WEBVTT
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In a deserted, swampy patch of woodland in New Britain,
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Connecticut in 2007, the scattered remains of several women were discovered.
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I have never had a case where I had seven
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possible victims at one crime scene.
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For ten long years, detectives worked to discover who the
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victims were and who'd killed them.
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After the bones were found, I think it was clear
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that there was a serial killer.
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The investigation zoned in on a battered blue van belonging
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to local gardener William Devin Howell.
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And they just started to pick that van apart, fibre
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by fibre, droplet by droplet.
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It is a positive goldmine, a treasure trove of DNA....
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All manner of clues.
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When the true nature of Howell's crimes were revealed, they
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were breathtaking in their brutality.
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Physical violence, strangulation, probably some of the most violent behavior
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that I've ever handled as a lawyer.
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14 years after the first innocent victim was snatched from
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the street, William Devon Howell was finally confirmed as one
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of the world's most evil killers. In 2017, a case
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that had gripped and horrified a quiet corner of New
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England concluded with one of Connecticut's most prolific serial killers,
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47-year-old William Devin Howell, being locked away for life. But
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when the story began 14 years earlier, it had gone
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largely unnoticed.
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The media hadn't really covered it very much. No one
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had really put together anything that we had all these
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missing women.
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If she was a drug taker with addictions, if she
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was a sex worker, it's not unusual for them to
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go missing and not be reported for quite a long time.
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When stories of the missing women's fate were finally told,
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it exposed a dark underbelly that many in this leafy
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part of Connecticut did not know existed.
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Central Connecticut was more of a manufacturing area back in
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the 30s, 40s, 50s. And over time, drugs has infiltrated
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those areas, and with drugs as prostitution.
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But above all, the story showed the world that truly
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monstrous people are sometimes able to hide in plain sight.
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Bill Howell is one of those individuals that was convicted
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of committing crimes horrific acts of violence. And yet, he's
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a likable man that you think about and you say,
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how could he have done this?
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This killer's story begins on the 11th of February, 1970.
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He grew up.
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In Newport News, Virginia.
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Which is a population of about 200,000 people.
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His mother was 40 and his father was 45 when
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Howell came along.
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William Devin Howell, known as Bill, was the youngest of
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four children. Despite a stable childhood, in his late teens,
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Howell began to take the wrong path.
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He went to school, he dropped out of school.
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Towards the end of his adolescence, Bill Howell drifted into
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drugs and he then got drawn into petty crime.
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He had some motor vehicle violations that ultimately caused his
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licence to be suspended and it became a vicious cycle.
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He continued driving, kept getting arrested and it resulted in
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jail time.
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By his mid-20s, Howell had collected convictions for drink driving, forgery,
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reckless driving, and public drunkenness. In 2001, aged 31 years old,
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he left Virginia.
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He met a woman, and she was from Connecticut, and
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he ended up coming to Connecticut.
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Moving in with his girlfriend, Dorothy, in New Britain, William
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Howell took on a veneer of respectability.
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Howell appeared to be quite settled. He had a relationship,
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a girlfriend. He had a job.
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He had this landscaping business that he seemed to be
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doing okay with.
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He cut people's lawns.
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It was not the kind of lawn mowing service that
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you see landscapers and affluent communities, just a small 22-inch lawnmower.
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And it was in the more urban areas of older
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people that stayed in those communities, and they hired him.
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And they said he was very nice, reliable. He'd come
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on a weekly basis.
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He had a dark blue 1985 Ford Econoline van. It
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was pretty smashed up. It had plywood over some of
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the windows. He had on the side quality lawn work,
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called Devin and his cell phone.
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But criminality was never far away. In 2002, Howell picked
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up more convictions for minor offenses. By this time, he
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was a frequent visitor to the Berlin Turnpike area, a
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10-minute drive from the home he shared with Dorothy.
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The Berlin Turnpike has many, many commercial establishments, restaurants, hotels, motels,
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different shopping centres.
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The Bruin Turnpike was one of the main roads that
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used to go between New York and Boston, so there
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were a lot of little hotels, and over time, those
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hotels stopped being used by conventional travellers and ended up
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being used by hookers and johns and more nefarious type
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of activity.
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William Devon Howell was drawn to the area where drugs
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and prostitution went hand in hand.
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Many people who are females who are drug addicts, they
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ended up prostituting themselves in order to get the money,
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and Mr Howell was able to get some drugs and
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party with these women.
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In April 2003, a young woman was reported missing from
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a town some 25 miles from the Berlin Turnpike.
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Melanie Ruth Cannellini, she was from Seymour, Connecticut. She went
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missing from the city of Waterbury. She was the mother
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of two, dearly loved by her family.
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When 29-year-old Melanie's mother reported her missing to Waterbury police,
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she hadn't seen her daughter for several months.
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Waterbury PD was taking point on it in the missing
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person report. Terrific investigators.
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Despite an investigation, there were no leads into Melanie's disappearance.
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A month later, there was another missing persons report in
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the same town.
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Marilyn Gonzalez was 26. She, too, was a mother of two.
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Last seen on the 15th of May, 2003, Marilyn was
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reported missing by her mother a few days later.
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Her loved ones were just frantically trying to find out
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what happened to her.
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On the 24th of June, another desperate mother went to
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the police, this time in New Britain.
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Janice Roberts is a transgender woman. She was in her
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40s at the time. Her family thought that she went
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to New York City and possibly ran into some trouble
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down there. They just didn't know.
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No one knew if the missing women had chosen to
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leave the area or if something more sinister had befallen them.
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Even when all of these women were reported missing, they
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weren't linked by the... police. Things are made more complicated
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when people go missing from different police jurisdictions because they
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don't necessarily always share that information. They won't be looking
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at the missing person lists from neighboring jurisdictions.
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By the summer of 2003, three women were missing from
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towns in the Berlin Turnpike area. There was no uproar,
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no panic. Women weren't safe on the streets, but they
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had no idea. In July 2003, 33-year-old William Devin Howell
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was living with his girlfriend in New Britain, Connecticut. On
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the 31st of July, the mother and sister of 33-year-old
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Nilsa Arizmendi walked into Wethersfield Police Department nine miles away
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and reported that they hadn't seen Nilsa for almost a week.
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Nilsa Arizmendi had an on-and-off relationship with her childhood sweetheart,
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who was always known as Ace, and they were living
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in a motel in New Britain.
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She was a drug user, might have engaged in some
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prostitution also.
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She had quite a stable life, actually, so her disappearance
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was flagged up as, this is out of the ordinary
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for Nilsa.
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Nilsa's boyfriend, Ace, a convicted drug dealer, was first on
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the list of people to question. Insisting he had no
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idea what had happened to Nilsa, Ace passed a polygraph test.
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Worried sick about his girlfriend's disappearance, Ace was desperate to help.
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He gave the police all the information he had.
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Ace told detectives about the last time he'd seen Nilsa.
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It was late at night, after the couple had been
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hanging out with a man they knew only as Devin.
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Nilsa, her boyfriend, and this guy were doing drugs in
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a parking lot at a supermarket in Wethersfield. After that,
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her boyfriend saw her get into this weird-looking van that
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was partly blue, partly black, and had wood boards where
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the side windows should.
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Have been.
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It was the first solid lead into working out what
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had happened to Nilsa.
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The blue van became a target of the Wethersfield Police
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Department's investigation.
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The name Devin and the description of a van were
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all police had to go on in the search for Nilsa.
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But two months later, a sharp-eyed patrol officer spotted the
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vehicle in Wethersfield. So they trace the van. The van
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is traced back.
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The owner is Dorothy Holcomb.
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And that's when they went to Miss Holcomb's residence trying
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to interview her.
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Police records showed a man had been living at Dorothy's address,
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one with an outstanding warrant for an assault on his girlfriend.
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His name was William Devin Howell.
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When the police arrived to talk to Dorothy, she said, oh, well,
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Bill has the van most of the time.
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It's just registered my name.
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He tried to dodge the interviews, and she kind of
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protected him from the police. You know, they'd come in
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the front door, he'd go out the back door type
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of thing.
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Detectives were desperate to interview the man last seen with Nilsa,
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but he kept evading them. Meanwhile, they turned their focus
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on the van Nilsa had climbed into the night she disappeared.
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They got a search warrant for the vehicle.
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But when they returned in November to seize the battered
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blue van, neither Howell nor the vehicle were anywhere to
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be seen. In January 2004, Weathersfield police finally caught up
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with William Devin Howell. The gardener denied any involvement in
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Nilsa Arismendi's disappearance. and his van, which they hoped might
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hold some clues, was still nowhere to be found.
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Part of the problem was they didn't have her body.
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They didn't know what happened to her. She could have
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taken off. No one knew that she was dead at
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that point.
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With no van, no evidence, and nothing to tie him
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to Nilsa beyond the word of her boyfriend, detectives had
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no choice but to let Howell go. Weeks later, another
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young woman was reported missing by her family.
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Joy Valene, also known as Joy Martinez, she's 24. Joy
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Valene was a popular girl at school.
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She was a track star. Born into a large and
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loving family, somewhere between her late teens and early 20s,
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Joy Valene had fallen into drugs. she'd last been seen
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in October 2003.
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She doesn't appear for her birthday, which her mother finds
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quite strange, and then she doesn't appear at Thanksgiving.
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On the 29th of March 2004, Joy's mother reported her
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missing to police in East Hertford. Two days later, in Wethersfield,
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the team who were searching for Nilsa Arismendi finally had
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some luck, 600 miles away from Connecticut.
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They found the vehicle in North Carolina, the blue van.
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They then got a search warrant, and then they have
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the van towed back.
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The van had been hidden on a property belonging to
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one of Howell's associates. Eight months after Nilsa Alice Mendy vanished,
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would it hold any clues about what had happened to her?
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The crime scene investigators are let loose on the Ford
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Econline van.
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They noticed that the back seat, the cushions had been
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replaced and they ended up pulling those cushions back and
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then they found what they believed was blood and then
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reddish brown stains on the carpeting.
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This disturbing find suggested that someone had lost a large
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amount of blood in the back of the battered work van.
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The question was, who?
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The police department submitted a piece of the car seat
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back and a piece of the carpet from the van
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to the laboratory.
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Forensic science examiner Kristen Maydell was part of the team
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at the state forensic lab tasked with analyzing the stains
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on the upholstery. The first set of tests confirmed the
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stains were, in fact, human blood. The next step was
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to find out who the blood had belonged to. When
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the results came back, there was a shock.
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From the initial testing of those two samples, they were
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two different DNA profiles.
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It appeared that at least two people had come to
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harm in Howell's van. As is common in missing persons
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cases in the US, Nilsa Arizmendi's mother had given the
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police a DNA sample when her daughter disappeared.
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DNA gets passed from parent to child, where you get
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half your nuclear DNA from your mother and half your
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nuclear DNA from your father.
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If human remains were found, the authorities would be able
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to say if the victim was likely to be a
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close relative of Nilsa's mother. Sadly for Nilsa's family, there
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00:19:02.579 --> 00:19:03.579
was a match.
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00:19:05.559 --> 00:19:09.420
The mother of the missing person did match the DNA
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00:19:09.539 --> 00:19:11.200
profile from the van.
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00:19:12.099 --> 00:19:16.609
It was an important breakthrough for the case, but a
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00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:20.269
body blow for Nilsa's anxiously waiting family.
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00:19:21.509 --> 00:19:25.329
The medical examiner said she couldn't have survived that much
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00:19:25.390 --> 00:19:25.829
blood loss.
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00:19:27.569 --> 00:19:33.089
It seems certain that Nilsa Arismendi was dead. Police had
257
00:19:33.250 --> 00:19:37.890
no idea who the second DNA profile belonged to. With
258
00:19:37.950 --> 00:19:42.559
more questions than answers about what had happened in Howell's van,
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00:19:44.259 --> 00:19:47.180
investigators needed to tread carefully.
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It takes a long time for the prosecutors to be
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00:19:53.259 --> 00:19:58.910
absolutely sure that they can charge Howell with Nilsa's killing.
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Blood in the van, opportunity, the fact that Ace had
263
00:20:03.250 --> 00:20:04.029
seen her getting.
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Into the van.
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00:20:05.289 --> 00:20:06.230
But the difficulty.
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00:20:06.430 --> 00:20:07.069
This is no body.
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00:20:09.190 --> 00:20:14.519
On the 14th of May, 2005, William Devin Howell was
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00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:20.000
arrested in connection with Nilsa Arismendi's death. Three days later,
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00:20:20.059 --> 00:20:23.660
he was charged with her murder. But the police knew
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00:20:24.019 --> 00:20:26.400
getting a conviction would be tough.
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00:20:29.700 --> 00:20:32.269
The problem was they didn't know what happened to her.
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00:20:32.380 --> 00:20:34.720
They knew something bad happened in the man, but there
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00:20:34.740 --> 00:20:36.880
was no weapon, there was no trace of the body.
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00:20:41.019 --> 00:20:45.779
Howell was remanded in custody until his trial. For now,
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00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:49.900
a suspected killer was off the streets. But would it
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00:20:50.000 --> 00:21:01.180
be for good? Almost four years after Nilsa Alice Mendes' disappearance,
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00:21:01.200 --> 00:21:05.829
36-year-old William Devon Howell stood in the dock at New
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00:21:05.849 --> 00:21:08.410
Britain's Superior Court in Connecticut.
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00:21:09.329 --> 00:21:14.289
On the 24th of January, 2007, William Devon Howell stands
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00:21:14.369 --> 00:21:19.970
trial for the murder of Nilsa Arizmendi. The DNA evidence
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00:21:20.049 --> 00:21:24.019
is produced. Witnesses, including Ace, are produced.
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00:21:24.839 --> 00:21:28.559
Howell's defense was that it was her boyfriend, Ace, who'd
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00:21:28.599 --> 00:21:33.039
attacked Nilsa. arguing the couple had fought in the back
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00:21:33.079 --> 00:21:37.160
of the van. The prosecution highlighted the amount of blood
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00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:40.619
spilled in the van and the fact that Nilsa hadn't
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00:21:40.660 --> 00:21:45.579
been seen since that night. On the fifth day of
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00:21:45.640 --> 00:21:48.700
the trial, Howell changed his plea.
288
00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:52.220
He did a plea bargain, and he used something called
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00:21:52.240 --> 00:21:53.160
the Alford plea.
290
00:21:55.220 --> 00:21:58.710
What the Alford doctrine stands for is you'd say, I
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00:21:58.730 --> 00:22:02.740
understand if I go to trial, there's a significant chance
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00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:08.039
I'll be convicted and face harsher punishment. So in order
293
00:22:08.079 --> 00:22:11.109
to avoid that, I'm going to plead guilty, even though
294
00:22:11.130 --> 00:22:12.289
I'm not admitting my guilt.
295
00:22:19.029 --> 00:22:24.420
On the 30th of January, Howell pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.
296
00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:28.900
still refusing to give any information about what had happened
297
00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:32.720
to Nilsa Arismendi or where her remains could be found,
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00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:43.950
Howell was jailed for 15 years. Just months later, on
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00:22:43.990 --> 00:22:48.710
the 20th of August, 2007, local police got a phone
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00:22:48.750 --> 00:22:53.049
call that had the potential to shed light on Nilsa's fate.
301
00:22:54.920 --> 00:22:57.369
The New Britain Police Department got a call from a
302
00:22:57.829 --> 00:23:01.609
resident who was walking through some woods off of Hartford
303
00:23:01.650 --> 00:23:04.309
Road in New Britain. And he said he found what
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00:23:04.430 --> 00:23:07.509
he thought were human remains. I was a lieutenant in
305
00:23:07.529 --> 00:23:11.400
the bureau at that point. So we responded. We canvassed
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00:23:11.420 --> 00:23:11.880
the scene.
307
00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:17.160
That area is very commercial. It was like a little
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00:23:17.200 --> 00:23:20.920
strip mall. And in the back is a little parking area.
309
00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:26.140
And right below that is a steep drop off. And
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00:23:26.180 --> 00:23:27.700
then there's a wooded area.
311
00:23:32.250 --> 00:23:35.369
It's really not a place you would easily walk through
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00:23:35.430 --> 00:23:38.349
because of the briar or some of the wildlife that's
313
00:23:38.390 --> 00:23:43.789
there or completely swampy. It goes underwater quite a bit.
314
00:23:44.170 --> 00:23:46.650
It's not where someone would want to walk and go
315
00:23:46.690 --> 00:23:47.250
have a picnic.
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00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:52.880
More officers were brought in to search the densely wooded area.
317
00:23:59.809 --> 00:24:03.289
We found a few more remains that evening and into
318
00:24:03.329 --> 00:24:08.329
the next day. And that's when we discovered it wasn't
319
00:24:08.349 --> 00:24:10.309
the remains of one person, but it was the remains
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00:24:10.349 --> 00:24:11.250
of two females.
321
00:24:12.269 --> 00:24:15.990
Confirming that they had found the partial remains of two
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00:24:16.250 --> 00:24:20.769
adult women, the state medical examiner gave an estimate as
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00:24:20.789 --> 00:24:24.180
to how long the scattered bones had laid there.
324
00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:27.299
He gave us a very wide range with the caveat
325
00:24:27.319 --> 00:24:30.599
is it depends on weather, it depends on animal activity.
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00:24:31.180 --> 00:24:34.509
So we knew they weren't hundreds of years old. We
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00:24:34.549 --> 00:24:35.930
knew that they weren't a year old.
328
00:24:39.390 --> 00:24:44.319
A couple of days later, a third partial skeleton was recovered.
329
00:24:46.339 --> 00:24:50.000
There was nothing with the bodies to identify them, but
330
00:24:50.220 --> 00:24:56.289
one conclusion seemed inevitable. The women had all likely been murdered,
331
00:24:56.950 --> 00:25:00.210
and almost certainly by the same assailant.
332
00:25:01.130 --> 00:25:05.190
We certainly were working on the strong possibility that we
333
00:25:05.210 --> 00:25:05.930
had a serial killer.
334
00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:16.400
With William Devin Howell's conviction fresh in the minds of
335
00:25:16.519 --> 00:25:22.240
local law enforcement, the question on everyone's lips was, could
336
00:25:22.440 --> 00:25:27.690
any of the bodies be Nilsa Aris Mendes? The state
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00:25:27.750 --> 00:25:30.829
forensic lab was brought in once again.
338
00:25:32.009 --> 00:25:35.710
They submitted a sample from the three different possible bodies
339
00:25:35.789 --> 00:25:37.109
for us to do DNA testing on.
340
00:25:37.869 --> 00:25:42.230
DNA profiles were developed from the bones, but when they
341
00:25:42.250 --> 00:25:46.650
were run through the DNA database, there was more disappointment
342
00:25:47.069 --> 00:25:48.150
for Nilsa's family.
343
00:25:49.390 --> 00:25:53.799
We did try to make a connection with Nilsa, but
344
00:25:53.930 --> 00:25:54.880
there were no matches there.
345
00:25:56.430 --> 00:25:59.359
In fact, there were no matches in the system for
346
00:25:59.539 --> 00:26:05.140
any of the women. Without knowing who they were, investigating
347
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:07.559
the women's deaths would prove difficult.
348
00:26:09.430 --> 00:26:13.599
If you don't know who the person is that has
349
00:26:13.640 --> 00:26:20.869
been killed, it's near on impossible to identify your suspects.
350
00:26:21.690 --> 00:26:22.349
There's always a.
351
00:26:22.369 --> 00:26:25.369
Motive for every murder. You're never gonna find out what
352
00:26:25.390 --> 00:26:27.410
that motive is unless you identify the body.
353
00:26:37.420 --> 00:26:41.900
New Britain police threw themselves into working out who the
354
00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:42.720
women were.
355
00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:47.779
Looking at unsolved missing persons reports and just try to
356
00:26:48.180 --> 00:26:51.440
chase them all down. The FBI down in Quantico offered
357
00:26:51.460 --> 00:26:55.849
their services to create an approximation of two of our victims.
358
00:26:56.589 --> 00:26:58.650
We put it in the newspapers, gave it to the media.
359
00:27:01.230 --> 00:27:06.140
It was a slow and frustrating process. And as James
360
00:27:06.200 --> 00:27:10.359
Wardwell and his team worked to identify the victims, they
361
00:27:10.440 --> 00:27:15.339
couldn't shake the suspicion there might be more bodies lying.
362
00:27:15.119 --> 00:27:15.700
In the woods.
363
00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:21.279
Never stopped believing there was more in there. Still believed
364
00:27:21.319 --> 00:27:24.900
in our hearts Nilsa was in there. Still believing that
365
00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:26.400
there might be more victims.
366
00:27:27.740 --> 00:27:31.920
Were police on the right track? Was William Devin Howell
367
00:27:32.019 --> 00:27:36.170
in fact a serial killer? with Nilsa just one of
368
00:27:36.230 --> 00:27:36.930
his victims?
369
00:27:37.950 --> 00:27:40.599
We certainly were keeping all options open because we don't
370
00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:45.319
know yet, but that was definitely a working theory that
371
00:27:45.420 --> 00:27:48.539
there was a connection, and Nilsa was also connected to
372
00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:49.220
our site.
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00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:07.400
In December 2010, New Britain PD got their first breakthrough
374
00:28:08.079 --> 00:28:12.269
when a woman called, introducing herself as the sister-in-law of
375
00:28:12.369 --> 00:28:20.549
New Britain resident Diane Cusack. She'd seen the photo in
376
00:28:20.609 --> 00:28:24.490
the papers of the facial reconstruction of one of the
377
00:28:24.690 --> 00:28:26.069
unidentified women.
378
00:28:29.410 --> 00:28:33.220
She said, boy, the face sure looks like Diane. The
379
00:28:33.259 --> 00:28:36.579
hair's wrong, but the face looked right.
380
00:28:38.500 --> 00:28:42.160
Diane Cusack lived alone in New Britain. I don't think
381
00:28:42.180 --> 00:28:45.200
she really was in contact with her family. She wasn't
382
00:28:45.220 --> 00:28:46.569
reported missing right away.
383
00:28:48.809 --> 00:28:51.710
So we were ultimately able to make that connection through
384
00:28:51.809 --> 00:28:55.109
dental records and DNA and made our first positive ID.
385
00:29:00.660 --> 00:29:02.769
I remember going sitting down at their kitchen table and
386
00:29:02.849 --> 00:29:06.269
sharing that news with them. I know it brought them pain,
387
00:29:06.470 --> 00:29:08.750
but I could see it also brought them some relief.
388
00:29:09.329 --> 00:29:14.019
I remember it like yesterday, that part, because nobody deserves
389
00:29:14.819 --> 00:29:15.940
what happened to her.
390
00:29:20.019 --> 00:29:24.700
The tragedy for Diane Cusack and her family was nonetheless
391
00:29:24.900 --> 00:29:28.130
an important step forward in the investigation.
392
00:29:31.289 --> 00:29:34.099
Really started opening everything because then we could start retracing
393
00:29:34.170 --> 00:29:36.319
her steps, placing her in places.
394
00:29:36.339 --> 00:29:45.150
53-year-old Diane hadn't been seen since July 2003. She'd lived
395
00:29:45.210 --> 00:29:49.059
in the same neighborhood as William Devin Howell, and the
396
00:29:49.099 --> 00:29:54.440
police believed they may have crossed paths. But there was
397
00:29:54.539 --> 00:29:59.650
no proof or evidence to link Diane to Howell. The
398
00:29:59.710 --> 00:30:05.380
investigation went cold until 2013.
399
00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:15.509
Connecticut State's Attorney's Office has a cold case unit and
400
00:30:15.549 --> 00:30:17.049
they put a task force together.
401
00:30:18.589 --> 00:30:22.630
DNA from the remains in the woods was resubmitted to
402
00:30:22.670 --> 00:30:27.990
the state forensics lab. And in September 2013, there was
403
00:30:28.099 --> 00:30:30.059
another positive ID.
404
00:30:31.180 --> 00:30:35.240
Joy Valim Martinez, she was actually the first remains that
405
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:39.839
were found that first day in 2007.
406
00:30:39.839 --> 00:30:45.109
The breakthrough also provided crucial evidence that William Howell had
407
00:30:45.190 --> 00:30:50.200
killed more than once. The second person's blood, found along
408
00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:53.700
with Nilsa's in the back of Howell's van, was proven
409
00:30:53.740 --> 00:30:58.640
to be 23-year-old Joy Valines. The case was building, but
410
00:30:58.700 --> 00:31:02.619
detectives suspected there was much they still did not know.
411
00:31:03.400 --> 00:31:06.500
In 2014, they tried something new.
412
00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:09.859
One of the things that the two states' attorney's cold
413
00:31:09.900 --> 00:31:14.980
case squad did was make playing cards of unsolved homicides.
414
00:31:15.740 --> 00:31:19.970
that they distributed in all of the prisons.
415
00:31:21.630 --> 00:31:24.490
They're free for the inmates to use and just ask
416
00:31:24.529 --> 00:31:27.690
if anyone has information, please call to spark conversations.
417
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:36.960
One inmate couldn't believe the hand he'd been dealt. William
418
00:31:37.059 --> 00:31:40.509
Devin Howell, who was a decade into his sentence for
419
00:31:40.549 --> 00:31:44.630
the manslaughter of Nilsa Arizmendi, was about to blow the
420
00:31:44.690 --> 00:31:59.900
investigation wide open. At Connecticut's Cheshire Correctional Institution in 2015,
421
00:31:59.880 --> 00:32:06.210
45-year-old William Devin Howell opened up to his cellmate, Jonathan Mills,
422
00:32:06.890 --> 00:32:11.400
revealing what had really happened to Nilsa Arismendi 12 years earlier.
423
00:32:14.980 --> 00:32:20.849
Around 3am that night in July 2003, Nilsa and her boyfriend,
424
00:32:21.130 --> 00:32:24.670
who sometimes took drugs with Howell, met him in a
425
00:32:24.769 --> 00:32:26.210
supermarket car park.
426
00:32:27.259 --> 00:32:32.279
He sees Nilsa climb into Bill Howell's dark blue Ford
427
00:32:32.299 --> 00:32:34.279
Econoline van and drive off.
428
00:32:35.420 --> 00:32:40.470
Shortly after Nilsa entered Howell's van, he attacked her, punching
429
00:32:40.509 --> 00:32:43.789
her in the face, causing her nose to bleed heavily.
430
00:32:44.329 --> 00:32:46.509
He then grabbed her round the throat.
431
00:32:47.289 --> 00:32:51.549
She is strangled and she is dumped behind the shopping mall.
432
00:32:57.690 --> 00:33:00.960
But Nilsa had not been his first victim.
433
00:33:03.380 --> 00:33:04.380
He tells Mills.
434
00:33:05.009 --> 00:33:08.390
that I didn't just kill Nilsa, I killed six other
435
00:33:08.430 --> 00:33:09.109
people as well.
436
00:33:10.859 --> 00:33:15.559
Howell told Mills his first victim early in 2003 had
437
00:33:16.140 --> 00:33:22.619
been Melanie Ruth Camillini. Howell had raped and strangled her
438
00:33:23.009 --> 00:33:24.269
in the back of his van.
439
00:33:25.890 --> 00:33:29.549
It was too cold to bury her body, and so
440
00:33:29.589 --> 00:33:32.529
he literally drove around with her body in the van
441
00:33:32.549 --> 00:33:33.630
for several weeks.
442
00:33:35.809 --> 00:33:38.789
He used to sleep next to her, calling her his baby.
443
00:33:41.109 --> 00:33:45.029
And he cut off her fingertips and tore off the
444
00:33:45.089 --> 00:33:49.890
bottom of her jaw to take her bottom teeth out
445
00:33:49.910 --> 00:33:51.289
and put them in a garbage bag and.
446
00:33:51.309 --> 00:33:52.269
Threw them in a dumpster.
447
00:33:53.109 --> 00:33:56.589
He told Mills that once he had killed the first woman,
448
00:33:56.890 --> 00:34:01.009
that was like crossing the Rubicon, and it became easier
449
00:34:01.130 --> 00:34:04.109
after that, and he perfected his method, I think how
450
00:34:04.150 --> 00:34:04.509
he put it.
451
00:34:09.219 --> 00:34:13.920
Over the next 10 months, William Devin Howell had targeted
452
00:34:13.980 --> 00:34:16.579
women on the fringes of society.
453
00:34:18.380 --> 00:34:22.289
Most of all, he's focused around drugs, whether Howell was
454
00:34:22.329 --> 00:34:25.130
providing them or people, they were getting in his van
455
00:34:25.190 --> 00:34:26.519
because they were gonna do drugs with him.
456
00:34:27.849 --> 00:34:30.610
Once in the back of the vehicle that Howell called
457
00:34:30.670 --> 00:34:34.530
his murder mobile, the women were brutally attacked.
458
00:34:36.079 --> 00:34:40.380
There was a lot of violence, physical violence, strangulation, hitting
459
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:43.719
them with objects, a hammer, for instance.
460
00:34:46.059 --> 00:34:48.519
He controlled these women. He was a big guy.
461
00:34:49.559 --> 00:34:54.739
With his second victim, 26-year-old Marilyn Gonzalez, restrained through the
462
00:34:54.820 --> 00:34:58.369
night in the back of his van, Howell drove around
463
00:34:58.429 --> 00:34:59.369
the local area.
464
00:35:00.170 --> 00:35:02.170
He actually went through a drive-thru to buy her her
465
00:35:02.230 --> 00:35:04.389
last meal. She ate the meal and he raped her
466
00:35:04.409 --> 00:35:04.880
and killed her.
467
00:35:10.789 --> 00:35:14.909
Referring to himself as a sick ripper in his disturbing
468
00:35:14.989 --> 00:35:19.050
confession to his cellmate, Howell also shed light on the
469
00:35:19.110 --> 00:35:23.110
fate of a woman who'd been reported missing in June 2003.
470
00:35:23.110 --> 00:35:27.719
Howell's third victim, who he picked up on the 18th
471
00:35:27.739 --> 00:35:30.739
of June 2003, was Janice Roberts.
472
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:33.860
But actually, she was transgender.
473
00:35:36.130 --> 00:35:39.730
While a sexual act was being performed, Mr Howell realized
474
00:35:39.769 --> 00:35:43.019
it was a trans person doing it, which caused him
475
00:35:43.039 --> 00:35:43.920
to become very angry.
476
00:35:44.599 --> 00:35:59.110
Howell strangled 44-year-old Janice to death. After the orgy of violence,
477
00:35:59.530 --> 00:36:02.489
Howell would dispose of his victims' bodies.
478
00:36:03.289 --> 00:36:05.710
Howell told them about what he called his garden.
479
00:36:06.869 --> 00:36:10.949
And Mills realized what he was talking about was where
480
00:36:10.989 --> 00:36:12.429
he buried victims.
481
00:36:15.510 --> 00:36:20.400
The victims were just discarded like objects and not as people,
482
00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:23.059
like yesterday's rubbish, just awful.
483
00:36:25.880 --> 00:36:30.880
Howell told Mills that after Melanie, Marilyn, and Janice, he'd
484
00:36:30.940 --> 00:36:38.519
murdered Diane Cusack. The next victim was Nilsa Arizmendi, followed
485
00:36:38.599 --> 00:36:43.760
by Joyveline Martinez. Then Howell confessed to a final victim
486
00:36:43.820 --> 00:36:49.909
from October 2003, a 40-year-old woman from Waterbury who'd never
487
00:36:49.989 --> 00:36:51.289
been reported missing.
488
00:36:52.809 --> 00:36:55.050
Mary Jane Maynard went out to buy cigarettes, and I
489
00:36:55.110 --> 00:36:59.500
suspect she just encountered Howell, who was often driving around
490
00:36:59.539 --> 00:37:06.539
the area, possibly looking for victims. Mary Jane's daughter was
491
00:37:06.599 --> 00:37:11.420
serving overseas at the time, so nobody noticed that Mary
492
00:37:11.460 --> 00:37:12.260
Jane had gone missing.
493
00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:18.789
Mary's partial remains were amongst those found in 2007 and
494
00:37:19.489 --> 00:37:23.250
had finally been identified in September 2014.
495
00:37:23.250 --> 00:37:28.800
One of the tragedies of Mary Jane Maynard is that
496
00:37:29.260 --> 00:37:32.119
although she'd had a substance abuse problem, she'd turned her
497
00:37:32.139 --> 00:37:34.929
life around and she'd in fact become a counsellor making
498
00:37:34.969 --> 00:37:38.800
her death all the more tragic and all the more cruel.
499
00:37:40.019 --> 00:37:45.159
Having heard William Howell's horrifying story, Jonathan Mills hoped it
500
00:37:45.219 --> 00:37:48.719
might gain him some goodwill with the authorities.
501
00:37:49.340 --> 00:37:49.599
Mr.
502
00:37:49.639 --> 00:37:53.619
Mills contacted his lawyer. The lawyer contacted the prosecutors.
503
00:37:55.880 --> 00:38:00.239
Howell had boasted of six murders in addition to Nilsa's death.
504
00:38:01.989 --> 00:38:05.010
The problem for the police was that they only had
505
00:38:05.199 --> 00:38:09.780
three bodies. All of them had been identified, and none
506
00:38:09.820 --> 00:38:17.619
of them were Nilsa. Incredibly, Jonathan Mills had the information
507
00:38:17.699 --> 00:38:18.760
the police needed.
508
00:38:18.780 --> 00:38:31.570
He showed them this map of what he believed, Howell's
509
00:38:31.630 --> 00:38:35.829
garden was, Howell had described like there were electrical wires
510
00:38:35.929 --> 00:38:37.949
and telephone poles and certain.
511
00:38:37.690 --> 00:38:40.030
Things in the air where he had buried them.
512
00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:47.099
Between April and May 2015, 12 years after the killings,
513
00:38:47.519 --> 00:38:49.179
they returned to the swamp.
514
00:38:51.239 --> 00:38:55.690
With the assistance of this amazing cadaver dog, within days
515
00:38:55.769 --> 00:38:58.710
we had found the burial sites of all of our victims.
516
00:39:01.059 --> 00:39:04.800
They found an additional four different human remains.
517
00:39:06.380 --> 00:39:10.750
Once again, the state forensics lab played a crucial role.
518
00:39:11.650 --> 00:39:13.469
So they submitted a sampling from each of the four
519
00:39:13.510 --> 00:39:15.849
different bodies in order to try and determine who they
520
00:39:15.889 --> 00:39:17.809
were by doing DNA testing on those bones.
521
00:39:18.369 --> 00:39:19.690
DNA profiles were developed.
522
00:39:21.610 --> 00:39:24.909
They tracked down family members, got their DNAs, and then
523
00:39:25.050 --> 00:39:29.349
compared those DNAs to the bones that were recovered and
524
00:39:29.369 --> 00:39:31.530
then were able to identify the individuals.
525
00:39:33.269 --> 00:39:38.900
By June 2015, the bodies had been identified as Janice Roberts,
526
00:39:40.659 --> 00:39:47.510
Melanie Ruth Camolini, Marilyn Gonzalez, and the one victim Howell
527
00:39:47.590 --> 00:39:53.719
had been convicted of killing, Nilsa Arismendi. After more than
528
00:39:53.760 --> 00:39:57.260
a decade, the families of the women were learning of
529
00:39:57.340 --> 00:39:57.989
their fate.
530
00:39:59.389 --> 00:40:02.570
They were waiting for answers, praying that these were not
531
00:40:02.590 --> 00:40:05.670
the answers they were going to get. We couldn't change
532
00:40:05.730 --> 00:40:08.630
what was done, but we could change the way their
533
00:40:08.650 --> 00:40:11.269
loved ones were treated from then on out and that
534
00:40:11.309 --> 00:40:13.590
justice is brought for them.
535
00:40:14.670 --> 00:40:19.070
But to get justice, detectives needed to build a case
536
00:40:19.170 --> 00:40:25.159
against William Devin Howell, the only suspect in the six murders.
537
00:40:32.619 --> 00:40:36.599
They believed the key to the case was Howell's battered
538
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:38.039
blue work van.
539
00:40:39.940 --> 00:40:42.360
So we got a search warrant. got the van that
540
00:40:42.400 --> 00:40:45.360
was held in storage by the Wethersfield Police Department. So
541
00:40:45.380 --> 00:40:47.820
it was still just sitting there like as if in
542
00:40:47.840 --> 00:40:51.530
a time capsule. We brought in the state police evidence
543
00:40:51.550 --> 00:40:56.190
technicians because their skill level is just tremendous. And they
544
00:40:56.230 --> 00:40:59.550
just started to pick that van apart fiber by fiber,
545
00:40:59.730 --> 00:41:00.650
droplet by droplet.
546
00:41:02.769 --> 00:41:05.710
They submitted a whole bunch more evidence from the van
547
00:41:05.849 --> 00:41:12.750
that consisted of cigarette butts, hairs, hairbrush, There.
548
00:41:12.659 --> 00:41:15.440
Was a rock that appeared to have blood on it,
549
00:41:17.139 --> 00:41:20.519
as well as six graphic homemade videotapes.
550
00:41:23.079 --> 00:41:26.099
There was over 200 pieces of evidence submitted from the
551
00:41:26.179 --> 00:41:27.199
van at this point.
552
00:41:28.280 --> 00:41:33.239
The results of the DNA analysis were damning. Blood, hair,
553
00:41:33.559 --> 00:41:36.280
and other traces were found in the back of the
554
00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:39.900
van that matched with six of the seven victims.
555
00:41:43.530 --> 00:41:48.130
In September 2015, Howell is charged with the six murders.
556
00:41:49.829 --> 00:41:54.260
For the next two years, the police and prosecution prepared
557
00:41:54.340 --> 00:41:56.480
their case against Howell.
558
00:41:59.539 --> 00:42:03.920
We wanted to convict. We wanted absolutely whoever was responsible
559
00:42:04.099 --> 00:42:08.039
for what happened to these ladies to be brought to justice.
560
00:42:08.380 --> 00:42:11.019
We wanted to make sure every T was crossed, every
561
00:42:11.159 --> 00:42:12.980
I was dotted, so it was meticulous work.
562
00:42:14.750 --> 00:42:19.809
William Petzold was appointed as Howell's defense attorney, faced with
563
00:42:19.849 --> 00:42:24.860
the mammoth task of defending Howell against the prosecution's claims.
564
00:42:27.090 --> 00:42:29.539
So they put the case together, and it was a
565
00:42:30.099 --> 00:42:33.880
mountain of evidence. It was, in my opinion, an insurmountable
566
00:42:34.300 --> 00:42:35.539
mountain to overcome.
567
00:42:36.940 --> 00:42:41.119
Presented with the evidence against him, Howell and his attorney
568
00:42:41.400 --> 00:42:42.619
came to a decision.
569
00:42:43.260 --> 00:42:47.219
He ultimately pled guilty and was sentenced to 360 years.
570
00:42:57.110 --> 00:43:01.750
Families were emotional. Certainly some belief that justice is being served,
571
00:43:02.130 --> 00:43:07.409
but anger too, sadness. No matter what, none of what
572
00:43:07.530 --> 00:43:10.300
the court system was gonna do was gonna bring their
573
00:43:10.340 --> 00:43:10.960
loved ones back.
574
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:22.750
47-year-old Howell's statement at the sentencing hearing at New Britain's
575
00:43:22.809 --> 00:43:26.449
Superior Court was the first time any of the families
576
00:43:26.469 --> 00:43:28.269
had heard him speak.
577
00:43:30.130 --> 00:43:33.559
He started to cry. And he said, I'm going to
578
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:36.960
stay in prison. I'm not a well man. I'm going
579
00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:41.599
to die a slow, painful death. In no way was
580
00:43:41.639 --> 00:43:45.980
he actually trying to give any comfort to the victims' families.
581
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:51.860
He was thinking of himself. You know, we were sitting
582
00:43:51.909 --> 00:43:56.869
with the families. Maybe some thoughts should have been for them.
583
00:43:58.510 --> 00:43:59.409
That's not where he went.
584
00:44:01.269 --> 00:44:05.190
In fact, one of Howell's comments to his cellmate had
585
00:44:05.250 --> 00:44:09.250
betrayed his true feelings about the seven victims.
586
00:44:11.090 --> 00:44:15.730
Howell said that his victims should have known that they
587
00:44:15.769 --> 00:44:18.630
were going to die, you know, just because of the
588
00:44:18.909 --> 00:44:20.469
kind of lives that they led.
589
00:44:22.949 --> 00:44:27.070
He didn't think of these beautiful people as people. This
590
00:44:27.090 --> 00:44:27.889
is my take on it.
591
00:44:32.400 --> 00:44:40.019
In a 10-month killing spree across 2003, Howell abducted, brutalized,
592
00:44:40.099 --> 00:44:44.170
and killed seven women in the van he callously called
593
00:44:44.210 --> 00:44:49.530
his murder mobile, before dumping their bodies where he hoped
594
00:44:49.849 --> 00:44:55.090
they'd never be found. His victims' loved ones waited 14
595
00:44:55.090 --> 00:44:59.199
years for justice, but when it finally came, they were
596
00:44:59.260 --> 00:45:03.849
left with no doubt that William Devon Howell is one
597
00:45:03.889 --> 00:45:06.510
of the world's most evil killers.
1
00:00:07.469 --> 00:00:11.039
In a deserted, swampy patch of woodland in New Britain,
2
00:00:11.099 --> 00:00:17.539
Connecticut in 2007, the scattered remains of several women were discovered.
3
00:00:20.609 --> 00:00:23.010
I have never had a case where I had seven
4
00:00:23.250 --> 00:00:25.129
possible victims at one crime scene.
5
00:00:27.510 --> 00:00:31.320
For ten long years, detectives worked to discover who the
6
00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:33.960
victims were and who'd killed them.
7
00:00:35.409 --> 00:00:37.950
After the bones were found, I think it was clear
8
00:00:38.009 --> 00:00:39.130
that there was a serial killer.
9
00:00:41.670 --> 00:00:46.359
The investigation zoned in on a battered blue van belonging
10
00:00:46.399 --> 00:00:49.340
to local gardener William Devin Howell.
11
00:00:52.780 --> 00:00:55.859
And they just started to pick that van apart, fibre
12
00:00:55.899 --> 00:00:57.799
by fibre, droplet by droplet.
13
00:01:01.250 --> 00:01:04.870
It is a positive goldmine, a treasure trove of DNA....
14
00:01:06.109 --> 00:01:07.390
All manner of clues.
15
00:01:10.170 --> 00:01:14.510
When the true nature of Howell's crimes were revealed, they
16
00:01:14.549 --> 00:01:17.090
were breathtaking in their brutality.
17
00:01:19.090 --> 00:01:24.730
Physical violence, strangulation, probably some of the most violent behavior
18
00:01:24.750 --> 00:01:29.810
that I've ever handled as a lawyer.
19
00:01:29.810 --> 00:01:33.310
14 years after the first innocent victim was snatched from
20
00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:38.930
the street, William Devon Howell was finally confirmed as one
21
00:01:38.969 --> 00:02:08.270
of the world's most evil killers. In 2017, a case
22
00:02:08.310 --> 00:02:11.509
that had gripped and horrified a quiet corner of New
23
00:02:11.610 --> 00:02:16.180
England concluded with one of Connecticut's most prolific serial killers,
24
00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:24.020
47-year-old William Devin Howell, being locked away for life. But
25
00:02:24.099 --> 00:02:27.900
when the story began 14 years earlier, it had gone
26
00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:29.620
largely unnoticed.
27
00:02:30.719 --> 00:02:33.379
The media hadn't really covered it very much. No one
28
00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:35.849
had really put together anything that we had all these
29
00:02:35.909 --> 00:02:36.729
missing women.
30
00:02:38.530 --> 00:02:42.750
If she was a drug taker with addictions, if she
31
00:02:42.810 --> 00:02:48.069
was a sex worker, it's not unusual for them to
32
00:02:48.120 --> 00:02:51.860
go missing and not be reported for quite a long time.
33
00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:57.060
When stories of the missing women's fate were finally told,
34
00:02:57.439 --> 00:03:01.319
it exposed a dark underbelly that many in this leafy
35
00:03:01.379 --> 00:03:04.520
part of Connecticut did not know existed.
36
00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:10.000
Central Connecticut was more of a manufacturing area back in
37
00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:15.969
the 30s, 40s, 50s. And over time, drugs has infiltrated
38
00:03:16.030 --> 00:03:19.530
those areas, and with drugs as prostitution.
39
00:03:20.270 --> 00:03:24.110
But above all, the story showed the world that truly
40
00:03:24.310 --> 00:03:29.060
monstrous people are sometimes able to hide in plain sight.
41
00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:32.680
Bill Howell is one of those individuals that was convicted
42
00:03:32.740 --> 00:03:37.860
of committing crimes horrific acts of violence. And yet, he's
43
00:03:37.939 --> 00:03:41.439
a likable man that you think about and you say,
44
00:03:43.030 --> 00:03:44.090
how could he have done this?
45
00:03:52.490 --> 00:03:56.090
This killer's story begins on the 11th of February, 1970.
46
00:03:56.069 --> 00:03:59.020
He grew up.
47
00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:01.479
In Newport News, Virginia.
48
00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:05.840
Which is a population of about 200,000 people.
49
00:04:08.199 --> 00:04:11.229
His mother was 40 and his father was 45 when
50
00:04:11.849 --> 00:04:12.689
Howell came along.
51
00:04:14.949 --> 00:04:19.430
William Devin Howell, known as Bill, was the youngest of
52
00:04:19.569 --> 00:04:26.589
four children. Despite a stable childhood, in his late teens,
53
00:04:27.029 --> 00:04:29.569
Howell began to take the wrong path.
54
00:04:30.689 --> 00:04:32.610
He went to school, he dropped out of school.
55
00:04:34.389 --> 00:04:40.040
Towards the end of his adolescence, Bill Howell drifted into
56
00:04:40.100 --> 00:04:44.019
drugs and he then got drawn into petty crime.
57
00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:50.709
He had some motor vehicle violations that ultimately caused his
58
00:04:50.810 --> 00:04:54.990
licence to be suspended and it became a vicious cycle.
59
00:04:55.149 --> 00:04:59.560
He continued driving, kept getting arrested and it resulted in
60
00:04:59.620 --> 00:05:00.120
jail time.
61
00:05:03.290 --> 00:05:09.250
By his mid-20s, Howell had collected convictions for drink driving, forgery,
62
00:05:09.750 --> 00:05:23.839
reckless driving, and public drunkenness. In 2001, aged 31 years old,
63
00:05:24.339 --> 00:05:25.439
he left Virginia.
64
00:05:26.759 --> 00:05:28.860
He met a woman, and she was from Connecticut, and
65
00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:30.100
he ended up coming to Connecticut.
66
00:05:31.029 --> 00:05:35.069
Moving in with his girlfriend, Dorothy, in New Britain, William
67
00:05:35.129 --> 00:05:38.389
Howell took on a veneer of respectability.
68
00:05:39.220 --> 00:05:43.779
Howell appeared to be quite settled. He had a relationship,
69
00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:46.300
a girlfriend. He had a job.
70
00:05:48.100 --> 00:05:50.699
He had this landscaping business that he seemed to be
71
00:05:50.740 --> 00:05:51.639
doing okay with.
72
00:05:55.189 --> 00:05:56.350
He cut people's lawns.
73
00:05:56.730 --> 00:05:59.470
It was not the kind of lawn mowing service that
74
00:05:59.509 --> 00:06:05.600
you see landscapers and affluent communities, just a small 22-inch lawnmower.
75
00:06:05.899 --> 00:06:09.300
And it was in the more urban areas of older
76
00:06:09.339 --> 00:06:13.100
people that stayed in those communities, and they hired him.
77
00:06:13.459 --> 00:06:16.290
And they said he was very nice, reliable. He'd come
78
00:06:16.490 --> 00:06:17.370
on a weekly basis.
79
00:06:20.230 --> 00:06:23.339
He had a dark blue 1985 Ford Econoline van. It
80
00:06:23.660 --> 00:06:25.860
was pretty smashed up. It had plywood over some of
81
00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:28.860
the windows. He had on the side quality lawn work,
82
00:06:28.980 --> 00:06:30.759
called Devin and his cell phone.
83
00:06:31.970 --> 00:06:37.629
But criminality was never far away. In 2002, Howell picked
84
00:06:37.709 --> 00:06:47.759
up more convictions for minor offenses. By this time, he
85
00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:53.199
was a frequent visitor to the Berlin Turnpike area, a
86
00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:56.290
10-minute drive from the home he shared with Dorothy.
87
00:06:58.449 --> 00:07:05.430
The Berlin Turnpike has many, many commercial establishments, restaurants, hotels, motels,
88
00:07:05.889 --> 00:07:06.910
different shopping centres.
89
00:07:09.949 --> 00:07:13.250
The Bruin Turnpike was one of the main roads that
90
00:07:13.569 --> 00:07:16.000
used to go between New York and Boston, so there
91
00:07:16.009 --> 00:07:18.899
were a lot of little hotels, and over time, those
92
00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:23.879
hotels stopped being used by conventional travellers and ended up
93
00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:28.720
being used by hookers and johns and more nefarious type
94
00:07:28.779 --> 00:07:29.639
of activity.
95
00:07:31.750 --> 00:07:35.750
William Devon Howell was drawn to the area where drugs
96
00:07:35.829 --> 00:07:38.490
and prostitution went hand in hand.
97
00:07:40.610 --> 00:07:43.129
Many people who are females who are drug addicts, they
98
00:07:43.149 --> 00:07:46.100
ended up prostituting themselves in order to get the money,
99
00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:49.060
and Mr Howell was able to get some drugs and
100
00:07:49.339 --> 00:07:50.259
party with these women.
101
00:07:56.220 --> 00:07:59.420
In April 2003, a young woman was reported missing from
102
00:07:59.459 --> 00:08:01.240
a town some 25 miles from the Berlin Turnpike.
103
00:08:08.329 --> 00:08:12.189
Melanie Ruth Cannellini, she was from Seymour, Connecticut. She went
104
00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:15.240
missing from the city of Waterbury. She was the mother
105
00:08:15.300 --> 00:08:18.019
of two, dearly loved by her family.
106
00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:24.759
When 29-year-old Melanie's mother reported her missing to Waterbury police,
107
00:08:25.339 --> 00:08:28.240
she hadn't seen her daughter for several months.
108
00:08:29.899 --> 00:08:32.860
Waterbury PD was taking point on it in the missing
109
00:08:32.879 --> 00:08:35.019
person report. Terrific investigators.
110
00:08:36.159 --> 00:08:40.980
Despite an investigation, there were no leads into Melanie's disappearance.
111
00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:47.179
A month later, there was another missing persons report in
112
00:08:47.220 --> 00:08:48.120
the same town.
113
00:08:51.559 --> 00:08:55.299
Marilyn Gonzalez was 26. She, too, was a mother of two.
114
00:08:57.110 --> 00:08:59.509
Last seen on the 15th of May, 2003, Marilyn was
115
00:08:59.529 --> 00:09:01.769
reported missing by her mother a few days later.
116
00:09:07.330 --> 00:09:10.710
Her loved ones were just frantically trying to find out
117
00:09:10.850 --> 00:09:11.730
what happened to her.
118
00:09:19.179 --> 00:09:23.620
On the 24th of June, another desperate mother went to
119
00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:27.350
the police, this time in New Britain.
120
00:09:29.690 --> 00:09:33.330
Janice Roberts is a transgender woman. She was in her
121
00:09:33.970 --> 00:09:37.179
40s at the time. Her family thought that she went
122
00:09:37.299 --> 00:09:40.820
to New York City and possibly ran into some trouble
123
00:09:40.860 --> 00:09:42.360
down there. They just didn't know.
124
00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:47.200
No one knew if the missing women had chosen to
125
00:09:47.259 --> 00:09:52.230
leave the area or if something more sinister had befallen them.
126
00:09:53.190 --> 00:09:57.409
Even when all of these women were reported missing, they
127
00:09:57.490 --> 00:10:03.340
weren't linked by the... police. Things are made more complicated
128
00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:07.379
when people go missing from different police jurisdictions because they
129
00:10:07.419 --> 00:10:12.419
don't necessarily always share that information. They won't be looking
130
00:10:12.460 --> 00:10:15.340
at the missing person lists from neighboring jurisdictions.
131
00:10:22.500 --> 00:10:26.809
By the summer of 2003, three women were missing from
132
00:10:26.889 --> 00:10:30.889
towns in the Berlin Turnpike area. There was no uproar,
133
00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:36.750
no panic. Women weren't safe on the streets, but they
134
00:10:36.809 --> 00:10:55.250
had no idea. In July 2003, 33-year-old William Devin Howell
135
00:10:55.570 --> 00:11:01.950
was living with his girlfriend in New Britain, Connecticut. On
136
00:11:02.009 --> 00:11:06.909
the 31st of July, the mother and sister of 33-year-old
137
00:11:07.090 --> 00:11:12.519
Nilsa Arizmendi walked into Wethersfield Police Department nine miles away
138
00:11:13.220 --> 00:11:17.559
and reported that they hadn't seen Nilsa for almost a week.
139
00:11:20.750 --> 00:11:25.009
Nilsa Arizmendi had an on-and-off relationship with her childhood sweetheart,
140
00:11:25.029 --> 00:11:27.289
who was always known as Ace, and they were living
141
00:11:27.330 --> 00:11:29.149
in a motel in New Britain.
142
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She was a drug user, might have engaged in some
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prostitution also.
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She had quite a stable life, actually, so her disappearance
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was flagged up as, this is out of the ordinary
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for Nilsa.
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Nilsa's boyfriend, Ace, a convicted drug dealer, was first on
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the list of people to question. Insisting he had no
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idea what had happened to Nilsa, Ace passed a polygraph test.
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Worried sick about his girlfriend's disappearance, Ace was desperate to help.
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He gave the police all the information he had.
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Ace told detectives about the last time he'd seen Nilsa.
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It was late at night, after the couple had been
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hanging out with a man they knew only as Devin.
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Nilsa, her boyfriend, and this guy were doing drugs in
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a parking lot at a supermarket in Wethersfield. After that,
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her boyfriend saw her get into this weird-looking van that
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was partly blue, partly black, and had wood boards where
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the side windows should.
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Have been.
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It was the first solid lead into working out what
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had happened to Nilsa.
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The blue van became a target of the Wethersfield Police
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Department's investigation.
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The name Devin and the description of a van were
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all police had to go on in the search for Nilsa.
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But two months later, a sharp-eyed patrol officer spotted the
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vehicle in Wethersfield. So they trace the van. The van
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is traced back.
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The owner is Dorothy Holcomb.
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And that's when they went to Miss Holcomb's residence trying
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to interview her.
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Police records showed a man had been living at Dorothy's address,
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one with an outstanding warrant for an assault on his girlfriend.
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His name was William Devin Howell.
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When the police arrived to talk to Dorothy, she said, oh, well,
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Bill has the van most of the time.
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It's just registered my name.
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He tried to dodge the interviews, and she kind of
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protected him from the police. You know, they'd come in
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the front door, he'd go out the back door type
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of thing.
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Detectives were desperate to interview the man last seen with Nilsa,
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but he kept evading them. Meanwhile, they turned their focus
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on the van Nilsa had climbed into the night she disappeared.
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They got a search warrant for the vehicle.
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But when they returned in November to seize the battered
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blue van, neither Howell nor the vehicle were anywhere to
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be seen. In January 2004, Weathersfield police finally caught up
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with William Devin Howell. The gardener denied any involvement in
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Nilsa Arismendi's disappearance. and his van, which they hoped might
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hold some clues, was still nowhere to be found.
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Part of the problem was they didn't have her body.
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They didn't know what happened to her. She could have
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taken off. No one knew that she was dead at
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that point.
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With no van, no evidence, and nothing to tie him
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to Nilsa beyond the word of her boyfriend, detectives had
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no choice but to let Howell go. Weeks later, another
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young woman was reported missing by her family.
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Joy Valene, also known as Joy Martinez, she's 24. Joy
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Valene was a popular girl at school.
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She was a track star. Born into a large and
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loving family, somewhere between her late teens and early 20s,
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Joy Valene had fallen into drugs. she'd last been seen
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in October 2003.
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She doesn't appear for her birthday, which her mother finds
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quite strange, and then she doesn't appear at Thanksgiving.
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On the 29th of March 2004, Joy's mother reported her
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missing to police in East Hertford. Two days later, in Wethersfield,
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the team who were searching for Nilsa Arismendi finally had
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some luck, 600 miles away from Connecticut.
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They found the vehicle in North Carolina, the blue van.
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They then got a search warrant, and then they have
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the van towed back.
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The van had been hidden on a property belonging to
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one of Howell's associates. Eight months after Nilsa Alice Mendy vanished,
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would it hold any clues about what had happened to her?
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The crime scene investigators are let loose on the Ford
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Econline van.
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They noticed that the back seat, the cushions had been
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replaced and they ended up pulling those cushions back and
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then they found what they believed was blood and then
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reddish brown stains on the carpeting.
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This disturbing find suggested that someone had lost a large
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amount of blood in the back of the battered work van.
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The question was, who?
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The police department submitted a piece of the car seat
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back and a piece of the carpet from the van
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to the laboratory.
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Forensic science examiner Kristen Maydell was part of the team
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at the state forensic lab tasked with analyzing the stains
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on the upholstery. The first set of tests confirmed the
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stains were, in fact, human blood. The next step was
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to find out who the blood had belonged to. When
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the results came back, there was a shock.
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From the initial testing of those two samples, they were
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two different DNA profiles.
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It appeared that at least two people had come to
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harm in Howell's van. As is common in missing persons
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cases in the US, Nilsa Arizmendi's mother had given the
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police a DNA sample when her daughter disappeared.
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DNA gets passed from parent to child, where you get
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half your nuclear DNA from your mother and half your
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nuclear DNA from your father.
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If human remains were found, the authorities would be able
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to say if the victim was likely to be a
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close relative of Nilsa's mother. Sadly for Nilsa's family, there
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was a match.
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The mother of the missing person did match the DNA
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profile from the van.
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It was an important breakthrough for the case, but a
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body blow for Nilsa's anxiously waiting family.
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The medical examiner said she couldn't have survived that much
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blood loss.
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It seems certain that Nilsa Arismendi was dead. Police had
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no idea who the second DNA profile belonged to. With
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more questions than answers about what had happened in Howell's van,
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investigators needed to tread carefully.
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It takes a long time for the prosecutors to be
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absolutely sure that they can charge Howell with Nilsa's killing.
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Blood in the van, opportunity, the fact that Ace had
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seen her getting.
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Into the van.
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But the difficulty.
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This is no body.
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On the 14th of May, 2005, William Devin Howell was
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arrested in connection with Nilsa Arismendi's death. Three days later,
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he was charged with her murder. But the police knew
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getting a conviction would be tough.
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The problem was they didn't know what happened to her.
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They knew something bad happened in the man, but there
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was no weapon, there was no trace of the body.
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Howell was remanded in custody until his trial. For now,
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a suspected killer was off the streets. But would it
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be for good? Almost four years after Nilsa Alice Mendes' disappearance,
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36-year-old William Devon Howell stood in the dock at New
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Britain's Superior Court in Connecticut.
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On the 24th of January, 2007, William Devon Howell stands
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trial for the murder of Nilsa Arizmendi. The DNA evidence
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is produced. Witnesses, including Ace, are produced.
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Howell's defense was that it was her boyfriend, Ace, who'd
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attacked Nilsa. arguing the couple had fought in the back
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of the van. The prosecution highlighted the amount of blood
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spilled in the van and the fact that Nilsa hadn't
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been seen since that night. On the fifth day of
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the trial, Howell changed his plea.
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He did a plea bargain, and he used something called
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the Alford plea.
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What the Alford doctrine stands for is you'd say, I
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understand if I go to trial, there's a significant chance
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I'll be convicted and face harsher punishment. So in order
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to avoid that, I'm going to plead guilty, even though
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I'm not admitting my guilt.
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On the 30th of January, Howell pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.
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still refusing to give any information about what had happened
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to Nilsa Arismendi or where her remains could be found,
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Howell was jailed for 15 years. Just months later, on
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the 20th of August, 2007, local police got a phone
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call that had the potential to shed light on Nilsa's fate.
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The New Britain Police Department got a call from a
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resident who was walking through some woods off of Hartford
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Road in New Britain. And he said he found what
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he thought were human remains. I was a lieutenant in
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the bureau at that point. So we responded. We canvassed
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the scene.
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That area is very commercial. It was like a little
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strip mall. And in the back is a little parking area.
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And right below that is a steep drop off. And
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then there's a wooded area.
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It's really not a place you would easily walk through
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because of the briar or some of the wildlife that's
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there or completely swampy. It goes underwater quite a bit.
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It's not where someone would want to walk and go
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have a picnic.
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More officers were brought in to search the densely wooded area.
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We found a few more remains that evening and into
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the next day. And that's when we discovered it wasn't
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the remains of one person, but it was the remains
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of two females.
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Confirming that they had found the partial remains of two
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adult women, the state medical examiner gave an estimate as
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to how long the scattered bones had laid there.
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He gave us a very wide range with the caveat
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is it depends on weather, it depends on animal activity.
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So we knew they weren't hundreds of years old. We
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knew that they weren't a year old.
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A couple of days later, a third partial skeleton was recovered.
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There was nothing with the bodies to identify them, but
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one conclusion seemed inevitable. The women had all likely been murdered,
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and almost certainly by the same assailant.
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We certainly were working on the strong possibility that we
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had a serial killer.
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With William Devin Howell's conviction fresh in the minds of
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local law enforcement, the question on everyone's lips was, could
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any of the bodies be Nilsa Aris Mendes? The state
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forensic lab was brought in once again.
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They submitted a sample from the three different possible bodies
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for us to do DNA testing on.
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00:25:37.869 --> 00:25:42.230
DNA profiles were developed from the bones, but when they
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00:25:42.250 --> 00:25:46.650
were run through the DNA database, there was more disappointment
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for Nilsa's family.
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We did try to make a connection with Nilsa, but
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there were no matches there.
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In fact, there were no matches in the system for
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any of the women. Without knowing who they were, investigating
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the women's deaths would prove difficult.
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00:26:09.430 --> 00:26:13.599
If you don't know who the person is that has
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00:26:13.640 --> 00:26:20.869
been killed, it's near on impossible to identify your suspects.
350
00:26:21.690 --> 00:26:22.349
There's always a.
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00:26:22.369 --> 00:26:25.369
Motive for every murder. You're never gonna find out what
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00:26:25.390 --> 00:26:27.410
that motive is unless you identify the body.
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New Britain police threw themselves into working out who the
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women were.
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Looking at unsolved missing persons reports and just try to
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chase them all down. The FBI down in Quantico offered
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their services to create an approximation of two of our victims.
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We put it in the newspapers, gave it to the media.
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00:27:01.230 --> 00:27:06.140
It was a slow and frustrating process. And as James
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00:27:06.200 --> 00:27:10.359
Wardwell and his team worked to identify the victims, they
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00:27:10.440 --> 00:27:15.339
couldn't shake the suspicion there might be more bodies lying.
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In the woods.
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Never stopped believing there was more in there. Still believed
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in our hearts Nilsa was in there. Still believing that
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00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:26.400
there might be more victims.
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Were police on the right track? Was William Devin Howell
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in fact a serial killer? with Nilsa just one of
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00:27:36.230 --> 00:27:36.930
his victims?
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We certainly were keeping all options open because we don't
370
00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:45.319
know yet, but that was definitely a working theory that
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00:27:45.420 --> 00:27:48.539
there was a connection, and Nilsa was also connected to
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00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:49.220
our site.
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In December 2010, New Britain PD got their first breakthrough
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when a woman called, introducing herself as the sister-in-law of
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New Britain resident Diane Cusack. She'd seen the photo in
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the papers of the facial reconstruction of one of the
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unidentified women.
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She said, boy, the face sure looks like Diane. The
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hair's wrong, but the face looked right.
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Diane Cusack lived alone in New Britain. I don't think
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00:28:42.180 --> 00:28:45.200
she really was in contact with her family. She wasn't
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reported missing right away.
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So we were ultimately able to make that connection through
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dental records and DNA and made our first positive ID.
385
00:29:00.660 --> 00:29:02.769
I remember going sitting down at their kitchen table and
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00:29:02.849 --> 00:29:06.269
sharing that news with them. I know it brought them pain,
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00:29:06.470 --> 00:29:08.750
but I could see it also brought them some relief.
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I remember it like yesterday, that part, because nobody deserves
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00:29:14.819 --> 00:29:15.940
what happened to her.
390
00:29:20.019 --> 00:29:24.700
The tragedy for Diane Cusack and her family was nonetheless
391
00:29:24.900 --> 00:29:28.130
an important step forward in the investigation.
392
00:29:31.289 --> 00:29:34.099
Really started opening everything because then we could start retracing
393
00:29:34.170 --> 00:29:36.319
her steps, placing her in places.
394
00:29:36.339 --> 00:29:45.150
53-year-old Diane hadn't been seen since July 2003. She'd lived
395
00:29:45.210 --> 00:29:49.059
in the same neighborhood as William Devin Howell, and the
396
00:29:49.099 --> 00:29:54.440
police believed they may have crossed paths. But there was
397
00:29:54.539 --> 00:29:59.650
no proof or evidence to link Diane to Howell. The
398
00:29:59.710 --> 00:30:05.380
investigation went cold until 2013.
399
00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:15.509
Connecticut State's Attorney's Office has a cold case unit and
400
00:30:15.549 --> 00:30:17.049
they put a task force together.
401
00:30:18.589 --> 00:30:22.630
DNA from the remains in the woods was resubmitted to
402
00:30:22.670 --> 00:30:27.990
the state forensics lab. And in September 2013, there was
403
00:30:28.099 --> 00:30:30.059
another positive ID.
404
00:30:31.180 --> 00:30:35.240
Joy Valim Martinez, she was actually the first remains that
405
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:39.839
were found that first day in 2007.
406
00:30:39.839 --> 00:30:45.109
The breakthrough also provided crucial evidence that William Howell had
407
00:30:45.190 --> 00:30:50.200
killed more than once. The second person's blood, found along
408
00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:53.700
with Nilsa's in the back of Howell's van, was proven
409
00:30:53.740 --> 00:30:58.640
to be 23-year-old Joy Valines. The case was building, but
410
00:30:58.700 --> 00:31:02.619
detectives suspected there was much they still did not know.
411
00:31:03.400 --> 00:31:06.500
In 2014, they tried something new.
412
00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:09.859
One of the things that the two states' attorney's cold
413
00:31:09.900 --> 00:31:14.980
case squad did was make playing cards of unsolved homicides.
414
00:31:15.740 --> 00:31:19.970
that they distributed in all of the prisons.
415
00:31:21.630 --> 00:31:24.490
They're free for the inmates to use and just ask
416
00:31:24.529 --> 00:31:27.690
if anyone has information, please call to spark conversations.
417
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:36.960
One inmate couldn't believe the hand he'd been dealt. William
418
00:31:37.059 --> 00:31:40.509
Devin Howell, who was a decade into his sentence for
419
00:31:40.549 --> 00:31:44.630
the manslaughter of Nilsa Arizmendi, was about to blow the
420
00:31:44.690 --> 00:31:59.900
investigation wide open. At Connecticut's Cheshire Correctional Institution in 2015,
421
00:31:59.880 --> 00:32:06.210
45-year-old William Devin Howell opened up to his cellmate, Jonathan Mills,
422
00:32:06.890 --> 00:32:11.400
revealing what had really happened to Nilsa Arismendi 12 years earlier.
423
00:32:14.980 --> 00:32:20.849
Around 3am that night in July 2003, Nilsa and her boyfriend,
424
00:32:21.130 --> 00:32:24.670
who sometimes took drugs with Howell, met him in a
425
00:32:24.769 --> 00:32:26.210
supermarket car park.
426
00:32:27.259 --> 00:32:32.279
He sees Nilsa climb into Bill Howell's dark blue Ford
427
00:32:32.299 --> 00:32:34.279
Econoline van and drive off.
428
00:32:35.420 --> 00:32:40.470
Shortly after Nilsa entered Howell's van, he attacked her, punching
429
00:32:40.509 --> 00:32:43.789
her in the face, causing her nose to bleed heavily.
430
00:32:44.329 --> 00:32:46.509
He then grabbed her round the throat.
431
00:32:47.289 --> 00:32:51.549
She is strangled and she is dumped behind the shopping mall.
432
00:32:57.690 --> 00:33:00.960
But Nilsa had not been his first victim.
433
00:33:03.380 --> 00:33:04.380
He tells Mills.
434
00:33:05.009 --> 00:33:08.390
that I didn't just kill Nilsa, I killed six other
435
00:33:08.430 --> 00:33:09.109
people as well.
436
00:33:10.859 --> 00:33:15.559
Howell told Mills his first victim early in 2003 had
437
00:33:16.140 --> 00:33:22.619
been Melanie Ruth Camillini. Howell had raped and strangled her
438
00:33:23.009 --> 00:33:24.269
in the back of his van.
439
00:33:25.890 --> 00:33:29.549
It was too cold to bury her body, and so
440
00:33:29.589 --> 00:33:32.529
he literally drove around with her body in the van
441
00:33:32.549 --> 00:33:33.630
for several weeks.
442
00:33:35.809 --> 00:33:38.789
He used to sleep next to her, calling her his baby.
443
00:33:41.109 --> 00:33:45.029
And he cut off her fingertips and tore off the
444
00:33:45.089 --> 00:33:49.890
bottom of her jaw to take her bottom teeth out
445
00:33:49.910 --> 00:33:51.289
and put them in a garbage bag and.
446
00:33:51.309 --> 00:33:52.269
Threw them in a dumpster.
447
00:33:53.109 --> 00:33:56.589
He told Mills that once he had killed the first woman,
448
00:33:56.890 --> 00:34:01.009
that was like crossing the Rubicon, and it became easier
449
00:34:01.130 --> 00:34:04.109
after that, and he perfected his method, I think how
450
00:34:04.150 --> 00:34:04.509
he put it.
451
00:34:09.219 --> 00:34:13.920
Over the next 10 months, William Devin Howell had targeted
452
00:34:13.980 --> 00:34:16.579
women on the fringes of society.
453
00:34:18.380 --> 00:34:22.289
Most of all, he's focused around drugs, whether Howell was
454
00:34:22.329 --> 00:34:25.130
providing them or people, they were getting in his van
455
00:34:25.190 --> 00:34:26.519
because they were gonna do drugs with him.
456
00:34:27.849 --> 00:34:30.610
Once in the back of the vehicle that Howell called
457
00:34:30.670 --> 00:34:34.530
his murder mobile, the women were brutally attacked.
458
00:34:36.079 --> 00:34:40.380
There was a lot of violence, physical violence, strangulation, hitting
459
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:43.719
them with objects, a hammer, for instance.
460
00:34:46.059 --> 00:34:48.519
He controlled these women. He was a big guy.
461
00:34:49.559 --> 00:34:54.739
With his second victim, 26-year-old Marilyn Gonzalez, restrained through the
462
00:34:54.820 --> 00:34:58.369
night in the back of his van, Howell drove around
463
00:34:58.429 --> 00:34:59.369
the local area.
464
00:35:00.170 --> 00:35:02.170
He actually went through a drive-thru to buy her her
465
00:35:02.230 --> 00:35:04.389
last meal. She ate the meal and he raped her
466
00:35:04.409 --> 00:35:04.880
and killed her.
467
00:35:10.789 --> 00:35:14.909
Referring to himself as a sick ripper in his disturbing
468
00:35:14.989 --> 00:35:19.050
confession to his cellmate, Howell also shed light on the
469
00:35:19.110 --> 00:35:23.110
fate of a woman who'd been reported missing in June 2003.
470
00:35:23.110 --> 00:35:27.719
Howell's third victim, who he picked up on the 18th
471
00:35:27.739 --> 00:35:30.739
of June 2003, was Janice Roberts.
472
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:33.860
But actually, she was transgender.
473
00:35:36.130 --> 00:35:39.730
While a sexual act was being performed, Mr Howell realized
474
00:35:39.769 --> 00:35:43.019
it was a trans person doing it, which caused him
475
00:35:43.039 --> 00:35:43.920
to become very angry.
476
00:35:44.599 --> 00:35:59.110
Howell strangled 44-year-old Janice to death. After the orgy of violence,
477
00:35:59.530 --> 00:36:02.489
Howell would dispose of his victims' bodies.
478
00:36:03.289 --> 00:36:05.710
Howell told them about what he called his garden.
479
00:36:06.869 --> 00:36:10.949
And Mills realized what he was talking about was where
480
00:36:10.989 --> 00:36:12.429
he buried victims.
481
00:36:15.510 --> 00:36:20.400
The victims were just discarded like objects and not as people,
482
00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:23.059
like yesterday's rubbish, just awful.
483
00:36:25.880 --> 00:36:30.880
Howell told Mills that after Melanie, Marilyn, and Janice, he'd
484
00:36:30.940 --> 00:36:38.519
murdered Diane Cusack. The next victim was Nilsa Arizmendi, followed
485
00:36:38.599 --> 00:36:43.760
by Joyveline Martinez. Then Howell confessed to a final victim
486
00:36:43.820 --> 00:36:49.909
from October 2003, a 40-year-old woman from Waterbury who'd never
487
00:36:49.989 --> 00:36:51.289
been reported missing.
488
00:36:52.809 --> 00:36:55.050
Mary Jane Maynard went out to buy cigarettes, and I
489
00:36:55.110 --> 00:36:59.500
suspect she just encountered Howell, who was often driving around
490
00:36:59.539 --> 00:37:06.539
the area, possibly looking for victims. Mary Jane's daughter was
491
00:37:06.599 --> 00:37:11.420
serving overseas at the time, so nobody noticed that Mary
492
00:37:11.460 --> 00:37:12.260
Jane had gone missing.
493
00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:18.789
Mary's partial remains were amongst those found in 2007 and
494
00:37:19.489 --> 00:37:23.250
had finally been identified in September 2014.
495
00:37:23.250 --> 00:37:28.800
One of the tragedies of Mary Jane Maynard is that
496
00:37:29.260 --> 00:37:32.119
although she'd had a substance abuse problem, she'd turned her
497
00:37:32.139 --> 00:37:34.929
life around and she'd in fact become a counsellor making
498
00:37:34.969 --> 00:37:38.800
her death all the more tragic and all the more cruel.
499
00:37:40.019 --> 00:37:45.159
Having heard William Howell's horrifying story, Jonathan Mills hoped it
500
00:37:45.219 --> 00:37:48.719
might gain him some goodwill with the authorities.
501
00:37:49.340 --> 00:37:49.599
Mr.
502
00:37:49.639 --> 00:37:53.619
Mills contacted his lawyer. The lawyer contacted the prosecutors.
503
00:37:55.880 --> 00:38:00.239
Howell had boasted of six murders in addition to Nilsa's death.
504
00:38:01.989 --> 00:38:05.010
The problem for the police was that they only had
505
00:38:05.199 --> 00:38:09.780
three bodies. All of them had been identified, and none
506
00:38:09.820 --> 00:38:17.619
of them were Nilsa. Incredibly, Jonathan Mills had the information
507
00:38:17.699 --> 00:38:18.760
the police needed.
508
00:38:18.780 --> 00:38:31.570
He showed them this map of what he believed, Howell's
509
00:38:31.630 --> 00:38:35.829
garden was, Howell had described like there were electrical wires
510
00:38:35.929 --> 00:38:37.949
and telephone poles and certain.
511
00:38:37.690 --> 00:38:40.030
Things in the air where he had buried them.
512
00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:47.099
Between April and May 2015, 12 years after the killings,
513
00:38:47.519 --> 00:38:49.179
they returned to the swamp.
514
00:38:51.239 --> 00:38:55.690
With the assistance of this amazing cadaver dog, within days
515
00:38:55.769 --> 00:38:58.710
we had found the burial sites of all of our victims.
516
00:39:01.059 --> 00:39:04.800
They found an additional four different human remains.
517
00:39:06.380 --> 00:39:10.750
Once again, the state forensics lab played a crucial role.
518
00:39:11.650 --> 00:39:13.469
So they submitted a sampling from each of the four
519
00:39:13.510 --> 00:39:15.849
different bodies in order to try and determine who they
520
00:39:15.889 --> 00:39:17.809
were by doing DNA testing on those bones.
521
00:39:18.369 --> 00:39:19.690
DNA profiles were developed.
522
00:39:21.610 --> 00:39:24.909
They tracked down family members, got their DNAs, and then
523
00:39:25.050 --> 00:39:29.349
compared those DNAs to the bones that were recovered and
524
00:39:29.369 --> 00:39:31.530
then were able to identify the individuals.
525
00:39:33.269 --> 00:39:38.900
By June 2015, the bodies had been identified as Janice Roberts,
526
00:39:40.659 --> 00:39:47.510
Melanie Ruth Camolini, Marilyn Gonzalez, and the one victim Howell
527
00:39:47.590 --> 00:39:53.719
had been convicted of killing, Nilsa Arismendi. After more than
528
00:39:53.760 --> 00:39:57.260
a decade, the families of the women were learning of
529
00:39:57.340 --> 00:39:57.989
their fate.
530
00:39:59.389 --> 00:40:02.570
They were waiting for answers, praying that these were not
531
00:40:02.590 --> 00:40:05.670
the answers they were going to get. We couldn't change
532
00:40:05.730 --> 00:40:08.630
what was done, but we could change the way their
533
00:40:08.650 --> 00:40:11.269
loved ones were treated from then on out and that
534
00:40:11.309 --> 00:40:13.590
justice is brought for them.
535
00:40:14.670 --> 00:40:19.070
But to get justice, detectives needed to build a case
536
00:40:19.170 --> 00:40:25.159
against William Devin Howell, the only suspect in the six murders.
537
00:40:32.619 --> 00:40:36.599
They believed the key to the case was Howell's battered
538
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:38.039
blue work van.
539
00:40:39.940 --> 00:40:42.360
So we got a search warrant. got the van that
540
00:40:42.400 --> 00:40:45.360
was held in storage by the Wethersfield Police Department. So
541
00:40:45.380 --> 00:40:47.820
it was still just sitting there like as if in
542
00:40:47.840 --> 00:40:51.530
a time capsule. We brought in the state police evidence
543
00:40:51.550 --> 00:40:56.190
technicians because their skill level is just tremendous. And they
544
00:40:56.230 --> 00:40:59.550
just started to pick that van apart fiber by fiber,
545
00:40:59.730 --> 00:41:00.650
droplet by droplet.
546
00:41:02.769 --> 00:41:05.710
They submitted a whole bunch more evidence from the van
547
00:41:05.849 --> 00:41:12.750
that consisted of cigarette butts, hairs, hairbrush, There.
548
00:41:12.659 --> 00:41:15.440
Was a rock that appeared to have blood on it,
549
00:41:17.139 --> 00:41:20.519
as well as six graphic homemade videotapes.
550
00:41:23.079 --> 00:41:26.099
There was over 200 pieces of evidence submitted from the
551
00:41:26.179 --> 00:41:27.199
van at this point.
552
00:41:28.280 --> 00:41:33.239
The results of the DNA analysis were damning. Blood, hair,
553
00:41:33.559 --> 00:41:36.280
and other traces were found in the back of the
554
00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:39.900
van that matched with six of the seven victims.
555
00:41:43.530 --> 00:41:48.130
In September 2015, Howell is charged with the six murders.
556
00:41:49.829 --> 00:41:54.260
For the next two years, the police and prosecution prepared
557
00:41:54.340 --> 00:41:56.480
their case against Howell.
558
00:41:59.539 --> 00:42:03.920
We wanted to convict. We wanted absolutely whoever was responsible
559
00:42:04.099 --> 00:42:08.039
for what happened to these ladies to be brought to justice.
560
00:42:08.380 --> 00:42:11.019
We wanted to make sure every T was crossed, every
561
00:42:11.159 --> 00:42:12.980
I was dotted, so it was meticulous work.
562
00:42:14.750 --> 00:42:19.809
William Petzold was appointed as Howell's defense attorney, faced with
563
00:42:19.849 --> 00:42:24.860
the mammoth task of defending Howell against the prosecution's claims.
564
00:42:27.090 --> 00:42:29.539
So they put the case together, and it was a
565
00:42:30.099 --> 00:42:33.880
mountain of evidence. It was, in my opinion, an insurmountable
566
00:42:34.300 --> 00:42:35.539
mountain to overcome.
567
00:42:36.940 --> 00:42:41.119
Presented with the evidence against him, Howell and his attorney
568
00:42:41.400 --> 00:42:42.619
came to a decision.
569
00:42:43.260 --> 00:42:47.219
He ultimately pled guilty and was sentenced to 360 years.
570
00:42:57.110 --> 00:43:01.750
Families were emotional. Certainly some belief that justice is being served,
571
00:43:02.130 --> 00:43:07.409
but anger too, sadness. No matter what, none of what
572
00:43:07.530 --> 00:43:10.300
the court system was gonna do was gonna bring their
573
00:43:10.340 --> 00:43:10.960
loved ones back.
574
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:22.750
47-year-old Howell's statement at the sentencing hearing at New Britain's
575
00:43:22.809 --> 00:43:26.449
Superior Court was the first time any of the families
576
00:43:26.469 --> 00:43:28.269
had heard him speak.
577
00:43:30.130 --> 00:43:33.559
He started to cry. And he said, I'm going to
578
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:36.960
stay in prison. I'm not a well man. I'm going
579
00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:41.599
to die a slow, painful death. In no way was
580
00:43:41.639 --> 00:43:45.980
he actually trying to give any comfort to the victims' families.
581
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:51.860
He was thinking of himself. You know, we were sitting
582
00:43:51.909 --> 00:43:56.869
with the families. Maybe some thoughts should have been for them.
583
00:43:58.510 --> 00:43:59.409
That's not where he went.
584
00:44:01.269 --> 00:44:05.190
In fact, one of Howell's comments to his cellmate had
585
00:44:05.250 --> 00:44:09.250
betrayed his true feelings about the seven victims.
586
00:44:11.090 --> 00:44:15.730
Howell said that his victims should have known that they
587
00:44:15.769 --> 00:44:18.630
were going to die, you know, just because of the
588
00:44:18.909 --> 00:44:20.469
kind of lives that they led.
589
00:44:22.949 --> 00:44:27.070
He didn't think of these beautiful people as people. This
590
00:44:27.090 --> 00:44:27.889
is my take on it.
591
00:44:32.400 --> 00:44:40.019
In a 10-month killing spree across 2003, Howell abducted, brutalized,
592
00:44:40.099 --> 00:44:44.170
and killed seven women in the van he callously called
593
00:44:44.210 --> 00:44:49.530
his murder mobile, before dumping their bodies where he hoped
594
00:44:49.849 --> 00:44:55.090
they'd never be found. His victims' loved ones waited 14
595
00:44:55.090 --> 00:44:59.199
years for justice, but when it finally came, they were
596
00:44:59.260 --> 00:45:03.849
left with no doubt that William Devon Howell is one
597
00:45:03.889 --> 00:45:06.510
of the world's most evil killers.
