Relisten to The Girlfriends: Spotlight: Rose Solves, At Least, 86 Cold Cases

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What's up, fam? It's Sports Journalists, Ari Chambers.

Hey, what's up, y'all? It should go Sam J. And we're the hosts of everyone watching women's sports. A new podcast, from together. We're breaking down the biggest headlines, the viral moments, and the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports.

“From game-changing performances to culture-shifting conversations,”

we'll give you our takes, our debates, and a few lasts along the way. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. From the eye-hot radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, listener, I just wanted to give you a heads up that, in this episode,

we tell quite a lot of stories about rape and sexual assault. If you're affected by anything that you hear, there are some resources you can access for support in the show notes, but also no pressure to listen. If you do want to, though, there's lots of really inspiring stuff in there.

You're going to hear one detective's dogged quest to bring perpetrators to justice. It's a great listen. All right, take care. The story starts on a Friday night back in 2004, and it starts as it will go on with a mind-blowing coincidence. Oh, it was like a scene in the movie "How It Happened."

I was going to a biscuit bingo, and I invited a couple of my best friends. Rose Brady is a police sergeant, and after years of working in homicide, she's just been put in charge of Baltimore County's SVU, the team investigating cases of sexual violence. It's a frustrating job. The crimes she's investigating are just the tip of the iceberg.

Her department is sitting on thousands of unsolved cases dating back decades. So that Friday night, Rose wants to blow off some steam in the most wholesome way imaginable. By playing basket bingo, which as far as I understand it, is the same as regular bingo, only you play it for longer burger baskets. I've looked into it, and it's a brand of these all-timey-looking woven baskets. Longer burger baskets are a big thing, or they were back then

2004, I mean, women will die for these baskets. Well, if you win the bingo, your prize is a longer burger basket in they fill it with all kinds of goodies. Rose is heading to this basket extravaganza with one of her best friends, Mary, who happens to work at a local hospital. She worked in forensics, and she worked for a Dr. Brightnecker, who I didn't know who that was, and we're driving her van, and I'm sitting in the front in the passenger side, and she said to me, "Well,

when are you going to come and get Dr. B's slides?" And I'm like, "What are you talking about? I don't even, what are you talking about?" This is when Rose discovers that Mary's boss, the forensic pathologist, Dr. Rudy Brightnecker, had in storage all the biological evidence from every rap exam

to a problem she hadn't even realized could be solved. When she said that, I said, going back to what date? Because in 1977, our friend of mine had been sexually assaulted by a stranger,

and it'd never been clear. So I asked her, "How far back did these slides go?"

And she said to 1977, I said, "You have got to be kidding me." Those slides could contain the DNA of the man who attacked Rose's friend, which, now in 2004, could be used to solve her friend's case. But not only that. And I said, "Well, how many do you have?" And she said, "We have, like, probably hundreds and hundreds." Rose has stumbled

“upon the key to more than 1,000 coal cases of rape. I knew, and I think I told her this, that there's”

a gold mine there. On this week's episode of The Girl Friend Spotlight, the story of what happened once Rose and her team sat their sights on Dr. Brightneck's database. Our game plan was that we were going to get here, and we really like people up. They came up with a way to go back in time

and close cases that had lane dormant for decades. I've never had this feeling before in my life.

They're here on the back of my neck. We're starting to stand up. I mean, it was unbelievable. In the end, Rose's mission was simple, to give justice to women across Baltimore, who thought that they would never see the day. I'm Anison Fields, and from the teams at Novel and I Heart Podcasts, this is The Girl Friend Spotlight, where we tell stories of women winning.

Today, Rose solves, at least, 86 coal cases.

“These days, Rose Brady is retired. Her life is a million miles away from the one she led as a police officer.”

She actually lives on a mill farm now, out in the Maryland countryside, and she rides motorbikes. She doesn't even own a trivial thing like a computer anymore. She says she's given up on all that stuff. But back in 2004, she was on the rise in Baltimore County PD, before taking over the special victims unit. She led the homicide team for nine years, and homicide detectives that kind of like the jocks of the police department. In homicide, you get whatever you need, because you've got a murder

out there. That was a no-brainer. I got whatever I needed. My detectives got whatever they needed. Whether it was equipment, if I needed bodies to work on the cases that they needed help with anything, we got it. When Rose took charge of the SVU, she instantly felt a start contrast. I go over to sex crimes as well as it was called at the time, until we changed the name,

and my guys didn't even have the latest equipment. So I always called us like the red-headed

stepchild or something. Rose said she also experienced judges being lenient with sentencing for perpetrators of sex crimes. And then there were the general attitudes around sexual violence, which would even seep into the verdicts. Juries would deliver. One of our cases was a prostitute. She was working as, you know, in a hotel room, but the guy came in with a gun, and not only did he robber, but he raped her. And you know what? I don't care if you're a prostitute. You can still be raped. And we've always

had that attitude. But anyway, this woman was brutally raped by gunpoint, and it was a jury trial. So this jury, we're having problems that a prostitute can't be raped. He should have gotten like, I don't know, 50, 60 years. And then we had a charge that was, I think he stole cellphones and stuff like that. The jury comes back and finds him not guilty of the first degree rape of the assault.

“The only thing they would find him guilty of was the theft of her cell phone. And the judge did”

the only thing he could do. He gave him the hexamom sentence for the theft. So you even had, you know, people on a jury thinking, "I'll prostitute can't be raped. Are you kidding me?" So frustrating. You got me riled up there. I can understand that you're riled up about that. That's infuriating. And it makes you feel like there isn't really, you know, the system we have in place isn't necessarily built to serve. He just had to educate people.

was what would happen to evidence when cases went cold. In murder investigations,

“physical evidence would never be destroyed, even decades later. But things were very different”

in the special victims unit. I didn't find out until I went into sex crimes, but departments all over the country for years had destroyed evidence because basically you only have enough room in evidence rooms. So then they would start getting rid of evidence because you had new evidence coming in and people didn't know about DNA. No one ever even knew that there would be such a thing as the evidence they took from that victim would actually point to a suspect.

So a lot of the cases were destroyed. But Dr. Brightnecker, the forensic pathologist at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, was kind of a visionary. Starting in 1977, he kept all the forensic evidence from every rape exam he ever did. And he did it all of his own back. As a scientist,

he was way way ahead of, you know, everyone else. And he always felt that the evidence that

“he took from the rape exams would someday lead to a suspect. And that once he retired, his, you know,”

the friend of mine who ran the forensic unit in the hospital, she had literally was going to start destroying the slides because they didn't need them. They just kept them because Dr. Brightnecker asked them when he retired. He wanted her to keep it. She didn't know. This was going to happen. So tell me about these slides, this kind of database. What does that actually mean? What do they look like? It's just like you see on the old TV shows. So there are a little glass slide

and they would do smears from the evidence from rape. And what you're looking for on these slides is sperm. So after Rose found out about the slides, just weeks into her new job leading the SVU. She decided on a plan of action. She knew she couldn't solve all of the coal cases at once. They're actually over a thousand of them. And her relatively small team still had new crimes coming in all the time.

“So she told them to look for a very specific kind of unsolved rape case. I had my”

corporal go literally through our log box and starting at 1977 and pulling every open case that we had. And of course the open cases were the ones that were stranger cases, which were the ones you wanted to find. What Rose calls a stranger case means the victim was sexually assaulted by someone they didn't know. Often didn't even see. And so they couldn't identify their attacker. The reason why I wanted to pursue them is because if they raped this girl and there's a

stranger rape then they're still out there. So we still wanted to pursue it because we still had the fine whoever they did it and get them in jail because they were still probably raping and they were. Rose's idea was to find old unsolved cases like this and see which of the victims were originally examined by Dr. Brightnacker. Then she'd request the DNA evidence from the hospital and run it through this still fledgling national database of criminals. But it was slow and

expensive to get this process up and running. It could be months before her team would be able to

crack one of the cold cases. Only once again an incredible coincidence happened.

After the break, how a stroke of luck put Rose's team on the trail of a rapist who'd been evading detection since the 1980s. If you're service, let's all trust the checks with the train. That's us. 270 hours with zero complaining. They train under the hood. They train down in the pit. 270 hours means they're training's legit. It's the smart choice for smart folk and care for their steed.

So trust the instant oil change that starts with value. Now the lean instant oil change. Change wisely. What's up fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? Is she girl Sam J? And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports. A new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

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Hey, Portlandia fans.

“Carry Brown scene in front of our mission here. You know what, so rather you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance,”

Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're

showing up other cells to tell you about Podlandia, AO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it.

And we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Christle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise, not just words, but a song about it. I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song.

“I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia.”

AO rewatch on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. My first guest is Harry Sultan, Shakira, Luke, and Yirin. Samira E. Good I see you. I'm so excited. On the bounce, you bet. You have surprises? Many surprises. Welcome to Sweep 305, where the good chat comes to life. What the f*** is it like you're going to say how? Hello, my name is my name is Ola Armana.

What the f***? Look, I never saw a word with anyone. It's just like my six friends. My six friends. I know.

Yes. My hand. Uff. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. This is Sweep 305. Listen to Sweep 305 with Lelepans as part of my doodaparkas network. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'd only been in the Union as a sergeant for I went in September of 2004.

So it was Christmas time, and I'm actually off. I'm the sergeant, so usually I can take off. Lucky you. My corporal was in charge. So I'm home, and we hadn't even started picking up the slides yet. I mean, this was only four months into it, and we still had to figure out how to get them and do the subpoenas and stuff. So I wasn't even thinking about getting call like this, and my corporal called me

and he said, "Sort, we actually got a code as hit, or one of our cases, and I'm thinking, "Well, wait a minute, we haven't even got and picked up the slide yet. How is this possible?" Codeis is that national DNA database. And this match was possible because someone in another department had the idea of running surviving DNA evidence from rape cases through codeis. It was a separate effort to use DNA to close unsolved cases. And what rose this corporal was about to tell her,

shocked rose. He said, "In your names in the report," and I said, "What?" And he said, "Your names in the report?" Let me read this. It's like, "Parely, you were a decoy and I said, "You have got to be kidding me." The name that matched on the DNA database was Thadius Clemens, and it took rose right back to the start of her career. How I remembered that name from the 80s,

86 or whatever, was to 2004. But it always stuck in my mind when I made, got permitted to

corporal. I went to Wilkins Priest St. And there was another corporal there, and he had told me about this rapist that they had. Like, I don't know how many cases now. I was like five, but he had a whole booklet on like five or six rapes, all these rapes were by the same perpetrator, using the same MO. He would grab the women, and they were early from teens to like 21. They would always get off a bus in a certain area at nighttime, and when they got off the bus,

he would grab them from behind with a gun, and he would put what we call welders glasses on them, and the welders glasses are glasses that go in front and on the sides. So literally they couldn't,

“it's like a blindfold, honestly. So they never saw him, and he would take him to a vehicle,”

and they couldn't get out because he had it fixed so that they couldn't open the door and jump out. Wow. And then he would take these to me, young women, he would drive them to all they could describe was it seemed like it was a barfield from a school, then he would sexually assault them.

and he always drove a different car. Back in the mid-80s, when this corporal told young

Rose about the attacker, she could tell he was really concerned. Sid was really worried that he's going to kill somebody because he always had a gun, and if one of the victims started to fight him, then he was going to kill them. So between the two of us we came up with, I said to him, well, you know what? I was around the same age. I was in my 20s at that time, and I said, well, let's do a decoy operation. Why would you say to do that? Okay. So then, I mean, I've seen that on TV.

I said, I know they do this on TV, then you said, okay. So one night, Rose found herself undercover trying to lure the attacker in, out on the street where he stalked his victims. I had officers in the trees. I mean, I had so much covered. They were everywhere, and I was walking up and down the sidewalk right around the same time. I'm one of the bus routes that he had, and also, and I hear all these police sirens. I thought, what the heck is going on? And one of the

guys pulled up next to me and said, you, you're not going to believe this, but he just grabbed a woman three streets down and said, you have got to be kidding me. And she actually got away from him and gave a description of a vehicle. They pulled it over and they pulled a guy out of the truck, and she couldn't idea him. Now, remember, this was in the 80s. So there was no such thing as DNA. So if you couldn't idea a victim of a sexual assault, couldn't pick him out. They were going to walk.

But anyway, they had to let him go. In his name was Thadius Clement. 20 years later, as she sat on the phone to her court crawl in the S.V.U. Rose remembered Clement's case. The court brought told her how they finally connected him to DNA that was still sitting in the evidence room. Thadius Clement was arrested for the sexual assault of a little girl

“who was a relative of his. He was arrested for it. He was convicted of it, and that's what put”

his DNA into the code of database. That's how we got him. In 2005, Thadius Clement's was convicted of five rapes he committed between 1985 and 1988. It seems to me that the case, while not the result of Dr. Brightneck's database, was a sort of call to arms to Rose and her team. It showed that they could use old DNA evidence to close rape cases that had been open for decades. And there were thousands of those. It was time to start solving them using Dr. Brightneck's slides. So once the

funding was in place, they began to extract the DNA and run it through the database. Soon, matches started coming through. Every time we got a code as hit, well, I mean, we were a boom, we were out there looking for the guy and marking him up, and that was a good thing. The way they had to handle the cases, though, was totally different from current case, totally different. Yeah, I'm sure, because, yeah, you're not dealing with an immediate crime scene or immediate

“report or... No, you literally had to go back 20 and 30 years and you need to locate the victim.”

Sometimes they had to really do some great digging, but my guys were great with the computers, and so they would locate the victim. And it must be really shocking for the victims to suddenly get a phone call about a case that they would have moved on from. Well, and I didn't want phone calls, I wanted my detectives to see them in person because exactly that. And most of these people, their names have changed, the women, they've gotten married, and in many cases,

their families didn't even know this had ever happened to them, wow. You could be walking in,

and there could be kids there and teenagers, and they never even knew it happened, because it's

so horrific for them, and they just wanted to put it behind them, so they didn't even tell their immediate family. And I had told my detectives when they first went there to make sure you tell these women that we've never forgotten you, in the case has never been closed, it was an open case, so we never, we never forgotten you. And what these victims grateful for, you guys coming in and still investigating, were they angry? They were, but they were in shock, like it just brought

“it back, you never forget it. And so we felt bad about, we felt like we were re-victimizing them,”

but then again, the comments that we got from them once they were convicted, found guilty, it relieved them and as one of the victims told me, I'm very first case in 2004, was that

her entire last 20 years, she was looking over her shoulder because she never knew if the guy

that walked by her was the one that raped her. Yeah, it is the only way to give a victim of a sexual assault that's a stranger, closure is if you find them and you arrest them because they never know, they'll never know who did this to them. Once a hit in the code of database came through on a case, Rose and her team devised a plan, they wanted to make sure none of the perpetrators

were arrested for. They were just saying we've got to take it back to headquarters. So think about

“20 years later, these guys are no way thinking they're getting locked up for a rate they did”

20 and 30 years ago. They think they're getting locked up for something current. So when my detectives go in there, the first thing they ask them and they'll show them a picture, do you know

this person? And they'll look at it and they'll say, no, so they'll be adamant saying, I've never seen

her before. So when they'll say a name, you know, this name first before they show the picture. No, I've never heard that name. Never seen her in my life. Now, this is recorded because by the time we get the court, their defense attorneys trying to say that they were girlfriend boyfriend or they, you know, he was he was a prostitute, horrible stuff. And then in front of a jury, we'd play the taped video. And here he is, you know, looking at the saying, I've never seen her in my life.

“So that was so important because it also helped the victim. If we had such a good case,”

which DNA to me is awesome, if the victim didn't have to testify, that was a good thing. Yeah. And most of our cases, they ended up pleading and they ended up pleading to like they would get 30, 40, 50 years. Rose's detectives would repeat this process over and over again across the years. Every time we got another hit, I couldn't wait to tell them and they were just so excited and it's like, okay, put your case together, let's go get them. And we didn't wait. I mean, as soon as we got

the hit, you know, I'm thinking, I'm not waiting. I mean, these guys, they're still out there raping. We have to get them. I was not going to have another rape on my watch when we knew that

this guy was a rapist. We got hits on him. So that's good. And tell me how the first signs of the

next huge serial rapist case are disappearing. When we started submitting the slides, I started getting hits. Like the first one I had, I had two hits from like two different cases, two different victims, and the suspect unknown. The DNA didn't trace back to a specific name. Instead, it came back as a match to another one of the slides in Dr. B's database. So the same suspect raped these two women. And then we got another hit, and it was the same guy. And it was all we

called the lock raven corridors on the same area. And when I was up to the fourth hit, I was beside myself, Rose could tell that these four DNA matches, which showed that four seemingly unconnected rapes were committed by the same man. Could turn into a huge case. And so I went to my major. I pretty much were out the carpet from my office to his. And I said, I need help. I need somebody. My detective's on my time to do this. I need a help to start going through all

our cases. Because after I had four, it's like while there's four, there's got to be more. These four cases spanned from the 1970s all the way to the early 2000s. Tell me about your personal connection to this case. When I first came on, a friend of mine

was sexually assaulted, and it was never cleared. This friend, an old colleague of Rose's,

was the one she instantly thought of that night she heard about Dr. B's database. And Rose thought of her friend again, when this unknown attacker's DNA got connected to several different cases, all in the same area. It was exactly the same place where Rose's friend had been raped back in the 1970s. When Rose ran her friend's slide, it came back as a match to the unknown serial rapeist DNA. Now, the investigation was personal.

Coming up, the match is keep mounting. But then, a long forgotten TV interview gives Rose's team their big break.

“What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist, Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? Is she girl Sam Jay?”

And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey, if you learn, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first husband was like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what do we eat? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline.

We're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

Namely, Osaka, showing out, she beat, sublinka, songs to you now, me. You get the bomb, Naomi. You get the bomb for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, Portlandia fans, carry brown scene in front of our mission here. You know us or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up other cells to tell you about Podlandia, AO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters,

revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Mann, and many more.

Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise, not just words, but a song about it.

“I thought he was going to write, I thought you were going to write a song. I remember you thinking”

that. Listen to Podlandia. AO rewatch on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Harry Soltin, Shethida, Luke, and Yerin. Samida and Gracie. I'm so excited on the bounce, you bet. You have surprises, many surprises. Welcome to Sweetpeal 5 with a good chat comes to life. What a f*********************** It's like what you're looking at, it's like, "Oh, the girl, oh, the girl, my girl, oh, the sister."

- What the f***!

- Look, I've never been talking to anyone.

- Except you, as I said, I was a musician and I was like, (upbeat music) - Yes. - See, my hand. - Oh, yeah. (laughs)

- Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. - I don't only personally know that love, that love, that love, that love, that love starburst. - Oh, I'm a nerd. (speaking in foreign language) - This is sweet for your five.

Listen to sweet for your five with lelepons as part of my culture of podcast network, on the I Heart Radio app, apple podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

(upbeat music) - One day in the late '70s, Rose's friend, a fellow police officer, had returned home to her apartment. There was a stranger, a man hiding out in the bushes near the entrance.

When Rose's friend opened her door, the man forced his way in and sexually assaulted her. Over the span of two months in 1978, two other women in the same apartment building were attacked and raped by a stranger.

And now, in 2007, Rose had discovered that her friend's case was connected via DNA, location and ammo to what appeared to be the same serial rapist who had also attacked many other women in the same area over nearly 30 years.

This was already a huge case, but now it was personal for Rose too. If she was going to find the rapist and get justice for her friend, she needed more people on her team. So Rose marched into her boss's office to make her demand.

So she actually gave me a detective who was on light duty because she was pregnant, Eve.

“And she loved it because I think she was stuck”

like answer and phones or something. And I had got an civilian. I gave him the four cases we had. And I said, OK, go back from this time, all the way up till current, this area, in this ammo,

and pull every case that you can find that's similar to this. Well, turned out, we ended up with, think, 11 or 12 cases that we had slides. Oh, wow. And then I get another hit in another hit.

And I was beside myself because we're spaining 1978 to 2000. So you know he still out there somewhere. So I think she pulled 20 some cases her in the civilian pulled 20 some cases

that could be this guy. Rose's team had uncovered a serial rapist who from what they could estimate was even more prolific than Thadius Clemens.

“Now, something you need to know about Eve,”

the pregnant detective on light duty, who is helping out with the case, is that she also happened to be a trained forensic sketch artist. One day, she had gone through the files and she came in the office because I had her work in the next door.

And she said, so I've actually got a composite

I said, really, a composite, meaning a sketch of the attacker

“from the recollection of one of the victims.”

This surprised Rose. She didn't think any of the victims had seen the guy. The ones I had been reading, they didn't wake up until he was already on top of them. And you know, if it was inside,

he covered him with a blanket outside, it was nighttime. She said, yeah, it was one of the really old cases. Evelyn told Rose that she wanted to try an aged, the original sketch. To see what the guy might look like now 20 years later.

She was doing it in home and she had a big table, her dining room table. And she would have you do it in stages. You know, you do eyes, a whole nine hour. You do different parts of it.

So she'd had them spread all over her table. This is the point where I have to issue another cosmic coincidence to that. And this is like another story out of a movie, but I'm not kidding.

Everything was meant to be is when I'm going to say her husband,

“who I happen to know, was a Baltimore city detective.”

So he's looking at these drawings that his wife's doing. And then he ends up having to go to something that we all have to go once a year. Police officers have to go to what's called in-service training to do with policing, obviously, current law, case law,

and then you might do physical stuff, how to defend yourself, stuff like that. And I find this out on Monday, they come walking into my office. He and his wife. He had a VHS tape, okay, so it was 2006.

And he has it in his hand. They're both looking at me and they say, "Sir, I had to go to this in-service training." And an instructor did not show up. I'm not kidding you on this.

An instructor did not show up. So they put this tape in on a 48 hours interview. Wow, like the substance you teach is in. 48 hours is a true crime news documentary program on CBS. The story that was played in Eve's husband's training

was about a cold rate case from Baltimore in 1983.

“You know, I'm thinking, where are we going with this?”

So then they said he's watching this video anyway, it was over, he goes up to instructor and said, "Can I get a copy of that? My wife's sergeant needs to see this." The victim in the case was Laura Newman.

When she was 18, she was raped by a stranger. She got home late at night after working her shift as a waitress in a Mexican restaurant. And around 2am, she was lying in bed when she heard the clatter of someone breaking in through a window.

She disregarded it, thinking she was maybe dreaming. Which is when she was startled by pillow pressed onto her face. The case wasn't solved at the time.

Laura never saw her attacker,

and the fingerprints lifted off her window sill didn't match anyone. But she never let her case go. She kept calling the police department, asking them to look at it again.

So in the early 2000s, a couple of detectives rerun the perpetrators' prints through the system. Well, the fingerprints hit on this guy, our foundo hill. They arrest him for a second-degree rape and he confesses. It was such a remarkable story that 40 hours

wanted to interview everyone involved. Even Hill, who despite his lawyers, probably very salient advice, agreed to go on TV. Their tell me sergeant looks just like Evelyn's composite that she's aged, and that's like,

"There's no way." I said, "So you're telling me he's incarcerated right now." And he's been incarcerated for a couple of years. Yes. I said, "Well, he should have hit."

Because Hill was in prison, his DNA should have already been in the code to database. All of these rape cases should have gotten a match to Hill, right away. I said, "It can't be him."

Well, I'm just telling you, sergeant, it looks just like him. So I said, "All right, I'll look at it." I put this VHS tape in the office when I detectives found one or player. We put it in, and we've got the composite next to us.

And I'm telling you, I've never had this feeling before my life.

The hair on the back of my neck was starting to stand out because this was the guy. I mean, it was unbelievable. But I'm still thinking it's not possible. So I call Maryland State Police because they run the actual code

as database. And I was in first name basis with the woman, Michelle, that was running it by then. And I'd say, "Michelle, are you sure you don't have this guy in the database?" It's serge, I don't have them. Rose hung up. But she couldn't shake the similarity between Hill and their suspect.

So she dialed Michelle's number again. So then this time I gave her a name, like an hour later she calls me. She told Rose that our Fonzo Hills DNA hadn't been put into the national database yet because Maryland State Police were extremely backed up with all the DNA that was now being uploaded. She suggested that her team should go to the prison.

Get their own Swap of Hills DNA. I'm running against the serial rapeist themselves. Not a problem, click. I go right into the office where my detectives were working that case.

Let's go. We're going to go up too."

“I think he was in Hager's town and said, "We're getting his swabs."”

Even when I was in homicide, I don't think I ever got results back this fast. I'm sitting in my office a week later. And all of a sudden, I hear all these people walking and all this commotion. And all of a sudden, all these my detectives, the biologists are all standing in my doorway. And I'm looking at them and I said, "Please tell me that I'll Fonzo Hill that it's him."

And they said, "It's him." Like, "Oh, my gosh." Hill was still serving time in prison for the rape of Laura Newman. But Rose's team had DNA evidence that he'd committed many more. When they confronted him with it, he seems to realize that there was no point in denying it.

Once he was charged with these rapes, he pleaded guilty to them. After decades of assaulting women in Baltimore, in 2008, Al Fonzo Hill was finally held responsible for his crimes.

He had been applying for parole, and now he would likely never be free again.

All but one of the survivors came to his court hearings. It was an opportunity for them to finally stare him down. Every single one of them, except for one, wanted to be there. It was just something you just don't see. We take him to the courtroom, and they're all sitting together.

And all of a sudden, the door opens, and I'm looking at my survivors. And it's like, like, laser. I mean, as soon as that door open, he started walking horns and it's like laser. Because remember, all but one of them have never saw his face. The state's attorney reads every single one of these horrific cases.

And the judge who'd been around the long time, he was speechless. And then all of a sudden, after they read the last one, and before the victims could even go up there, and do their impact, he said, you know, that's a shame Dr. Brightnecker's not here, because what he's done and what he thought before anyone else did is why we're here. Well, it turns out that Rose was way ahead of the judge.

She also wanted Dr. B, who was now in his 70s, to be there for this moment. So she asked her colleague, Linda, to bring him to the courtroom. So Linda has to make he such a humble man and had to make him stand up. Let me tell you, everybody in that courtroom clapped. I mean, he got to see what he did.

That's so beautiful. How did he react to that moment? He just looked at everybody. He did the hand like, okay, you know, think you're wrong. You know, he's just very, he's a big man and he's Austrian. So he's got a very heavy Austrian accent. And he was embarrassed. I guess that, you know, we made him stand up, but in everybody clapping. Even the deputies, I mean, everybody. Well, he deserved it.

So I mean, he's passed away. I went to the funeral. He passed away a couple of years ago.

This would have never happened for all these women without him.

When the amazing guy, it does seem like so much of your work here has just had you've had a lot of coincidences. How do you feel about that? Do we call it fate? I don't, I don't know. It meant to be. I mean, God's will. It was time to get these cases clear. I don't know because it just seemed to fall these cases like this. Crazy. Yeah. And these incredible ways obviously you're amazing work, too. Well, it's my detectives.

They did the investigations. How many of these coal cases did you close in total in your whole

“time at the SVA? From what I remember, it was 86. 86. You must be so proud of that number.”

That's incredible. So I think it was around 86. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. But that work's still being done. As we speak, yeah, they have. They actually, the department actually has a coal

casing in it now. Incredible. They got one after every tire. They finally put one together.

Oh, yeah. That's great. So look, I've got one final question. I guess it's a bit of a reflective one. I'm wondering kind of what your message would be to survivors of sexual violence who are listening to this podcast because I know already that there are many. And a lot of those people will have cases that all cold and haven't been solved. Well, look at whatever department that handled your case whenever it was, call them because most departments across

the country have coal case sexual assault teams now. And if you're a survivor, there's some place you can go to for help. There's plenty of victim agencies that will help you get through the emotional part of it because don't live with it without telling people. There's so much help out there,

“but you have to ask for it. Yeah. But it is out there. I guarantee you it's out there.”

And don't walk alone. No, don't walk. I mean, that feels very inclusive of the kind of girlfriend's

I know that sexual violence cases are a particularly tough lesson for women. It's not exactly

“something that we need to be curious about because it's something we all have to be sadly”

akin to. One out of six women in the United States have experienced sexual violence and research from the rate that abuse and incest network suggests that for every 1,000 rates that happen in the United States only 384 are reported to the police and only seven end in a felony conviction. It's depressing data. And for a series that claims it tells the stories of women winning, this episode is full of far too many women losing out in the worst possible way.

But what dot-to-be and rose have done is a real win to me. Their doggy determination has brought convictions into a woefully un-prosecuted space and proven that solving coal cases doesn't just

“bring about historic justice, but it can protect people today.”

Next time on the girlfriend's spotlight, Madison and Christine become digital detectives. So we just started adding new folders of this victim, this victim, this victim, this victim. And let's be honest, like I was very motivated to help you, but it's nothing's more motivating than your own boobs being on the internet. Hey, it's Anna. You've reached the girlfriend's hotline, leave your story after the turn.

Okay, gotta go, love ya. Ben, I was skiing in Colorado. I fell and broke my arm. And I was in a lot of pain, but I was mainly just very sad and very low because that

“lot of plans are up in the air and the heaving time is really long. When I texted my closest group”

of girlfriends from home to tell them I broke my arm. I sent them a mirror selfie in the hospital

room with my swing and most of their first responses are just commenting on how great my

who looked, which made me laugh. If you have your own story, like the one you just heard, and you'd like the whole girlfriend's gang to hear it, then please send it to us. You can record it as a voice memo under 90 seconds, please. And email it straight to the girlfriend's at novel.audio. Please don't include your name. We're keeping things a little anonymous. We want stories, like say, that one time you've faked an emergency on an awful date and your besty

bell to you out with a phone call. We love her. All that time when all of your girls showed up on your doorstep with five pizzas, two types of ice cream and three bottles of saven your blank, because the man of your dreams just dumped you. I want stories that are meaningful or silly. I want big. I want small and desperate to hear them. So send them over. This season, the girlfriend spotlight is supporting the charity "Women Kind Worldwide". They do

amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements to strengthen and grow.

If you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe, you can go to womenkind.org.uk. The girlfriend's spotlight is produced by novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from novel, visit novel.ordio. The show is hosted by me Anna Sinfield. This episode was written and produced by J.O. Tyvich. Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher is Zayana Yusuf. The editor is Hannah Marshall,

Max O'Brien and Craig Stracken are our executive producers. Production management from Joe Savage, Sri Houston and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by J.O. Tyvich, Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield. Original music composed by Louise Agarstein and Gemma Freeman. The series artwork was designed by Christina Lemcool. We'll add Foxson is creative director of development and special thanks to

Katrina Norville, Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts, as well as Carly Frankel

On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no-one else, including huge

“interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary. The cast of obsession.”

On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were put together. Deep dives into classics like 2001 of Space Odyssey or Fight Club, plus weekly episodes on all industry news.

Listen to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

get your podcasts. And for more, follow @ Raiders of the Lost podcast and @Tiktok podcast network on TikTok. Harry Brownstein and Fred Armison here. The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Pod Landia, A.O. rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode

of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters and pulling

back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Christle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Man, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking about it. Listen to

Pod Landia, A.O. rewatch on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

“What's up, fam? It's Sports Journalists, Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all?”

It's your girl Sam Jay. And we're the host of everyone watches women sports. A new podcast from together. We're breaking down the biggest headlines, the viral moments, and the stories everyone's talking about across women sports. From game changing performances to culture-shifting conversations, we'll give you our takes, our debates, and a few lasts along the way because everyone watches women sports. Listen to everyone watches women sports from the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Chelsea Hamlet from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell

“whoever's responsible, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sydney Sweeney was?”

If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better, or do less, so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to your other problem with Yamanika on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.