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In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out.

You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

On July 11, 2002, J.C. McGee was shot and killed in the doorway of his home in Ohio. For 22 years, the case remained unsolved until his daughter Madison started asking questions. This

This is the journey of a daughter searching for answers, for closure, and for justice, and figuring out exactly what that means as she uncovers some dark truths that have been hidden from her. As far as podcasts go, it doesn't get more personal than this. From Tenderfoot TV, Ice Cold Case is available now. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold. This is Buried Bones. ♪♪

Hey, Paul. Hey, Kate. How are you? I'm doing well. I have a little bit of a contact eye update thing for you. It's very dramatic. You know, I've been on the fence about contacts, and you suggested that I really think about it. If I ever need to be on camera, I think it's, you know, easier for me to not have glasses, and I take them off and on. And I know you mentioned that it can be confusing to editors just in general, and glasses can be cumbersome, right?

Yeah, no, for sure. That's the whole reason I went to contacts. I never thought I could wear contacts because I can't stand messing with my eyes, but I kind of force myself. And it's been a game changer, especially if I'm doing anything on camera. Well, I took your suggestion. I went to the eye doctor and she said, okay, well, what prompted you? And I said, well, number one, my co-host, but really the big deal was little Bailey, my dog, got a hold of my glasses and

And I have never, I know that you've investigated some gruesome crime scenes, but this was awful. I mean, I don't even know what she did to these glasses, but they're unrecognizable. And so I said, I think I'm going to go to contacts now. Wow. So the glasses were not salvageable, I take it. Oh, no, not at all. I mean, the eye doctor said this is, they're Dunsky. You can't do anything with these glasses. Yeah.

I guess I could hold them up. I could do like a mono lens or something, but she really did a job on them. I saw her chewing on them. Part of me, I was so mad at myself for leaving them on the table where she could get them and then, of course, mad at her. But she looked so happy just gnawing on them. And I thought, well, okay. Yeah.

You know, I'm fortunate. You know, Cora, she knows not to chew on anything. She, in essence, knows, recognizes she's getting permission. That's something she can chew on. Don't brag, Paul, that you have a trained dog. She's a very good dog.

We have dogs that they are not well-trained. They are semi-well-trained. But Bailey, really, sometimes when she sees a num-num like my glasses, she can't control herself. So anyway, I'm going to contacts. I'm wearing my old glasses right now, which has not been a very pleasant experience. I'm waiting for...

I'm getting progressive lenses, which the eye doctor said, you know, get ready because they can feel a little bit different. And I have not bad as of an eye phobia thing as you do, but I'm pretty scared of doing it. So I'm going to be doing an hour training session here. So you'll see me with no glasses here soon, but I'm still a little petrified. But, you know, it's a necessity at this point.

Well, if I can do it, you can do it. And I'm so proud of you for taking the leap. Thank you. I guess you can thank little Bailey for that one. It wasn't me. It was Bailey, right? I mean, listen, this dog has more toys. It's like having a baby, you know, where you put toys everywhere. So wherever they can reach him, this dog has more toys than I know what to do with. And yet what she wants is the things that smell like us. And so she

is a big fan of stealing socks and skirts and everything possible. And so the glasses just drew the line for me. So we'll see how that goes. All right. The next time you see me, I hope to have contacts in. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see. Okay. I'm going to hold you to that. Well, we're going to go to Washington, D.C., which I don't think we've been to Washington, D.C. on this show yet. Right.

But frankly, our locations start to run together after a while. I tell my students that sometimes you all start. I just see one student when I see all my students after you've taught about a thousand of them. And our locations start to meld together for me after a while. But we're going to D.C., and I bet you've spent a pretty decent amount of time in D.C. based on your job. I've been to D.C. a fair amount through the course of my career. Yeah.

with conferences out there. In fact, when, what was it, from second, halfway through second grade through fourth grade,

I lived in Clinton, Maryland, about 10 miles south of D.C., and my dad was stationed downtown D.C. on the mall, on a building on the mall. So as a kid, I have fond memories of going to the Smithsonian Institutes and stuff. And then since I've retired, I've had to go to D.C. for media things. And, you know, I've been able—so I've gotten pretty familiar with, you know, the primary components of D.C. for sure.

Well, I think this is going to be a good case for you because it's in a time period that I think you're going to appreciate. 1978, one of our most recent cases, 78. I was living there during that time. Okay. So 1978. I doubt you've heard this case, but we'll see. So 78 in Washington, D.C., and it involves hair analysis and the FBI, which has been controversial, as you know. So there's all kinds of stuff for Paul Hall's

So hopefully you can give me some insight here, and hopefully I have enough information for you to go off of to give us some good information back. Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing it. Okay. Let's set the scene. So I don't say this often, Paul, but we're just going to jump right into this murder. No killer background right now. No real victim background. I just want to drop you into the scene and see what you think. It is 3 a.m., and it's July 26, 1978. Okay.

And there is a woman named Belva McCormick, and she's waiting on her husband. He is a cab driver. She is a nervous wife, as I think a lot of people would be, major city in 78. What do you remember about Washington as far as crime goes? This is Washington, D.C., proper crime.

Well, you know, when I was living there, I really wasn't aware of crime. Where I lived was Clinton, Maryland. So, of course, as a kid, 1978, I'm 10 years old. I don't remember a lot about the crime rate. I know that there were some rougher parts of the city than other cities. And, of course, it's a huge tourist destination. Mm-hmm.

Now that I'm older, I'm more aware of the crime aspects within D.C. itself. Yeah, and I don't have a lot of information about how much crime was happening in D.C. I do think that certainly cab drivers, as they would be now, have to be cautious about

especially if they're getting off work about 3 a.m. We've done a couple of stories on cab drivers who were targeted by would-be passengers. You know, it just seems like it can be a very vulnerable profession. And I imagine that that's been the case. Have you investigated some attacks on cab drivers in your past, or have you read any of those stories? Well, most notably is the Zodiac. So you have a cab hit his very last stop,

known crime. There's a lot of speculation that he's committed others, but the last formal crime that the Zodiac committed was Paul Stein, who was a cab driver. And it appeared that the Zodiac was a passenger sitting in the backseat of the cab. And then when he was about to be dropped off out Presidio San Francisco, reaches over and shoots the cab driver in the head, and then goes outside the vehicle, goes into the driver's door. And then that's when he's now

you know, shuffling through Paul Stein's belongings and tearing a shirt, et cetera. You know, so you can see where the cab drivers are very vulnerable because their back is to these passengers. They have no idea what the passengers are thinking. And over time, of course, when you get into cabs, you now see partitions to prevent that type of crime from occurring or at least make it harder to commit that kind of crime.

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Well, let me tell you what happens at 3 a.m. in 1978 for Belva McCormick is a wife's nightmare. She hears her husband outside. His name's John, the cab driver. He sounds like he's begging for his life outside their home. So it sounds like he's made it all the way home from his shift.

and he was just going to walk inside and turn in for the night. She starts rushing to the window when she hears his voice, and she hears a gunshot, one shot. She looks out the window, and she sees a man with a stocking over his head running away. She

She cannot identify him. She can't say if this is a man who is black or white, how tall he is really. She just knows that she notes there's a stocking over his head. Belva calls the police, but the man is long gone at this point. John, who's 63, dies from a single gunshot wound, and he was on the front porch of the couple's home.

And, you know, I'll tell you a little bit sort of about the investigation and what they uncover. And, of course, I have information about the gun. But, you know, just at first blush here, to me, this seemed like a robbery, which is what it could turn out to be. But it just feels pretty brazen to shoot someone at three in the morning, you know.

on a street, you know, right in front of their home. And we don't know the circumstances so far. No, but I can discern some aspects about this shooting because she's not seeing a vehicle. You know, so on one hand, you know, was John followed home by the offender? That would necessitate the offender to have been in a vehicle. And it doesn't sound like the vehicle was in sight, right?

when Belva's looking out the window and she doesn't hear a vehicle drive off. So I start thinking about, is this a lie and wait scenario where the offender knows John's schedule and is laying in wait, has the gun, has the mask, and when John pulls up at 3 a.m., the offender pounces. That is significant. Now it's, okay, what is John's routine like

with the money that he collects, because this is 1978, so I'm imagining there's a fair amount of cash transactions

Versus like today, it's all credit card stuff. Does John come home with any cash? Is that missing at this point to suggest, yeah, the primary motive is robbery? Or is there something else going on? Is John being executed due to the offender having some personal vendetta against him? So as I hear more information, I'll start trying to

kind of refine my theories on this case. So my notes so far don't say anything about money being taken. It doesn't mean, you know, that was not the intention, right? It just means that something happened and the robber, if he is a robber, wasn't able to get to the money in time. And we've got John screaming on the street, crying and begging for his life. Maybe, you know, he shot him out of panic and then took off before he was able to get to the money. I guess that's possible. Yeah.

I would say that's one possibility. You could also have an offender who happens to see this cab driver coming home every night, maybe the offender lives in the neighborhood and going, "Well, maybe John's got a bunch of money on him."

not knowing for sure, but decides to go ahead and attempt a robbery. And who knows? You know, at this point, we just don't know if any money was taken. Well, the police are alarmed, of course, just because this is a man, a white man, we'll clarify, John, who is now dead, 3:00 in the morning. They are now making a connection to something that I think will indicate to us that this was meant to be a robbery.

He is not the first middle-aged man to be gunned down in this area at this time. About two weeks earlier, July 13th, there's a different man named William Horn, 52 years old. He worked at a local florist shop, and he was robbed and shot to death in the same neighborhood. So he had been walking from his parking spot going towards his apartment building after he was out for the night, and he was shot at 2:30 in the morning, and his money was taken, whatever he had on him.

So, you know, they had not solved that case, but the police are saying same neighborhood, same type of person, same kind of time in the middle of the night, robbery, but no witnesses in that case. So does it seem fair for the police to say these are probably connected when they're two weeks apart, same neighborhood? Yeah.

Well, I think they have to at least acknowledge that possibility. But, you know, this type of crime, depending on the type of neighborhood, whatever city you're in, you know, it's something that is frequently committed by offenders and they're unrelated to each other. The crimes are unrelated. So you have to consider both possibilities at this point, unless they have something that really stands out that is unique enough to say, yes, it's the same offender committing these two crimes.

Okay, let's talk a little bit more about evidence that they have that connects them. And I don't know if you're going to think this is enough or not, but they have done an autopsy on both William Horn, who was the man who was murdered two weeks earlier, and John McCormick, and they were both shot one time.

with a .32 caliber revolver. And I think you're probably going to say this is a very common gun. Is that right? Actually, no. Oh, okay. That is an uncommon caliber to be used in crimes, at least during my era, which is, you know, from the 1990s on. So this is what they say. The medical examiners retrieved the slugs from both of the victims' bodies.

So based on the slugs, they determined the weapon was a .32 caliber revolver for both. We have firearms examiners doing analysis, and they become convinced that the murder weapon was used to kill both men. So my question is, how would they have done that in 1978 versus how would they have done that today?

now. We've talked about Oscar Heinrich in the '20s shooting into paraffin wax. Would this have been a time when they would use water in the 1970s and shoot into water, or what would they do? At this point in time, they have the bullets recovered from both cases. They don't have the gun itself. And so to do test firing of the gun, that is where you shoot into the water in order to preserve the bullets that you can compare to the evidence.

Here, what they're doing is they're taking a look at these two bullets from two different crimes, and they put them on a comparison microscope. And they're looking at, well, are the class characteristics the same? The caliber, the type of ammo sometimes is significant, but most importantly, what are the lands and grooves of the inside of the barrel of the revolver?

And if the lands and grooves are the same in terms of the measurements, the number of lands and grooves, class characteristics are matching. Now they start taking a look at the individualing stria. It's almost like a barcode that the firearms examiners can overlay in this comparison microscope. And if the stria is significantly the same between these two bullets, we're

then they can form an opinion that these two bullets from two different crimes were fired by the same gun. That's no different than what firearms examiners are doing today. We have more sophisticated types of microscopes in order to document what is being seen. There's also more objective criteria involved.

That has as a result of, as we've talked about before, the NAS studies and everything else in terms of what they now call consecutive matching STRIA and have some math to support their opinions. But in 1978, provided you have a competent firearms examiner,

if that examiner has formed the opinion that these two bullets were fired from the same gun, then I would say that's likely the case. And now the question is, is it the same offender or is the gun being passed around?

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In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists

turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out. You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world

and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

We have one more piece of evidence that's really interesting and becomes, I think, the main focus of this case. There's a police dog that has located a stocking that John McCormick's wife, Belva, says is the stocking from what she could see. And it is about a block away. And so police are saying this must be the stocking. The guy must have stripped it off his face as he was running away. And it appears to have strands of hair stuck on it.

So they are collecting it as evidence and they sent it to the FBI. This is how the FBI got involved with this case. So if you're a defense attorney and we catch someone, can they say, you can't prove this is his stalking? What would they be able to do in 78 with this hair, essentially?

Well, they would be doing a hair examination with the recovered hairs out of the stocking and they have a suspect and they would collect hair reference standards, head hair reference standards, which are pulled hairs from the various areas of the scalp and

A hair examiner would examine the hairs. And again, it's anytime you're dealing with comparative evidence, it's taking a look at the class characteristics. Can you eliminate the evidence from the suspect's reference standard? You know, let's say you have blonde evidence hairs and you have very, very dark hair.

reference standard hairs, then you have an elimination. If you can't eliminate from a class characteristic standpoint, now you're taking a look at the finer details within the hair. And back in the day, the types of training that the FBI was given to hair examiners across the country

If there were certain features that matched up, then hair examiners would form an opinion that the evidence hair likely came from the suspect whose reference standard they were looking at. And we know today that there is some problems with that science. And this case is one of those examples, one of the first examples that was the catalyst of people looking at the FBI and saying there's some real problems with the procedure used for examining hair. This is a big case for them.

So, let's get back into 1978. We are now going to talk about informants. And I have said snitches, and I know that we're not snitches. Snitch by snitch basis is what I say. But we're going to say informants here. Or what I think is even more creative, this woman is described as a, quote, friend of the police. I don't know who that is.

Is that a phrase? Is that a real thing? I've never heard that particular phrase when it comes to talking about somebody who's an informant. Well, Bobbi Jean Phillips is a friend of the police. She's a local woman, and she goes to the police a few days after the last murder, which would have been John McCormick. And she says that she knows

believes she can connect two people that she knows to the murders of both these men. So now we're talking about two young Black men. The victims are both white. The first man is a 17-year-old named Sante Tribble, and the other is a 20-year-old man named Cleveland Wright.

And Bobby says, listen, this is what I know. I know that these two guys had sold her, Bobby's roommate, a .32 caliber handgun for $60. And the gun had belonged to Cleveland, and Sante had helped facilitate the sale.

And, you know, when they talked to these two guys, they both said, yeah, that's exactly what happened. We sold a gun for $60 that happened to be a .32 caliber gun to Bobby Jean Phillips's roommate. And I think one of the issues that police started looking at was the proximity of things. And they found out that Sante's mother, who

whom he lived with was within blocks of these murder scenes. So they're saying these two young men who sold a .32 caliber gun shortly before these murders, they say had this gun, and one of them lives very close to the murder scenes. They start looking closely at these guys. Well, you know, this mother's house, you know, this is what is called an anchor point from a geographic profile standpoint.

So, Sante definitely has a connection to the neighborhood where these two homicides have occurred. And at least based on the circumstances, as you've told them, it sounds like the offender is on foot. Now, there may be a vehicle parked several blocks away, but right now...

The idea that somebody like Sante could commit these crimes and then rapidly get to a safe house, his mother's house, within that very neighborhood, sure, that makes sense. But there's many other people who have the same types of circumstances. So this is just one circumstance that would cause the investigators to go, okay, that's a box checked.

but you need so much more. You know, my question is, okay, does Bobby turn over this .32 caliber revolver, and is it compared to the evidence bullets? Nope. Bobby Jean hands over a shell casing from the revolver, but she says, this is a great 1970s quote, she says that the gun, quote, got legs and vanished. I'm going to use that quote somewhere, someday, somewhere, got legs and vanished. I love that phrase.

So the gun is gone. She hands over a shell. Let's put aside the fact that Bobbie Jean now seems like maybe not a reliable person. Is this shell from this gun going to be at all helpful if you've got one slug each from the two victims?

You know, based on the circumstances, the revolver is used in both homicides, and you haven't mentioned that expended cartridge cases. You know, we always, you know, vernacular sort of is shells, but we always say, you know, within the firearms realm, this is a cartridge case. It's expended.

Revolvers hold on to those cartridge cases, unlike semi-automatic pistols that eject the cartridge cases at the shooting scene. So unless something happens where the offender either purposefully or accidentally dumps the expended cartridge cases out of the revolver,

They don't have any evidence to directly compare the cartridge case that Bobby hands over to any evidence from the scene. The one thing they possibly could do is if there was enough information from the bullets recovered, are these bullets consistent with having come out of this type of cartridge case? Is it the same ammunition? Sometimes you can tell that, sometimes you can't.

It's almost as important that Bobby is saying, hey, .32 caliber revolver was sold. And unless that was published in the press and everybody knows that a .32 caliber revolver was used, that would be what I would consider to be holdback information. You don't announce that to the public for this very reason. That at least lends some greater weight to

that maybe this is the murder weapon, but you can't conclude that at this point in time. If I'm working on this case, I would be asking, was this gun test fired anywhere? Like the brothers are trying to figure out, does the gun work? Are they shooting into a tree stump somewhere? If that's the case, then I'd be digging those bullets out of that tree stump and having those compared to

to the evidence from the homicides to see if the firearms examiners can affect a match or not. Okay, so this is probably going to sound either silly or naive coming from my part here, but can you not take any bullet that would fit into this .32 caliber gun, fire it, and see if the striations markings are the same coming out of the barrel of that gun on the test bullet, any random bullet?

versus the two slugs that they found, that wouldn't work? Well, if you had the gun, that's exactly what you would be doing is you'd be test firing the gun and then recovering those bullets. And you always want to use the same ammo that was used in the murder. So you don't have any variables introduced. In this case, they don't have the gun.

So they can't do a test fire, you know, and that's where you have to go if you know for sure that the gun has been fired at a certain location. And it's, you know, it's not like at a shooting range where there's going to be tens of thousands of expended bullets. If you have a very discreet location where this purported .32 caliber revolver that the brothers purchased that Bobby's talking about is,

That's where you can go and dig those bullets, recover those bullets, and do a comparison. And if it matches, then yeah, you're on to something for sure. That gives great weight to what Bobby is saying happened, that this is the murder weapon.

I'm assuming they didn't do anything like that. No. And investigators said there was no way to tie any slug or shell casing to a specific gun, let alone this revolver that, you know, this man had essentially given to Bobby Jean's roommate. The best they could do was connect it to this shell, I suppose, to any .32 caliber revolver made by multiple gun manufacturers and

And according to the trial transcripts, this shell belonged to maybe a gun made by half of all of the revolvers that were produced. So they couldn't even narrow it down to one manufacturer is what they say. Yeah, you know, and that's unfortunate. And that happens frequently where you take the class characteristics, the general rifling characteristics off of the bullet.

the various marks that the gun itself leaves on the cartridge case, and then you can utilize those class characteristics and hope to get a very narrow list of make and model a gun, you know? And if it's a narrow enough list, then you can do such things as give me all the registered owners of this type of gun that live in this area. Oh, and one of these guns was stolen.

before the first homicide. You know, that's a clue. And then you start marching down that. But in this circumstance, the class characteristics off the bullet and this cartridge case is giving too broad of a range of make and models. And so they're really at an investigative dead end along the firearms evidence at this point in time.

I think Bobbie Jean senses that the police would like more information. So she says that on two different occasions in July of 1978, so, you know, within weeks of the first and the second murder, she says that Sante came to her and said that he had seen Cleveland kill another man with a gun. And this was something that I guess was surprising to her, but she was hanging on to that information

So as a quote-unquote friend of the police, she is saying to them, listen, Sante was not involved in any of these shootings, I believe, but Cleveland is the bad guy here. She is certainly tying Sante to Cleveland and then claiming that Cleveland killed a guy with a firearm who was probably not the two men who we're talking about right now. I don't know how reliable Bobby Jean is at this point. And they're denying it, of course.

Sure, but now you have two suspects that Bobby has given you, and it's a matter of trying to work out. Was either Sante and or Cleveland or both involved in either one of these homicides? In this day and age, you know, there's some...

aspects about this evidence. Of course, we have the missing murder weapon. So we have firearms evidence that's a little bit vague in terms of tying anything to Sante and Cleveland outside is that it appears that they purchased a 32 caliber revolver. Then you have this stocking cap. And, you know, in this day and age, that's a great source of DNA.

But back in 1978, what they're really going to be going after is that hair evidence. The problem with the stocking cap is, is can you conclusively tie it to being on the shooter at the time of the homicide of John?

You know, because it is a block away. We know offenders, after they commit robberies, frequently toss away items, clothing, stocking caps, et cetera, on their escape path. So that makes sense, but it's still removed from the actual crime scene. So you have to build in at least some level of skepticism.

You know, it could be from the offender, but it may not be. But you have to pursue it. It is evidence for sure. Well, we have another tipster who comes forward who I'm not quite sure about. He's 17, local kid. His name is Ronald Willis. He was friends with both Sante and Cleveland. He tells the police that he knows Cleveland was involved in the first man's death, William Horne's death.

But just like Bobby Jean, he says Sante had nothing to do with it. He said, "I don't know anything about the second guy, the cab driver, but I know Sante is innocent in all of this. Cleveland is the one who is guilty." And so now we've got this second informant. His information right now is pretty vague. It's enough for police to say we need to search their houses. So they look at Cleveland's house, they look at Sante's mother's house.

and they find .32 caliber bullets in a closet in Sante's mother's house. They cannot link these bullets found in the closet to the shell casing that Bobby gave them or to the slugs that were found in William Horn or John McCormick's bodies. Does that seem right to you? Would we be able to do that now, link any of these? Well, first, maybe to clarify, you said they found some bullets there.

It sounds like you mean that they found live ammo, live rounds. Yes. Unfired. Okay. So now what they are trying to do is they're trying to say, you know, the evidence bullets in this evidence cartridge case, does this match the ammo that's found in there? And it doesn't.

Right. So does it mean, you know, that you can't eliminate these suspects as a result, but you don't have anything to be able to at this point say, oh, there's some physical evidence that's overlapping with the actual evidence from the.

So that still is too nebulous. One of the things I'm wondering is I want to know the veracity of the information that Ronald has. Does he know Bobby? Is he getting this information because of rumors on the street? Or does he have any firsthand information? And that's why he's coming forward. If he's just listening to what

But, you know, the other kids on the street are saying, then it's not good info because everybody is like passing bad info and saying, well, heard Cleveland's involved. So now that becomes the rumor mill out there on the street. And what I sense so far is that both Ronald and Bobby are saying that they have heard different confessions. Bobby Jean says that Sante had said Cleveland killed this guy and

He didn't say whether it was William Horne, the first man, or what. But she says, Sante says Cleveland killed this guy. Ronald says Cleveland confessed to him to killing William Horne. Later on, he'll say he believed Sante was the lookout killer.

in these murders. But the stories are going to keep changing based on whether they're in court or talking to the police, both of these people who are informants. And so that's one of the issues that is, I think, a big problem here. And also, Ronald has a big dog in the fight here because he's facing murder charges for robbery and violating probation, and he wants a lighter sentence.

Sure.

Sure. And now this is where, you know, of course, the investigators are dealing, they've got two, it sounds like, independent witnesses coming forward that are focusing attention onto Sante and Cleveland as being involved in one or both of the homicides. Now it's, well, okay, how do we substantiate that? And this is where I believe with the information they've got, they can get a warrant in order to search Sante and Cleveland.

Cleveland's residences, which would include Sante's mother's residence, and maybe he has other places he stays as well as Cleveland. And this is where it comes down to, okay, what would be the types of evidence that

that these offenders could be taken away from the crime scene. What was the distance of the shooting? You know, if this is a close shooting where now you have close range shot to each victim's head, the offender possibly could have the victim's blood or brain matter back spatter onto their hand, onto long sleeves. They could have shattered hair that could come back onto their clothing. They have at least one witness, Belva,

who sees the offender and how the offender is dressed. So now it's looking for those articles of clothing. And then of course, is there anything that maybe some property that was stolen from one or both victims that you can tie back to the victims that are present within Sante or Cleveland's area of control? So that's where now it's okay, they have to figure this out. They have suspects, they have to now get more to be confident they have the right suspects.

They have very little more with the cases of both of these men. So no clothing found, discovered with any blood on it. They have the stocking and the hair samples have been sent off to the FBI. They're waiting to get the results. There is no property. If there were cash, you know, somebody had killed William Horne, that cash is probably long gone, but no watches or anything found. And

Sante says, I am innocent of this. He said, I was at home. I can prove it because my brother, my girlfriend, and someone else were all at my mom's house, and we were there all night long.

And eventually a defense attorney will say, this kid didn't do anything. He has no criminal history except for two $10 fines for playing dice in public. He'll take a lie detector test if you want him to. But how much does that inform you, both the alibi and the fact that this is not a drug dealer, at least one that hasn't been caught? This is not somebody who's out there roaming the streets.

He doesn't have that kind of history. And he's 17. So what does the alibi plus his criminal history, such as it is, tell you about this crime? Is this somebody who could be lined up to do this kind of crime? You know, first, let's talk about his alibi. Right now, his alibi, at least with the people that you identified, are family members. And we know family members are going to protect their loved ones. You said someone else. And so I was like, well, who is that someone else?

Is this somebody that would protect Sante or is this somebody that would be putting themselves in jeopardy if they were to lie to protect Sante? And then as far as Sante's criminal history and age, I will tell you, you know, when we start talking about the shootings that I was going out to in the '90s, and they're typically gang-related, we're talking 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds, 17-year-olds that are frequently the shooters in those types of cases.

I imagine it's probably very similar back in 1978 in DC. So that doesn't weigh in, factor in at all. His age doesn't. And his criminal history, you know, law enforcement would probably, if he was an active criminal in a high crime area, probably is very well aware of who Sante is and what he's capable of. But if he looks like he's not somebody, then that's definitely a factor, but it doesn't eliminate him. You know, you just go, okay,

So this is where you have to start digging into corroborating or refuting Sante's statements. I think you mentioned Cleveland was uncooperative, or they both were uncooperative at one point. Are they given statements? Is there any way you can play one against the other? So it all just depends on the state of the investigation and the knowledge of the facts at the time on how to proceed to try to tease this out.

Yeah, and I think Cleveland and Sante, their only helpfulness was saying, "We don't know anything about this. The only thing we did was sell this guy a gun. I don't know what happened to the gun after that." Of course, the police can't even prove that that gun was connected to these murders in any way. So I think I just might have answered my own question: Do you think that the DA has enough

to go ahead and issue murder indictments as of now with what you have heard, and let's assume no follow-up on doing what you're saying here, just based on everything that you know. What do you think? No. As of right now, this is...

This is where there's what I would say there's churn. So there's something going on here, but is it because they were involved with the case or do you have a set of coincidences? And I know there's some investigators out there that will make the statement, I don't believe in coincidences. Well, no, coincidences do occur, and that's part of the scary aspects when you build a circumstantial case.

is we as humans just don't have the capacity to truly understand and compute. Is this really a coincidence?

versus is there actual circumstantial evidence that has weight that will incriminate the suspect? So at this point, I would say Sante and more notably Cleveland appear to be at least suspects. But the way that investigations proceed, especially in these whodunit type homicides, is oftentimes you generate multiple suspects and turns out they had nothing to do with the crime.

They just had something that caused them to be suspicious and you're looking to try to identify the actual offender. You do that by investigating these various suspects until you get to a point to where you can build up sufficient probable cause where you're confident that you can now make an arrest and present that to the DA's office. At this point, I don't think they have PC. The stocking cap, you can't even associate with the crime. It may be related, but it may not be related.

They don't have the murder weapon. They don't have anything physical evidence-wise to connect either Sante or Cleveland to the crime. They have a couple of witnesses that have come forward. So now it sounds like, okay, we got hair evidence that goes to the FBI. So I'm assuming you're going to drop the bomb on me about what the FBI is going to conclude about the hair evidence. Yes, sir. That's what's happening next. I'm getting to know you a little bit. How's that?

Let me just tell you, the DA says, Paul Holes, go kick rocks, because this is, everything you said is wrong. And they went forward, and these two men were charged in the murders of both John McCormick and William Horn. But I will tell you, these cases split up.

And one will be kind of pointed towards William Horne and the other one towards John McCormick. And the hair plays a big part in that. Now, let me ask you, Cleveland goes first. OK, so his trial starts first. Does it matter or why does it matter, rather, which one of these guys goes on trial first when we're talking about

multiple people involved in a case? Is it because things will come to light in the first case that can be used in the second case? Absolutely. You know, this is where, of course, Sante's attorneys are going to be paying great attention, you know, to the witness statements, whether the defendant testifies, the types of evidence that law enforcement is presenting or that the people is presenting against Cleveland during that trial.

And this is where you oftentimes will start to see defense strategies develop as they learn more and more about how the prosecution strategy is being employed against the first defendant. This is where maybe statements do change. Maybe new witnesses are found that contradict the

statements that were previously made by others. So it is, sometimes you'll see that this could create for the defense when they have two defendants and the trials are separate,

Now, there's a race as to which one is going to get to trial first, if they think that's going to benefit their defendant. So, we have Cleveland going on trial first. And Ronald Willis, who's the 17-year-old witness, sits on the witness stand. This is part of his plea deal. He gets a lighter sentence for robbery and for violating probation if he testifies in both of these trials.

So he's at Cleveland's trial first, and he says, Cleveland told me that he killed the first guy, William Horn. And that is basically all the evidence against Cleveland regarding William Horn, except for the .32 caliber bullet, which cannot be matched to any gun because the gun has got legs and walked away, as Bobby Jean said. So he is on trial, and CWB

And seems clear that there is no evidence with Cleveland directly tying him to John McCormick, the second man, the cab driver. But you do have Ronald Willis said Cleveland confessed to me that he shot the first guy, William Horne.

So what do you think about that? Because I will tell you, Paul, that is really the only evidence they have. Well, but this is where it's also evaluating Ronald and his agenda. There are DAs that will utilize this type of witness that has this sketchy background.

But I've also seen DAs go, no way in hell am I putting that person on the stand, even if it's really helping my case. Because that ends up being something that could undermine the people's case when the jurors go, hold on, is this the best that the people can put on against the defendant? Is some guy that is trying to get off of a stiffer sentence?

You know, so it would be something that if they had other witnesses and physical evidence and everything else. And yeah, he's sort of like the cherry on top of the case. Throw him up there. But if he is the source of the main evidence that is being used against Cleveland, I've got my doubts, you know. It's like, is he telling the truth or not? Well, the prosecutor...

finally gets to the hair samples. And he's using it in Cleveland's trial. And remember, we've got Bobby Jean and we've got Ronald, who are the sketchy informants. And they both say, we don't believe Sante was involved directly. We think he was involved, but we think Cleveland's the one who's done the shooting in both of these cases. So Cleveland's on trial for both of these cases.

So we have an FBI expert who sits on the stand in Cleveland's trial, and he says that he has samples of Cleveland's hair, he has samples of Sante's hair, and that the hair in the stocking found a block away from the cab driver's murder matched Sante's.

Sante's hair. And here's the quote, Paul, "In all microscopic characteristics." So tell me about that and how reliable that is in 1978 when this is all happening.

Hair examination, as I mentioned before, you know, this is done underneath the microscope. And in essence, you have the light underneath the scope that is allowing the hair examiner, you know, basically it's sort of like the light will pass through the shaft of the hair and under the microscope, this is where now you can see the distribution of these various characteristics in a hair that you can't see with the naked eye.

ovoid bodies, the distribution of melanin, certain other features that are within that hair. And so it was thought that all this combination of these various microscopic features, if taken all together, a hair examiner would be able to form an opinion about

Well, first, it's you always try to eliminate. Well, I can't eliminate. The reference hair standard from, in this case, Sante, can't be eliminated from the evidence hair from the stocking cap based on the microscopic characteristics. Some hair examiners would even take it even further and say this evidence hair came from Sante. And we now know because as DNA technology progressed and it got sensitive enough to do DNA testing off of hairs,

that these hair examiners were often wrong. So this is where I start speaking. What this expert testified to, I will say because of my knowledge today, I put zero weight on that. And this is where, okay, now you go after DNA, but you're dealing with trace evidence. You're dealing with hair.

You're dealing with a stocking cap. I know that oftentimes these stocking caps or baseball caps or whatever are often shared between people. So let's say DNA comes back and shows that the stocking cap has Sante's hair in it or his saliva around the mouth hole or DNA around where the nose would have been or where DNA. Well, okay, that's really good evidence that

But does that mean he's the shooter? Could you have somebody else wear that cap and yet not leave their traces because they wore the cap once versus Sante? This was the cap that he's worn many times. You know, it gets cold in D.C. Maybe it's his winter stocking cap. And then somebody uses that cap to disguise themselves to commit the shooting. But Sante is going to be the predominant donor of the hair and the DNA in that stocking cap.

And this is where I get to, well, the stocking cap is found a block away. You can't tie it to the actual core crime scene. It's something to pay attention to, but to rely solely on it in order to incriminate a defendant, it's not enough in my mind.

Well, the D.A. thought it was more than enough because he had this FBI expert sitting on the stand saying this cap was what Sante wore. And that means because we have Belva McCormick pointing at the stocking cap and saying that was it and it was found a block away. It's one big connection for the D.A. The issue is, is that that does not connect anything.

Even in 1978, that does not connect Cleveland to John McCormick's murder. You've got Ronald and you've got Bobby Jean saying now both of these guys are mixed up in both of these murders. But when it goes to the jury, they convict Cleveland not on John McCormick.

because it's not his stocking cap, and there's only one guy that Belva witnesses doing this. But he is convicted on the first man's murder, William Horne. And it's totally based on those two people saying, Bobby Jean said something,

Sante told me that Cleveland killed a guy. And then Ronald said, Cleveland confessed to William Horn to me. And that is it. He is given 20 years to life in prison just based on that information. And we haven't even gotten to Sante's trial yet. Yeah, no, I think it's

It's very, very weak. I'm not absolving Cleveland's potential role in either of these homicides, but I think it's too weak to, as far as I'm concerned, to even have affected an arrest, let alone

to gain a conviction. And I do want to point out, I think when you said, told me about Belva's initial statements regarding the description of the shooter, well, she couldn't really see much. So how can she say that is the stocking cap that the shooter had on his head?

All things considered here, we go into this trial, January of 1980, and the prosecutor is able to use Ronald Willis and Bobby Jean Phillips once again. Except one of the issues is that both of these people in this time period in between Cleveland's trial and the beginning of Sante's trial have evolved with their statements to give Sante a lot more weight in both of these murders.

So they're kind of updating their stories. Ronald had initially said that Sante did not get involved with William Horne's death. Now he says, well, wait a second. I actually think he was an accomplice. I think that Sante was Cleveland's lookout during that murder, the first murder.

And then Bobbi Jean says that she really believes strongly that Sante was connected to John McCormick's murder. And of course, this is after the FBI's hair analysis data comes out that is, quote unquote, conclusively linking Sante.

this stocking cap to Sante. So all of this feels so weak. Really, the only sort of upstanding citizen witness here, Belva McCormick, had almost no view because he was running away by the time she got to the window. So it was a flash of a shot and that was it. And now we've got Sante going on trial.

Yeah. You know, and when you start talking about the results of the hair examination and Bobby kind of changing her statements and maybe Ronald changing his statements, you know, I imagine that there's some press happening on Cleveland's conviction and what is being presented at trial. This seems like there's maybe some attention, some public attention to this case. Is that fair to say? Oh, yeah. Lots, lots, lots of scrutiny. Yep. Okay. Yeah.

So, during closing arguments, because this trial went very similarly to Cleveland's trial, where they're really conclusively tying the hair to Sante to the stocking, what the prosecutor said was that Sante's hair matched the strands found in the stocking, quote, perfectly. The prosecutor told the courtroom that there is, listen to this, one chance that

Perhaps for all we know, in 10 million, that it could be someone else's hair. Bold statement. Well, that's BS. Yeah. Part of like the FBI's expert witness, you know, he's not necessarily testifying in a way that is negligent because it was the understanding of the science as it was at the time.

However, to put a figure on there of one in 10 million, there's just no way. Even back then, I mean, there was just no type of calculation to put on these various microscopic features of a hair to come up with some sort of weight like that. There is most certainly bad science.

information being presented at trial in this case? Well, at this point in this trial, just to reiterate, we've got Sante who's on trial for murder, and also they put armed robbery on there, even though I don't think they ever recovered money that was taken from John McCormick conclusively by Sante.

He is ultimately, by a jury, acquitted for the murder of William Horne, the one that Cleveland was convicted of. But he is convicted of murdering McCormick.

And Sante is sentenced to 20 years to life, just like Cleveland was. There are appeals, as you can imagine, but they are both incarcerated for decades and decades and decades. So we are going to fast forward to something that I think is very interesting. In April of 2003, Sante had been in prison for 25 years, and he is released on parole.

Cleveland was released four years later on parole. Sante lives his life for six years, and in 2009, he kind of starts to take control.

He comes across an article in The Washington Post about a guy named Donald Gates. I had read about him. Do you know anything about Donald Gates? Have you heard that name? He's out of D.C., convicted of murder. No, not just off the name. Okay. So The Washington Post did an article in 2009, and it was centered on the FBI hair match analysis issues.

And that the analysis in Donald Gates's case had crumbled after there was mitochondrial DNA run on the hair in his case. And it showed that the hair collected from that crime scene didn't belong to Donald Gates at all. So it sounds like he was exonerated. And Sante reaches out to Donald Gates's attorney and says, I need help.

I think that they did something wonky with the hair in my case. That was not my stocking. I don't know what they're talking about. And so this attorney sends off the hair in Sante's case for mitochondrial DNA testing. And also Cleveland Wright submits his DNA for comparison.

In 2012, so this is three years later, the results come in and the DNA has excluded both Sante and Cleveland as sources of those samples. So the hairs did not belong to either one of them.

There's dog hair mixed up in there that apparently the FBI did not identify in 1978, I presume from the police dog that had found this stocking. Or it's a pet of the owner of the stocking cap. I mean, maybe, yeah. But the bottom line is the hairs do not match either of these guys.

when we're talking about mitochondrial DNA. Is this reliable, this type of DNA testing for what we're talking about? In order to exclude both Cleveland and Santea sources of the hair, yes. Mitochondrial DNA is DNA that's found in the mitochondria cells, and it just happens to be passed down through the generations on the maternal side of the family.

So you have the same mitochondrial DNA as your mother, as your grandmother, etc. So mitochondrial DNA is a very, very sensitive technology. So we would resort to using mitochondrial DNA because it's not like the typical nuclear DNA that we go after that can really pinpoint who the donor of that DNA sample is.

Mitochondrial DNA just basically brings it down into a family. But if your mitochondrial DNA sample doesn't match the evidence, you are absolutely excluded. You know, part of this though is, you know, I still have concerns about the stocking cap and its relationship to the crime scene. Right.

In some ways, it's like, well, it doesn't necessarily absolve Cleveland or Sante as being the shooters if that stocking cap was worn by somebody who just was walking in the neighborhood the night before. But from a legal standpoint, this was primary evidence used to convict them back in 1978, 79 timeframe. So absolutely, it should overturn their sentence, even though they've already served their time. And it is, from my perspective, a bona fide argument.

exoneration from the conviction, but I'm still like, well, are they involved in the homicides or not? You know, but there's no evidence at this point to be able to finger them for either homicide. Except two sketchy witnesses who both seem to want something from the police.

So let me tell you, I didn't give you any of the details. So there were 13 hairs from that stocking and the hairs came conclusively, not from Sante, not from Cleveland, from three other human sources, except for one of the hairs, which came from a dog.

Which, as you said, could have been, you know, anybody's dog or the police dog who sniffed out this stalking to begin with. Sure. And it says that the FBI trained examiners either disputed this, you know, ignored the information, didn't know how to get the information or missed it one way or the other.

Would you not have been able to identify with a microscope the difference between a human hair and a dog hair? That's easy. Why would they do that? I guess they just assumed that this was from the police dog, maybe? That's hard to say. Sometimes we recover trace evidence that is packaged away for future analysis.

but focus in on the evidence that's going to help the investigation or help with the case in chief. And we know in this case that you have a shooter who's human. So the focus is going to be on the human hairs and

And, you know, doing doggy DNA, which is possible, but on a case like this, if this is a, let's say, a family pet from 1978, that pet is gone. It's very unlikely that the owner of the pet kept a DNA sample. You know, sometimes it does happen, you know, for sure. But is it really anything that's going to be worth the time and effort to pursue that

I'd be pursuing in this day and age, not only identifying who the sources of that hair is, is there other DNA off of that stocking cap?

Because now that you have, in essence, I'm assuming that Sante and Cleveland, their convictions are overturned as a result of this new evidence. Okay. Now the case is remanded back to the investigating agency as an unsolved homicide in both instances. Now it's, okay, who is the killer? This is just like it's a cold case in which nobody was ever convicted on. And the stocking cap, as concerned as I am about is it related or not,

is something that you can do to identify whose DNA is on that stocking cap. And now you've developed another suspect pool to investigate, to see, can you figure out who the actual shooter or shooters are in each of these homicides?

You know, I remember an interesting case from a show a long time ago where it was the Dallas, Texas, D.A. who was, you know, running all of the DNA tests. And I feel like there was a meeting between somebody who had been convicted of sexual assault, murder and a defense attorney. And they met.

And they ran the DNA test on the sex assault kit, and it came back that he was not a match. And he said, "Great. Now I get to be released." And she said, "No, because what this says is that you didn't sexually assault her. It does not say you did not murder her." And they had believed that two people had been involved.

So when you were talking about, well, this doesn't, I mean, these two guys could still be involved legally, though, no. But it doesn't mean that we can point to someone and say, this person definitely did it. Sante and Cleveland didn't do it. It just means they shouldn't have been convicted at all or even looked at, really. Right. And like in the case with the sexual assault, you know, it really does come down to, okay, what was actually presented in court that led to the conviction? Right.

And that's where the evaluation of the DNA evidence, does it truly exonerate based on what the jury or the judge used to convict?

And it can be something where you might have somebody who is convicted, truly innocent, but the DNA doesn't stand alone and is insufficient to exonerate because there is so much other evidence presented against that particular defendant. It's very nuanced, but it's also concerning from my perspective because oftentimes decisions are made on exonerations based off of DNA evidence. And I'm going, hold on a second.

Do you have the right person understanding how that DNA matters within the context of how the crime occurs? And most cases never have an expert that really can put together sort of a reconstruction of the crime to be able to determine sort of the confidence level that the DNA present is truly from the killer versus from potentially another innocent source. Right.

Well, just to conclude this case, in 2012, the charges against Sante were dismissed. The judge gave him a certificate of innocence. He had the compensation under the District of Columbia Unjust Imprisonment Act, which was $50,000 a year for every year he was wrongfully imprisoned. This was a little over $13 million.

And the daughter of John McCormick, the cab driver, said, "I am all for this." She said, "This is not the guy. He shouldn't have been in prison, and this seems like the right thing to do." Two years later, the judge, a judge vacates Cleveland rights conviction also. He was also given a certificate of innocence. We don't know if he got money. We assume he did, $50,000 for 28 years wrongfully imprisoned. And just in 2020,

Four years ago, Sante died from an illness that his son believes was linked to his time in prison. So he had been out for about 17 years until he died. And then we don't know where Cleveland Wright is at this point. But as you said, the murders of William Horn and John McCormick from 1978 are unsolved, officially unsolved cases.

And this becomes a big case, along with other cases, that squarely focuses on the faulty and overstated hair match analysis by the FBI. And it becomes a big story. I remember receiving – I was the chief over Forensic Services Division at the time, so it must have been circa 2010 –

maybe later, but remember receiving the letter from the FBI that had been sent out to all labs across the nation because over the decades, we had all sent scientists back to the FBI to be trained in their hair examination methodologies. They were alerting us that, yes, there is a problem with the science as well as there's a problem with the procedures that were taught by the FBI.

And we had known, we had abandoned doing hair examinations quite early because the DNA was really showing why even bother with a hair examination? Just determine, is it human? If you can determine race, you know, that's maybe an investigative lead, but let's get this pumping through into DNA and see if we can recover DNA and then use that in order to compare to potential suspects.

It always interests me when we have cases from the 1700s and 1800s where we look at the evidence and kind of say, "This is rock solid." Even for today, there's solid witnesses, there's forensics that they can actually use, there's a host of things they can trace people, they can trace money, all of this stuff. And then we're in 1978, which to me is like yesterday, when the cases that we do. And, you know, moving forward through our cases,

it's great to analyze what people have done in the past. And I love that I learned from you what we do presently. And it feels like it changes every day. I mean, I feel like we're going to talk about a DNA case pretty soon and you're going to say, okay, this just came out, this brand new technique. And let me tell you all about it. Well, and technology is marching forward. And, you know, I've

been fortunate to have been able to employ some of the newest technology on cases and have seen it work to great effect, you know, to get families answers, but also to see exonerations. You know, it cuts both ways. And, you know, in some ways you're correcting wrongs with the new technology, but you can never give those wrongfully convicted individuals their lives back, the years that they lost being behind bars.

Well, another amazing case, and we'll have an equally amazing, if not more amazing, case next week. So I think you'll still see me in glasses, but we can always cross our fingers. I'm going to go stalk my eye doctor right now to try to get these stinking contacts because I'm tired of squinting at you. Well, you know what? I look forward to being able to see your eyes instead of the reflection of the light in your glasses. How's that? You've never told me that. Now I have something else to worry about.

Oh, there's so many things I haven't told you, Kate. None of us can wait to hear all of this. Okay. Well, I will see you next week. Sounds good. Take care. This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashan, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Talladay. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel. Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at BuriedBonesPod.

Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.