Serial Killer Documentary - John Eric Armstrong

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In the summer of 1999, 26-year-old John Eric Armstrong was
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honorably discharged from the U.S.
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Navy.
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He settled in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, with his wife and
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their new baby.
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He was a nice neighbor, a good friend, a good father, apparently,
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according to his neighbors.
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But Armstrong wasn't the loving family man that people believed.
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Him to be.
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Armstrong was, in my humble opinion, the personification of evil.
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Armstrong was using the services of sex workers, many of
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whom he then brutally murdered.
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He's killed multiple women. It was natural to him.
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Only person that that type of lifestyle that could be
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natural to is a monster.
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As more details emerged, police realized that these murders went
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far beyond their local area.
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You're talking Singapore, Hong Kong, and all these exotic locales
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that his boat traveled to while he was.
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In the Navy.
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He's going to be one of the most prolific, well-traveled
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serial killers in history.
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John Eric Armstrong had gone global and been unveiled as
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one of the world's most evil killers. On April the 10th, 2000,
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in Detroit, Michigan, police were alerted to an alarming discovery.
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The bodies of three sex workers had been found near
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some railway tracks in varying states of decomposition.
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This was the work of a serial killer.
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He didn't try and conceal his crimes. He just discarded
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the bodies, didn't try and hide them. He just came
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back to visit and abuse. and then move on to
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the next murder and dispose of that one and roll
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it downhill and find another one.
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With no leads, the police were under pressure to find
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the unknown killer before he could strike again. Then a
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chance traffic stop and subsequent arrest of 26-year-old John Eric
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Armstrong led to more revelations than they could ever have expected.
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In the patrol car, one of the patrolmen could hear
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Armstrong in the back muttering something under his breath. I'm
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glad it's over. I'm glad you guys got me.
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This killer's story begins on the southeastern coast of America.
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John Eric Armstrong was born on November the 23rd, 1973.
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Armstrong was born and raised in New Bern, North Carolina.
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and by all accounts had a very normal upbringing, very
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normal childhood.
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I think the most important point in his early life
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was the death of a younger brother, Michael, who died
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of sudden infant death syndrome at barely two months old.
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And this had an impact on the young John Eric Armstrong.
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Armstrong was five years old at the time, and at
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five years old, I'm not sure that children fully understand
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the concept of death and dying and perhaps how permanent
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it is. So it's quite possible that it impacted him
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in a way that made him feel completely powerless.
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He was so distraught over that, that he deliberately rode
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his bicycle out in traffic, almost like, you know, with
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the intention of joining his baby brother.
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The loss of the baby had a major impact on
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Armstrong's parents.
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Shortly after his baby brother Mikey died in the crib,
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his biological father left the family.
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After his father left, young Armstrong stayed in the family
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home with his mother. Towards the end of the 1970s,
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Armstrong started school, and his classmates saw nothing unusual about him.
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The people who went to school with him, for instance,
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his fellow students, they saw him as just a normal kid.
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He was a little quiet. He seemed pretty meek. One
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person described him as aloof, but really nothing unusual about
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his childhood, nothing that would make someone ill at ease.
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Armstrong felt that he was kind of an underachiever and
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being bullied, and a lot of this behavior impacted him psychologically.
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We've got somebody whose whole identity is being formed around
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this victimhood, this powerlessness, this, the world is against me.
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And I think that internal anger, rage, revenge is more
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what drove him as he went into adulthood.
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There was a strange incident in his life. At school,
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he said, one of his classmates, a girl, was trying
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to persuade him to have sex with her, and he
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didn't want to.
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And he locked himself into a bathroom and threatened to
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kill himself.
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This led to a month-long stay in a mental health facility.
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So he obviously had issues with sex.
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A simple pressure for sex is not going to put
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you into psychiatric care.
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There's a lot more going on here.
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At the age of 16, Armstrong felt that he was
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still dealing with the negative impact of his brother's death,
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and so he went for additional psychiatric counseling.
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To seek psychiatric care at age 16, when he's just
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had care for another incident, this is somebody who's really,
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really struggling to function in the world.
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By his late teens, despite his problems, Armstrong had managed
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to start a relationship with a girl. But when his
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high school sweetheart left him for another boy, Armstrong was devastated,
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especially when he saw his love rival shower his ex-girlfriend
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with gifts.
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Armstrong interpreted this as her prostituting herself for her affections
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in exchange for these gifts that this other new suitor
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was providing her.
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This guy sees women, sex, relationships, transactional. And even he
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said that this.
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Was like she was a prostitute.
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What an awful way to see relationships.
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In April 1992, when Armstrong was 18 years old, he
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signed up with the U.S. Navy.
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He joined the military, which is, I don't think, an
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unusual thing for somebody like him who feels, you know,
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like he needs to be in a big gang because
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he feels like the world's against him and he needs
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control and he needs power.
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Armstrong was assigned to the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, then
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the largest sailing vessel in the world.
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Life aboard the Nimitz, it would be pretty exciting.
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It can go anywhere in the world, and often did,
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and Armstrong would have enjoyed that life.
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He worked in the barbershop, it was said, and then
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he had one or two other jobs on the boat.
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And he had a good record, by all accounts, aboard
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the boat. Nothing really stood out.
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At one point, he was nicknamed Babydoll. He had this
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very childlike face, this very innocent approach. which didn't really
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make him look like a grown-up man at all.
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Despite his youthful features, Armstrong was over six foot tall
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with a large build. It was while aboard the USS
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Nimitz that Armstrong met the woman he would go on
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to marry. After both being honorably discharged in 1999, the
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couple moved to Michigan to start their married life and
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raise their first child.
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And so they settled into a city in Metro Detroit,
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on the west side of Metro Detroit, called Dearborn Heights,
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and they lived with her parents for a while.
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Armstrong started working for a chain of retail stores, then
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later as a security guard, and then refueling airplanes at
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Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
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It seems like Armstrong may not have been able to
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find his way, at least vocationally, in a career.
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Those around Armstrong just saw him as any other guy
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in the neighborhood.
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One lady said, I used to get a ride home
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with him or a ride to work, and she said
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he was just the nicest guy.
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He was a nice neighbor, a good friend, a good father, apparently,
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according to his neighbors. and yet he had this completely
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other side, this classic Jekyll and Hyde approach, particularly to women.
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Beyond this normal life appeared to be a facade, and
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behind that facade, Armstrong was going out and engaging in
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activity like having sex on a regular basis with sex workers.
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He has got a bad attitude, misogynistic attitude towards women,
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so I think we can kind of see where it's
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coming from with him.
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John Eric Armstrong wasn't the loving family man he was
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portraying to those around him. He was living a double
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life filled with dark secrets, one that would soon be exposed.
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Armstrong's preferred haunt for picking up sex workers was in
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downtown Detroit, around 10 miles from his family home.
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Unfortunately, prostitution has always thrived in Detroit, and the area
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of Michigan Avenue has always been a hot spot for prostitution.
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Kyle James Casares was a child when his mom, Kelly
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Jean Hood, began working on the streets in the 1990s.
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Kelly started taking drugs following the death of her father
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and was trying to fund her addiction through sex work.
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She was actually very close to my grandfather, and when
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he passed away, she couldn't deal with the pain.
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My mom, before the drugs.
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And even after the drugs, was one of the most
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kind-hearted person you could ever meet. We were her world.
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She made sure we had a good childhood. best she could,
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giving her what she could.
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It's, you know, a very common motivation of sex workers
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is to engage in prostitution to raise money to support
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their drug habit.
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Despite his young age, Kyle worked out how his mom
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was earning the money to pay for her addiction.
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I was with her all the time and I knew
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the people she hung out with and I would just
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see them around the neighborhood and what they were doing,
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and I just connected the dots. I was worried, but
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it was nothing I couldn't do. She was a grown woman,
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and she was my mother. I felt like I needed
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to protect her all the time.
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Kelly Jean Hood was one of many women selling sex
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in the Detroit area at the time. Natasha Olenichak was
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also working in the same area.
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I wasn't in the streets for the drugs. I was
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in the streets for money, fast money. seeing nice cars, clothes,
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mink coats, stuff like that.
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And I don't know, I just fell in the trap.
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I always had jobs and everything.
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I just wanted to do something to get quicker money,
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and I did.
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The nature of the industry means that sex workers often
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operate in secluded and dark areas, making them extremely vulnerable
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to predators.
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Sex workers are... at a huge risk of serious harm
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and homicide. I mean, mainly because of their accessibility. Sex
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workers are easy to get into a place on your own,
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no questions asked.
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And because they want the money, they'll go with you
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to a dark place where no one else is around.
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It is a very risky business. They're living a very
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high-risk life.
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One night in August 1999, Natasha was working a shift
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on the usual streets. Unbeknown to the sex workers in
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the area, there was a deadly predator on the loose,
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and he was out that night looking for his next victim.
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I was on 8 Mile Road.
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He was in a Jeep, and he circled one time,
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then he circled again.
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He pulled up.
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And he asked me for a date, and I said, yeah.
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Then I got in the truck. He was big. He
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was bald-headed at the time. He was tall. He wore glasses. Yep,
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and he was a big guy.
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He wasn't little.
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I didn't feel uncomfortable with him or anything, you know?
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I wasn't nervous or nothing.
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Natasha was staying in a motel room close to the
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red light area.
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So the pair headed there.
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He got inside the room and he just was feeling uneasy.
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He asked to use the bathroom. He used the bathroom.
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He came out and he said, I just don't really
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feel right.
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I got to leave.
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And he leaves.
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She goes into her room. A little while later, there's
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a knock on her door. She opens the door. It's
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that guy.
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I should've never opened the door. I should've just said,
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never mind. But I didn't think he was gonna come back.
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Opening the door to let the client back in turned
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out to be a decision that Natasha would soon regret.
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He came in, then that's when he slammed my door,
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and he was like, don't scream, don't yell, because that's when.
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He had the knife, them sharp, big ones.
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And I was like, oh, my God, you can have
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all my money, whatever, my whatever.
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But the attacker wasn't interested in taking Natasha's money.
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He wanted to take her life.
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He said he was going to kill me. And I
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was like, don't kill me. I got kids. He came
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in with his knife at me. My neck, my eyes,
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my toes, my fingers.
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He had just blood everywhere because he cut me. Then
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I was on the bed, like, laying down.
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He had his body on me, and then he grabbed
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the telephone cord and wrapped it around my neck like
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five times and was like choking.
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00:15:44.179 --> 00:15:51.940
The asphyxiation caused Natasha to pass out. When she regained consciousness,
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00:15:52.259 --> 00:15:53.879
her attacker was gone.
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00:15:55.330 --> 00:15:57.970
I went out to the, ran out of the motel
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00:15:58.009 --> 00:16:00.169
room and said, I need help, I need help. I
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00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:03.230
was almost, this guy just tried to kill me and
255
00:16:03.980 --> 00:16:05.659
And that's when the police came.
256
00:16:07.019 --> 00:16:11.399
The police interviewed Natasha, but her description of the attacker
257
00:16:11.659 --> 00:16:13.250
wasn't enough on its own.
258
00:16:14.590 --> 00:16:16.509
It's very difficult for the police to follow up on
259
00:16:16.570 --> 00:16:19.289
any kind of attack like this because there's so little
260
00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:21.690
to go on about who this person is.
261
00:16:22.309 --> 00:16:25.169
And after that happened, I said, I got to get
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00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:25.980
out of this.
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00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:29.700
I had to get counseling and stuff because I got
264
00:16:29.740 --> 00:16:30.700
diagnosed with PTSD.
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00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:31.299
PTSD.
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00:16:36.899 --> 00:16:42.289
Less than four months later, on December 2, 1999, another
267
00:16:42.350 --> 00:16:48.190
woman was targeted. 31-year-old sex worker Monica Johnson was driven
268
00:16:48.269 --> 00:16:52.360
to work on Michigan Avenue by her boyfriend. The couple
269
00:16:52.460 --> 00:16:55.899
parked up on a side street just off the notorious
270
00:16:56.039 --> 00:16:56.960
red light strip.
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00:16:58.039 --> 00:17:00.379
And he stayed in his car while she walked down
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00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:03.149
Michigan Avenue to do some business, and that's the last
273
00:17:03.190 --> 00:17:03.629
he ever.
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00:17:03.490 --> 00:17:03.820
Saw of her.
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00:17:05.279 --> 00:17:08.440
Monica had been picked up by a man on Michigan Avenue,
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00:17:08.769 --> 00:17:11.470
and they'd driven away from the area to have their
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00:17:11.529 --> 00:17:12.589
sexual encounter.
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00:17:13.569 --> 00:17:17.250
And it was just a short little kind of secluded area,
279
00:17:17.630 --> 00:17:20.630
a short little service drive, and they parked along there
280
00:17:20.690 --> 00:17:24.200
near an alley, and they carried out a transaction.
281
00:17:24.980 --> 00:17:28.099
But then things took a dark turn when the man
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00:17:28.200 --> 00:17:32.839
Monica was with attacked and strangled her. A passerby found
283
00:17:32.900 --> 00:17:36.890
her still alive hours later and called for an ambulance.
284
00:17:37.809 --> 00:17:40.890
And the ambulance came and they picked her up and
285
00:17:40.910 --> 00:17:43.269
they took her to the hospital. But by the time
286
00:17:43.390 --> 00:17:44.950
they got there, she had died.
287
00:17:45.829 --> 00:17:50.950
With no eyewitnesses or CCTV of the attack on Monica Johnson,
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00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:54.740
the police had no leads and very little to progress
289
00:17:54.799 --> 00:17:59.680
their investigation. Nor had they identified any suspects for the
290
00:17:59.740 --> 00:18:05.190
attacks on several other sex workers in Detroit in 1999.
291
00:18:05.190 --> 00:18:08.690
Monica's killer was still on the loose in Detroit and
292
00:18:08.730 --> 00:18:11.049
he could strike again at any moment.
293
00:18:11.930 --> 00:18:16.089
So when we get... into the beginning of 2000, the
294
00:18:16.150 --> 00:18:22.630
turn of the millennium, he escalates really quite quickly. He
295
00:18:22.670 --> 00:18:25.769
cannot give up the compulsion to have sex with sex
296
00:18:25.809 --> 00:18:27.809
workers and kill.
297
00:18:29.170 --> 00:18:29.839
Them.
298
00:18:29.859 --> 00:18:33.279
39-year-old Wendy Jordan was known to the police as a
299
00:18:33.359 --> 00:18:37.359
sex worker in the red light area of Detroit. On
300
00:18:37.430 --> 00:18:41.420
January the 1st, 2000, Wendy got into the car of
301
00:18:41.500 --> 00:18:44.240
a man who wanted to pay for her services.
302
00:18:46.420 --> 00:18:49.539
He was on Warren Avenue in Detroit, and he picked
303
00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:53.579
Wendy up, and he took her to this side street
304
00:18:53.619 --> 00:18:56.259
that was right next to a funeral home, and they
305
00:18:56.319 --> 00:18:59.480
parked in the parking lot of this funeral home. And
306
00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:03.539
they proceeded with their transaction, and then he killed her,
307
00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:06.099
and he drove with her in the Jeep a few
308
00:19:06.140 --> 00:19:10.390
miles away. And he pulled over and dumped her over
309
00:19:10.410 --> 00:19:14.950
a bridge into the Rouge River on Ann Arbor Trail.
310
00:19:15.490 --> 00:19:17.170
And then he went home.
311
00:19:18.390 --> 00:19:22.230
Wendy's body had been left in Dearborn Heights, the home
312
00:19:22.289 --> 00:19:26.609
of John Eric Armstrong and his family. Since leaving the
313
00:19:26.789 --> 00:19:30.200
Army less than a year earlier and moving to the area,
314
00:19:30.680 --> 00:19:34.819
Armstrong had changed jobs a number of times. On January
315
00:19:34.859 --> 00:19:38.720
the 2nd, 2000, Armstrong set off for work at a
316
00:19:38.799 --> 00:19:39.559
retail store.
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00:19:41.500 --> 00:19:44.200
At some point in the morning, Armstrong reported feeling sick
318
00:19:44.609 --> 00:19:47.069
and told his boss he had to leave work, at
319
00:19:47.109 --> 00:19:48.930
which time he drove away.
320
00:19:48.950 --> 00:19:49.950
Apparently on his way home.
321
00:19:50.099 --> 00:19:50.230
Home.
322
00:19:50.970 --> 00:19:52.519
On his way home, Armstrong.
323
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:56.559
Pulls over on the bridge over the Rouge River and
324
00:19:56.619 --> 00:19:59.240
says he did that because he felt so ill he
325
00:19:59.279 --> 00:20:00.740
was going to vomit over the bridge.
326
00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:04.680
Armstrong looked down at the River Rouge below.
327
00:20:05.420 --> 00:20:10.049
It's maybe, at that point, 50 yards wide. six, eight
328
00:20:10.089 --> 00:20:15.180
feet deep at the most. And it runs for miles,
329
00:20:16.059 --> 00:20:17.640
but there's not a real strong current.
330
00:20:18.259 --> 00:20:21.579
It was January and it was still frozen.
331
00:20:22.140 --> 00:20:24.140
And so he looks over the bridge and he sees
332
00:20:24.180 --> 00:20:24.680
this woman.
333
00:20:24.940 --> 00:20:27.549
It was the body of Wendy Jordan who'd been left
334
00:20:27.609 --> 00:20:31.829
there the previous day. Armstrong flagged down a passerby to
335
00:20:31.890 --> 00:20:32.750
call the police.
336
00:20:33.730 --> 00:20:35.950
I'm on the Rouge River and there's a dead body
337
00:20:35.970 --> 00:20:36.450
in the river.
338
00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:45.009
He phones them up and, of course, the body is discovered.
339
00:20:45.029 --> 00:20:46.430
It is indeed Wendy Jordan.
340
00:20:46.910 --> 00:20:50.269
The police arrived at the scene and Armstrong told them
341
00:20:50.470 --> 00:20:53.490
that he'd left work early because he was feeling ill
342
00:20:53.789 --> 00:20:55.150
and had been driving home.
343
00:20:56.009 --> 00:20:58.730
But the police regarded, and I quite agree with them,
344
00:20:58.930 --> 00:21:02.200
as most peculiar. He just happened to stop on the
345
00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:03.819
bridge and he just happened to look over and he
346
00:21:03.859 --> 00:21:07.220
just happened to see a body. Goodness me. I mean,
347
00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:09.640
it almost defies belief, doesn't it, to be honest?
348
00:21:11.720 --> 00:21:15.410
Detectives wondered if there was more to the discovery than
349
00:21:15.509 --> 00:21:19.349
Armstrong had told them. But if he was involved in
350
00:21:19.549 --> 00:21:22.779
any way, why would he have alerted the police?
351
00:21:24.599 --> 00:21:27.460
He said he could see a body floating in the
352
00:21:27.500 --> 00:21:29.420
river and it was all innocent.
353
00:21:30.329 --> 00:21:31.329
Why would he do that?
354
00:21:31.369 --> 00:21:35.900
This really, it seems like it would go against everything
355
00:21:35.940 --> 00:21:38.980
that you think that he would do. You would think
356
00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:41.559
that he would want to get away with it. You
357
00:21:41.579 --> 00:21:44.099
think he'd want to stay under the radar.
358
00:21:44.849 --> 00:21:48.289
Based on the unusual nature of Armstrong being in that
359
00:21:48.329 --> 00:21:50.349
place at that time, the police bring him down for
360
00:21:50.390 --> 00:21:54.769
additional questioning to the police station, during which he maintains
361
00:21:54.809 --> 00:21:56.710
that he has no connection to this person. He didn't
362
00:21:56.759 --> 00:21:58.529
know who they are or why they were there. And
363
00:21:58.589 --> 00:22:00.430
he stuck to his story that he felt sick and
364
00:22:00.450 --> 00:22:00.890
left work.
365
00:22:02.089 --> 00:22:04.609
I leaned over to vomit.
366
00:22:05.309 --> 00:22:09.789
And then when I leaned over, my.
367
00:22:08.269 --> 00:22:09.049
Eye caught something.
368
00:22:09.089 --> 00:22:10.450
I looked over, and there she was.
369
00:22:11.309 --> 00:22:15.630
It seems unusual that you picked the exact spot that
370
00:22:15.650 --> 00:22:16.970
would lead you to be looking over.
371
00:22:16.829 --> 00:22:17.730
The edge of where she was.
372
00:22:18.329 --> 00:22:19.769
Tell you right now, I wasn't with her.
373
00:22:20.170 --> 00:22:20.849
I never saw her.
374
00:22:21.269 --> 00:22:22.109
I'd never seen her.
375
00:22:22.130 --> 00:22:25.950
I'm going to be sorry.
376
00:22:25.710 --> 00:22:27.789
If I'm not knowing anything, I guess.
377
00:22:29.099 --> 00:22:33.650
Armstrong had placed himself directly into the murder inquiry, but
378
00:22:33.670 --> 00:22:34.569
with no grounds.
379
00:22:34.789 --> 00:22:37.869
To detain him, police let him leave. His account of
380
00:22:37.910 --> 00:22:39.009
what happened had raised their.
381
00:22:38.910 --> 00:22:59.450
Suspicions, and they decided to investigate Armstrong further. Dearborn Heights
382
00:22:59.589 --> 00:23:02.970
had him pegged and they don't get a whole lot
383
00:23:02.990 --> 00:23:06.940
of homicides like Detroit does. And so they dug into
384
00:23:06.980 --> 00:23:10.160
this one and they hung on. They followed him around.
385
00:23:10.180 --> 00:23:13.130
They even asked to search his car, which he consented to.
386
00:23:13.509 --> 00:23:15.589
So they did a forensic examination of his car, which
387
00:23:15.630 --> 00:23:18.029
they do. Tape lifts of, they try to see if
388
00:23:18.049 --> 00:23:20.710
there's fingerprints or DNA or blood inside the car.
389
00:23:21.690 --> 00:23:24.910
And one of the officers happened to notice in the
390
00:23:24.990 --> 00:23:28.500
search of the Jeep that he saw what he believed
391
00:23:28.740 --> 00:23:33.980
were little specks or residue that were gold in color
392
00:23:34.099 --> 00:23:36.799
that matched the shoes that Wendy was wearing.
393
00:23:37.539 --> 00:23:40.660
Within the car, there was forensic evidence that Wendy Jordan
394
00:23:40.700 --> 00:23:43.880
had been in it. which pointed even more conclusively to
395
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:46.019
the fact that he'd not only known her, had her
396
00:23:46.059 --> 00:23:48.779
in the car, and thrown her out into the river.
397
00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:52.960
They got a warrant for his blood and saliva, and
398
00:23:52.980 --> 00:23:55.970
they did DNA testing, and then they did DNA testing
399
00:23:56.009 --> 00:23:56.990
from Wendy's body.
400
00:23:57.509 --> 00:24:01.529
Conclusive DNA evidence could give the police enough to link
401
00:24:01.650 --> 00:24:05.450
Armstrong to the murder of Wendy Jordan, but this wouldn't
402
00:24:05.529 --> 00:24:06.890
be a quick process.
403
00:24:07.549 --> 00:24:10.640
DNA really came onto the criminal investigation scene in the
404
00:24:10.700 --> 00:24:11.029
late 80s.
405
00:24:12.269 --> 00:24:13.859
So it was relatively new.
406
00:24:14.700 --> 00:24:18.599
They didn't have the technology that we have today to
407
00:24:18.900 --> 00:24:21.960
both get DNA and analyze even a good DNA sample.
408
00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:25.759
It could take months for the DNA results to come back.
409
00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:28.990
The police would have to wait for those before they
410
00:24:29.029 --> 00:24:32.250
could take any further action against Armstrong.
411
00:24:32.650 --> 00:24:36.170
And the prosecutor ordered him released until such time as
412
00:24:36.210 --> 00:24:37.910
they had the results from the DNA lab.
413
00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:40.980
At this point, the police look at Armstrong, and he's
414
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:44.220
a former military service member who got out of the
415
00:24:44.259 --> 00:24:46.779
service and got a decent job and settled with a
416
00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:50.630
wife and family, and so his daily life doesn't seem
417
00:24:50.670 --> 00:24:52.930
to indicate, you know, a killer.
418
00:24:53.829 --> 00:24:58.509
It would be an agonizing wait for investigators. Meanwhile, John
419
00:24:58.670 --> 00:25:02.359
Eric Armstrong remained free to roam the streets of Detroit.
420
00:25:03.339 --> 00:25:08.960
Three months after Wendy Jordan's body was discovered... 42-year-old Wilhelmina
421
00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:11.119
Drain was on Michigan Avenue.
422
00:25:12.660 --> 00:25:14.650
She said she was trying to catch a bus home,
423
00:25:15.089 --> 00:25:16.230
and she was an older lady.
424
00:25:16.250 --> 00:25:20.309
A vehicle pulled up alongside her, and the man driving
425
00:25:20.509 --> 00:25:22.490
asked her if she needed a lift.
426
00:25:23.480 --> 00:25:27.960
And they start to travel along, and she instructs him
427
00:25:28.029 --> 00:25:30.289
how to take her home, which was north of Michigan.
428
00:25:30.329 --> 00:25:33.410
She lived like off Joy Road, and he traveled north.
429
00:25:33.930 --> 00:25:35.890
But he didn't make the turn he was supposed to make,
430
00:25:36.109 --> 00:25:39.369
and he turned somewhere else, and he pulled over, and
431
00:25:40.369 --> 00:25:41.430
he reached for her.
432
00:25:42.309 --> 00:25:44.589
She sprays him with mace, and she's able to escape.
433
00:25:50.329 --> 00:25:54.809
Five days later, on April the 7th, 2000, sex worker
434
00:25:54.849 --> 00:25:58.829
Devin Marcus survived an attack and reported the incident to
435
00:25:58.849 --> 00:26:03.150
the police. Around the same time, another sex worker called
436
00:26:03.230 --> 00:26:06.849
Cynthia was attacked by a man fitting the same description
437
00:26:07.210 --> 00:26:08.809
as the other two incidents.
438
00:26:10.230 --> 00:26:14.099
He left her for dead, but in fact, she wasn't dead.
439
00:26:14.599 --> 00:26:15.319
She survived.
440
00:26:15.960 --> 00:26:19.380
The attacker was showing no signs of slowing down.
441
00:26:19.970 --> 00:26:22.950
We've got Wilhelmina, we've got Devin, we've got Cynthia, who
442
00:26:23.009 --> 00:26:25.289
were attacked and survived, and he was escalating. He was
443
00:26:25.309 --> 00:26:27.710
definitely escalating. I mean, once he kicked back into gear
444
00:26:27.859 --> 00:26:32.079
in mid-March, he escalated. Boom, boom, boom, boom.
445
00:26:32.099 --> 00:26:36.460
On April the 10th, 2000, the police received a phone call.
446
00:26:38.059 --> 00:26:41.059
Somebody thought they saw a body on the side of
447
00:26:41.099 --> 00:26:43.759
a railroad track as they were passing through.
448
00:26:44.970 --> 00:26:48.380
I was the commanding officer of the violent crime section
449
00:26:48.730 --> 00:26:51.920
of the Detroit Police Department, composed of the Violent Crime
450
00:26:51.960 --> 00:26:57.740
Task Force, the Fugitive Apprehension Team, and the Crime Analysis
451
00:26:58.019 --> 00:27:02.299
Team of the Detroit Police Department. Every Monday morning, we
452
00:27:02.339 --> 00:27:06.640
would have a briefing. While we were in that meeting,
453
00:27:07.940 --> 00:27:12.650
the head of the Homicide Division got a message to
454
00:27:12.690 --> 00:27:13.569
call the office.
455
00:27:15.079 --> 00:27:18.819
Jerry Cliff passed the news on to his colleague Del Christian,
456
00:27:19.220 --> 00:27:22.079
a team leader on the Violent Crime Task Force.
457
00:27:23.140 --> 00:27:27.109
The commander from the Detroit Police Department came through and said, hey,
458
00:27:27.130 --> 00:27:30.089
they found a body over by the railroad tracks.
459
00:27:30.650 --> 00:27:32.529
It's just a track that just goes through.
460
00:27:32.569 --> 00:27:35.509
It's a single track in that area that's used by
461
00:27:35.569 --> 00:27:37.440
one of the passenger rails and also freight.
462
00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:39.660
And a passenger.
463
00:27:40.289 --> 00:27:43.750
on the train that looked out the window and saw
464
00:27:43.789 --> 00:27:47.390
the body, told the conductor, I think I just saw
465
00:27:47.410 --> 00:27:49.670
a body on the track, and the conductor contacted the
466
00:27:49.690 --> 00:27:50.430
police department.
467
00:27:51.410 --> 00:27:54.690
Not long after this report came through to the police,
468
00:27:55.009 --> 00:27:56.809
there was more news to follow.
469
00:27:57.970 --> 00:28:01.309
As they walk around the area, they discover a second body.
470
00:28:01.789 --> 00:28:04.569
And he came back and he said, there's two bodies
471
00:28:05.069 --> 00:28:11.240
at the scene, and they're in different states of decomposition.
472
00:28:11.740 --> 00:28:15.839
They walk around further, and unfortunately, third body. And so
473
00:28:15.859 --> 00:28:20.150
they realize, okay, this is very bad. These three females
474
00:28:20.190 --> 00:28:22.390
were probably left here by the same person.
475
00:28:23.329 --> 00:28:26.869
With three dead bodies found in the same location, police
476
00:28:26.910 --> 00:28:29.809
had to act fast to establish what had happened to
477
00:28:29.869 --> 00:28:30.450
these women.
478
00:28:31.130 --> 00:28:34.650
There was one victim. She was lying 10 to 15
479
00:28:34.650 --> 00:28:40.069
yards away from the tracks themselves. on grass and gravel,
480
00:28:40.589 --> 00:28:45.289
but not concealed at all in brush or anything like that.
481
00:28:46.170 --> 00:28:48.789
She had her pants down around her ankles. She had
482
00:28:48.829 --> 00:28:52.289
her legs had been spread in a revealing manner, I
483
00:28:52.329 --> 00:28:55.009
guess you would say. There was what appeared to be
484
00:28:55.089 --> 00:28:58.730
tights of some sort wrapped around her neck. So you
485
00:28:58.769 --> 00:29:03.299
could tell that she'd obviously been raped and strangled. As
486
00:29:03.380 --> 00:29:08.289
we walked further down the street, It would have been north.
487
00:29:08.650 --> 00:29:12.880
There was a lot of brush. And that's where the
488
00:29:12.930 --> 00:29:14.640
second and the third bodies were found.
489
00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:17.660
The bodies weren't very well hidden.
490
00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:21.039
So this isn't somebody who's done what they've done and
491
00:29:21.099 --> 00:29:26.579
they're leaving the scene. So we have to assume that
492
00:29:26.619 --> 00:29:29.680
the killer knows these bodies will be found, wants them
493
00:29:30.380 --> 00:29:32.900
to be found, in fact. They want to display what
494
00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:34.380
they've done to the world.
495
00:29:37.250 --> 00:29:41.599
The victims all had ligature marks around their necks, showing
496
00:29:41.859 --> 00:29:46.799
that they'd been strangled. Their bodies had also been posed
497
00:29:47.180 --> 00:29:47.920
by their killer.
498
00:29:48.940 --> 00:29:53.299
I don't think that somebody who does that to women
499
00:29:54.119 --> 00:30:00.410
has got great relationships with women. probably struggles in relationships
500
00:30:00.450 --> 00:30:04.650
with them and feels an awful lot of resentment towards women.
501
00:30:05.259 --> 00:30:08.859
I mean, the misogyny of it just is probably the
502
00:30:08.940 --> 00:30:11.839
loudest message that you can get from something like that.
503
00:30:12.460 --> 00:30:17.839
It's wanting to degrade and humiliate the victims.
504
00:30:18.829 --> 00:30:22.690
This was a man taking pleasure in killing and demeaning women.
505
00:30:23.569 --> 00:30:26.630
Once we realised, oh, we have a, what, what I
506
00:30:26.630 --> 00:30:28.730
would call a dumping ground for the bodies.
507
00:30:29.130 --> 00:30:30.329
We knew we had a serial murderer.
508
00:30:31.069 --> 00:30:34.910
We mobilized pretty much everybody that we had. Didn't take
509
00:30:34.970 --> 00:30:37.740
us long to realize that this guy was a very
510
00:30:37.859 --> 00:30:41.119
prolific killer and that we needed to get him off
511
00:30:41.140 --> 00:30:44.099
the street as soon as humanly possible before somebody else died.
512
00:30:44.779 --> 00:30:46.779
Now you have multiple victims.
513
00:30:46.819 --> 00:30:48.900
You have future victims that may happen unless you catch
514
00:30:48.920 --> 00:30:51.599
this person because they're not going to stop killing until
515
00:30:51.619 --> 00:30:52.119
you catch them.
516
00:30:55.150 --> 00:30:59.759
Over eight months in 1999 and 2000 a spate of
517
00:30:59.819 --> 00:31:03.559
attacks and murders had happened in the detroit area of
518
00:31:03.619 --> 00:31:07.259
michigan it was clear to police that a serial killer
519
00:31:07.480 --> 00:31:11.299
was loose on the streets attacking and murdering women at
520
00:31:11.339 --> 00:31:15.369
an increasing rate detectives knew they needed to act.
521
00:31:15.769 --> 00:31:20.950
Fast now this ups everything in the police mind the
522
00:31:20.970 --> 00:31:24.029
investigation immediately takes on a different tenor.
523
00:31:24.309 --> 00:31:27.910
This is obviously a serial, because you could tell by
524
00:31:27.950 --> 00:31:29.849
looking at the three bodies that they were in differing
525
00:31:29.890 --> 00:31:32.450
states of decomposition, and it's going to be the only
526
00:31:32.490 --> 00:31:33.910
case we're going to be dealing with for the next
527
00:31:33.950 --> 00:31:36.170
few days until we get the bad guy.
528
00:31:36.910 --> 00:31:39.549
The race to catch the killer was on, but with
529
00:31:39.609 --> 00:31:43.630
limited evidence and no leads, the investigators had little to
530
00:31:43.670 --> 00:31:47.670
go on. They needed to identify the three women and
531
00:31:47.710 --> 00:31:50.890
work out a possible connection between them in the hope
532
00:31:50.910 --> 00:31:53.470
that it might lead the police to their killer.
533
00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:58.049
As we were able to identify the victims, we also
534
00:31:58.130 --> 00:32:01.950
found out that there had been previous arrests for or
535
00:32:02.130 --> 00:32:06.529
encounters with the law concerning prostitution and whatnot.
536
00:32:08.289 --> 00:32:12.509
One was called Robin Brown, also known as Nicole Young.
537
00:32:13.769 --> 00:32:19.170
One was Rosemarie Felt, and the last was called Kelly Hood.
538
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:25.960
For Kelly Hood's son, Kyle, his worst fears for his
539
00:32:26.039 --> 00:32:27.359
mother had come true.
540
00:32:28.640 --> 00:32:30.299
I heard my grandmother coming up the stairs.
541
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:33.430
And the first thing she told me before anybody, she said, Miko,
542
00:32:33.809 --> 00:32:34.609
they found your mom.
543
00:32:35.029 --> 00:32:37.670
She's not here with us anymore. They found her. She's gone.
544
00:32:38.309 --> 00:32:40.930
Then I knew then that she meant she was dead.
545
00:32:42.930 --> 00:32:45.029
She became addicted to drugs. The only way that she
546
00:32:45.049 --> 00:32:47.730
could support herself after her family broke up was to
547
00:32:47.750 --> 00:32:50.559
work the street. She didn't become addicted because she wanted to.
548
00:32:51.430 --> 00:32:53.269
She wasn't working the street because she wanted to. She
549
00:32:53.289 --> 00:32:55.049
was working the street to support a habit she had
550
00:32:55.069 --> 00:32:55.769
no control over.
551
00:33:00.869 --> 00:33:04.890
Police had identified the victims were all sex workers, but
552
00:33:04.970 --> 00:33:08.220
specialist help would be needed to track down their killer.
553
00:33:09.579 --> 00:33:13.400
FBI profilers got to work on building a picture of
554
00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:14.039
the offender.
555
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:16.299
The profiler will come in and look at all the victims,
556
00:33:16.319 --> 00:33:19.960
look at the victimology, what commonalities among these victims, among
557
00:33:19.980 --> 00:33:22.559
the way they were posed. among the way they were killed,
558
00:33:23.380 --> 00:33:25.019
and maybe even if you can figure out the way
559
00:33:25.059 --> 00:33:27.359
they met the person that killed them.
560
00:33:28.599 --> 00:33:34.259
Looking at the crime, the FBI's behavioral science unit suggested
561
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:37.079
that the crimes had been committed by a white man,
562
00:33:37.680 --> 00:33:41.200
comparatively young, 25 to 30.
563
00:33:41.940 --> 00:33:46.589
They told us, you're looking at his successes. You need
564
00:33:46.609 --> 00:33:50.130
to look for a failure. And by that, they meant
565
00:33:50.309 --> 00:33:54.529
somebody got away. And if we could find that somebody,
566
00:33:54.950 --> 00:33:57.740
we would get a physical description, maybe a vehicle description,
567
00:33:57.779 --> 00:33:58.619
so on and so forth.
568
00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:03.220
Having identified the women as sex workers, police knew they
569
00:34:03.279 --> 00:34:06.400
needed to interview women in the red light area in
570
00:34:06.440 --> 00:34:08.920
the hope of getting much needed information.
571
00:34:11.420 --> 00:34:14.469
Well, from two or three of the girls that were interviewed,
572
00:34:15.469 --> 00:34:17.929
They mentioned that, yes, a guy tried to kill me.
573
00:34:18.010 --> 00:34:19.070
He was driving a Jeep.
574
00:34:19.429 --> 00:34:22.840
Another one said that he had a tiger tattoo on
575
00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:25.719
his arm, that he was a white male with reddish hair.
576
00:34:26.179 --> 00:34:28.059
Another one said he had a work shirt with the
577
00:34:28.099 --> 00:34:28.980
name Eric on it.
578
00:34:29.980 --> 00:34:33.719
The reports all seem to point to the same offender.
579
00:34:34.039 --> 00:34:35.900
So we realized that the next thing that he would
580
00:34:35.940 --> 00:34:37.030
do is find another victim.
581
00:34:37.590 --> 00:34:40.199
In the hope of stopping the killer in his tracks,
582
00:34:40.500 --> 00:34:45.000
Detroit's Violent Crime Task Force set up covert surveillance on
583
00:34:45.059 --> 00:34:47.719
Michigan Avenue and the surrounding streets.
584
00:34:48.760 --> 00:34:52.829
Now you have potentially a predator hunting victims through this area,
585
00:34:52.869 --> 00:34:54.110
and you can't afford to miss that.
586
00:34:54.789 --> 00:34:59.250
We basically flooded the area with surveillance crews and detectives
587
00:35:00.070 --> 00:35:04.099
in plain clothes, not business suits, but you know, jeans
588
00:35:04.159 --> 00:35:10.599
and jackets and basically patrolled looking for someone fitting his description.
589
00:35:11.960 --> 00:35:14.960
They didn't want the killer to realize that the police
590
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:18.199
were onto him. Any suspicion they were looking for him
591
00:35:18.500 --> 00:35:21.960
could scare the killer off and prevent him from being caught.
592
00:35:23.199 --> 00:35:26.420
So during this time in this area, an actual police,
593
00:35:27.079 --> 00:35:31.389
marked uniform patrol car noticed a car with a guy in.
594
00:35:31.369 --> 00:35:33.829
It that might have matched the description of the profile.
595
00:35:34.570 --> 00:35:37.170
And so they do a routine car stop so they
596
00:35:37.190 --> 00:35:39.690
can identify him, get his driver's license, get his date
597
00:35:39.710 --> 00:35:41.989
of birth, run him through the system to see if
598
00:35:42.050 --> 00:35:43.449
anybody's looking for him, who is this guy.
599
00:35:45.610 --> 00:35:50.090
The driver of the vehicle was John Eric Armstrong. Dearborn
600
00:35:50.179 --> 00:35:53.739
Heights were waiting for DNA results to establish a link
601
00:35:53.780 --> 00:35:57.639
to the murder of Wendy Jordan. But Armstrong was unknown
602
00:35:57.699 --> 00:36:00.099
to the officers in neighboring Detroit.
603
00:36:01.239 --> 00:36:03.840
He said he was coming home from work. Well, his
604
00:36:03.900 --> 00:36:07.159
work was in the other direction. He lived in Dearborn Heights.
605
00:36:07.780 --> 00:36:10.610
He worked over in that direction. He was a long
606
00:36:10.670 --> 00:36:11.289
way from home.
607
00:36:11.750 --> 00:36:15.750
Based on the matching description and Armstrong's story not adding up,
608
00:36:16.130 --> 00:36:19.969
police arrested him for further questioning. But before they could
609
00:36:20.010 --> 00:36:22.739
get to the station, there was a shock in store
610
00:36:22.940 --> 00:36:23.719
for the officers.
611
00:36:24.980 --> 00:36:27.440
The officers that are driving him hear him muttering in
612
00:36:27.460 --> 00:36:30.739
the back seat under his breath, and he's saying kind
613
00:36:30.760 --> 00:36:33.329
of in a low voice, I'm just glad it's over.
614
00:36:33.369 --> 00:36:34.150
I'm glad you got me.
615
00:36:35.510 --> 00:36:38.670
He was taken straight down to the fifth floor police headquarters,
616
00:36:39.050 --> 00:36:41.210
and that's when the interviews began.
617
00:36:41.230 --> 00:36:45.150
As the officers talked to Armstrong, one of them leaned
618
00:36:45.289 --> 00:36:48.150
forward and put his hand on top of Armstrong's.
619
00:36:49.110 --> 00:36:51.010
He says, I just touched you.
620
00:36:51.510 --> 00:36:56.320
He says, I left my DNA on your body simply
621
00:36:56.360 --> 00:37:00.579
by laying my hand on yours. And that's when they
622
00:37:00.619 --> 00:37:02.139
began to explain to him, you know, if.
623
00:37:04.369 --> 00:37:07.650
If you had anything to do with these murders and
624
00:37:07.690 --> 00:37:09.730
you touched them in any way, we're going to be
625
00:37:09.750 --> 00:37:13.440
able to tell. There is absolutely no way that you're
626
00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:16.280
going to plead that you didn't touch them if we
627
00:37:16.300 --> 00:37:19.260
get this DNA analysis that proves that you did.
628
00:37:19.980 --> 00:37:21.860
And all of a sudden, he just started, OK, I
629
00:37:21.900 --> 00:37:23.599
did it, I did it, I did it. Then he
630
00:37:23.639 --> 00:37:27.510
started making all of his confessions, and one right after another,
631
00:37:27.530 --> 00:37:29.949
a lot of confessions for several hours.
632
00:37:30.539 --> 00:37:34.099
John Eric Armstrong confessed to the murders of the three
633
00:37:34.179 --> 00:37:38.409
women found at the rail yard, Nicole Young, Rosemary Felt,
634
00:37:38.889 --> 00:37:40.090
and Kelly Jean Hood.
635
00:37:40.869 --> 00:37:43.750
Also during this time and this confession, he confessed to
636
00:37:43.769 --> 00:37:47.650
the murder of Wendy Jordan off the Rouge Bridge. He
637
00:37:47.710 --> 00:37:50.639
knew that he was a suspect in that case, so
638
00:37:50.780 --> 00:37:53.059
it was time to confess to that.
639
00:37:58.460 --> 00:38:02.289
But Armstrong's confessions... had only just begun.
640
00:38:03.210 --> 00:38:09.409
He actually went through a list of a number of
641
00:38:09.510 --> 00:38:13.079
females that he had murdered while he was on the
642
00:38:13.500 --> 00:38:18.880
USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in multiple foreign countries. Anytime he
643
00:38:18.920 --> 00:38:23.550
was on shore leave, he would go ashore and quite
644
00:38:23.630 --> 00:38:25.389
often he would find a prostitute and.
645
00:38:26.900 --> 00:38:29.260
Go through his routine, rape.
646
00:38:29.389 --> 00:38:33.510
Murder, and sometimes he would dispose of the bodies, and
647
00:38:33.550 --> 00:38:34.530
sometimes he would just leave them.
648
00:38:35.489 --> 00:38:41.690
You're talking Singapore, you're talking Hong Kong, and all these
649
00:38:41.769 --> 00:38:45.429
exotic locales that his boat traveled to while he was
650
00:38:45.469 --> 00:38:46.090
in the Navy.
651
00:38:46.820 --> 00:38:51.059
At this point, FBI officials begin to investigate Armstrong's claims
652
00:38:51.099 --> 00:38:53.639
of all these other murders internationally, because if it is true,
653
00:38:54.269 --> 00:38:57.030
He's going to be one of the most prolific, well-traveled
654
00:38:57.070 --> 00:39:00.070
serial killers in history. And so they start to look
655
00:39:00.230 --> 00:39:03.159
into all of these things that he's telling them in
656
00:39:03.239 --> 00:39:07.219
other jurisdictions. Some of his descriptions aren't definitive enough, so
657
00:39:07.239 --> 00:39:09.420
when they look, the dates don't match up.
658
00:39:09.679 --> 00:39:11.360
It could be he's telling the truth, he just didn't
659
00:39:11.400 --> 00:39:12.219
give them enough details.
660
00:39:15.039 --> 00:39:21.199
In March 2001, 27-year-old John Eric Armstrong went on trial
661
00:39:21.260 --> 00:39:24.449
for the murder of Wendy Jordan at the Frank Murphy
662
00:39:24.510 --> 00:39:29.449
Hall of Justice in downtown Detroit. To the surprise of
663
00:39:29.469 --> 00:39:34.559
those involved... in the investigation, and despite his earlier confessions,
664
00:39:35.139 --> 00:39:37.070
Armstrong changed his story.
665
00:39:37.630 --> 00:39:40.809
By the time he was brought up on charges and
666
00:39:40.849 --> 00:39:44.329
things were proceeding through the court system, he was maintaining
667
00:39:44.369 --> 00:39:44.909
his innocence.
668
00:39:45.550 --> 00:39:49.449
During the trial, DNA and forensic evidence was presented to
669
00:39:49.489 --> 00:39:53.769
the jury. Fibers from Wendy Jordan's clothes had been found
670
00:39:53.829 --> 00:39:57.630
in Armstrong's vehicle, and the results of the DNA taken
671
00:39:57.690 --> 00:40:01.690
by the Dearborn Heights police had come back. The semen
672
00:40:01.769 --> 00:40:05.639
found inside Wendy's body was John Eric Armstrong's.
673
00:40:07.599 --> 00:40:10.480
And so in the case of Wendy Jordan, his attorney,
674
00:40:10.980 --> 00:40:14.570
one of the tactics he tried was that, okay, You
675
00:40:14.590 --> 00:40:18.510
got DNA evidence, and it's linked my client to Wendy Jordan.
676
00:40:18.550 --> 00:40:20.969
So yeah, they had sex that night, but it was consensual.
677
00:40:21.150 --> 00:40:23.329
And when he left her, she was alive. So somebody
678
00:40:23.369 --> 00:40:23.929
else killed her.
679
00:40:24.969 --> 00:40:30.130
The jury didn't believe this excuse. On the 3rd of April, 2001,
680
00:40:30.130 --> 00:40:34.050
after a two-week trial, John Eric Armstrong was found guilty
681
00:40:34.110 --> 00:40:37.340
of the first-degree murder of Wendy Jordan and given a
682
00:40:37.400 --> 00:40:43.130
life sentence. On the 18th of June, 2001, he was
683
00:40:43.210 --> 00:40:46.400
also found guilty of the first degree murder of Kelly
684
00:40:46.460 --> 00:40:49.079
Jean Hood and given another life sentence.
685
00:40:50.239 --> 00:40:54.880
She was a wife, a mother, a daughter, and she
686
00:40:54.920 --> 00:40:57.820
was a human being that deserved to live and deserved
687
00:40:57.860 --> 00:40:59.159
to come back from her addiction.
688
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:02.570
If he didn't take her life, I know she.
689
00:41:02.429 --> 00:41:06.789
Would have came around because everybody can overcome an addiction.
690
00:41:10.050 --> 00:41:14.650
On July the 4th, 2001, Armstrong pleaded guilty to the
691
00:41:14.730 --> 00:41:19.760
second-degree murder of Robin Brown, Rosemary Felt, and Monica Johnson.
692
00:41:20.280 --> 00:41:24.559
He was sentenced to an additional 31 years. Armstrong was
693
00:41:24.659 --> 00:41:28.429
never charged with the attack on Natasha Olenichak, but she
694
00:41:28.510 --> 00:41:31.389
is certain he was the man who attacked her in
695
00:41:31.489 --> 00:41:37.489
August 1999. He was wrong for doing what he'd done,
696
00:41:37.889 --> 00:41:38.550
and period.
697
00:41:39.179 --> 00:41:42.460
I don't even know how someone can just be at
698
00:41:42.500 --> 00:41:46.039
home with their wife and killing women.
699
00:41:46.380 --> 00:41:48.340
How can you just go out and do that?
700
00:41:49.519 --> 00:41:53.750
Armstrong was taken to the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility
701
00:41:53.949 --> 00:41:56.230
in Michigan to serve his sentence.
702
00:41:57.110 --> 00:42:00.250
I've worked other serial investigations, and one of the things
703
00:42:00.289 --> 00:42:03.449
that you learn when you're doing that is serial criminals
704
00:42:03.570 --> 00:42:06.059
don't just stop. When and if they get back into
705
00:42:06.119 --> 00:42:08.280
polite society, they're going to start up all over again.
706
00:42:09.440 --> 00:42:11.719
If he could, he would still be doing it. If
707
00:42:11.739 --> 00:42:14.739
they let him out, he would do it again.
708
00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:22.250
Armstrong was, in my humble opinion, the personification of evil.
709
00:42:22.449 --> 00:42:25.190
He had no remorse whatsoever for what he was doing.
710
00:42:25.210 --> 00:42:25.989
He knew what he was.
711
00:42:25.909 --> 00:42:29.429
Doing was wrong. He knew he was taking lives. He
712
00:42:29.469 --> 00:42:30.329
was a manipulator.
713
00:42:32.409 --> 00:42:34.380
And he would do it until we stopped him.
714
00:42:35.300 --> 00:42:39.440
The lives that Armstrong took before being caught will always
715
00:42:39.500 --> 00:42:42.769
be remembered by their loved ones, who bear the pain
716
00:42:43.210 --> 00:42:43.909
to this day.
717
00:42:45.349 --> 00:42:47.869
My impression of John Eric Armstrong, he's just a monster.
718
00:42:48.090 --> 00:42:53.420
He's killed multiple women. So it was natural to him.
719
00:42:53.929 --> 00:42:57.320
Only person that type of lifestyle that could be natural
720
00:42:57.340 --> 00:42:59.059
to is a monster, plain and simple.
721
00:43:07.820 --> 00:43:12.739
Armstrong killed five women in Michigan and violently attacked many more.
722
00:43:13.400 --> 00:43:16.280
He also claims to have murdered women all over the
723
00:43:16.340 --> 00:43:20.429
world when he was in the Navy. If true, John
724
00:43:20.630 --> 00:43:24.829
Eric Armstrong is one of the most globally prolific serial
725
00:43:24.909 --> 00:43:28.130
killers to ever exist and will forever be
726
00:43:28.190 --> 00:43:32.099
Known as one of the world's most evil killers.