Original subtitles

If you really want something,

sometimes you have to fight for it.

Just like 22-year-old Mindy Morgenstern.

She stands out in a crowd.

Mindy had this smile and a laugh that was contagious.

And she faces adversity head-on.

She found out that she had been diagnosed with MS,

but she was a tough girl.

It made her have that much more of a drive and that much more ambition.

When she's found murdered,

it rocks this tiny college town.

I talked with the police about Mindy's friends,

Mindy's boyfriends. Who would do this?

None of the leads really led anywhere.

We didn't have answers.

But because Mindy stood her ground...

She wasn't gonna go down without a fight.

But, for Mindy fighting back, they wouldn't have solved this case.

...she caught her killer.

She solved her own murder from beyond the grave.

The fitness app on the phone.

It was overwhelming evidence.

♪ I've been haunted by the visions ♪

♪ That I've seen with my own eyes ♪

♪ And the only way to find you ♪

♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪

She did help catch this killer.

♪ We have some demons here inside us ♪

♪ Never let the darker days define us ♪

Valley City, North Dakota, is a rural town of 7,000.

It's home to Valley City State University,

where 22-year-old Mindy Morgenstern is an education major

in the fall of 2006.

In this tight-knit community, Mindy knows everybody,

and everybody knows Mindy.

My name is Liz Kleinke.

Mindy and I talked a lot through emails or Facebook,

and Mindy always answered her phone calls.

But, on the night of September 13, 2006,

no one can get ahold of Mindy.

Mindy was supposed to go out that night with her friends

Toni and Danielle.

But she never responded, and they were like,

"Why isn't she answering?"

Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messag- -

According to reports by the local press,

that's when they decide to go check on her.

My name is Brittany Lawonn, and in 2006,

I was the rookie reporter at The Forum in Fargo.

So, Toni and Danielle get to her apartment.

And Danielle stays in the car

and Toni went up the stairs

to the apartment to look for her.

And as she kind of touched the door...

...it was unlocked and open.

And immediately, as she steps in, she sees...

-Mindy's feet on the floor.

And her head leaning toward the kitchen.

When she sees blood,

Toni screams and calls 911.

The commotion gets the attention of another tenant in the building.

There was a man who heard Toni,

understandably upset after seeing her friend's body there.

So he came up to the door

and kind of helped Toni to look at what was happening

and to figure out what was going on.

Law enforcement is at the scene within minutes.

As soon as I entered the door,

I realized it was a murder.

My name is Dana Rustebakke.

Back in 2006, I was a patrol officer for the Valley City Police Department.

There was a belt that was around her neck,

and the suspect took a knife and cut her throat.

And there was a very strong chemical smell

because Mindy's body had been doused in Pine-Sol.

It was a shock to see her in the condition that she was in.

Valley City Police want answers.

Did anyone see anything suspicious?

Did Mindy have any visitors?

A boyfriend?

Could someone who lives in the building be the culprit?

Officers take statements from Mindy's neighbors,

and the tragic news spreads fast.

I remember my mom called me

and just being in disbelief. Like, this is-- No way.

This isn't real.

In Valley City, everybody knows everybody.

Who would do that?

Mindy Morgenstern was more than a little nervous

when she arrived as a freshman at Valley City State.

She grew up on a farm near the tiny village of New Salem, North Dakota,

after being adopted from Colombia at the age of 1 with her sister, April.

Mindy stood out in a rural community

but she was proud of where she came from.

For a farm girl like Mindy,

going to Valley City State is like moving to the big city.

When she moved to Valley City, she was telling everybody,

"Be safe, be careful."

And we're like, "Mindy, it's okay. Like, we're safe here."

Mindy overcomes her trepidation

and blossoms into a confident, outgoing young woman

with a busy social life.

She became friends with so many people right away

because her personality was very magnetic.

My name is Ashley Wallace,

and I am a childhood friend of Mindy Morgenstern.

♪ Come with me, yeah, I'll show you round, I bet you want it ♪

Just as her new life in college takes off,

Mindy receives devastating news

when she's diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

It was obviously a life-altering diagnosis,

but she did not let that get in her way.

It didn't stop her.

Despite major health challenges,

Mindy is resilient and the type of girl

who stands up for the little guy.

Mindy was an education major. She loved kids.

She was going to school to work with kids.

She was always finding ways

to try and help the world and help others.

She is so loved and gives so much love.

How could anyone wanna hurt her?

It was bizarre for that to happen in Valley City,

but also for it to happen to Mindy,

who didn't really have a mean bone in her body.

Valley City police realize they can't handle a murder case alone...

...so they call in state investigators from nearby Fargo

who arrive two hours after the tragic discovery.

My name's John Byers. In 2006,

I was an assistant attorney general

working for the State Attorney General for North Dakota.

The State Crime Bureau was involved

right from the very beginning.

And Fargo detectives are stunned by what they find at the scene.

Visible to the officers were one knife

still in her neck...

...and the other one kinda resting on her shoulder,

both of which had a broken handle

from whoever cut her throat.

There were some freshly laundered clothes

in a laundry basket.

And so, she might have been doing laundry.

Investigators try to piece together what may have happened to Mindy.

It looked as though Mindy was walking into her apartment.

She still has her purse on her shoulder, she has her keys in her hand.

And the perpetrator came up from behind her...

...and used a cloth belt that strangled her,

and then plunged two knives into her neck.

It would seem to indicate that this was a very short encounter.

The person that did this to Mindy

got a bottle of Pine-Sol,

and then proceeded to dump that

on Mindy's face and--

and some of the rest of her body.

A lot of us believed it was to destroy evidence.

Right now, this would be the north wall of the bedroom.

It could've been a robbery,

but the apartment looks untouched

and Mindy's wallet is on the floor.

So is her phone.

And it's buzzing with incoming calls and texts.

There was no way to know whether this was

someone specifically focused on Mindy,

or somebody that might be out, interested in doing other crimes.

The investigators have no idea who killed Mindy,

but they quickly figure out when the murder took place.

She was pretty active on her phone,

texting and calling with friends.

She stopped answering any calls or texts at 12:47.

Her friends had found her at nine o'clock.

There was this nine-hour window of time

and people in her apartment was actually helping

to narrow down the timeframe for when she was killed

because people smelled an odor of Pine-Sol about 1:30 p.m.

Investigators now know Mindy was murdered

within 45 minutes after her phone activity stopped.

When detectives talked to Mindy's friend who discovered her body,

they're very interested to learn that Mindy's neighbor was at the scene.

It might not have been a coincidence that he came

to the assistance of Mindy's friend.

Sometimes, people that commit homicides

hang around the area

and watch to see what happens.

This gentleman named Robert Lynds came to Mindy's apartment

and then told Mindy's friend,

"I think she's dead."

When police look into Robert Lynds' background,

they become even more alarmed.

They realized he did have a felony criminal history.

And his past contributed to law enforcement's suspicion.

Investigators wanna talk to Mindy's ex-con neighbor.

During the interview,

detectives pick up on something that raises a red flag.

The one thing that got everybody's attention

is how he did have cuts on his hands.

-When Mindy's body was discovered,

it looked like there was something under her fingernails.

Did Mindy scratch Robert Lynds in a desperate attempt to fight him off?

Or is it just a chilling coincidence?

The truth is more disturbing than they can possibly imagine.

He had a-an obsession with Mindy.

It makes you sick to your stomach.

I was blown away.

Mindy Morgenstern was found stabbed to death in her apartment,

but the small-town farm girl didn't go down without a fight.

Investigators believe Mindy may have scratched her killer

during the attack.

And her neighbor, Robert Lynds, has visible injuries.

Robert Lynds appeared to have scratch marks around the hands.

Robert Lynds fit the profile.

He looked like the guy that we wanted to be able to capture and say,

"This is the person that killed Mindy Morgenstern."

My name is Lee Grossman.

In 2006, I was the assistant state's attorney

for Barnes County in Valley City, North Dakota.

Robert Lynds served time in prison in California.

He was new to Valley City.

Lynds claims to be nothing more than a concerned neighbor,

but police focus on the fresh scratches on his hands.

Where did they come from?

He said the scratches from his arms

came from the work that he did with his hands.

Robert worked at a metal fabricating factory in Valley City.

He said he clocked in that morning,

and he clocked out that afternoon,

and he was here the whole time.

Robert Lynds offered his DNA voluntarily,

fingerprints, everything.

Police want more info about Lynds,

and it so happens that another one of Mindy's neighbors

is a fellow law enforcement officer.

Mindy had remarked to people before

that she felt very comfortable in the apartment that she lived in

because there was a correctional officer who lived in the building.

His name is Moe Gibbs,

a respected community member

and family man who works at the local jailhouse.

Moe was working the night shift

at the Correctional Center

during that time.

So, during the time of her murder, he would've been home.

Moe tells detectives he was in his apartment

with his 15-month-old stepdaughter while his wife was at work.

He didn't notice anything unusual.

He didn't recall seeing Robert Lynds at that time.

He did note that there was an odor

of Pine-Sol sometime that afternoon.

Other than the odor,

none of Mindy's neighbors noticed anything strange that day.

With only one suspect and little to go on,

the investigators gather more information

from people in Mindy's social circle.

I talked with the police,

talked through Mindy's friends,

Mindy's boyfriends.

The time that Mindy passed away, Jordan was her boyfriend.

Jordan was a local,

and Mindy helped out at their farm that Jordan's parents owned.

Because of the nature of the crime,

we wanted to find someone who would've had access to Mindy

and her apartment during that time.

To be honest, Jordan never crossed my mind

'til the police asked me about Jordan.

And then I was like, "Well, no, but maybe."

Mindy never gave any inclination that

Jordan even had that side to him.

Oftentimes, with murders like this,

it's from someone who acted in a fit of rage

or in a fit of jealousy.

72 hours after Mindy's body was discovered,

Jordan agrees to talk to investigators.

He claims that the night before Mindy's murder,

they had a quiet night at her apartment.

At the time Mindy was killed on the following day,

Jordan says he was working on his family farm.

But the detectives aren’t so quick to believe his alibi.

♪ Hazy nights, days of lies...♪

As the investigators dig further into Jordan and Mindy's romance,

they learn from Mindy's friends that their relationship was less than perfect.

I think that Jordan would've wished

that she was ready to settle down,

but Mindy, her heart was kind of stuck

yet with that relationship with Kyle.

♪ My relation... ♪

Kyle is Mindy's ex,

who broke up with her the year before.

♪ Everything changes ♪

Kyle was, at that time, the love of her life.

Kyle graduated, moved away, and started his career.

Mindy was heartbroken when her and Kyle broke up

but moved on.

According to Kyle, Mindy didn't move on.

He tells police a few months before her murder,

Mindy showed up to his apartment uninvited.

But Mindy is never completely out of his life

because she's also very close to Kyle's family.

Mindy still talked to Kyle's dad.

Awkward, weird. We used to tell Mindy that and then be like, "Gosh, that's weird."

Weird, for sure.

But also a major source of tension between Kyle and his father.

Despite the fact that Kyle and Mindy's relationship had ended,

Rodney kept in contact with Mindy.

Like, why are you doing that, you know?

In true Mindy fashion, "Oh, it's fine," you know?

"I just-- He's super nice, and he cares about me."

Is Rod just a concerned father figure,

or is there something sinister to this relationship?

We had found through Mindy's cellphone records

that she and Rod communicated quite often.

He would make 8 to 10, 12 calls a day to Mindy.

The relationship could be innocent,

but messages found on Mindy's phon e

make it sound anything but.

After Mindy had been murdered,

he was still calling and leaving her messages.

The detectives add Rod to their growing list of persons of interest.

And as more shocking evidence comes to light...

The DNA is linked to a really violent rape that's unsolved.

...paranoia grips a college town.

We were all scared.

It's been four days since the gruesome murder

of college senior Mindy Morgenstern.

Investigators have interviewed persons of interest,

including her neighbor,

her boyfriend, Jordan,

and her ex, Kyle.

It seems that Mindy was hung up on Kyle,

but it's Kyle's dad, Rodney,

who's hung up on Mindy.

It was highly suspicious to police that Rodney Kuznia not only

was calling Mindy while she was alive,

he also called and left voicemails for her after she had died.

Were Rod's messages inspired by grief

or a guilty conscience?

Most of us did not know the obsessive nature

that Rod had with Mindy.

Law enforcement wanted to know why

the father of Mindy's ex-boyfriend

would've been calling to leave this voicemail.

The investigators bring Rod in for questioning

and press him on his unusual relationship

with his son's ex-girlfriend.

♪ Everyone needs to feel ♪

Rod insists their relationship was innocent,

but he admits that his son and his wife

told him to cut off contact with Mindy.

Police discovered that Rodney Kuznia

actually would meet her for meals every now and then,

and he'd also given her money on occasion.

Rod would've been capable of getting access to Mindy's apartment,

being able to walk in with Mindy,

and then committing this type of crime.

But he said he was traveling with his wife

during the time of death that we had pegged for Mindy.

Rod's behavior can't be ignored.

Investigators ask for a DNA sample

and follow up on his alibi.

Stumped by so many intriguing persons of interest,

detectives hope the medical examiner's report

can shed some light on who killed Mindy.

The medical examiner was able to get DNA

that had been removed from fingernail scrapings

and clippings underneath Mindy's left hand.

Mindy had done everything she could to fight off her attacker.

She was not able to save herself.

But she reached up with her left hand,

and took a gouge of skin out of whoever had attacked her.

Nearly a week into the case,

investigators get an update on Mindy's neighbor.

Mr. Lynds had a couple of scratches on his hands.

Now, he said, "I'm a blue collar worker,

and I'm in a job where I hurt my hands daily."

His employer was able to validate

that he had been working at the time when Mindy was killed.

Police wanna know

did a stranger ambush Mindy as she entered her apartment,

or was the killer someone she knew?

♪ You cannot hide... ♪

We're being asked by the police,

who else was she hanging out with?

But we really couldn't come up with an idea.

♪ ... and did why ♪

I remember sitting with Jordan

on my front steps and trying to talk it out together.

And I kept thinking, it's gotta be somebody that we don't know.

With the killer still on the loose,

Valley City is on edge.

I mean, we were all scared.

We locked our cars, we looked over our shoulder,

didn't go anywhere really alone.

I felt like backed in a corner

because the fear just paralyzes you.

I couldn't function. I couldn't take a shower

without being afraid

'cause I was afraid somebody was on the other side of the curtain.

Without solid evidence against anyone close to Mindy,

investigators wonder if she didn't know her killer after all.

And it turns out,

Mindy had recently filed a police report

about a disturbing run-in with a strange man.

- I remember my phone ringing,

and it was Mindy, and she was crying hysterically. And she said,

"Somebody tried to take me." And I said, "What?"

And she's like, "Some guy pulled up in a car

"in front of our apartment building,

and then he got out of the car," and was coming at her.

She really thought this person was trying to take her

and put her in the vehicle.

So, we went to the police station to file a report on what had happened.

It was very close in time to when she was murdered.

Within a couple of weeks of the murder happening.

Was this strange man stalking Mindy,

and did he come back and kill her?

Valley City is located on the interstate.

Someone could've come into town,

f ollowed her to her apartment.

This could've been someone who had experience

in stalking women.

They knew how to kill someone,

and they knew how to hide that they were the killer.

All these thoughts come into your mind.

Could it have been you?

And is this person gonna be coming after me now?

Like, who's out there?

Maybe who's next?

A violent killer...

Mindy was scratching and fighting.

...caught by a college girl who refused to back down.

We have a match.

♪ The dark is coming after you ♪

Investigators in Valley City, North Dakota

are looking for Mindy Morgenstern's killer

and wonder if it could be the person she reported.

Could Valley City be the hunting grounds for a sick predator?

The public was worried 'cause this person's still on the loose.

Was it someone passing through? And we didn't have answers.

So, this man in a car created 1,000 phone calls and leads.

But none of the leads really led anywhere

because it was such a vague description

where that could've been anybody.

While the mysterious man remains elusive,

investigators retrace every potential suspect's alibi,

starting with Mindy's boyfriend.

Jordan said at that time in the middle of the afternoon on September 13th

that he was in a combine on the farm.

We spoke with Jordan's dad, Bruce.

Bruce confirmed that Jordan was out combining at that time.

They even did some trial runs to see if it was possible

to get to Mindy's apartment and back out there

by the time that people knew that he was back.

And it was too far away

for him to have done this and gotten back.

And what about Mindy's ex-boyfriend, Kyle?

Kyle was living in Fargo, which is about 60 miles away.

He was working that afternoon.

And so keeping Kyle as a suspect became a difficult task

because his timeline didn't really fit

with Mindy's time of death.

Investigators also get info about Kyle's dad.

Rod Kuznia had a-an obsession with Mindy and was fixated on her

and looked like a good suspect.

What we learned was that Rod was traveling with his wife

on September 13th,

and he would've had no way to get away from his wife

in order to commit this crime.

We really had no information.

Everybody's still kinda scratching our heads.

Five days after her murder,

detectives get DNA results from the tissue

under Mindy's fingernails.

That DNA sample was put into what they call CODIS,

which is a database of DNA out there.

And the crime lab director called us and said,

"We have a match."

But the problem is, they don't have a match with a name attached to it.

The DNA from underneath Mindy's fingernails

linked to a really violent rape in Fargo

from 2004 that's unsolved.

Law enforcement went and spoke with the victim

and asked her to provide details

of the person who committed the rape.

In speaking to the survivor,

she described the man who assaulted her

as a large, tall, African American individual.

None of the persons of interest

detectives have interviewed so far meets the victim's description.

But, there is one person that everyone knows who does.

Strangely enough, the first person who I thought of,

and I think, and everybody else did, we thought of Moe Gibbs

just due to the simple fact he lived in the same building as Mindy Morgenstern.

Moe Gibbs is a local corrections officer

who lives one floor below Mindy with his wife and stepdaughter.

Moe Gibbs worked in the Barnes County Jail.

I would see Moe on a regular basis in court.

He didn't stand out other than the fact that he was very friendly.

Is it possible that Moe Gibbs,

the well-liked jailer and family man,

could be Mindy's killer?

For local cops, it's hard to believe.

Moe was easy to talk to, and to me,

he didn't seem like the type that would do something like this.

It wasn't that long ago

that we were at a softball tournament,

and he seemed his normal self.

Moe Gibbs voluntarily submitted a DNA sample

when law enforcement came back from interviewing

the Fargo rape victim.

Investigators don't want to jump to conclusions.

The only information that we had was that

the assailant was a Black male.

Law enforcement interviewed roughly 20 men at that time,

all of whom voluntarily submitted their own DNA samples.

And they ultimately did find a match.

DNA exposes a serial predator...

Several women come forward.

...and reveals a killer...

We were shocked.

...hiding in plain sight.

I couldn't believe it.

Mindy Morgenstern fought for her life.

And her killer's DNA ended up under her fingernails.

Now, one week after her murder,

police finally have DNA results.

From everyone that were tested...

...and it matched Moe Gibbs.

I couldn't believe it at first

because I had just seen Moe earlier that day

when he had brought an inmate over for a court hearing.

He was well-liked.

Nobody really had anything bad to say about Moe.

This isn't a stranger.

It was a law enforcement official.

Moe Gibbs was married to a woman

who was a Valley City native.

Moe Gibbs was somebody who a lot of people in the community knew.

Moe Gibbs cooperates with police,

because detectives have questions,

especially about a scratch on Moe's left hand.

People lie, but DNA doesn't.

As law enforcement kept telling Moe about the evidence that was against him,

he would always, always deny that he was the killer.

Moe can deny all he wants,

but police have enough evidence to place him under arrest.

It was shocking to me that it was him.

Everybody was blown away

to find out that it was him.

The following day, the community gets another shock.

Moe Gibbs is arrested September 20th. On September 21st,

several female inmates come forward and disclose

that he has been sexually assaulting them while he was working as their jailer...

...including one woman at 6:00 a.m. the day that Mindy was killed.

Soon after this disturbing revelation,

the press learns the alleged killer

has not always gone by the name Moe Gibbs.

I've gotten a tip from an anonymous caller

that his previous name was Glen Dale Morgan Jr.

So I run his name,

his original name, through the federal database...

...and sure enough, I get a hit.

He had served five and a half years for a drive-by shooting

at a Seattle nightclub in 1992.

How exactly did a felon with a violent record

slip through the cracks and get a job as a jailer in a small town?

It would later come to be that the sheriff would say

that he didn't ask for the right background check

to be completed where they could've discovered

that he had done time in federal prison.

It's a horrible oversight that allowed him to work at this jail.

Prosecutors feel the pressure to put this guy away for good.

But at the pre-trial,

the judge rules out any discussion of the Fargo rape

or the sexual assaults in the jail.

The jury will only hear evidence directly related to Mindy's murder.

We explained how the DNA ended up under Mindy's fingernails.

We explained how the DNA profile matched Moe Gibbs.

But the jury remains divided over the DNA evidence.

We didn't lose. We just needed to start over.

At the second trial, prosecutors convinced the jury

that Moe's DNA got under Mindy's fingernails

because she was determined to fight off his vicious attack.

"We, the jury, duly impaneled,

"do find that defendant, Moe Gibbs...

...guilty."

It was like a weight had been lifted off of our shoulders.

Moe Gibbs was sentenced to the maximum that you can get in North Dakota,

and that's life in prison without parole.

Mindy, she's small, but mighty, right?

She was tiny, but she fought.

♪ But my smile... ♪

By clawing him, Mindy,

in just the brief time that she had before she lost her life,

did one thing that was responsible

for solving the murder.

Not only did she solve her case,

she also solved the case of a young woman who was raped in Fargo

and provided an opportunity

for these sexual assault victims in the jail

to speak out about what was happening to them and to put a stop to it.

♪ I don't push myself ♪

♪ Oh, I'm scared if I do ♪

She changed the future for other women.

Other victims that could've been.

♪ Can I be better at being who I am ♪

Mindy Morgenstern never backed down,

no matter what life threw at her.

Once a timid farm girl from a tiny town,

she overcame her social fears and was loved by everyone.

She refused to give up on her dreams,

even in the face of extremely difficult health issues.

When she was attacked by a violent serial predator twice her size,

it's no surprise that Mindy chose to fight.

And in the end,

it was her fighting spirit that caught her killer.

I feel that Mindy would want people to know

bad things happen in life,

but there's hope, and good things can come outta bad things.

Beauty from the ashes, I think she'd want people to know that.

♪ I don't know where my head is lately ♪

♪ Have I lost my mind? ♪

♪ But, I know that I have a secret ♪

♪ And it's only mine ♪

♪ And the only way to find me ♪

♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪