Up next,
even police have to admit
this k*ller has left
nothing to chance.
He is methodical and
playing head games
with law enforcement.
And he's determined
that his victim
never be identified.
It brought tears to my eyes
to see that someone had
been so tortured.
A photo is released
and soon the general public
is on the case.
So we ended up on Websleuths,
So we ended up on Websleuths,
a place where a lot of
armchair detectives,
a lot of internet sleuths,
a lot of true crime
enthusiasts go.
They were able to identify her.
So, now we know, who
this body belongs to.
It was just a sh*t in the
dark and it worked out.
On an April afternoon in 1998,
a couple driving in rural
south central Utah,
made a discovery that would
consume local law enforcement
for more than two decades.
It was a spring day,
where a husband and wife
were driving
along. They observe
something off the
side of the highway
that looked suspicious
to them, so they stopped
that looked suspicious
to them, so they stopped
to see what it was.
And that's when they
located the body.
The female victim
was wrapped in plastic,
tied with rope and duct tape,
rolled up in a child's playmat,
and stuffed into a sleeping bag.
The cause of death was a single,
execution-style
g*nsh*t to the head.
The victim was wearing
only a bra and panties
and had no identification.
The k*ller had made sure even
estimating a time of death
The k*ller had made sure even
estimating a time of death
would be impossible.
This body had been
in a deep freeze
prior to it being found.
And in April, the temperatures
would have been
In her state, you know,
being in a completely
horizontal,
flat, laid out position,
was apparently
after death was placed
in a freezer,
where the body could be frozen.
It was clear that
whoever k*lled this woman
wanted to make it
as hard as possible
to make an identification.
Law enforcement struggled
to identify the woman
Law enforcement struggled
to identify the woman
because her fingertips
had been cut off.
Someone, I don't know if they
had a rough blade or whatever,
but it was horrible.
All of this
post-mortem activity,
the wrapping of the body,
the removal of the fingertips,
would've taken a lot
of time, a lot of privacy,
and a lot of planning.
Whoever did this,
I'd say they pretty much knew
what they were doing.
They did not want to leave
any trace of this person.
And they made sure.
It was a very well
thought out plan, methodical,
the way that this was done.
I would argue it wasn't
a first time that they had
done something like this.
It wasn't done in a hurry.
The victim was about 5' tall,
dark haired, had brown eyes,
appeared to be around
and could possibly be of
Hispanic or
Native American descent.
And that's all investigators
had to tell them
And that's all investigators
had to tell them
who she was.
So, they turned to material
found with her body.
As far as evidence,
the duct tape on her face
was good evidence to use
to try and find out
who the perpetrator was
or who the suspect was.
Anything that was touching
her body was good evidence.
A sketch of the victim's face
was released to the media.
But no solid leads emerge.
The National
Crime Information Center
and FBI database
also yielded nothing.
And FBI database
also yielded nothing.
The duct tape wrapping
the body was tested,
but no prints or DNA were found.
The perpetrator
in this case had taken
some great care and precautions
in hiding his identity.
At this point,
the victim had no name,
but she acquired one
during the course
of the investigation.
This Jane Doe, since
she was found near
Maidenwater Spring,
she eventually became known as
she eventually became known as
the Maidenwater victim.
As the weeks, months,
and ultimately years wore on,
investigators worried that
would be the only name
they'd ever have
for this victim.
Exhausted the leads,
hit dead ends,
and there really became
nothing more to follow up on.
Hopeful that forensic technology
would catch up to their case,
all the evidence from the
Maidenwater m*rder
was put in storage.
In 2008, ten years
after the body was found,
the materials used
to wrap the body,
the duct tape, the
sleeping bag, the rope,
and the play mat,
were tested for DNA.
They went through the evidence.
They were looking for touch DNA
that would indicate a suspect.
That would indicate a suspect.
And through that effort,
they were unsuccessful
in obtaining anything other
than the victim's own DNA.
But the rope, or more accurately
the knots in the rope,
resulted in the
first solid lead.
This led to
serving life in
a Colorado prison,
for k*lling four people.
And he was suspected in
a number of other murders.
One of the reasons
law enforcement
One of the reasons
law enforcement
believed Scott Kimball to be
a person of interest
was because he had tied up
other victims
in the same manner.
The knots in both cases
were unusually elaborate,
and to the untrained eye,
looked identical.
The ropes from his victim
were collected from the
law enforcement in Colorado,
and we took our ropes and
our knots from
our Maidenwater victim
here in Utah
and we then referred
to a knot expert
and we then referred
to a knot expert
that the FBI had used to
analyze and compare the knots.
This expert
concluded that the knots
from Scott Kimball's case
and the knots used to bind
the Maidenwater victim,
while not perfectly identical,
could very possibly have been
tied by the same person.
And there were other reasons
Scott Kimball could be the man
detectives were looking for.
At the time in 1998,
Scott Kimball worked
for a... some type
of a meat company.
For a... some type
of a meat company.
And he would deliver frozen beef
in a refrigerated truck.
And he would deliver
frozen beef in Colorado and
Utah, some of just
the surrounding states.
Kimball clearly had the
means to freeze his victim.
There was already
a workup through FBI
on Scott Kimball at that time.
They had done a timeline.
They'd done association
charts and stuff like that.
Kinda like the analytical stuff
that needs to be done
as the case goes on.
That needs to be done
as the case goes on.
Some of Kimball's
victims were sh*t,
execution-style with
a small-caliber w*apon
and were dumped next
to rural roadways
after being wrapped
in rugs and tarps.
One suspected victim had both
hands severed after death.
There was another female
he had admitted to k*lling,
that the body was
apparently left and dumped
and dismembered
in, uh, eastern Utah.
So, in 2017, we got to a point
where we determined
So, in 2017, we got to a point
where we determined
that we should just
go and interview him
in person and see what he said.
But, if investigators
thought Kimball might be
willing to talk, they
were sadly mistaken.
He knocked down the idea
that the knots tied him
to the Maidenwater m*rder.
Investigators reminded
him that DNA technology
was getting more
sophisticated by the day.
Kimball was unfazed.
Investigators had to concede.
Scott Kimball was their
one and only suspect.
And they had no
evidence that tied him
or anyone else for that matter
to their victim,
or anyone else for that matter
to their victim,
who still had not
been identified.
The case kinda went cold
because we weren't really
getting a lot of information
from anybody, so it went cold.
In 2018, detectives on
the Maidenwater case,
despairing that without
an identification
for their victim, her case
would never be solved,
made an unusual decision.
We had a photograph
of our victim
where she was deceased.
It was her face only.
It was not graphic or gory.
And we felt like it was
something that
we could potentially
release to the public.
We felt like we've
exhausted every other
possible lead and
we had to do this.
Possible lead and
we had to do this.
These days, local news
takes on a whole new meaning.
A local story can go global,
or at least national,
in no time.
And the undeniable popularity
of true crime
means there are scores
of people whose hobby
is researching real-life cases.
Mandi Hart is one of them.
I found myself on a
website called Websleuths.
And then, I fell
into a rabbit hole
of investigation, if you will.
Of investigation, if you will.
Websleuths is a website for
people all over the world
to join together
and talk about crime.
Mandi became
particularly interested
in cold cases involving
unidentified victims.
I think I was really drawn to
that particular portion
of the website,
just because I was
really unaware of
how many people
are unidentified.
And that is where I ultimately
came across the case,
that was known at that time
as the Maidenwater victim.
Mandi did a
deep dive on this case,
Mandi did a
deep dive on this case,
collated all the information
she could find,
and logged on to an
organization called NamUs,
which was also used by
investigators in Utah
working the Maidenwater case.
The case was put into the
National Missing and
Unidentified site, NamUs.
I work with that site
all the time
because it's a national database
and it's for the public
and it's for law enforcement.
It's a great tool.
It's a great tool.
I found eight to ten matches,
and I just started going through
each missing person case
one at a time.
And I had a photo
of her deceased,
which is very rare
to actually have.
Mandi checked the face
of the Maidenwater victim
against photos of women
who had gone missing.
I could rule them out
based on the photo.
I had her photo up
on half of my screen
and I went through and
kinda said no, no, no.
Photo by photo really,
until I came to maybe the
fifth or sixth one, um,
until I came to maybe the
fifth or sixth one, um,
and the fifth or sixth one was
the missing person profile,
for Lina Reyes Geddes.
And there was a good
photo of her face and
immediately, I stopped
and kinda looked back and forth
and said, "Okay, I want to
read more about this one."
Thirty-seven-year-old
Lina Reyes Geddes
went missing after leaving
her Youngstown, Ohio home
in 1998.
In what could be
more than a coincidence,
the Maidenwater victim
was found in Utah
12 days after Lina disappeared.
I went looking at her
ethnicity, it was a match.
Her height, it was a match.
Her weight, it was a match.
And I'm kind of like, "Okay, um,
the location was the only
thing that was not a match."
But the breakthrough
came from something
smaller than a pea.
The physical description
of the Maidenwater victim,
the one Utah detectives
had uploaded to NamUs,
the one Utah detectives
had uploaded to NamUs,
indicated she had a small mole
on the top of her right ear.
And so did Lina Reyes Geddes.
And that was the time
that I literally,
my blood just like went cold,
that all the hair on the back
of my neck stood up,
and immediately, I was like 100%
knew that these two people
that I was looking at
were the same person.
True crime hobbyist Mandi Hart
had a longshot hunch she'd
identified a m*rder victim
from a 20-year-old cold case
out of Youngstown, Ohio.
Like, how do you even describe
like how I knew what I knew,
you know, without sounding
like a total weirdo.
To her surprise,
she found a very
receptive audience in a
Youngstown detective.
Detective Sweeney in Ohio,
he said 98-99%
sure that it was her.
And they needed
science to prove it.
Looking at the pictures,
Looking at the pictures,
I could see the mole on the ear,
and when I saw that I thought,
"Wow, we do have a, uh,
a match here."
But we needed to
confirm it with DNA.
Detectives did
a background check
on Lina Reyes Geddes and
used DNA from family members
to confirm her identity.
Lina was really essentially
the shining star of her family.
She was a ballet dancer.
She had a university degree.
She was successful,
she was smart.
Two years before
she went missing,
Two years before
she went missing,
Lina married Edward Geddes,
a successful Ohio businessman.
This was his third marriage.
Edward Geddes had his own
business within the
city of Youngstown.
And it was a commercial
soap chemical business.
There was a huge age
difference between the two.
Detectives now got
some shocking news.
Edward Geddes took
his own life in 2001.
Edward Geddes took
his own life in 2001.
But he had been
questioned back in 1998,
shortly after Lina disappeared.
Edward said Lina was
visiting family in Mexico,
and never returned.
He vividly recalled
the day she left.
This matched
undergarments from
the crime scene.
According to Edward,
there were no problems
in the marriage.
Lina's family said
she never made it to Mexico.
And ominously, Edward
never reported her missing.
To me, that's suspicious.
You think that there would be
some feelings or some,
you know, some idea that
maybe my wife is missing
that I need to call someone.
Lina said something
to a close friend
in an English language class
shortly before she went missing
that further raised
that further raised
the specter of Edward
as her k*ller.
Lina said that if something
happened to her,
she passed a note to her friend
so she would be able to
contact Lina's family members.
Edward was abusive,
he was controlling.
I believe Lina
wanted to leave him.
She was afraid of him,
and wanted to be away from him.
And I believe that he didn't
want that to happen.
He did not want
Lina to leave him.
And I believe
that is the motive.
And I believe
that is the motive.
He appeared to be
the only person with a motive.
But, even after all this time,
it seemed there was no way
to tie him to Lina's m*rder.
We've tested evidence
two and three times
with no success.
No DNA was ever found
other than Lina's.
But now, analysts
turn back to the rope
used to bind Lina.
Whoever tied her up,
and put her in that position,
had to have handled that rope
and made those knots.
So we knew we wanted to focus
So we knew we wanted to focus
on those knotted
areas and that rope.
What made the rope
so important as evidence
was a new forensic tool
called M-Vac.
With M-Vac, it was now
possible to lift DNA,
from all sorts of materials
that were previously
out of bounds,
including something
rough and porous like rope.
How the M-Vac works
is really fairly simple.
Let's look at the M-Vac
like a mini carpet cleaner.
Let's look at the M-Vac
like a mini carpet cleaner.
It sprays a very clean,
sterile solution
on the item of evidence.
And it gets that solution into
the tiny nooks and crannies,
the weave of something.
And then you suck it up,
the vacuum sucks it up
and it deposits it into
a small, sterile bottle.
And in that solution
would be the skin cells
that were deposited,
hopefully, by the perpetrator.
A male DNA profile
was lifted from the rope
and when tested against
DNA from known relatives
and when tested against
DNA from known relatives
of Edward Geddes,
the two-decade plus mystery
of who k*lled the Maidenwater
victim was finally solved.
Ultimately, even in death,
Edward Geddes couldn't hide.
Technology thwarted all
of his attempts to conceal
his role in his wife's m*rder.
Edward Geddes was the k*ller.
It turned out that Edward
Geddes was the one who
left the DNA on those
knots, on those ropes.
He is the one that
handled 'em, that tied it,
He is the one that
handled 'em, that tied it,
that cinched it. It was him.
No one is sure
exactly what happened
when Edward k*lled Lina.
What's not in dispute is that
he went to unusual lengths
to keep her and himself
from being identified.
But, he made two key mistakes...
he never knew that when
he handled the ropes,
he left his DNA behind.
And in a fitting irony,
when he froze Lina's body
in an attempt
when he froze Lina's body
in an attempt
to conceal her time of death,
all decomposition stopped,
which meant her face
was perfectly preserved
when she was later
photographed by police.
And that photo finally led
to her identification
and gave her family
some measure of justice,
despite the passage
of more than 20 years.
I do honestly believe
I was... drawn into this case,
divine intervention,
I don't know why.
Divine intervention,
I don't know why.
This isn't something that
I had done before,
or that I really
have done since.
I'm just thankful that
I was a part of it.
It wasn't
just forensic science
that was crucial to it,
it was everybody
working together.
It was like putting
a puzzle together.
And everybody added
a piece in this puzzle,
and helped bring the whole
picture and make it clear.
And we all helped each other,
and when we have that DNA,
that was it,
the puzzle was solved.
That was it,
the puzzle was solved.