All language subtitles for A.U.S01E10.1080p.WEB.h264-CASUALTY_track3_[eng]

- [Narrator] Friday
the 25th of June, 1982,

a young woman fails
to show up for work

and her lifeless body is
discovered in her hotel room.

- She's about to start a new
job as food services director

at a hospital in Council Bluffs.

- Lee died from a single
knife wound to the heart,

inflicted from the front,
and may have been dead up

to 12 hours before her
body was discovered.

- [Narrator] The
motels proximity

to two busy interstate
highways presented a problem

for investigators.

- By the time the officer
showed up on the scene,

the suspect could have
been theoretically anywhere

on the country by that point.

- More than two weeks
after the murder,

police still have no motive,
no witnesses and no suspects.

- [Narrator] The Rotatori
murder case was growing colder

by the day.

- Our goal is to
try to bring justice

to the loved ones
of this victim.

- [Narrator] It would be
another unsolved murder,

1550 miles away that would hold

the key almost 40 years
later to discovering

who killed Lee Rotatori.

- The unsolved ones,
we have to stand up.

- And approach these cases
in a way outside the box.

- Let the world know
is those out there

that did commit a
murder, there are people

that are coming after you.

- There's just a lot of
good people trying to do

the right thing.

- Because it's something

that you have to be
passionate about.

- Solve this and bring
some peace to the family,

at least just doing my job.

- [Narrator] When Lee
Rotatori fails to show up

for work on Friday, June
25th, 1982, her employer calls

the front desk of the motel
that she's staying at.

- She's about to start a new job

as food services director at
a hospital in Council Bluffs,

a city on the banks
of the Missouri River.

- Lee just arrived from Michigan
and checks into the motel.

This is prior to beginning
a week of orientation

at the hospital.

- [Narrator] But sometime in
the early hours of Friday,

June 25th, (camera shuttering)
32 year old, Lee Rotatori

is stabbed to death
in her motel room.

Police are alerted after
her body is discovered

by motel staff at 12:27 p.m.

The police have no murder
weapon and no suspects.

By the time Lee's
body was found,

the killer could have been
a thousand miles away.

- The interstate system
literally runs right past

the hotel where this took place.

So by the time the officer
showed up on the scene,

the suspect could have
been theoretically anywhere

in the country by that
point, so your suspect pool

is pretty broad at the time.

- [Narrator] Three
weeks earlier, Lee
visits Council Bluffs

for a look around.

She likes what she sees and
decides to accept the post

of food service director at
Jennie Edmundson Hospital.

- She had come here
approximately a
week before to start

the new job.

Her husband stayed
behind in Michigan

to tidy up some loose ends.

They were working on
transporting their mobile home

from Michigan to Council Bluffs.

- [Narrator] Lee begins
her orientation training

at Jenny Edmundson Hospital
on Monday, June 21st.

On Thursday the 24th,

she's invited by some
of her new colleagues

to spend a few hours
boating on Lake Manawa

in the southern
part of the city.

The group disperses a dusk.

It's close to the
longest day of the year,

so sunset is relatively
late in the evening.

- On the way back to the motel,

Lee stops at Manawa
McDonald's and picks up food

to take back to her room.

As it turns out, the
employees at the restaurant

are probably the last
ones to see her alive.

- [Narrator] Council Bluffs
police captain, Eldon Jones,

head of the Criminal
Investigation Unit states

that Lee's body was
found on the bed,

face up and dressed
in sleepwear.

She was registered
alone at the motel,

her car was in the
motels parking lot.

- Lee died from a single
knife wound to the heart,

inflicted from the front,
and may have been dead up

to 12 hours before her
body was discovered.

- The county medical
examiner says,

the murder could have
been sexually motivated,

but Captain Jones says
there's no evidence

to point to that and a further
autopsy will be needed.

- [Narrator] In fact, the police
were sitting on substantial

evidence that supported the
medical examiner's remark.

- Her hands had been
bound behind her back,

adhesive residue had
been found on her eyes

and mouths indicating
they had been taped.

There was evidence she had
been sexually assaulted.

- The police have
had good reason

for not wanting to
disclose a sexual assault,

but it also could have just
been the practice of the times.

40 years ago, things were
not disclosed to the degree

that they are today.

Back then, there was a sense

that keeping certain details
out of the news would spare

the family some anguish.

- [Narrator] Although Lee's
room had not been overturned,

there were some items missing.

- The officers at the time
didn't know what was missing

from the room, but after
interviewing with Lee's husband,

he reported that her wedding
ring, engagement ring,

there was a sapphire
ring, her watch,

including some credit cards
were all missing from the room.

Was that the intention
of the person

that came into her room,

was it to rob her
and steal her bag,

or was it something else?

And in looking over
all of the evidence,

to me it appears more that the
theft of the items were more

of an afterthought or a
smoke screen to maybe try

to cover up what was
really going on there.

- [Narrator] On
Tuesday, June 29th,

the Michigan State Police
in Grand Haven joined

the investigation
into Lee's death

and begin checking
into her background.

- Lee joined Service
Master in 1980

when her first assignment
was a hospital in Michigan.

They would later place her
at Jennie Edmundson Hospital

in Council Bluffs.

- [Narrator] At the age of 21,
while still an undergraduate,

Lee marries Anthony Rotatori
on November 14th, 1970

in Olmsted, Minnesota.

They have a son, Michael.

- Throughout the 70's,
Lee works in Wisconsin

as a dietician, she later
gets her master's degree

at the University of
Wisconsin Monomoy.

- [Narrator] But the Rotatori's
marriage ends September,

1977 when Lee and Anthony
divorced in Rockford, Illinois.

A little less than a year
later on August 15th, 1978,

Lee marries Jerry Nemke
in Madison, Wisconsin.

- Jerry Stanley Nemke
and Lee marry in 1978,

they divorced the next year
and then remarry in 1981.

She keeps her
maiden name Rotatori

for professional reasons,
and for her son who lives

with his father in Chicago.

- [Narrator] In October
of 1980 when Lee

is working at Hackley
Hospital in nearby Muskegon,

she and Jerry move into a
mobile home in Crockery Estates,

a mobile home park in Nunica.

- It was a happy time for
Lee, she owned a horse

which she stabled
with friends nearby.

- [Narrator] Lee had a dog there
and owned a couple of pigs,

some turkeys and chickens, and
also had a part of the garden

at their farm.

- In June of 1982 when Lee
takes the job in Council Bluffs,

the plan is for Jerry to
pull up stakes in Nunica

and move the mobile home
600 miles west to Iowa.

- [Narrator] On Friday,
July 1st, Lee's family holds

a memorial for her in
Rochester, Minnesota

where Lee's younger sister
Ann was still living.

On July 2nd, authorities
announce a $2,000 reward

for information leading to
the arrest and indictment

of the person or
persons responsible

for the murder of Lee Rotatori.

By the 4th of July
it totals $3,000,

but still hadn't led
to a suspect or motive.

- This could be very
useful to an investigation,

making an appeal to the public
by offering a reward opens

the possibility that
someone may come forward

with information.

- Generally, in
a case like this,

you always try to
look at family first,

friends and associates after
that and then you start looking

for unknowns or outside
your scope of friends group

for potential suspects.

Well, Lee came
here from Michigan,

she had only been here a week,
she didn't have family here,

she didn't have
really friends here,

she just had met a
couple of coworkers

that she had been spending
a little bit of time with,

so the suspect
pool was ginormous.

- More than two weeks
after the murder,

police still have no motive,
no witnesses, and no suspects.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] Shortly after
arriving in Council Bluffs, Iowa

to start a new job, 32
year old Lee Rotatori

is discovered dead
in her motel room.

Detectives find no
weapon at the scene.

The room is orderly with
no sign of a struggle,

no evidence of a forced entry

and with no evidence
of a robbery, the
police are perplexed.

- Lee was not a victim
of circumstance,

I mean this wasn't just
something that happened,

a robbery gone bad and that
she was killed because of that.

To me, the evidence more
points to this was planned,

not only planned,
but well planned.

So it's not like somebody came
in and broke the door down

and forced his
way into the room.

Lee was tied up, her arms
were bound behind her back,

her mouth was taped and
her eyes were taped,

she was sexually assaulted
and then murdered.

It was a well placed one stab
wound directly to the heart

through two chambers
of her heart.

The subject then took
the time to remove

the ligatures around her wrist,

removed the tape from her mouth,

remove the tape from her
eyes, collect the knife.

He took all the
evidence with him.

The suspect came with
everything he needed to commit

the crime of murder and
he left with everything

that he used to commit
the crime of murder.

- During the postmortem, a
sexual assault kit was done.

The use of DNA in criminal
cases was brand new at the time.

Police realized they
were in possession

of critical evidence, but the
technology around analyzing

it just wasn't there yet.

- That was the key to
everything, without the DNA

that was collected at that
time during the autopsy,

this case would
still be cold today.

- [Narrator] A little
less than three months

before Lee's death, there had
been another fatal stabbing

of a young woman
in Council Bluffs.

In the early hours on
the morning of April 9th,

21 year old Linda Mayfield
was stabbed to death

in the parking lot of
the Starlight Motel

at 3320 West Broadway.

- The area tracks people
from across the river after

the bars in Omaha
closed for the night.

- Linda Mayfield suffered
several stab wounds to her face,

chest, stomach, hand and foot.

She died shortly after
an ambulance took her

to Mercy Hospital.

- By the end of the
year, Linda Mayfield

and Lee Rotatori's homicides
are still unsolved.

Two of three unsolved murders
in Council Bluffs in 1982,

a place where police
prided themselves

on clearing their crimes.

- [Narrator] Council Bluffs
police Chief Eldon Jones

is still hopeful eight months
after Mayfield's murder,

that the police
will catch a killer.

He's not as optimistic
about the Rotatori case.

Katie Pattee is the crime lab
manager and property manager

for the Council Bluffs
Police Department.

- We service the community
in Council Bluffs,

and sometimes we do assist
surrounding agencies.

We work anything from small
crimes like burglaries,

criminal mischief,
property damage, accidents,

all the way up to obviously
cases like homicides,

cold cases, crimes against
person, things like that.

To my knowledge, we
have all of the evidence

that was collected back then,

we have a lot of her clothing
and things like that.

She'd been staying in the
hotel for a little while,

so we have all of
that stuff too.

(camera shuttering)

We did have some fingerprints

that were lifted from the scene.

As much as we talk about
advancements in technology,

law enforcement has always
been an innovative field.

And while a lot of
things have changed,

I think a lot of things
have been similar

and stayed the same, but
those guys did a great job

in their processing, in their
documentation of the scene,

evidence collection.

- [Narrator] On the floor,
there is green foam,

the kind that a
florist would use.

- Kind of like when
you walked in...

Almost in the walkway,
the entryway to the room,

it's like hundreds of
little bitty pieces,

look like the foam that
you stick flowers in

when you receive
a flower delivery.

So that's definitely
interesting,

I've never been to a scene
where I've found floral foam,

just an odd piece of
evidence for sure.

- [Narrator] The green
foam was also found

in the upstairs hallway.

- Almost every case we
work, we have video,

video surveillance of some
sort, but in the 80's,

that wasn't a key
piece of evidence.

But now for sure, we would've
shown this guy walking down

the hallway and walking into a
room or dropping floral foam,

or gotten a license
plate off of a vehicle

in the parking lot and that
technology just wasn't available

back then.

So, maybe back then
if we had had that,

they would've caught
him right away,

but that just didn't happen, so.

- [Narrator] The Rotatori
murder case was growing colder

by the day.

Four months after Lee Rotatori

is murdered in a Council
Bluffs motel room,

the decomposing body
of a man is found

in an isolated wooded
area, 550 miles away.

But it will be four decades
until investigators are able

to uncover the
connection between them.

(intense music)

On June 25th, 1982, 32 year
old Lee Rotatori is stabbed

to death in a motel room
in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Police have no
suspects, no witnesses,

no motive in the murder
of the young nutritionists

who had arrived from
Michigan a week earlier

to take up a new post at
Jenny Edmundson Hospital.

The motels proximity to two
busy interstate highways

presented a problem
for investigators

since the killer could
have long been gone

by the time police
arrived at the scene.

Lee's husband remained at their
home in Nunica while she got

her feet on the ground
in Council Bluffs.

Lee had married
Jerry Nemke in 1978,

they divorced the following year

and then remarried
at the end of 1981.

- But Jerry Nemke had a past

In May, 1960 when he was 17
years old, Nemke was picked up

in Chicago by police for
questioning in the slain

of three Chicago area
women and the fatal beating

of a young Chicago waitress
by the name of Marilyn Duncan

On April 29th.

- He was a fugitive
from a youth camp

and was driving a stolen
car when he met Duncan,

and reportedly went out
on a date that night.

- [Narrator] Nemke was accused

of bludgeoning her before
leaving her bleeding

and unconscious behind
a Chicago factory,

she died two days later.

Could he be responsible
for Lee's death?

- She's raped and
then beaten to death

which heightens your
sense of, oh my God,

what are the odds of
that to begin with.

- [Narrator] But Lee's
husband was a long way away

on the night of her murder.

- He was a 10 hour drive away.

In reading through the reports,

his alibi was rock solid.

- [Narrator] Nemke had
been sentenced to death

for the murder of
Marilyn Duncan,

but less than two years
later in January, 1962,

the Illinois Supreme Court
overturned the conviction

on the grounds the
preliminary hearing

had not been properly conducted.

- There's a second trial,
he's found guilty again

and sentenced to
75 years in prison,

but then he is released in 1978,

and he attends Southern Illinois
University in Carbondale.

- [Narrator] Nemke's
violent past remains a flag

for Steve Andrews.

Four months after
Lee Rotatori's death,

another grizzly
murder is in the news.

On October 30th, human remains
are found in a shallow grave,

in an isolated wooded area
outside Cobden, Illinois,

it takes two weeks
to identify the body.

Thomas Freeman had been
shot four times in the chest

sometime during July or August.

- Four months outdoors in
the summer heat would make

the victim's body in an
advanced state of decomposition,

making identification difficult.

Dental records are
typically the place

to start if there is
no identification found

with the remains.

- [Narrator] 35 Year old
Freeman was from West Frankfurt

in southern Illinois.

He was believed

to be a transient living
in different locations.

As with Lee's case, police
are stymied as to the motive

for his murder and
have no suspects.

It's now 2001 investigators
decide to resubmit DNA taken

into evidence from
Lee's postmortem

to the State of Iowa Division
of Criminal Investigation Lab

for forensic analysis.

But when the DNA profile
was entered into state

and federal databases no
matches were returned.

It would be periodically
rechecked through the years 2001

through 2011, but
without any results.

In 2011, detective Steve Andrews
is assigned to Lee's case.

- My sergeant came to me one day

and plopped these
case files on my desk

and said, hey, you're
kind of a go-getter,

why don't you look into this
and see what you can do.

There's been some
advances in DNA

and I know there's some
DNA involved in this case,

why don't you see what
you can do with this.

It's overwhelming quite frankly
when you first get this pile

of paperwork and boxes and
reports basically dumped on you.

I just started reading,

I started at the
front of the case file

and I started reading
all the cases,

started reading all the reports.

I started reading about
what all the other previous

detectives have done in the
case, just to get familiar

with the time, and the facts,
and the dates and the names,

and all the effort that went
into the case back then.

- [Narrator] In 2018, council
Bluffs crime lab manager,

Katie Pattee joins Steve
Andrews on the Rotatori case.

- DNA's come a long, long ways
in the last even five years,

but especially in
the last 40 years.

We knew that we had
a male DNA profile

from the sexual assault kit.

That profile still had not been
identified despite the fact

that it had been entered into
the state criminal justice

system with which would search
against convicted offenders.

So we wanted to research
and try another route

if we could try to
identify this unknown male.

- [Narrator] The same
year Katie joins the Team,

Council Bluffs police Captain,
Todd Weddum sees a television

program about the
Golden State Killer.

- Joseph DeAngelo Jr.
committed a string of murders

and other crimes in California
between 1973 and 1986,

and it was eventually
brought down

with the aid of
forensic genealogy.

- And we started talking
about it and he's like,

hey, if they can do that,
we can do it, right?

And I'm like, absolutely, this
is a perfect case for that.

- [Narrator] In April of
2019, Katie sends a DNA sample

to Parabon NanoLabs, the company
based in Reston, Virginia

that works with law
enforcement on DNA forensics

and on technologies for
the medical industry.

- When the captain
released the funding

to send our sample in
to get started on this,

again that jumpstarted
the whole investigation

and literally that's when
this investigation took off.

- Parabon concludes
Lee's killer is a male

of Northern European descent.

In other words, a
very large pool.

- [Narrator] The lab compares
that profile against DNA

that has been submitted
to family tree companies

like ancestry.com and 23andMe

in which the clients
allow law enforcement

to review their DNA profiles.

- And then they get a match,

but it's with a sixth
to an eighth cousin

which leads Parabon to tell
investigators their chances

of finding a suspect
are slim to none.

- I was like, okay so we have
a chance not a good chance,

we have a slim chance, but
at least we have a chance.

- [Narrator] Parabon
reassures the investigators

that people submit
new kits every day.

It's possible one just
might eventually come in

that will move things forward.

For Council Bluffs
investigators, it
becomes a waiting game.

- There wasn't a lot we
could do there for a while,

it was just waiting
for that right person

to submit their
known DNA profile.

We contacted several people
that we wanted them to submit

because we thought that maybe
they would be somehow related

or involved.

A lot of it was
just a waiting game

which is also difficult, you
know you've put all this time

into it and you're hoping
that when you submit it,

a week later you'll
get a phone call

and like, hey, we
know who it is.

But that wasn't the case,
it definitely took months

to get to the point where
we actually were able

to figure out who it was.

- [Narrator] Then in March,
2020, police captain Todd Weddum

opens the email that
will change everything.

It's from a 20 year old
college student in Pennsylvania

who is an interest in genealogy.

Could he be key to help
solve this cold case

and bring justice to the
murder of Lee Rotatori?

(intense music)

Council Bluffs Police turn to
a new company in 2019, hoping

the latest in DNA forensic
techniques might help them

identify Lee Rotatori's killer.

Comparing that profile
against DNA submitted

to family tree companies,
ancestry.com and 23andMe,

the lab discovers a match

for the DNA profile
police sent them,

but only in the range of
a sixth to eighth cousin

of the suspect.

- Now it's a waiting game
as investigators hope

that as more people
research their genealogy,

and submit their DNA
to genealogy databases,

that they will get closer
to finding the identity

of Lee's killer.

- Right about this exact
same time in our process,

we get out of the
blue a cold email.

- [Narrator] Eric Schubert,
a 20 year old junior history

major at Elizabethtown
College in Pennsylvania.

- Eric emails Council Bluffs
police chief, Todd Weddum

in March, 2020 and
ask him if he can help

with any of their cold cases.

- Call it fate, call
it divine intervention,

call it whatever you want.

- [Narrator] Council
Bluffs Police vet him

through other
agencies he's assisted

and the city's legal department
draws up an agreement

with him, Eric gets to work.

- Eric came in outta nowhere,
he actually solicited us,

called us and said, hey,
I've read a little bit

about this case, I
wanna help you guys.

So that kind of
came outta nowhere,

we didn't expect it.

- And we sat down with him
and shared our information

in our case with him.

From that point,
it was interesting

because, again your
hopes get up again,

you start to ride
that rollercoaster up

and it was literally, oh
my God, probably a week,

or so later I get a call
from Eric and he says,

hey, I found his
great grandparents.

He goes, I think
we're gonna find him.

I was like, ooh, this
huge weight being lifted,

and then I start
working that angle,

and I start contacting
distant relatives

and requesting DNA samples
that I got from family.

They were more than helpful.

Nine times out of 10, the family
was like if a family member

of mine did something
like this to somebody,

I would want them to take
responsibility for what they did

and more than happy
to give DNA samples.

If Eric would send
me lists of people,

I would send out
contact letters.

A lot of them were hard to find,

at this stage in the
game 40 years later,

we ran into a lot of problems.

A lot of people are deceased
by now, people have moved,

they've changed numbers.

As small as the world is,
it's still a very large place,

you just can't find everybody.

I would reach out
to those people,

some of them that I
would be able to find,

I would get samples back
and then we would start

the game over again.

I would send those
DNA samples in,

we would get those results,
Eric would plug them

into his database of genealogy

and then he would spit out
another list of names to me.

He goes, okay, that's
good, that got us to here,

now let's try this.

And over the next two
years, Eric and I did this.

It gave you hope,
it gave you drive,

it gave you a direction, it
gave you leads to follow up on

which is what you want.

So I start doing this and
we follow these leads.

- [Narrator] Using
genealogical research,

they had zeroed in on a man
they believe might have been

Lee Rotatori's killer,
but there was a surprise

in the store.

The genealogy
indicated which family

the man belonged to, but
his place within the family

was not clear.

- Eric was able to determine
that Nemke was raised

by someone other than
his biological father

which is what muddied
the waters in terms

of honing in on
his true identity.

- Eric called me
one day and he goes,

he's not who we think he is.

He's being raised by somebody
that's not really his father.

And I'm like, what?

And he is like, on paper
our suspect's father

is not really his father,
he's an illegitimate child

of somebody and that's why our
numbers aren't matching up.

- [Narrator] Then
out of the blue,

the waiting game with
Parabon pays off.

The lab has flagged a DNA kit

that had been submitted
by an unknown man,

one who had never been
approached by the investigators.

- The man's profile
helps Eric Schubert

and Parabon narrow down this
suspect pool to two brothers.

One was too young to have
committed the crime in 1982,

the other was Thomas O. Freeman.

- [Narrator] Both Parabon
and Schubert called Council

Bluffs Police within an hour
of each other with a name.

- We got a email from Parabon
and an email from Eric

both saying, I think
we found the guy.

We do some research,
and lo and behold,

we find out that Thomas
Oscar Freeman is deceased,

and not only is he deceased,
we find out he was murdered,

approximately two months after
Lee's homicide took place.

- [Narrator] Council
Bluffs Police need

to prove Freeman's DNA is a
match for the DNA found on Lee.

- So the next step is
then to try to reach out

to family members to try
to get a known DNA sample

to corroborate our findings.

And his brothers were deceased,
his parents were deceased.

We found out who his true
father was, he was deceased.

We found that Thomas had a
daughter who was still alive,

she was living in St. Louis.

The Illinois State Police as
part of their investigation

into the homicide of
Thomas reached out to her

to get a DNA sample.

And then we piggybacked
off of that investigation,

and verified the
identity of our suspect

through his daughter's DNA.

- [Narrator] On Friday,
February 25th, 2022,

Counsel Bluffs Police captain,
Todd Weddum issues a press

release announcing
detectives have cleared

the cold case homicide
of Lee Rotatori.

They named Thomas
Freeman as the source

of the suspect DNA found
at the crime scene.

Thomas Oscar Freeman
was the trucker

from West Frankfurt, Illinois.

He was 35 at the
time of Lee's murder.

Police think he may have
killed Lee while passing

through on a hall
although his name

is not on the motels
register for that night.

(intense music)

But who fired four bullets
into Thomas Freeman's chest

in the summer of 1982,

just weeks after Lee
Rotatori's murder?

- Council Bluff Detectives

and Illinois State troopers
begin working together

on Freeman's homicide.

They don't yet know who shot
him, but they do have reason

to believe that his
death could be related

to Lee Rotatori's murder.

- Jerry Nemke, when he was
released from prison back

in 1978, he moved to
Carbondale, Illinois

and went to Southern
Illinois University.

Well, Thomas Oscar
Freeman was found buried

and dead approximately 15
miles away from that area.

Thomas Oscar Freeman
was raised in that area

and had ties to that
area, so Jerry Nemke

and Thomas Oscar Freeman both
were geographically located

in the same vicinity
in that same timeframe.

- [Narrator] Was it possible
that Nemke and Freeman

had crossed paths in the late
70's while they were both

in the area?

Early on, Jerry Nemke had
been ruled out as a suspect

in Lee's murder.

- And the first thing that I
did in this case after reading

the case file was I found
her husband at the time,

and I wanted his DNA.

And everything I read in
this case led me to believe

that he had to be
involved in this somehow.

So I found him first and
I sent the detectives

from Tampa, Florida
out to his house,

they collected his DNA
and it was literally two,

almost three years later that
I finally got the results

of that test.

- [Narrator] The DNA
test came back negative,

proving that Lee's husband
is not the assailant

who stabbed her to death in
the best Western frontier lodge

motel room on the night
of June 25th, 1982.

But as Steve Andrews studied
the existing case files,

Nemke's alibi for the 24th
and 25th caught his attention.

(intense music)

Jerry Nemke's DNA had
proved he was not the one

who murdered his wife in 1982,

yet something didn't sit right
with Detective Steve Andrews.

As Steve Andrews studied
the existing case files,

Nemke's alibi for the 24th
and 25th caught his attention.

- In reading through
the reports his alibi

was rock solid, it was
over the top solid alibi.

He had worked the previous
evening until 10:00 p.m.

at night.

He didn't have to be back
to his second job till later

in the next day.

To me, my thoughts is well,
if I'm involved in this,

I have to establish some
timeframe in between

that where I'm known and seen.

He shows up at Hackley
Hospital where Lee

was working previously prior
to coming to Council Bluffs

to return a lab coat, apparently
out of the clear blue sky

he decided that today,
the day that her body

is found before it's
found, he needs to show up

and return her lab coat to her
previous place of employment.

Shortly after that, then
he makes a special trip out

to the stable where Lee's horse
is boarded at where again,

he happens to return an
item that he tells the lady

that owns the stable that
Lee wanted her to have this,

and then talks to her about
Lee and has another appearance

with a good close
friend of Lee's.

He leaves there and then
he goes to his job later

that afternoon where he has
an alibi and he's seen there.

He almost went out of his way

to establish his whereabouts
as not being here.

- Jerry Nemke's overly
elaborate alibi led Andrews

to believe Lee's husband had
more involvement in her murder

than investigators ever thought.

- [Narrator] And then there
was Jerry's physical proximity

to Freeman at the
end of the 70's.

Nemke served his time for
killing young Chicago waitress,

Marilyn Duncan at the
Menard Correctional Facility

located in southern Illinois.

- After his release in 1978,

he attended college
in Carbondale, about
26 miles outside

West Frankfurt
where Freeman lived,

and 15 miles from Cobden
where his remains were found.

- He was shot four
times in the chest

and buried in a shallow grave
within two months after Lee

is killed.

Some people might think
that's a coincidence,

I don't believe in
coincidences at this point.

Everything I read in this
case led me to believe

that he had to be
involved in this somehow.

- [Narrator] Around
the time Thomas Freeman

was coming into focus as
the suspect in Lee's murder,

Steve found his name
kept coming to mind.

- And it's like,
I know I've heard

that name somewhere in this...

I don't know where I've
heard this name at.

So I dig back into
the files again

and I reread that in the weeks
leading up to June 25th, 1982

when Lee was killed, Jerry had
received multiple phone calls

from somebody he
identified as Tom,

that he received
three phone calls

that Jerry wasn't there for.

And then he called back
and two other times,

and actually spoke
to Jerry within days,

like on the 23rd
before Lee was killed.

The same Tom individual
had called back

and actually spoke with
Lee's husband on the phone.

And I remembered that from
reading those reports,

whether that Tom on
the phone is our Tom,

again, I can't prove
that one way or another,

but it's just another
one of those coincidences

that you have to draw your
own conclusions about.

- [Narrator] Nemke died in 2019,

Steve recalled reading
in the early case files

that Lee had an insurance policy

with Jerry named
as the beneficiary.

- Jerry had recently
passed away,

and someone that he
knew called me and said,

hey, I had something information
I'd like to share with you,

and I'm always looking for
information in reference

to this case so I'm like shoot.

And he says, I was home
on leave several years ago

and I was out to the
bar drinking with a
friend of Jerry's,

and he told me that Jerry was
all drunk in a bar one night

talking, and he told him
that he had hired some guy

that he was in prison
with to kill his wife,

so he could collect
the insurance money.

And not only that, he said he
knew when it was gonna happen,

so he was sure to make sure
he established an alibi

for the timeframe of her death.

We know Thomas is deceased,

we also know that
Jerry is now deceased.

Those two men may have taken
the secret to Lee's homicide

with them to the grave.

- And that was one unfortunate
part of this whole case

is we won't ever
actually be able to go

and throw him in jail, but
at least we know who it is

and I think that is
some closure for us.

And obviously he can't victimize
another person now, so.

- [Narrator] Steve
Andrews is quick to praise

the investigators who
preceded him on Lee's case

working diligently
over the years.

- The work that they
did was unbelievable,

I look back and I read through
their reports that they did

and all the work that they did,

all the people they talked to,

the suspects they interviewed,
the polygraphs they did,

the witnesses that
they interviewed,

the reaching out to
other agencies to look

for similar cases with
similar MOs, the call records

for what they were at that
time that they dug into,

again looking for potential
flights coming into town

and leaving that may
have brought somebody.

And once they've
exhausted every option

that they had available
to 'em at the time,

and every one of the leads
that they had followed up

to that point led to a dead end.

- [Narrator] And the
green florist's foam

at the crime scene, it's
origins remain a mystery.

- It was literally the change
in technology in the timeframe

of when this case went cold
for them until I picked it up

is what made all the difference
in the world in this case.

- I think anytime we're
dealing with a true victim,

we wanna solve the case
if we owe it to them,

especially if it's in
a case of a homicide

where we can't talk to them,
we can't ask them questions,

our goal is to try
to bring justice

to the loved ones
of this victim.

- Lee had a life, she had
family, she was a daughter,

she was a sister,
she was a mother

and it's important
for those people.

- [Narrator] In a case that
spent 40 years the diligence

and dedication of law
enforcement officers,

along with tremendous
strides in DNA technology

and the help of a
young genealogy genius
would finally see

the murder of Lee
Rotatori solved.

(intense music)