Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
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Welcome back to a new episode of post. I'm cbs news correspondent natly Morales. I'm filling in for android Green. SHE is on assignment right now for forty eight hours, but I am here with the fabulous producers of this, our genotype son and mary Murphy, to talk about our most recent report on the case of mary Katherine Edwards, who was murdered in the midd ninety eighties in boon, texas, and her case went cold for decades. Mary and genre, thanks so much for joining me to day to break down the case and all the work that went ted to putting this together.

Thanks for having us yeah.

Now remember for you who are listening. If you haven't listening to this forty eight hours episode yet, you can find the full audio just below this episode in your podcast by just go take a listen, then come right back here for our conversation, mary and gene. We can all agree that this is probably one of the most remarkable cold cases. I think, that we have worked done.

right? Oh yeah, I an and the components between the familiar testing and the family tree, just growing and growing and growing in what everybody had to do to whittle IT down. And then there's just this kind of astonishing twist that no one could have predicted.

And you have a husband's wife detective team, which is always fun. And then a texas A S. Which, what could we love more than that?

Yeah, I tell you, I loved interviewing a texas ranger. I mean, he walked in with his full crock and boss cowboy boots with the texas ranger seo on IT. He had the ring.

He had the hat. I mean, IT was the full effect and the great story telling. I mean, ranger best is is incredible.

Ranger best could have his own show.

Yeah, he really could. I mean, he's the real deal. And he so committed, I mean, he realized when there was a major breakthrough with the golden state killer case that there was a possibility of using genetic geneology, perhaps to solve some of these cases.

And this one immediately came demand. Not just to remind, those were listening. IT all started back in one thousand nine hundred ninety five and bombed texes. Thirty one year old school teacher mary Catherine Edwards was found murdered, sexually assaulted and handcuffed in her own bathroom. Notably though the hand cups that were used on her were police grade, which detective lee Allen said I was sort of like a whispered ghost story in the hallways at police headquarters.

He described IT to us, like people who trying to figure out who could that have been? Did this person have a connection to the police? But you police were never really able to identify the perpetrate of the time, although they did have DNA samples from the crime scene, and those samples were so carefully preserved which was so key uh, however, the forensic science was not advanced enough yet. So let's talk about genetic geneology and how it's become a game changer in cases like this and specifically how IT factories into this .

investigation. I mean, I think it's pretty incredible that back in ninety five, first of all, they preserve the evidence so well and that they still had enough DNA in a years later to do all of the testing, not to mention the fact that they had tested multiple people over the years. The detectives wouldn't give up. They keep going back to this case. So the fact that this genetic geneology technology has come so far, that they were able to put this dining the system and come up with almost seventy five hundred names I love when detective iran, the Allen says, you know, by the time I got bigger than my computer screen, my wife had to jump in because he was like, my mind was blown, basically.

And what they did was a very multiple red, complicated process where they were doing the family tree. D, but they were also researching the birth and death records google with certain things in mind, like who's an education, whose new baLance texes all things that they thought could lead them to the person who had the DNA at the crime scene. But to build IT up and down, in sideways, and then have to be only seventy five hundred people to get to one, to get to the person they became sure was was the killer that was really pretty amazing and an unbelievable husband.

wife team. yeah. Gonna was .

leaving a sign to the case. She's an auto crime detective. He's the homeric guy.

And suddenly he sees him floundering in front of the family tree and charity knows a little bit about IT and so he just jumps and the obsession level discuss off the chart and she's up all night, you know, and not sleeping. SHE knows there's a killer out there and he will not stop. SHE goes in the amErica tern diary. There's nothing that he didn't do to try to get to the bottom of them .

yeah because they knew timing was up the essence because this is now more than two decades later. So they don't know you know, at the time, like how old is this killer? Is he still alive? So this sort of a race against time, right? So really came down to the detective work, the incredible two dynamic dows that we saw in this hour, which I love. As you mention, there's the men work in the case, and then there's the women as part of sort of the soothing team.

So tina is building out the trench, keeps running into this family in the point, and then he runs into sheer a, keeps coming up to the point. And she's saying, who is this person? Why is SHE everywhere and could SHE be related to her suspect?

So SHE gets air and to do the calling, aon calls up. And not only is SHE uploading her family tree and IT turns out there maybe some distant connection, she's also a professional genetic, genetic gist. So suddenly they have this new person who knows how to work.

These cases has done at least one with the texas killing field s where he identifying a woman in that case who had been buried along the highway with all those other victim. And they just tina and sure to stay are really great friend. That was a huge connection.

And they, and they even describe here was driving almost through vermont. So they met. And for this, and we said, we met the convention up, and we were both where I like the same catapez lasses I mean, this kind of mine male was IT was just incredible.

These two had to tad to meet and it's a bond forever that theyll have. And as you said, married. They're trying to sort of put the pieces together who still alive, but also who lived in bom on around that time, who went to possibly that high school even and then they passed off their info to detective iron lewen and texas ranger brand.

And best to then try to track down any potential in person. What I love is you, we talk to range your best, how he told me, he and iron give you then have to knock on people's doors and say, you know, you give us a sample, your DNA, which is, I mean, that's not an easy thing to do in this day and age. People are are you know very skeptical and and probably not gonna want to do that, but they had a charming way of going about IT. I want to play for you a clip from that. Artic, listen.

when we would sense anxiety, and someone iron would immediately tell them, hey, who do you want to play you in the movie? They would look at and likely was crazy and say, what are you talking about? This guys that takes us right? Everything they do turns into a movie.

Who do you want to play your role in this movie? That calmed them down every time. And of course, you out there, hey, i've all to get brad pitt so you can't you can't be brag as brad play in me.

You know, I do think there's a movie script in this. Although I I told ranger best, I think he's more of a mad damant. He was fine with that. He was fine. He really worked though um how they were able to get people to to give their DNA and also .

the relay and the teamwork among the four of them was really very extraordinary to watch and the way they worked together I mean at one point branded best unity um and IT doesn't make the show but he talks about what it's like to be a cold case investigator how there are just a different breed you know and that many great policeman already looked at a crime, but the cold case people come in and they look at IT sideways and he got IT like looking IT at IT from the ten mile mark. You're just get about that look look at everything and that's what they all did together yeah .

and he was really cool to how far technologies advances, but you still can't do IT without good old fashion.

Detective work is so incredible. I think this was a cold case for more than two decades. And when I came to, they were able to solve the crime and crack the case in a little less than three months, right? They were working at a fast and furious pace though.

Yeah, tina actually said in testimony that had SHE built for over time, IT would have a amounted to something like fifty thousand dollars. So that's a lot of hours.

And then IT turns out that share a hits paydirt with the DNA, and he is able to build up that family tree and get a took point where SHE pared IT down to two brothers, Michael and clean format. And IT turns out they went to the same high school as Katherine Edwards. So what do they find when they looked into clinton? And why? How did that eliminate my goal?

Well, that's a very dramatic moment. Air and 6 elen describes just running a check on both of them to see if they have a criminal record。 Mico is completely clean as a whistle, but clay forman has a conviction for aggravated assault.

That there are some similarities to what happened to mary Catherine. And suddenly they are often the races. This is our guy. We, we are on the right track.

That point. They elt like, okay, this has to be guy mows the same. This is too close. And so they find plate informant he's living in ohio at the time.

I may contact to the police in ohio and say, what, you do a favor, basically, and go grab his trash from the curve in front of his house. So they did. They brought back the trash to booming texas had tested in the D.

P. S. lab. And IT was a match. So then those guys are like, okay, let's go get him.

Um we saw the remarkable police interrogation. I mean, that was sort of a master piece in in police work. And so fascinating to see how they sort of wove through the interrogation and then kind of cornered late, inform and so rangers and detect lowell, and they essentially tag in the whole thing. But then comes the real clinch of the moment. They are right, mary.

yeah. I mean, these guys so much heart went into what they were doing. So they finally, after all, their hard work in all these years theyve, they've got in a restaurant form and theyve one thing, just one more thing they really need to do.

And they worked IT out with the prosecutors. They brought the very handcuff s that had bound very catcher in the night he died, and they slapped on clay informant. And that was such a moment when when ringer best talks to ability, just says, IT felt so good and that we had done something for Catherine at all.

And he said he was doing that for her as if he was able to physically take the hand, coughs off of her when he was murdered. And they put them back on the guy who was responsible for killing army IT was a huge deal and definitely for them a moment where I think they felt no finally job done.

And so symbol limit was just this, this sort of parting thing that they had to do.

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Welcome back. And now to the big twist. In this case, we interviewed Catherine's childhood friend Diana co, who had once been married to clean forman.

Kate forman was Katherine killer jane. I think listeners would be really surprised to know me. You are the booking producer.

You help to get us all these great people in characters. But Diana took a long time. SHE only agreed to to do this interview with us just days before the broadcast aired. How difficult was IT to convince .

to do IT if hook a while? IT was difficult. Her father, scar, who is wonderful, and her sister were really trying to convince her that he had nothing to be embarrassed about, that he was a victim in this as well, and that, you know, people's needed to hear that this guy was hiding in plain sight, and that none of them knew that.

I mean, they described him being at Christmases. And eastern ana and clayton form had a child together. He had no idea. I mean, there were some signs of that. Maybe he wasn't the best truthful person, that he wasn't the greatest husband, but no signs of violence ever.

H, I just have to say my head is completely off to genre. What he did, and the delicacy that you must have when you're dealing with victims and just did a remarkable job, was to respect and gained their trust.

They were a very nice family mean, not only your interview with Diana and the siblings was just, but IT was great that he finally felt comfortable talking and he told me after IT was very cathodic .

her well and I think SHE recognizes and SHE realizes that if there are other victims of his out there, you know, he was doing this for them as well, he wants then they will be able to have a voice and to be able to come forward. And she's els by telling her story, perhaps they will come forward to yeah .

I think that was very important over and one of the .

deciding factors but he did say he did feel some guilt for being the connection between clinton and and her friends patthern and Allison because they were the brights mates at their wedding. SHE felt like perhaps SHE introduced catering and Allison into his orbit so there's that heart breaking moment when Diana said, I think if he wouldn't have married me, sh'd still be alive I mean, that just gutted me when he said .

that yeah that was so IT was ranching, just renting and then .

he had to testify the trial. SHE was incredibly brave um so we're all the women who came in and testified you have to get up on the stand and look at him while you're up there testifying. And I think IT was very emotional for Diana because he had had to face him since he found this out, was still very surreal to her. But SHE also found out so many other things that he had done, and he had had so many other victims who had lived to tell what he had done to them .

before SHE married late, informing SHE knew there had been something in his past, but SHE didn't know really what had happened, right?

Jenna IT was a chilling moment for Diana later at trial, when he realized before SHE mary clain, this woman who was a fellow classmate of hers at the same high school, have been rated by him. And this woman came forward and testified, you know, SHE hadn't spoken about this and thirty years as well. IT was incredibly hard and painful for her to come forward. But for Diana, realizing that this had actually happened and that her future has been explained IT away, it's just to, he said he had misunderstanding and he believed done because he had no reason not to and just hearing that woman's testimony was very hard for Diana.

I think the the hardest st part of watching some of the testimony, I think was seeing patterns identical twin sister alison up there on the stand, and decades later, how much he still misses and loves and feels that connection to her sister. And we should say alison declined an interview with us, but we did hear her on the stand. I wanted play a clip from that.

I didn't know what happened to her. IT was just that he was gone .

and was all I knew, the pain and the loss still so palpable .

four years later. The daughter, her name is Catherine. Catherine, after my sister, he never got to know the artist.

When I saw the first time that testimony and and I cried, you can't watch this and not get emotional hard breaking.

I think that the identical twin bond is so sort of deeply and grained it's just got to be awful IT was awful to listen to our seat and .

and we point out um as you're watching her testimony, it's not just you know hearing but also you see the possibility of what Katherine would have looked like you know there he is Allison at sixty and SHE is the spitting image of what could have been I mean.

they looked exactly like to to the point where they would play pranks um and do a little parent trap switch and they were places with each other and no one would know. I mean, we discovered there was a year book photo that was mislabeled as cattle and analysis and in fact was the reverse.

The story went that Catherine batelier Young school children, if you see me on the street and say hello and I don't answer, it's because it's my sister and I didn't want them thinking they were ignored.

What claims defense tourney said in his closing arguments that while he may have done terrible things to all of these women, IT didn't make him a murder. Our authorities, though, looking now into other possible cold cases to see if you may be connected to them. I mean, I think all of them said they believe there is the possibility, right?

Yeah, they all suspect that there are more victims that either have not come forward or did they have in found. And so there is an ongoing look at all the places he lived to see if they can connect any dots to any unsolved cases. Yeah, I think .

these detectives, as we saw you know, one's they think their teeth in the same thing. They don't give up. So they're all pretty committed to making sure his D.

N, A. Is loaded into all the systems. Well.

on the case of mary catcher's Edwards, IT only took the jury less than an hour, and they found plate inform and guilty for capital murder. He was sentenced to life in prison. But retina share a branded and air. And who played such a pivotal role in this investigation, take us back to when they heard the verdict and how they .

reacted and said, we did IT and IT was just very emotional because everything about the case was emotional. And they all said a version of, yes, it's the ending we wanted and yes, it's what we worked for. But to call IT justice from america, aeris, is just too difficult for them, because this guy got to run the earth and have a family and get married twice.

And with the life and catheter got, not none of those think so. And everybody, I think, had to go back into well on the fact that he was just, as genus said, hiding in plane. Society was just there, and nobody that twice about them.

And I think, you know, this is one of those cases that everyone said, if not for technology advancements and this incredible genetic geneology, this would never have been solved in here. These guys are continuing to solve cases authoring labs s who we spoke to who is very you know instrumental in this case. They're continuing to solve cold cases daily.

which is incredible. Well, I love how we end the hour um and really it's reflecting on how Katherine lived her life in the impact SHE had as a school teacher and we have one of her students who SAT during the trial and was there when the verdict came in and he really wanted to be there to see justice how and I atoms tell us about her connection to her teacher and what I meant for her to finally see the story you know come to at least a conclusion that he can live with and now move on I think um Helen .

iah I mean he lost her favorite teacher who had been such an impact for part of her life when he was seven years old and when we were talking to her IT was as like IT was yesterday he was so moved by miss adwords as he called her and me know to the point where like you said that only SHE attended trial every day except for one um she's getting her masters in criminal justice right now and planes good to law school SHE wants to be a part of the justice system that finally brought this to a close SHE was very inspired by that so IT was incredible to talk to her and I and I love that Katherine .

hat leaves a legacy of you know Young children who SHE touched to have now grown into incredible and productive human being who perhaps could make a difference in the you exactly yeah well.

jan, mary.

thank you. Once again, IT was so great working with both of you on this, and thanks for taking the time to talk .

about the case. IT was great to work. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Amory's is going to be back with you next week with a new post mortem. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and remember to rate and review forty eight hours on apple podcast and follow forty eight hours wherever you get your podcast and you can also listen add free on amazon music wunder plus in the wonda y APP or with the forty eight hours plus description on apple podcast. Again, thank you for listening.

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