01x05 - East Harlem Serial k*ller

[bunniefuu]

[ambient street noise]

[pensive guitar music playing]

[Wagner] In the '90s, East Harlem,

a series of murders and r*pes
were taking place in the neighborhood.

[foreboding music playing]

All of the victims
were innocent young girls

found strangled and stabbed.

[Plansky] "Serial K*llers."
That phrase gets thrown around a lot.

He was one of them.

[foreboding music swells]

We created a task force

with some of the very best detectives
I've ever worked with.

We had a very bad person
in East Harlem that needed to go.

[Plansky] I don't think I've ever
wanted something more in my entire life

than to get justice for those people.

[foreboding music trails off]

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

[suspenseful music playing]

[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]

[vibrant, energetic salsa music playing]

[Rivera] I worked in Spanish Harlem.

I was assigned there in '83
as a rookie cop on patrol.

East Harlem was a very big
Hispanic community,

and I was the only female Hispanic
in my precinct when I got there.

[Wagner] I spent
a lot of my career in East Harlem.

The vibe is incredible.

There's always music
in the background, 24/7.

[vibrant salsa music continuing]

I worked in that neighborhood in uniform,
then six years in plain clothes,

before I got into the detective bureau.

I loved working in that neighborhood.

When I was a rookie cop in uniform,

I was working on a foot post
in Spanish Harlem.

It was a completely vibrant place.
There's always people doing something.

Good things, for the most part.

[train rumbling]

[warped audio distorting]

[Wagner] On June 2nd,
my phone rang at about 6:30.

We had a homicide.

Project building in East Harlem.

[tense, erratic music playing]

When I got to the crime scene,
the victim was in the stairwell.

She looked to be 19 to 20,
a light-skinned Black female.

It was a hub of activity.

You have the uniformed members
that are securing the scene.

You have the Crime Scene Unit,
which gather physical evidence.

There was no signs of blunt force trauma,
no stab wounds, no g*nsh*t wounds.

We surmised
that she had to be asphyxiated.

[Plansky] There was no identification.

No school ID card,
driver's license, or anything like that.

So the detectives canvassed the building.

[Wagner] We took Polaroid pictures
of her face

so we could show everyone in the building
that we knocked on their door.

"Do you recognize this young lady?"

We had gotten in contact
with a person in every apartment.

It's a 20-story building,
maybe ten apartments on a floor.

We had no luck.

She obviously didn't live there.
She wasn't seeing anyone that lived there.

[tense music pulsing]

When we checked to see if the precinct
had any missing person reports filed

in the prior 36 hours,

we came upon this one that fit
the general description of our victim.

The young woman who'd been reported
missing the night before by her family

was Rasheda Washington.

I remember
a team of detectives went to her family

with the Polaroid photo.

[somber music playing]

It's not easy.

It's never easy.

How could this even happen?

[stifles sob]

She was just stolen from us.

It's hard to function
'cause you just don't even remember.

'Cause it's like you're just
walking around like you're in a dream.

[woman] I just kept screaming and crying.

"They k*lled my baby.
They k*lled my baby."

[man] Rasheda was my twin sister.

Being a twin is like
y'all got a special bond

the minute y'all come in this world.

Being that we was born together,
I thought we would die together.

Family was able to provide us with
a complete background on their daughter.

Rasheda and her brother
were born and raised in New York.

[Racquel] When Rasheda graduated
from high school,

she was accepted
to Fashion Institute of Technology,

one of the top schools for fashion.

We graduated June 15th, 1997.

She was just excited.

She was a typical 18-year-old
going through college and had a job.

[woman] She had a plan for herself,
she had a plan for her life,

and she was going after it.

[voice breaking]
At 18 years old, you don't...

you don't think you're gonna lose somebody
so close to you, and so tragically.

She was this vibrant and amazing person.

And she was just gone.

[Wagner] What we learned
was she was a good student,

good daughter, good sister.
They were a tight family.

[pensive, somber music playing]

[Butcher] This was a homicide.

Autopsy revealed
that she died by asphyxiation.

Chest compression
as well as neck compression.

We learned at autopsy
that she was sexually assaulted.

Biological fluids
and DNA were found on the victim.

The DNA profile developed
was compared to databases,

but they didn't match to anyone
in the national database

or any suspects at the time.

[Rivera] When I worked
for Special Victims Unit,

I saw cases where the r*pe
is not for sexual gratification.

A lot has to do with hate,
anger towards the women,

or men, or children, whoever they r*pe.

Sexual as*ault and strangulation
are about power and control.

It says a lot about the k*ller.

They're weak, and this is a way
for them to feel strong.

[tense music playing]

[Plansky] In 1998, I was coming off
of the Central Park homicide.

Pretty early on,
there was a high degree of collaboration

between the police and the assistant DAs

because we recognized
that we both needed each other.

[Butcher] The DA is in everything.

They hear every single aspect
of the case in all its horror.

[Planksy] I was assigned
to that Rasheda Washington case.

Everybody wanted to solve this
as quickly as possible.

[steady ticking]

[Wagner] Rasheda Washington
lived on 1st Avenue with her family

in a development called 1199 Plaza.

She was found eight blocks away from home.

So we're trying to develop
a timeline to narrow things down.

The last time that anybody
saw Rasheda alive was at around 9:30.

-[Racquel] She was working at Express.
-[Helen] On 34th Street.

-[Racquel] On 34th Street.
-Yes.

-She used to be home at about ten o'clock.
-Yeah, ten o'clock at night.

[Plansky] She'd finished for the day,
said her goodbyes to her coworkers,

and headed, they believed, to the subway,
which is what she did every night.

[Wagner] She would normally
get off the subway

at East 110th Street and Lexington Avenue,

and then walk from Lexington to 1st,
to her apartment building.

We knew she lived on 1st Avenue,
about 109th Street.

The security guard was found
that worked that shift.

They recalled seeing her every night,
but not this night.

We knew her body was found


eight blocks away from home.

How did she get to the stairwell
on the 15th floor at 1345 5th Avenue?

Nobody really knew.

[unsettling music playing]

She was pretty much a homebody.

She went to school, went to work.
She had never stayed out all night. Never.

We couldn't understand

how she ended up
in the location she was found in.

I remember, um, specifically being asked,

"Was there anyone maybe

when we were hanging out
in the neighborhood that caught your eye?"

And I couldn't think of anything.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Racquel] Rasheda did have a boyfriend.

When she didn't come home that night,
I'm like,

"Did she decide to spend the night out
or do something out of the norm?"

Detectives asked me
if I knew of her boyfriend, and I said,

"Yes, I knew him. I saw them together.
I spent time with them."

So I had zero inkling
that he would do anything like that,

or harm Rasheda at all.

I said, "What's his name?
Where does he live?"

We talked to him.

There was nothing that came out
of that interview with her boyfriend

that led us to believe
that he was in any way responsible.

He was pretty distraught.

[Wagner] We talked to everyone she knew.

Did she have acquaintances,
schoolmates, or coworkers that were shady,

that could have gotten her involved
in something that resulted in her death?

But these kids she associated with,
they had a goal in life,

and they were going for it as she was.

And it was nice to hear,
but it was also frustrating,

the fact that
it didn't provide us any leads.

All the businesses in the neighborhood

had flyers in the window to see
if we could generate any tips calls.

[unsettling music playing]

We didn't know if she was kidnapped
at some point in time

or she went willingly with someone.

You're looking for these idiosyncrasies.

You're looking for something
that jumps out off the page at you,

to help you.

We had nothing.

We were basically stuck in the mud.

We had no leads.

[foreboding music playing]

[Plansky] Months after
the Rasheda Washington homicide,

a 15-year-old girl
was coming home to her family

at the Paladino houses.

She goes to the elevator,
presses the button for the elevator.

A man comes up behind her.

He threatens her with a knife.

He forces her into a stairwell.

He r*pes her.

He steals her jewelry.
And then he leaves her.

[sirens wailing]

Police respond.

In that stairwell,
the police find two things.

A FUBU sweatshirt and a baseball cap.

And this 15-year-old girl
immediately tells them,

"That guy was wearing
those articles of clothing."

"He had on that sweatshirt.
He had on that ball cap."

They sent that FUBU sweatshirt,
baseball cap, and the r*pe kit

to the medical examiner's office
for forensic analysis.

[tense, curious music playing]

On January 6th, 1999,

we got a notification
from the medical examiner's office,

and that changed everything.

There was no physical evidence
on the sweatshirt or the ball cap.

But DNA from the semen
found in Rasheda Washington's body

matched the semen that was recovered
from the Paladino r*pe victim.

It was the same person
responsible for both crimes.

[focused, inquisitive music playing]

[Wagner] It was an uplifting moment,

because now we can connect
the cases together,

but it was frustrating in the fact that

we still don't know
who this individual is.

[Plansky] Two weeks later, we got a call
from the medical examiner's office that

another young woman
in the same area was r*ped.

She was 13 years old.

Terrified, threatened with a knife,

blindfolded with an article
of her own clothing.

Sexually assaulted and robbed
in a very dark stairwell.

A r*pe kit was taken,
and the evidence in that r*pe kit

matched the Paladino r*pe case
and the Rasheda Washington m*rder.

The victims were all similar in stature,
similar in age.

They were petite, young,
Hispanic or light-skinned Black.

And also they were all
in pretty close proximity.

[Plansky] So now we have pattern.

This is a serial r*pist
and m*rder*r who's out on the street.

The investigation really took on
a lot of momentum.

We kicked into overdrive.

The 15-year-old girl
that was r*ped in the Paladino houses,

that became the name of the task force.

The Paladino task force
was sort of an Island of Misfit Toys.

We had some folks from the DA's office,

John Irwin and myself,

and a real array of characters
who happen to be amazing detectives.

There was Scott Wagner,

one of the most passionate detectives
I've ever worked with.

We had Rob Mooney.
He can be very empathetic.

He's excellent with victims.

I met Bob Mooney in a bar.

I used to hang out in a bar
called Phebe's on the Bowery.

[Mooney] She was talking to somebody else
on the other side of her,

and the conversation was in Spanish.

After a while, she realized,
'cause Irma's extremely perceptive,

that I looked like I was listening.

I could see it coming.
I looked at her, and said...

[in Spanish] "Take it easy, sweetheart."

"It's very dangerous when you don't know
who you're talking to."

[in English] And she's like,
"What the f*ck?"

I was like, "Wow, you speak Spanish?"

You look at Bob Mooney,
you'd never think he speaks Spanish,

'cause he's 6'3", male, white, Irish.

He worked in a predominantly Hispanic,
Dominican neighborhood.

He'd have two perps
in the back seat of the car.

They'd be talking amongst each other,

saying where they hid the g*n,
where they hid the drugs.

Bob would be understanding
everything they said.

[Wagner] I was a precinct detective,
but when the task force was formed,

we were all taken away from
our regular duties on the precinct level,

and we were only working on
these sets of cases.

The surviving r*pe victims
sat down with the NYPD sketch artist,

and a composite sketch
from their description

was drawn and made into a flyer.

[Mooney] It was on every store window,
telephone poles.

We plastered East Harlem with copies.

There was a tip line attached to it.

It's unfortunate that the media
didn't get involved in this.

They only got involved in it
when we called them

to try to generate some coverage

that maybe someone somewhere
would read a paper with our picture in it.

[Plansky] I feel like if the victims

weren't young Black and Hispanic girls,

the media would've been more interested.

It is upsetting.

We don't care
whether the victim is Black or brown,

or whether the perp is Black or brown,
or whether they're white.

We had a very bad person
in East Harlem that needed to go.

I'm gonna do the best I can to make sure
this person is going to pay for it.

[Plansky] Eight months after the m*rder
of Rasheda Washington,

a call comes into the tip line.

[Wagner] It was from a female,

an anonymous tipster who said
that the word on the street

is that Ace was responsible
for the murders and r*pes

that were taking place
in the neighborhood.

The nickname "Ace"
sounded very familiar to me.

[Mooney] Scott remembered
a cold case that he had in the 2-3,

shot back to the precinct,
grabbed the folder,

came back to the homicide squad,
and was like, "I think this is the guy."

[bleak, mysterious music playing]

September 10th of '97,
I had caught a homicide.

Hispanic girl.

She was about 19, found on the roof
of 218 East 104th Street.

She was burned over 90% of her body.

I interviewed Arohn Malik Kee.

A lot of people know him as "Ace."
You know, that's his nickname.

His phone number
comes up on her telephone records.

I wanted to interview him.

He told me that he and his girlfriend
were friends of the victim.

They were supposed to get a bite to eat.

He said that, uh, she never showed up.

He called her, they were supposed to meet,
she never came.

He answered every question I put to him.

He showed no outward signs of
the things we learn about body language,

the things we pick up in doing interviews
on a daily basis over a number of years,

the tells that people have
when they're lying.

There was nothing
I could put my finger on.

But when the interview concluded,
I asked him,

"Do you mind if I take
a Polaroid picture of you?"

He says, "Fine. No problem."

[jarring, tense music playing]

I went back into my paperwork,
and in the photo,

he was wearing a gray sweatshirt
with the FUBU logo on it.

The same sweatshirt
left at the scene of one of the r*pes.

It looked like the composite
was drawn from my Polaroid.

The sketch that was prepared,

it was an absolutely
uncanny resemblance to Arohn Kee.

While that doesn't qualify
as identification or probable cause,

it certainly gives us
a direction to move in.

Arohn Kee is the only suspect
at that point.

[tense music continuing]

[Plansky] They run a rap sheet
on the name Arohn Kee,

and they see he's got
a history of robbery and burglary.

One of the detectives
from the 23rd Precinct

saw the way
that the first name was spelled.

A-R-O-H-N, sort of an uncommon spelling.

He was like, "Well, what about this case?"

And he ran,
and he got the Paola Illera case.

[Plansky] He said,
"I think this is part of the pattern."

And he walked us through it.

[Butcher] January of 1991.

A little 13-year-old girl
named Paola Illera

was walking home from school
in the late afternoon.

[Plansky] Her family lived
at 420 East 111th Street,

on the 30th floor.

She buzzed in the lobby to be let in.

Then after a few minutes,
they realized, "Where's Paola?"

Somewhere between
the lobby and the 30th floor, she's gone.

[woman in Spanish] Around 4:30,
my mom calls me and says,

"Paola hasn't shown up."

My brother-in-law thought it was odd,
so he called the police.

When I arrived, there was this confusion.
I would go all over looking for her.

[in English] While Paola's mother
was frantically searching

and wondering where her child was,

a man walking his dog along the East River
near the pedestrian bridge

found the body of a small girl stabbed,

strangled, assaulted, r*ped.

That little girl was Paola Illera,

found just ten blocks from her home.

[in Spanish]
I had hope that she was still alive.

Then my brother-in-law says,
"Olga, Paola is dead."

And I screamed and said, "That's a lie."

"Why are you lying to me?
Why are you doing this to me?"

That's when my brother came in
and said, "It's true."

"She's dead."

[shudders]

[mournful music playing]

[in English]
Right after Paola's body was discovered,

detectives had canvassed the entire
building of 420 East 111th Street,

which is where Paola lived,
and literally knocked on every door.

One of the doors they knocked on
was apartment 1910,

and the person that they spoke to
was a guy named Arohn Warford.

When they showed him the picture of Paola,

he said, "Yeah, I saw her.
I got on the elevator with her."

[Wagner] He got off on his floor.

And she continued up in the elevator.
That's what his statement was.

[Plansky] At the time, he's got a record
for robbery and burglary,

but not violent crime.

They found him to be open,
and believed he was honest,

very forthcoming, charming.

Did not think that somebody like that
could've been responsible for that m*rder.

[Mooney] She lived
in the same building as Arohn,

but there was no evidence
connecting them past that.

[low, suspenseful music playing]

[Plansky] The detectives tried
to collect forensic evidence.

They did find a variety of hairs
on her tights under her jeans.

[Wagner] The unknown hair that was found
was sent to the forensics lab.

At the time,

they were able to just type the hair

by saying it was from a male Black.

That's all they were able to say.

[Plansky] The detectives,
at least at that time,

didn't have a lot to work with,
and there were no leads.

That case was unsolved.

After we went through Paola's case,

we realized that the last person
to see Paola Illera alive,

way back in 1991 during a canvass,

was this fellow named Arohn Warford.

Another detective in the task force,
he goes,

"Scotty, what apartment
does Arohn Kee live in?" I told him.

He goes, "Well, that's the same apartment
for Arohn Warford."

We ran Arohn Warford
through the NYPD database.

We were able to get a connection to Kee.

[Plansky] Cynthia Kee
was Arohn Kee's mother.

Warford turns out to be
Arohn Kee's father's surname.

Those revelations...

"Oh my God. Arohn Warford,

who's Arohn Kee,
was the last person to see Paola alive."

"Oh my God, Arohn Kee was the last person

to speak to the victim in the 1997 case
before she disappeared."

It made your head spin.

We knew this was bad, but after those
two murders became part of the pattern,

this may be even worse than we thought.

I can tell you with confidence, as someone
who was prosecuting crimes in Manhattan,

that there were plenty of sex crimes.

Not just in East Harlem.
All over the city.

But serial K*llers, fortunately,
they are really rare.

And in that moment,
it was clear that he was one of them.

Everybody's blood pressure goes up.
Everybody starts wanting to do a dance.

"Let's go get this guy."

But we had to exercise restraint
because there were loopholes.

We had to close them all
before we were gonna put him in handcuffs.

We really, really needed
a DNA sample from him

that we knew was his

that we could compare
to the crime scene samples.

So the question is, "How do you get it?"

One way to get DNA legally
is abandoned property, and we thought,

"What if we put Kee under surveillance,
and followed him around,

and waited for him
to spit on the sidewalk?"

"Waited for him to get a cup of coffee
and toss it in the garbage?"

We could connect some article
that had touched his body

to, hopefully,
a DNA sample from that article,

and then compare that
to the crime scene samples.

We even had a specialized unit
from the NYPD

put a pinhole camera outside his door
so we could see him coming and going.

We'll never know this for sure,

but our suspicion was that
he understood that he was being followed.

For a period of about a week,

Arohn Kee didn't throw anything
on the sidewalk.

But on February 8th,
he did go and commit another crime

that was completely different

from the crimes
that we were investigating him for.

Arohn's also a serial larcenist.

He was into electronics
and he was into computers.

He went
to a big-box type electronics store.

He bought a new computer.

He put an old computer
in the packaging for the new computer,

and then he tried to return it
as the new computer.

He would say, "You sold me, this broke,
and I want my money back."

And it fooled precisely nobody.

They called the police
from Midtown North Precinct.

They came and picked him up,
put him under arrest.

After we got over the surprise
that this has actually happened,

we realized this was a really good
opportunity to get a DNA sample from Kee.

[Mooney] Joel Potter and I
drive to Midtown North, where he was.

Unfortunately,
he had already been cut loose.

He had been arraigned and sent on his way.
They couldn't hold him.

Potter talks to the cop assigned
to cell duty that night, and he goes,

"Did you feed these prisoners tonight?"
He goes, "Yeah."

"Did they get coffee cups?"
He goes, "Yep."

So he went and collected

every single coffee cup
that was in the cells

and took them.

[Plansky] We rushed to get that evidence
to the medical examiner's office.

They dropped everything
and started testing.

Today, it takes a matter of minutes.

Seventy-two hours back then.

But we had some comfort 'cause we thought,

"We have the pinhole camera
and we have him under surveillance."

[suspenseful music playing]

On February 12th,
the results come back in.

The good news is that there is a match.

One of those cups
was the source of the DNA profile

that matched the crime scene samples.

The bad news is that the cell
that Arohn Kee was in by himself,

that cup did not match
the crime scene samples.

And we were absolutely perplexed.

We could not figure out why.

We found the person in the cell
next to Kee.

We interviewed him.

We asked him about the guy
in the cell next to him.

And he said,
"That guy was a pain in the a*s."

"He kept banging on my cell,
and finally I said,

'Well, what do you want?'
And he said, 'Switch cups with me.'"

And he did.

That gentleman consented to give us
a sample of his DNA, an oral swab.

That DNA matched
the cup in Arohn Kee's cell.

So, he was 100% telling the truth.

[Mooney] It was elation for everybody,
'cause, like,

"Okay, the last little piece
of mystery here

is now not a mystery any longer."

[Plansky] We made a judgement
combined with the other pieces of evidence

that we had linking Kee to those crimes.
It's time to go and arrest him.

But we were too late.

[cryptic music playing]

He was very clever.

He knew about the pinhole camera,
tore it out, destroyed it,

shook surveillance, disappeared.

[Wagner] We're dealing with
someone dangerous.

Could possibly have a g*n, a weapon.
We don't know.

We had worked all through that night
into the next day trying to locate him.

We learned that he had
a girlfriend from Brooklyn.

Her name was Angelique.

She was 16.

So we end up getting in touch
with Angelique's mother.

Arohn Kee picked up her daughter,
and she went with him willingly.

The mother had no idea
where they were going.

Arohn Kee was 28, 29 at the time,
but he looked much younger.

You could see
how he could make a parent comfortable.

He's got a great smile. He's polite.
He's taking your daughter out for a date.

They would have had
really no reason whatsoever

to be suspicious
that anything was gonna happen.

But he was a serial m*rder*r and r*pist.

That 16-year-old girl with Arohn Kee,
she was absolutely his type.

And we were very, very worried
that she was gonna be his next victim.

[dark, overwhelming music playing]

[Mooney] The level of intensity
to get Arohn Kee was enormous.

And now this was all over the news media.

[reporter] Police say
DNA tests connect him

to the m*rder of 17-year-old
Rasheda Washington and two r*pes.

He's also suspected of two other murders

and feared to have kidnapped 16-year-old
Angelique Stallings of Brooklyn.

[Plansky] We learned
that Kee had a lot of girlfriends.

The next day,
the mother of one of Kee's girlfriends,

who lived in the same building as Kee,

she saw news reports, and stepped up,

and reached out to help us.

She told us that he viewed her
as a motherly sort of figure.

In fact, he... he called her "Mom."

-[phone ringing]
-She was in communication with Kee.

He was calling her.

[Mooney] I went to her house.

She gives me the telephone number
that came up on her caller ID.

So I immediately get the tech guys
to trace that call,

and it went back to a payphone

that was in front of a place called
the Miami Sun Hotel in downtown Miami.

The first flight out next morning,
we're on a plane going to Miami.

[tense, frantic music playing]

We had the Miami Police Department
already alerted to the location.

[Mooney] We go to the Miami Sun Hotel,

and we set up
to watch the front of the building

in hope that he comes out.

Not five minutes later,
here he comes waltzing down the street.

And, thank God, he had Angelique with him.

So we go charging
into the lobby of the hotel,

but he's already gone upstairs.

I start to go up the stairs.

The sergeant from Miami homicide squad
looks at me and goes, "Where you going?"

I said, "We're gonna go get him."
He goes, "Oh, no."

"We're gonna call the SWAT team in."

[siren wailing]

In a matter of minutes,

there were sn*pers
on the roofs of two adjoining buildings

and a helicopter
flying over the top of the place.

And here comes this Miami SWAT team,
carrying long r*fles.

On the radio, I can hear them going,

"All right, nothing on the second floor.
All right, nothing on the third floor."

Minutes later,
this lieutenant is coming down the stairs,

and he's got Arohn in handcuffs.

Good evening.

A seedy Miami hotel is the end of the road
for a m*rder and r*pe suspect on the run.

Police tell us they have linked him
to at least one m*rder and two r*pes...

[Mooney] And I look at Arohn Kee.
He literally starts to cry.

And he goes, "I'm sorry, man."

I did want to be the one
to physically take him into custody,

especially since he had
basically gotten over on me

September of '97 in my homicide
of the girl burned on the roof.

But not everyone
can be the actual arresting officer.

That doesn't mean
you're not part of a team.

We were.
And I was very relieved. Very relieved.

We were thrilled that he was in custody.

Even happier
that his girlfriend was alive.

Within half an hour,
John and I were making reservations

to go down and join Rob Mooney in Miami.

Now it's time to try to interrogate Arohn.

[somber, inscrutable music playing]

Another detective and I go into the room.

We start to talk to him,
and he's thoroughly unresponsive.

Like, will not make a sound,
no matter what I say to him.

He's just silent.

I was pushing him on Rasheda,
and on the other case that Scott had,

and I was pushing him on the r*pe cases,

and he's like, "I don't know
what you're talking about. Wasn't me."

And I said, "Look, we got your DNA."

"Here's how we got it.
Here's where it was."

"This... This isn't a guess.
This isn't an accident."

He asked for a lawyer
and he put his head down on the table.

That was the end. Never said another word
for the rest of the night.

[intense, focused music playing]

It's late.
It's probably 11:00 or midnight.

Angelique Stallings, the girlfriend
that he took with him to Miami,

is in the station house with us.

My partner comes to me,
and he says, "Listen."

"Angelique wants to go in there
and say goodbye to him."

I go, "She's a 16-year-old kid.
He's a murdering r*pist."

I'm... I'm thinking
that this is not a good idea.

I... I'm gonna vote no on this one.

But John and Rich
were part of the conversation,

and they were like, "Nah, let her go."

And so Angelique
went into the room with him.

As soon as he saw her, she says to him,

"Boo, wh... what did you do?"

And he spews everything.

He confesses to every single crime to her.

[Plansky] He told his girlfriend
that he was sorry.

That he had urges.

That he couldn't control these urges,
and it would make him do things.

She was understandably confused by that

and deeply, deeply traumatized

by what had happened with Kee.

But this was a really smart kid.

Very composed for a kid her age

who had found herself in this situation

that, thankfully, very few humans
ever find themselves in.

[Mooney] Thank God that he spewed
every single thing out to her.

Everybody was extremely elated.

[Plansky] The significance
of what he said was pretty clear.

I think it's one of the few times
in which he told the truth.

We knew Angelique Stallings
was gonna be extremely important at trial.

The case kind of began all over again
once he was apprehended,

because now there's extradition
back to New York.

We have to prepare now for a court case.

And this is a huge case.

[Plansky] As we're moving ahead
with the case and preparing for trial,

the girl whose mom had helped us

track and trace Kee
on his way down to Miami

told us that he had mentioned
raping a girl in 1998

and another young woman back in 1994

in a housing project
in the same general area as the others.

They matched DNA
that was found in those cases to Arohn.

[Planksy] While Arohn Kee's DNA
matched the Rasheda Washington m*rder

and the four r*pe cases,

there was no physical evidence
that connected him to Paola's case.

We went and got an order

to compel Kee
to provide us with hair samples.

[Butcher] Mr. Kee was brought to me
at the medical examiner's office.

And I explained to him
what I was going to do.

And he looked up at me...

like that, like Princess Diana.

And he said, "That's okay, ma'am.
Do what you have to do."

Arohn Kee was relatively handsome.

Arohn Kee was charming.

Arohn Kee was intelligent.

They were his weapons
to seduce young girls

and k*ll young girls.

He was a very dangerous man.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Plansky] We did
DNA analysis of Kee's hairs

against the hairs that were recovered
from Paola's body.

And they were an exact match.

Now we have an indictment
with three murders and four r*pes.

[Wagner] Mooney and I
were gonna return him to Rikers Island.

I hadn't seen him since I interviewed him
in person back in '97.

He recognized me right away.
He was very cordial to me.

Had the pleasure
of putting my handcuffs on him.

We put him in the car.
I rode in the back with him.

Rob Mooney drove.

And I said, "You know, Ace,



"You'll be serving life in Attica."

"And I'm gonna come visit you one day,

and you're gonna tell me
what really happened."

And then he started laughing.

He said, "You know, Wagner,
they're not gonna convict me."

"We'll see each other."
He says, "I'll buy you dinner."

[Plansky] At the point in time
that Kee was arrested in Miami,

it had been ten years

that Olga had been wondering
what happened to her daughter.

[Illera in Spanish] Every year,
I would put up posters that said,

"If anyone has information,
please say something."

When I found out, I just thanked God

for allowing me to know who had done this.

Arohn Kee is a monster.

[in English] That was an answered prayer.

If they didn't stop him,
there would've been another one,

and no other daughter's life
needs to be taken.

[Mooney] In the process
of trial preparation,

it's an intensely difficult time
for the prosecutors.

In this case, you're talking about
millions of documents.

You're talking about 140-plus witnesses.

It's a daunting task.

Rich would go for a whole day
and not eat a single thing all day long.

I lost 20 pounds.

How do you not do
everything you possibly can

to get those families what they deserve?

[harsh, ominous music playing]

We called close to 140 witnesses.

Those four surviving victims were

the absolute picture of courage.

They were still teenagers.

Certainly, this was not
an easy experience for any of them.

They all did incredibly well.

And it was really important
for the jury to see

the... the human cost
of what this guy had done.

[in Spanish] The first time
that I saw Arohn Kee at the trial,

I wanted to jump on top of him.
I wanted to end him.

I always sat here in the same spot,
and they had him over there.

I was always where I could see him well.

When there was a recess
and they would take him away,

he would stop in the doorway,

and he would turn around and look at me.

And it was like he was telling me,

"You are not going to be able to prove
that I k*lled your daughter."

[Planksy in English] Against the advice
of his lawyers, Kee decided to testify.

He was on the stand for three days.

The gist of Kee's testimony
was this amazing sci-fi tale

of how he had stumbled onto
an ill*gal organ harvesting scheme

run by the Medical Examiner's Office
of New York City,

which is why we were all framing him
for these murders and r*pes,

to get him out of the way.

I can honestly say
I've never seen anything like it.

He's looking right at the jury.

And he sits out there
and calmly starts to say,

"I didn't k*ll Paola."

"I didn't k*ll the victim from '97."

"I didn't k*ll Rasheda."

"I didn't r*pe those girls."

You can see all of the tools

that he had used so effectively
all of these years to con people.

He was exhibiting them.

He... He creates a great first impression.

The jury was out for three days.

When deliberations take three days,
it makes you worry.

And you could hear raised voices,

and you could sort of see
on the faces of the court officers

that the deliberations
were contentious at times.

And your mind immediately goes
to the 25 things that you wish you did.

It's a really...
It's a really helpless feeling.

You don't bullshit
families of homicide victims.

So we wanted to be straight with them,

like we always had tried to be.

But we also didn't want
to cause unnecessary alarm,

even though I think
we were pretty alarmed.

A court officer came out,
and he made this sign,

which in that world means,
"We have a verdict."

And I just remember... [sighs]

Like, "Oh my God, it's here."
Like, "This is... It's about to be over."

The court clerk begins
going through the charges.

"As to count one
for the m*rder of Rasheda Washington."

"m*rder in the first degree."

"How do you find?"

[intense music swelling, trailing off]

And the first one was guilty.

[somber, emotional piano music playing]

[Taylor] I was ecstatic.

I'm so, so happy
that he's been taken off of the streets.

Rasheda really had an impact

on those friends
and the people who have come in her path.

I can only just imagine
what she would have been today.

[emotional music continuing]

I could hear Rasheda's family.

And I could hear this...

[exhales heavily]

"Thank God."

This is finally...

-It was finally the end.
-Yeah.

They caught him.
He was captured and found guilty.

Like, you got a sense of relief.

-Like, "Thank God."
-Yeah.

[tense, inquisitive music playing]

[Plansky] They went through the victims
one at a time.

That young girl from 1997,

whose body was desecrated by Arohn Kee,
set on fire.

They said guilty.

And then when they got to
the charges relating to Paola, I...

my heart was in my throat.

And when they said guilty for that m*rder,
and I heard...

I could hear Olga and her family,
and I was so grateful.

Just grateful that, like,
she had that moment.

[in Spanish]
When they had given the verdict,

that day I had brought a photo of Paola.

So I said to him,

"Arohn Kee, look at me.
I am Paola's mother."

I said, "Why did you cause me this pain?
Why did you do it?"

It seemed he did not show any...

pain or remorse.
You couldn't see any of that in him.

[in English] Arohn Kee got sentenced
to 409 years to life in state prison.

Seven girls in nine years.

Three girls dead.

And I think there were more.

[somber, melancholy music playing]

[Wagner] I have
this horrible, horrible feeling

that had I not missed something,

these other women
wouldn't have been r*ped,

and Rasheda would not have been k*lled.

What did I miss?

Could I have paid
more attention to something?

I don't know. I... You know, I...

That question still bothers me today,
all these years later.

[Mooney] The magnitude of his crimes,
and the breadth of his crimes

really kind of
punched everybody in the head.

Every single case takes
a little piece out of your soul.

And in this particular instance,
we're talking about seven cases.

So, that's a bigger piece.

[Plansky] About four months
after the sentencing in the Kee case,

I get a call from one of
the detectives from the task force,

and he tells me
that he is at a crime scene.

It's a triple homicide.

Three people shot to death.

Two people who are likely to die.

So it could even have been
a quintuple homicide.

[reporter 1] The m*ssacre that happened
right above Carnegie Deli.

[reporter 2] ...above the Carnegie Deli.

And he says to me,

"Do you want the case?"

In the Kee case,
I had been working very long hours.

Lot of stress.

And I thought about
the fact that I had just gotten engaged,

and had this vision in my head
for being a husband

and hopefully a dad someday.

Maybe coaching a Little League team.

And then I thought of the way
that my life would look if I said yes.

[chaotic overlapping chatter]

[sounds halt abruptly]

And I said no.

[restrained, pensive music playing]

[Mooney] Rich Plansky has a huge heart,

and he cares enormously
about what he's doing.

Some of us, we've done this so many
different times on much smaller scales.

We developed calluses, so to speak.

Richie never had that opportunity.

He got put into the game
way before he was ready to play.

Intellectually,
he could handle every bit of it,

but emotionally, it's a drain.

And that, I think, took a big toll.

I knew that I didn't have
that fire anymore

to... to do this job
at the level that I wanted to do it.

That was May.

By the end of June, I was gone.

[tide rolling gently]

[Mooney] People say to me...
I live on the beach in North Carolina,

and they say,
"Well, don't you miss New York City?"

And I go out on that beach,
or out on this deck,

and I look at the ocean, and I go,

"No, I don't miss any of that.
I don't miss any of it at all."

[keening, thoughtful music playing]

I've probably worked on


I probably witnessed 700 autopsies.

Every one of those things...

you get injured from that somehow.

It doesn't go away.

You're not unscathed, ever.

[emotional piano music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

[Rivera] And you gotta shut it off.
It's too much, right? Brian knows it.

We're very sensitive to things,
and a lot of stuff happens around us.

So, you know, I think some of us
are much more sensitive.

It just affects us a bit more.

It lodges in your heart,
and you ignore it.

You cover it up
and it stays there like a splinter.

That's what really
makes you a professional,

when you can do your job,
go home, and not bring it home with you.

But you do bring it home.
You might not be aware of it.

[McNeely] Coping mechanism,
like Barbara was saying.

The dark humor we had with each other.

And we were able to separate the two.

We had an emotional attachment
to the victims, and their families,

'cause we knew there was a void left,

but amongst each other,
we were doing stuff like this.

-You have to let it out.
-[McNeely] Helps you cope.

-Talk to people. Listen to people.
-[man] Right.

Be friendly.

[Butcher] The people I worked with,

all good, caring people
with a sense of fairness and justice

who devoted their lives and their hearts
to doing this kind of work.

It was an enormous privilege.

No matter how tough
or how confident you are,

there's a bit of fear there.
"Oh, this is the big league."

[Rivera] Yeah.

Police work, detective work in particular,
it's not just a job.

I was so mean to you.
And I love him, he's my little brother.

It's an assignation
that you choose to accept.

It's almost like you were called to do it.

There's one common thread.

Everybody in that group, they cared.

I like to think I'm part of that club,
that fraternity, if you will.

I'm proud to be.

[bright, hopeful music playing]

[dramatic outro music pulsing]