SOLVED! 1973 Cold Case Murder of Teens on Vacation: Who Killed the Jenkins Sisters?

0:01 Body Bags with Joseph Scott Moore. Admittedly, I do travel quite a bit now. Probably more so at this point in my life than I ever have. A lot of it's by car or truck. And Kimmy and I will hop in and we'll listen to our music. And of course, the music itself for us as we're going down the road, um, it, it passes the time and we're one of those, we're one of those couples that sings, we sing all of the time and it, it makes, it makes the time go by and we reflect and we'll talk about lyrics and over and over again for us, it's always Buffett.

0:50 We always land on Jimmy Buffett and I even, you guys see me in my boat. I love listening to Buffett. Um, and I have to say, uh, Those trips that we take, getting there is really a cool thing for us. I don't like to fly as much as I like to drive. But, you know, I drove my precious wife down somewhere one time.

1:18 All the way down to Key West. Of course, if you know Buffett, you know Key West. We didn't listen to music on the way there. We had the windows down. It was in the wintertime, so it wasn't intolerably hot. And what really made the time go by was hopping from one little island to the next on that one long stretch that Buffett referred to as A1A. I'll never forget that memory. It went by quick, even though it's a long journey. But you know, I'm going to talk about another journey today. Brother Dave and I are going to dig into a case that happened involving Key West.

2:07 Two young girls that went all the way down there to vacation, to escape the north to get down to those sunny shores. Only problem is, is that when they got back home, it was in a casket. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. Dave, I actually got, I remember that trip, and I'll tell you a little slice of life here. Something that my wife used to absolutely deplore about me. And I had my foot on the pedal, right? And so you're going down the chain of these little keys or islands, you know, you, you, you know, when you're, you're entering onto another one because the, uh, you're over water really quickly. And then all of a sudden you're over land. And I know that's kind of obvious, but it's, it's an interesting kind of dynamic if you've

3:12 never driven down there. Well, the thing that she really irritated her about me was fact that when I was going, going down the road, I had a heavy foot and, I'm not like a chronic speed or anything. Certainly nowadays I drive like a pawpaw when I'm driving down the road, but we got pulled over on the way down there and I was going too fast. And the thing that she hated because Kimmy had a long history of police interaction because of driving fast and she had tickets. I never got a ticket. It's because when you work in public safety, you carry your license and your badge case.

3:56 And so when I would take out my license, you know, they would see the badge, who you work for. Well, I'm in Atlanta like that, you know, and I take it away. And you slow it down. And, you know, I could, if you're ever in a car with your spouse, you can feel them fuming on the other side. It's not that we didn't, it's not that we escaped not having to pay a ticket. It's like, Oh, boy. You know what? I'll tell you what. You really irritate me because if that had been me, they would have written me a ticket. But you, you'd get out of it.

4:30 So there you go. That's one of my stories about going down to the Keys.

4:34 When you were talking about Jimmy Buffett and Keys and Florida and all that, they kind of go hand in hand. But in this particular case, I was looking at the dates that we're talking about here. You mentioned A1A, and that's an album that came out at the end of 74 and has two great songs on it, just giving you a heads up. Before Wheel of Fortune became the huge game show, Let's Make a Deal was on the air.

5:02 And there's a song called Door No. 3. that Jimmy Buffett sings about Carol Merrill and Monty Hall and the whole show. Look it up. It's called Door Number Three from 818. The other is Life's Just a Tire Swing.

5:13 Yeah.

5:13 And boy, I don't know if that's something people outside of the South can relate to, but life is just a tire swing. Love it. Now, today we're talking about something that is really, it really encapsulates the time of our country's life. In 1973, okay?

5:31 Yeah.

5:34 Hitchhiking was not unusual. People would hitch a ride all over the country, but in particular in rural areas and in Florida, hitchhiking, not an unusual thing to do. Not that I'm saying it was safe. It wasn't, but it wasn't unusual. Two girls. This is the part that now jumps out at you. Sisters, Maggie and Mary Jenkins. They're from New Jersey. And they had taken a vacation in Florida.

6:06 We look at this now and think 18 and 16. Oh, boy. Traveling in Florida on their own. And yeah, just to give you a heads up. Back in the day, young people were treated like adults. Young adults, but still adults.

6:23 Yeah.

6:24 We don't do that now. And so it's a little difficult to understand how parents would go along with this. But they did. As a matter of fact, the girls were in the Keys, and I don't know the geography that well about South Florida, but they needed to get home, and dear old dad had sent them bus tickets, money for bus tickets, so that they could come home. Don't know what happened with that because they didn't catch a bus home. They actually were hitchhiking, and Mary and Maggie were in I want to make sure I get this exactly right, Joe, because the dates mean something here. May 2nd, 1973.

7:06 They were hitchhiking and got a bad ride. Their bodies were found the next day, May 3rd, 1973. And Joseph Scott Morgan, both of these girls had been beaten. Beaten. beaten and shot and then they were drug about 100 yards off the road into heavy brush where a car could not go in and out probably and they were tossed on the side of the road like garbage yep they sure were they were found 100 miles from where they were last seen yeah 100 miles north Yes. And that's what was surprising to me, Joe. I didn't know that. Again, I'm back to geography here. Yeah. Not knowing the area.

8:01 I looked at this at first and thought, well, they were out hitchhiking and they ended up did. I assumed it was in a couple of miles stretch. It wasn't. But you know what, Joe, in the search to investigate this incredible crime. The sheriff's department, the local police, everybody that would get involved got involved in trying to find out who did this to these two teenage girls. And they searched every mile of the road, both sides of the highway. They went off on all the side roads from the last place they were seen on Stock Island, I think is the name of it.

8:38 It is Stock, yeah.

8:40 All the way to where their bodies were found. They walked it, Joe. We're talking an immense search for evidence because there was one piece of evidence they were trying to find. It appeared that Maggie, the older 18-year-old, Maggie had been thrown from a moving vehicle. And they were trying, they being law enforcement, they were trying to determine where was her body thrown from the moving vehicle. So they were looking at pavement, Joe. in the road, Siler, looking for droplets of blood for a hundred miles. Yeah, I know.

9:18 Isn't that something?

9:19 I have never heard of a search like that before.

9:21 Have you? No, not this extensive. And okay, let's kind of frame this out a little bit because it is daunting. You know, this, when you think about the vastness of this, but there's essentially one way in and one way out unless you're on the water. A1A, right? And so you're You're traveling down this roadway, and it's not necessarily a straight shot, but it is as straight as it can be.

9:50 And that's one of the reasons I wanted to mention about the keys for people that haven't been there. And I urge anybody to take a trip down there. You don't have to go. to Key West, but just any of those locations.

10:02 Back up to this, Joe. Back up, because you said you don't have to go to Key West. Okay. We all know the shape of Florida, and we know that Cuba is, what, 90 miles from the southernmost end of Florida. When you're talking about the Keys or Key West, I think I mentioned this to you in some notes. Key Largo comes to mind, the hit song from Bertie Higgins.

10:23 And the Humphrey Bogart movie. Right. With Lauren Bacall.

10:25 Bogart and Bacall.

10:27 Yeah.

10:27 So, if you're familiar with it, assume the rest of us aren't. So, tell me.

10:31 Yeah, I'm sorry. Key Largo is essentially the getting on place.

10:35 Okay.

10:35 Okay, up by Miami. So, you're right at the.

10:38 Let's start in Miami and go south. Yeah.

10:40 So, if you exit out of Miami, and I'm doing this in a very rudimentary sense, if you exit out of Miami... and you're looking to go down the spine of the Keys, if you will, when you get down there, okay, when you get down there, you're going to have to pass adjacent to Key Largo. And then right through it, there's actually a North Key Largo, which is not on A1A, and it kind of parallels Miami proper. and it extends up.

11:16 You begin to extend up northward there, and you're headed up toward the Miami Beach area and all that. I'm thinking about this in a boat right now. But when you get onto the highway proper, you go through the middle of Key Largo, and that's where you enter. That's the starting point, okay? So as you're headed south, you're going to clip along through there through all these other little quays. And when you say key for me, and I'm not a geographer, okay, but when someone says key to me, I think island, okay? And so, you're kind of traveling down, traversing this long stretch. And it is very, very long. You're talking 100 miles, probably, give or take.

12:03 And it's a straight shot down there. But it takes a while to do this because... A1A is a two lane road.

12:09 Right.

12:10 And there's a lot of traffic. There's a lot of traffic because there's a lot of people want to go to Keys and see them. They have the the intestinal fortitude to make the trip. And, you know, you're not bound by time. It's a grind. But when you get down there, there's all kinds of rewards, you know, because it is beautiful. You know, it's like you're you're in the Caribbean at that point in time. So as you're traveling down the road and when they go back and they actually discover these remains, Dave, both of these remains, and they see this evidence of what may have happened to this child, well, young woman, that she may have been pushed out of a vehicle at some point in time.

12:52 That's a very distinctive injury pattern that you're going to see. And I really wonder, because this is something I've seen at autopsy, when somebody actually lands, and you can, this is Again, this is one of these little fine points that you only pick up on if you're in the morgue. Did you know that you can actually delineate the different surfaces that people have made contact with based upon the injuries and the trace remnant that is left within injuries?

13:26 Let me give you an example. Oh, yeah. So, if somebody is pushed out of a vehicle and they make contact with asphalt, you're going to get these... these injuries that you get will be, well, they're going to be abrasions. They're kind of superficial, but every now and then you'll get these long gouges that take place. And a lot of that has to do with the texture of the surface that you're striking. So if it's got an irregular kind of sawtooth, you know, projection on the side of it or on the surface, you're going to it'll actually perforate the skin and scratch it like that. But then you'll get these kind of long drug abrasions as well where it's ripping off. But you can look in there and, you know, and there's been countless times, Dave, where I've

14:13 worked motor vehicle accidents, particularly pedestrians, where you'll see bits of asphalt in the injuries. Then I've had other people that have been pushed or dumped out of vehicles and And if it's like the shoulder of the road, there's a different composition down in South Louisiana. And I think to a certain degree down in the Keys, many roadbeds were at one point in time kind of shored up with oyster shells, ground oyster shells. And you talk about sharp.

14:45 Oh, my Lord.

14:46 You talk about the injuries they can induce. And then you've got sand, too. So these kind of coarse substances that you see that make up. The road surface can tell you a lot about where someone has been there. And not to mention, you know, we talk a lot in forensics about contact tracing the soles of the feet, on the soles of the shoes. And you look at these locations and you'll see transfer evidence there. And it gives you an idea where the person may have been at one point in time. And this is a fascinating point.

15:21 When you think about what kind of manpower would you have to marshal in order to inspect this entire length? I mean, you're going to have to call out everybody in everybody that's available from the sheriff's office, state patrol and then volunteers as well. You know, you're just going to be walking alongside the road and you're going to try to look for any kind of evidence. How do you get those that number of people together? It's very, very difficult. You know, Brother Dave, homicides in and of themselves have a, they have a kernel, they all have a kernel of tragedy, right? But I got to tell you, in these circumstances involving these two young women, There is a tone to this that even makes it a bit

16:20 darker because it's my understanding that one of the motivating factors behind an 18 year old and a 16 year old taking a trip south, OK, was actually that I think that the seed of this was planted in their brain by a guy that would eventually become their future brother in law. but yet in death, they never got to see him be their brother-in-law, but he would eventually marry their older sister, who was 19, by the way, living up in Jersey. And Dave, you talk about tragedy, and to carry that with you for all of these years, is that accurate?

17:02 Yep. Maggie and Mary had an older sister named Sarah. Sarah was engaged to the man she eventually married, and as you pointed out, during a discussion about, you know, just doing things, he was the one who encouraged the girls to take the trip, the vacation, to go on this vacation to, again, they're from New Jersey, Joe. So going down the Keys, it does sound like a neat adventure.

17:25 And again, it's a different time. It might seem foreign to those of you under the age of 40, but those over 40, you probably can relate to this not being as strange as it seems today. But let me add to this because we did have a timeline, okay? We have May 2nd, Mary and Maggie are on, is it called Stock Island?

17:50 Stock, yeah. Okay.

17:51 I just want to make sure.

17:52 Soup stock, yeah. Okay.

17:54 They're on Stock Island, and at 4 o'clock that afternoon on May 2nd, they became friends with a young Marine. They ended up hanging out with the Marines. for five hours, four or five hours. So they're on Stock Island. See, we just know that they were last seen hitchhiking, you know, getting ready to hitchhike or in the preparation for leaving Stock Island.

18:18 And let me just say the Stock Island is literally the last key or island that you cross over before you get to Key West. Key West is the terminus of it. So just so folks understand that.

18:32 Yeah. So they're on Stock Island and they're going north.

18:36 All right.

18:38 They meet this young Marine. And by the way, he immediately after this story broke, he did come forward because we all know the finder and the last person who sees the victim. Two people you got to know right away. And so he comes forward, explains what they did for the last several hours before he left them on their own.

18:56 And the last time they were seen by 920 that night after being with the Marine, his, by the way, His alibi totally checked out. He went back to where he was staying and there was plenty of evidence that he was there. Had nothing to do with these girls going missing in the murder, but they were seen Stock Island hitchhiking 920 p.m. We don't know what happened between then and the next day when their bodies were found.

19:21 So think about that for just a minute, because you've got these sisters, um, They obviously are ready to go back home or at least mom and dad are ready to get them home because dad sent them the money to get a bus ticket, you know, to travel north. They didn't do that. They were hitchhiking instead. So, Joe, I already mentioned the fact that there is a belief that maybe Maggie was thrown from the car. at some point.

19:52 But their bodies were found together 100 miles from where they were last seen. The investigation that went on with, as I mentioned, they walked the whole path. The entire area, they being law enforcement and volunteers, Think about the undertaking of the number of people, the man hours, and just people wanted to solve this, okay? They were a part of it and couldn't find anything. So I look at what investigators were able to find in terms of evidence, Joe, and even though they were unable to come up with a suspect, the law enforcement people on hand took great care with the evidence they did have. Yeah. In particular, a blood stain. A blood stain that was found on one of the girls' underwear.

20:47 Yeah, and that thing, you know, you think about things echoing through history, right? Think about the power of that. Oh, yeah. You know.

20:57 There was no DNA for us to deal with in 73, by the way.

21:02 No, there was DNA. We just didn't know how to, first off, how to. tease it out and we didn't know how to examine it back then. Right. And look, we're on a long developmental chain here. All right. So we're not, you know, casting Spurgeons on people back then.

21:17 No.

21:18 In no way.

21:19 Dude, I'm so excited that the people involved took such great care of this evidence, Joe, that they didn't just blow it off and say, well, they took great care so that that piece of evidence from May of 1973 was what led to everything else that came forward in 2026. Yeah.

21:38 Yeah. And isn't that fascinating? Thinking about that, the retention of that item where you're able to hold it for this long and again, to be able to examine it all these years, that it still remained viable. I'd like to go back to these injuries, though, very quickly. I was thinking about.

22:00 By the way, I could not find an autopsy report on me.

22:03 Yeah, it's just... Yeah, it's not out there. It's not. Listen, I understand. And it was a long, long time ago when this happened. I would imagine that considering where her remains, their remains were found, they were probably taken to Dade, to the Dade Medical Examiner's Office there. It's now called Miami Dade. And I don't know if they were consolidated back during that period of time where you've got Miami and Dade County. But at any rate, it would have gone to the Dade County Medical Examiner's Office down there.

22:38 And the examination would have been done there and home of, by the way, the famous Dr. Joe Davis, who I had pleasure meeting on several occasions. But that aside, when you're considering these injuries, and let me go into a real dark space here. I'm thinking about if the older sister, Maggie, Is pushed out of the vehicle or tries to escape.

23:10 Was this used in order? Did did she have these injuries because she's trying to escape or get away? Is she being forced to try to tag along and keep up? Because, you know, you either get in here, I'm going to kill your sister. Or was he trying to subdue them and settle them down or whatever the case might be?

23:32 Because I'm thinking about this dynamic as they're going down the road. When you're traveling down this piece of road and look, and here's the danger in it all for the perpetrator. At some point in time, they had to have an awareness that something was going to go wrong. But they're on the road, you know, the devil comes, you know, with a smiling face, right? Yeah, I'll give you a ride. Yeah, sure, man. I'll give you a ride.

24:00 I'm going to get you from Stock Island, where they were last seen, all the way up to Key Largo. Hey, man, we're headed to Miami. Maybe they were going to go to Miami, Dave, and go to Trailways or go to Greyhound there. Okay. You know, major terminus there for the bus station. Maybe that's what they were. At first I was thinking, well, maybe they're just trying to save their money.

24:21 You know, they're going to see how far they, and it's still an adventure for them. They don't feel any fear, but at some point in time they had to feel that fear. Was Maggie alerted at some point in time? She's like, I'm getting out of here or whatever the case and tries to get out of the vehicle. Maybe she's brought back in. I don't know, but. He's running a real risk in perpetrating this because you're driving down the road. You've got two. You're having to make them be compliant because you don't want them to put up a fight. If you've got something sinister to plan or you're thinking about something sinister you're going to do, which, by the way, happened. And did these injuries happen in the car? She was pushed out. She got back in.

25:07 And I don't know that there's ever a timeline you can work out with this relative to these injuries. What you can say, though, is that when they were found in Key Largo in this brushy area, they're referring to it as a wooded area. There's a lot of pines. Dense foliage. Yeah, and there's a lot of low-growth pines and that sort of thing there, not to mention the scrub that you see that's that you find in that particular area that's associated with that environment. They had to be drug off of the road. Now, was it perpetrated back in that area? Was there an assault perpetrated back there on both of them? And then they were killed there?

25:49 Or had they previously been killed in the car and then taken and dumped? That would mean another stop that would have had to have taken place. That car at that moment in time, would have been a DNA-rich environment, I think, particularly if there was any kind of trauma that either one of them sustained within that vehicle.

26:12 That's severe trauma, right?

26:15 Yeah, and that's the key here, I think, because they talk about this in some length relative to both of these victims. They were victims. really brutalized. They were beaten extensively. Both of these young women were. And then, you know, the coup de grace, they're both shot as well. So this is a this would have been under ideal circumstances.

26:39 There ain't no such thing in in forensics under ideal circumstances. This would have been a treasure trove of forensic evidence all the way back then. But coming back to where we landed earlier and you mentioning this garment uh, that had been left behind with a blood stain. That's key here because it's, it's that that unlocks this lock. That's going to point back hopefully to the perpetrator that ended these two lives. The biggest problem for families, brother Dave is, uh, are unanswered questions I can't even begin to fathom I don't know half a century later and you still don't have answers as to what happened well you have a big answer in the fact that you know that there's a double murder that happened to your family but you

27:44 know I've always imagined that for families that are left behind there is always that specter out there is this person going to show up at my home You know, are they, you know, why? Because and you get a double dose of it here because you have two family members that were targeted here. Now that that's probably just me talking out of my head, but it's got to be real for a family, I would think.

28:08 Well, you know, you mentioned the older sister, Sarah, and her fiance, future husband. It was interesting because from the standpoint that Sarah, the minute this happened, OK, the minute they knew Sarah and her boyfriend, fiance, they headed to Florida. And Sarah was right there from the very beginning of the investigation, pushing and pulling, doing everything she could to find out what happened to her sisters. Also, Maggie had pieces of asphalt embedded in her skin. And that's why there was a belief that she had been ejected from the vehicle. A moving vehicle is what was said that adds to all of this. There are also gunshot wounds, Joe.

28:54 Both girls were shot. And we don't know if there was there could have been more than one perpetrator. We kind of go along the idea that the girls were picked up after 920 p.m. on the night of May the 2nd and that they were then taken hitchhiking. And we don't know. There could have been another person in there.

29:18 But yes, what we do know is that when the girls were found 100 miles away from where they were last seen. They were severely beaten, looked like Maggie had been thrown out of her moving vehicle, and then both shot. Now, one of the stories that I read said that Maggie was shot twice and Mary was shot four times. I only saw that in one article from 1973. So because the autopsy reports have not been made public, a lot of what we have is kind of hearsay going back to 1973. Yeah, I've got.

29:51 To tell you real quick, interjecting here that multiple gunshot wounds, you can look at this two ways. was it an overkill event or were they trying to escape? Okay. And so you've got an individual that fires a weapon multiple times to try to subdue them, you know, until you actually end their life. Or was this individual involved in overkill relative to the victims? Okay. Just, you know, where you're going to execute them on that site. Back then, I don't, I don't recall, I don't remember way back then crime scene investigators, I've never read about this, using metal detectors at a scene. They very well might have, I don't know. And that would be a way, if any of these gunshot wounds were through and through, and

30:47 let's say you found them lying on the ground and somebody fired, there's actually a wound that you can see that will sometimes pass through the body, it's called a shored wound. And so when it, you can tell that the underlying area of the body is making contact with a solid surface and the round passes through the body.

31:11 And when the round impacts within the body, it's going to be different than say where it's passing through the body as body is in a vertical position and it passes through and maybe starts a tree or something like that. But, you know, you have to consider all these things. out there, the scene would have been extensive to cover it. And you can't just, you know, willy nilly go out there and just kind of stomp around because you have to consider everything. And you said that there, that article, the article, not you, but that article referred to six, six wounds.

31:46 People carried semi-automatic weapons back then. Okay. Semi-automatic handguns. But I find it interesting that this is six and we don't know the caliber of the weapon. The most common caliber of revolver always has been. 38 Special. And I wonder if this individual did a cylinder dump on them. We call it a mag dump now with semi-automatic weapons where you'll fire every single live round that's in a semi-automatic weapon. But if this is a revolver gun, You know, the revolver spins around. The average or most revolvers have six rounds in them. So I really wonder if that's what this person did.

32:34 Wow. Well, in the end of the first part of the investigation, they have no suspect. Two beautiful, smart women dead, young women. A family from New Jersey that is just at a loss and a community that that is really unhappy that this stain is on their community. These two girls were killed there. And really, all they come up with, they have evidence, and we do know that the law enforcement at the time took great care with the physical evidence they had, the bloodstain in particular. So, 1973 ends without any kind of a suspect, and the years start going by. 2018 rolls around, Joe. 2018. Think about that for just a minute. You're talking... A long time.

33:23 Yep.

33:24 And the Florida Department of Law Enforcement decides to work on that stain to see what they can find. And because it was saved properly, they were able to develop a partial DNA profile. What does that mean, a partial DNA profile?

33:48 Well, it was not degraded to the point where they could not. The partial DNA profile that they developed actually gave them an indicator that they're dealing with a male suspect. And in 2018, forensic genetic genealogy had not reached the level that it's at right now. The sensitivity of the testing, okay?

34:17 and the equipment that is applied, the equipment and sensitivity of the testing, and also the knowledge that we've picked up since that moment in time. We can take a partial or degraded sample, right, and kind of, let's say, amplify that to the point where now it is enough. We're not necessarily interested in who that person is. We're interested in who their relatives are. Okay. So that's the sensitivity of this thing at this point in time. Because even in, look, the partial that they developed, they threw this thing into CODIS. How many times do we say this?

34:56 Every time.

34:56 We all just put this on a loop. Well, they put it in CODIS and they didn't get a hit. And look, I'm being kind of funny there, but that's the reality of what, you know, of the way it happens. And it has to be initiated, right? Somehow you have to go down that road. And it's like everything else in crime scene investigation. You have to start. You can't jump from A to D. You have to go through all the variety of the various steps in order to prove this out, because this case. If this case went to trial, all right, you would have to, you can't leave the door open to say that you didn't try everything along the way. So they put this into CODIS and, of course, didn't get the hit. But it's when FDLE

35:42 took that sample and they forwarded it to our friends down in the woodlands, Texas. That's when things began to cook, Dave.

35:51 And friends. I know we've mentioned this on numerous occasions about forensic genetic genealogy, but it's not as simple as entering in a partial DNA profile and poof, we have a person. That's just the beginning part of the investigation where they start building a family tree. And this family tree building requires the efforts of people in Woodlands, Texas at Althrum. But they keep moving the ball down the field and they get to a certain point And they go, okay, we need more info. And they kick it back to the law enforcement and the local level where they go back and do more research. They're looking at who lived in this house, who rented that property, who owns this one.

36:33 They start building it out like that. And once they get that bit, they go back to Othram. And Othram goes, okay, now, it's a process that takes a long time with a lot of different people working feet on, you know, we're talking boots on the ground here. And eventually... They're able to build out a family tree, Joe. And believe it or not, this bloodstain recovered from the scene of two dead teenage girls in 1973 is developed into a possible suspect. Yeah.

37:10 You know what's curious here? And this is a little aside. I've always wondered what the person thinks when Law enforcement shows up at their door, says, look, we're not necessarily investigating you. However, you might have a relative that has been involved in pretty serious crime. Do you mind if we take a DNA sample from you? Just meditate on that for a second. What a surreal moment in your life.

37:45 And Brother Dave, I got to tell you, that's what happened here. That's what happened. They actually located a relative of this profile that they had developed. They felt really certain of. And it's because someone in that family tree, that familial tree, had entered their DNA into one of these open databases. And the author got a hit on it.

38:07 But at some point in time, there had to be a technician, maybe along with a police officer, that rap-tap-tap on the door. And now they're doing a buccal mucosal swab. on this individual, we'll be getting back to you. And Oh my Lord, you know, it, it's shocking enough for the family, but just to, I don't know. I, I've, I've thought about this a bit and this kind of, this glaringly came out to me in this particular case, all these years later and you're sitting there and you're thinking, so my DNA or a part of my DNA, that identifiable thing that is me at a molecular level, is associated with a homicide, a double homicide, as it turns out. Because, Dave, they were, in fact, able to get this individual identified.

38:57 And the thing is, Joe, I was looking at the dates and times here, okay? working on this for all these years. And by the way, all the time that it's being worked on, they being law enforcement, they still have daily stuff going on. They have other investigations that are going on. It's not like the world stops and they're just working on this. This is something else they're working on beyond everything else. And so we're talking about May 2nd, May 3rd, 1973 to earlier this year, 2026.

39:21 And the work that all these people did it points to one person david allen schneider david allen schneider lived in this area From 1972, three and four. In the area. Several houses, places he rented in the area around where these girls were found. And he had moved away. He didn't live there anymore. He actually had moved away many years later. And by the early 2000s, he found himself in Idaho.

40:16 About a... maybe not as far, but about as far away as you can get from Key Largo floor. And certainly from Key West, um, all the way up to Idaho.

40:26 We spend way too much time in Idaho with crimes over the last couple of years.

40:30 We really have. And this one, uh, you know, again, echoing back through time, uh, this guy, um, Well, fortunately or unfortunately, I guess it all depends on how you look at it. He crapped out back in 2008, I think. October 28. Yeah, he can no longer be held accountable. Now, think about the sister that is still with us and her husband, you know, that started this journey. You know, Dave, interestingly enough, when Sarah is her name, correct? Correct. Yeah, when Sarah and her future husband died. went down there along with the mother. Lord have mercy. They were down there for almost a month during the midst of this investigation.

41:19 Sarah actually stated in one interview, she said, we were getting in the way. They didn't want us there. And yeah, that can happen. And you can imagine, it's one thing to be the sister, but if you're the mama and you're You just you're trying to figure this thing out, you know, and what you do know is that your two precious babies are dead and there's no there's no comfort in this at all. And now, you know, all these years later, because of our friends at Othram, this mystery has been solved and not just because of Othram, but because of the efforts of FDLE, Florida Department of Law Enforcement. A tip of the cap to them for staying on this for all these many years, so far down the tracks, when probably a lot of people would

42:11 have forgotten about it. Many people think, well, they don't care anymore. They don't matter. They do matter. They do matter. Because here on Body Bags, we like to advocate for the dead. And a tip of the cap to those folks at FDLE for staying on the case. But also, as we conclude, we think about what happened. as a result of the science involved here. And if you're curious about involving yourself in a case, a way maybe you're not going to get in the way and be shooed off, but a way you can actually contribute, I urge you to go to DNAsolves.com. That's Othram's website. And there you will find a list of cases that you can help out with through donations because this stuff ain't free. It does anything. take donation, and there's an opportunity for you

43:06 to help. You say you want to be a sleuth. You say you want to be an investigator. Well, here's the time. You can actually push a few bucks their way to help them out with a case, and they're regionalized. You can look for maybe cases in your region that have gone unsolved below these many years. That's DNAsolves.com. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this... is body bags.