The Lake Erie Murders (2018–…): Season 2, Episode 8 - Killer Night Out - full transcript

In a laid-back community

just south of lake erie...

That's what everybody
did in whitehouse --

went to the bars,
played pool, and drank.

...A missing woman kickstarts

a 30-year mystery.

Out the back door, she went.

And that's last I saw her.

I will never forgive myself
for not going with her.

Janean's murder --
it changed that town.

And the terrifying
hunt for a killer...



This monster's out there
that is not facing

any kind of justice.

...Turns up
unimaginable horrors.

The only thing worse
than the way in which

she was buried is what
happened before she died.

Near the western
shore of lake erie,

22 miles south of toledo,

is the sleepy farming community
of whitehouse, ohio.

Whitehouse is so small.

If you blink going through town,
you've missed everything.

In the 1980s,
whitehouse was even smaller,

with only one stoplight
in the center of town.

Back then,
everybody knew everybody.

You could leave
your front door wide open.



You could leave
your car doors unlocked.

People were caring,
responsible, respectable.

Growing up, pam's best friend
was janean brown.

They were inseparable.

She was caring, loving,

funny,

the most giving person ever.

Janean and I were called
laverne and shirley,

me being laverne, because
I was the mouthy one.

Janean being shirley,
because she was the quiet one.

Here's janean's 18th birthday.

She looks pretty happy
she's an adult.

Growing up, I -- I --

you know, I looked up to janean.

Janean and I were
about two years apart.

We did hang out a lot.

She always had a smile.
She always enjoyed life.

Oof!

Wow, right over there

is the house that janean
and I lived at.

After graduating
from high school,

pam and janean move into a house

with pam's brother, larry.

That front window,
over all the way to the left,

was our room.

She was working
as a nurse's aide.

She loved that job.

I think she really liked
working with the elderly.

And the nursing home
was right there.

So when she would
leave to go to work,

she'd go out the back door,

walk across the property,
the nursing home's right there.

A lot of good memories
in that house of her and I.

I'm almost done, I just --

I have to do my hair again.

If we were going out,
and her hair wasn't perfect,

she would do it
two or three times,

and I'd sit and wait.

- Come on, come on, come on.
- Yeah, okay, nearly done.

Where janean and I lived

was a minute to uptown.

That's how small whitehouse is.

Everything is
so tightknit there.

The two best friends
head to their favorite

local hangout,

the copper lantern.

That's what everybody
did in whitehouse --

went to the bars,
played pool, and drank.

The lantern is busy
for a Thursday night,

and all the usual faces
are in attendance.

There's andy gustafson,
born with a silver spoon

in his mouth,
- two beers. Now.

And letting everyone
know about it.

You guys, come on!
Play something decent,

something we all know.

There's bill heisinger,

though everyone
calls him crazy horse.

Pam's brother, larry,
is already at the bar,

and janean's boyfriend
of three months,

harold estep,
is here waiting for her.

Harold was good-looking.
He had a good physique.

Harold's nickname was
big dog back then.

Just another typical night
in the copper lantern.

But it isn't a typical night,

and though none of them
yet know it,

tonight will haunt all of them
for the rest of their lives.

I love watching this girl play.

That's when andy
gustafson did what he did.

She's got a great butt.

Around town,

big dog harold's
temper is legendary.

You know,
he had an anger problem.

And he'd get nasty.

He'd...

Become jekyll and hyde.

we danced, drank our beers,
and then went to leave.

Two of our friends said that
they would drive us home.

She gave harold a kiss goodbye.

We walked to the car, and she
turned around to say goodbye.

She saw harold
kissing the barmaid.

That didn't go over well.

What are you doing?

And he turned and looked at her,

and she stood there,
and she looked at me,

and she said...
- I want to go home now.

She was furious at harold.

Janean was upset.
She was hurt.

I thought it was gonna be okay.

We'll wake up tomorrow,
we'll talk about it.

But she wouldn't let it go.

I have to go talk to him.

She grabbed my
high school cheerleading jacket.

Out the back door she went.

That's the last I saw her.

I will never forgive myself
for not going with her.

when I woke up
the next morning...

janean!

...And I realized that
she wasn't there,

I didn't worry about it.

And I figured okay,
she's up with harold,

she ended up staying up there,

they talked,
she probably fell asleep.

But it had started
getting closer to

time for her to go to work.

I'm like, okay,
something's not right.

Janean never missed work.
Never.

Pam checks in with harold,

but his reply is even
more concerning.

Harold said he had
never seen her.

You know, and I --
wait a minute, she's not there.

No, I hadn't seen her
since last night,

and that's when I started
becoming sick.

That's when I started doing
a major panic.

That's when I started calling
everybody is that we knew,

have you seen janean?

Pam called us, you know,

and the first thought is,
well, she probably crashed

at someone else's
house or something.

Then when she didn't
show for work,

I think everyone knew
something was wrong.

Pam calls the police and leaves

a missing persons report
with a description of janean,

but she's told it's too soon
for them to launch a search.

That's when I started walking,

anywhere we could think
at the time.

But there's no sign
of janean anywhere.

I knew she wasn't coming home.

The following day,
a young couple

are out walking near their home.

In a field in whitehouse,

not far, um,

from where janean
would have been walking...

property owners found
some spilled blood.

They had assumed
that a deer had been killed,

so they didn't think much of it.

However, they discover
something more troubling...

...A pair of woman's underwear.

They saw what appeared to be
drag marks from that area,

where the underwear
and the blood was present

down towards the creek.

And they discover a mound.

When they move some of
the dirt and mud back...

...The found
a woman's body.

In whitehouse, ohio,

19-year-old janean brown
has been missing

for nearly 24 hours.

Now, in a local creek...

A woman's body
has been discovered.

After the discovery of the body,

the authorities get
involved immediately.

Veteran detective
daryll symington

is called to
the scene immediately.

Detective symington

I knew from a few cases --
he was a go-getter.

He was a careful detective.

And I think, at the time,

he was probably
the perfect detective

for the case from
their department.

The police start
to document and collect

the evidence
from the crime scene.

They began to unearth
the body to see what they had.

this scene was gruesome.

A cut to her neck
nearly decapitated her.

She had been whipped

seemingly by belts, there were
welts all over her body.

The body matches the description

in pam's missing persons report.

And when they unearth pam's
cheerleading jacket,

they know it's janean.

The jacket that
she was wearing was discovered,

and inside her jacket, there
was a pack of merit cigarettes,

which was the brand
that she smoked.

The only thing worse
than the way in which

she was buried is what
happened before she died.

She was raped.

They were able to obtain samples

that contained male dna.

But at the time,
there was really no way

to identify a perpetrator
by ways of dna.

When I first heard the news
of janean's death...

Like everybody, I think
there's denial.

You know, it's not her.
They got the wrong person.

I didn't find out
until the next day

when detective symington
came to the house.

That was the worst of my life.

A huge piece of my heart went,

and I'll never get it back.

But for
this close-knit community,

janean's murder is
an emotional double punch,

grief followed by fear.

19-year-old janean brown
of whitehouse was

viciously murdered.

Her neck had been slit so deeply

that she was
practically decapitated.

Everything runs
through your mind,

and it's scary.

She was face down in the creek,
her head was pointed south here.

And she had suffered
a knife wound to the throat.

There's a monster out here
in whitehouse somewhere.

Kickstarting
his hunt for the killer,

detective symington quizzes
best friend, pam,

about janean's last movements.

symington was able to recreate
the evening as it happened

and some of the incidents
as they occurred.

What are you doing?

The sheriff's department
obviously looked at

her boyfriend, because that's
where she was going.

I have to go talk to him.

Could an argument have spiraled

into something more violent?

Tell us about her boyfriend.

That's when
symington learns of harold's

notorious temper.

When the detectives asked me,
I said, "yeah,

harold was a wild boy.

This type of killing
requires extreme brutality

and a sizable amount of anger.

Harold estep quickly moves from

person of interest
to number one suspect.

Here you go.

Symington immediately
brings him in for questioning.

Sit down.

All right, harold,
why don't you tell us...

Harold said that as
janean and pam were getting

into the automobile
driven by their friends,

a barmaid ran up to him
and threw a big kiss on him.

It had upset janean.

Her being upset with harold

certainly made it a possibility
of a confrontation

between the two of them.

The night of her murder,

janean was on the way
to harold's house,

where he lived with his sister.

Harold estep said
he was sleeping.

He didn't hear janean come
over, didn't talk to her.

And this was verified
by his sister,

that she, being a light sleeper,

would have heard janean
knocking on the door.

And she said janean
never came by that night.

But harold's story
certainly didn't clear him.

He would have been presumably
the last person to see

janean alive had she made it
to his sister's apartment.

While the police
continue to investigate harold,

they also start to look
into who else

was in the bar that night.

Detective symington
works backwards.

He tries to retrace
the steps of the victim

and anybody whom she was around.

The bartender,
loretta, tells symington

who was in that night

and reveals harold
wasn't the only one

with a romantic interest
in janean.

There was also an ex-boyfriend
in the picture

who was looked at,

and that was larry rader,
pam rader's brother.

At the time, larry was just

janean's roommate,
but he and janean

had had an on-off
relationship, and symington

discovers that janean
may still have held

a torch for larry.

That's why she started
dating harold.

She was seeing harold
to get larry jealous.

Detective symington
immediately seeks out

pam's brother for questioning.

Larry tells the detective
that he was in the bar

but left alone,

returning to the house
he shared with pam

and janean
and crashed on the couch.

Investigators check his story
with his sister, pam.

Larry was passed out
at home when we got home.

According to pam's statement,

he was asleep before
janean left herself.

Larry was not cleared
based on that story.

He could have snuck out
when pam was sleeping.

Family is family,
and pam may have had

a reason to protect larry.

A lot of people in town
questioned larry's motives.

I said, I just can't see him
doing this to janean.

I just -- I couldn't
see him doing this.

Meanwhile, a violent killer

remains at large
in the community.

This shook up whitehouse bad.

I didn't want to go anywhere.

I didn't want to see anybody.

I couldn't trust anybody.

You know, even my good friends.

How do I know I can trust you?

It was a small town,
I mean, you lose trust.

I mean, you don't, you know,

you don't know who,
you don't know if it's the guy

working the store that you're
buying something at, I mean,

you have no clue for sure
who -- who did this.

We'll keep you up to date
on what's being done

to hunt down
janean brown's killer.

Pam decides to go on the
news to try and drum up new leads.

We got in the car
with our friends,

and they brought us home,
and she didn't say anything

more after that until
we got into the bedroom.

And she said she wanted to go
back and talk to him.

I wanted answers.

I wanted somebody to pay
for what they did to janean,

my janean.

She wasn't just beat
and her throat slit.

She was tortured.

She had the marks on her hand
from trying to fight off,

and that is what kept me going.

Pam's plan pays off --
after the broadcast,

detectives get a tip.

Chester roberts,
who was a patient

at the nursing home
where janean worked,

he was an exercise nut.

And he would often jog
at all hours.

As chester was going back
into the nursing home,

he saw janean brown roughly
between 3 and 4 a.M.

They have a brief conversation,

and he remembers seeing a van

pull up into the parking lot.

He saw janean get in the van.

When detective
symington runs a vehicle check,

he finds a brown van matching
the description registered

to one of the patrons at
the copper lantern that night --

bill heisinger.

Crazy horse -- that was
bill heisinger's nickname,

because the pot,
the acid, the mushrooms.

There were reports
that he would kill animals

and had access to knives.

Bill heisinger's psycho.

A witness has seen
19-year-old janean brown

get into a brown van
on the night of her murder.

Local wild man, bill heisinger,

owns a vehicle matching
the description.

He admitted
he was there that night,

but he doesn't remember
exactly who was where

at what time.

Police perform
a search of the van

and find some foreign
carpet fibers.

Investigators submitted
some of the carpet and fibers

from that van

to see if it matched anything
that they had collected

from janean

during the initial
investigation.

As police wait for
the tests on heisinger's van

to come back,

they add another name
to their list of bar patrons

to talk to --
25-year-old andy gustafson.

Andrew gustafson is the son of

the ceo of a major company
in town.

He is viewed as being
privileged, a blowhard,

kind of a jerk,
essentially a spoiled brat.

All right, give me another beer.

He expected everybody
to bow down to him,

because he had money,

but he didn't have money --
he had daddy's money.

Andrew gustafson
made inappropriate comments

to her that night.

Then investigators
discover gustafson

also drives a brown van.

Suddenly, it's looking like
a promising lead,

but andy gustafson says
it can't have been him,

and the timeline seems to agree.

Chester roberts saw janean
get into the van

between three and four,

but andy insists he was home
in bed by three,

a fact backed up by his wife.

What time is it?

It's three in the morning.
Go back to sleep.

So andy's wife
corroborated his story,

giving him a solid alibi,

but he certainly was not cleared
at that point in time.

His van still closely
matches the description,

and police get a warrant
to search the vehicle.

What they're looking for are

any potential clues,
a murder weapon,

anything of janean's,
anything out of place.

They find a merit
cigarette butt,

the type of cigarette brand
that janean smoked.

But gustafson
has an explanation.

The bartender from
the copper lantern was actually

in andy's car for a brief
minute that night.

She smoked merit cigarettes,
as well.

The police seek
to confirm with loretta

if she'd been in his van.

But either way,
they can't prove who smoked

that cigarette.

The technology at the time
was not sufficient

to try to obtain a dna profile.

So there wasn't enough
for an arrest

to be made or for charges
to be filed.

Soon after, the lab finishes

processing the samples taken
from billy heisinger's van.

Nothing from billy
heisinger's van matches

anything recovered
from the site, the crime scene.

So at that point,
there was no direct link.

But despite the lack
of forensic evidence,

heisinger's wild reputation
keeps him in the frame

for the brutal murder.

Seven days after her body
was found,

police have four suspects
and zero arrests.

Detective symington just
did not have the science

at the time to enable him
to solve it.

Weeks pass, then months.

I started losing hope.

We're not getting anywhere.

Was the same thing over
and over and over again.

The case officially goes cold,

but pam never forgets
her friend.

This is very important to me,
because it belonged to janean.

She left in something of mine.

I got something of hers.

But to actually stand here
and look at it now, it's...

Bringing stuff back in my head.

Good memories, fun.

But that was taken away from me.

Over the following decades,

pam never gives up pushing for
janean's case to be reopened.

Finally, in June 2011, pam's
tireless campaigning pays off,

and the file is assigned to
the lucas county prosecutors'

cold case unit.

This is where detectives
jay gast

and tom ross enter the story.

You check the evidence,
you locate the reports,

and in this case,
there was a ton of reports.

They essentially redid, from
the bottom up, the entire case.

We had to go right from
scratch, from day one again.

I don't care -- I'll go over it

as many times as I have to.

My story is never gonna change.

But it's not just
a question of going back

through the old files
and witness statements.

Detectives have a weapon that
they didn't have in '83,

and that's dna.

The samples and the slides
that were preserved

from janean brown,

there was dna present.

They return to
the four original suspects,

none of whom were ever
charged nor cleared.

Now a simple dna swab
could change everything.

First up is bill heisinger,

who, back in 1983,
had a notorious reputation.

30 years on,
and not much has changed.

Detectives start
taking buccal swabs

from the inside cheek
of suspects.

Bill heisinger voluntarily
gives a dna swab.

But then bill tells
them something unexpected,

which shocks these veteran
detectives to their core.

One of the suspects
in the 1983 murder

of teenager janean brown
has changed his story.

His new statement contains
a horrifying claim.

Heisinger
explains that janean had

stumbled upon a local
satanic ring.

It's a story rife
with grisly details,

but does it hold any water?

We kind of had to sift through

the weeds, if you will,
to get to the vegetable.

His talk of cults
and sacrificed killings

in the woods and all this stuff,

and it really loses reality.

But still, it might be

a misguided smokescreen
for a guilty conscience.

Now, with bill's sample in hand,

they can soon find out
the truth.

Next on the list of suspects
is pam's brother, larry rader.

But immediately, the
investigators hit a roadblock.

My brother passed away in 2009.

After janean was killed,

he started going to hell, too,
started drinking.

Drank himself to death.

Larry was once even
found passed out drunk

on janean's grave.

The detectives begin to wonder
if this was a sign of guilt,

and they request
to exhume larry's body.

The rader family are horrified

but are so eager to maintain
his innocence that they agree.

26 years after his death,

a forensic team take
a dna sample

from larry rader's remains.

Next, the cold case team
revisit janean's then-boyfriend,

the quick-tempered harold estep.

He gives a dna sample.

Police send it
to the laboratory.

Last up is local blowhard,

andy gustafson.

Mr. Gustafson had
moved out of whitehouse,

and he was living in michigan.

He has children,
he has grandchildren.

He's still married.

His story is very consistent
with his story from '83,

which is he had nothing
to do with it.

And his lawyer advised him

to not talk
to the police anymore,

which he didn't.

Then gustafson does
something unexpected.

He refuses to give a dna sample,

raising a huge red flag
for the detectives.

It's not enough
to incriminate him,

but it pushes gustafson
up the list of suspects.

But before they can
pursue this further,

the other results start
coming back from the lab.

First, bill heisinger's dna...

Is not a match to the semen
found in janean brown.

The next sample to be tested

comes from the body
of larry rader.

It's hard when your brother

is being accused of a murder.

I mean, it was close
to destroying me,

but he got my faith.

Deep down, I know
larry was innocent.

Larry's dna is also not a match,

and he is posthumously cleared.

Next is harold estep,

the boyfriend janean
was heading out

to confront that night.

He was thought to have been
the last person to see her,

but his sample is not a match.

After many long years,

harold is finally cleared
as a suspect.

It was like a whirlwind,
you know?

Being a suspect and accused of
something that you know,

deep down inside,
you did not do --

that can put a lot
of stress on you,

and, you know, people
look at you a whole...

Different way,

and that really bothered me
for a long time.

Janean -- this was the last
place I seen her alive.

I was standing over here.

And this girl come out
of the bar and put

her arms around me
and gave me a kiss,

and...

I didn't know why --
I didn't even know her.

I feel guilty a lot
of times, because...

This girl comes out of the bar,
and...

A matter of 30 to 40 seconds

changed lots of people's lives.

From the list of four suspects,

one name remains --

andy gustafson,

but his refusal to provide

a dna sample puts them
at a stalemate.

In an effort to break
the deadlock,

the detectives go back over
gustafson's file.

That's when they realize
they still have

a potentially vital piece
of evidence.

The merit cigarette
from gustafson's van

is sent to the state lab
for testing.

In the years since the murder,

the technology
has vastly improved,

and this time,
they're able to pull

a dna profile
from the cigarette.

The results are explosive.

There was a dna profile
on that cigarette

consistent with janean brown.

And now we've got
her dna profile

in the van.

Hey! You okay?
Need a lift?

Immediately, police know
andrew gustafson lied.

He had consistently said that
she was not in his van.

And now we've got
her dna profile

in the van.

It all keeps coming
back to gustafson.

Gustafson, gustafson, gustafson.

The fog gathers,
you clear the fog.

There's still gustafson.

The cold case detectives

intensify their
investigation into gustafson.

Then they come across
his name in the file

of a much more recent case.

In 2007, andy gustafson
was a suspect in another

incident that was
being investigated

by the lucas county
sheriff's office.

This unconnected incident

turns out to be game changing.

In that investigation,
the sheriff's department

had collected
a dna standard from

andy gustafson -- we were able
to submit that to the lab.

The dna...
Is a match.

Now we have janean's
dna profile in the van,

and we also have gustafson's
dna profile in janean.

June 6, 2013,

30 years after the murder
of janean brown,

andy gustafson is arrested.

The detectives -- they don't
expect this to be over

in a short amount of time.

It's been 30 years --
if we try him

and he's acquitted,
we can't retry him again.

We have one shot.

Cold case detectives
tom ross and jay gast

now have dna evidence linking

andy gustafson to the murder
of janean brown.

Now with the dna evidence --
the case went from

a circumstantial case
to a science case.

Mr. Gustafson is arrested
in michigan,

where detective gast conducts
an interview.

It seems like a shoo-in,

but there's a risk.

Even though the dna evidence
proves gustafson had sex

with janean,

if he claims it was
consensual, that could provide

reasonable doubt to his guilt.

Jay gast needs to get
gustafson's

version of events on record.

This is the video from andy
gustafson when he was arrested.

He seemed real
comfortable with you.

Well, we took some time
talking to get into it.

Didn't really expect him
to confess after,

you know, a long
30 some-odd years.

But the denials that he made
and his refusal to acknowledge

that janean was even in his
van certainly helped with what

the forensic science says.

He's in a police building,
he's being video recorded.

And andy gustafson
sticks to his same story,

that he wasn't with her.

He would have no reason to
have any dna presence on her.

He really denied
all the aspects of

what the science told us.

If he just would have changed
his story and said yes,

we had consensual sex,
she got my van,

she was mad at her boyfriend --

these were all
very plausible explanations.

But the way that
detective gast locked him in

to that story was very
advantageous for a prosecutor.

It had been 30 years,
and you think you're gonna

get away with it,
and the day would never come

that you'd be held
accountable for it, so...

Andy gustafson goes to trial,

charged with the murder of
janean brown.

The prosecution
lay out their version

of the events of that night.

From the time that janean
is seen getting in the van,

her fate is sealed.

You okay? Need a lift?

Maybe.

We may never know
the reason why janean

got into gustafson's
van that night.

Maybe she assumed
as a married man

from a wealthy family,
he was a safe bet.

She's not going home after that.

The initial attack probably
occurred in that van.

I think we could have
a really good time.

Andy, stop it!

Andy he wanted
to have sex with janean.

I think she resisted,
and things went too far.

...Touch me --
don't touch me, please!

No!

I don't think it was
andy's intent to murder her.

He reached a point where
there was no turning back.

Janean was able to run
the short distance

to where her panties
and the coagulated blood

was found -- things escalated.

Gustafson raped,

beat, and then murdered janean.

it's suggestive of a man simply
out of touch with humanity.

It was a brutal, violent act.

Andrew gustafson
then lied to his wife

about the time
he came home that night.

What time is it?

It's three in the morning.

Andy gustafson
decides to take a plea deal

and is sentenced to 15 years.

He is still behind bars.

I loved seeing andy gustafson
shackled.

That made my day.

Actually, that made
my 30 years' worth.

I cried and cried and cried

and dropped to my knees, saying,

thank god, thank god.
Thank god, thank god.

Finally, finally,

he's getting what he deserves.

Janean was in --
in the prime of her life,

just getting started out,
you know,

and this selfish monster
just destroys it

for his own personal
gratification.

You look back at it,
and you think, you know,

it's just...

For what?

This could have been different.

Janean would have never
walked back uptown.

We'd have met the next day, and
everything had been all right.

You have to live with it,

and deal with it
the best you can.

He's arrested.
He's in jail.

But I'm still not at peace.

I'm hoping she is.

I'm not.

But main thing is
how much I miss her.

And I love her.

Every day, I think
about her, every day.