to Sharon or Gary found on the living room floor. Melissa smoked Newports, so those Marlboros weren't hers either. The drinking glass with the spilled milk from the living room floor. A blue bandana from I'm not sure where in the house, but it was collected because no one recognized it. And blue was the color worn by members of the Crips street gang, which detectives thought might be relevant for reasons I won't get into. Melissa's flowered address book. Her daily calendar. Papers from Melissa's bedroom found in the garbage and in the top dresser drawer that included letters to and from her boyfriend TJ in which they discussed things like living the rest of their lives together, being in love, the problems Melissa had with TJ Being interested in other girls, and so on. The investigators also collected the phone bill showing recent calls into and out of the Lee household and the answering machine tape. Since there was, according to Sharon, evidence of a struggle in the house, the detectives looked for signs of forced entry. They found the front door had been booted such that the frame and door jamb were splintered at the lock. Canvas of the next door neighbors, Mr. And Mrs. Rogers, did not shed much light on what happened. Mrs. Rogers said that over the past few months, she saw a lot of guys going to and from the home and several Guys going up to the window of Melissa's bedroom and knocking on it. But she said there was one guy who came over a few times alone driving a light blue vehicle. She couldn't give a good description, but said he was a white male. The clothing Melissa had been found wearing was analyzed by detectives utilizing an alternative light source, which detected several fibers on Melissa's bra, both socks, shorts, sweatshirt, and the sheet she was transported in. Melissa's mom, Sharon, was interviewed multiple times by detectives from Snohomish county and Everett pd. She spoke specifically with sheriff's office detectives Greg Rinta and Rick Blake and Everett Detective Fred Anderson. She told them about Melissa and what she had to say would cause the investigators to cast a very wide net in their search for a suspect. Basically, Sharon said that Melissa was very rebellious and they had had a lot of trouble with her over the past year or two. She said Melissa had run away a few times and that nothing that detectives could tell her about what her daughter was up to would surprise her. The family had even relocated to their current residence in order to get away from what Sharon indicated were gang affiliated people her daughter was hanging out with. She said Melissa had been involved with a number of older men. She told them about one time when a man called the home looking for her daughter and Sharon found out that he was 42 years old. The man told her that Melissa was representing herself as being 26. She wasn't even close to 16. Furthermore, over the past three weeks, the family had been getting anonymous phone calls on the house phone conveying death threats to Melissa. Sharon had no idea who the caller was. Sharon also related an incident that had happened on April 3 when she said a carload of Crips had driven by their house after following Melissa home. Sharon was asked about what Melissa was doing that last day and evening. Tuesday evening, April 13th, Sharon was at work, but said Melissa slept very late, according to Gary, who was home that morning. And Melissa had no plans to do much of anything that day. Her bestie Christa was supposed to come over and spend the night later, but that was it. Sharon said that the clothes Melissa was wearing when she was found were her lounging at home clothes. If Melissa, a real girly girl, had been planning on going out, she would have showered and been all done up wearing a nice outfit and having her hair, nails and makeup just so. The fact that she was wearing her Sharks hoodie and gym shorts meant that she had no intention of going out in public or of entertaining. Melissa's sister Kelly echoed this saying quote, she Never left the house looking like a scrub. So all that seemed to indicate that Melissa was not expecting whoever came to call. Gary had a few extra details to add about Melissa. He said that she had run away on several occasions and stayed away for weeks at a time. She received phone calls every hour of the day and night and some of the people she hung out with were affiliated with the Crips and the Bloods. You can see why the investigation became widespread. The timeline, according to Gary and Sharon, established that the last time either of them actually saw Melissa was when Gary left the home at 1pm on the 13th to go to the Pinecone Cafe to pick up Sharon from work. Melissa was asleep when he left. Sharon called the house and spoke to Melissa at 9:30pm and everything seemed fine. There was no note or any other indication of where Melissa might have gone. Kelly, Melissa's 11 year old sister, had been staying with her grandparents on Whidbey island when Melissa was abducted and killed. She was as helpful as an 11 year old can be who was not a witness to the abduction. She said Melissa had a lot of friends, had run away the previous December and had been really upset when her boyfriend TJ broke up with her just a couple of days earlier. She also said that Melissa was an awesome big sister to her, mothered her and was the sweetest person. She said Melissa took her everywhere. Detectives started to gather names of men they would need to talk to. Of course, Kelly had mentioned this boyfriend of a few months, tj, who sounded like he needed to be looked at closely. Another one of these was the name Michael, whose name and phone number were written in Melissa's address book. It seems she used her day planner as something of a diary. And there were clues written on every single day of the calendar, such as on March 3rd, I finally talked to TJ and we're still going out on March 5th, going to Fantasia and meeting Dave. On March 9th, TJ dumped me. March 10th, me and TJ are going back out. March 15th, one out with Alan and Kelly. March 16th, went out with Krista and Alan. Krista stayed the night. March 24, stayed the night with Adam. March 30, went home and talked to Keenan and so on and so on. I'll get into some more names written in the calendar a little later. The last entry on the day planner made on Monday, April 12, 1993, said, quote, Stayed home just thinking about TJ and how much I want him back. Kelly went to Whidbey Island. TJ and me are still broken up. I hope To God we get back together. Detectives had to start sorting out who all these people were. And they would find that every time they tracked down one of the names, it led to several others. The investigation was like the Greek myth about the Hydra. Every time the detectives crossed off a name from the person of interest list, many more sprang up in its place. Krista Stromberg was the next interview. She was the girl who had been supposed to spend the night with Melissa. On the night Melissa was abducted on April 15, she told Everett Detective Anderson and Detective Bob Johns that she'd known Melissa for six years, since when they used to be neighbors in Linwood. She said Melissa was pretty unhappy, but was a little boy crazy. She was the kind of girl who cared about her appearance and wore makeup, lipstick, eyeliner and so on and took care to look nice when she went out. Christa said she had introduced Melissa to some Northwest Crip Posse members. She confirmed that the crude C that was burnt onto Melissa's hand, documented at her autopsy, stood for Cripps, and that Melissa had done that herself with a cigarette lighter. Krista was able to give the investigators some names and some street names of people in the Northwest Cripps Posse. People like Raul, AKA Boo, Brett, AKA Mocha, and so on. She also said that occasionally Melissa drove around with a guy named Ed and a guy named John. Both of these males had cars and had at times shuttled the girls back and forth between their homes or wherever they were staying and Fantasia. She also named a guy named Keenan, last name unknown. An investigative nightmare. Christa said she last saw Melissa on April 9, but she had spoken with her on the phone many times. On Tuesday the 13th, she had been supposed to spend the night at Melissa's, but she got stuck babysitting very late, so she couldn't make it. She tried to call Melissa later in the evening, but there was no answer. Unfortunately, Krista could not remember the times of their last call and this no answer call. And then Krista told the investigators about tj. She said that on the last night of her young life, Melissa had been very upset about the TJ situation. Basically, her boyfriend TJ had broken up with her and and moved on to dating another girl named Melissa. Melissa d. On the 13th, while Melissa Lee was home alone, she was harassing TJ by phone and also asked Krista to call TJ and ask why he had dumped her. Krista said Melissa told her all about TJ threatening her, leaving a message on her home answering machine that night that played rap music and then said, you're marked, bitch. Moises friend Alicia S also had some information for Detectives Rinta, Blake and Anderson. She said she and Melissa had been friends since 1992 and she was one of the last people to speak with her. As they spoke on the phone twice on the night of the 13th, Alicia also reported that Melissa was very upset about the breakup with TJ and the fact that he had moved on and started dating Melissa D. Alicia said she last spoke with Melissa around 11pm and Melissa was very worked up over the TJ situation. Alicia tried to call melissa back at 11:46pm she just happened to look at the clock when she tried calling and she was surprised when Melissa did not answer the phone. Something kept Melissa from answering that phone call at 11:46pm so hearing that TJ Peters had possibly threatened Melissa, detectives became very interested in him. Even though he was just 16, he had quite the reputation as someone who claimed to be in a gang, who dealt drugs, who had violent tendencies, and who was a chronic liar. On the 16th, Detectives Herndon and Rinta went to TJ's home in Edmonds. He wasn't home, so they interviewed his mom, Deborah. She said Melissa and TJ had dated for a few months, but TJ had gone to rehab on March 12 and got out on April 10. When he got out, he broke up with Melissa Lee and started dating Melissa D. However, Melissa Lee had been calling the Peters house constantly for the few days between the breakup and her murder. The investigators asked Deborah about TJ's timeline for the night of the 13th to 14th. TJ's mom said that he left the house on the 13th sometime between 3 and 3:30pm to go to Melissa D's house. Melissa's father drove TJ to an AA meeting and TJ came home afterwards, getting home around 9 or 9:30 at night. He spent the rest of the night at home. Melissa D's father verified this AA meeting. Deborah also said that that night TJ got many phone calls from Melissa Lee as late as between 11 and 11:30pm According to Debra, she heard a portion of TJ's message to Melissa and heard him tell her, you're marked, bitch. She asked him what that meant and he said, it meant, you're dead. The calls from Melissa continued on the evening of April 13th to the point that Deborah decided to turn the phone off. So Deborah put her son at home around 11:30 on Tuesday night. Furthermore, TJ's brothers Stephen and Brian were interviewed by Detective Herndon. They had both heard four or five phone calls come in from a girl disguising her voice, leaving harassing messages on the answering machine. TJ said it was Melissa and finally picked up the phone and told her to stop calling. Steven said that he woke up around 2 in the morning on April 14th to get a drink of water and TJ was lying on the couch watching a movie and TJ's father Ed told investigators that he was home with his son TJ that night until Ed went to bed at 1:30 in the morning. If TJ was home at 11:30 getting phone calls from Melissa and his dad said he was home until at least 1:30am and his brother Steven said he was home at 2am it was very unlikely that he had been the one to kidnap and kill Melissa and dump her over the bridge in Everett. The investigators tracked TJ down at his girlfriend Melissa D's house. TJ himself was interviewed a number of times and his story was always that he was home that night at his parents house. TJ said he met Melissa in January of 93 and they were boyfriend and girlfriend until he broke up with her on April 10. When he got out of treatment they asked TJ about rumored threats he made toward Melissa. TJ said he put out a tag or a threat to kill Melissa Lee before he went into rehab because he was angry with her. He told his brother Anthony Gonzalez about the tag and Anthony told other people but TJ said he didn't mean it and he was just fooling around. He also confirmed that he'd been getting a lot of phone calls from Melissa. On the 13th between 9 and 11:30pm he called her and told her to stop pranking him. She was angry with him for dumping her and said she would not accept it. He said the last time he talked to her was on the 13th at 11:30. Then his mom turned the phone off. He said despite all the talk of tags and so on, he would not have hurt Melissa and didn't know anyone who would have. When pressed, TJ insisted he did not know who killed her. TJ's new girlfriend Melissa D was interviewed and said that Melissa Lee was was very upset that TJ had broken things off with her and taken up with Melissa D. In fact she called Melissa D on Monday and said that she was going to kick Melissa D's ass. Selma, Melissa Lee's friends had also called Melissa D and left several threatening messages. Anthony Gonzalez, TJ's brother was interviewed as well. He confirmed that TJ told him Melissa was marked because she kept calling the house and refused to stop. He also Said two months earlier, TJ allegedly had arranged for his former Seattle group ocs, which stood for organized crime syndicate, to kill Melissa. And he had paid them with cash he made dealing coke. TJ claimed that he'd called off the hit on Melissa because they'd worked things out. But then Anthony said TJ told him he forgot to call off the whack. Detective Anderson's report noted that, quote, anthony was distraught and afraid that the whack actually happened, end quote. The organized crime member who was supposed to carry out the hit on Melissa was. Was a guy named Derek. W. Quote, tony Gonzalez felt that this is what happened to Melissa Lee. Tony, who was notably in tears, admitted that he thought TJ did indeed have Melissa killed. The reality is TJ was a pretty bad dude for Melissa to be mixed up with. Kelly, Melissa's sister said years later that he had threatened Melissa, saying if she ever left him, he would kill her. He was physically abusive. Kelly saw the bruises, and her sister confided in her. Anthony, TJ's brother, said TJ was in a gang that had mafia ties and he sold drugs for them. He had already been to rehab for alcohol and cocaine abuse at age 16. So when the investigators learned that TJ had ordered a hit on Melissa and forgot to call it off, it was a real concern, not just teenage drama. TJ agreed to submit to a polygraph exam. Afterwards, the polygrapher determined that he was being deceptive. But the investigators could not arrest tj. They had the small problem of him having an alibi with at least four people in his family who did not seem like they would lie to protect him. Swearing that he was at home on the night of the 13th to 14th, they had to figure out if someone else had carried out this hit on Melissa. Detectives tracked down the girl named Gina. They found, mentioned in Melissa's address book, Gina H. She was a very good friend of Melissa's, and the two had run away together in the fall of 1992, living in the home of an adult woman in the Mukilteo area. Before returning home, Gina last talked to Melissa on Sunday, April 11, via telephone. Gina said a bunch of the teens had gone to Whidbey island for an overnight on Friday, April 9. This included a bunch of crips, like a guy named Owen, a guy named Jason, a guy named Tom T. And several others. Gina said she had no idea who could have killed Melissa, but she had personally witnessed a physical argument between TJ and Melissa at fontasia a few months before Melissa was killed. One of Melissa's good friends was a younger girl named Sarah H. She told investigators she heard a rumor from her friend Megan at Nettledale Middle School about who had been responsible for Melissa's death. Megan told the investigators that she heard from Tegan M. That a guy named T.J. had strangled Melissa. She said Tegan had told her Melissa was found in her boxer shorts, wearing a T shirt and no makeup. Her body was behind some water pipes. Teagan M. Was interviewed next, and she said that she overheard Tony Gonzalez, TJ's brother, telling someone named Latisha on the phone that TJ had strangled Melissa. Investigators turned their attention early on onto this guy, Tom T. They learned his name because he had called the Lee home on Thursday while the detectives were there conducting their investigation. At the house, they met him at a local diner for an interview. Tom T. Said he met Melissa about two months earlier at Fantasia in Linwood. He dated her for five days over spring break, but she broke up with him because TJ had asked her to go back out with him again. Tom said he's considered Melissa a friend, and he quickly forgot that she'd thrown him over for tj. Melissa had called him very upset, and told him that TJ left a message on her answering machine with a rap song, and then you're marked, bitch. This meant that someone was going to kill her, possibly TJ himself. At Melissa's request, Tom called TJ and told him to stop pranking her. And TJ said she was the one repeatedly calling him. When asked, Tom said he thought it was likely that TJ had killed Melissa. He knew TJ had access to his father's van and he had threatened her. So there you go. Tom admitted that he himself was in a gang called the east side Crips, so police raised eyebrows at him. And Melissa had dumped him for tj. So perhaps he was jealous. Tom's alibi was he was at home on the night of the 13th to 14th. He was polygraphed on April 20th, and he passed. Police wanted to check out his alibi. So his mom, Diane, was also polygraphed and she passed. Police moved on. A guy named Edwin oh had been friends with Melissa for two years after meeting her at Rollaway Skate. He admitted that he belonged to a gang claiming to be affiliated with the Northwest Crip Posse, and his AKA was special. This was the Ed guy, named by Melissa's bestie Krista as someone who drove the girls around. He was interviewed on April 29th by detectives Blake and Anderson and said he heard that that Melissa had been strangled by two guys. Her boyfriend TJ had held her down and another person had strangled her. The guy who actually killed her might have been named Matt, but he wasn't sure. Investigators interviewed a teen named John B. Who was incarcerated in the Denny Youth Center. He said he knew Melissa for two years and had met her at the skating rink. He was also gang affiliated with the Inner City Hustlers. He had heard from a guy named James c. That the Hoover 74 gang, a group of Crips that hung around in the Everett area, killed Melissa because she wouldn't have sex with them. They strangled her and threw her off her bridge. Detective Rinta tracked down this JMC and he denied saying that, but then said he thought he had heard that information from a female friend of Melissa's. He couldn't remember who. Demetrius D. Had been named by several people as running with the Acacia Block Crips. The investigators got his name from a Jesse F. Who had been arrested on a separate warrant and told detectives he he had information on how and why Melissa had been killed. He said this guy Demetrius had been upset that Melissa Lee had broken up with him and told his friends the bitch got what she deserved. Detectives asked Krista, Melissa's bestie, about him, and she said that Melissa mentioned a guy named Demetrius that she met at Fantasia, someone she liked. Detective Anderson tracked down this Demetrius and interviewed him. He said he didn't even know Melissa Lee and did not recognize a picture of her, although he admitted it was possible he'd met her at Fantasia as he used to hang out there a lot. He claimed to have an alibi for the night of April 13th to 14th, but it was clear that the investigators were giving the side eye to Demetrius because they showed a lot of people his photo to see if they recognized him or had ever seen him with Melissa. They also asked him to take a polygraph exam, which he agreed to. He passed. Then there was Adam S. A name also found in Melissa's address book of a guy who had dated her for a very short time. She had spent the night at his place on March 24, according to her calendar. Adam said Melissa had called him a couple of days before she died in the April 7th to 10th time frame and told him she was with a group of guys and she was in trouble. She needed him to pick her up in Everett. She told him that the guy she was with wanted to have sex with her and he was doing crack cocaine and she was scared. Adam couldn't pick her up because he was driving to work on his Shift at Dairy Queen. He never heard from her again. Detectives had no idea who the crackhead was. Just days after the murder, detectives got a tip from Lt. Hawes at the Snohomish County Jail. Inmates there were talking about someone possibly having Melissa killed. An inmate told them that a cellmate had been communicating with Melissa Lee prior to her death. This turned out to be a guy named Michael who was in jail on forgery charges. Detectives Blake and Anderson questioned Michael in jail and he said did indeed know Melissa, whom he called a sweetheart. He had asked her out a couple of times, but they'd never dated because she was dating his best friend, TJ Michael admitted he had contact with Melissa via the jail telephone, and the two had written letters back and forth. Michael couldn't have killed Melissa because he was in jail and he didn't know who did. But he had heard someone had carried out a hit on her. It was maddening, the circular rumors, the finger pointing, the games of telephone. The investigators chased down as many of these rumor mongers as they could, but they were never able to identify any source of the rumors. Who had any actual concrete information. And I'm leaving out scores of names, like Conrad W. A member of the Crips whose name was tipped to police. Keenan P. Who had dated Melissa for a hot minute earlier that year after meeting her at Fantasia. And Robert H. Who had been heard telling people Melissa was strangled with a phone cord. He turned out to have dated Melissa but could not be connected to her murder. Before the investigation was even a week old, several people had been polygraphed. Anthony Gonzalez, T.J. tom T. And Demetrius D. They were all asked some variation of whether they were involved with Melissa's death or if they had killed Melissa. All but TJ Passed. But whatever he was hiding, the investigators could not uncover it. On April 22nd, detectives Herndon, Blake and Anderson attended Melissa's funeral and noted all the license plates. Afterwards, they pulled TJ who had attended, in for another interview at the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office. They again confronted him about the threat he'd made to Melissa. And he said that he'd made the threat, but he didn't mean it. He said he talked to Melissa quite a bit on the 13th, and it seemed like they were agreeing to be friends with each other. He repeated his alibi that he was home at his parents residence on Tuesday evening and stayed in all night. When they asked him who he thought killed Melissa, he said he didn't know, but that she had been involved in things that she shouldn't be and was killed as a result of that. The investigators plodded on, holding meetings every few days to compare notes. Since two agencies and multiple detectives were involved, I will say the authorities dedicated a lot of manpower and resources to Melissa's case. There were just so many names and so few reliable narrators. Once they ran down all the names being reported to them as knowing Melissa, having a beef with Melissa, having dated Melissa and or being in a gang and possibly having targeted Melissa, they turned to another possible suspect pool. On May 17, Sheriff's Office Detective Rinta and Everett Detective Anderson split up Melissa's address book and started calling the phone numbers written in it. Here they found a lot of additional guys who knew Melissa, many of them only casually or very tangentially. Several guys had dated her but hadn't seen or talked to her since late 1992. Some guys still met up with her now and then or drove her around. Police still had to keep track of all these names. Nathan, Nigel, Chris, Brad, Dustin, Jason. Leads related to the physical evidence were also pursued, of course. On May 19, 1993, and Everett Detective Anderson submitted several items to the Washington State Patrol crime lab. These included Melissa's blue underwear. On September 19, results came back from forensic scientist Greg Frank stating that a stain located on the inside crotch area of the underwear tested positive for amylase, an enzyme found in saliva and other bodily fluids such as semen. As the spring of 1993 turned into summer and then fall, detectives were still tracking down and interviewing all the names being tipped to them or rumored to be involved. Much later, a probable cause affidavit in the case stated, quote, rumors started to get passed around identifying various persons of interest in the death of Melissa Lee besides T.J. peters. 1993 detectives tracked down and worked those rumors, which proved to be baseless and unsubstantiated, with no evidence to support them. End quote. In an effort to generate continued attention for the case, the detectives left flyers providing information about Melissa's unsolved case at Fantasia in Lynwood, where she'd been known to hang out, as had a number of people who knew her. One guy they finally tracked down on September 1, 1993 was named Robert W. He had no fixed address, and the detectives got the impression that he was avoiding them as he would miss appointments to speak with them and not return their phone calls. When they finally managed to pin him down, he. He acknowledged that Melissa Lee and her friend Gina had stayed at his apartment in January of 1993. He claimed Melissa had told him she was 17 and almost 18. She told him she needed a place to stay, and he let her stay at his apartment for three weeks before he finally asked her to leave. She ran up his phone bill to the tune of $100 and drank all his beer. He said she also had several people over who stole his CD player. Plus, he was dating someone else at the time. Although he admitted to having hooked up with Melissa on one occasion, he said he had absolutely never been violent with her. The last time he saw her was at the end of February 1993 when he dropped her at the bus stop after asking her to leave. She paged him a number of times at the beginning of April and asked him to give her a ride somewhere, but he had not done so. Robert, an auto body mechanic, said he absolutely had nothing to do with her death and was willing to take a polygraph. On January 24, 1994, Detective Anderson received a disappointing lab report about Melissa's clothing and the oral, anal and vaginal swabs collected at her autopsy. Quote, the results of the tests indicated that there was no spermatozoa on any of the items submitted or on a swab for Melissa Lee. End quote. All they had was the amylase detected on her underwear. Okay, you heard me say a moment ago that investigators dismissed as baseless all the unsubstantiated information they received about suspects who killed Melissa other than tj. I think it's fair to say that at this point of the investigation, the investigators believed that TJ was somehow involved. Remember, he'd failed a polygraph. Melissa had told several people that he'd threatened her on her answering machine and even played the message for some of her friends. His own brother told investigators that TJ had told him he put a whack on Melissa and forgot to cancel it. And in October 1994, something else incriminating happened. TJ's parents home was repossessed and sold. And when the workers at the home entered the shed in the back of the property where TJ and his brothers and their friends hung out, slept, partied, drank and did drugs, they saw some disturbing graffiti style writings containing threatening messages on the inside walls of the shed. The messages said things like, TJ wants Melissa Lee dead. Melissa Lee is going to die soon and I'll be dead soon. Six feet under and a picture of a stick figure in a coffin. Detective Rinta took photographs of the handwriting on the shed walls. None of the writings were signed, nor was there any indication of when they were put there. And there was all Sorts of other graffiti in the shed as well. These writings were not necessarily significant, but still, they didn't look good and they didn't help police perception of TJ. In December 1994, Melissa's mother, Sharon, who had moved to Tennessee with Gary and Kelly for a fresh start, made a return trip to snohomish county. She announced a $10,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of Melissa's killer. Bulletins, including Melissa's photo, ran in all the local papers listing the phone numbers of the various law enforcement agencies working the case and saying information could remain confidential. Sharon went around posting flyers about the unsolved case and the reward. The daily herald did a piece about the reward, quoting Sharon as saying, we're trying to get some action. We want something done. My daughter was worth a lot more than $10,000, but that's all we could come up with. I can't go on with my life with this hanging over me. It's there every single day, every single night. I want somebody to be caught, not only so Melissa can be at rest, but so that I can be at rest. The article quotes snohomish county sheriff's office spokesman Elliott woodall saying, quote, no clear suspect has ever been identified. Woodall said that Melissa knew a lot of people, but they were not able to identify one in particular who might have wished her harm. But obviously somebody took violent issue with something and murdered her. He said by this point, police had interviewed well over a hundred people. But admittedly, quote, it's a case that doesn't make a lot of sense. Detective Greg rinta told the Seattle times, Adding that police didn't have a motive. I'm really at a loss as far as where to go, he said. That's not good. In 1997, the Snohomish county medical examiner's office assembled a violent crime analysis profile about the Melissa Lee case. It concluded that two offenders participated in the murder. One was believed to be a white male between the ages of 17 and 20. The other was believed to be a white male between age 15 and 17, described as a loser type. That just described half the people in this case. Years passed. On June 27, 2000, Everite Police Detective Kaiser submitted some additional items to the Washington state patrol crime lab. These included Melissa's orange and pink shorts. It took a whole year to get results. On July 30, 2001, from forensic scientist Greg Frank, four red stains located on the back of the shorts tested positive for blood. Two of the stains were sampled and extracted, and human DNA was detected in both. One stain was Melissa's blood. But the stain from the left short's leg could not have come from Melissa Lee, the report said, because the mixture was detected. Forensic scientist Frank submitted the left leg bloodstain and a reference blood card from Melissa to Washington State Patrol crime lab forensic scientist Jody Sass to conduct DNA analysis using STRS. The results, reported on October 10, 2001, were that the extract from the bloodstain on the shorts was of mixed origin. The major component, greater than 90%, originated from an unidentified male source. The trace component was consistent with originating from Melissa. Now they were getting somewhere. The male DNA profile was entered into the Washington State Patrol convicted felon database and into the FBI's CODIS database, and no matches were found. It was run again over the next few years with no matches. It continued to fail to generate any matches even after 1999, when the DNA profile of TJ Peters, Melissa's on again and off again boyfriend who was a suspect, was entered into CODIS after he was convicted in a felony theft case. TJ didn't do it. Someone else had bled on the shorts Melissa was wearing when she was killed. In 2008, 15 years after Melissa was killed, the Daily Herald did an expose under the headline 93 slaying hangs over mother's life. The article talked about Sharon's anguish over her daughter's unsolved murder and said the detectives had identified a suspect after Melissa's slaying, but never got enough evidence to prove that he killed her. This was referencing TJ. At this time in 2008, Melissa was being featured as one of 52 cases in the state's first deck of cold case playing cards. She was the king of diamonds. More than 3,000 decks of the playing cards were distributed in prisons and jails, and inmates were promised a $1,000 reward for information. Okay, now for the modern investigation. The original missing persons report from Melissa had come into the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office. But because she was found in Everett, her case was mostly worked by Everett pd. Now, when the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office started its cold case team, the case was reassigned to them. In 2011, Snohomish County Sheriff's Office Detective Joseph Dunn was assigned to assess the physical evidence in the ice cold Melissa Lee case. He submitted to the Washington State Patrol crime lab nail clippings from Melissa's right and left hands, as well as the dark blue bandana found in the house and believed to not belong to the family. Gary Frank issued his report on July 9, 2012 no male DNA was found in the extracts prepared from the fingernail clippings. As for the bandana, it contained DNA from at least four different contributors. The major male contributor from the bandana was inconsistent with the DNA obtained from the bloodstain on the shorts. This finding of male DNA from multiple sources did not undercut a major theory of the case that Melissa had been killed by gang members. It was believed that more than one suspect could have been involved. On August 19, 2015, Snohomish County Sheriff's Detective Jim Scharf submitted evidence to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab for DNA processing. The items included Melissa's blue underwear and the oral, anal and vaginal swabs collected at her autopsy. All of these things had been tested in the past, but decades had passed since that time and technological advances in testing methodologies were exponential. Forensic scientist Greg Frank was still at it and his report on October 9, 2015 stated that he removed and tested the remainder of the stain on the crotch of the underwear that had revealed amylase back in 1993. The stain returned a presumptive positive result for the presence of semen and this time one single spermatozoan was detected. Trace male DNA was located combined with a large amount of female DNA on the swabs. Trace male DNA combined with a large amount of female DNA and no semen was detected. The male DNA was insufficient to yield a profile using 2015 testing technology. Moving on to October 25, 2018 when DNA extracts from the back left leg stain on Melissa's shorts were quantified for human DNA by forensic scientist Jody Sass. The extracts were then provided to private lab DNA Solutions to prepare a SNP profile from male DNA on the shorts Melissa was found wearing. Snohomish County Sheriff's Office Detective Jim Scharf submitted the SNP profile to Parabon on January 17, 2019. Let me explain here that although it was relatively early in the igg era, late 2018, early 2019, detective Jim Scharf had already had quite a bit of success solving cold cases using igg. Jim Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenburg were murdered in 1987 in Washington state and their killer, identified by genealogist C.C. moore in just two hours time from evidence from the crime scene, was successfully prosecuted in the first ever IGG conviction in 2019. I have not covered this case on DNAID because the definitive book about it, the Forever Witnessed by Pulitzer Prize winning Edward Humes, does an absolutely fantastic job at detailing the case, the investigation and the capture of William Talbot. I highly recommend it. Anyway, Detective Scharf again put his faith in Parabon, sending them Melissa's snip profile. In early 2019, CeCe Moore, who worked pro bono in Melissa's case, told me in an email quote, I was really invested after reading an article about how Melissa's mother didn't think anyone cared about her daughter's case. It broke my heart and I wanted to show her that we do still care. CC uploaded the snip profile into GEDmatch and found two promising matches, three potentially promising matches and many more distant matches. Matches one and three first cousins once removed, both descended from ancestral couple Alvin Henry Reiter and Winifred Ethel Weissong. This branch of the tree was genetic network number one, from which the suspect had to descend. Matches 13 and 33rd cousins once removed, both descended from ancestral couple Pierre Barrasa and Madeleine Leseur. This branch of the tree was genetic network number two. Match number five, who did not share DNA with any other matches, was a descendant of Joseph Delaware and his wife Catherine Schneider. CeCe could also see that Joseph and Catherine's daughter Mary Ann married a grandson of the ancestral couple from genetic network number two. Since the suspect shared DNA with both match five and the members of genetic network number two, this indicated that he was descended from this marriage. Linking match number five's family with genetic network two and the great granddaughter of the genetic network no. 2 ancestral couple named Donna Lee Bailey married the grandson of ancestral couple one, Dale Edward Dean. Donna and Dale had only one son. The suspect fit with the identified genetic relationships. He was the paternal great grandson of Alvin Ryder and Winifred Weissong, the ancestors of genetic network number one, and was the second cousin of match number one and the second cousin once removed of match number three. He was the maternal fourth great grandson of Pierre Barrasa and Madeline Le sir, the ancestors of genetic network number two and was second cousins twice removed to match number five and match number 13 on different lines as well as fourth cousins once removed with match number 30. He was also the third great grandson of Joseph Delaware and and his wife Katherine Schneider, the great grandparents of match number five. The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office received Parabon's report on February 25, 2019. It identified a man named Allen Edward Dean with high confidence due to the fact that genetic connections were found on both sides of his family tree. He was the only male who fit with the genetic relationships and he lived in close proximity to the scene. In 1993, CeCe told me the whole thing took only a few hours, thanks to the robust matches she had to work with and the fact that the suspect was the only son born to the marriage linking the genetic networks. This is the end of part one of the Melissa Lee case. Part two is available right now.