The Last Take

- She was my movie star, Mommy.

(audience applauding)

“Someone has been walking around for 30 years.”

Having committed this heinous crime on my mother. (buzzer) I want to know what happened to her. My mom was killed February 12, 1977. I was nine.

(suspenseful music) We've found all kinds of things, two huge boxes. All kinds of evidence, all kinds of interviews, all kinds of information that nobody had looked up before they were just tucked away.

(suspenseful music) - The crime scene where Christian Helm was murdered in 1977.

She had left the party in West Hollywood

and she was attacked and stabbed numerous times. (suspenseful music) She was a very good-looking girl. (suspenseful music) - Oh, my technique, come in.

- Oh, you're doing fine. (suspenseful music) - She was not against posing and seductive tight photos. - She was a young Hollywood starlet, party girl.

(suspenseful music) She hung out with Joan Ameth, Mick Jagger, Warren, Bady. - Jack Nicholson, the show of Iron. (suspenseful music) We knew that she kept a diary.

- My mom was a very smart woman. I can definitely see her keeping track of things. We don't know if there may have been extortioned. A lot of people have told us that there's a diary that's missing.

“- I think that the diary was what was taken from her body”

when she died and that she was going to blackmail people with the diary. We don't know all the names in that book. - We know that she did have some tapes of famous people sexually.

- I could send you into a sexual frenzy. - She had intimate relations and intimate knowledge of a lot of famous people. - I think it's going to be a huge surprise when people find out who committed this crime.

She got in way overhead. She was playing with the big boys. Somebody killed her because of what she knew. - The dream was me standing in a room overlooking a parking lot.

The wall is glass. I see my mother walking through. I noticed someone coming up behind her. They've got a knife in their hand

“and I just screaming and screaming and screaming”

for someone to help her. - Christahelm's daughter Nicole doesn't want us to mention her last name or reveal where she lives

because her mother's killer has never been caught.

- There was a strength and a drive in me that I always felt from a very young age came from her. And I held on to that as my little piece of my mom. - Where did you come from? - She had a charisma that was just overwhelming.

She had a warmth that just made people just be drawn to her on a regular basis. She was powerful and strong and took no bull. She was a very complicated, beautiful human being. Nancy's Nicole, her mother, was born to be a star.

- From the time she was a little girl. She would dance and sing and tell everybody she was gonna be a movie star when she grew up. And of course, a little Milwaukee Wisconsin, no one believed her. - Christahelm had the kind of story

that Hollywood legends are made from. Smart, sexy and stunning, labor-utiful. She was the classic small town girl with a big Hollywood dream. - Christah was determined to become a star

and she had the energy and on yielding ambition to make it happen. - I remember her one time saying, "Well, Darling, I'm not going to be a Midwestern housewife." - Darling Thorson was Christah's lifelong friend.

- We had a saying between the two of us. All's fair and love and war. And she lived by those words. Nothing would really stop her from getting what she wanted. - And not even a shotgun wedding when Christah was just 17 years old.

- She was a teenager. He owned a karate studio. They were married in Chicago and the morning after their wedding. She woke up in their honeymoon suite and my father was gone.

Nicole came along a few months later. But within a couple of years, Nicole's young and ambitious mother, grew restless and took off to follow her dream. - The first stop, the bright lights of New York, where she found work as a model.

Taking the city by storm would be impossible with a toddler and toe.

So Nicole always left behind in the care of a good friend.

But Christah promised, "Mother and daughter would one day be together." - I was supposed to be with her when I turned 10. - Until then, Nicole was a visitor in her mother's life.

“- When I was with her, she made me feel so important.”

The moments that I had with her really strengthened, the belief that, you know, I wasn't. She didn't just throw me away. She was really waiting until I was 10. To she felt safe.

- Her motto good looks in splashy personality made Christah unnatural for New York's party scene in the early 70s. - If she walked in a room, if everyone in the room hadn't stopped to notice her walk-in, then she would come back in again and get it right.

- Christah's sister, Marisa Rom, was also with some time actress. She was often at Christah's side. - Very driven and very ambitious, really young. - One of the first people, Christah Medin, New York,

was a wealthy patron of the arts named Stuart Duncan. He took an interest in Christah's career, opening doors for her. - She was throwing parties for big names, the Rolling Stones for, she actually got bachelor at of the month

with Cosmopolitan. There were definitely big figures in her life. The Shaw of Iran, she was, she dated, and he sent her jewels. - Christah also picked up a fancy new best friend for life.

(upbeat music) A flamboyant New York clothing designer named Lenny Barrett. She just had him around, sort of feeding her sense of start-up, like the entourage. And then, in 1973, Christah got the break.

She'd been waiting for it. Stuart Duncan gave her a starring role in a movie called, "Let's Go For Broke." (audience laughing) When they were filming at Mariah and makeup

and people just fussing over her all around, and she was in control of the whole scenario, and that was my mom. - We forgot to go to Mary Bow. - The movie opened up in Cincinnati in 1974,

and promptly closed in just four days. Undeterred a few months later, Christah headed straight for Hollywood. - But there's only gonna be one winner in this contest and you're looking at her.

She landed bit roles in Wonder Woman. - Good person. Things I'd like to go over with you. It won't take long. - And Star ski in Hodge.

“How about an eight by ten glass of my six foot two boyfriend?”

- It was how it was a great adventure when I'd go to visit my mom. Nicole remembers visiting her mother at a Beverly Hills home. This was a spectacular mansion.

It was absolutely enormous.

I'd never seen anything like it.

It was the first place I'd ever seen that had maids quarters. - That mansion belonged to a famous financier, Bernie Cornfeld, who was once profiled by Mike Wallace on 60 minutes. - Bernie goes no place without companions, principally female, notably attractive,

and inevitably more than one. - Sitting on the couch, I was very, very young, and there was a big huge party going on and lots of smoke in the air. And I kept just staring at this fellow's lips.

They were the most fascinating thing I had ever seen. It just stared and stared and stared. It was Mick Jagger. (upbeat music) - We were hanging out in clubs

that Warren Bady was at, Ryan O'Neill, Jack Nicholson. If you were a beautiful enough starlet, you know, you would get to go into the in clubs and so that's where we were usually hanging out. - Crystal was not only ambitious and adventurous,

she also liked to keep score.

“Her friend says she kept a secret sex diary,”

complete with a rating system. What she did was she gave her these people a rating, like in all one to 10, so to speak. (upbeat music) - Well, Crystal, partyed in Hollywood,

Nicole prepared for that much talked about mother-daughter reunion.

But it would never happen.

Crystal Helm was stabbed to death. (upbeat music) - I can still remember it, and it was a, I couldn't tell if it was a screaming baby or a cat being killed.

It was terrifying.

- Actor John Gries was 19 then.

He was staying at his mother's house just down the street from where Crystal was attacked.

“- I remember I jumped out of bed, and of course,”

I, you know, my father had recently passed away and I had his pistol, and I pulled his pistol out. I was frightened of death. - Yeah, it sounded like it was happening right here. - Gries stood in his yard, but didn't hear anything more.

Or see anything, and went back inside. - The next day, the sheriff came knocking on the door and they asked if any of us had heard anything unusual in the middle of the night, and then they told me that somebody had been murdered.

And I remember the police officer saying, "Had I walked into the street?"

And looked down, "I would have seen her."

But I only looked down the sidewalk. - Turns out, Gries had his own connection with Crystal. - There were a lot of girls like Crystal. I met her a couple of times. Beautiful girls who just kind of seem to work their way

“through the various corners of Hollywood.”

(gentle piano music) - The reality hit me that I wasn't gonna go have this beautiful life with my mommy that I've been dreaming about for so long, and I fell to my knees outside of the school, and just sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.

(gentle piano music) - As the detective started to investigate, they soon realized the case would be very difficult. With Crystal's complicated life, there were plenty of people who might need to kill her.

- I think that she was a little girl that made it big and Hollywood, little girl that knew too much. (dramatic music) (dramatic music)

(dramatic music) - Help me, Nikki. I'll come back with help. It's the only chance for all of us.

- At first, detectives thought Crystal Helm's murder,

that night back in 1977, might be connected to another sensational killing. (dramatic music) The stabbing of actor-sell Miniel, best known for co-starring with James Dean

in Rebel Without a Cause. The papers had a field day with the similarities. Crystal had been stabbed and bludgeoned to death in front of her agent's house in West Hollywood. Miniel was murdered one year earlier on the very same day.

February 12th, in the very same neighborhood. There were no known witnesses in either case. But the some Miniel lead fizzled. The suspect in his murder was believed to be in jail when Crystal was killed.

- The 21 year old murder suspect had to say in his jail cell when advised of his charges last. - So, detectives started to look more closely at Crystal's celebrity-studded love life and her infamous diary.

Research perhaps for a tell-all book. She was some day going to write a book and she was going to expose all these people and it was going to be a bestseller. - But Crystal's scandalous diary had vanished.

It may have been in her purse, which was missing from the crime scene.

“With that crucial piece of evidence gone,”

investigators hit a string of dead ends. - I think the initial investigation was a complete mess. I think that they didn't pay attention. She was a young Hollywood starlet, party girl.

(gentle music) - Nicole mourn the loss of her mother and the life they were supposed to have together. She raised her own family in the northeast, but a few years ago, she felt compelled

to find out what really happened. - I think that it's my job to make sure that people know who she was and what happened to her. She went through way too much and her life to have her death be so dismissed.

- After years of pressure from Nicole, a new generation of detectives took the case. - Larry Brandonberg and Tom Harris are LA Sheriff's Department hot shots, homicide detectives with the cold case unit.

- How do you go about investigating a murder that occurred three decades ago? - Well, actually, you'd try and go back in time yourself. I mean, you'd try and go back and look at it, the way it looked at night.

- When we're talking about this in the middle to late '70s,

a lot of the sex.

- Sex, sex, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

“- Christ's written diary wasn't the only way”

she could track of that long list of lovers. It turns out, Christa was tape recording her sex capades with all those celebrity boyfriends. - I promised to cause you nothing but pleasure. - If you did have some tapes of famous people, sexually.

- Is a well-known list of people? Can you tell us any of those names? - I don't think it would be fair to those folks at this point, do that. - How significant do you consider those tapes?

- They're a very significant part of this case. - Nothing but pleasure. - Because those sex tapes could have supplied a motive for someone to kill Christa. - We don't know if there may have been extortion

or a thought of extortion. - That scared me a lot. - Her friend, Darlene, warned her against making the tapes. - I thought it was dangerous, I thought she was playing with fire him. - But here's a shocker.

“Just like Christa's diary, most of those tapes”

have also disappeared. - The hunt for the missing tapes has led detectives to another new twist. It's an angle right out of the sopranos. - Here we're made gay now.

She'll tend to make some real money. - And I get the relaxing one. - The Tony Serrico is the actor best known as Pauli Walnitz of the sopranos. But 30 years ago, Serrico was a Brooklyn tough guy

trying to make it in Hollywood. Here he is in a 1978 movie, Fingers. - What's on you might now? - Back in 1977, Tony Serrico was a upcoming actor, and he knew some of the same people that Christa knew.

- We know that after Christa was killed, Tony Serrico was sent to her residence to check on the welfare and watch over her roommate for a few days and to make sure that she was okay. According to the roommate, Tony Serrico removed some tapes

out of Christa's room, never to be seen again.

- Christa's roommate, who to this day is too frightened to talk publicly, also told detectives that Tony took some of Christa's furs and clothing. At the time, police never questioned Tony. - That's Tony Serrico right there with the blood,

but that's part of a film they were making. - But in 2006, when the new detectives took over, they paid him a visit. Have you spoken to him? - Yes, we have.

- Has he been cooperative? - I'm not exactly. - Mr. Serrico told us at first that he didn't even remember the victim. He didn't really know Christa,

“and that he didn't even remember that she had been killed,”

and that his memory got a little bit better, that yeah, I think I had heard about her being killed, but I didn't really know her that well, it's just met her in passing. - According to detectives, Serrico denied going

to Christa's apartment and denied he even knew the roommate. - We started getting to the point of where he was on that day and asked him those type of questions, and the interview was abruptly stopped by his attorney. And we explained to Mr. Serrico also that he was not

was not a suspect in this investigation. He was considered a witness, and someone that we were trying to glean information from. - Years later, most of Christa's missing things did turn up at the home of Christa's closest friend,

Lenny Barron, her designer and confidant. - All of the furniture, all of the crystals, the shop I ran had given my mom, a lot of crystals and jewels and beautiful things. She had fur coats, all of which were found in his home.

- Police now think it was Lenny who sent Tony Serrico to clean out Christa's apartment to protect her. - We believe that he didn't want her reputation's soil, didn't want the information out there about

her serapticiously recording people, or even her sexual activities. - If he had so many of her things, her personal effects, is it possible that he may have been the one who had the audio tapes and the written diary?

- It's possible, that's possible. - Possible, but Lenny can't tell us. He died about 10 years ago. And Tony Serrico's manager says Tony didn't want to talk to us.

But there's another new clue. This time from Christa's friend, Darlene,

who never spoke with police until now.

with a cryptic message. - She said, "Dar."

I am in way over my head here.

“- I am into something that I can't get out of.”

- The track is one that said Christa said that 300,000 total dollars worth of dopamine. If we could find her, it might be helpful. This is another gentleman. We haven't been able to locate him to talk to him

'cause he's dead. - Without Christa Helm's sex diary to guide them, detectives Tom Harris and Larry Brandenberg have had to dig deeper to find people who were involved with her.

- We're gonna find Rocky. - They've discovered that Christa may well have been in over her head. - She had a lifestyle that was provocative. She had a lot of upscale friends.

That were famous some of them. And then she also had a lot of friends that were on the CD-Cital life if you will street people. - So job one has been tracking down all those people Christa socialized with

in her two years in Hollywood. - If someone is violently murdered,

you're never gonna forget that.

“- So far though, few of them remember much,”

or are saying much. - It's very interesting to go back and talk to these people because people can't remember what their lies were. They can't remember what the truth is. - The neighborhood that we've wanted to in 1977

was a pretty upscale neighborhood. - I was the lead detective on the face. I think we came in from this direction. We drove in this way. - Brandenburg and Harris returned to the crime scene

with the one witness who is happy to cooperate. - She was probably about like this. - Okay. - 83-year-old retired Los Angeles detective Larry Gansy. - Irings, shed earrings on, I know that.

- They're hoping to jog the memory of the original investigator. - She had no identification. - We don't know who is it. - About the night, Christopher died.

- We found out that she was a party girl. She had come from a party with a girlfriend. She was headed over to see her agent Sandy Smith. - The house looks to see her now independent, exactly. - This is me right here.

- They also opened the box of evidence. Gansy started 31 years ago. - Bring you back some memories? - Well yeah. She was bleeding quite profusely there.

You could see that she had numerous stab wounds in the chest. I thought so then we had a rage killing. That somebody was really upset with this girl. - What strikes you is odd for unusual or interesting about this case?

- Well, the way she was attacked, it's really sticks out. It was violent, a lot of passion involved. - She was stabbed 22 times. - 22 times?

- Yes. - Pleasured? - Pleasured also. - This doesn't strike you as a random act of violence. - No.

- It would be more of somebody was very mad at her. - There was a side to Christa that seemed to provoke people. - You found almost charming. - Because while many thought she was a barely passable actress on camera, off camera, she was an infamous drama queen.

- Christa was the role of her lifetime. - She loved the daily drama. - One of her recurring drama started beautiful and younger sister Marissa, who learned the hard way, the lengths Christa would go to.

- We'd party together and we'd go to this party and that party. - That was excited. I was meeting this actor and dating that actor and they were calling me.

And she knew that and was really upset that it was me. - But when she started to see that I was attracting more attention than her, that started to wear on her. (dramatic music) - In an apparent jealous rage,

Christa cut her sister off and threw her out of the apartment. - She basically said, "Okay, now you're out on your own." She didn't care if I didn't have any money or a place to live. - That sounds like there was a very cold side to her. - Oh, just a definite cold cut it off

and get back in her own world and push you aside. Would she step over bodies to get what she wanted, would she use people? - Yes. - I would say so.

“- Is that possible that that has played into what happened to her?”

- I have always presumed that that was a part of what happened to her.

- Harrison Brennerberg thinks so too. Wonder if Christa might finally have crossed the wrong man. As they dig deeper into the case, they find a startling confession of sorts. - So this guy dragged about doing a killing.

and he was known for his anything goes parties

where Christa was a frequent guest. - He was very flamboyant, very strange.

“He would do certain things like wearing nothing but a cowboy hat”

and a gun belt with a six gun on it. And that's the way he walked around the house. - But Masela was also a known drug dealer. - He was a fog. - With a bad reputation.

- He's a violent kind of guy. He's known to carry guns and knives. We spoke to his ex-wife, Dethy afraid of him, said that he would threaten her. - What was Christa doing with him?

- He was in that other circle of friends, what we call the dark side of her life, the street people that drug dealers, that would come to these parties.

- Rudy is a pretty big guy, pretty powerful and scary guy.

- In this interview in July of 1977, a woman who frequented Masela's house told police what she had heard about him. - My boyfriend told me Rudy had told him that he had murdered Christa.

He didn't give a reason, but he said that he had murdered Christa. - And was that followed up on back then? - They did question, Rudy asked. They questioned, he denied any involvement. Rudy was kind of guy that would brag about things

that he didn't do just to get some notoriety and to boost his standing with people. - With no other evidence, time is Ella to the crime. The original investigators left it at that. - Was he serious?

We don't know, because the person he bragged to is deceased, and so is Rudy, so we can't talk to either one of them anymore. - And now, three decades later, the cold case squad can only wonder.

Is there any other lead? - I don't know that we can actually eliminate anybody at this point. - It does seem like something or someone had Christa spooked.

- My last visit with her, she had actually said that she was leaving Hollywood. - Nicole now believes her mother realized she was in some kind of danger.

“- I think that the fight just got to be a little too difficult”

for her. It got ugly. There were a lot of dark people and dark lifestyles that she didn't really want to be part of. - Sometimes, historic events suck.

But what shouldn't suck is a learning about history. I do that through story telling. History that doesn't suck is a chart-topping history telling podcast, chronicling the epic story of America decade by decade

from the 18th century to the 20th, original music and immersive sound design accompanied us on our storytelling journey. Listen to and follow history that doesn't suck. An Odyssey podcast, available mail,

unample podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. - 31 years into the Christa Home case, detectives Larry Brandenburg and Tom Harris have uncovered a long string of boyfriends and girlfriends that Christa left in her wake.

They now suspect jealousy. They have been emotive in her murder. We identified people that she was involved with who had other girlfriends and those girlfriends found out about Christa.

There were a couple other females that we believe that she was involved with sexually. They were upset because she would be with men.

“- So she had relationships with both men and women?”

- Yes. - And felt no compunction or loyalty to be with any one person. I know one person was off-limits to her. - Yeah, I mean, that was her lifestyle. - The detectives are now focusing on Christa's final stab at fame.

A recording session, she set up in the winter of 1977. ♪ The wall in dance dance dance dance ♪

- They've gotten a first-hand account of the session

from Backup Singer Debbie Danellow. She and Christa became good friends. ♪ Dancing the face of fear ♪ - But once in a while you meet someone, it's like you've known him forever.

Soulmates, maybe. And when I met Christa, it was like she was an instant solcister. - The detectives now believe that the session exploded in a storm of jealousy and betrayal.

It began when Christa apparently got involved with the records producer. - The top 10, the top 25. - Well known DJ, Frankie Crocker. - The fast-wanky in the city.

- And I think that she's probably my boyfriend or sleeping with him. And so, he had a beautiful Beverly Hills mansion. And part of the music scene, part of the party crowd. - And what was he like?

- Oh, I'm very full of himself, Rich. I'm somebody in Hollywood, you're not. - Debbie says, "Christa flaunted the relationship."

I don't think that it's gonna work out.

With Frankie, because they don't think he likes the way I'm handling the. The songs. And she said, "Don't worry about Frankie." I've got it in by the balls.

Debbie also claims Christa was having an affair with the other backup singer. Her name was Patty Collins. And Patty didn't like to share. Patty was very, very jealous of anyone being around Christa.

Very jealous, very, you know, just watch your step kind of thing. As if things weren't complicated enough, the session's keyboard player, Blair Aeronson, has told detectives that he was casually involved with Debbie.

- We were told originally that they were boyfriend, girlfriend, some come back and say maybe casual dating, some come back and say, "Well, they were pretty heavy item."

“I believe that Debbie had a more serious commitment”

to Blair than Blair did to Debbie. - Then Blair dropped a bombshell. He told detectives that he slept with Christa, the night before she died, and that Debbie caught him. - We interviewed Blair Aeronson and he explained to us

that he and Christa had spent the night together. We're in bed and they got up. We're sitting on the edge of the bed and happened to look over. And so Debbie looking through the window waving at him. - Blair and Christa were startled, obviously,

by seeing her outside the window. But they laughed about it and she ran away. - Debbie adamantly denies any involvement with Blair, or that she saw him in bed with Christa, and Blair declined to speak to 48 hours,

but detectives find the entire recording session suspicious. Especially since Debbie and Patty were both abruptly pushed out. It seems Patty took the news, especially hard. - And apparently she was very upset about it at that time. We don't know if she was removed by Frankie Crocker,

or by Christa herself. - When Debbie talked to the original investigators about Christa, she pointed the finger squarely at Patty. - I told him that she had a female lover that she was extremely jealous.

That was my first thought that maybe her female lover killed her, because every time that I was around her, she seemed so threatened and so dark. - Just days after Christa's murder, Debbie packed up her entire LA life,

disguised herself in a wig, and then made a mad dash out of town. - I didn't want anybody to know who I was. I was afraid that somebody had killed her because she knew something she was supposed to know.

I thought, well, what if they think she told me?

You know, I had never been around anybody

that had been murdered and I just wanted to be away from it. - Frankie Crocker is now dead. Still, the Colkay squad is left to wonder. Could Christa's killer have been a woman? - It just seems like a pretty violent,

really vicious attack for a woman. - I don't think I would characterize it as that.

“I think when somebody is in a violent rage,”

I think their gender doesn't matter. - Then investigators get a break. One of Christa's fingernails preserved for three decades, yields DNA. - It's obvious to us that she put up quite a fight,

and a lot of times in that situation, you're gonna find skin cells or blood or something from the other person onto the fingernails. - Even more intriguing, that DNA is from another woman.

Did you try to match the DNA to a specific person? - Well, we are requesting from people that we interview at times, we're requesting the world's swabs. - One of those people is Debbie Danellow.

Do you consider Debbie Danellow a suspect? - Everyone's still a suspect. ♪ I'm gonna search in my home to remember ♪ ♪ Songs I live behind ♪ ♪ But not long on such questions ♪

♪ I my God would forsake me ♪ - Debbie Danellow put Hollywood and Christa Helm behind her many years ago,

but she never really got over the murder

that struck so close to home. - Change me. It changed the while I looked at everybody in the group.

“You know, you start looking around going who did it?”

Who did this, who could have done this, you know? And it's scary.

she got a letter from Christa's daughter Nicole. - And it said, "Hi, my name is Nicole."

“I think you knew my mother as Christa Helm.”

And I am trying to find out information about her because I didn't know her. Shortly afterwards, Debbie heard from the cold case squad. Of course, they had gotten my name from Nicole. And they said, "Can we talk to you?" I said, "Sure."

But detectives, Harrison Brandenburg, didn't just want Debbie's memories. They wanted her DNA. And what they really wanted to know was if it matched the scraping, they had found under Christa's fingernails.

- We did collect DNA from Debbie Danellow and it was not her DNA that was under the fingernails. - So now I'm letting go. - There is no other evidence tying Debbie to the murder, either.

And she is told police, she had nothing to do with it. - Tom and I are in agreement. Debbie Danellow is much farther down on the scale as a person of interest in this case now. - With the help of an anonymous tip,

the Koke squad finally tracked down.

The woman they believe was Christa's girlfriend, Patty Collins. - Patty and Christa had a relationship according to more than one person. They had a close sexual relationship and a professional relationship.

At some point that you had a falling out with one another, it looks like according to these people and was it serious enough for a murder? We don't know that. But we'd like to talk to Patty about that.

- Hopefully she's home. Hopefully we can get an interview and maybe collect a sample of her DNA. - Patty was happy to talk to the detectives and willingly gave them a DNA sample.

But they were stunned by what she had to say. - I do not know Christa helps. - I have no idea who she is. They showed me a photograph they thought was me and it was not me.

We're trying to break closer. - Not only that.

Patty claimed she was never in Southern California.

- She wasn't Southern California, we know that. But for some reason, she's denying ever being there in her life. I got a feeling we'll be back to talk to her again. I really do. - But not until they get the DNA results

and confirm her identity. Meanwhile, they'll go after other leads. - It's an ongoing process. We still have a lot of work to do. - She was probably about like this.

- The Culke squad's best lead might turn out to be the oldest lead of all. And it comes from the man who first worked across the home case, 83-year-old Larry Gansik. - Salmonio's killer is the same killer

that killed Christa Helm. In my own mind, I'm so sure that I'd bet the deed to my house that he is a one number one suspect.

“- Remember, Salmonio was murdered a year before Christa”

on the same day and in the same way, a stabbing and in the same neighborhood. - Method of operation, the area of operation was so similar to Salmonio's killing. It's almost identical.

- The man ultimately convicted of Minio's killing was 21-year-old line of Williams and he was thought to be in jail at the time of Christa's murder. But the Culke squad recently learned

that Williams wasn't arrested until after Christa's death.

Even more surprising, he was never questioned

about Christa's death. - I don't even know what he looked like, but he never saw him. Never got the chance to talk to him. - Shortly afterwards, Gansi and his partner were reassigned

and then Gansi left the Los Angeles Sheriff's department for good. That's when the Christa Helm case went cold.

“- I think this case has affected me personally”

and more than any I worked, and you're not supposed to get involved. You're supposed to put, you're supposed to put everything behind and you're neutral. You're just doing a job.

But with me anyway, I couldn't put this one to bed. - Meanwhile, line of Williams served 12 years for the murder of Salminio. In 1990, he was released from prison.

- He has been in and out of jail since this occurred. He's been arrested for other crimes. We believe we have an idea where he was living. And we believe that he's not that far away and we're going to go talk to him.

- So after sifting through all the drama

the diary and the sex tapes, the tales of jealousy

and betrayal, could it really be

“that detectives will discover that Christa was simply”

the victim of a random late night street robbery at the hands of a career criminal? - She was so young, she had so much time left. - Christa's daughter Nicole, now 40, hopes that discovering

the truth about the murder will finally bring Salus.

- She was 13 years younger than I am right now and she died.

“Oh, Nicole has to remember her mother by our scrapbook,”

a couple of B movies, and the stuff nightmares are made of. - It's in the end of one of her films,

the legacy of Satan, she's stabbed it at the end of the film.

And that was a little area as well. All I know is that she had told several people that she was terrified of knives and she believed that was the way she was going to die. That's kind of freaky.

- But Nicole still has a child's hope that justice will somehow be served even after all this time.

“- I believe that the person is still out there”

and I believe that we're gonna find closure one day for my mom and we're going to find justice. And I believe that this person is, they know that they did it, and we're ready. (gentle music)

- Detective Larry Brandenberg says the connection to sell many else killer has been discounted because the crimes were so different. He said he and Colling Tom Harris would focus their attention on people

who knew Chris to hell, personally.