Good & Evil

0:02She was on a conveyor belt. Only her feet were exposed. The workers thought it was a mannequin. Her last hours on earth were not pleasant. Young women, murdered or missing Families in anguish I would text her and she would text right back But this time, nothing When they killed her, they killed me A serial killer at work And maybe he had a friend That's crazy They don't work together Serial killers are loners Very rare Two suspected killers on the hunt Hunting them, a detective devoted to just justice and more. It's almost like you've adopted these young women. There's a lot of visits to my local church saying, please don't let me screw this up.

0:49Here's Keith Morrison with Good and Evil.

0:56How do you measure a mother's love or gauge the ferocity of her impulse to protect? Love her as much as I could. It was about the only thing. How to measure love as visceral as the beating heart in her own body. She was my firstborn. She was my best friend. I don't understand the four mothers you'll meet tonight and their connection, one that not one of them would ever have thought possible, not in a million years. Any more than they would have expected to meet her, their guardian angel. If I don't bring her home, who will? It's a rare mystery that's truly a confrontation of good and evil. We have to go to the dark places in order to find answers.

1:43A rare mystery that needed an urgent answer before the evil struck again. It was March 14, 2014, early morning. An army of garbage trucks made their growling, clanking way around the thousands of trash bins and dumpsters in Anaheim, California. Their destination, a landfill that is also a literal mountain of garbage, 500 feet high. And then, mid-morning, an attendant separating debris on the conveyor belt saw something. Was that a human foot protruding from the pile of trash? Surely not. She was on a conveyor belt, only her feet were exposed, and initially the workers there thought it was a mannequin.

2:32But it wasn't a mannequin, as the responding homicide detective, Julissa Trapp, could plainly see. It was, or had been, a woman, her body wrapped in a blue plastic tarp. We had no idea who she was. We had no idea where she came from. How did she end up there? Something about the dead girl got to Detective Trapp, ending up this way. an anonymous child of God in a garbage dump. And so the detective did what she always does. She bought a rosary. It's a way for me to kind of connect to my victims. Unusual, maybe, that a detective should lean on her profound Catholic faith to help solve crimes. But Julissa Trapp does.

3:24Cases don't always get solved in 48 hours, you know. Surprise, surprise. They take time and they take work. And that little rosary helps you. It does. If she could solve this case, she'd give that rosary to the dead woman's family. But first she had to figure out who she was. From just one identifying mark on her neck, a tattoo, Jodi. Was that her name? Reaching now, Detective Trapp pulled up the Anaheim Police Department's database of tattoos. Yes, they have one. Descriptions of tattoos collected from anyone they encounter. And what do you know? There was a match. But her name was not Jody. It was Jere.

4:11Jere Estep. She was 21 years old. She had been contacted the year prior here in Anaheim on Beach Boulevard. Beach Boulevard? Suddenly, Detective Trapp's case took on a whole new complexion. If you want to buy drugs, Beach Boulevard's where you come. If you are looking for a girl, Beach Boulevard's where you come. A lot of them came from good, stable families that just happened to run in to the wrong guy who somehow got them into the job. I mean, these pimps are really good about breaking down the women and getting control over them. Making them a prime target for predators. A lot of predators will start with prostitutes because they think that people won't miss them.

4:59Somebody does. Yes, somebody does. Somebody did. Like Jare's mother, who, records revealed, lived in a tiny town in Oklahoma. That tattoo on Jare's neck? This is Jodi. And even before the detective got the words out. I felt it that she was gone. Her daughter had been so happy, so charming, outgoing. But then, said Jodi, a boyfriend convinced Jare that to please him, she'd have to turn tricks. This is Jare. He just honked trying to get her attention. John TV, a self-proclaimed video vigilante group in Oklahoma City, caught her on camera back in 2012. But Jarae left the boyfriend, turned her life around, so Jodi thought.

5:54And then that awful phone call from Detective Trapp. I was screaming, like screaming. The detective made a promise to that mother. Didn't matter what choices Jarae may have made, she, the detective, would work this case as hard as any she ever had. We literally went from each little motel to each little motel, showing her picture and having the clerk run her name to see if she had stayed there. And eventually she found the room where Jure had been staying, in which were$700 in cash and mascara, lipstick, contact lens solution, but nothing whatever to lead her to a suspect. Not here, anyway. From the disposal company, she got a list of the dumpsters, those garbage trucks at service that morning.

6:42And then she and other officers went dumpster diving. Hundreds of dumpsters. What would you be looking for? They were all given pictures of what the trash looked like that was around her. If it looks similar, take pictures of what's inside. No luck. Waste of time. Then, back on the conveyor belt, an odd thing turned up in the trash collected near Jure's body. We got a print hit. You're talking about a fingerprint here. A fingerprint, yes. It was on a caulking tube, and it matched someone. A window installer who worked for a company called Hardy Windows. He tells us we never throw trash out at customers' homes.

7:26We always bring it back to Hardy Windows. Where they found one dumpster no one had checked. The trash company, inadvertent, had left it off the list they gave the police. Detective Trapp looked inside. It's that same blue plastic wrapping. And it was almost like I was looking at the same trash I had seen on the conveyor belt. Bingo. And if not for that lucky fingerprint, they'd have missed it. What was that like? It was a combination of frustration, but okay. All right. We're moving somewhere. So, DeRay was dumped here sometime before the morning of March 14th. Miles and miles from the spot where, according to cell phone records, she placed her very last outgoing call at 7 p.m.

8:17the night before. How far away would it have been? 20 miles. But that's all the detective knew. A week gone by, everyone at hardy windows was cleared. So no suspects at all. Detective Trapp went to church. said her rosary, worried, prayed, and wondered. I had heard a story on the news that there was three missing prostitutes in the city of Santa Ana. Which is right next door, basically. Right next door, yes. What if this wasn't the killer's first time? Or last? Coming up. Four young women in two neighboring towns now missing or dead. was there a link? We were like, well, you know, what are the odds that they're related?

9:09And mothers united by love and loss. We made thousands of flyers. Me and her were on our mission to find our daughters.

9:33Detective Julissa Trapp couldn't sleep, kept awake by the puzzle of the girl someone threw away in the trash. That's when something jogged her restless mind. Hadn't some young women vanished in the town next door, Santa Ana? We were like, well, you know, what are the odds that they're related? So she looked them up and learned about Kiana Jackson, just 20 years old when she disappeared five months before Jure's death. Her mom is Kathy Menzies. She was just a very fun-loving child, always made you laugh. Just look at her childhood photos. That silly grin. She loved her dog, her little brother, playing softball.

10:16And then it started happening, said Kathy, eighth grade or so. She was kind of getting, you know, typical teenage, you know, mouthy. And then, you know, high school came. Getting around the older kids, she kind of got a little, you know, worse. How'd you cope with that? It was just one day at a time. I love her as much as I could. It was about the only thing. After high school, Keanu went to college about a three-hour drive from home. A year later, she moved to Las Vegas. But though far from home now, she got closer and closer to her mom. She would call me every day, talk to me every day, you know, text message.

10:53Just a loving daughter. Yeah, I didn't think anything bad was happening. No idea, even in October 2013, when Kiana called to say... She was on the bus towards Santa Ana. Did she tell you why? Visiting friends is what she told me. But then, the girl who called her mother almost daily stopped calling. Anything over a day or two, I would start going, wait a second, this isn't right, something's not right. I would text her, and she would text right back. But this time, nothing, nothing. Gone. Not a peep to her mom. to her friends, to her boyfriend. Kathy went to the police. When I called to file a missing persons report, they said she's an adult and there's nothing we can do for you.

11:38But you knew that there was a problem? Yeah. So Kathy started doing her own digging, tracked her daughter down to a motel in Orange County, where the trail ended. Her clothes were there, but she wasn't. Again, she called the police. And they said, well, that happens. sometimes prostitutes just work circuits. Prostitute? First I was like, no, what? Okay, no, that can't be. But then the truth came crashing down, undeniable. Kiana had missed a scheduled court date in Santa Ana for a prostitution charge. But wait a minute, you talked to her every day, texted with her all the time. Exactly. And you knew nothing of this secret life of yours?

12:20Nope, nothing. What does it feel like as a mother to hear that has been going on all that time? And you didn't know. Heartbreaking. When she heard Kathy's story, Detective Trapp began to think she was on to something. And then she discovered that just two and a half weeks after Kiana disappeared, there was another one. Josephine Monique Vargas. She had a beautiful personality. They used to call her giggles because she always made people laugh. Josephine's mother, Priscilla, had been on the local news searching for answers for months. ever since her daughter left a family barbecue telling them she was walking to buy groceries.

12:57That's the last time any of us heard of her or saw her. Priscilla went to the Santa Ana Police Department, filled out a report. But they didn't really do anything to look for her. So she did. Nothing was going to stop me from looking for my daughter. Nothing or no one. And it was pure chance when Priscilla ran into another mother desperate to find her daughter, Martha, 28 years old and a mother herself, who just vanished one day. There's no way she would have left to just say, I'm going and I'm leaving everything behind. So Martha's mother, Holinda, and Priscilla went together up and down the boulevard.

13:41We made thousands of flyers. Me and her were on our mission to find our daughters. But no sign of their daughters anywhere. Detective Trapp collected their portraits, hung them on her office wall, and she stayed awake and prayed in her Catholic way. Do you ever wonder why God would allow this to happen? I do. There's been plenty of times that I've been angry with our maker because you have to wonder, why does this happen? I mean, I wish he would talk back to me and tell me. That would be very helpful. But I just had to figure out what happened. Just read the clues, collect the puzzle pieces, and the more you can kind of keep a neutral mind, the easier the puzzle pieces fit together.

14:26No getting around it. The pieces pointed to a chilling conclusion. Those three missing women, just like Jure, may have been murdered. And if that was true, it would mean there was a serial killer out there in the night, had to be. More deaths would be coming. Unless, one idea, it was grasping at straws, yes, but... You know what? It might work now. Why not? It's a Hail Mary, but let's try it. Coming up... All sex offenders on parole, they will have an anklet, a GPS monitor. Tracking a killer, victim by victim. Or is it two killers? They were in the same car. They were in the same vehicle. When Dateline continues...

15:23The autopsy came in. The one for Jarae Estep, the girl on the conveyor belt. It's bad. It was bad. It was bad. Strangled, beaten, sexually assaulted viciously, according to Deputy DA Larry Yellen. It should have been a college girl. She'd be worrying about grades and boyfriends and football games and those things. One wrong turn, you never know. Yeah. But almost three weeks in, Detective Julissa Trapp seemed stuck. I think she got a little frustrated and got a little desperate and came up with the idea of using the computer database. That is, the computer database of sex offenders. If they had a serial killer on their hands, there was at least a chance he'd already run afoul of the law at some point.

16:18It was a bit like just poking a finger into the haystack, frankly, and hoping to encounter a needle. Not worth a try. So Trapp called this woman, sexual assault detective Laura Lomeli. All sex offenders on parole, they will have an anklet, a GPS monitor. Trapp asked Lomeli, were any of those GPS monitors here where Jare placed her last phone call, or here, where she wound up in a dumpster. And if you find the same guy at both locations, you're getting somewhere. Lomeli ran the search. And what were the chances she got a hit in both locations? She called Detective Trapp. There's only one person.

17:00She said, I know him. I said, who? And she said, his name's Frank Cano. He's a registered sex offender. In 2007, Frank Cano pleaded guilty to committing a lewd act on a minor. He was now on parole wearing a GPS monitor. But now, next question. Did Frank Cano's monitor put him near the places those other three women, according to phone records, made their last calls? Kiana, Josephine, and Martha. One by one, the detective added the coordinates. And every intersection for that date and time that they gave me, Frank Connell came up. Wow. For every single intersection, it was, it was, I was shocked.

17:46But something about that man, Frank Connell, he had a buddy, and Lamelli had run into them both. I mentioned, you know, I do know that he has a friend, that's Stephen Gordon. Stephen Gordon, he'd done time for molesting a minor and later for kidnapping. He and Kano were inseparable, apparently. Once again, Detective Lomeli pulled up the GPS coordinates. She checked the place Martha was last seen in Santa Ana and... No, Gordon, not there. But when she checked locations for Kiana and Josephine, sure enough, there he was. So why not at the first location? She checked the record and discovered at that particular moment, Gordon wasn't on a GPS monitor, but he was wearing one at the other three places, and so was Cano.

18:43The electronics made it absolutely obvious. Here they were, Cano and Gordon, driving together up and down Beach Boulevard and all around Santa Ana and Anaheim. I mean, even when they're on the freeway... They were in the same car. They were in the same vehicle. Julissa Trapp had prayed for a Hail Mary, but she never expected anything like this. I soon realized I'm not just dealing with one. We're dealing with two. Two sex offenders wearing GPS bracelets. But for all the electronic cross-referencing, the case against Cano and Gordon was purely circumstantial. Detective Trapp could not arrest them, not without more evidence.

19:29And that was terrifying. I mean, there were young women who were at real risk here. Yes. And if you waited too long, how would you feel if somebody else was attacked? Let me just say, there was a lot of rosaries that were being prayed, for sure. She set up a surveillance team to watch Cano and Gordon around the clock and got authorizations for wiretaps and pulled cell phone records. Well, we started reading the text messages and started seeing how prolific they were at hunting. Hunting? Hunting on almost a daily basis and how nonchalant they were about it. It was almost like ordering takeout. When you start reading, what do you feel like today, Asian or Mexican?

20:13Oh, boy. What would they call these girls? That was the other thing. Cats. Cats? Cats. Be careful. When the cat knows it isn't getting away, it's going to fight. The next victim couldn't be far away because Gordon texted Cano, kitty cat later, yes, to which Cano responded, okay. And then a sudden change. Had they spotted the surveillance? As Trapp listened to the wiretap, she heard Gordon talk to Cano about skipping town. I could hear the desperation in Frank Cano's voice. That desperation just kind of sent a hair on the back of my neck, and I said, no, I'm not waiting anymore. They're going to run.

20:59They're going to run. Time to move. Fast. They caught up to Frank Cano as he was boarding a bus. And Stephen Gordon, they found him where he worked, an auto body shop next door to Hardy Windows. But? He made a run for it. Ran out the door. On a bicycle, yes. He had a little collision with one of our surveillance units and a little flying over the handlebars and he was taken into custody. Both men were charged with four counts each of first degree murder and forcible rape. Hi Stephen. And Detective Trapp prepared to confront a suspected serial killer. Coming up. I knew this was going to be a lot different than any other interview I had done.

21:49Takeout with a killer. It is spicy. I told you. I told you to be careful.

22:09For six months, Kathy Menzies waited for news about her daughter, Keanu. still woke up every day hoping she'd call, her text, and dreading a knock at the door. Which, in April 2014, is what happened. My heart sunk when they came because I knew right away that it wasn't going to be good news. No, not good news at all. Anaheim police told her that two men, Frank Cano and Stephen Gordon, were now under arrest for the murder of her daughter and three other young women in Orange County. What were you like that night? I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to, like, go to sleep and wake up and pinch myself.

22:53And make it a different world. Exactly. Detective Julissa Trapp wanted to speak with both men, of course. But Cano lawyered up. So she tried Gordon, still in a wheelchair, after his bike accident. Hi, Stephen. Hi. How are you? And I knew this was going to be a lot different than any other interview I had done. He's cunning, manipulative. He didn't have to talk to you. He did not have to talk to me. Are you cold? Do you want a blanket? No, you don't mind? No, no, no, no. But Detective Trapp has a way, as they say. You're actually compassionate. Thank you. You're welcome. You were kind to him. You brought him a blanket.

23:37All righty. Food. Here is our chips. Yes, we actually shared two meals together. It is spicy. I told you. I told you to be careful. Even so, Gordon was reluctant at first. I can't doubt you. Would you rather talk to somebody else? I don't want to talk to anybody. He watched me very carefully. If I swallowed too hard, if I looked at him differently, you know, he would say, what's wrong? You had a weird look on your face when I said where, why? When I said where. So he was constantly trying to keep a poker face to continue to elicit information from him. Did he try to play you? Oh, I think he definitely thinks he did, for sure.

24:27Bit by bit, she pulled out answers for herself and for those four mothers. Did she go by the name Kayla? It starts with a K. Kiana. No, she told me her name was Kayla. Detective Trapp presented him with photographs. He identified all four women. So her, her, her, right? Each murder went the same way, he said. He and Kana picked them up in his SUV, drove them back to the auto body shop where Gordon worked. They took turns having their way. And then, just as each woman prepared to leave... Strangled her with my hands. You strangled her? Some of the details in that 13-hour interview were almost more than even a seasoned detective could stand to hear.

25:19As he was hurting Martha, she told him,

25:27I didn't believe in God what I do now.

25:33There's a part of me that's grateful that she found God at the end. It's disturbing to me that in response he said, you picked a hell of a time to start believing in God. I'll never forget that. But she had it, a full confession. She called Jere's mother, Jodi. I dropped to my niece. Detective Trapp gave me her word that she would find who killed my daughter. Detective Trapp had kept her word. Now she bought three more rosaries and wondered, could she bring those women home? Gordon had told her all of them had been left in the same dumpster, the contents of which were brought here, Orange County's Brea Olinda Landfill, Where except for Jure, they all still were in there somewhere.

26:31We did a lot of research, and we had every intention to try to dig for them. But the bodies had to be 40 feet deep by now. Digging for them would cost millions. They might never be found. And the county couldn't afford that. And they're just over there somewhere, you know? 40 feet down. What's that like? What's that feel like? It's frustrating. It's frustrating knowing that they're here and we can't bring them home. That it's like the one thing that the mothers want, and I get it. And to not be able to do that, it feels, it's incomplete. Does it drive you crazy? Yes, it does. Kathy Menzies knows, logically, her daughter Kiana must be dead.

27:25But how to truly accept it without her body? I would go there today and start digging if they would let me. Matters, doesn't it? It does matter. Killing her back. Yeah. You give birth to them, you've got to see them right through to the end. Yep, exactly. Exactly. In an attempt to make sense of it all, Kathy asked Detective Trapp and her partner Bruce Lynn to drive her to the place where the killers had picked up Kiana. She wanted to go to this last spot. Why? May I ask why? Kind of because it was like the last known spot that she was at. That I was told she was alive at that spot. So kind of a closure, you know, just to see where she was at before they took her.

28:16About broke her heart to do it. Take this tour of her daughter's last hours. I think this is the dead-end street that Gordon kind of entered and turned around.