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I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murmur. As we have said so many times before, no matter how many of these stories we work on or tell, every homicide is a personal and painful tragedy, both for the loss of an innocent victim and also for the immense suffering of the survivors.
And in the summer of 2021, murder paid a visit to Greenville County, South Carolina. And it's this 911 call which would set in motion a frantic search for an elderly victim and an all-out hunt for a serial killer. Greenville County 911, what's the location of your emergency? Her name is Edna Settle. We come to her house and we can't get nobody to the door or anything.
And that call was made by someone who had known Edna Suttles for quite some time. Now, Edna Suttles, though she was 80, she was vibrant in all respects, and she would still work by going to that caller's home week after week to care for her even older mom. In almost all cases, conducting a welfare check turns out to be routine and everything is just fine. But of course, we would not be featuring this story had that been the case.
But from a law enforcement perspective, vital but routine steps taken by the first officers conducting these types of checks can pay big dividends down the road. And it's precisely that kind of careful and methodical police work that is on display in today's case. The murder of Edna Suttles, an 80-year-old grandmother from Travelers Rest, South Carolina.
It's also a case that challenges a familiar character we see in true crime cases in movies and television. That one lone investigator, obsessed and determined to catch a killer. Because while you may have that one lone investigator, in reality, we all know it takes teamwork. The collaboration between different police departments and agencies. It's been termed before, and you've heard the term, gumshoe police work based on patrol officers and detectives of every stripe and rank.
And investigators' real-life training normally starts out during their time in uniform patrol. Starting off on uniform patrol, working the road, you get to experience a variety of calls, situations, and it's a foundation, I think, for any law enforcement officer.
With us today is investigator Greg Walter, who started his career with the Greenville County Sheriff's Department in 2012 before working his way up to their eight-man homicide unit. It was exciting. It is the end-all, be-all of major crimes, traditionally considered to be the pinnacle of investigation. So it was definitely an exciting and at the same time very challenging opportunity.
Greenville is the most populated county in South Carolina, comprised both of rural areas and the city of Greenville itself, and also those areas in between, such as Traveler's Rest. So overall, it does see its fair share of crime, including an average of 25 to 30 murders every year. And that's not including all of your attempted murders, assaults, suicides, death investigations. So that unit stays very busy.
And one case in particular would require every resource of the Greenville County Sheriff's Department, plus that of a neighboring county and eventually the FBI. The search for Edna Suttles would ultimately bring to justice a killer responsible for not one, but four unsolved murders. And as it is so often the case, it all started with a simple phone call from a neighbor who was concerned about Edna. The date was August 27th, 2021.
The original complainant was one of Edna's close friends. Her name was Mitzi Kovalev.
So Edna would, on a weekly basis, even though Edna was 80 years old herself, she would go and sit with Mitzi's elderly mother to spend time with her, keep her company, and was essentially a caretaker, you know, just a close friend that gave Mitzi's mother something to look forward to. And Edna was always punctual. She was always on time.
But on this day, Edna didn't come at all. And according to the caller, Edna was always very punctual when it came to visiting her mom, and it was unlike her to not show up without even a phone call. So after the neighbors called to police expressing her concern for Edna, 911 dispatched a deputy to her home to do a routine welfare check, something that is not uncommon for police to do. And we talk about that a lot here, especially at the homes of elderly citizens.
And yes, now you've heard, I think I've counted at least three uses of the word elderly. And so for my parents who are 80 and north of 80, and many of you out there who know people that are full of life in their 80s, sorry for that terminology, but we have to differentiate in some way.
But the thing about age is no matter how vibrant you are, and for anyone that follows me on Instagram, you've seen my dad water skiing and jumping on a trampoline. Age still does in certain ways make people more vulnerable. And that is why police pay particular care when they hear this type of age range.
So he went around to her house. He noticed that her car, her Jeep Grand Cherokee, was not in the driveway. The house was locked. There were no signs of forced entry. There was nothing on the property that led him to believe that anything nefarious, malicious, criminal had occurred.
Her house being locked and a car being gone are both signs that Edna is most likely just not at home. And since Edna also had two adult children living nearby, the next logical step is to contact them to first find out if they know where she may be and two,
gain access to her home just in case she still is inside and perhaps in distress or needs medical attention. And this falls into really doing a proper victimology, knowing the routines of what potential missing persons may have. And the best way to get that information is from the people who know them best.
So investigators contacted her son who lives locally, allowed them inside. They went in there. They looked around. They didn't find anything that was out of the ordinary for Edna.
So the deputy and Edna's son both saw that her pocketbook was missing, her wallet was gone. You know, the things that she would normally take with her if she was just going out to run errands, they wouldn't be in the house. So again, nothing about that necessarily caused for alarm. But according to Edna's son, there were a couple of things that felt off.
But still, there were no signs of a break-in, a struggle, or any kind of disturbance that would indicate that Edna was in immediate danger.
Nonetheless, because Edna is still not answering her phone and no one has heard from her all day, police decide to issue something called a silver alert. I'm sure most people are familiar with your Amber Alerts, you know, for missing children who are endangered and silver alerts, which is the same thing, but for the elderly.
The Silver Alert notifies police, media, hospitals, and citizens overall to be on the lookout for this person who, because of their age, is considered vulnerable.
Even though she was in great health for her age, she is 80 years old and she had lots of different medications, prescriptions that she did have to take. She had had surgery in the past, I believe heart-related surgery. So there were a number of medications that she had to take. And during especially the initial searches of her house, her son mentioned to us that none of her medications were gone.
Which means the longer that Edna is away from home and her essential medication, the more her health could be in danger. The fact that her meds are still at home also indicates that wherever Edna is, she still was intending on coming back. So the longer she's gone, the more likely the possibility that there is something or someone keeping her from returning home.
We take all missing person cases very seriously. You don't know if this person just wanted to stop having contact with whoever's reporting them missing or if there is truly something nefarious going on.
And indeed, because police in Greenville take these missing persons cases so seriously, their CID, or Criminal Investigations Division, has produced an actual missing persons checklist so that police officers can basically go down the list following to make sure that they've taken all the necessary steps, dotting the I's, crossing their T's, before the case is sent up to major crimes for further investigation, if necessary.
You know, Anasik, I remember when Greg told me this, I was so impressed with this forward-leaning approach. You know, you may never need all this information as a high percentage of these types of cases resolve without a crime ever being committed. But when it turns out to be the other case and it goes towards the dark side, this type of intel, this thorough amount of information so early on can definitely be life-saving.
And so often, the more information uniformed officers can gather in those first early hours of a case can really pay dividends down the line. Going through the missing persons checklist, it's a document that can be filled out that has all information that's pertinent, such as name, age, address, vehicle information, make, model, color, CAD, does it have GPS on it?
is a picture of the missing person available, the date last seen, where were they last seen, any kind of items that they may have with them, cell phone, money, credit cards, have you checked the local hospitals, have you checked the local jails,
checked with any friends, social media, just everything that you could potentially think of to locate somebody. It's all on here. And it's a good reminder, good refresher to check these things, especially as you're taking that initial call. As we've discussed before, another critical part of the initial investigation is to start creating a potential victimology.
Police want to start asking those important questions. Was this behavior unusual for Edna? Did she have anything going on in her life that her friends and family may know about? And just for a moment to go back through victimology, because you hear this term, but I don't know that people necessarily come out with exactly how it's used in this field. And it really comes down to two things. It's both examining the person or potential victim, their patterns, their tendencies, and
Because that can assist investigators in evaluating, trying to figure out what it is that has happened. And if this person has been targeted for some reason, then it also can flip to potential motive and even more importantly, the offender, if a crime has indeed been committed.
touch base with the families to set up that victimology to potentially establish those patterns of life and identify anything that may be abnormal for the middest hours and days leading up to her disappearance.
So let's learn a little bit about Edna Suttles, who, from what we learned, was a great mom, a great neighbor, and just a firecracker. Edna was known for being very social, very active, and keeping herself very busy out and about in the community.
You look at what she was doing at 80 years old, she's still going out to spend time with her elderly friends, you know, make sure that they were taken care of, make sure that they had things what they needed. You know, she was very outgoing, very social. And for 80 years old, what she was still doing was absolutely incredible.
And one of my favorite things that I read about Edna was the fact that she was South Carolina's first female bail bonds agent. And again, bail bonds is just that someone gets arrested and they go to someone who helps them put up the money to get out. Not to be sexist, but it is definitely generally a field dominated by men. So to hear that she went in there...
As a woman over the years, like I just found that very impressive, but really talks to the spark that must have always burned in Edna's eyes.
And she even had a romantic life. According to her children, Edna had recently started dating a new boyfriend who was ex-military, although neither her son nor her daughter had met him. In fact, it was precisely because she was so incredibly social and visible within her community that her disappearance felt so sudden and strange and why her friend was so worried enough to call police.
It was just very odd for her to go missing like this. She was in great health for 80. She had no mental issues such as dementia, things of that nature that you typically associate with elderly people going missing. It was literally like she had just disappeared.
And fortunately, the speed at which police issued the silver alert did pay off because when an off-duty Greenville deputy listening to his police radio picked up what was being said, he got some crucial information about Edna's missing Jeep Cherokee.
And he overheard on the radio that the Traveler's Rest Police Department had located said vehicle at the Best Western Hotel, which is in Traveler's Rest. So that's when the case really began to shift gears.
The quaintly named Traveler's Rest is a small town about a 20-minute drive from the city of Greenville. But because Greenville sheriffs had issued the original bolo for Edna's missing car, police in Traveler's Rest knew to be on the lookout. Not only that, but the Greenville deputy who was working in off-duty detail was being vigilant at the time and listening to the local police radio, just in case something happened that might require his assistance. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
I'm just going to take a sidestep for a second. When I was in uniform, I often worked off-duty details. And as an example, sitting outside, let's say, a big box store in my marked patrol car, even though those stores were outside of my normal radio frequency where I worked on patrol, you always want to monitor the frequency of your location just in case you happen to be the closest member of law enforcement to a critical situation. And in the missing persons case we're talking about today, the sighting of her Jeep kicked
kick this case off into high gear. I just so happened to be the on-call CID investigator that night. We get up there and of course there's a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's backed into the backside of the hotel parking lot at the Best Western. You know, we're waiting on to get a search warrant for the vehicle because it's obvious that something's not really feeling right. We check with the hotel staff.
They have no record of an Edna Suttles, in fact, showing them her photograph. They have no recollection of her even being there, whether checking in herself under an alias or with somebody else. So Greg asked to take a look at their surveillance footage from the parking lot, and he was able to watch it right there at the scene. You can see the vehicle, the Jeep Grand Cherokee comes pulling in, driving very determined would be a good way to put it.
It swoops in, it comes around the hotel, and aggressively backs in to the parking space. Instead of seeing Edna, they see a man get out of her car. An identified male subject is a white male. He's wearing a brown shirt, dark colored shorts, blue shoes, and white socks. He gets out of the driver's side vehicle. He wipes the entire vehicle down, including the dashboard, and he walks off behind the hotel.
So let me just get this out there. Obviously, there are two very large big red flags here. One, this is a man driving Edna's car, not Edna. And two, he's seen wiping down the inside and outside of her vehicle.
So obviously that's suspicious behavior. There's really only a couple situations that you're quickly going to come up with about someone wiping down a car, which is one if you are washing your car, say at a car wash, or when someone is trying to get rid of, say, fingerprints. You could also see that the way the vehicle was left, the driver's seat had been moved all the way up like an old lady had been driving it, not this large man.
So it was blatantly obvious that this guy had something to do with her disappearance. And from the looks of it, he was no amateur. And it was clear that the search for Edna Suttles was now a matter of life or death. Want to connect with more family and friends and their native language is in English?
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After going missing from her home in Traveler's Rest, South Carolina, 80-year-old Edna Suttles' car has turned up in the parking lot of a nearby hotel. But when police view the security footage, they find not Edna, but an unidentified man behind the wheel, and he is demonstrating some very suspicious behavior. And not only wiped down the vehicle, but actually moved the seat all the way up like an old lady was driving it.
Now, Scott, in talking about mindset, I mean, obviously, it just seems very clear that this person is up to no good. Yeah, to me, it looks like he's been down this road before, from backing the car into a spot at the motel, presumably not expecting any surveillance cameras to be there, and then also trying to erase any potential evidence in the car by wiping it down, perhaps trying to sidestep some past mistakes that he's made,
which may have landed him in prison before. So this was not a new situation for this man.
And I don't know that I necessarily jumped there. To me, what I said is like, OK, this is clearly someone who has at least thought this out or watched too many crime shows, right? Because what do you always see in them? People are wiping things down and getting rid of evidence. But, you know, for me, even more than the wiping it down, it's the moving of the seat. It is that small thing, which at least in this person's mind was going to get whoever now finds the car thinking that, hey, it's up accidentally.
at the approximate height of Edna, so at least would potentially hopefully throw them off this guy's trail for a bit. But for the police, the first question they wanna answer is, can they identify him from local security footage?
Unfortunately, where they're parked, the camera is located high up on the building. It just has that look down angle. So you could see him, but you really couldn't truly identify who it was. Not a lot of distinguishable features. But they can use the footage to figure out the next best thing, his location.
You could tell that he walked behind the building. There were unfortunately no cameras located directly behind. So you have to logically think about what his next step or where he's going to go. Behind the hotel, there is a dirt trail that leads down a hill to a food line parking lot, as well as a diner, which is further up the hill.
It made more sense to me that he's got to take the Ridgeline down and go to the Food Line parking lot where either somebody picked them up or he had another vehicle waiting.
In the meantime, they waste no time in processing Edna's car for clues to where she might be or what may have happened to her. And that processing included taking photographs, testing for fingerprints, taking swabs for any potential DNA, you know, going through every nook and cranny of that car, trying to recover anything that could even potentially prove important or valuable down the road.
And nothing to help identify the tall man seen driving the car. Thankfully, the security footage from the food line proved much more helpful.
So when we did finally get access to that footage, it shows unidentified white male. He's walking from behind the Best Western. He's wearing a face covering mask, you know, like a COVID mask. And he's wearing a ball cap. He walks across the parking lot and he gets into this silver sedan. He drives away and based on the way he pulled out, he's
It appeared that he was going northbound. So now that we know that the vehicle is in the parking lot, his getaway vehicle, if you will, now we have to start backtracking to figure out when and how that vehicle got there, which is what we were able to do.
And this really is example of the not so glamorous part of police or law enforcement work. It's the things you never see on television because it takes hours and hours and lots of people power to really track down potential footage. And, you know, Scott, as you know, it's not just the finding it. It's then examining it, getting someone to come and download it. I mean, there's so many steps to do it that we don't often hear about the work, just about any results.
Yeah, the word time comes into mind for me, Anasig. It is an example of putting in the time and also time is of the essence to find your victim. So you have to scrub through all of that videotape, develop your timeline. That all really requires a lot of time. Tracking down any other video footage from businesses that may also be in the area, also in any route that the vehicles could have taken.
Spotlight cameras, highway cameras. You're trying to track the movement of these vehicles. And one thing I'm thinking about, Scott, as you're even talking about it, one of the big missteps that are made sometimes when you do find footage is you cannot rely on the timestamp when looking at it later. It is so important to...
And I think Greg talked about this in his interview with you to actually go to the machine, see what time it is, look at your watch. Literally, it comes down to things that basic because so often these things are days, months, hours off. And you need to factor that in to have it prove accurate as far as your timing or your time stamping later. And when they did, it showed that this guy had arrived at the food line early that morning, shortly after 9 a.m.
So that actually showed that he arrived at the food line earlier in the day, early that morning, shortly after 9 o'clock.
He parked towards the front. He gets out. He actually walks inside of the food line and he purchases four strawberry yogurts. Now, it was wonderful that he did walk in the food line because they have great cameras, especially on that entranceway. So we got a full face, great quality photograph of him.
And most importantly of all, investigators get their first glimpse of Edna herself. Video footage captures her Jeep Cherokee pull into the Food Lion parking lot just as the unidentified man exits the store.
He buys the yogurt, and by this time, Edna had arrived. She's sitting waiting out front in the parking lot. He walks out. He sees her. She sees him. She's sitting in the driver's seat of her Grand Cherokee, and it's obvious that based on his reaction that they knew each other. He goes back to his sedan, which is parked nearby. He retrieves a camouflage bag out of the trunk.
And he goes and gets in the front of the Grand Cherokee with Edna and they drive off.
You know, Scott, I know that you love to talk about digital forensics and just looking at these, right? They're pretty good. Yeah, this is incredible visual evidence. Timestamped for your timeline, as long as it matches up. And we've talked about this. This is the spine for any homicide investigation. Your timeline and you're matching it with digital evidence. This is a really good way to kick it off.
And the timeline of the day that Edna disappeared is beginning to come into focus. So investigators are hoping that they could now do the same with identifying the man she was with.
Yeah, and this is an obvious question that you'd want to know. I mean, you have a picture of a potential person of interest. So who knows him, right? So investigators do go back and visit with Edner's children and show them the photos they captured from the food line security footage, which was obviously one of my first thoughts when I was researching the case. Would they know him? Unfortunately, it was a question they were able to quickly answer.
They really didn't know who he could be. Once again, the only information that we knew is she was supposedly dating a guy that was from Texas or had a background from Texas, potentially ex-military, and had some relations to special forces, according to Edna, what she had told her friends and family. But that Food Lion trip proved to be helpful yet again. When he bought the yogurt, he scanned his MVP card.
And as most of you know, those shopping loyalty cards usually contain personal information: email, phone number, name. The MVP card was no exception. So because this mystery man scanned that card, investigators got a name.
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So we learned that his name was Daniel Prince, that he lived in North Carolina. We were able to take his name, his date of birth, and you essentially began to build a dossier and a background on this guy to really kind of figure out who he is. What is he about? Why is he with Edna Suttles?
Obviously, there are so many questions, not the least of which is what is a 58-year-old man doing dating an 80-year-old woman? Again, it's never one size fits all. So 58 to her 80? I don't know. It kind of goes with the first woman Bales bondsman in South Carolina. And certainly stranger things have happened when it comes to love. And remember, everything we know about Edna is that she was definitely younger at heart than her years might suggest.
But there was one detail about Daniel Prince that immediately got everyone's attention. We learned that he actually had a prior arrest and conviction for kidnapping in Michigan in the mid-90s. Daniel Prince, the man seen getting in the car with Edna Suttles and then returning in her car alone, had been previously convicted of kidnapping in which a young woman in Michigan was bound, gagged, and held for days against her will.
And so for the family, obviously a terrifying detail to learn. And for police, it kind of solidified their worst suspicions, which they'd had when they first saw him wiping down her car, that this man had committed some sort of a crime involving Edna and had thought it through enough to know what he had done and was trying to get rid of potential evidence. So now we have him ID'd.
We start looking at, okay, how can we get this guy detained? He's clearly very advanced as far as what he's doing. He's wiped down the car. He's moved the seat forward. He's thought about his next step. This realistically isn't the kind of guy you just go knock on his door and ask, hey, can we talk to you about Edna? So we really need to get this guy detained and in custody and be able to do a search of his property.
So police have a good reason to believe that Edna has been kidnapped, but they can't be certain. Nor are they sure whether she is alive or dead. But they do know that time is of the essence. Now it is critical to not only find Daniel Prince, but hold him for questioning.
At this point, there's clearly not enough for kidnapping or anything worse with respect to Edna. But they do have a predicate crime with which they can hold him, which is the theft of her automobile. Remember, he is in her car driving it and she is nowhere to be found.
We actually utilized our own warrants team and coordinated with the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina. And they were able to get him into custody. They actually arrested him outside and they transported him back to the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office, where myself, another investigator, John Garrett, were waiting to interview him. Now, Anastika, we know that she went missing on August 27th and they found her car on September 3rd.
And police descend on the property in Rutherford County, much to the surprise of Prince's wife, who clearly has no idea what is going on. But despite their best efforts, there is still no sign of Edna. And so, of course, police are at this point thinking the worst.
You never truly want to give up hope. We've all heard of stranger things where, you know, victims have been kept alive somewhere. You truly don't know and you truly can't say for sure. But what we did know is that time was of the essence. She is alive. You're now late summer in the Carolinas. She's 80 years old. She doesn't have her medication. You need to find out where she is.
And that could have a huge impact on law enforcement's strategy in questioning their prime suspect, Daniel Prince. When we sat down with them, our entire focal point was if Edna is alive, if she is bound up being held somewhere, then, you know, we don't have time to sit here and really play games with this guy. We need to find her. We need to know where she's at and we need to know now.
So they sit Prince down and they ask him some very pointed questions. Do you know Edna Suttles? Were you driving in her car on August 27th? You're about to hear portions of an interview that Daniel Prince had with investigators. I've never been to Greenville, South Carolina in my life. Okay, fantastic. But you're telling us that's not you on the 27th? Food line, parking lot, traveler's rest? I don't think so. That's not you? That's me. Where's Edna?
But if Prince was worried about what police had on him, he definitely wasn't showing it.
He was very confident, if not arrogant. He had a reason and excuse for everything. So I took her home, I dropped her off, and I left. I promise you. I took her home, dropped her off, and I left.
Case in point, he's saying that he never traveled to Greenville. I don't know why he's saying I'm down in Greenville. I show him photographs that he's down in Traveler's Rest. Like, that's Greenville area. Every time he would be proven wrong or incorrect, he still continued this facade and had a story and an excuse for everything. Well, my wife would be very upset if I had done something, but I didn't. I don't know where Edna is. I think you do, Dan. No, I don't know where Edna is.
So with Prince stonewalling them, investigators waste no time getting a search warrant for his property. If he won't tell them where Edna is, they were determined to find her themselves. So his wife, she was located there. She had absolutely no idea that any of this was going on.
Police descend on the property in Rutherford County, much to the surprise of Prince's wife, who clearly has no idea what is going on. But despite their best efforts, there is still no sign of Edna.
But what we did find was a large cache of weapons. And due to his prior conviction for the kidnapping in Michigan, he was a felon in position at not only the state level, but federal level as well. And that means more charges and more serious charges than the auto theft, meaning police have additional reasons to keep him in custody while they continue their investigation.
And back at the station, as Prince is being booked on those additional charges, police discover some startling new evidence. We start to look through his wallet, and he has a debit card for a woman named Nancy Rago. And Nancy Rago was not his wife. So I ask him, who is Nancy Rago, and who is she to you? And he spouts off some story about how she's from Charlotte,
And she had left. She was either in Texas or Puerto Rico and that he was taking care of her records and finances for her. I mean, once again, just another totally off the wall, bizarre story and deflection from the truth. That definitely was a huge flag thing.
Police are beginning to suspect that they may have stumbled onto proof of another possible abduction. And we actually go out to his house and property and some of the financial documents that were located belonged to Nancy Rago, also found her driver's license, other identifying documents with her photograph.
So now the looming question is, who is Nancy Rigo? And what is her connection to Daniel Prince?
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You take this now unknown Nancy Rego in conjunction with Edna Suttles' disappearance. That's a huge, huge red flag. Daniel Prince had already served time for kidnapping. He is now the main suspect in the disappearance of 80-year-old Edna Suttles. And police have found personal belongings of another woman now, Nancy Rego. So here's the million-dollar question.
Is she really just an ex-girlfriend, as Prince claims, or is she another potential victim? John Garrett started calling around in the next couple of days and finds out that she hasn't been seen in a number of years. But what makes this story particularly bizarre is that she was never reported missing because every so often her family would get a text or an email from Nancy telling them that she was on a trip and not to worry.
Communications like that originated from Nancy's phone, very likely the same one in Prince's possession.
But despite the growing circumstantial evidence, Prince is nowhere near admitting any involvement in either woman's disappearance. The question, Scott, is what do they do here? It seems so clear that there is crime slash crimes that have been committed here, but there really is nothing solid and fast that they aren't going to find Edna at some point. And Nancy Rigo, again, it's just a big question mark, at least on paper.
Yeah, my spidey sense is definitely on high alert here because certainly, you know, we've seen cases where people have cloned other people's phones and use that as a ruse. So that's the first thing I thought of when I read that section of the story. But I think there's some more definitive evidence to be found here before we can really connect all those dots.
And going back to the beginning, as Greg would do in this investigation, would mean going back to the videotape and learning, is there more intel or information we can gain from that to help determine the connection between this victim and potentially another one?
I went back and actually reviewed the surveillance video of the Food Lion. Again, I actually blew it up on the big screen. That afternoon, when he arrived at the Food Lion in the cheap Grand Cherokee, he parks in the very back. His silver sedan is still towards the front. He actually parks the Cherokee, walks across the parking lot, gets into the sedan, and drives it back
Prince pulls alongside Edna's Cherokee, so the passenger doors are now alongside one another. And in the video, you actually see him opening up the door of the sedan and then opening the door of the Cherokee. For a fraction of a second, you see this blonde head go from the Jeep to the car. And he's standing right behind her. And there's no other person that could be than Edna.
And Greg believes this is it right here. It's video proof that Edna was not just with Prince in her own car, but that she was also in his silver sedan. And Greg also believes that at this point, Edna is not acting of her own volition.
He puts her in the car, seatbelts her, and you can see these body movements in the video. He lowers the seat, and this is when he goes and drives away to dump the Cherokee at the hotel. Well, this is late August in the Carolinas. That car has been sitting out there for hours, and you see no movement in that front passenger compartment of the sedan. No hands, no heads. So
So, you know, it was pretty obvious that Edna was incapacitated to some degree. Edna has been potentially drugged or even worse. And then Prince gets in the driver's seat and drives the car northbound towards his home in North Carolina.
the FBI
And remember, she is from South Carolina and that's where she went missing. And now he is driven to North Carolina, which means he has crossed state lines, which means they are in a different jurisdiction, which means it is the land of federal prosecution. Yeah, bring in the FBI is what Greg decided to do. It also brings in great resources. You know, Anastasia, we have talked about the BAU unit the FBI has.
is the Behavioral Analysis Unit. And it really does give this investigation an opportunity to expand and bring more manpower into it.
And I will say that from a realistic standpoint that these collaborations, if you will, they don't always go so smoothly. I mean, I can certainly tell you there's a lot of push and pull, certainly what I saw in New York when you have who is prosecuting the states or the feds. But it was so great and refreshing, quite honestly, to hear Greg talk about that not only did it work very well here, but that both sides really teamed together and enhanced rather than tried to keep it all to themselves.
It was never this typical thing you see on TV where they swoop in and take the case. There's certain charges and things you can do on the federal side that you can't do on the state side. While on the flip side, a lot of different things you can do on the state that you can't do on the federal. So it's not like they, I felt like they came in and took it. It was a more so of a collaboration.
And there was also a collaboration with the sheriff's office in Rutherford County, North Carolina, which has taken the lead on the Nancy Rago investigation. In fact, it's the investigators in Rutherford that are the ones that turn up the next piece of crucial evidence on Prince's property.
So on evening of October 9th, 2021, I get a phone call from one of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office detectives in North Carolina. They've been actively investigating the Nancy Rago portion of it. And during their investigation prior to October 9th, they had
done another search warrant of the property and had actually found more evidence for the Edmund Suttles case. That being an old revolver that she always kept with her.
The gun was an old Royal Hong Kong police revolver, an actual collector's item that was a collaboration between a Colt and a Smith & Wesson. Needless to say, the chances of this not being Edna's gun were slim to none. We can just pause for a second to acknowledge that not only was Edna this social butterfly at 80, but that she was also packing heat, a true pistol-packing granny.
By this time, Daniel Prince's wife was really starting to see the big picture of what was going on and she had decided to sell the property and move back home to Michigan. So to help get the property ready for sale, she reached out to a number of her friends and they were coming out to help her clean out the garage, clean out the house. And a couple of those friends decided to walk the entire property line.
And remember, the princes lived on a fairly decent-sized farm, so that's a large area to cover. It just so happens that one of the people walking the property was into bees. And he had this old beehive on the very back edge of the property. And this friend decides to look in the beehive. And this is where they struck evidentiary gold. They find a number of items, all belonging to Edna Suttles.
So we have her purse, we have prescription pill bottles with her name on it, social security card, medical cards, empty strawberry yogurt container. Police also find zip ties, rubber kitchen gloves, and the keys to Edna's Jeep Cherokee. The discovery removes any doubt that Prince had something to do with the disappearance and sadly also offers clues to the details of her demise.
Near this beehive is a plastic bag, like a trash bag type of thing that had an old woman's shoe in it. It smelled essentially like human decomposition. You know, working in the homicide and being in law enforcement, deceased persons kind of have a particular smell to them. And this tarp where these items were found around had that distinctive smell.
Looking at the totality of the evidence, I believe that we had more than enough for a no-body homicide for Edna Suttles.
So here it really comes down to, do they have enough? You know, there is a difference when you're looking at a homicide case that is a body or no body case. You know, we've talked about them before and certainly in handling them, they always matter, but it should never be a deterrent to charge. And what I mean by that is that the offender should never get a break because they were better at covering the evidence, in this case, the body, the proof of what they've done.
Yeah. And, you know, while you always would love to have the victim returned, if you truly believe the victim is deceased to the family and have that portion of it resolved, as well as the prosecution wanting to have that evidence and have the definitive decision that your victim is, in fact, deceased and you have the body to be able to prove that.
And even though they felt ready to charge, they weren't done with their investigation yet because they very much wanted to bring Edna home to her family and give her family those answers. And sometimes the only way to try to get that information is from the suspected killer himself. One of the agents sat down with him and the agent started presenting these items to him, the gun, the items found in the beehive.
It's at that moment that Greg knew reading his prime suspect's body language could tell him more than his words. He got very straight-faced, very somber. Not sad or not upset, but just more so of, okay, you got me. He knew the game was up. So then he tells us that if we turn off the camera, he'll give us what we want to know.
Once again, this is the voice of Prince, who is their prime suspect, describing to them, the investigators, what he would like to happen next. There are things that have to happen, and there are things that are going to happen. And I'm a realist, and I have acceptance with this. I would like a little bit of control in how they happen. If you tell him to turn that off, I'll talk to you a little more freely.
That's when he said that he would take us to Edna's body within three feet and that he'd basically tell us what happened with the other missing women. And not just Edna Suttles, plus now Nancy Rigo, but two other victims as well. Two women, Dolores Sellers and Lee Goodman.
And I could tell you that kind of confession from multiple murders, that's a once-in-a-lifetime event. And Greg had started off investigating the disappearance of Edna Suttles and ended up catching a serial killer. It's definitely surreal. You always hear about these types of cases. You read about them. But to actually experience firsthand, it's definitely surreal. You really can't believe that this is truly happening.
But with his many admissions, confessions, there were strings attached. Prince wanted to make a deal. He proceeds to tell us that he will bring us to the body of Edna, tell us what happened with Nancy and the other women in exchange that he doesn't want a long, drawn-out trial. He doesn't want to embarrass his wife, and he wants to do all federal time.
And while it definitely took time to work out the logistics, some months later, the deal was done and Prince handed over information to his attorney. And that information from the attorney would lead investigators to remains. Greg and his fellow Greenville detectives returned to Prince's property. This time, they were armed with a map.
Unfortunately, the map that he provided over the phone to his attorneys wasn't the best map. We were on a piece of property that was over 200 acres. So we spent the day searching based on essentially this hand-drawn map. That didn't work out. We had to come back a couple of days later. So in this second round, this time they brought the suspected killer, Daniel Prins, with them. He actually walked us directly out to the spot to where she was buried.
He was handcuffed, shackled at the feet. We walked maybe 70, 80 feet from the parking spot in the field into the wood line and pointed to a spot in the ground and obviously appeared that it had been disturbed and looked like the other ground around it. And he said, she's right there about three feet down. We called out the evidence recovery team. They came out and sure enough, that's where we had located her.
Edna Suttles' remains were recovered right where Prince said they were and transported to the medical examiner in North Carolina for an autopsy. Once they were able to positively identify her as Edna Suttles, I immediately drove back to Greenville and personally notified Edna's son and daughter. I think it finally gave them a sense of closure that now that they could finally bring their mother home and honor her memory.
After an exhaustive search and a tense investigation on the trail of a killer, police finally knew the fate of Edna Suttles. They knew who was responsible, but questions still remained. How was she killed and why?
So based on the totality of the evidence, the state of Edna's body during the autopsy, the investigation has led us to believe that he used medication from that yogurt cup
Remember, video from the food line showed that Prince had purchased strawberry yogurt the morning of Edna's disappearance. And in addition, police learned from Prince's wife that Prince hated strawberry yogurt. So this was always intended to be given to Edna. More evidence that this was well thought out and premeditated. So it was obvious that was for Edna. He had crushed up the medication and vomited.
laced her yogurt with it. And in fact, that yogurt cup that we had found in the beehive, we had sent that to the lab and it came back with a couple of different medications that it had been mixed with. So we had knew that he did mix the yogurt with the medication. He gave that to her. She ate it and that she was drugged.
Police had also found a plastic bag in the trove of evidence in the Beehive, and they believed Prince likely used that bag to suffocate his victim after she was incapacitated. And when we compared that bag to Edna's DNA and his DNA, his DNA was found on the outside and her DNA was found on the inside.
An 80-year-old vibrant woman, mother, grandmother, beloved by her family, her neighbors, and her community, was drugged, suffocated, and then buried in a field. The cruelty is almost unimaginable. But if there's any solace, it may be this, that Edna did not suffer. After being drugged, she likely slipped into unconsciousness and had never woken up.
I truly, honestly believe that she had no idea what was about to happen to her. I fully believe that she was completely incapacitated before they even got up to that final resting place in North Carolina. Which means that she likely never even knew she had been betrayed by a man that she knew and trusted, and hopefully never experienced even a moment of this terror.
And as far as the second question of why, Greg believes that Prince's possession of the debit cards and IDs speaks to his motive for killing not just Edna, but also his other three victims.
I think the motive is multifaceted. I think that it appeared that he was in relationship with these women to some degree. And we also think that it was also financial. He was using social security to get money from Nancy Rago, Dolores Sellers. Edna Suttles also did have some money and believed that she was potential another target for fraud.
And ultimately in this case, Prince pled guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Edna Suttles and received life in prison. And while suspected and while evidence has been established as to the other three victims, the women that we have referred to, Prince was never charged.
In speaking with Greg, he made it very clear that this case would not have been solved without the collaboration of multiple agencies, state and federal, and all of the people working behind the scenes, from the tech labs to the guys splicing together the video footage collected from all over the town.
This was not just me and a couple other folks. This was a full-fledged team agency, both state and federal, working together to, you know, not only find Edna, but bring justice for all the other deaths he is responsible for.
A good homicide investigation can work like a well-oiled machine, and this one certainly was. But it also started out with a good officer on road patrol doing his job, staying vigilant even when he was off duty. And without that break, this case may never have been solved.
After the arrest, investigators discovered another interesting fact. Prince's wife was allergic to bees, which meant that he was able to hide the personal items belonging to the victim in the beehive without fear of his wife discovering the items before he could dispose of them. He also hid electronic communication devices belonging to his other victims in the backyard sheds and told his wife they were infested with bees.
which would allow him periodically to go into the sheds to utilize the devices to pose as victims without being caught by his wife. For investigators, they were able to close multiple cases. You hear about like the Ted Bundys and people like that, and that's things that happened in other cities, other states, and that doesn't happen around where you live.
And at sentencing, the United States attorney handling the case said, and I quote, Prince is a monster who has a long history of targeting, kidnapping, and killing women, causing unimaginable loss to his victims and their families. And as for Nancy Rigo, Dolores Sellers, and Lee Goodman, we will remember you all for how you lived.
rather than how you died. And that goes for Edna Suttles as well, this woman who was vibrant and very much and full of life at 80. Prince targeted her and likely used her interest in him to then victimize her. But we will remember you, Edna, for the zest you had for life. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder.
Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original. Produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media. Ashley Flowers is executive producer. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before, and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.
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