01x03 - Vanished on Wall Street

[bunniefuu]

[ambient street noise]

[subway car rumbling]

[suspenseful music playing]

[woman] My mom worked at Two Rector Street
as a cleaning lady.

Her hours were from 5:00 p.m.
to 11:00 p.m.

On July 7th, around 10:30 p.m.,

I get a phone call from her coworker Rosa

asking to see if my mom was home.

I said, "What do you mean?
My mom is not home."

"Isn't she at work?
She's supposed to be at work."

She's like, "No."

They were supposed to take lunch
around 7:00 p.m.

So she was curious that her phone was off.

It was going straight to voicemail
at that time.

[woman] I called my aunts, my uncles.

We actually agreed to rush to her job
to see if we were able to find her.

During the day, I was working
in Two Rector as a security guard.

So I went to the floor
that she was working on.

And I'm screaming her name
throughout the building, the hallways,

and the back of the basement.

I'm trying to listen for anything.

Maybe she was hurt.

Maybe she was somewhere
she can't be heard.

People saw her
coming in the building obviously,

but we do not see her leave.

[woman] We spoke to the security guard
that was there at the moment,

and he said that he didn't see
my mom coming out the building.

So then we started calling the police.

She was nowhere to be found.

[Mooney] Every single case
takes a piece out of your soul.

[Butcher] You cannot do this job
unless you really care.

[McNeely] You want to find out the truth.

That's what detectives do.

[man] I've always liked
the peek behind the curtain.

What really happened?

[Rivera] It's so important for a family
to know who m*rder*d their relative.

That's my job.

[Titus] In New York City, the NYPD...

this is it.

[suspenseful music trails off]

[Titus] When I'm driving
into work every day,

and I'm heading into the city,

you see the whole skyline,

and I would always say to myself,

like, "Wow. I'm in... Homicide detective
in NYPD in New York City."

I grew up in a tough area
in South Jamaica, Queens.

There was drugs.

There was prostitution. There was gangs.

And it was a decision
that I ultimately had to make

that I chose education over the streets

and became a cop.

[low, distressing music playing]

July 8th, 2009, we arrive at work
at eight o'clock in the morning.

The phones are ringing like crazy.
We're getting calls from the 1st Precinct.

We're getting calls from One Police Plaza.

We're getting calls
from the chief of detectives' office.

Everybody's talking about

a missing cleaning woman
in the financial district.

I think the public is kinda consumed

with what takes place
with the stock market hours in that area.

Like, what goes on,
and then the fast pace,

and the great wealth that's transferred,
and things like that.

That's the kind of sexy part of it,
but you have workers behind the scenes.

After the white-collar crowd went home,
there's people that clean.

There's people that mop,
there's people that do repairs,

people that have families,

that are working very hard
to earn a living.

[man] Detectives responded
to Two Rector Street.

We don't have any information
at the very beginning.

All we know is that we have
somebody who did not return home.

[tense, mysterious music playing]

Outside the building, one of the bosses
gathers everybody up

and gives us a brief synopsis
of what's going on.

So we find out that the woman missing
is a woman named Eridania.

Forty-six years old.

She worked from 5:00 to 11:00.

And at some point during her shift,
she vanished.

[man 2] One of the things

that stood out to me
when I got to the building

was that this lady's family was down here

within hours of her
just not being reachable.

You don't see that a lot in New York City.
You can tell they were close-knit.

My sister, she has 17 years over me.

She always came through
and helped out taking care of me.

She was a great sister and a great mother.

She would never leave the family.
It's impossible.

[McNeely] Her family contended
that after she was done,

she would go right home.

So it was, like,
very out of the ordinary for her

to leave work without notifying somebody,

particularly her coworker.

So these raised red flags to everyone.

[Martinez] It was very unlike her
just to disappear like that.

Not answering her phone calls.

I was very worried.

[suspenseful music playing]

I was working there for a year and a half,
and my sister, approximately six months.

I know the building very well.

That evening when she went missing,
we was, like, combing the whole building,

floor by floor.

I even went back to the basement

and... and looked up.

I screamed her name...

but it was so quiet.

[erratic, distressing music playing]

[McNeely] The location
of where she went missing

is in the heart of the financial district.

So naturally, the police department
takes that very seriously.

Any case in Manhattan South,

anything south of 59th Street,

always seems to be amplified.

I knew for sure this thing
was gonna get a lot of media attention.

Her coworkers say that she always
has dinner with them during their shift,

but the last time they saw her
was around eight o'clock,

and she hasn't been seen since.

[McNeely] Basically,
you have to do a search of every floor,

and the building needed to be evacuated.

So everybody, all personnel,

the suits, cleaning personnel,
elevator operators,

anybody that was in there
needed to be out of that building

at the time that this search
was conducted.

There could be a dead body
in the building, and we don't know.

It's a little scary.

[Titus] One of the things
that made the location, Two Rector Street,

so unique for a missing person case

was the fact that it is like
a self-contained environment.

So there are only certain ways out,
certain ways in,

and everything else is just up.

It's definitely a daunting task
to search that building

for anyone or anything,

because it goes up 26 floors.

It was an all-hands-on-deck.

Detectives were brought in
from other commands to help.

Not just the homicide squad
and 1st Precinct detective squad.

There were detectives
from Midtown South, Midtown North.

[Titus] Everybody is involved.

But on top of that,
you have helicopters in the air.

This was a comprehensive sweep
of the entire building, top to bottom,

every nook and cranny.

When they went into her locker,
we found her purse was still there.

I had a mom and four sisters.

And they don't go anywhere
without that purse.

Basically a... an appendage.

So it definitely
set off bells and whistles.

[tense, unnerving music playing]

[Titus] And then
her pushcart and hair clip

were found on the eighth floor.

What was the purpose
of it being on the floor?

Uh, you know, was there a struggle?

Maybe it's some kind of
a sexual as*ault type of thing,

and the person is holding her hostage.

We need to speak to people.

We need to know employees of the building
who work for the building itself.

Who was there during Eridania's shift?

[McNeely] The people working
in the building at the time,

I would categorize them all as witnesses,

or people of interest, if you will.

[Titus] There's a lot of different things
playing in our mind,

but we do know
that time is of the essence.

The longer it takes us to find her,
the less likely she'll be alive.

[dramatic music playing]

[Titus] We knew
that if she left the building,

she would be captured by one of
the many videos at one of the entrances.

[Vergona] There are 32 cameras
that were in this building.

So 32 cameras at eight hours a clip
that you want to review,

that you want to look at,
is a really tedious act to do.

So we sent in our best guy.

Brian MacLeod, known as the "Video God."

[Vergona] He's a fantastic detective.

Brian's... a very quirky fella.

It's an important job.

Not everybody can do it,
and deal with what we deal with.

-[fly buzzing]
-This... I'm gonna squash that fly.

[laughing]

[McNeely] Brian's intense.

When he gets focused,
he liked to put his headphones in,

and he'd listen to heavy metal music.

[heavy metal rock playing]

[MacLeod] Headbanger?

Well, when I was younger,
I had a mullet, so...

[laughs]

I always had my heavy metal music
going at work all day.

[Titus] He just has
the patience and the diligence

to just stay there
and... and stare at a screen for hours.

We knew that if she left the building,

he was gonna find her or anything else
that may have looked suspicious.

You don't wanna miss something.

All you need's that one frame.
You're gonna miss something.

[fly buzzing]

I got it.

[menacing music playing]

[MacLeod] It's boring.

It's time-consuming.

It strains on your eyes.

But I just had the patience for it.

Eridania is seen getting onto an elevator

to go to the upper floors
to start her shift.

Think it was roughly, uh, 5:12 p.m.

But she's not seen again.
She's not seen again on camera.

She's not seen getting off the elevator
at any other time,

and she's not seen leaving that building.

Where is she?

[tense music playing]

[Titus] In order to understand her better,

you do a complete background,
find out about relationships,

whether they had financial troubles,

everything you can
about the, uh... the victim.

We found out from the family that Eridania
was from the Dominican Republic.

My mother was born in Santo Domingo

and came to the United States in 1973.

She married my father, Jeronimo Figueroa,

and she had three kids.

She actually stopped going to school
to basically take care of us.

[somber, touching music playing]

[Martinez] She was a matriarch herself.

Her cooking, it was unbeatable.

I always looked forward to it on
Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Christmas.

It didn't matter what it was,
she always wanted the family together.

This brought back memories of my mom.

She was an immigrant herself from Panama

and found little jobs
until she got her feet planted

to provide for the family and make sure
that we had everything we need.

I can imagine
something happening to my mother

and how I would have to deal with that.

It just made the case very personal.

[Figueroa] I wasn't thinking right.

I was depressed at that moment.
I was panicking.

I was just praying to God
that my mom will walk in any minute.

[mysterious music playing]

With Eridania, we found out
that she was divorced

and later reconnected with her ex-husband.

So we talked to her family.

He was not down at... at Two Rector Street.

So in the back of my head,
I was thinking, "Why isn't he here

if the daughters are all here,
the brother is here?"

He is our very first suspect,

and we need to interview him,
find out what he knows.

[tense, curious music playing]

Besides the husband,
the family said several days earlier

that Eridania was

what she thought was being stalked
by someone that worked in the building.

[erratic music playing]

[Martinez] My sister said
she had a couple of bad vibes.

She mentioned one guy looking at her

when she was taking the elevator
to the floors to clean.

The news reporter
came into the house to interview us.

[reporter] Her kids say her mom
was nervous about a man

who worked also
in that Rector Street office building

and who she believed was stalking her.

He would look at her weird,
and she was nervous.

So while she was cleaning,
he used to stare at her.

She said that someone
was making her scared, following her.

[Vergona] The person did it two times,

but Eridania's daughter had told us

that a couple of days
prior to her being missing,

he tried to speak to her again.

Obviously, the family
is very scared about the situation.

She was very upset and worried
about the situation

that she mentioned it to her family.

I told her give me a chance
to try to get her another job.

And she's like, "Okay."

If it doesn't work in a week,
she was gonna leave.

[tense music pulsing]

It was something she was willing to quit
her job about because she felt unsafe.

And the fact
that it happened multiple times...

Would he as*ault her, take her,
abduct her?

How far is this guy willing to go?

Knowing that the stalker
knows the layout of the building,

and the exits
and entrances of the building.

It's somebody that was there daily

and knew where people went at what times,

what time the building shut down,
what time it opened up,

who was where, when.

It became very important

to identify this person
as soon as possible.

[McNeely] While we're looking
for that guy,

detectives were dispatched
to interview Eridania's husband

and verify his whereabouts.

[officer knocking on door]

His story was that he was working
that evening until about eight o'clock,

at which time he went home
to their apartment.

He was the only one that stayed home
to see if she was to come home.

The detectives were able to verify
his whereabouts and, uh, put it to bed.

[Vergona] At this time, we were confident

that he had nothing to do with
the disappearance of Eridania.

[low, distressful music playing]

[McNeely] Meanwhile,
we were able to contact the stalker.

We brought him upstairs to the squad,
put him in the interview room.

He claimed that he was
playing ping-pong with friends

that evening when Eridania was at work.

And all those people that he claimed
participated in that event,

that were with him, were interviewed too,
thoroughly and in detail.

And they were able to rule him out
as any particular person of interest.

[suspenseful music playing]

Now we needed
to really step up our efforts

and try and locate Eridania,

meticulously, with K9 units.

[Titus] Everybody knows
that when they bring in K9,

if there's something there,
they're gonna find it.

[Vergona] The K9 dogs,
as they came through the 14th floor,

they had two hits in the utility room,

which houses the air conditioning system
and the heating system for the unit.

[McNeely] They had
emergency service personnel,

everybody that you can imagine,
focusing now on that floor.

We were just waiting for the notification
that they found something,

something that we could use,

something that would tell us more
than what we already had.

It was a false hit with the K9 unit.

[distressing music playing]

It's very frustrating.

And you feel for the family
because you know that they're just...

You know, every day that goes by,
every hour that goes by,

their hope is shrinking too, you know?

[Martinez] For every second
that was passing, every minute,

the family is just getting,
like, overwhelmed.

Everybody's scared. Nobody's eating.

Like...

Everybody fears the worst.

[frantic music playing]

[sirens wailing in distance]

[MacLeod] There were so many cameras.
Hundreds of hours' worth of this video.

I've spent hours at work

watching that video surveillance
over and over and over.

Make absolutely sure
that nothing was being missed.

I'm lookin' for evidence,
anything that's suspicious.

And the only individual that was, um...

his behavior was a little off,
was the maintenance guy.

You see him workin' the freight elevator.
Then you see him in the basement.

You see him walking
to his maintenance room,

which is also like his locker area.

Followed every single camera
that he was pictured on

while he was in that building.

And he... he disappeared
for quite a few minutes.

It may have been like 45 minutes or so.

And then all of a sudden,
a little after 8:00,

he's spotted in the basement.

But he's not caught on camera
comin' from the elevators

either in the basement or in the lobby.

The only way he could have gotten there
was from the stairwell.

[menacing music playing]

His behavior on camera was like,
"Hmm, what is going on here?"

We're very suspicious of what is up.

Now we felt it necessary to get him in.

He was definitely now a person of interest
with regard to Eridania's whereabouts.

That person was Joseph Pabon.

I called him,
and he said okay, he would talk to us.

So what I wanted to do was
go back to the precinct

so we can get into
a more controlled environment.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Vergona] Now, when Joseph Pabon came in,

he had said
he was working the freight elevator,

and he was taking the cleaning ladies,

dropping them off at the floors
that they were scheduled to clean at.

He explained that
he dropped her off on the 8th floor...

which is where they found
her cart and hair clip.

And that was the last time he saw her.

[unnerving, erratic music playing]

It was July.

You know, you could sweat in an igloo.
It was so hot.

I have to wear a suit
because I'm a New York City detective.

If I could have a pair of flip-flops on
and a bathing suit and, you know...

I'm all-in.

But he was wearing a...

Like a thermal long-sleeve shirt
and a T-shirt over it.

And I'm thinkin', you know,
"This... This kid's out of his mind."

"He's dressed for a snowball fight,
and it's July."

And that just kept bothering me
the whole time I was talking to him.

Then I said, "Take your shirt off."
We made him take his shirt off.

He had scratches
on the back of his shoulders,

his neck, other parts of his torso.

And I asked him,
"How can you explain them?"

And he said that, on the Tuesday evening
that Eridania was reported missing,

he was charged
with operating the freight elevator

to take this construction crew
up and down.

He claimed that he was helping them off
with these carts with rebar and framing.

So, I'm like, "You're a 32BJ guy.
You're a union guy, right?"

He's like, "Yeah."

And my knowledge is,
coming from a family that...

Union family, people in different unions,

I know if you're tasked with a job
and you do another job, you're in trouble.

You don't touch anything other than
that elevator lever or pressing a button.

I was like, "And you helped these guys
on and off with carts?"

So, to me, that was unfathomable.
I didn't believe that at all for a second.

[mysterious, disturbing music playing]

[Vergona] I tried to implore to him,

"If you did something with her,
or she's somewhere in the building,

let us know where. We'll go get her."

"And maybe we could
bring her back to her family."

And he just maintained
that he didn't do anything.

We interviewed him
a good 14 hours at that point.

We asked him,
"Do you mind giving your DNA?"

And he was okay with giving his DNA.

He swabbed himself.

He was not admitting to any kind of
criminal activity or anything like that.

So we were forced to let him go.

[Vergona] We don't have a body
to charge him,

but I made it known to my supervisors
that we believe that

this guy right now
is the number one person of interest.

And at that time,
we started following Joseph Pabon

and watching his whereabouts

because, possibly,
he could have her somewhere.

He could have her at his house.

He could have her, uh,
at another building or another site.

We put a couple of detectives on him
to follow him around

and just to keep up with his whereabouts.

We wanted to provide


So we set up different shifts.

If he made a right, I made a right.
He made a left, I made a left.

When he went into a diner,
if he stayed in there too long,

we sent someone in
to make sure he was still there,

and we weren't trying to be inconspicuous.

We had no problem with him knowing
that we were following him.

It was like cat-and-mouse game,
us against him.

We weren't gonna lose this.

[sirens wailing in distance]

We've been looking for her
for a couple days now.

We can't find her on the video.

We can't find her
actually leaving the building.

[Titus] We'd looked
at every nook and cranny of the building

from top to bottom, and couldn't find her.

It's like...
It's just not making sense at this point.

So now, not only did we feel deflated,

but that also made our jobs
a whole lot more difficult.

That means that instead of just
Two Rector Street being the place

where all of the investigation
was gonna take place,

it now became New York City.

It just became even bigger.

That means more resources
and a wider-scale investigation.

Because she could be anywhere.

[frantic music swelling]

We decided to expand the video canvass,
or surveillance canvass.

[MacLeod] Do we see her
going up Trinity Street?

Do we see her walking up Greenwich Street?

Do we see her walking
down Rector Street, east or west?

But that wasn't fruitful.

That didn't... We didn't see her.

[Vergona] "How come I can't find them?
What am I missin'?"

"What are we missin' as a collective?"

Because there's so many of us
workin' this case.

[McNeely] During the search,
a bit north of Rector Street was a store,

and we found video of Joseph Pabon
from Tuesday when Eridania went missing.

We were able to get
the receipt from the vendor

that Joseph Pabon had purchased alcohol
inside that establishment.

Possibly Eridania
stumbled upon him drinking.

Maybe a verbal dispute ensued,
and he made it physical.

I like to call it an "oh sh*t" moment.

Like, "Now I gotta cover this up."
So it's reactive.

But we didn't have probable cause
to arrest him.

[Titus] We still don't have a body.

We still don't have an actual crime.

We're gonna just continue following him
like... like we have been.

[mysterious music playing]

We are now looking at areas
where a body could be dumped,

rather than where a person
could run off to.

We thought that maybe she was put
into one of the trash containers.

And they are taken away
by a private sanitation company.

We sent detectives out to Pennsylvania

to sift through the area
in which they dumped all their trash.

[somber, pensive music playing]

[reporter] The family's been through
every emotion this week.

An exhaustive search ensued earlier
when police scoured a landfill

in Pennsylvania where garbage
is dumped from the building.

I couldn't believe it.

My mom was not garbage.

I was just thinking,
"Oh my God, can my mom be there?"

Horrible...

if someone can do that to her.

At the end of the day,
there was no Eridania Rodriguez,

and there was no more evidence

that we could use
to try and find Eridania Rodriguez.

Since they said nobody was found there,
I had a little bit of hope again.

Forty-six-year-old Eridania Rodriguez
has not been seen.

[reporter 2]
Police now believe she is likely dead.

Right now, the family is going through it.
We're waiting for answers.

It turned into a big story.
And when you have a big story,

and you got the press askin',
you know, the police department,

"What's going on here?"

There was a lot of frustration.
Like, "Where the f*ck is she?"

[Titus] The pressure was on.

So many resources were put on this case

that it could not be sustained
at that level.

Other detectives
had to get back to their cases.

Cops have to patrol the streets.

The department was gonna
start pulling resources away from this

to go to other things.

Not only aren't we solving the case,

but it doesn't look good for NYPD.

[MacLeod] Now we start getting
a little bit of heat from our bosses.

We're like, "sh*t," you know?

Chief Matarazzo, who was
the chief of detectives of Manhattan,

had us all in a meeting.

And at one point,
Chief Matarazzo turned to me and goes,

"Hey, John.
Well, you know, what's going on?"

You know, "What do you think?
Where is she?"

I just turned to him and said,
"She's gotta be still in the building."

[unnerving music playing]

He goes, "Let's get
another canvass on that building."

[frantic music pulsing]

Here we go again, searchin' this building.
She did not leave this building.

"Get in there.
Find out where the hell she went."

And they called in ten sergeants
and 100 officers

to search every nook and cranny
of that building,

floor by floor.

[Titus] We were all invested.

We spent so much time with the family,
with the... the whole case.

So we all wanted it
to be a positive outcome.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened.

I got a phone call
from a detective in the 9th Precinct.

He said, "John, I'm on the 12th floor.
I just got off the elevator."

[dog barks faintly]

"You're gonna wanna come up here."

[MacLeod] Floor number 12
was under construction.

Bare-bone walls, you know, just concrete.
No Sheetrock, no furniture.

[Vergona] When I got off the elevator,

the smell on the floor
is the smell of death.

And the detective was like,
"Take a look inside."

And I can see, um,

some blood and residue

coming from the air conditioning duct.

We had ESU and Crime Scene come.

And we opened up
the air-conditioning duct,

and she was inside.

[low, haunting music playing]

Now you know you for sure have a homicide.

The original search,

those dogs weren't making up
the scent they were getting.

The air was passing and rising.

On the second search,
that air duct was shut off,

and the air stayed stagnant where Eridania
was found on the 12th floor.

Unfortunately, there was decomposition,

which made
physical identification, uh... impossible.

But we can make assumptions at that point
that it was Eridania.

She was bound, hogtied,
hands behind her back, mouth duct-taped.

The duct tape,
I remember, wasn't typical duct tape.

It was almost like a caution tape.
Yellow and black.

Oddly enough, Eridania had a crucifix
that she wore around her neck,

and it was in her mouth.

There was a lot of people theorizing

that it might have been
some sort of a ritualistic intent.

When you think about
doing that to a person, and...

Man. He put her
in the air conditioning duct.

Like, you know, who would even think
to go to that extreme?

"That's how I'm gonna hide her."

Medical examiner's office
was just here to remove the body.

Police have been here all day.

We're waiting to hear
who they found in the building.

A lot of us still hope it's not her, but...
I have a bad feeling.

[distressing music playing]

[shallow exhale]

My mom was found.

She was found in an air conditioning vent,

tied up...

like an animal.

[shakily] I'm, like,
banging on the kitchen table,

and my brothers try to hold me down.

It was just nonstop of crying.

How can a person do this to a person...

[voice breaking] ...that all she has done
is always be there for a person?

She was so kind, so loving.

Always bringing joy to everybody.

What did she do to deserve this?

I could imagine her screaming.

Trying to scream for help,

but in that building,
you could scream all you want,

they won't hear you.

I said, "We are absolutely
gonna get justice for your mother."

"Because Eridania didn't deserve
what happened here."

[taut, suspenseful music playing]

[McNeely] I was tasked
with attending the autopsy.

I knew that whatever was found there
was definitely gonna help the case.

Cause of death to start with
and then forensic information.

Sexual as*ault was ruled out.

There were no signs of blunt trauma.
No stabbing. No g*nsh*t wounds.

No skull fractures.

Her hyoid bone was intact.

It wasn't done
with a ligature or anything like that.

Because of the constricted nature
that Eridania was in,

being bound,

her head was kinda pushed forward,
and her neck was down.

She was duct taped,
so she couldn't get a lot of air.

So it was deemed homicidal asphyxiation
was the cause of death.

[Vergona] She was probably alive
when somebody taped her up,

lifted her up off the floor,

put her in the air conditioning duct,
and sealed it back up.

[sputtering] I...

Yeah, it just...

Yeah, like, my heart sunk
because when I was in that basement,

and I looked up, I looked at that vent,

and I screamed her name,
and I'm trying to listen to her.

And obviously,
if she was still alive, she couldn't...

scream back, or say my name,

or scream for help, because...

the tape was...
the caution tape was covering her mouth.

[voice breaking] People say, "It's
not your fault. Don't think that way."

[shuddering breath]

But put yourself in my position.

When it was the last time
I spoke to my sister,

she felt, like, a weird vibe.

And I told her give me a few days
to get her another job somewhere else.

And then this happens.

I guess I dropped the ball
on that one too.

Not letting her quit

and not combing
that vacant spot on the 12th floor.

[McNeely] Fortunately for us,

we still had
a person of interest remaining.

Joseph Pabon didn't have an alibi.

He actually was
in Two Rector Street working

when Eridania was working.

Joseph Pabon was the only person

that had scratches on his body
that weren't properly explained.

[pensive, mysterious music playing]

[MacLeod] During an autopsy,
they take DNA swabs.

They take fingernail clippings

to see if there's any DNA
that doesn't belong to the victim.

The only problem with that is... uh...

It's not like a COVID test
you get back in 15 minutes.

We had to wait for those results,
and we were hopeful

that we were gonna get back
a connection between Joseph Pabon

and the DNA samples
that were taken from Eridania.

[taut, suspenseful music playing]

As we dug deeper on Joseph Pabon,

we found several cases
of domestic violence against women.

In one case, after an altercation
with his ex-girlfriend,

he took a bowling ball
and smashed out the windows of her car.

That kind of made us feel even stronger

that it's possible that this guy
had some kind of breakdown or issue

where he completely lost it with Eridania.

[Vergona] We already initiated
a tail on him after we interviewed him

to make sure that we knew
where he was at all times.

Now we're definitely staying on him
until we get the DNA back

that shows us
beyond a reasonable doubt that that's him.

It would have been a major disaster

if we had lost him,

and the DNA came back,
and we didn't have him.

Here we have a guy
who possibly committed this heinous act.

Tied up this woman, asphyxiated her.

And yet he's living his normal life
as if he did nothing.

But another thing that was also concerning
was that, you know,

if he's had a domestic violence history,
maybe he might attack his new girlfriend.

[suspenseful music continuing]

On July 17th, I receive a call
that the DNA came back.

And it's... it's looking like
two-billion-to-one that it's Joseph Pabon.

When we got the arrest warrant,

I made a phone call
to Al Titus and told him,

"It's a go. Time to arrest him."

[Titus] He lived in Staten Island.

He pulled off the main street
and went into one of the backstreets.

We surrounded him.

Came out with our g*ns out

and told him to stop the car.

[sirens wailing]

When we finally pull out Pabon
and arrest him,

his girlfriend was in the car too.

She may not have realized it
at the moment,

but at some point,
I'm sure she realized, like,

"Wow, I was living with a k*ller."
You know?

We possibly saved her
from being the next victim.

It was a great conclusion
to a long, drawn-out case

that allowed us to get the guy,
which was good,

to get Pabon off the street.

[Martinez] When we finally got the news

saying they arrested Joseph Pabon
on m*rder charges,

and everybody's screaming with happiness
and crying,

I was just...

I was happy, but...

When we got off the phone
with the investigator,

we was asking questions.

Like, "Why would he do
something like this?"

I've been working with this guy
for a year and a half.

Always conversed.
He always said good morning to me.

He always talked to me at the front desk,
always did his job.

I had never had a problem with him.

I never did anything to him

for him to, like,
do any harm to my sister.

I didn't think he was my enemy.
He was my coworker.

[somber, determined music playing]

[McNeely] He's brought back,

placed in a cell
in the 1st Precinct detective squad.

Everybody's f*ck' psyched.

I was chomping at the bit.
I wanted another crack at him.

I wanted him to admit what he did.

It was personal at that point to me.

Unfortunately,
he invoked his right to counsel,

and we never got a crack.

But at the trial,
Joseph Pabon was convicted

and sentenced to 25 years to life.

And, uh...

that's a fate he definitely deserves.

[Figueroa] When they mentioned
that he was guilty,

I just broke down.

We all broke down.

He wasn't sorry.

He was laughing while looking at us.

That really broke my heart.

It took every... every strength from...

every little bit of me in my gut
not to rush straight to him.

I just wanted to punch him,
like, in the back of his head.

I wanted to, like, choke him out.

[Figueroa] Pabon never answered
the question why he did this.

To this day,
we're still waiting for that answer.

What was the purpose?
Did my mom did anything to him?

Did she say anything that made him upset?

Why?

[Vergona] I just think he snapped.

I think he had a moment of anger.

Like he had
in the other prior issues with women.

[solemn, mournful music playing]

[Martinez] She fought for her life.
I know she did.

During her last moments,
I know she was very scared.

But she's gone.

She's not coming back.

My life hasn't moved on.

I have it in the pit of my stomach.

Like, I still, to this day,
don't get what happened.

Like, he altered the family,
like... like, forever.

Investigating this case,
and seeing them, and their grief, and...

all the work we put into this
to eventually find the guy who did it...

You know, it'll stay...

That'll stay with me forever.

[somber, dramatic music playing]

I remember growing up thinking of NYPD

as the biggest g*ng in New York City.

But after working with them
for so many years,

I realized that it's more of a family.

There's not enough understanding
of what the police do.

They're not this occupying force.

And the community
are not these bunch of savages

that we have to go attack.

So a couple of years after the trial,

I retired with the goal of doing my best
to bring the two entities together.

I went from Detective Titus
to Doctor Titus,

teaching at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice...

An arrest is removing someone's freedom.

...working with future law enforcement.

Hear all of the facts and the evidence,

and then determine
whether or not an individual is guilty,

not just based on their looks
or some kind of stereotypical bias that...

My goal is to get you to understand

that there's
a lot of different perspectives.

Some are like yours.
Some are very different from yours.

And when you go into law enforcement,
you have to acknowledge that.

You can't treat them differently
because they're from a different place.

So the students can understand
this is the world they're going out into.

And that's what's important to me.

Work for the common good of everyone,

to make the world
a better and safer place.

[somber music continuing]

[distorted audio warping]

[Parrino] I think survival guilt
from September 11th

is what motivates me
to go to the Middle East.

I was a contractor with the Marine Corps.

And my last tour in Afghanistan,

I got a call telling me that they were
gonna reopen the Howard Pilmar case.

[cryptic music playing]

[man] He was m*rder*d in the office.

I knew no one that would want him dead,

that would want him m*rder*d like that.

There's very few cases that I continue
to think about because they're unsolved,

but the Pilmar case,
I'd still be thinking about years later.

We were almost there.

I think every detective has a case

that has eluded them
for some reason or another,

and it becomes
the Moby-d*ck of their careers.

Howard was slaughtered.
He was slaughtered like a pig in a pen,

like an animal.

[dramatic outro music pulsing]