337. The Unsuspected Killer - The Murder of Savannah Anderson

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Pete Marlin. And I'm Garrett Warren. And he's the husband.

I'm a husband.

“You know, one thing I've noticed when I watch videos back is because we started this show as a podcast.”

We have a really hard time looking at the camera. This is true. Also, there's a TV ride above our camera so it can make sure the set looks good when the camera's on.

But the problem is is our eyes naturally go to the TV not to the camera.

Yeah, I just find myself talking into the abyss. Yeah. And then being like, wait, hey, I don't speak, you know, guys, we have bonus content bonus episodes. True. If you didn't know and pay for it and then get bonus episodes on our last bonus episode in the

middle, Garrett had a little adventure killing a spider, a big spider. No, you guys. It was huge. I don't even know if it made the final cut. I need to go look.

I don't know either. But it was huge. It probably it crawled out of the events and was like this big. Anyways, I don't think you got him because there are literally three times this amount of webs over there now.

Oh, my God. Do you see all those? He is a hundred percent alive. He's literally webbed that entire area. You did not kill them.

Oh, my gosh, I'm not the find it. The thing is, guys, is he's right by the slider door, so I'm kind of like, okay, he's not invading anyone. No, you didn't kill him. He was huge.

He could go outside and inside and tell it bites one of us and then I turn in the spider man. Throwing with that. Oh, I need to say something. We've gone if you guessed from people at the bagel shop.

Thank you so much. We've got, we've got a bunch of stuff. I need to make a list of everything we've got and then say thank you to everyone, but if you've come and brought us something seriously, thank you, it means a lot to us. We love, it's fun.

We love getting gifts. It's actually, it's also cute to see like what someone's going to bring us. So thank you. We really appreciate it. That's it.

“In my 10 seconds, honestly, it's a little surreal that in six, seven weeks or so, we're”

going to have a baby, you know, we're going to, we're going to have a baby. We're going to have a live human baby, like outside of the womb. And we're just going to be taking care of it. So anyways, stay tuned, we're going to have a baby soon. We're excited.

Patients been nesting. Oh, yeah. Been getting all our clothes together, getting all our stuff together. Thank you. My into the dark listeners have heard all about it.

Yeah. I don't know. That's coming. I got from my 10 seconds. We're going to be parents.

Again, Daisy's our first baby.

And we have our second one. Are the babies our second baby? And then we'll see what happens from there. Daisy was outside and she's very hot. Yeah.

And he was watching. We're a little distracted. She's okay. I tried to give her water. She's not taking it.

So don't worry. She's not dying. She's been a little crazy.

“She looked like if I saw this on TV, I would feel bad.”

I'm a little scared. I don't know what's going on. So we're going to keep an eye on her while we're recording. She's been kind of, she doesn't do this normally. Why is she like pifty?

I don't know. I mean, she was outside. So I know she's hot, but she won't get any water. Yeah. I don't know what's going on.

Okay. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting on that note. Let's hop into this week's episode. More sources for this episode are oxygen.com, voicivoc.org, law.justiacaselaw.findlaw.com,

L.A. times.com, newspapers.com, goldenstatekiller.com, and unexpected killer on oxygen. First centuries, human beings have placed their faith and trust in the world's scientists. The people who tell us, hey, this is how the world works and why. But as everyone knows, science can be fallible and history has a way of proving us wrong. For about 1,500 years, experts told us that the universe revolved around the Earth.

This is obviously now something we look back on and find ridiculous.

But science is always evolving technology, is always improving, and the things that were

once considered fact get re-examined, challenged, and re-written. So while science is a good tool, a foundation for how we understand and navigate our world, it can't always be trusted, which is why when we lean on science to solve a crime, use sometimes can get it wrong, and the consequences can be devastating, like possibly letting a violent killer go free.

So now we are heading over to the year of 1979 in Irvine, California.

Close enough to join the hustle and bustle of the entertainment industry, yet definitely

“far enough away to feel like you're kind of living in a safer, little or community.”

Just outside the big city, at least back then in 1979. So that is part of the reason why Savannah Anderson liked it there. I cannot imagine what that city looked like in 1979. I know. It was so long ago.

Crazy. Now Irvine was vastly different from where Savannah had grown up. She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on December 6, 1956, and only child to her parents, Alvin and Maxine, a blue-collar family who knew what it meant to work hard for what you had. So when Savannah got old enough to pursue her own path, her parents knew she had the drive

it would take to make it on her own, even far away from home. So when she was just 21 years old, a former coworker told her about a job opportunity at a commercial credit union out in Irvine, California.

“Now as the operations manager, he needed a secretary and talking to Savannah is like,”

"You would be perfect for the job." And so she took it. Now for those who knew Savannah, a job offer like this wasn't surprising. She had a pretty magnetic personality.

She was extremely smart and sharp-witted, always on top of her game.

She was responsible, trustworthy, warm-hearted, exactly the kind of person you would want to work with, day in and out. And not to mention, she's stunning. OK, people said she had a million-wap smile that could light up the entire city of Irvine. Yet despite all of this, her friends and co-workers said she was actually kind of private

and guarded. She wasn't someone who shared intimate details about her personal life. She kept things fairly close to the vest, but was very extroverted when it came to other people.

“Kind of reminds me of Gary honestly, a little bit.”

So Savannah started that job. She moves from Salt Lake City to Irvine, California, around September 1978. So by January of 1979, she had really only been in the area for about five months. Now most of her friends were her co-workers, but she had actually met someone in California, a new love interest who she was introduced to just three months after moving out west.

His name was Bill Mills. Now Bill was about nine years older than Savannah, but it seemed to work out well for her. She was mature for a 21-year-old and she needed a man who matched her emotionally. And that was Bill. In fact, things were going so well between the two of them that after just a few months

together, Bill had already asked Savannah to marry him. And I'm not sure how official this proposal was. There was a ring or more just like an agreed upon let's get married, but I know the two weren't living together yet because Savannah had actually just gotten a new apartment.

She felt the first one she had moved into in Irvine wasn't exactly what she wanted.

As a young woman living alone, she wanted something safer. So that is when, after moving there, getting acquainted with the area, she finds the wood bridge apartments. Okay, also very familiar with every single part of this area. In this case.

You know where the wood bridge apartments are? It would exactly where they are. So she, which is so funny because it's 1979, but that's kind of the charm of Irvine a little bit is like things really haven't. You like the wood bridge apartments still exist.

You know what I mean? Look at the Truman show down there. And so, but back then, these wood bridge apartments were new. Yeah. Okay, it was an area that was still under construction, but had around the clock security

guards to keep an eye on the place. So sometime around April 1979, she signed a new lease at Woodbridge and began unpacking in her new apartments. And over the next few weeks, she really made that place a home. All in all, things were going really well for Savannah, her job, her friendships, this

new move, her relationship, all of this was blossoming. She had a lot to celebrate until May of 1979. May 13th that year was Mother's Day.

They had brunch, they laughed, made plans for the future.

“And after that, Bill went back to Savannah's apartment and the two spent the rest of their”

Sunday together. That her apartment, they are intimate, they have dinner and then around 10 p.m. Bill calls it a night. He kissed Savannah goodbye and said he was going back to his place since they both had to work in the morning.

They made plans to meet up the next day around 6 p.m. after work. And then after Bill left her apartment, Savannah called her mother and wished her a happy mother's day. The two were actually super close.

So they spent the next two hours or so on the phone, just catching up. This was from around 10 p.m. until midnight. And then Savannah told her mother, she loved her, you know, she's going to turn in for the night. She has worked tomorrow.

But the following day, Monday, May 14th, Savannah's late for work. And her coworkers immediately thought this is strange. Savannah's super on top of things, very responsible. She might only be 21, but again, she was very much her for her age.

She would never not call them to tell them what was going on.

However, they also knew as did Bill that Savannah had been filling a little under the weather the last few days. Maybe a bad head cold, but not so bad that she didn't go to brunch with friends the day before. Still, maybe she went to bed and it had gotten worse overnight.

So the day continued, there is still no word from Savannah. She still doesn't show up to work. In fact, her coworkers get so worried about her that Savannah's boss, a man named Ken Bergenson, offered to stop by her apartment on his way home to check on her. Like, okay, one of our employees doesn't show up.

The boss is like, I might go buy and check.

Now meanwhile, her boyfriend, Bill, is also starting to get a bit worried.

It doesn't necessarily know that she hasn't shown up to work, but around 6 p.m. he went over to her apartment as planned, knocked on the door, but Savannah didn't answer.

“Her door was locked, all of her curtains and blinds were drawn, and he didn't have a key”

to her place, and it's 1979, so no cell phones. So instead, he has to drive all the way home to try and call her at home, even though he was just outside. So he goes home, he tries calling her no response there either. So over the next hour or so, he tried her a few more times figuring, okay, maybe she just

fell asleep, maybe she was running late from work, but by 725 p.m. with still no response from Savannah, Bill, her boyfriend, is really starting to panic. He remembered her saying she wasn't feeling very good the day before, and now all these different scenarios are playing out in his head, like maybe she'd gone so sick, she couldn't get out of bed, maybe she was disoriented, like her illness had gotten worse and she'd fallen

and hurt herself. So no one's actually checked inside her home. No, because it's locked. But this is when Bill is like, okay, I'm just going to call the police for a welfare check, like have them go over and be able to do this.

So they tell him, yep, we'll send someone over right away. So Bill gets back into his car to actually meet the police there at Savannah's Woodbridge apartment, and he arrived around the same time as the police around 730 p.m. So this is an hour and a half after they were supposed to meet. And when police arrive and Bill arrives, they find someone else was already there knocking

on Savannah's door and it was her boss and Bergenson. So when they all arrive, he's like, oh, I'm here because Savannah didn't show up for work today. Like, she has, she's been gone all day long and this is when everyone at the apartment, the police, Bill, and I like this situation serious.

Now, what makes us even more concerning is they point out, Savannah's car is still sitting in her parking spot, so they knew she didn't make an impromptu drive like back home to Salt Lake or anywhere else. That's when the officers have someone from the apartment management team, let them in.

So they go get officials and they're like, please let us into this apartment and almost as soon as they enter. Oh, gosh. They find Savannah. Yeah.

“She's lying, based up in her bed, completely naked, okay?”

She has towels over her head and she is surrounded in a pool of blood. Oh, my God. So her body on the bed and she's also called the touch, police are like Savannah has

They also noticed that her bedroom is in disarray like there's been some sort of struggle there. I mean, this is a crime scene. There's blood spatter all along the headboard of her bed and there's a giant bloody drag mark from the bedroom leading to the bathroom, but Savannah herself isn't really covered

in any blood. She's sitting in a pool of blood, but her body isn't super bloody.

There doesn't seem to be any stab or gunshot wounds that they can see, but when they finally

remove the towels from her face, they see that her head has been severely beaten with the blood object and there appears to be fingernail marks around her throat as well as a ligature mark that shows she was clearly being strangled by something and had tried to stop it. And if that wasn't enough, her legs had appeared to be spread apart like her body was

posed on this bed and the sheets were pulled all the way down. So it's a very gruesome way to leave a body and police are also like this feels very sexually motivated this entire crime.

So putting all of the pieces together, they realize Savannah's killer also probably washed

her because there was no blood on her body. They believe that the killer had killed her, dragged her body from the bedroom to the bathroom and the back of the bedroom because there's diluted blood around the sink and the bathtub and then after that, it seems as though the killer brought her back to the bed, put her on top and stage her body after she was killed.

And as I said, she was naked, but Savannah was still wearing a nice watch that was loosely fast into her wrist and the necklace she had on was backwards with the class in the front and police are starting to wonder, did this was this jewelry put on her after she died as like part of the staging like she wasn't even actually wearing this. Now if the attack was as brutal as her injuries in the crime scene suggested, it didn't

make sense that those items would have even stayed on really so investigators are thinking

“someone killed her, cleaned her up and then stage her body to honestly look like she was”

still alive, they covered her face and towels, so you couldn't see the damage to the body, like the actual killer interesting, like I wonder why, like I mean, we'll find out, but yeah, kind of unique situation. Police also determine at the scene, just based on what they have seen, they decide that the sexual assault in this case probably happened after all of this.

So washed the body, put some jewelry on, covered the face and then she was sexually assaulted. Now the question is, who would ever do something as horrific as this? Detectives wonder if it's someone Savannah knew since the door was locked, did she let them in willingly, but they also find that her window to her bedroom is unlocked from the inside too, so could that person have gone in and out through the window?

So maybe the person could have like come in and out through the open window and didn't

“like have a key that they then used to lock up after they left, but it doesn't really help”

narrow things down much. The detectives do get one lucky break. The killer left behind a bloody handprint leading from the bedroom to the bathroom, and there were some smudged bloody fingerprints on the toilet seat as well. Now since there's no murder weapon at the scene, they can't find anything that could

have caused this blunt force to her head and no DNA testing at the time, the detectives realize this might be their best chance at catching this person is these fingerprints handprint.

But first things first, they need to find out approximately what time Savannah Anderson

died, what were her last moments like? Now unfortunately part of that process means breaking the news to Savannah's parents that their only child, their little girl who had just moved to California, had been killed and brutally killed. Now through this process, police learned that her mother was likely the last person to

“speak to her before she passed away because remember, she tells police, Savannah called”

her, they spoke from about 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. that night after Bill had left, which tells them, she must have died somewhere between that 12 o'clock hour, and then when she was

of the night. At the same time, police also had Bill Mills, Anne Savannah's boss, Ken Bergenson, down at the station, obviously they were just both at the crime scene, but there were some things they were questioning about her boyfriend Bill. For example, he was the last person to see her on the night of the 13th and said he left

her house around 10 p.m. before she made that call to her mom.

“But what if he then went back to the apartment in the middle of the night?”

Then the next day called the police to cover his tracks. Yeah. Obviously something they have to consider. They have to look into it. I feel like it's not him, but Bill stuck to his story, he's like, no, I had nothing to

do with this. He also allowed them to take his fingerprints and palm prints, he's like, you found prints, take mine and pair them to the ones at the scene. However, when they asked him to take a polygraph, Bill says he does want to talk to his

lawyer first, and after his attorney advised him not to, Bill followed his advice.

So he refuses to take the poly. Now this obviously doesn't lower the police suspicions of Bill, but at this point, it's also not like, they have a ton of evidence in it. It's different. I feel like now, if you say no to a polygraph, please for like, okay, right back, then it

“was like, oh, you won't take a polygraph.”

Yeah. And also, if you talk to a lawyer, they're going to say don't take a polygraph. I don't do that. So please figure, listen, we'll just run the prints side by side, like these prints are bloody.

So we know this most likely came from the killer, or someone would have had to come in afterward and put these prints in, they're like, we'll just run the prints and get our answer. But for now, all they could do was let Bill go and move on to the next person who had been at her house that night when they showed up, and that was her boss, Ken.

So Ken was the person who got Savannah the job at the credit union. He knew Savannah and her family back in Salt Lake City. He said he saw Savannah as a daughter, the two were pretty close.

It helped her with her move when she first came out to Irvine.

They had gone out for drinks and lunch a few times, but Ken insisted it's not romantic. This was just like a family friend. I know her parents. In fact, Ken is happily married.

“He said he was at home with his wife, the night Savannah was killed and she vouched”

for him as well. And also handed over his palm and fingerprints for comparison. After which, he was allowed to go home that night. But the following morning, police went to Savannah's office to make sure Ken wasn't leaving anything out of the story.

They spoke to multiple co-workers who are all devastated about this news of Savannah. But each of them said, there's nothing going on between the two of them as like that they're aware of. It was just all of us were worried that day, so he offered to go check on her again. He sees her as a daughter.

He knows the family. Like when she didn't show up to work, it was pretty normal that he would be like, let me run by her apartment. So ultimately, her job is a total dead end in the investigation. Which is when they turn to the next closest people in Savannah's world and that is her

neighbors. So the day after Savannah's found dead, police go back to her neighborhood to start canvassing. And as they speak with her neighbors, they learn no one heard any screams or unusual activity the night before.

Many of them still didn't even really know Savannah since she had only moved in about a month or so before. But as I mentioned, one of the things Savannah liked about this neighborhood was that there were security guards that switched off shifts around the clock. So detectives tracked the two down that were working that night and call them in for

questioning, starting with a man named Charles Doyle, so he is one of the security guards. Now a typical shift for Charles at the apartment complex was either walking or driving around the complex, looking for anything unusual, mostly just like theft or break-ins, that sort of thing. And when asked if he knew Savannah Anderson, he said, he had actually helped her out shortly

after she moved in, apparently Savannah had gone locked out of her apartment and he, this security guard helped her gain access. He said he didn't have any keys, but he had noticed that her bedroom window was open, so he helped her climb in through there. Again, this is a little sus because the bedroom window was also open when she was murdered.

And he had prior knowledge to the fact that she kept her bedroom window open.

He's like, but I never went inside her apartment.

I literally just boosted her up so she could get in. But he says something fishy to the police as well, along the lines of quote, if you find my

Which I mean, yes, that is very alarming, but also because he's saying he didn't go

inside, but also look, okay, well, but he's saying, but I did help her into her apartments. So who knows? These paranoid. Yeah. I mean, if this girl brutally murdered, if you find fingerprints, it's probably because

I was with them. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

“So this gets detectives wondering, is this guy know that she often kept her window unlocked?”

And then he got inside? Well, as Charles begins to tell them about the nighting question, things only start to look even worse for him. He says that he was supposed to show up for a shift at midnight on the 14th. It was like around when she got off the phone with her mom.

But he ended up being about 10 to 15 minutes late.

And when he got there around 1215 AM or so, he remembered seeing Savannah through her window talking on the phone, which, okay, kind of lines up with her mom's story 12, 1215. Now Charles was there to relieve the other security guard. This was a guy named Robert Sellers. He said Robert or Bob, Bob is they called him.

He said, Bob approached his vehicle around 1230 AM already partially changed out of his uniform. And he was carrying his shirt and his belt with him. Okay. Okay. He then just gets the daily report from Bob, you know, like, hey, Bob, would you see what

you were on security garden? And he was like, ah, you know, take it away, take the night shift, and Bob gets into his car and leaves. But here's where things get even weirder. Charles says he drove around for the next hour or so, that's his job.

But then he drove back to the car port and actually fell asleep in his car for a bit. Claims he was later woken up by the sound of a car door slamming. He looked over and saw it was his coworker, Bob. He was now back in the middle of the night shift. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Charles says Bob came over, asked him, hey, you want to grab some food before he went back to a nearby base where he was a Marine. And Charles is like, maybe this guy's just like having a night, you know, and now he's come back and seeing his little friends, I do want to grab some food.

How many people do you think are out there? That would kill people that we just don't know. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah.

Like how many people are capable of murdering somebody, I'm not talking about self-defense.

“I think probably I'm not talking about murdering somebody.”

I think so too. I mean, I can name a few people I've met that if they murdered someone, I would be like, you know, honestly not surprised. Yes, same. Like not surprised.

Yeah. Which is kind of scary. Yeah. Which makes me realize a lot of it. It may be easy about like timing, and also makes you realize like, people are nuts becoming

a civilized human being. People probably stopped a lot of people from murdering who would just have it in them. 100%. Because it's like illegal and immoral and like we're taught from a very young age, right,

from wrong, whereas like that hasn't always been the case in history.

It's kind of crazy. So anyways, even though Charles is on shift, he says, sure, the Bobby's like, yeah, let's do it. Let's grab some food. So between one and two AM, Charles said, they leave the apartments, and they went

to a diner about 10 minutes away to get breakfast. Now I have no idea if he's supposed to leave his posts like this or not.

“If he's allowed a break, like maybe this is his little lunch break, you know?”

But I can say with some confidence that he doesn't sound very good at his job if before leaving, he was also taking naps in his car, but nonetheless, these two guys get a buy at the diner. These two security guards. And then Charles said Bob took him back to the complex where he dropped him off around

238 AM. The finish is shift, and then Bob was going to, I don't know, I guess, go finish the rest of his night, because he's apparently work in the day shift and party in the night shift. Now Charles says the rest of his shift that night was totally uneventful and then he clocked out at 6.30 AM, just as planned.

So please, like, hey, well, like this girl gets murdered and you just happen to have fallen a sleep for part of your shift and left for part of your shift when you're the security guard. Just seems sketchy, but they're like, let's check in with Bob, see if his story matches before the two can talk.

And so they bring Bob sellers in for questioning. Now on paper, the 22-year-old Bob seemed a little more put together than Charles. He had enlisted in the Marine Corps when he was around 17, and was still stationed at

But he worked as a security guard at the complex just for some extra cash.

“He said he was also familiar with Savannah, and had actually spoken to her and her boyfriend”

briefly on the night of May 13th. He also claimed he saw Savannah talking on the phone and tell about 12 AM that night. And he confirmed Charles was actually late for work by 15 minutes or so. He said it was about 12 30 AM when he leaves his shift and goes home and takes a shower. He said he was supposed to be at the Pendleton base around 6 AM the following morning

for a shift there, but found he wasn't tired after going home and showering so he decided had back to the complex to see if Charles wanted to grab some food.

But here's where their stories differ, 'cause up till this point it's basically the same

story. Charles said it was between 1 AM and 2 AM when he was a woken in his car nap by Bob to go get food at the apartment complex. And Charles said they were done eating by 2 30 AM. But Bob says I actually didn't get to the complex until around 3 30 AM, but wake him up.

So there's a two hour window of time, they're completely off. Interesting. Okay. One is saying it started around 1 and the other is saying it started around 3 30. So somebody's lying or someone just wasn't keeping track of time, I guess.

Bob offers them something else says there's this waitress named Yale who actually served them at the restaurant, he's like I know her, I eat here pretty often, she can vouch that like we were there together and what time. He also willingly gives over his finger and paw prints for them to test as did Charles to be clear.

But to get to the bottom of this timeline issue, detective decide to bring them in together,

“put them in the same room and say okay guys what time did you go to the diner?”

And it's during that conversation that Charles Doyle goes, okay you're right maybe I am confused. Maybe Bob's timeline is more accurate because like I said I'd fall in a sleep, a little disoriented. So Charles is kind of the one who admits maybe I could be wrong.

But to check one more box, they also go to the diner to speak to gal and here's what's

weird, there is no gal working there, at least not at this time. But there is a waitress who says no she remembers to security guards coming in that night. Though she didn't seem to recall exactly what time it was. So it's just a little weird, like he gives this waitress by name says I'm a usual character like.

And then they're like we don't even have a gal working here, but then another waitress is like yeah, but I was working that night and there were to security guards who came in. But because they've had cut it within two different security guards for another place. I mean one of the chances of that, the whole thing is just like a little eyewitness messy. You know, like just those eyewitness testimony mess.

Yeah, I just think somebody's lying, somebody knows what's going on here. Or is this just your typical, your eyewitness relying on people to remember and they don't. Yeah.

“So at this point, the best thing for detectives to do is just wait for the prince to come”

back from the crime scene and meanwhile the coroner's report is also being completed. Now this gave investigators a bit more clarity on her cause and time of death. So they officially determined she had likely died around 2 AM on May 14th. She'd been struck in the head multiple times, which we know she had broken fingernails and wounds on her hands and arms, which showed that she definitely fought back.

And they also found Seaman on her body. But because DNA testing was not available at the time, they were not able to determine if it was her boyfriend, bills, remember. He claimed they had been intimate that night or was this the attackers Seaman.

Now ultimately, they found her cause of death to be strangulation.

She had been beaten, but she, her official cause of death was strangulation. One by a ligature about two inches wide, they presume most likely a belt. Okay. Now unfortunately, the results from those finger and palm prints are going to take a little longer.

So finally, two months later, police here back on the analysis and all of the samples they had turned in to run against them and it turns out none of the people they had gathered Prince from, not her boyfriend, her boss to security guards, or a match for the bloody Prince found inside the home. All four of them are cleared as people of interest and the detectives go back to square

one. That sucks. I mean, that's great, but that sucks.

They begin looking into anyone in the area who had her mental background.

They compare Prince and national databases to the ones they have on file. But after still coming up empty handed, they have to consider another terrifying possibility.

“What if Savannah was the victim of a serial killer?”

Now, it's not totally out of left field, okay? Between 1976 and 1979, the year Savannah died. At least six other women in the Orange County area had been killed under mysterious unsolved circumstances all with the same M-O. Their killer actually became known as the bedroom basher.

I thought it was, I thought you were going to say the Golden State killer. They targeted young women who lived alone, sexually assaulted them and then bludgeon them to death. Wait, you shook your head, yes, is that the same person? We'll get there.

No way, guys, I'm getting smarter.

That was actually a good poll, but also I did mention it in the case sources, but I don't think you were. No, it wasn't paying attention. Now, police were still on the hunt for this serial killer at the time of Savannah's death and considering the circumstances they began to wonder, hood, the security guards.

Just have been a distraction.

“Did the bedroom basher commit another crime right under their noses?”

Well, six months after Savannah's death, someone actually spots the supposed bedroom basher leaving a victim's home. They give a description of the man to a sketch artist describing him as having all of skin, dark eyes, a mustache, and a puck marked face. They say he's in his late 20s or early 30s.

Unfortunately, it doesn't do much to help catch the serial killer and with no one arrested as the bedroom basher Savannah Anderson's case remains unsolved as well. And suddenly, it's 1984. It has been five years since Savannah's death, and her case file is sitting in a drawer. That is one detective, Larry Montgomery, a homicide detective with the Irvine Police Department,

decides to take another look at Savannah's case. With a fresh shot of eyes, he considers whether Savannah could be another victim of the bedroom basher serial killer. But the closer he looks, he decides the less it makes sense. Mainly, because of how the attacker cleaned up Savannah and put towels over her face,

not only does it not match the MO of the bedroom basher, it also feels kind of personal. He thinks this was someone who most likely knew Savannah, who had feelings for her, and wanted to have his way with her, sexually. So he decides to dig back into the old leads and not just assume she is one of the victims of the serial killer, and there's one thing that really stands out about the testimony of Charles

Doyle, the security guard, and it's not the discrepancy and the timeline. It's something Charles had actually originally said about Bob. But Bob mentioned wanting to take Savannah out for a drink, Charles said Bob found Savannah, the murder victim, very attractive. Plus Charles mentioned it was a bit strange for Bob to come back and ask him to breakfast

that day. And this is because police were like, okay, is this something you guys did often in the middle

“of your shift, like leave the shift to go get breakfast?”

And Charles was like, no, it was a bit strange that he came back to work and asked me to go to breakfast. We weren't really close friends.

We never gone to breakfast there before.

So detective Montgomery goes back over those prints and he sends them to the FBI to get another opinion on them. Now eventually, they come back with totally different results. How does it even happen? Then the first sign.

How does it happen? 24 points of identification this time that are a positive match for one of the suspects. A Robert Sellers. Wow, I don't understand how. Also, this is the Golden State Killer because I remember his name was Robert.

No, this is not the Golden State Killer. I told you. Is it really not? Is it a Robert? No.

The Golden State Killer is not Robert. I don't think his name was. Did I make that up? It's not. There's a lot of Robert Killers.

Don't, I hope he ends our Robert. No, there is. Oh, let me see this. Golden State Killer's real name is Joseph James DeAngelo.

Oh, yeah.

“You know, I feel like it's kind of like a Robert name.”

Dude, this guy looks like a complete just. Reap. Bob? No. Joseph James DeAngelo.

The Golden State Killer. The cop? Yes. Yeah. He just looks crazy.

Look at me. He's so old now. He just said, well. Anyways. And also, like, I still just can't get over the fact that one day he just stopped

killing. After being like a total crazy serial killer. Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand the psychology behind that goes way over my head.

“People literally thought he either died or went to prison.”

Yeah. Okay. Anyways, that's a different case. We are talking about Robert Suller's Bob. He is the security guard.

Yeah. We came walking out with his belt in his hands. Mm-hmm. And so why did the prince all set a match? What is happening here?

It turns out the science back then just wasn't there. Yeah. The blood was too thick on the prince to get an accurate read with the technology.

They had the first time around.

So I don't know if at the time they knew. Oh, actually, this is just not really testable. Or if they were like, oh, when we run the tests, it doesn't work. And that means they're cleared. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, I'm not sure how the first time it's not just, oh, we can't tell. And it's no, this isn't his prince. Yeah. But either way, they have new technology now with running these prints.

They can kind of dig through the blood a little bit more and find the identifications better. And he has 24 points of identification, which means it is now time to track down Bob sellers. Now they discover that Bob hasn't gone far in the past a little bit. He's now living in a mobile home in the town of Brea about a half hour away. And he's got a wife who he actually met just a year after the murder.

But on March 29, 1984, they actually just moved straight in and arrest him. They're not even going to bring him in for interrogation first. They also search his trailer and they also find the belt that he was wearing. The night, the one that Charles claims to have seen him. Hearing.

Yes. Out, not wearing. And they also find Bob's baton. And they believe this is actually like the weapon. The weapon that was used to cause the injuries to her face.

So they find all of this in the trailer and they kind of confront it with it. They're like, listen, Bob, your prints actually do match now that we have a little bit better technology. We've found the belt you were wearing. We have the baton. We have eyewitness saying you walked out carrying your belt and shoes.

We know you went back later to try to get the next security guard away from the crime scene, which I think in their head there being like, you were trying to make it seem like someone else came in. And the security guard was gone and missed it.

“That's why you came back and asked him to go breakfast.”

It was completely planned. And they confront him with all of this and he confesses to the crime. Really? He does. But he tells a different version.

Yeah, great.

Yeah, you know, they always do this.

He actually tells multiple versions. So here's version one. Okay, he says, okay, yes, I killed her. But let me tell you what happened. That night Savannah invited me into her apartment during my security guard shift.

They had a drink together and she came on to him, despite the fact that her boyfriend had just left. And despite the fact that she was covered in blood and killed. Yes, he said she grabbed him inappropriately. And that's when he used his baton to get her to stop.

He was like, whoa, whoa, steady began beating her. Quickly realized he had gone too far and she was no longer breathing. He said he took off her clothes. He washed her up in the bathroom. Put her back in bed.

And when he heard Charles pull up for his shift. He took off his shirt because it was covered in blood. And after he said hi to him, he went home and washed up. But couldn't sleep, so that's when he went back and asked Charles to get food.

He said, no, no, no, no, I never quote, "made love," the Savannah.

Okay, that's a way to say completely sexually assaulted. Yeah, he said neither before or after the attack. Now, when Bob was questioned again, he told the same story. But police knew they're just, this isn't it, this isn't all. Because they know Savannah died from stringulation, not blunt force trauma.

So finally, after speaking to the police for a fourth time,

He's like, fine, I climbed in through her window while Savannah was on the foam

with her mom and I hid in her bedroom.

“When she finally finished talking to her mom,”

she came into her bedroom, saw the security guard standing there and immediately started screaming and fighting him. Bob said he panicked and fought back because of course she initiated. The fight as he's just loitering in her bedroom after breaking in through her window. He says he strangled and beat her until he realized she was dead.

Said he then left through the front door and greeted Charles after that he went home, washed up, and then came back to clean up her body. That's when he put her back into bed. And had inner course. Okay.

With Savannah, which again, you are raping a dead body. I don't know. The legal by the way, just in case anyone is curious out there. Also like the way he's describing it is like making love and having inner course. Yeah, like it was some consensual thing.

I'm like, okay, call it. You killed her. Call it what it is. Like you're definitely playing down what you did. I mean, obviously he's going to obviously.

Yeah. It's just annoying. No. But as he was leaving, he said Charles actually caught him in the parking lot. So as a distraction, Bob was like, oh, I just came back to see if you wanted to go get food.

Okay. So he's like, I didn't actually plan this. It was more that he just like caught me.

“But if you remember Charles said he banged on his window.”

So these these stories still aren't quite matching up. Anyways, he says he sat through an entire meal. And Bob also admitted he did it because he was obsessed with Savannah. He thought he could convince her to like him back. But when she found him standing there and panicked.

As any woman would. So did he. But but he still played out his fantasies of her. Even after she was dead, despite the fact that he's saying he was just there to confess his love. 28 year old Robert Sellers was charged with murder, sexual assault, attempted sexual assault in Berkeley.

The prosecution argued that Bob had sexually assaulted Savannah twice once while she was alive. And then again after she died. Oh, weirdo. His defense argued that between his two jobs. He was so overwhelmed by the lack of sleep.

He wasn't thinking clearly because he had already confessed.

“So they had to say it to come with a defense that wasn't he didn't do it.”

Yeah, I get it.

The jury convicted him of first degree murder and sexual assault.

But afterwards his lawyers appealed the verdict. And it was overturned on a technicality. They said there was not sufficient evidence Savannah was assaulted prior to her death. Only after. So they're like, you charged him with wiping her while she was alive.

And we know he did it while she was dead. overturned. Like I truly, I truly don't understand the justice system when it comes to like finer details like this. And they also said, and you charged him with sexual assault. But since we're saying it only happened after she died,

that's technically not sexual assault. That's the difference. He killed someone who gives a. So he killed someone who cares instead of going for a retrial. Bob just pleads guilty.

Goodness. Okay. He's given 25 to life with the possibility of parole. Okay. Now as for the bedroom basher, his victims got some justice too. After years with no answers, DNA samples left it. Many of his crime scenes finally turned up a match.

Now Garrett had already actually very smartly guessed that it was the Golden State killer. Because as we know, he moved. There's also Richard Ramirez who was kind of the night stalker who kind of moved throughout this area. Now I don't know what was going on in California in this 70s and 80s. But neither of them turn up to be the bedroom basher. Yeah.

In 1996, the bedroom basher was identified as 41 year old Gerald Parker. He was charged with six counts of first degree murder as of 2017. He was still on death row. Oh my God.

Turns out Robert Sellers never made it out of prison alive despite pleading guilty with a possibility of parole.

In 1999, he died there under unknown circumstances. So he didn't actually stay that long. But this case is a reminder that science, however powerful, is only as reliable as our understanding of it. Which is if we can't get through the blood, that doesn't mean it's not a match.

But did we know that at the time?

Interesting.

“Because when we get it wrong, justice doesn't just suffer sometimes.”

A killer gets way more free time than they ever deserved. And that is the murder of Savannah Anderson. Wow. That's crazy.

I've never heard of that.

Never heard of that.

“There's just a lot going on in the seven 80s.”

Truly. That's into the 90s. Not.

I mean, I know we have stuff going on today, but that was a wild time.

You would think as we progress as a society and continue to advance as a society. We would like stop killing people, but no, doesn't happen. Doesn't not happen. Just for some reason, going to continue to happen. Yeah, I don't think it's going away any time soon.

Unfortunately, there's like forces at play. The reason there were so many rampant serial killers was because they were getting away with it. It's a lot harder to get away with it now. People are caught after one or two. They're still serial killers out there right now, though.

They're not going to go back to the ones.

“And like you said, how many people are just walking by or in your life?”

This is why I'm not friends with anybody. Who could do it? Who could do it? I think a lot more than we think. All right, you guys. Thank you so much for listening.

We're watching today's episode. And we will see you next time with another one. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.

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