01x06 - She Had No Name

[bunniefuu]

[engine revving]

[Gary] I dig all the graves
at Riverside Cemetery

in Blue Earth.

I've been digging graves
since 1966.

[crow cawing]

And I still is.

[tense music playing]

I buried Jane Doe's body
back in 1980,

a few days after they found her.

That was the first time
I have ever buried anybody

that did not have a name.

[tension continues]

It made me sad because I knew
there was somebody out there

looking for her and wondering
what happened to her.

She had been buried
for 34 years

when they asked
if I'd dig her back up.

[string music playing]

Putting people in the ground
is one thing,

but diggin' them back up

is a lot different.

That's the thing
about the dead.

When you start
pulling them back up...

[eerie music playing]

...you never know
what you're gonna find.

[ominous music begins]

[theme music playing]

[engine sputtering]

[wolf howling]

[blowing]

[eerie string music continue]

[sirens wailing]

[camera shutting]

[woman screams]

[Jerry] It all started out
about 45 years ago.

It was a bright, sunny day.

I had just started
the day shift at 9 o'clock

that morning.

[siren wailing]

[Jerry]
And Sheriff Fletcher just said,

"A farmer,
Gilbert Shewe, called,"

and we'd gotten
about five inches of rain

two days before that.

And a farmer found something
floating in a drainage ditch

east of town.

[crow caws]

[Roger]
Usually that drainage ditch is
pretty empty,

but at that time,

it was probably seven
or eight feet deep,

and it was clogged up
with old corn st*lks

from the previous fall.

[Jerry] I don't think anybody
was really too worried

about what we were gonna find.

We had no missing persons
from our county

or anything like that, so...

[distorted voice through radio]

[Jerry]
Well, when I got there,

I was the first one
on the scene.

Walked down the grassy area.

And all of a sudden,
I saw the body.

You just kind
of catch your breath

and realize it is a body.

The victim was floating
on his back

amongst all the corn st*lks.

It was starting to decompose,
and he was kind of swollen.

I couldn't tell right away
if he was a man or a woman,

even though he was nude.

-[eerie music playing]
-[water dripping]

[Jerry]
Once we got out of the water,

then you could tell
it was female.

And there was a gray-colored
cord around the victim's neck.

The cord around her neck
indicated

ligature strangulation.

[Roger]
She looked like a younger lady,

probably anywhere
from 20 to 30 years old.

We noticed that she had
no hair except for a small tuft

in the back.

[Jerry] The one thing that was
interesting was there was

no fingernails at all
on either hand.

The reason for no fingernails
was that they had been

ripped off.

I mean, that's t*rture.

All you can think of is,
"What is this poor woman

going through?"

I just imagine she just
probably died of fright, too,

you know?

After the body was taken away,

I walked along
the drainage ditch,

seeing if I could find
any type of clothing

or anything of interest.

The rain washed
away everything.

A good tire track in dirt would
just be completely washed away.

As you can imagine,
anytime a m*rder occurs

in a small town,
word spreads like wildfire.

It was all over the newspapers.
It was on the radio.

It's not every day you get
a m*rder in a small town

like this, especially one
where it seems like it wasn't

just the elements
that erased the scene.

It looked like it was
a deliberate attempt

to clean up after a crime.
-[indistinct radio chatter]

This was a case where somebody
knew what they were doing.

And whoever did do this,
they're still out there.

[string, uneasy music play]

[Roger] We started calling her
Jane Doe

because she was unknown.

We had no idea who she was.

We took X-rays of her teeth
and hoped to find

the dental match somewhere.

But the only hope we really had
of any type of identification

was one fingerprint,
which indicated we had nothing.

Once you find out
a person's name,

then you can go back

where they've been,
you know, who they were with,

what they were doing.

It's something
you have to have.

[Robb] Blue Earth got
its name from the Dakota phrase,

which means "the river where
the blue earth is gathered."

[Gary] Somebody was digging
down about 16 feet,

you'll hit blue earth,
kind of like a blue clay.

And that's how they named it
Blue Earth.

They even used
to give away little bottles

at the gas stations
for souvenirs

with Blue Earth in it,
a keychain deal.

This area was sacred
to the Dakota people.

[Native-American chanting]

[Robb]
They would use the blue earth

as body paint to ward off
evil spirits.

[creepy music playing]

In a small town
like Blue Earth,

murders like this don't happen.

[Jerry]
It's a friendly town.

Everybody seems
to know everybody.

It's just a nice place to live.

I was born in Blue Earth,
and I'll be there all my life,

and I won't be leaving
no place.

News travels fast
in a small town.

I heard it.

Some of my good friends
pulled Jane Doe

out of the dredge ditch.

In 1980,
when they discovered the body,

Blue Earth had a population
of just 4,500.

It was a very safe community.

People left
their doors unlocked.

The film "Friday the 13th"
had just come out

a few weeks prior,
and everyone around town

was talking about it.

[Jerry] Some dates have
a certain weight about 'em.

Friday the 13th figures
bad luck

and everything like that.

[Robb] And I remember seeing
that movie.

It was a great movie.
Everyone loves

a good horror movie.

But now there was somebody
out there doing

real-life horrible things.

We'd check around the area
for women in the age-group

of 20 to 30
in the Blue Earth area.

And we couldn't find out
anybody like that.

Nobody had any
missing person reports.

We knew they were all
accounted for,

so we were sure it wasn't
somebody that was local.

[Roger] We started looking
for any missing


anywhere.
In the United States.

We also had dental records
to try to match Jane Doe.

We got several hundred leads
and still came up empty.

[crickets chirping]

[Scott] I can remember watching
the news that night

with my family.

I can remember feeling
afraid and scared.

We were within a five,

We didn't know
who the k*ller was.

It just put fear
in everybody's mind.

Nobody knew if the k*ller was
still here,

lurking around town,
looking for who could be next.

About two weeks later,
there were two teenage boys,

age 13 and 14,
walking along the river

under the I-90 bridge
near Blue Earth.

You know how it
is when you're that age,

you wanna try
and scare each other

by going by a creepy bridge
and doing something dangerous.

That's what these kids
were probably doing.

But they got more
than they bargained for.

[tension in music increases]

[unsettling music playing]

[siren wailing]

[Jerry]
This Jane Doe case.

This was a case
that our department

just couldn't let go of.

We had no name,

no k*ller's name.

It was just a big mystery.

It was gonna be
next-to-impossible for us

to solve.

[crickets
and nocturne bird chirping]

[Jerry]
And that's when we found out,

that a couple of kids
in July of 1980

found some clothing
under a bridge

in the Blue Earth area.

What they found
tucked underneath

a piece of Styrofoam...

was a golden white-striped
sweater with bloodstains on it.

And right next to it,
someone's ID card.

The ID was a Texas issue ID

for a woman with brown hair
and brown eyes.

And they don't understand
what they found,

but they know
it shouldn't be here.

And that's when detectives
get a call

from one of the boy's fathers.

[Jerry]
It was a big deal.

Well, being it
was an identification,

you know, all of a sudden
you have a name

and an apparent address
and birth date to go by.

So you can do some checking
on that to see if anything

pans out on it.

Maybe it could be connected
to our Jane Doe case.

Maybe we could find out
who she is.

Unfortunately, the lab
determined that the blood

on the garment was animal blood.

And the ID was fake.

So these items were
not helpful.

That, to me,
was very disappointing.

[subtle, ominous ticking]

[Robb] But it did give
detectives a new theory

on potentially
who this person could be.

[Jerry] Figured, possibly
this person was a hitchhiker

on the interstate,

and somebody had abducted her.

-[eerie string music playing]
-[ticking continues]

[distorted voice over the radio]

[Jerry] Just a couple of weeks
after the body was discovered

[sudden string chord]

The state trooper came in

into the sheriff's office
there to use the copy machine.

He says, "Well, how are you guys
coming on the Jane Doe case?"

And I kind of threw
my hands up and says,

"We can't identify her,
we have no real crime scene,

the only evidence we have is
the body itself."

And I says,
"We're kind of stuck."

And he laughs and says,
"Well, I'll make it

easy for ya."

"I did it."

And I says, "Not funny, Bob."

And he says,

"Just messing with you."

[laughing]

Then, he walked away
into the other room

to use the copy machine
and he was laughing.

[laughing continues]

[Jerry] A lot of cops
have a morbid sense of humor,

you know.

But I'm sure
there was a lot of curiosity.

Everybody felt pressure
from the public

because we couldn't
identify her.

And it's caused
a lot of concern

from the law enforcement aspect.

[school bell ringing]

[Roger]
At the time, in 1980,

my kids
were still in high school.

Just, uh, it affects you
as a parent

to see somebody's young daughter
is missing somewhere,

just hiking down the road.

[Robb] This is a scary time
for Blue Earth.

Lot of back roads,
lot of country roads.

One of the things that happens
in a small town

[brakes whirring]

when you don't have a suspect,
you don't know who did it

in a case like this is
parents get nervous.

They get scared,
you don't know what steps

you have to take
to keep your family safe.

It was like everybody was
waiting for something

to happen.

But the truth is,
it already had.

[Jerry]
We started looking outside

of our immediate county
to surrounding areas,

to see if there's
any type of crime

which could possibly be
connected to ours in some way.

[distorted noise through radio]

[dispatcher]
Backup requested.

[Jerry]
And we found something.

-[crickets chirping]
-[unsettling music playing]

[Robb]
Joann Bontjes was last seen
leaving the American Legion bar

on October 3rd, 1975,
at about 12.30 AM.

She was supposed to be
going home,

where she lived
with her parents.

But she never made it.

[horn honking repeatedly]

[honking continues]

[driver screaming]

[Robb]
Investigators scoured the area,

found her car

two miles outside of Fremont.

Inside her vehicle,

the keys
were still in the ignition.

Her purse was in the car.

And the most chilling detail
were the tire tracks.

It looked like somebody
had pulled her over.

And then
they couldn't find her,

and all sorts of people
were out searching for her

here in Martin County.

And then all of a sudden,
everybody went to eat, and --

we got a farmer that
finds the body, right?

Where a bunch
of the other people had

just checked the area.

That seems strange.

Being the fact
that the two victims are

approximately the same age

and they're both
dumped in a ditch,

it seemed kind of coincidental.

We had our case,

and Martin County
had their case.

We're wondering,

"Is there
a serial k*ller out there,

or is it just
coincidences, or what?"

[Robb] And you realize
this was something far worse

than they ever imagined.

Not just one m*rder,
but a pattern.

Three years later,
four years later,

we were still no closer

to finding
the k*ller of Jane Doe.

But then early 1983,
we heard about a serial k*ller

that was talking
about murdering

several hundred people,

one at a time
picking up hitchhikers

and strangling them.

The notorious serial k*ller
Henry Lee Lucas confessed

to k*lling a hitchhiker
on Interstate 90,

the same road...

where Jane Doe was picked up.

We thought, "This is our guy."

Everything seemed to match.

He was a trucker
and picking up hitchhikers

all over the United States.

So we were very hopeful.

Henry Lee Lucas earned
the nickname

"The Confession k*ller"
because he confessed

to k*lling 600 people.

He would always tell
his victims,

"Hop in, where are you headed?"

but they never would get
where they were going.

[Roger] At that time,
he was incarcerated,

and nobody had talked
to him yet.

My investigator was
the first one to interview him.

[recorder button clicking]

[Roger]
He talked about he k*lled
a lady in Minnesota.

But he said that
he's sure that he didn't k*ll

the one in Blue Earth.

It was not ours.

He was admitting to several
other murders,

and so he basically
had nothing to lose

by admitting to ours but...

he definitely denied
k*lling Jane Doe.

It turns out he was very good
about researching cases

and knowing all the publicly
available information

about the cases,

but when police
questioned him about things

that were not
publicly available,

his story fell apart.

He was only ever convicted
of k*lling three people,

his mother, his wife,
and an elderly woman

that he lived with.

[Lucas]
It's like being a movie star.

You're just playing the part.

Make out that you're the worst
serial k*ller in the history

of the United States.

And that's what I did.

Lucas was somebody who wanted
the world to believe

he was more dangerous
than he really was.

[Roger]
It was disappointing.

You don't have your k*ller,
and the case goes on.

[Robb]
In a small town like Blue Earth,

everybody's worried.

Until the k*ller is captured,
nothing's the same anymore

until there's a resolution.

And in this case, it took
a long time for that to happen.

Let's find out
who may have done it.

[siren wailing]

[Scott] But as of February 1988,
eight years have passed

since Jane Doe was discovered.

And then detectives got a call
from the Smith County

Sheriff's Office in Texas

[phone ringing]

[Roger]
In February, 1988.

I got this phone call,
and it said,

"This is J.J. Smith
down in Smith County, Texas,

"and I've got a fellow here
that I got in jail right now,

"and he's confessing
sexually molesting his kids,

"and he's talking
about the possibility

that he thinks he also k*lled
someone in your district."

So he said,
"I think you maybe better come

down here and talk to him."

We recognized the name,

realized it was somebody
that was from in our area

and that would be
familiar with the case.

[Jerry] This was a guy
that we all worked with.

You know, he had access
to the front office

where we kept the copy machine,
where he would use

the photocopier for some
of his reports and that.

Turns out he was
the guy that asked me

how we were coming on the case,

and he kind of laughed.

He said, "Well, I can make
it easy for ya.

I did it."

It was just like somebody
hits you with a ton of bricks.

Son of a b*tch!
That [bleep] told me

he did this!

Do you know?

[Robb]
His name was Robert Nelson,

a Minnesota State Patrol
officer from 1970 to 1985.

[Scott] He was stationed
in this district,

which included the city
of Blue Earth

when Jane Doe was discovered.

[Roger]
He had a bad temper.

A trigger temper

[car door shuts closed]

[Robb]
Nelson, from what I have heard,

was not a well-liked police
officer in this community.

At one point, he quit his job
as a police officer

and moved to Texas.

[Roger]
Pastor Bernier from the church
that Robert Nelson

belonged to in Texas had come in
with Robert Nelson

and wanted to talk
to the sheriff.

Nelson had been
molesting his children.

Nelson also started talking
about the k*lling in Minnesota.

When I walked into the room,
we just exchanged greetings

like we'd known each other
for 20 years,

which we had.

It felt unbelievable.

Somebody that we'd know
and somebody

that we'd work with,

just unbelievable.

He was one of our own,
you know.

You just don't expect it.

[Roger]
He was a little bit nervous.

One thing we did notice,
he was a very fussy individual,

very neat in appearance,
and he was wearing

his prison jumpsuit,

and he kept picking
little pieces of lint off

of his jumpsuit,
just a nervous chick.

Our first question was
about the Bontjes m*rder.

She's well known over there,
family's well known

in Martin County,
and they want blood.

There were just
so many similarities

between the two that we
considered Bob Nelson to be

a person of interest,
a very strong interest.

We knew that Robert Nelson
carried an old shotgun

in his car at all times.

We knew that she'd been k*lled
with an old shotgun

because of the paper wadding
that was embedded in her.

[Jerry]
From talking with the deputies,
I'd heard that this gal

wasn't the type to pull over
for just anybody on the roadway.

People felt like it was a police
officer that pulled over.

[Roger]
But he said, "No, I did not
have anything to do with that.

And I'll tell you, I don't wanna
talk about that m*rder."

We went through
several interviews with him,

and eventually brought him
back to Minnesota,

interviewed him again
on the Jane Doe m*rder case.

[recorder button clicks]

Started to feel
like you're talking to the devil

in your own mind, and wondering
what in the hell happened.

[unsettling music playing]

[Roger] When we first started
talking to Robert Nelson,

our first question was
about our m*rder,

Jane Doe in 1980.

He knew that what he had done
was wrong,

and he knew that it was him
that did it,

but it wasn't the real him.

Well, he talked about,
like, two people.

"There's me, the good guy,
and me, the bad guy."

It's like a reflection
in the mirror, back and forth,

like a split personality.

[Roger]
He readily admitted it.

He admitted
that he had k*lled the person

that we had been calling
Jane Doe.

[Robb] Nelson approached
the young woman

and asked her
where she was going,

and she said
she was going nowhere,

and he asked her,
"You want a ride?"

[woman screaming]

-[screaming]
-[ripping]

[screaming continues]

[Jerry]
When he told them about pulling

the fingernails out of her,

that wasn't released
to the public.

Nobody knew about that
other than Roger and Jerry.

We had a k*ller
that's with us all the time,

interacting with us.

Here he was hiding
in plain sight.

We just didn't know it.

[Scott] Based
on Robert Nelson's confession,

he was ultimately
found guilty

of and pled guilty
to sexual as*ault

and first-degree manslaughter.

Robert Nelson was sentenced
to 86 months in prison.

He will serve that time
in a Texas facility

concurrently with his Texas
life sentence.

[Jerry]
And we always thought

that if we could find out
who k*lled her,

that person would know
who it was.

But it wasn't the case.

We were no closer
to knowing who she was

than when we'd started.

It was still Jane Doe.

There was no name.

[Roger] We had gotten
several thousand leads,

some of them looked good
and some of them were

immediately thrown out.

After many years,
we could narrow it

down to nothing.

Just a nameless victim,

and a trail that has gone cold.

When I first heard
about the Jane Doe case,

I was at a bar --

-[country music playing]
-[indistinct chattering]

...with my husband
and a friend of ours who was

a Blue Earth City
police officer.

And I asked him if he had
any cold cases or things,

just kidding him, and...

this one time, finally, he went,

"OK, you want one?"

And he goes, "There's a woman
buried in a cemetery

that's never been identified."

And I said, "What?"

And he goes, "Yeah,
she's just buried under stone,

says unidentified woman
found May 30th, 1980."

So I immediately went
out there to see it.

[soft, somber music playing]

And it was there.
I couldn't let it go.

This woman deserved more
than just an unmarked grave.

She was a human being,
and I refused to believe

that they are throwaway.

So I started asking questions
and trying to find out

any information I could get,
and I requested and...

many, many times demanded
access to the records

that they had on this Jane Doe.

People just ignored me,

and some
of the official agencies,

they wouldn't deal with me
because I was a private citizen.

And then, finally, someone
that still worked there,

an old timer, that said,
"Oh, yeah, we do

have the records."

So we set up a time,
and I went to the courthouse.

It Was kind of after hours.

He took me down
into the basement, and he said,

"I got some stuff to take care
of for a little while.

When I come back, you're done."

And under the stairs
was a crate.

[camera shutting]

I immediately just
started paging through it,

taking pictures of every page
I could as fast as I could.

And he came back
within 15, 20 minutes,

and I had gotten 99% of it.

The moment when I got access
to the file,

I was just beside myself

'cause I was able
to start seeing

what they had done,
what they hadn't done.

And the Sheriff's Department
had worked on that case hard.

They cared.
They did the best they could.

But there wasn't DNA.

There wasn't
databases, you know.

But they did try diligently
to give her her name back.

It just wasn't the resources
there are now.

It wasn't too long,
and I realized that getting her

exhumed was gonna be
the key to getting her name.

-[wind blowing]
-[crow cawing]

[mysterious music playing]

[Deb] And so I had to convince
the Sheriff's Department

to exhume the body.

You know, as a young child,
knowing about this case

from six years old,

this case was lingering always
in the back of my mind.

Every time I would drive by
or ride my bike by I-90,

I'd often think about,
who was this young lady?

How did she get there?

And then May of 2007,

when I became an investigator,

the Sheriff came to me
and said, "I'm gonna assign

the Jane Doe case to you."

So I was very excited,
I remember telling my parents,

and they were excited
for me too.

I had high hopes that I would
find a name for Jane Doe.

Deb and the previous
investigators had talked

about exhuming Jane Doe,

trying to get new DNA,
new leads.

Sheriff Gormley and I,
we made the decision

to exhume her body.

Generally,
you hear of Friday the 13th

as a possible spooky day.

You know,
it's like a full moon.

But yet,
on this Friday the 13th,

the past refused to stay buried.

[Deb] So on August 12th, 2014,
the exhumation was scheduled.

And it was a beautiful
sunny day, actually.

They had closed the cemetery,
but I had a personal invite

[chuckling]
from the Sheriff's Office.

It was kind of surreal.

It was really quiet.

But there were lots
of people there

with jackets on,
like from the Bureau

of Criminal Apprehension
and the Sheriff's Department.

And my friend Gary Sunken was
there with his equipment,

and they were digging the hole.

She had been buried
for 34 years, and...

we're just...

trying to get to the truth,
what happened to her

and who she was.

[mysterious string music
playing]

I didn't know what to expect.

I'd never been
in this situation before.

[crow cawing]

[tension in music increases]

They pulled the cover off,
and a lot of it was

just dirt and debris.

We could see that she was
in there, and you see

a perfect body,
but she was in the body bag.

[Scott] I've dealt with hundreds
of dead bodies in my career,

but I've never honestly dealt
with a body that was

this severely decomposed.

[Deb]
A lot of it looked like dirt,

ashes to ashes.

And I saw her skull,

and they lifted her out,
and then put her in a van

to take her to have the DNA
extracted and have an autopsy.

I didn't know what I was
gonna think or feel,

but, um --

[scoffs]
I don't know why I'm getting
choked up now either.

I did feel like she had
become my friend in some way,

like she gave me a purpose.

[siren wailing]

[indistinct chattering]

[Scott] In my in my mind,
this was, after this many years,

gonna be the final step.

If we do not get a match,
will we ever find a name

for Jane Doe?

[phone ringing]

-[voices on radio]
-[phone buzzing]

When I got the phone call,
Sheriff Gormley was

just walking by my office.
I yelled his name to come back.

The agent then said,
"We have a match to Jane Doe."

Both of us were
absolutely ecstatic.

[Deb] Not too long
after the exhumation took place,

a few months,

I check my messages
and I hear this woman's voice

and she says,
"This is Marla Busha

and I'm looking
for Debra Anderson."

[phone dialing beeping]

And I called the number back.

I said,
"Hi, this is Deb Anderson.

Can I help you?"

There was a voice
on the other end of the phone

that said, "Are you
the woman that's been

taking care of my sister
all these years?"

And she said they were sure
that the DNA had come back

and it was her sister.

Michelle.

[nostalgic piano music playing]

And this is Michelle Busha

She was from Bay City, Texas.

It was very surreal
to finally find out who she was.

I think, I was kind
of in some kind of shock

for the first day or two.

We're here today to announce
that a m*rder victim

has been identified.

Michelle Busha
was 18 years old

when she disappeared
from her family's home in Texas.

Her family had never
stopped looking for her.

Her father didn't
wanna change his phone number

or his address in case
she ever tried to come back.

Michelle was a beautiful
young woman

just at the beginning
of her life.

She was the middle child
in a family of five.

Michelle left home to travel
cross-country with her friends.

She was calling home
every two weeks and checking in,

and then the calls stopped,
and her family filed

a missing-person report
on May 9th, 1980.

This was the same day the film
Friday the 13th had come out.

[Deb] These horror movies seem
like fun and people are

fans of them and everything,
when they're at a movie theater

or whatever,
but this was real life.

This was a real human being,
somebody's child.

It's a sad ending,
because I'm sure that they

always maintained
a little bit of hope,

but at least now they know.

[Jerry]
We'd all been waiting for this.

And here it turns out,

it took to identify her.

[Robb] Michelle Busha wasn't
from here,

but I think
this community sort of...

calls her one of their own.

She's a part of the lore

of Blue Earth
and Faribault County,

and so is Deb Anderson.

Her name was the key
to her life, to her death,

to the man who took it
all away.

[Robb]
One of the things that was
unique about this situation is

the film Friday the 13th
had just come out --

-[echoed scream]
-...on May 9th, 1980.

Michelle's family reported
her missing on May 9th, 1980.

And on Friday the 13th,
the truth came to the surface.

And Michelle got her name back.

It was just kind
of mind-blowing.

Nelson wasn't just
a child ab*ser,

he was a serial predator.

And because he had a badge,
he had power over anybody

he would pull over,
including and especially women.

He wasn't protecting people,
he was hunting them.

It's supremely awful.

Not even just what he did
to Jane Doe,

but when you get
into the court documents,

you see what he's done
to other people,

including voyeurism,
exposing himself in public,

harassing people he would stop.

This is indeed a monster.