Deadline for Justice

21:40Harold Dow:Ralph told us that he was at his apartment. Any witnesses? No. Were you able to verify that he was at his apartment at that time? No, we could. But Sepulveda wasn't the only suspect they were looking at.

22:08When she changed her last name to Servo, she never spoke to me again. after that.

22:14Harold Dow:It was a bitter divorce that first separated Norman Olson and his daughter, Jennifer Servo. But it was her murder that ended their relationship forever. I can't escape from the fact that my only daughter is a homicide victim and I won't get to be with her again in this world. In 2003, Olson launched a website, justiceforjennifer.org, hoping it would generate tips that would lead to an arrest. Are you worried that someone might get away with murder? It's sure something I can't accept. It's something the investigators in Abilene won't accept either. These are the shorts that Jennifer Servo was wearing when we found her.

23:01Harold Dow:At first, detectives were confident crime scene clues would lead them to Jennifer Servo's killer. But it turned out much of the evidence was badly contaminated by the only witness to the crime, Jennifer's cat, Mr. Binks. It took the lab quite a while to actually differentiate between the cat hair, human hair, any kind of fibers. Did the evidence collected point to any specific suspect? Physical evidence? No, it did not. I mean, you obviously have circumstantial evidence that would lead you to believe it was somebody who she knew. With that in mind, investigators focused on the two men who fit that description best, Ralph Sepulveda and Brian Travers.

23:45Being a suspect, you know, it didn't click in my mind at first. I'm like, oh, they just need to know when I saw her last, you know, it just didn't click.

23:53Harold Dow:In fact, they needed to know a lot more, because it turned out Travers wasn't just Jennifer Servo's co-worker. Brian and Jennifer had a romantic relationship also on the side. We hit it off as friends right off the bat, even though she had a boyfriend at the time living with her. As that kind of waned, we became closer. Travers was with Jennifer just hours before the time investigators determined she was murdered. Brian said they worked a late shift together, made the decision that they were going to go to Walmart. Seen here on this security video, it would be Jennifer's final appearance on camera.

24:33Harold Dow:Did you drop her off at home? No, she actually dropped me off at home. I walked her back to her car, gave her a kiss goodnight, then she pulled on out of the parking lot. That was the last I saw. Jennifer returned home shortly after midnight. Sometime after that, police believe, Jennifer opened her door to a killer.

24:55Harold Dow:Who do you think killed your daughter? Ralph Sepulveda. Why do you think he did it? I think he was a jealous, bitter person. If he couldn't have her, nobody could. While investigators lacked the evidence to reach the same conclusion, they did discover a stunning reason to move Sepulveda to the top of their list of suspects. She did tell me one time that she did not like the way that he treated her when they were together intimately. Meaning? That he wanted to strangle her while they were having sex. And she did not like that. She told you that? Yes. Initially, Sepulveda cooperated with investigators, consenting to interviews, searches, and DNA sampling.

25:39Harold Dow:But that didn't last long. Would not take a polygraph. Later on, subsequent interviews, he refused to talk to us as the investigation proceeded. Why was he never arrested for the murder? If you've ever been hit with a random banking fee and thought, wait, for what? You're not alone. That's exactly why Chime is doing things differently. Chime offers fee-free banking that actually works in your favor. No monthly fees, no overdraft fees, and access to thousands of fee-free ATMs. Because seriously, why pay to get your own money? But what really sets Chime apart is how rewarding it is. Members can get up to$1 ,150 in annual rewards, especially when you set up direct deposit.

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27:19Hi, my name is Lloyd Lockridge, and I'm the host of a new podcast from Odyssey called Family Lore. In this podcast, I'm going to have people on to tell unusual and sometimes far-fetched stories about their families. I've heard my whole life that she invented the margarita. And then we're going to investigate those stories and find out how much of it is true. He gets a patent one month before the Wright brothers. Oh my God. Please follow and listen to Family Lore, an Odyssey podcast available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows. So if you work in health care, you probably already know this.

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29:02Harold Dow:It's been more than six years since the murder of Jennifer Serval, but this case is far from closed. Of all the people you looked at as possible suspects, have all of them been cleared today? No, they haven't. The people you had as suspects five years ago remain suspects? Pretty much. Investigators say neither man has any history of criminal activity. In 2005, Brian Travers relocated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Ralph Sapoveta re-enlisted in the Army and served a one-year tour in Kuwait. Now living in Tacoma, Washington, he is currently stationed here as an environmental science officer. He has declined our requests for an interview.

29:46You know, whoever did this is going to tell somebody someday. That's all it's going to take. We owe it to the city, Jennifer's family, and ourselves to find out who did this.

29:57Harold Dow:Jennifer Servo was a young girl with a big dream, a dream shared by everyone who knew her. Now all they can share are the thoughts of what might have been. It's really hard not having my sister. When Jennifer died, every bit of magic in the world left with her. I miss her smile, miss her enthusiasm. She was inspiring and sometimes you need some inspiration. We give a scholarship in her name every year so we remember her. She won't ever die at the University of Montana. I was so proud, so beautiful and did such a wonderful job. And she was determined to make her dream come true. She was. And she would have.

30:48Harold Dow:Never giving up, it's a powerful conviction for families of crime victims. In fact, never giving up is what helps solve the case of another young woman whose dreams were also cut short by murder. Her parents did something remarkable, taking matters into their own hands to put a killer behind bars.

31:16Vermont is a beautiful, tranquil, serene place. Stowe's a resort town. It's a place where people often come to vacation and enjoy themselves.

31:30Harold Dow:And that's what attracted 28-year-old Patty Scovell, a Cornell graduate who was looking for a more laid-back lifestyle. So in October 1991, after working at a corporate job in Boston, Patty moved here to Vermont and applied to become a children's ski instructor. She loved to have fun. She was a family-oriented person. Patty's dad, David, and her mother, Ann, couldn't wait to visit their daughter. She was vivacious, she was outgoing, she was energetic. But before they could make that trip, Ann became concerned when Patty's roommate hadn't heard from her in two days. When I hung up from that call, I knew there was something very wrong.

32:21Harold Dow:Patty's roommate called police. Last night about 8.30 we received a report of a 28-year-old female who went out for a bike ride and has not been seen since. Just three weeks after moving, Patty had vanished. Detective Bruce Miriam got the call. Initially, we were looking for a lost or injured person, and the search was far and wide. There was an elderly gentleman that had called in. He said, I think I saw her bike. The tip led police to Patty's bike. It was found at Moss Glen Falls, a local scenic hiking trail. What did you think when they found the bike? Something's wrong. A command post was set up, and the search was on.

33:06Harold Dow:It was large. How many people involved? Over 100, for sure. The search involved helicopters, divers, dogs, and volunteers. The whole community, even her parents, were looking for Patty. The second thing they found were her gloves. Yes. Yes. They were on some rocks. Yes. What are you thinking at this point? something's definitely wrong. More than a week would pass without finding any more clues, and police were about to call off the search. I'd like to have you come up with King. Eight days after Patty was last seen, a searcher found Patty's water bottle. How soon after you found the water bottle did you find her body?

33:53Harold Dow:Minutes later. Patty's body was covered with leaves. dead wood and branches. The killer took the time to conceal the crime that he committed and did so in such a way that we were fortunate to even recover her body that season. What happens is you go through all these scenarios about what her last moments were like.

34:23She was our firstborn.

34:28She was everything. She was everything. The investigation clearly showed that Patty Scoville was raped and killed. And the killer left behind his DNA.

34:43Harold Dow:With the DNA evidence, police and her parents were confident Patty's killer would be easy to find. I expected an arrest, you know, next week. If it wasn't next week, it was going to be next month. But incredibly, it would take the efforts of the police, the FBI, the governor of Vermont, and Patty's own parents to bring the killer to justice.

35:32I had actually been up to Moskland Falls a bunch of times. That's the place I used to like to hike and stow. So when I read it, I was really shocked.

35:40Harold Dow:In a small state like Vermont, the murder of Patty Scoville touched everyone, even former presidential candidate, then-Governor Howard Dean. It was a real shock to the community. When somebody gets murdered, you feel like it's your neighbor. And the job of solving that murder fell largely to a young detective, Bruce Miriam, then 28. I have to tell you, I was the youngest guy on that team, so I caught a lot of flack from some of these senior state police detectives. One of those was this man, his dad, a state trooper, also working the case. He did a lot of legwork. From a lead investigator's standpoint, not that he took orders well, but he was great.

36:23And he worked the case hard.

36:27Harold Dow:A 15-man squad was assigned to the investigation. They looked closely at Patty's whereabouts the day she disappeared. We collected all the material tracing her movements during the time period that she was in Stowe, including phone records and banking records and calendar information. And these are bank photos we see here? These are photos with Patty. These are the last pictures of Patty alive, making a bank deposit before she rode her bike to Moss Glen Falls. The falls themselves are deafening. At that location, you can't hear anything but the waterfalls. So if she were to scream, no one would hear?

37:05Harold Dow:No.

37:09Harold Dow:What story did the crime scene tell you? It rather quickly told me that we were investigating a sexual homicide. She was struck from behind, and she was raped and murdered right there. The best physical evidence would be the DNA recovered from the crime scene. We didn't know who it belonged to, but when a sample eventually came in, we felt good that we could match it to a person. Dr. Eric Buell, now head of Vermont's forensic DNA lab, was hoping to match that DNA to one of 20 suspects, men who knew Patty, who were at the falls that day. They investigated and investigated and investigated and still came up empty.

37:53It was something that we had hoped to be able to solve since we had such great evidence. But in 1991, we didn't have a DNA database.

38:03Harold Dow:Vermont was one of the last states without a DNA database, so they couldn't compare crime scene DNA against known offenders. We needed the DNA database in order to find Patty's killer. The Scovilles realized that the key to finding justice for Patty was to channel their grief and energy, lobbying lawmakers for a DNA database. Anything that we can do to level the playing field is, you know, what we're after. I was so impressed when I met David and Ann for the first time. They put their heart and soul into getting this passed. They were the face of this. Lawmakers wanted to force convicted felons to submit to the DNA testing.

38:45I was always looking for ways to make sure that people who were guilty couldn't threaten folks again.

38:52Harold Dow:But even with the support of Governor Howard Dean, getting the legislation passed was a tough sell. People really are very sensitive to their invasion of privacy, and there was some resistance in getting this passed. Years began to pass. In the meantime, Patty's family kept her memory alive with memorial bike rides, dedication ceremonies, and offers of rewards. It was difficult to talk to them during those anniversaries where we didn't have any new information for them. Until finally, after seven long years of lobbying, Patty's parents saw the bill creating Vermont's first DNA database signed into law.

39:31Harold Dow:They had achieved the impossible. Okay, so law was signed by Governor Dean. Yes. The DNA database was established? Mm-hmm. Okay, what happened next? Did you get your killer? No. No? No? No. The DNA from Patty's killer was run against the first group of samples, but there was no match. Dr. Buell, who had worked side by side with the Scovilles, felt their anguish. I'm a parent, but it's one of those things where you can't. As a forensic scientist, you have to divorce yourself of these cases. So the unidentified DNA from the Scoville case was now part of the new database. My worst fear all the way through was that either I would die or the person who committed the crime would die before he was discovered.

40:30There's this fear that people will forget, you know, that she'll be forgotten.

40:36Harold Dow:Progress was slow. There was a massive backlog of cases and little money for testing. DNA analysis is not a cheap affair. It takes money. These things took time, and we didn't have the funding. But suddenly, in 2005, seven years after the database was established and 14 years after Patty was murdered, there finally was a match. I was flabbergasted. It was just remarkable that we were saying that this is the way to solve this case, and it happened. Is this really it this time? You know, it can't go wrong. It's a hit. After testing 80 people and following up on 1 ,000 leads, investigators had a name.

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43:07Harold Dow:Howard Godfrey, a 59-year-old window installer who had served time for assault. I'm feeling like we've waited a long time for this, and we're not going to mess this up. Cindy McGuire is Vermont Assistant State's attorney. We wanted to know everything about him before we sat down to interview him. His DNA was taken in 2000 when he was released from prison. Why was he in the database? As a result of the conviction from 1996 for the aggravated assault. But before police can make an arrest, the law, which the Scovilles helped pass, required police to reconfirm the source of the DNA. But investigators couldn't risk just walking up and asking for a sample.

43:46Harold Dow:they needed to find a secret way to get Howard Godfrey's DNA. So they staked out his window business. So you knew he was a smoker through your surveillance? Yes. We were able to surreptitiously gather his discarded cigarette butts. Police bagged and tagged the cigarettes and sent them to the lab for testing. This time, the DNA results came back a lot quicker. We had a match. People talk about a smoking gun, but in this case, it turned out to be a smoking cigarette. Yes. Yes, it did. After 14 long years of waiting, Miriam had his man. Or did he?

44:41I've been here 24 years, and this is the only homicide we've ever had. It was scary in that for so many years we didn't know who we were looking for.

44:52Harold Dow:Now, with the suspected killer Howard Gottfried identified, linked to the crime by DNA, Detective Bruce Miriam couldn't wait to confront him. I was ready for the interview. I'm not sure where you were back in 1991. Detective Miriam wore a hidden wire during his first interview with Godfrey, hoping he would say something incriminating. Too often, green laundry detergents come with a compromise. They're better for the planet, but worse is the one thing that matters most, cleaning your clothes. Dirty Lies believes you shouldn't have to lower your standards for the sake of sustainability. Using advanced green chemistry, they created a detergent that uses an entirely new cleaning engine, inspired by the genius of nature.

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