MURDERED: Jodine Serrin Part 1

0:00Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And I have a story today that is going to stay with you. And be warned, it is not for the faint of heart. What was done to the victim and how she was found is truly one of the most haunting images that I've had to convey in probably over 600 episodes at this point. But I am going to walk you through it all. From the night of the murder on Valentine's Day 2007, to the brand new forensic techniques used today to identify the killer. and ultimately to the chilling realization that our suspect was leading a double life. On one hand, he was moving about the world like you and I, acting out the part of father, partner, and friend.

0:42He lived and worked in the very town where he also took on the role of monster, a man who set up a crime scene in a way that allowed him to watch as he desecrated the corpse of a young woman he'd killed in her own apartment. This is the story of Jodine Saron.

1:32It's Valentine's Day 2007, and even after 53 years of marriage, Art and Lois Saren don't skip out on a chance for a romantic date night of dinner and a movie to celebrate. They try to plan a day just for themselves, because like many parents, decades of their lives have been consumed with taking care of their six kids. and even more so for them because their youngest daughter, 39-year-old Jodine, who goes by Jodi, she had developmental disabilities that we're told gave her the mental capacity of a girl in her early teens. And Jodi lived on her own, but in many ways she was still dependent on her parents.

2:09They checked in on her every day. They helped her get from place to place because she didn't drive. But on this day, they hadn't been able to get a hold of her. 72-year-old Lois tried pushing it out of her mind, like just one day where she and her husband could just focus on themselves. It wouldn't be the end of the world. But all through dinner, it was like nagging at her. And as she sat in the dark of the movie theater, she just couldn't focus on the screen. With every scene change, she just grew more and more anxious till she couldn't take it anymore. Like, what's the point of being there if she can't actually enjoy it?

2:45Whatever feeling was crawling under her skin, she like just had to give in. So mid-movie, she and Art leave the theater. It's around 10 p.m. when the Sarens get to Jodi's condo. At first, they knock and wait, expecting to hear their daughter's footsteps, see the knob turn. But there's nothing. So Art pulls out his spare key, unlocks the door, and tries to push it open. But it barely budges. The chain is latched from the inside. and this stops them cold because Jodi never chains her door. And now the Sarans are starting to panic. So at 77 years old, Art throws himself against the door and breaks it down.

3:30Now the lights are on inside the condo and the Sarans head straight for their daughter's bedroom. Art opens the door and even though the room is dark, in the shadows he sees two people in bed. It looks like Jodi with a man, and it looks like they're having sex. And he's obviously taken aback, probably a little embarrassed, probably mad at whoever this man is. So he quickly shuts the door and calls out. It's basically like, listen, you need to get decent. You both need to come out to the living room. We are going to be here waiting for you. And honestly, I would probably be stewing a little bit.

4:04But a few minutes go by, and then some more, and no one comes out to join Art and Lois in the living room. Not even Jodi. So I don't know if it's stewing as much as just like something's wrong. Like they're getting curious. Something's going on. So Art gets up to check again just to like nudge the two along. But this is when everything shifts. Not just like his perception of things. But it's like Art's whole world flips on its axis in this moment. And forever his life is going to be changed. When he opens the door, the man isn't in Jodi's room anymore. It is just his daughter, laying naked and lifeless on the bed, covered in blood.

4:45She's not breathing. She's actually cold to the touch, all of which Art tells to a 911 operator in a frantic call. Based on their recommendation, he moves Jodi from the bed to the floor to begin CPR, but there is no saving her. And when first responders get to the scene, it is, quote, immediately clear to them that Jodi is dead. and given the state of her body, she has likely been dead for several hours, way before the Sarans even got to her condo. So it's not like Art could have stopped anything when they got there. No, the medical examiner will end up determining that Jodi died around noon that day, so almost 10 hours before they got there, which I imagine has to be some relief.

5:30Like, I mean, to even for a moment think that you were just sitting feet away as someone killed your daughter would be mental torture. But then there's that relief for a second, but you also then have to reconcile what it was you actually walked in on. Right. Which was this man desecrating Jodi's corpse. And in that moment, I don't know how much relief there is in that. Yeah. And they were all in the apartment like at the same time. Did this guy escape through a window or something? No. So the way that Jodi's condo is laid out, it's kind of split down the middle by a dividing wall. So when you walk in the front door, you can either turn one way and go to the bedroom or you can turn the other way and get to the kitchen and living room.

6:06So with the Saren sitting in the living room, this guy could run right out of the front door without them actually even knowing. And investigators used bloodhounds to track the man's scent from the condo out the front door down Jody Street all the way to a main road where he tossed his sweatshirt into a bush. But then that's where the scent stops. Their man is long gone. But he did leave plenty behind at the scene. And not just physical evidence. There is evidence of how devious and methodical this man was. I mean, it is clear that he took his time setting up this crime scene in exactly the way he wanted.

6:46Sheets and blankets had been placed over the windows in Jody's room. And a full-length mirror was moved next to the bed so this guy could see what it was he was doing to Jody. He had beaten her over the head, strangled her, but she must have fought back because she had defensive wounds and bruising all over. And along with sexually assaulting her corpse, the man also inflicted at least one cut, a laceration across her throat that likely happened post-mortem. This guy clearly had a plan around what he was doing to Jodi, but her parents busting her front door down was obviously not part of the plan.

7:23And in his hurry to leave, he made some mistakes. First of all, there is blood all over Jody's room and in the bathroom, on the walls, the carpet, the linens. I mean, it's everywhere, as is his DNA and tons of partial fingerprints. And in his rush to sneak out without being seen by Jody's parents, he'd even left his sneakers behind. And these sneakers actually end up being a major clue because they weren't just like kicked off randomly. They had been taken off and neatly placed next to the rest of Jodi's shoes by the front door, which is where Jodi always instructed her guests to remove and place their shoes before coming inside.

8:05Like, Jodi was, like, super neat and tidy, especially when it came to her place. So this tells investigators that whoever killed Jodi must have been invited in. aside from art's own work on the condo door there were no signs of forced entry to jody's place and there were even dishes for two in the sink which made it seem like things had started out friendly with whoever this person was before they took an unthinkable turn well and it is like valentine's day like dishes for two seems kind of like a date date ish but whatever this started off as, like given the state of the condo and the story that the evidence told, it seemed like like almost in an instant things switched from good to bad.

8:50The change from neatly arranged shoes and dishes placed in the sink to rage filled violence in the bedroom suggested to detectives very early on that drug use may have been a part of the picture. But it would only have been on the part of the offender because Jodi's parents were clear she did not use drugs and her autopsy would later confirmed that. Now, I know it was dark and like obviously traumatic on multiple levels, but was Art able to see what this guy looked like at all when he first saw him in Jody's bedroom? So in initial interviews, he actually claims to have gotten a good look at the suspect, like enough to say that he was five, eight to six feet tall, a little chubby.

9:29And I think his brain was like trying to fill in the gaps because early on he was even convinced that it was someone Jody knew, someone specific named Robert Burns. This was a guy that had similar developmental disabilities as Jody. They used to have some sort of relationship at some point, which would have put them together maybe on Valentine's Day. But investigators quickly rule Robert out because of his alibi, and they would later confirm it definitely wasn't him because his DNA did not match what was left at the crime scene. And with him ruled out, then all they've got is like a description of a kind of chubby guy who's about six feet tall.

10:04Well, and like you said, like all this DNA. And that. But any hopes of a quick slam dunk get crushed because even though they had the DNA and DNA that's good enough to go into the state and national databases, this dude is a ghost. He's not in any database because like this is a case where we don't have a lot of these where it's like what 2007 you can put it in the database is there. The database is populated. People know how it works and still he doesn't exist which seems bonkers to me because of how like you said methodical this was it doesn't feel like a first time like how it's a shock to everyone i mean the only thing i think they assume is that like whatever this guy has done he just hasn't gotten caught for it because nothing about this like you said is giving like first time offender yeah but also like i kept thinking i wonder what the crime scene would have looked like had this man not been interrupted.

11:01Was he planning on cleaning up? Would he have even left Jodi there? Like, we usually talk about M.O. based on what's been left behind. But maybe he wouldn't have left anything behind if he had had enough time. Exactly. Jodi's dad could have completely changed the trajectory of things. Like, dude didn't even have time to put on his shoes. So what else did he not have time to do? So they've got to find someone who's not in a database, who Jodi either knew or recently met and would willingly let into her home. They start by building out the timeline of her last known movements. The last confirmed contact Jodi had with anyone was a phone call with her mom on the 13th, so just the day before.

11:45And she'd actually told her mom on the phone that she was planning to go to a Valentine's Day party on the 14th. But we know she never made it to that party. There were several voicemails from people wondering where she was. Do they think that she met up with this guy on the 14th? Or, I mean, is it possible that he was actually there on the 13th? Like, her time of death is noon on the 14th, but, I mean, I have to wonder how long they were together before that happened. Yeah, that's the big question. When did she meet him and where? Now, interestingly, they come to learn that while Jodi didn't have a full-time job, She was very involved in volunteer work and would help out at nursing homes or facilities for people with similar developmental disabilities.

12:25And one of the facilities that she would go to was co-located with a substance abuse treatment place, which, considering their early theory that the offender was on drugs, they begin to wonder if maybe she crossed paths with someone around there. And not even necessarily that day because she wasn't volunteering on the 14th. Right, but maybe someone saw her, had been following her, had had some contact before. Yeah, or even just ran into her another time and then on this day was like, yeah, hey, remember me, whatever. Because the other thing about Jodi, she was trusting, very overly, people say, trusting of strangers.

13:01I mean, she was the kind of person who saw everyone as a friend and was so innocent in her thinking. So detectives actually hear that Jodi would have let anybody into her home. Which makes those like neatly placed shoes and dishes a little less like they mean less, right? Right. It just had to be in my mind someone that was like nice to her, right, to start out. But we know that switch from good to bad happened really quick. And unfortunately, knowing this now makes narrowing down a suspect pool early on nearly impossible. So detectives spend the first weeks of their investigation making a Hail Mary list of anyone and everyone who could possibly be responsible.

13:42People in the area, people Jody was associated with or might have crossed paths with, people they're tipped off to. I mean, there are over 50 men on this list and they go out and knock on all these guys' doors. They swab every single one of them and send each and every swab to the lab for comparison. But there are no matches. And when they reach the bottom of their list, there really aren't any other obvious directions for investigators to go in. By this point, the case has been highly publicized as the, quote, Valentine's Day murder. Tips are coming in by the hundreds, but, like, nothing is panning out.

14:20So at one point, detectives even reach out to the VDoc Society, which is a group of retired, like, detectives, FBI agents, forensic experts, whatever. Like basically they bring together anyone who's like an expert in their field. They're located in Pennsylvania and they take on some of the coldest, most baffling murder cases that no one else can crack. They'll like come in and consult for you. You have to present your case or whatever. But even they don't have a magic wand. I mean, they can suggest what type of offender this guy is, maybe confirm that some of the theories police had are probably right.

14:52But they can't make this guy materialize. And it's so much more frustrating when you have all this DNA on file. And like, I want to say no one, but no one else. I know. Like they've already tested it against 50 guys. And the database. And like. And nothing is hitting. I know. So this is the same story that we know and hate. Weeks turn into months and then turn into years. And then with every day that passes, they just hope and pray that their guy will slip up and his DNA will get collected. it. Until then, this case just kind of ends up looming over Carlsbad PD as it gets passed from one detective to the next and the next.

15:30And it becomes sort of the department wide white whale. Everybody wants to see this thing get solved and they try everything. A$52 ,000 reward, pleased to the media. Per the San Diego Union-Tribune, Jodi's family even puts her cold case information on display in public buses, just in case there's someone out there with info. Like, If there is someone out there with info, though, they are holding on tight to their secret. But, lucky for police, we are about to hit an era of investigating where DNA can do all the talking. In 2016, this is now nine years after Jody's murder, a new detective takes over the case, Lieutenant Eric Covanda.

16:11And this is just after the PD decided to tap Parabon Nano Labs in Virginia to do forensic phenotyping with the DNA sample they have. Now, I know we've touched on this before, but for like our new crime junkies, Britt, would you mind? Obviously. The phenotype composites can predict suspects eye color, hair color, skin tone, even like facial structure based on the DNA makeup. There are obviously like a ton of other factors at play that might make someone look different. Right, like weight, facial hair. Right. And like substance use can change your appearance. But this gives police kind of like a baseline of some key characteristics that they can at least use to like help rule people in or out like eye color.

16:52That's pretty like cut and dry. Exactly. So Jody's case was actually the first time that Carlsbad PD ever used this kind of technology. And Lieutenant Covanda says he's sort of treating the composite as a filter. It might not look exactly like the suspect, but if a person of interest pops up with, like you said, a different eye color, different hair color, skin color, he can at least like rule people out much quicker. Right. So they get this composite back and Lieutenant Covanda literally says it looks like every other surfer dude out there right now. Which I've seen a lot of the Parabon composites and they kind of do just look like a guy.

17:29They all blend into the same person. It was like very cool the first couple of times we saw it. And they're like, it's just the same dude. Yeah, eventually we're like, got it. So truly, you are just looking for like color of like eyes, hair, something like that. So yeah, they end up getting this sort of nondescript white guy with bluish green eyes, dirty blonde hair, fair skin and some freckling. But the trick is they do have the ability to make some tweaks using the information that they have or based on their theories. Like substance use, right? You said it was a part of the profile. And substance use usually alters someone's appearance.

18:02So Kovanda had the lab increase the composite's BMI, had him age him a little bit, adding like deeper creases, a five o 'clock shadow. So that's the photo that they released to the public on the 10th anniversary of Jody's murder. And they do this on the steps of the San Diego courthouse. And immediately, tips start pouring in. Tips that they probably had, like, not in a way that they've seen in a long time. But even with this influx of new information, nothing pans out. Still, this new technology has really gotten Lieutenant Kovanda's wheels turning. He's made a lot of connections by that point with people in, like, the DNA science world.

18:42And he's learning about all of the other ways that they can use DNA to get more info. Info like a suspect's name with something called YSTR profiling, which that's a method used to analyze DNA on the Y chromosome. And that is what's passed down from father to son, virtually unchanged. And since last names are also typically passed down the paternal line, Y profiling testing can be used to predict a person by their last name, by comparing their Y profile to entries already in DNA databases. But you have to remember that there are certain limitations when it comes to this kind of testing. Things that can break the pattern like infidelity or genetic mutations.

19:23Or adoption. Or adoption, right. That's actually one of the most common. But listen, take what you can get, right? And then we'll figure out the next steps from there. So this, again, is like a first for Carlsbad PD. This is the first time they're ever using this kind of technology as well. And they do get a last name after all the YSTR work. A miracle, which, of course, is like a detective right out of CSI Miami taking off his sunglasses and like squinting into the sun. You can like see it, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. These detectives could not help themselves. They begin saying, it's going to take a miracle to solve this one.

20:03Detectives spend the coming year looking for their miracle. But it turns out there was no one they could find with that last name who also fit the composite sketch. So it was looking more and more like one of those pattern breakers happened in this family line. Infidelity, adoption, something. But in the year or less that it's taken to feel pretty sure of this, guess what happens? 2018 is upon us. Oh, and with all this science talk, you're talking about the Golden State Killer. Golden State Killer gets caught using the most current version of what we all now know as IgG, investigative genetic genealogy.

20:40You know, Golden State, dude left his DNA all over crime scenes, but he, like this one, wasn't in a database. So instead of looking for the offender himself, GSK investigators decided to look for distant family members whose DNA might be on file in public databases like GEDmatch and then create this extensive family tree that might connect back to their suspect. Now, when they started down this path, it took them four months to catch a serial killer and rapist who eluded them for decades. So when Lieutenant Covanda sees this, this gets his gears spinning. Forget turning. They are like almost smoking, right?

21:19Like here he is working on another case where the offender's DNA is all over the crime scene and a full profile is in CODIS, but they just keep striking out. So Covanda starts doing his homework, trying to figure out if he could make use of the same techniques. And it just so happens that around the same time, this is May of 2018, the lab that did the initial phenotyping for Jodi's case comes back to Carl's bad PD and basically says like, hey, by the way, we've still got your offender's DNA on file from that test that we did last year. Do you want us to evaluate it using IgG? Yes, please. Yes, please.

21:55Exactly. Like, you do not have to ask twice. Yeah. So they do this, they get the blessing, and just two months later, the lab reaches back out. Lieutenant Covanda says he literally gets on a Zoom call with them where they share their screen. They're showing what he calls a hasty family tree, which basically shows the closest connections and the most recent common ancestors associated with the DNA sample. Now, it's not one name. There are a few possibilities. But now it's up to Carlsbad PD to run each one of these down. Okay, and of these names, like, are any of them miracles like the YSTR suggested?

22:36Surprisingly, no. Lieutenant Covanda actually said that the lab wasn't really focusing on the miracle last name. And, you know, when they got a few of them back, they, there were some that they discounted pretty quickly. Like, there was one last name, Mabrito, that they just kind of brushed aside for a couple of reasons. Like they told the detective A, Mabrito is of Italian origin and the offender's DNA suggested someone of Northern European descent. And B, they're like, this Mabrito guy is dead. So dead before 2007? No, he was alive in 2007. But this is why it is always good to gut check yourself, not to get too tied up in what you expect something to be.

23:14because basically investigators get all the way to the end of the list of all these last names and people that the lab really thought it could be, and they still have nothing to show for it. But Lieutenant Covanda is not willing to give up just yet. If you want to get something solved, like the GSK case, why not go to the exact person who helped solve it? And that is Barbara Rae Venter. Barbara isn't a cop. She's not a detective. She is a retired 70-year-old patent lawyer who just happens to be really, really good at genealogy, which she only discovered after retiring, by the way, when she started mapping her own heritage as a hobby.

23:54And that hobby quickly turned into volunteering as a search angel. That's someone who helps adoptees find their biological parents by creating family trees from DNA. And when she got really good at that, police departments started calling. So Lieutenant Covanda gets a hold of Barbara's number. And while he's in Northern California trying to get some more reference DNA samples for Jodi's case, he calls her up and invites her to breakfast with him. And this other investigator from the DA's office named Tony Johnson. She says, sure. So they go to breakfast together in what Barbara describes as this total hole in the wall.

24:29And they're eating eggs and pancakes and talking about genealogy. And Lieutenant Covanda says it's just like mind confetti for him because all the labs he'd spoken to before had basically just told him how much he should pay them and how long it would take. But here is Barbara totally like pulling back the curtain, explaining her entire process. And does she agree to take on the case? Yes. Yes. After this meeting, Lieutenant Covanda gives Barbara access to the offender's DNA profile in GEDmatch and she goes to work. So is her process different than that original lab? It's the same. She's just better at it.

25:08Because interestingly, Barbara actually comes back to Govanda with a name that was on the first lab's list. Wait, Mabrito? Mabrito. That's the one that the other lab had totally discounted. But Barbara is saying this, she believes, is where Carlsbad PD needs to spend their time. because this last name actually does have a connection to, get this, the Miracle last name. What? Yeah, because when Barbara looks deep into the genealogy, she sees a double adoption in the Miracle family. So basically, at some point, a man with the last name Miracle had a son named Robert, who was adopted and took on the Italian last name Mabrito.

25:50Robert then has two sons of his own, Stephen, who gets adopted, and David, who carried on the Mabrito last name. So it could potentially be Stephen or David. Or even their dad, Robert. Kovanda is going to need DNA from all three to be sure, but he is feeling so confident. In a matter of like a year, he went from an endless pool of suspects to three. Now, as it turns out, both Stephen and David were deceased at this point. They both died after Jodi's murder, so that doesn't rule them out, But it does make getting their DNA slightly more challenging. Or at least it might have. You see, Stephen passed away in an accident in 2017, which meant that his DNA was actually still on file at the medical examiner's office.