Up next,
an independent-minded teenager
goes out on her own.
Lecia decided to be an adult
and act like an adult,
and she did.
But she wasn't an adult,
and that made her a target.
Lecia's m*rder was
heartbreaking and tragic.
It totally and completely
changed our lives.
There are a few clues,
no witnesses,
and lots of questions.
This case sticks with me.
You've got a young,
and then all of it taken away
because of someone's
selfish needs.
Family members say that
from the time she was a child,
Lecia Schollmeyer showed
a streak of independence
they could barely contain.
Lecia was the oldest child.
I had her at a very young age,
and as a result,
I treated her more like
a little sister,
I think, than a daughter
for a while.
Lecia was not
your typical teenager.
She was like a mini-mom,
and she was my everything.
I was secure in this world
with her.
In 1977, Lecia was 16
and determined
to strike out on her own.
She got her own apartment
in downtown Salt Lake City.
I was married at 16,
and I thought I was grown up
and I had a baby
by the time I was 17,
and I don't think she thought
of it as being extraordinary
that she would step out
and start living her own life.
I never doubted her ability
to do it.
She did call me
every Thursday night at 7:00
to reassure me that she was okay
and that, you know,
everything was fine.
But Lecia living by herself
was not without problems.
Someone
broke into her apartment.
She came home from work,
and there was the door
laying on the floor.
She didn't have
very many possessions,
you can imagine... just a cheap,
little TV and stereo.
But she had a jar
with some tips in it,
$50, and they had taken that.
This robbery scared
the normally-fearless Lecia.
She told my mom,
"I don't feel comfortable here.
I want to get out."
On a Saturday afternoon,
Lecia and her mother
looked for a new apartment.
But on Monday, Lecia didn't
show up for work,
which was highly unusual.
The employer for the restaurant
where she was working
were concerned
and called her mother.
So, she contacted
the apartment manager
and asked to be
let in to the apartment.
Lecia Schollmeyer was
brutally strangled to death.
She was placed in her bathtub,
face down,
with a gag in her mouth
and blindfold over her eyes.
I looked in the bathroom
and I saw her in the bathtub,
and then I knew she was dead.
I knew she was.
I didn't go in.
I just... I just told
the manager to go down
and call the police.
I just knew.
The last known contact
with Lecia was two days earlier.
The body had been there
for hours,
and much of the evidence
had either been washed away
or damaged by the water
in the tub.
The medical examiner
didn't find any evidence
of a sexual as*ault.
There was no biological
or seminal fluid that was found.
The closest thing to a witness
was the apartment manager,
and he wasn't much help.
He'd indicated that
he might have seen
somebody outside in the area,
but didn't give any information
to the police
that would have been helpful.
Detectives were
perplexed by the crime scene.
Drawers had been rifled.
A blanket had been draped out
of Lecia's bedroom
and was tied to the fire escape,
a possible escape route,
but there was no sign
of forced entry.
If Lecia's k*ller got in
by the front door,
he could have left the same way.
The scene was confusing.
The clothes were shredded.
The Kn*fe, the ropes,
the pantyhose,
all of that stuff...
it was a chaotic scene.
Lecia had no
significant defensive wounds.
A Kn*fe from a matching set that
came from inside the apartment
was found near the body.
In fact, all the implements
of this crime came from inside.
The suspect came unprepared.
He used everything in her
apartment once he got there.
Police soon concluded
nothing had been stolen.
The scene had been staged
to look like a robbery.
Even stranger, Lecia's stereo,
which had been stolen
just a month before her m*rder,
was back in her apartment,
something detectives
were unable to explain.
It was kind of up in the air
as to how that stereo
ultimately
ended up back in her bedroom.
It looked like someone
other than Lecia
apparently had free access
to her apartment.
The question was who?
The lack of forced entry
into
Lecia Schollmeyer's apartment
and her being blindfolded
led detectives
to an early conclusion.
It just suggests that she knew
exactly who her k*ller was,
and he knew that she knew him.
Lecia was outgoing and
had plenty of male friends,
both at work and at school.
As detectives prepare to contact
these young men,
they were stopped cold
by one in particular.
His name was Lonnie Passey.
He lived in the apartment
directly below Lecia's,
and he'd recently finished
a 6-year stint in jail
for his involvement
in a fatal bar fight.
Lonnie Passey was
a person that Lecia met at jail.
She went with a friend
of hers to the jail
because her friend's boyfriend
was in jail,
and they became pen pals,
and she would write to him.
And so, when Lonnie
got out of jail,
he moved into the same
apartment complex
that Lecia was living in.
And he expressed
a clear romantic interest
in Lecia.
He was a con.
He had been in jail,
and so, he came out thinking
that he was gonna
hook up with her,
and she was not interested.
She said, "I like your
car, but I don't like you,"
and that's kind of
how my sister was.
She didn't, like,
p*ssy-foot over
everybody's feelings, you know?
This hardly tied
Lonnie to Lecia's m*rder,
but something else
appeared to...
he had scratches
across his upper body.
He had indicated to police
that he had received
those scratch marks
a week or two before.
But that's not what
the medical examiner said.
She told police that
Lonnie's scratches
were just a few days old.
This would have been around
the time of Lecia's m*rder,
and Lonnie's alibi
for these scratches...
in fact, all of his alibis...
eventually collapse.
The night of the homicide,
Lonnie claims he was with his
girlfriend, Kathy, at the time.
So, that was his alibi.
Later, she states
she was not with Lonnie,
nor did she ever
give him those scratches.
And since Lecia knew Lonnie,
she would most likely have
let him into her apartment.
Even stranger
was the mystery stereo,
the one that had been stolen
and then suddenly reappeared
in Lecia's apartment
after her m*rder.
The stereo had previously
been seen
in Lonnie Passey's apartment,
and so, for it to end up
back in her apartment
raised a lot of suspicion
as to how that stereo got there.
Everything pointed to Lonnie.
The problem was that detectives
couldn't prove anything.
Even worse, DNA in crime science
didn't even exist.
This was 1977, a full 10 years
before the world's first
ever DNA conviction.
Lecia's r*pe kit came up
empty, even for blood type.
Back in the '70s,
there was no crime lab
that had any specialization
on sex as*ault kits
that could determine
if there was sperm present
or anything like that.
There was no hard evidence
against Lonnie or anyone else.
Years, and then decades slip by.
Lecia's case got colder
and colder.
So, all leads had gone,
and there was nothing else
that they could do,
and unfortunately the case,
like many others,
went to the bottom of a heap
of a pile of unsolved crimes.
It gets to the point
where you don't even tell people
what happened because it's
an open hole in your life.
But detectives and
Lecia's family
never fully gave up hope.
Her mother went over
every possibility
and kept in contact
with detectives.
A lot of people,
when I watch your show,
I hear them say
how they can't go on,
and you know, that's
the one thing you got to do.
You've got to go on, and I had
four children at home
that needed me to go on,
and I did it for them.
My mom was watching
"forensic files",
and she was watching
all these things,
and every time a case was solved
that was that many years old,
she was like, "Well, then
Lecia's could be solved."
I didn't know
she was doing that,
'cause I would have probably
told her to stop it, you know?
'Cause I didn't believe in it.
But as time passed,
they started to believe,
and forensic science ultimately
justified their faith.
At the dawn of the
was revolutionizing
how police investigated crimes.
Many cases that had gone
stone cold were reopened,
including Lecia Schollmeyer's.
When you have DNA, it's not
just the evidence from before.
Now, we can open up new doors,
take that very same evidence,
and find DNA out of a cloth
that was tied up for a gag
to be put in her mouth.
Detective Hilary Gordon
was one of the investigators
assigned to Lecia's case
when it was reopened in 2016.
I thought it was
a very solvable case,
and I just found it fascinating.
Every time I had a free moment,
I would work on this case
and read through
every transcript,
every interview, every detail.
As detective Gordon
re-examined the case file,
she noticed something
detectives back in the '70s
would not have focused on.
I noticed that the
photographs of the victim
in her bathtub
showed her face down,
and the knots from the blindfold
and the gag
were at the back of her head
and were not submerged in water.
Large amount of
skin cells would be sloughed off
while tying the knots
on those pieces of clothing,
a potentially rich source of DNA.
That is, if those items
were still in evidence,
and if they
hadn't been contaminated
by investigators
not familiar with DNA.
Did they use gloves to
move her out of the bath tub?
Who touched her
moving her from the scene
to the medical examiner's office
that could have left DNA?
And one photograph I was able
to collect
from the medical examiner's
office of the autopsy
showed them wearing gloves,
and I was so thrilled.
Amazingly,
nearly 40 years after the crime,
the gag and blindfold
from the scene
were still in evidence storage,
and in a key break,
the knots had not been untied.
When I pulled it out of the bag,
it was still tied in the exact
same way that it had been
when it was on her body.
The gag and the blindfold
were still completely intact.
In 2013, traditional
swabbing generated Lecia's DNA
and also some DNA
from an unidentified male.
They tried
conventional swabbing,
and we did find Y-STR DNA,
and Y-STR DNA focuses in
on the male chromosome,
the "Y" chromosome,
but it just wasn't enough
to develop a full STR profile.
And that full profile was needed
to provide
a conclusive identification.
So, with new forensic technology
coming online every year,
investigators waited for tech
to catch up to their case.
And in 2016, it looked like
it might have,
in the form of a new
forensic tool called M-Vac.
M-Vac gives investigators
opportunities to collect DNA
where they couldn't
get it before,
especially the rough and porous
surfaces like rocks and bricks,
even some clothing items,
where traditional methods
like swabbing
and scraping and cuttings
won't necessarily collect
the amount of DNA
that's needed to produce
a good profile.
M-Vac has been known
to gather 39 times more DNA
than traditional swabbing,
but would it work on a couple
flimsy pieces of cloth
that had been sitting
in storage for almost 40 years?
If so, the knots tied in those
pieces of cloth would be key.
We're gonna target those
because we feel
like those have been
manipulated the most,
knotting up and interacting
with the suspect's hands.
M-Vac essentially
bathes the test item
in a neutral solution.
This loosens up the DNA,
which is then vacuumed up
for analysis.
The solution is extracted,
leaving the DNA behind.
Next step is something
called amplification.
DNA amplification is the DNA
photocopier of forensics,
taking small amounts of DNA
and making it into
massive amounts of DNA.
The result,
in addition to Lecia's DNA,
was a full male profile,
almost certainly the k*ller's.
We come back and say,
"Ah, it worked. It worked."
Those kind of "wow" moments,
those light bulb
moments are amazing,
and they're so few and far
between that when they happen,
you just have to relish it
and you just have to...
you have to celebrate.
Now, investigators
turn to their top suspect.
Lonnie Passey had been on their
radar since Lecia's m*rder,
and they were convinced
this DNA profile
would tie him to the crime.
But DNA doesn't lie.
I was absolutely shocked,
but now, it makes so much sense.
In the four decades
since
Lecia Schollmeyer's m*rder,
detectives and her family kept
a close watch on Lonnie Passey,
the chief suspect.
In 2016, they were convinced
that a new DNA profile
would prove
Lonnie was Lecia's k*ller,
and were stunned to find
they were mistaken.
I was absolutely shocked
that it did not match
Lonnie Passey,
because we thought
he was absolutely the guy
for this homicide.
Lonnie had nothing
to do with it.
I don't know where Lonnie
got the scratches.
That's the million dollar
question, I suppose,
but Lonnie didn't have anything
to do with this homicide.
But investigators were
not back to square one.
They entered the M-Vac generated
genetic profile into CODIS,
the national DNA database,
and were stunned yet again.
And I couldn't believe it.
I was so excited,
I stood up in the office and
I started jumping up and down
and I was yelling, "Oh, my God.
We've solved this case.
We've solved this case."
The DNA profile
matched Patrick McCabe,
the apartment manager
who led Lecia's mom
to her body way back in 1977.
I was aghast that he actually
had the nerve
to walk into
that apartment with me,
knowing I was going to find
the woman he had k*lled,
and he stood right there
and actually called
the police for me.
I mean, what kind of sick person
is like that, you know?
I have no idea.
No idea.
How could you do that
to another human being?
How could you do that
to the mom...
that you would allow that
to happen to her...
to see her own daughter k*lled
in such a violent fashion?
It's cold.
McCabe, 20 years old
at the time of Lecia's m*rder,
knew she lived alone,
and he had the keys to all
the apartments in the complex.
Back in 1977,
police were so convinced
Lonnie Passey was the k*ller
that McCabe slipped away.
McCabe ultimately wound up
in Florida.
His DNA entered the database
because of another
sexually-motivated crime.
In 1998, he had sexually
assaulted a 14-year-old
and had been convicted
of that crime
and sent to prison
for a year for that crime.
after Lecia's m*rder,
McCabe was finally confronted
with the evidence.
He soon realized
science had caught up with him,
and confessed.
McCabe took a plea deal and was
sentenced to 10 years to life.
We could never give him
what he deserves.
We'd have to be... like him
to do it.
He got 40 years of freedom.
I... No. He didn't get
what he deserves.
Investigators believe
McCabe long planned
to r*pe Lecia.
On the night of the m*rder,
he used his key,
entered the apartment,
grabbed a Kn*fe
from the kitchen,
and att*cked her
while she slept.
She could do nothing
as he tied her up
and gagged her
before the as*ault.
Then, knowing she could
identify him,
he convinced himself he had
no choice but to k*ll her.
He strangled her and submerged
her in the tub,
hoping the evidence
would wash away,
which it did until the M-Vac
conclusively tied him to
a crime he'd gotten away with
for 40 long years.
Cops are only human,
and they're only given what
evidence they can find in that,
but a machine that can go
so much further
into the molecules and the...
it gives the police
so much weaponry to fight with.
In the process of
inventing the M-Vac,
my dad always had
the understanding
that the reason
that he was given the resources
to develop the M-Vac
was to make a difference.
It was so help somebody that
couldn't be helped otherwise.
The M-Vac was superb.
It did exactly
what we wanted it to do.
It gave Lecia justice.
It gave her family closure.
It put a very horrible person
in prison.
It ultimately just did
what all of us couldn't do
for 40 years.