5 Decades Old Cold Cases Solved In 2021

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Hello everyone! In this video, we are going to check 5 decades-old   cold cases that were solved in 2021. Welcome to Mysterious 5 !   The first case on our list is Annette Schnee and Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer   In 1982, in Breckenridge, Colorado, two lifeless  bodies of two different women were discovered.   The crime scenes were miles from one another and  the bodies were found six months apart. And yet,   police believed that both women  were killed on the same night,   by the same man. The only thing  connecting them? Orange socks.  

On January 6, 1982, Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer,  29 years old, left home at 7.15 am.   Her day had begun as usual  and she hitchhiked to work.   Jeff Oberholtzer was Bobbie’s husband. He ran  an appliance repair business, and she worked  

as a receptionist. They had been married for  four-and-a-half years at the time of Bobbie’s   death, and they lived in Alma, fourteen miles  away from where her body was eventually found.   At 6.20 pm Jeff got a call from Bobbie saying  she was having drinks with friends after work.   He asked her if she wanted him to pick her up,  but she told him that she would get a ride home.   Jeff made dinner and waited for Bobbie to come  home. At some point, he fell asleep. He woke  

up around midnight and discovered that his wife  had not returned. Jeff drove into Breckenridge   to look for Bobbie, and her friends told  him she had left the bar around 7.30 pm;   they assumed she had gotten a ride home. When  Jeff reported to police that Bobbie was missing,   they told him it was too early to file a report.  Finally, he drove back home to wait for her wife.   The next morning, a farmer who lived 30 miles  outside Breckenridge found Bobbie’s driver’s   license on his property. When Jeff and two  friends were on their way to pick her up,   they made a disturbing discovery – something  blue in a snow-covered field. It was her  

backpack, which she always had with her. Next to the backpack was one of Bobbie’s gloves,   spattered with blood, and several bloody tissues.  Jeff’s friends helped him organize a search.   Two hours later, they found Bobbie’s lifeless  body more than fifteen miles from where her   backpack was discovered. She had been shot  twice. Her house keys were found at the scene.   At the crime scene, police found three intriguing  clues; the only footprints near the body were from   Bobbie; a plastic cord was tied around one of her  wrists; a single orange sock was found nearby.   The same day Bobbie Jo’s body was found,  another woman, Annette Schnee, 21 years old,   was reported missing. Annette was a cocktail  

waitress in Frisco, Colorado, and like  Bobbie, often hitchhiked to and from work.   Because of the similarities, both cases  were immediately connected by the police.   Investigators questioned Jeff about  Annette. At first, he denied knowing her,   however, after seeing her picture on the  news, he recalled meeting her once.   Jeff claimed he had once picked up Annette when  she was hitchhiking and he had given her his   business card but had never seen or heard from her  since that day. He also denied any involvement in   her disappearance or Bobbie’s death. On July 3, 1982,  

six months after her disappearance and 13 miles  away from where Bobbie Jo’s body had been found,   Annette’s body was discovered. Police were  shocked with the discovery that she was   wearing the match for the orange sock. Jeff’s  business card was found inside her wallet.   The prime suspect immediately  became Jeff Oberholtzer.   Authorities tried to put together a scenario for  what might have happened on the night of January   6. Annette Schnee was last seen in Breckenridge  at around 4 pm, in deep conversation with an  

unidentified dark-haired woman. Police believed  that around 5 pm, Annette left to hitchhike home.   The suspect picked her up and drove  20 miles south of Breckenridge.   He took her down a small, dead-end road,  where he assaulted her in his vehicle.   While she was getting dressed, she  forgot to put on her other orange sock,   and attempted to escape, when she  was shot in the back while running.   Police believed the suspect then drove back  to Breckenridge and found his second victim:   Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer. He drove Bobbie 10 miles  south of Breckenridge, to a scenic overlook,  

where he attempted to assault her. Bobbie managed  to escape from the vehicle when the other orange   sock fell out. The suspect then chased her down  the road and shot her twice as she turned away.   Police felt that the fact that  Jeff Oberholtzer knew both victims   was more than just a coincidence. Two months after his wife’s death,   Jeff took a polygraph test and passed. From  day one, Jeff insisted that he had an alibi.   He said that at the time of the deaths,  he was at home with a visiting friend.  

For nearly 9 years, no one could find this man. Then, in December 1990, he finally surfaced   and was questioned about that night. Investigators  interviewed the man, who claimed that he had   been at Jeff’s house. However, his time and  Jeff’s time of the visit did not match up.   Jeff Oberholtzer has always maintained his  innocence, and claimed that the suspect   had to be someone she knew; she  would not have gone with a stranger,   especially when he had given her  the option to be picked up by him.   For years, the blood found on Bobbie's gloves  and the tissues with her backpack were believed   to have been hers. However, in the early 1990s,  DNA testing determined that it came from a male.  

The testing also determined that Jeff had not  left it. As a result of this and other evidence,   including several alibi witnesses, he was  eventually cleared as a suspect in the case.   Police looked into several other different  suspects. One was cab driver Thomas Edward Luther,   who beat and assault a hitchhiker after picking  her up in Breckenridge, in February 1982.  

While in jail, he allegedly bragged  about being responsible for the deaths.   According to his girlfriend, he did  not come home on that fatal night.   He also lied to investigators and  said he was at work at the time.  

The other suspect, Tracy Petrocelli, killed  his fiancée in 1981 and went on a multi-state   crime spree. During this time, he stayed  at Annette's workplace, the Holiday Inn   in Frisco. However, neither suspect's DNA  matched the evidence from the crime scene.   On February 24, 2021, a 70-year-old man  named Alan Lee Phillips was arrested   and charged with the deaths. He was also charged  with kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon.   He is being held without bail.   Genetic genealogy was used to link the DNA  found at the crime scene to him. Investigators  

suspect that he may have been involved  in other crimes throughout Colorado.   Sadly, Bobbie's brother,  Kelly, and father, Thomas,   have passed away before finding out who was the  man responsible for taking her life   Next, Gayle Barrus   On October 9, 1988, Gayle Barrus was spotted  leaving a coffee shop in the early hours of   the morning, accompanied by a man. This was  the last time Barrus was ever seen alive.   Gayle Barrus was a 30-year-old single mother  of three from Michigan. Life was hard and she   worked at two different local bars to be able  to survive and take care of her children.   In the early hours of October 9, 1988, between  3-4 am, Barrus was spotted leaving Speed’s   Koffee Shop, in Battle Creek, Michigan.  She was accompanied by a dark-haired man,  

and that was the last time anyone saw her alive. On October 25, hunters from Emmett, a nearby town,   made a horrifying discovery. They  found a lifeless body of a woman,   laying on River Road. The woman had been viciously  stabbed and 0 assaulted. The authorities quickly   identified the body to be that of Gayle Barrus,  and an extensive investigation followed.   Witnesses were identified and interviewed, and  evidence was collected from the crime scene.   On October 22, just a few days before Barrus’  body being discovered and almost two weeks after   her disappearance, a 24-year-old man named  Roger Plato was approached by authorities.  

Plato’s car matched the description from a victim  of a different abduction and assault cause.   At 4.30 pm, authorities attempted to detain him  at gunpoint while he was walking to his car at   a parking lot in Bellevue. Plato became aggressive  and refused to cooperate, and start fighting back.   He was shot when he tried to wrestle the gun  from a detective and died from the injuries.   He was never interviewed. Authorities  performed an autopsy, and a blood sample  

was taken before the body was cremated, which  was stored at a private lab at the time.   Investigators of Barrus’ case turned  their attention to Plato’s friend,   and former roommate, Richard Compton.  Compton had a vast criminal career,   but when approached by investigators he  backed off and denied knowing anything.   With no further leads or developments,  Barrus’ case eventually went cold.  

In 2018, Battle Creek cold case detective Scott  Marshall reinvestigated the case. One of his   first discoveries was that Compton’s DNA had never  been tested, and he became his number one suspect.   After some investigation, Detective Marshall  discovered that he had died in 2009,   and his body was buried in the County  International Cemetery, in Austin, Texas.  

Compton was 59 years old when he died.   Detective Marshall got a search warrant and  traveled to Texas, to exhume Compton’s body.   After examination, it was discovered that  Compton’s DNA samples didn’t match that   found on Barrus’ body, but matched previously  unidentified hairs connected to the crime scene.   In November 2020, a break in the case  emerged, almost by luck. Sargent Chris Bacik,   of the Calhoun County sheriff’s department, was  taking an inventory of evidence at the department   and found a vial containing the  blood sample taken from Plato.  

On January 30, 2021, it was announced that a  state police lab connected the blood to DNA   found on Gayle Barrus’ body, confirming  Plato as responsible for assaulting   and taking her life. It is most likely  that Compton witnessed it happening.   Both men have already died, and they never  had to pay for this horrible crime, however,   the Barrus family has expressed their relief on  finally being able to have some kind of closure.   Detective Marshall said DNA technology is  the future for solving cold cases.   Next, Stephanie Sommers   On August 30, 1980, Stephanie Sommers was  supposed to spend the day with her nephew.   They were going to celebrate his birthday  and spend a wonderful day together.   However, she never appeared. Police  eventually found her lifeless body  

inside her home. Stephanie   Sommers was a 36-year-old woman who lived in an  apartment in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California.   She had only recently moved there from Newhall,  Santa Clarita, and she couldn’t be more excited.  

On that fatal day, August 30, 1980, she  was at her apartment, getting ready to   spend the day with her 11-year-old nephew,  Kelly Roberts, from Santa Clarita Valley.   She was planning to pick him up and take him  to Six Flags Magic Mountain, as a late birthday   present. Kelly got dressed up especially for the  occasion, however, Stephanie never made it there.   Concerned, her family contacted the  authorities, who went to check her apartment.   There, they made a grizzly discovery; Stephanie's  lifeless body was laying inside her apartment.   Forensic evidence was collected at the crime   scene, including that from Stephanie's body,  and an extensive investigation began.   Several people were interviewed; however, the  leads went nowhere, and the case went cold.  

The case remained unsolved for more than three  decades until Los Angeles detectives received   a fresh lead in 2014. It implicated  a man named Harold Anthony Parkinson,   who lived a mile away from the victim, and  he could be a main suspect in the case.   On June 19, 2014, a DNA sample collected  from Parkinson was consistent with a DNA   profile taken from Sommers’ body and he  was charged with taking her life. However,   Parkinson was already in jail, serving between  15 years to life at the Chuckawalla Valley State   Prison in Blythe for another unrelated attack. This other attack happened in Los Angeles,   on April 8, 1981, when he shot a man named Derek  Eugene Perry. Perry succumbed to the injuries and   died. Parkinson was arrested and began serving  time for that sentence on March 5, 1982.  

Perry’s sister Dolly said at the time, “I  remember the last meal I had with Derek.   It was at a Sizzler restaurant. He gave me a  hug and told me he loved me.” She described   her older sibling as an excellent BMX rider  and surfer, and a “brilliant big brother.”  

The motive of the attack was unknown,  or undisclosed by authorities.   After learning that Parkinson was  being accused of Sommers’ death,   Dolly said that he is a dangerous man and should  never be allowed back on the streets. In court,   Parkinson’s lawyer argued that his  client hadn’t assaulted Sommers,   and claimed that the two were romantically  involved and they slept together a few days   before she was attacked. Prosecutors, however, said Sommers,   after a brief marriage to a man, had told  friends that she was only attracted to women.   Los Angeles Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy  described Sommers’ case as a “very degrading,   horrible, violent crime.” Judge Kennedy believed  there was “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”  

that Parkinson was “responsible for this.” On February 4, 2021, Harold Parkinson,   who is now 61 years old, was sentenced to life in  prison without the possibility of parole.   Next, Sylvia Mae Quayle   On August 4, 1981, William Quayle went to visit  his daughter's house, in Cherry Hills Village,   near Denver, Colorado. She happened  to live just 150 feet from his house.   What he discovered there was something  that no parent should have to witness.   Sylvia Mae Quayle, 34 years old, was, according to  friends, ambitious, vibrant, friendly, and lit up   the room when she walked in. She loved history and  worked as a secretary at an architectural firm.  

An excellent cook, she had also opened her  own business specializing in wedding cakes.   She had a lot of friends and was an avid artist.  She loved to create pottery, that her sister still   keeps throughout her home three decades later. Sylvia was extremely close to her family,   especially her parents, who lived  about 150 feet away from her house,   and she had coffee with them every morning. Until that morning…  

Just before 8 am, on August 4, 1981,  officers were dispatched to Sylvia’s house,   after her father found her  lifeless body and called 911.   Sylvia Quayle had spoken to her sister on  the phone the previous night, around 11 pm,   so investigators knew she had been killed between  the time she hung up the phone that night and when   her father got to her house nine hours later. Her father, William Quayle, told the officers   he had arrived to find his daughter  lying naked on the living room floor.   Investigation revealed that she had been  shot, stabbed multiple times, strangled,   and indecent assaulted. The autopsy confirmed  the loss of blood was the cause of death.   Investigators found two important  clues in the crime scene:   the telephone line in the living room  and outside the house had been cut;   a bathroom window screen had been  removed and tossed into some tall weeds.  

About 140 more pieces of evidence were collected  from the scene and, over time, a variety of   technological advances were used on the items  as investigators tried to solve the crime.   In 1983, two years after the death, forensic  technicians using an alternate light source   found DNA material not from Sylvia in  the rug where her body was laying.   The same year brought hope for  investigators and the Quayle family   after notorious serial killer Ottis Elwood  Toole confessed to having taken Sylvia’s life.  

Many of Toole’s confessions  were later known to be false,   along those of his companion, Henry Lee Lucas.  Lucas, who died in a Texas prison in 2001,   claimed hundreds of victims, however,  authorities were only able to confirm a handful.   In 1993, the charges against Toole in  Sylvia’s death were dropped. At the time,   DNA testing on the evidence in the case had  proven that Toole was not the source of the DNA   found at the crime scene 12 years earlier. In 1995, a section of the rug was cut out  

and submitted to the Colorado Bureau  of Investigation to be tested.   5 years later, the sample provided authorities  with an unknown male DNA profile. However,   no match was found, and the case went cold. In January 2020, Cherry Hills Village cold   case detectives and investigators decided to  use the recent technology of genetic genealogy   in Sylvia’s case. 4 months later, a  name surfaced – David Dwayne Anderson.   At the time of Sylvia’s death, Anderson, then 22  years old, lived a couple of miles away from her.   Cold case detectives began investigating  Anderson. One particular investigator,  

Robert Fuller, traveled to Cozad, where Anderson  now lived, to secretly collect the suspect’s DNA.   Fuller was able to recover two trash bags Anderson  had tossed into a dumpster. Inside were 15 items   that potentially held Anderson’s genetic material.  Included among the items was a Vanilla Coke can.   On January 29, 2021, genetic material  taken out of the Vanilla Coke can matched   the ones found in the body and crime scene. When investigators looked into Anderson’s past,   they found a string of at least eight home  and business burglaries., between 1981 and   1986. In one of the home burglaries, he removed  and tossed a window screen to gain entrance.  

Anderson, now 62 years old, was  arrested on February 10, 2021.   William and Mary Quayle did not live to   see their daughter’s killer charged.  William Quayle died in 1999,   and his wife followed 10 years later.  

The final case, Bonny Baker   On the night of June 30, 1998, Bonny Baker  was having fun with some friends to celebrate   her recent promotion at work. Her boyfriend  at the time came to meet her at the party.   After a few tense moments, they both left.  That was the last time Bonny was seen alive…   Bonny Baker was a 47-year old woman from Denver,  Colorado, where she shared an apartment with her   boyfriend, Crespin Nene-Perez. The couple  had met at the restaurant The Fort, in   Morrison, where they both worked. Bonny was the perfect employee, never   calling in sick and always showing up on time,  which worth her a promotion from her boss. The  

same couldn’t be said about Nene-Perez; he had  been fired a month earlier after missing work.   Bonny decided that she should celebrate her  recent promotion, and head out with a group   of friends to a friend’s place, in Golden,  where they would spend the night partying.   The party was going great, with everyone having  fun, drinking and dancing, but things quickly   turned with the arrival of Bonny’s boyfriend. Nene-Perez   arrived at the party and almost  immediately started to make a scene;   he was jealous after seeing his girlfriend dancing  with her friends in the living room. Several   witnesses at the party later said that Nene-Perez  looked as if he had taken illicit substances;   his eyes were red and glazed, and he was fuming  with rage. He was continuously eyeing everyone off   at the party as if looking for trouble. Bonny’s  

last known words to a friend were, “it would be  better if I just go now, or it will be worse”.   The pair were witnessed leaving the party early,  together, when the situation was becoming heated.   At around 8 pm that night, authorities received  a phone call from an unidentified woman.   She reported that a man had taken a woman’s  life in an apartment on West Louisiana Avenue.  

She also claimed the man was about to drive to  Mexico in a red vehicle with Colorado license   plates, with the woman’s body in the trunk which  he was planning to dumb somewhere along the way.   When tracing the call, police found  out that it was made from a payphone,   so they headed to the address given.   In the apartment, there were no signs of  a struggle, and no one was to be found.   The next day, Nene-Perez’s car was involved in  a single-vehicle collision near Globe, Arizona,   but he had fled the scene on foot.  The car ended up being impounded  

and, upon examination, blood was  collected from the trunk as evidence.   The case was forgotten for a while, and  only after one year something came out.   On July 31, 1999, two boys went horseback riding  in a remote part of Navajo tribal grounds, in New   Mexico. There, they stumbled across what appeared  to be a human skull and contacted authorities.   After searching the area, investigators  found several more skeletal remains.   Despite the find, the results of the autopsy and  the reason for the death remained inconclusive.   The case went cold, due to the lack of  evidence and correlation between Bonny Baker,   the missing person, and the found remains. In October 2012, cold-case Detective Kenneth  

Klaus, from Denver, was assigned Bonny’s case, and  immediately called an FBI agent in New Mexico to   discuss the woman’s disappearance. DNA samples  from the remains found in the Navajo area were   sent to Denver’s crime lab for forensic testing.  They matched samples collected from Bonny Baker.   On April 4, 2013, the unknown  female caller came forward,   admitting that she was the one who called 911 the  night of Bonny’s disappearance. She also claimed   that she cleaned out the couple’s apartment after  their disappearance, and before the authorities   arrived, where broken plates and glasses covered  the floor and the kitchen table was overturned.  

The unidentified woman also gave a  full description of the red vehicle,   which later was found to be a Geo Prizm, as well  as its license plate number. And according to her,   Nene-Perez told her that night, “I know that  you don’t like Bonny. Something bad happened   to us. You will never have to see Bonny again  because I am going to make her disappear.”   This woman’s relationship with the couple  was not yet revealed by the authorities.  

Another witness also identified Nene-Perez as  the red car driver from a photo line-up. After   further rounds of witness interviews and forensic  DNA testing, the gathered evidence concluded that   there was enough ground to arrest Nene-Perez. A warrant was issued for Nene-Perez,   but his capture was impossible; he was living  in Mexico at the time. His extradition to  

Colorado didn’t happen until just recently. Prosecutors theorize that Bonny Baker's body   was likely left in a shallow grave  within a day of her disappearance.   On January 27, 2021, a preliminary reading  in the case was held in Denver court,   and Nene-Perez faces charges for abducting  and taking Baker’s life.   If you found this interesting then be sure  to like, subscribe, and hit the bell button;   you don’t want to miss what other  mysteries are waiting for you!   As always, thanks for watching.

2021-04-30

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