Up next, a shocked city reels
as a k*ller targets local women.
The community was up in arms.
People were scared.
At this point, we have
very strong reasons
to believe that these three
victims may be linked.
Sex workers are
very likely to be targets
of not just v*olence in general,
but especially serial killings.
Animal hairs, fibers,
and a fingerprint
provide clues but no suspect.
We really had no idea about who
had perpetrated these crimes.
Sometimes, you think
you have the right guy
and you jump all over it,
just to find out that it's not.
Spokane, Washington, is built
around the Spokane River.
The region is considered among
the most scenic in the country.
Spokane River runs right through
the county of Spokane
and right through the middle
of the city of Spokane.
Pretty much divides
the city of Spokane in half,
north and south.
But the scenic beauty
of the river
was marred in February of 1990,
when a young woman was found
dead along the riverbank.
She had been partially
wrapped up in a blanket
and just deposited
over the side of the road.
Except for the blanket,
the victim was nude.
Police identified her
as Yolanda Sapp,
a 26-year-old local sex worker.
She was sh*t more than once,
and the wounds were perforating,
so they went all the way through
and didn't leave any b*ll*ts
in the body.
This was 1990,
and DNA was just making its way
into U.S. courtrooms.
Yolanda's autopsy indicated
some sexual activity,
but because of the possibility
of multiple sex partners,
a r*pe kit was all but useless.
With no b*ll*ts, no witnesses,
and no clothing,
detectives turned to
what little they had.
The blanket that was found
approximately 10 feet
from her body
had a little bit of blood on it,
so it clearly was
associated with Miss Sapp.
Local police made
a point of treating Yolanda
the same way they'd treat
any other victim.
You always hear, "Well,
they're just a prost*tute.
Why do you work so hard?"
Well, you don't look at it
that way.
Yeah, they're a prost*tute,
but they belong to somebody.
They have mothers.
They have fathers.
They have children.
You tackle that case
the same way
that you would anything else.
One month after
Yolanda's m*rder,
a jogger found
another dead woman
along the banks
of the Spokane River.
The victim was also
a local sex worker...
Nickie Lowe was found
under the Greene Street Bridge,
and her body was draped
over a metal guardrail.
In Nickie's case,
a b*llet from a .22 caliber
was recovered from the body.
Later that day, investigators
got a potential break.
The Spokane Police Department
received a phone call
from a gentleman
who supplemented his income
by searching Dumpsters for items
that he could resell or use.
Inside the Dumpster,
the man found a purse
with Nickie Lowe's
driver's license,
as well as some personal items,
including a tube of lubricant.
All the items were submitted
for forensic analysis.
Then, two months later,
another young woman
turned up dead.
Brisbois is the third prost*tute
gunned down since February.
On May 15th, 1990,
the body of Kathy Brisbois
was found
along the Spokane River about
five miles east of the location
where Yolanda and Nickie
had been found.
was also sh*t with a .22.
She was friends with
the other two victims.
They formed what
they called "the circle."
The purpose of that was to offer
some assistance
to each other
and backup and help,
if there were bad dates
or people that were dangerous,
to try and look out
for each other.
Investigators
and the local community
were coming to an uncomfortable
but inevitable conclusion
about these three murders.
It was clear that we had
a serial k*ller
working the Spokane area.
And the race was on
to identify him
before he k*lled again.
Kathy Brisbois was known,
both to fellow sex workers
and to police,
as a veteran of the streets.
Kathy, according to
witnesses, friends,
was the type of lady
that would have been
hard for this suspect to k*ll.
She was tough.
At that particular time,
she was aware that two of her
friends had also been k*lled.
In fact,
shortly before her m*rder,
detectives questioned her to see
if she could provide any help
in the murders of Yolanda Sapp
and Nickie Lowe.
Kathy told them a story
about a recent customer,
a John, who she clearly remembered.
Kathy Brisbois
did identify one John,
whom she could barely describe,
who said that if she did not do
what he asked,
that she would be
the next victim.
True to form, it was clear
Kathy Brisbois went down swinging.
She fought with
whoever the suspect was.
She had told people that
she's not gonna go down
without a fight.
Skin cells were found
under her fingernails.
This was pre-DNA,
but alert detectives put
that evidence in storage.
As for facts on the ground,
a m*rder*r k*lling sex workers
presented all sorts
of unusual challenges.
Detectives were
worried that maybe there was
some drug angle to this,
because all three of the victims
were involved
in heroin and cocaine.
And they didn't know
if maybe the girls
had made some dealer mad,
and they were
investigating that.
With what little
information they had,
detectives created
an initial profile
of the person
they were looking for.
Detectives believed
that they looking for a male,
probably white and probably
at least 20 years old,
but less than 50 years old,
had his own car
so that he was mobile and could
take the girls somewhere.
Analysts turned to
the tube of lubricant
found with Nickie's belongings.
Fingerprinting has
actually remained
relatively unchanged
for decades.
If it's a non-porous surface,
they would use
fingerprint powder...
a very fine,
typically black powder,
and that attaches to the oils
that you deposit
when you touch things
from your fingers.
In another possible break,
a partial print
was lifted from the tube.
But with no suspects,
it was of limited value.
They have to have someone
identified with fingerprints
provided or on file
for them to compare it to.
But other micro-clues
offered some possibilities.
A cat hair, like the one seen
here magnified 100 times,
was consistent among
two of the crime scenes.
A blue fiber was also found
with two of the victims.
One of the forensic
scientists thought
that this fiber may have been
from a carpet in a boat.
Detectives thought
this might be linked
to a boat-supply store
near where all three women
plied their trade.
The prostitutes would take dates
and have sex in the boats.
They'd climb in the boats, where
they were kind of out of view
and not necessarily
in somebody's car,
and they would have sex there.
Detectives put out
a call to the media,
asking the public
to come forward
with any tips
they might have about someone
that might be involved
in k*lling these ladies.
More than 700 tips poured in.
Given the nature of the victims,
it was hard to separate
fact from fiction.
Some of the tips had information
that absolutely needed
to be followed up on,
but a vast majority
of the tips were nonsense
or totally made-up information
by people either thinking
they're doing well
or somebody mad at an ex-spouse
or an ex-boyfriend,
that type of thing.
To the relief of
police and the community,
there were no murders
that appeared to be linked
to the original three.
If this was a serial k*ller,
was it possible
he'd gone dormant?
It's not unheard of.
The notorious BTK k*ller
went dormant for 14 years.
The Golden State k*ller allegedly
committed all sorts of crimes,
including more than
a dozen murders,
before apparently stopping
after 13 years.
In Spokane, six years passed
since the three murders
thought to be the work
of the same man,
and then bodies began
turning up again.
In 1996, sex workers
started turning up dead again
in and around
Spokane, Washington.
Detectives feared this was
the work of a k*ller
who, they believed, m*rder*d
three women back in 1990.
These prostitutes were
sh*t in the head...
and their heads covered
with plastic bags.
Their bodies were being
dumped in remote areas
away from Downtown Spokane.
These were key differences
between the murders from 1990...
the m*rder w*apon was believed
to be a .25 caliber,
the bodies were not dumped
by the river,
and plastic bags weren't used
in the first three murders.
Of course,
that didn't do anything
to calm potential victims.
The prostitutes were
very afraid at that time.
Their friends were being k*lled
and found,
and so there was
a concerted effort by the police
on that task force,
both city and county,
to try and work with
the street workers.
But, still,
there were no arrests
or even solid suspects.
Any time you work a serial case,
which this was,
it's a never-ending
emotional battle.
Years passed.
In 2000, a man named
Robert Lee Yates was arrested
for the 1996 murders
of local sex workers.
He had no connection to the
murders from six years earlier.
They were able to determine,
apparently through
m*llitary records,
that Yates was in Germany when
these three women were m*rder*d,
so he couldn't have done it.
The investigation went cold.
But forensic technology
was giving new life
to hundreds of cases.
The real push at that time
to address these cold cases,
these cases that we didn't have
the technology
when they happened,
but now we did,
and it was time to revive them
and try again, basically,
with the newer technology.
Analysts had wanted to
take the partial fingerprint
lifted from the tube of
lubricant in Nickie Lowe's purse
and enter it into AFIS,
the fingerprint database.
But there wasn't enough detail
in the print.
The fingerprint found
on the sexual lubricant
was not AFIS quality,
but there was enough
of the print present
that it could be used
to identify a specific person
if we had a named suspect.
Now they turned to
skin found under the fingernails
of the third victim,
Kathy Brisbois.
Nearly two decades had passed
since her m*rder,
but if DNA could be found,
it might identify her k*ller.
It was the left middle finger
that ultimately produced
a good DNA profile.
It was partly DNA
from Kathleen Brisbois
and partly DNA from a male.
Detectives now had
a full genetic profile.
It seems to be
what everybody's looking for.
So that was
pretty thrilling for me,
and for the city detectives
and for my partner,
who the case
wasn't even assigned to.
In 2009, this profile
from an unknown male
was entered into CODIS,
the national DNA database.
Detectives' hopes for a break
were soon dashed.
No one was found in CODIS
to match that profile.
But CODIS never stops.
New DNA profiles are entered
into the database every day.
And 24/7, those profiles
are cross-referenced.
Three years passed.
Then detectives got
a phone call.
In 2012, we got what was
called a cold hit.
We don't get a lot of cold hits
on cases this old.
So it's always exciting
when a real cold hit,
when we really had no idea
about who had perpetrated
these crimes,
finally comes through.
But CODIS technicians had
some shocking news
for detectives.
The male DNA profile
belonged to a woman.
At one point, her name
was Douglas Perry.
Now she went by Donna.
DNA, like all physical
evidence, can't lie.
One of the advantages of DNA
and our ability
to analyze it is,
first of all, it's the same
throughout your body.
The other advantage of DNA,
in general,
is that it stays the same
throughout your life.
And, in questions of gender,
DNA also does not change.
A gender-reassignment surgery
may change
the physical appearance,
may change, you know, hormones
and that sort of thing,
but it ultimately doesn't change
the DNA you were born with.
So when Spokane
detectives got news
that male DNA linked back to
a serial k*ller from 1990
belonged to a woman,
they had a lot of questions.
A background check showed that
in 2000, Donna Perry,
who was known then
as Douglas Perry,
underwent gender-affirming
surgery.
Even people who study
how gender intersects with crime
said this was an unusual case.
Serial k*lling, in general,
really only represents about 1%
of all homicides in the U.S.,
so we're talking about
a pretty rare crime as it is.
It's even more rare
that trans people themselves
are the murderers
or the serial K*llers,
contrary to popular myth.
They're far more likely to be
victims of v*olence
and homicide themselves.
Donna Perry, in her
past and current incarnations,
was no stranger
to law enforcement.
She had weapons violations
going all the way back to 1988.
I learned that she lived
in the Spokane area
during the time of the crimes
in 1990.
In fact, Donna was
back behind bars
on a weapons violation
at the time she was identified.
And that's where detectives
interviewed her.
I think that Donna started
speaking with us
because she was very concerned
about what we knew
and how much trouble
she might be in.
Donna admitted paying
sex workers for sex
around the time of the murders.
Donna says, "They were alive
when I let them go."
That statement
really concerned me.
That's just not
a normal statement
that someone would make.
As the interview progressed,
Donna told detectives
she underwent gender transition
to curb aggressive tendencies
when she was a man.
And that led to a confession,
of sorts.
It was apparent that she had
drawn such a significant curtain
in her life
between Doug and Donna,
as marked by that
gender-reassignment surgery,
as to almost make Douglas
a different person in her mind.
This externalization of blame
is seen in the research
with serial K*llers in general.
Donna is actually just
a pretty typical serial k*ller
who targets sex workers,
exhibits very similar patterns,
and so her trans identity
really has nothing to do
with the crime at all.
That argument doesn't persuade
most experts in the field,
and it didn't persuade detectives.
Ultimately, there's no basis
in that defense
and, in fact,
really serves to marginalize
and hurt transgender people
even further,
because she's invoking
a harmful myth
about gender-affirming
surgeries,
that they somehow alter moods
or aggressions, which is false.
Though the DNA under
Kathy Brisbois' fingernails
identified Donna,
it was a confluence of evidence
that finally solved the case.
The blanket found at
Yolanda Sapp's crime scene
also had Donna's DNA.
And now that police
finally had a suspect,
they turned to
the partial fingerprint
lifted from Nickie Lowe's
tube of lubricant.
And it matched Donna Perry,
conclusively linking her
to all three victims.
After two decades,
the case was finally solved.
We, the jury,
find the defendant,
Donna Rebecca Perry,
guilty of the crime of m*rder
in the first degree.
In 2017,
Donna Perry was convicted
of all three murders
and sentenced to
three consecutive life terms.
The genetic evidence
left no doubt
about the k*ller's identity.
Donna committed
those crimes herself,
and any defense that
tries to externalize blame
to some other persona
is not a transgender issue.
That is a serial-k*ller issue.
When I notified Yolanda's family
and Nickie's family
that we had made an arrest,
it was surprising to me how
fresh this was in their memory
and how much this meant to them
and how emotional they got.
And so it was just important
to me
to help bring justice
to these families.
They were good cops.
I think the detectives
that were involved
in these cases originally...
the original investigators
maybe retired or moved on.
Their cases were picked up
by other detectives.
They were dedicated to getting
these cases answered.