02x03 - m*rder at the Beach

[bunniefuu]

-[sirens wailing faintly]
-[helicopter blades whirring]

[sirens intensify]

[cryptic music playing]

[man 1] March 4th, 1980.

Um, I had just... was finishing
a graveyard shift working patrol.

My partner and I, we're about to get off,

and we got a call of a possible body
down at RAT Beach.

It was a beach
accessible through Malaga Cove.

You get the call
of a possible body on the beach,

right away you start thinking,
"We have a drunk."

"Somebody that stumbled and fell.
Might have an injured person."

I wasn't prepared for what we found.

[cryptic music playing]

[Hernandez] This was
an unsolved homicide case,

a complete whodunit,

complete mystery with zero witnesses.

Thirty-three years later,
I was assigned the case.

[woman 1] You have to wonder
what the person who did it has been up to

for the last 33 years.

[staticky burst]

And you don't know
what else they've gotten away with.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Tomlin] The LA County
Sheriff's Department

is the best of the best.

[Jackson] Some of the highest-profile
cases are tried in Los Angeles.

[woman 2] You have to be dedicated 110%.

[Lillienfeld] This is m*rder.
There's no more serious crime.

[man 2] It boils down to a passion
and a sense of duty.

Justice comes from finding the truth.

[suspenseful music trailing off]

[tense music pulsing]

[Hernandez] In 2013,
I went to my team lieutenant.

I said,
"I would like to catch some cases."

So he had on his desk,
sitting there, a case from 1980.

I was hooked just reading through
the reports on this case.

Anytime a female's victimized,
I think of my daughters.

I start reading through the reports,

thinking, "This is gonna take me
to a lot of different places."

'Cause I gotta find all these people
in the original reports.

And I find David Byington,
the first responder.

We talk on the phone.
What a great memory he had of this case.

He remembered this case because,

back in 1980,
he was a rookie on the department.

[engine revving]

[mysterious music playing]

In 1980, I'm a police officer
for the City of Palos Verdes Estates.

Palos Verdes Estates
is a little suburb south of Los Angeles.

Beautiful cliffs, mansions.

High-income folks live there,

and most houses there
go well into the multi-millions,

even back in the '70s.

As far as murders in Palos Verdes Estates,

they were rare if ever.

At the time, I was 21 years of age.

I had been actually on my own
for only a month or two in patrol.

When I responded to the scene and realized
that we actually had a potential homicide,

I started shaking.

[dark, foreboding music playing]

There was a female found dead on the beach
at Palos Verdes Estates on Malaga Cove,

and she apparently
had been sexually assaulted,

and she had been beaten about the head.

[woman] A surfer had found her purse,
which had her identification in it.

We were able to learn right away
she was Teresa Broudreaux from Wilmington,

just 12 miles away,

and she was only 20 years old.

We tried to check for signs of life,
and I remember I had initially tried.

The body was warm to the touch,

but I could not tell
if I was getting a pulse

or if I was feeling my own pulse.

I think part of that was nerves.

I could see that the young lady
was completely nude

except for a pair of knee-high socks.

She appeared to be posed in some position
where her feet were facing the ocean.

She had a large amount of blood
covering her face.

Her hair was matted down in the blood.

It was difficult to see her face
completely without moving the hair.

She had what appeared to be
a laceration on her forehead

as well as some bruising
and fresh injuries on her abdomen.

Ultimately, the beach is a crime scene.

The tide was coming in so quickly

we had to pick her up physically
and move her away.

As we did this,
my partner was trying to support her head.

As we moved up the beach,
my partner told me,

"Oh no, my hand
just disappeared in her head."

She's got a large wound
to the back of her head.

We knew that this was not an accident.

Ms. Broudreaux
was my first homicide victim.

It's the ultimate crime,
the taking of another human life.

The last thing you want to do
is mess that up.

The Palos Verdes Estates
Police Department's a smaller agency.

The sheer magnitude of this crime

mandated that we would reach out
to an agency

that could adequately handle
a m*rder investigation,

and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department,
they were known to be the best.

[tense music pulsing]

When the Los Angeles sheriff's
homicide unit showed up,

I was taking note of everything they did.

[Ostrowski] Any prosecutor will tell you

our job isn't just to convict people.

It's also to make sure
that the procedure that you go through

to investigate a case is done correctly.

You're left having to turn to...

surveillance cameras,
or witnesses, or scientific evidence.

And in 1980, you didn't have anywhere near

as much of... or as many of those things
as you do now.

[erratic, suspenseful music playing]

[Byington] The victim had no clothing
recovered anywhere in the scene.

We found a bottle of alcohol
and a couple glasses.

One of 'em still had,
it appeared, some alcohol in it,

near where this purse
had been apparently dumped.

That would lead me to believe at that time

that there was obviously
someone else there

that was drinking
with the victim prior to the m*rder.

We also saw there were tire tracks.

[Hernandez] They believed that this was
tire tracks from the suspect's vehicle.

But the tire was somewhat balding.

The tread depth was not deep enough.

So they couldn't cast the tracks.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Byington] The LA County sheriff's
homicide detectives

immediately hit the ground running,
trying to contact family members,

people closest to your victim,

and find out anything that could lead you
to a potential suspect,

that you could start following
those leads.

And they determined she was married
to a gentleman named Ronnie Fematt.

[music trails off]

[subdued, pensive music playing]

[man] When I met Teresa,
she was maybe 18, 19. I was about 20.

Me and my friend were on the east side
of Wilmington, just hanging out, whatever.

And one of the girls brought Teresa.

And when I saw her, I just went, "Whoa."

She was very independent,
very strong-willed.

I don't know what she saw in me.

Me and my friends, we started doing drugs.

You know, dabbling in it.

But when me and Terri got together,
she gave me an ultimatum.

Said, "Hey, buddy, you gotta stop."

I...It was a no-brainer.

Two and a half years we're together,
and then I thought,

"This is the girl I want to marry."

I wanted her. I wanted to have a family.
I wanted to settle down.

So I did. I married her.

Then she got pregnant shortly after.

They said, "It's gonna be a girl."

So I was elated.

The manner in which Teresa was k*lled
was extremely upsetting.

It was a violent death
with her head bashed in,

and likely sexually assaulted.

And to then find out
that she was several months pregnant,

there was yet another life
that was also derailed and ended,

is incredibly sad.

On top of that tragedy,
she actually already was a mom.

She had a four-year-old daughter
named Linda.

[cryptic music playing]

[woman] March 4th, 1980
was one of the worst days of my life.

[shakily] My grandmother told me
my mother drowned at the beach.

[shaky sobs]

And that she was going to Heaven
with the angels.

[hoarsely] And she wasn't gonna come back.

I became too much to handle.

I didn't want to be with my... my aunt.

I didn't want to be with my grandmother.
I didn't wanna be with my dad.

I just wanted my mom.

And I couldn't understand
why she couldn't come back.

It felt like the only person
that ever loved and protected me was gone.

And now there was nobody left to love me.

[sobs]

[somber, emotional music playing]

[Fematt] When I first met Linda,
she was probably two years old.

She was still baby talk, you know?
She wasn't too vocal.

Cute as a bug, you know? She really was.

Being that she wasn't mine,
it didn't bother me.

Didn't bother me one bit.

We used to play "cafe."
She would take my order,

then go to the kitchen,
act like she made me food.

She was a good kid.

[Broudreaux] I just used to love it.
I used to make the menu with Ronnie.

Then I used to take it to my mom.

She was like,
"How many do you want, ma'am?"

And I would be like, "Two, please."

And she'll just be making
my little grilled cheese by candlelight.

I don't know why... I don't know why
it was candlelight, but yeah.

[emotional music continuing]

[Byington] Ronnie married this woman,
allegedly loved her,

was raising her... her daughter as his own.

But that doesn't exclude him
from being a suspect.

He could have snapped,
had a bad moment, bad week. Who knows?

Ronnie was one of the first people

the sheriff's homicide detectives
spoke to.

[Fematt] The sheriffs,
they interrogated me,

and I answered everything.

On March 3rd,
I was attending Harbor College.

Not taking anything special.
I was doing art. I was good with art.

I came home. I said to my wife,

"Come on.
Let's go to my friend George's house."

We used to hang out in the garage,
drink and smoke.

We went.

She didn't participate.

She was pregnant.

She didn't want to stand up all night
in a garage.

So I understand she wanted to go home.

We went home.

I told her, "I'mma go back."
She goes, "I don't want you to go back."

"You can't go back."
I go, "I'mma go back."

"No, you better not go."
I go, "Terri, I'm going back."

That's when I went out the door.

I went this way toward my friend's house.

I heard the door slam and I turned back.
She was going toward the alley.

We had a gate in the alley
that would take you to the other street.

That's where her sister lived,
down the block.

I go, "She's mad."

"She'll go to her sister's,
and complain, and talk sh*t about me."

"She'll be okay."

But then...

I never seen her again.

[suspenseful, inscrutable music playing]

How many times does a wife disappear
and the husband says, you know,

"She left.
I don't know what happened to her."

And nine times out of ten,
that's bullshit.

It's gonna be the husband.

[Fematt] They asked to take my shirt off.

They're looking for scratches
or defensive wounds, and I had nothing.

They kept asking, "You didn't do it?"
"No, I didn't do it."

[Lewin] When they interviewed Ronnie,
he was concerned, he was nervous.

When your wife is found m*rder*d...

either you're gonna be devastated,
in shock, et cetera,

or terrified they're gonna figure out
you're the one who did it.

[Fematt] After I left the sheriff's,
I went back to my house,

and there's cop cars
stationed around the block.

They're looking at my house.

Very quickly, he became concerned
that he was the suspect,

and he was.

I called my uncle, Henry Salcido,
criminal lawyer.

And my uncle just told me,
"Don't talk to 'em, avoid 'em."

So that's what I did.

[music trails off]

[sorrowful piano music playing]

[Broudreaux] My father was absent,
so when my mom got married to Ronnie

and I found out
I was gonna have a sibling,

I immediately thought we were gonna have
a full and complete family now

with Ronnie, the new baby, my mom, and I.

So I was super excited.

So excited.

But when everything happened
with my mother,

I did not stay with Ronnie.

My dad's family
came and got me right away.

I really missed her when they took her.
It destroyed me.

[music trails off]

[tense, erratic music playing]

[Ostrowski] During the autopsy,
essentially, a r*pe kit was taken.

But a r*pe kit back in 1980
is nothing like it is today.

There were clippings
taken from her fingernails,

because it appeared that there was
material underneath her fingernails,

and they could potentially compare that
to blood type.

There was also swabs that were taken,

which we're not testing for DNA,
but could test for the presence of sperm.

[Fematt] They brought her to the mortuary.

I went back there and asked to see her,
'cause I had to make arrangements.

They pulled back the thing.
They only got the sheet halfway,

and I already just... My knees buckled.

I just couldn't believe what I saw.

As far as her features, there was none.

It was just total darkness,
a big hole for a face.

And right away, I told the people,
"I want this casket closed."

"And I want the baby swaddled
and put in her arms,

so they're together for eternity."

[sorrowful music playing]

The investigators spoke
with a lot of friends, a lot of family,

and that's really all they had to go on.

They learned that the last person
to see Teresa was her sister.

She gets to her sister's house.

Her sister wanted her to stay there,
and she didn't.

Teresa Broudreaux left her sister's house
middle of the night

and started walking down the street.

There was a cousin who remembers that,
that day of, before she was found dead,

she wanted to go to the beach.

[delicate, unsettling music playing]

[Ostrowski]
Neither Teresa nor Ronnie had a car.

It wouldn't be unreasonable

that she would hitchhike
to go get to the beach.

They were really
at the mercy of anybody seeing anything,

and it happened at night,
and she was discovered early morning,

and so there were no witnesses
that ever came forward.

There wasn't a whole lot
of investigative tools

that could be used
to figure out who her k*ller was.

[Byington] They were looking at Ronnie,
Teresa Broudreaux's husband,

as a potential suspect.

After a thorough investigation,
they were able to determine

that Ronnie had an alibi.

Ronnie had been in a friend's garage
with several eyewitnesses

on the night his wife had been m*rder*d.

And that basically cleared him
from the m*rder of his wife.

And even though the police investigators
might exclude Ronnie,

you can't unring that bell
with family members and loved ones,

that thought and belief
that he was responsible

for their daughter,
their mother, their sister's death.

When I was about eight or nine years old,

my cousin and I were going through
her mother's boxes, her drawers,

and we found the autopsy of my mother.

And I'm like,
"What? They said she drowned!"

And I'm still, you know, in that mode
where they said she drowned.

I'm like, "All this happened to her?"

Everyone in her family was saying
Ronnie's the one that k*lled my mother.

I believed it right away
because they used to fight a lot,

and I was there to see all of that.

I was right there watching
every single day.

[Fematt] They made their choice
that I wasn't a suspect, sheriffs did.

But they had nobody else,
so everybody thought I did it.

Couldn't explain
how many times I got shot at

'cause people thought I did it.

Whether it be her family or friends,
I don't know.

Nobody ever shot at me before
until after her death.

I was so traumatized,
I didn't want to live.

[Lewin] If your wife disappears
in the middle of an argument,

and we don't have any evidence

pointing to somebody else who did it,

and what you have is
an alibi by people that you are close to,

either that's a legitimate alibi
or it's not,

but you have no other suspects.

We didn't have an eyewitness.

We didn't really have any... any evidence
at the time that could be used.

There wasn't anything else they could do.

Ultimately, the Teresa Broudreaux
m*rder was never solved.

It was put on the back bench
as a cold case for decades.

[Broudreaux] When I was little,
I used to cry for my mom.

And I'd ask questions over the years.

There was so many questions I had
that no one was willing to answer.

No one wanted to talk about her.

No one wanted to talk about what happened.

[sniffles]

No one told me anything.

They would tell me to be quiet.
"She's not gonna come back."

I kinda got used to
not having any parents.

The void from my mother
has never been filled.

I don't think it'll ever be filled.

[Fematt] I went through years
of people pointing,

and avoiding me,
or talking behind my back.

I didn't deal with it.

I didn't think about my daughter.
I didn't think about Terri.

I'd work just to get high,

so I didn't have to deal with
all the pressure

of people walking around town going,
"Hey, that's him. He k*lled his wife."

[Broudreaux] As I got older,

I used to see him sometimes
walking around.

I did not want to talk to Ronnie.
I didn't know what to feel, you know?

I was like, "Did he really..."

"Could he have really..."

I started questioning people,
'cause they were the ones telling me.

I seen them fighting a lot,
but could he really k*ll her?

[engine revving]

[suspenseful music playing]

When I got the case,
the cultural background,

there was a connection there.

In the '80s, culture in Wilmington
was very much the same

as culture in East LA,
the area I grew up in.

It was predominately Hispanic,

lowrider culture, gangs, crime.

Seeing sometimes
how my parents were afraid...

They were afraid to call the police.


I'm in the eighth grade.

If you would've told me
I was gonna get involved

in a homicide investigation
that happened in Palos Verdes Estates,

which was a world away from East LA,
I would've told you you were nuts.

I never was a kid who said,
"I want to be a cop."

That was the last thing I thought I'd be.

The passion really came
once I started the job

and started to notice
the difference that you could make.

Ralph's was more of a subdued,
subtle kind of approach.

He challenged himself
and made a name for himself.

Ralph never wanted to promote.
He wanted to be a damn good detective.

[Hernandez] People always ask me,
"What is this job like, working homicide?"

It's like juggling ba*ls in the ocean.

You don't want to drown,
but you don't want to drop the ball.

[Labbe] When you look at a cold case,

there are so many different things
that you have to... to overcome.

Investigations change
after ten, 15, 20 years.

Different techniques evolve.
Different thought processes evolve.

[Hernandez] Ultimately, you have to do
a little gumshoe detective work, right?

You gotta go and find people,
find witnesses.

But technology is a tremendous,
tremendous asset for us now

on these unsolved cases.

In this case, in 1980,
that was years before DNA.

There's different investigative avenues
that can be explored.

Now we can go back,
and we can take that evidence,

and we can develop DNA profiles.

There were several items of evidence
that had been kept from the scene.

We knew that there were enough there

that there were things
we could potentially test.

The sheriff's department
had a criminalist who was excellent.

As the criminalist
is working on this evidence

and trying to determine
if there's enough genetic material,

what we're realizing
is she has very little to work with.

The fingernails turned out not to be
as helpful as we were hoping they'd be.

The other evidence at the scene
also was not as helpful.

There were no prints or DNA
on the bottle of alcohol.

Only Teresa's fingerprint was on the cup.

And contrary to what you see on CSI,
the TV shows, you know,

unfortunately, people don't sprinkle
their DNA everywhere

at whatever crime scene they go to.

So we had to pivot.

We had to think of a different way
to try to identify her k*ller.

That's when we turn
to the coroner's evidence.

The coroner's office was able
to obtain the DNA found on the victim.

The criminalist
took the pubic hair combings

and basically washed them.

And from that washing,
she's able to put it into a centrifuge

that spins
and essentially churns out a pellet.

And from that pellet,
she's able to look at it microscopically

and determine if there's
any genetic material in the pellet,

and she found one sperm head.

And so that's what she was able
to end up testing for DNA.

The goal there is that they would be able
to develop an actual DNA profile.

'Cause sometimes
you can have bodily fluid,

but that doesn't mean you have enough
to come up with a complete DNA profile.

Sometimes you have a partial profile.
Sometimes you get nothing.

If there's not sufficient evidence there,
it's a dead end.

[Fematt] Detective Ralph Hernandez
got my case and gave me a call.

I felt at ease that he understood me.

He knew my style of life,
what I've been through.

You know, the addiction,
the gangs, the everything.

'Cause being from East LA,
you're familiar with that stuff.

Being a cop, you're more familiar.
You probably see it more than I see it.

He treated me just like he would anybody.

Wasn't 'cause I was Chicano.
He treated me 'cause I was human.

So I talked to him, and I let him know
I have some more information.

[Hernandez] Ronnie tells us the story

about how this female acquaintance
from the neighborhood

approached him one evening and said,
"Hey, I feel bad."

"I held on to this for a few years.
I want you to know."

[Fematt] In the late '90s,
I was still spiraling out of control,

and I was in a bar.

One of my friends walked in
who I hadn't seen in quite a while.

She came up to me.

"Ronnie, I know who k*lled your wife."

[suspenseful music swells, trails off]

[Labbe] People's lives continue on,

and they remember vivid details

of what traumatically
happened to them in the past.

They realize, "You know what?"

"This has caught up to me.
I need to tell somebody."

[cryptic music playing]

When I met Detective Ralph Hernandez,
I had been sober a while.

For so long
I've been feeling so bad about this.

I thought it was time
I could handle some answers.

She was my homeboy's old lady.

She'd been gone so long
I wondered what happened to her.

I didn't know
because I didn't keep tabs on her.

We started talking, she started crying,
she goes, "I know who k*lled her."

And then I was just like,
"What do you mean?"

She said, "I was abducted
by two guys and sexually tortured."

These guys picked her up. They told her,
"Put some of this on your tongue."

She said immediately when she put
that liquid on her tongue, she went numb.

She said she could hear and see,
but couldn't move.

She's, like, paralyzed.

They tortured her, sexually abused her,

and then she told me
that she heard 'em say,

"What are we gonna do with her body?"

"We'll take her where we dumped Terri."

But she jumped out the window of the car
while it was moving,

and a passerby stopped and helped,
and they took off.

The person she mentioned, I knew him.

Knew him well.

With some of his characteristics, it fit.

[suspenseful music pulsing]

[Hernandez]
It's secondhand information, right?

This girl's told Ronnie.
Ronnie's telling us.

We need to find this girl.

I had some addresses
that were listed in the original reports

of people who lived in the neighborhood.

So I knocked on a few doors.

I find out that she's living out of state.

I come up with a phone number
and we start talking.

And she was very, uh, very cooperative,

and willing to meet with us,

which is huge.

We fly out to her.

[Fematt] Ralph actually went to Texas
to go talk to her.

That right there
at that moment let me know,

"This guy's gonna do whatever it takes."

And I felt really good about this.

I definitely felt that, after 33 years,
I finally had somebody in my corner.

[Hernandez] We had just flown in,
and I get a phone call from the crime lab.

The crime lab's telling me,

"We got a hit in CODIS for your evidence
for DNA from your scene."

That was incredible.

But it was a little confusing

because it wasn't the person
that we thought

that we were being steered toward

from the information
we were going to get from our informant.

It was a completely different person.

[Ostrowski] Thanks to the criminalist,
we now had a name.

It came back as a match
to a man named Robert Yniguez.

Who was Robert Yniguez?
Where'd he come from?

What did he do? Where was he?
Where was he 34 years ago?

[siren wailing in distance]

[inscrutable music playing]

[Hernandez] Robert Yniguez
was nowhere in the file.

He was nobody who had been interviewed.

He was no one
whose name had even been mentioned.

There were a ton of names
in those original reports.

His was not one of them.

But it was very exciting.

[suspenseful music pulsing]

So we get back from our out-of-state trip
and interview with the informant,

which turned out to be a dead end.

We quickly begin to conduct

a background investigation
on Robert Yniguez,

and I also pulled crime reports
from his previous arrests.

And in 1981,
Robert Yniguez was arrested for r*pe.

The victim in that case
had been a hitchhiker that he picked up,

and he proceeded to r*pe her.

That victim reports it.

He gets arrested
immediately after that r*pe.

[Hernandez] He was charged in court.

He was held to answer
on preliminary hearing.

The victim actually came to testify.

And some time before the trial,

it became difficult to find the victim,

and the case was dismissed,
and he was let go.

Then fast-forward to 1982.

He was arrested for another r*pe

in which he was actually convicted,
and he went to prison.

And that conviction is what actually
brought his DNA into the CODIS database.

[Ostrowski] Because the CODIS hit
is only an investigative tool and lead,

we're ethically required to get
what's called a "confirmatory sample."

We needed to try to get a DNA sample
from him in order to confirm

and run it against the evidence
found from the coroner's kit.

So our next step
had to be locating Mr. Yniguez.

[Fematt] Detective Ralph Hernandez asked
if I knew who this Robert Yniguez guy was.

And I said no, but I was very hopeful.

The DNA always catches the bad guy.

And now there was DNA.

Now they just had to find the guy.

Sex offenders are required
to register on their birthday.

With Mr. Yniguez,
his birthday was about four months away

from when Detective Hernandez
learned he was a potential suspect.

So the easiest place to find Mr. Yniguez

was going to be when he went to register.

Yniguez is at Harbor Station getting ready
to register as a sex offender.

At that point,
I want to find out more about him.

We wanted to confirm where he lived,

where he'd been,
who his family was, who his friends were,

because maybe there is
some connection to Teresa.

Also, I want to obtain
a sample of his DNA.

And so I told him who we were,
where we were from,

and he was willing to talk to us.

-You went to prison in '80 or was it...
-I think it was '80.

[Hernandez] Before prison,
where were you living?

Hmm.

I believe
I was living in Wilmington at my...

my stepmom's house with my dad.

I didn't know
too many people from Wilmington.

I mean...

I would cruise around there, but...

I didn't really know anybody over there.

I actually didn't really have
a big game plan.

My first thought was just, "Be yourself.
Talk to him, put him at ease."

And it just kind of evolved from there.

-Did you ever go partying at the beach?
-No.

-Never used to go out there?
-No.

And you've never been to Malaga Cove,
Palos Verdes Estates?

Mm-mm.

Ralph's approach was to be very...

non-confrontational.

So he tries to get
Yniguez to be comfortable,

and then he tries to go through
the information that he has

and to see if he can lock him in
to a certain story.

Tell me about that case
when you got arrested.

Took her to Redondo.

-And, you know, we had sex.
-Mm-hmm.

Yeah, she refused, but then...

after that she gave in, and...

-And they charged you with r*pe.
-Yeah.

[Hernandez] You got off
because she didn't show up.

-Mm-hmm.
-Okay.

Does Teresa ring a bell to you?

-No.
-No? Nothing at all?

[Hernandez] I could see it in his chest.

Kind of the heavy breathing
people describe.

They see people pounding their heart rate,

or their heart's
beating through their shirt.

You could see the deep breaths,
and he was obviously nervous.

Let me show you some pictures.

[Yniguez] Okay.

Do you know that girl right there
or remember her at all?

-No.
-No?

Mm-mm.

This lady was found dead on the beach.

You sure she's nobody
that looks familiar to you?

Teresa Broudreaux.

-No.
-And this is 1980, March of 1980.

No, not at all.

The denials were so important
because we had such powerful DNA evidence.

If he came to us and said,

"I... I dated Teresa
behind her husband's back,"

"I had sex with her that night,"

it would have complicated our case.

No. Mm-mm.

-No?
-Mm-mm.

That's why the denial
was so much more powerful.

[Hernandez] Would there be any reason
for your DNA to be at the scene?

Not that...

No, there shouldn't be.

-Shouldn't be?
-Yeah.

We're here.

We know you can help us.

Because your DNA was at the scene.

I don't know... I can't see how.

I don't even know that girl.

[Hernandez] If you want
good rapport with your suspect,

you gotta give 'em something.

I had information for him,
and he needed to know that information,

and it might stimulate something
for him to say something

to help us get to the truth, right?

Because what if
he had a plausible explanation?

What if he didn't do it, right?

So, 100%, you're not gonna
have any issues with your DNA there?

-No.
-And so then...

you'd be willing to give us
a sample of your oral swabs?

Okay.

And so I appreciate that.

I came away
from that interview with Yniguez

firmly believing that we had our guy,

but it was more important to build a case
and to know for sure,

"Okay, this is our guy,"
and then go out and arrest him.

[Ostrowski] Getting a buccal swab of DNA
from Mr. Yniguez

allowed the sheriff's department
to do confirmatory testing.

He was in fact a match,

and the match
was proven through a statistic,

which was one in 82.5 trillion,

and there's only
seven billion people on the planet.

So to be one in 80-something trillion

is quite a significant match.

In this case,
it's very clear that he's your k*ller.

So now it's a question of,

"What can you do
to make the case even better?"

[Hernandez] The r*pe case in 1981
was extremely important

because Yniguez came upon a female

who was in Wilmington at the bus stop
and offered her a ride.

We had the fact
that Teresa was last seen in Wilmington,

and there are
potential similarities in the MO,

and, luckily,
I was able to locate and interview

the victim from the 1981 r*pe.

[woman] When I met the guy,
I wasn't hitchhiking. I was just walking.

He pulled up in his car and asked me
if I wanted a ride, and I said yeah.

The circumstances she's telling us

is similar to what we believe
happened to Teresa.

[Lewin] How sure are you that
this man forced you... r*ped you?



I stopped resisting
because he started threatening to k*ll me.

[dark, ominous music playing]

[Hernandez]
She was threatened. She gave in.

Teresa was beaten and k*lled.

I believe Teresa fought back,

and Yniguez followed through
with his threat.

So that was extremely powerful,

and just tied our case
that much more together.

[music trails off]

[Lewin] Whenever I am looking
at a cold case,

I always want to sit down
with the suspect if I can.

[somber, inquisitive music playing]

I want to myself evaluate them.

I want to see
how they respond to my questioning.

I want to see if they're gonna end up
making things worse.

What are they going to admit to?
Where are my issues gonna be?

It's the only chance that I will ever have
to have a conversation with them.

Once the case is filed,
I can't talk to them.

Robert Yniguez told Ralph Hernandez
that he had never met the victim,

he never had sex with her,

that he'd never been
to Palos Verdes Estates,

and Malaga Cove, and that beach.

The more adamant
he was gonna be in denying it,

the better it was gonna be
for the case going forward,

because I could prove
that that just wasn't true.

John wanted to come with me
to interview Robert Yniguez again.

So we both went and talked to him.

[Hernandez] Hi, I wanted to talk...
I need to talk to Robert, please.

-[woman] Who are you?
-My name's Ralph.

He knows who I am.

And this is John.

That second interview was not ideal.

Part of it was his wife
and his daughter were there.

His family's there.

[Yniguez] Come on in.

[Hernandez] Thank you.

[woman] You guys look like
you're gonna arrest him.

-[Hernandez] God, no. We're gonna...
-Okay.

No, we're gonna leave here.
I just was hoping for ten minutes.

And maybe just a little bit of privacy
if that's okay with you.

[woman] Why?
He ain't got nothing to hide from me.

-[Yniguez] I don't have nothing to hide.
-Nothing.

[woman] We tell each other everything.

[Lewin] We wanted to give him the respect
of being able to talk to him

without other people here
if that's what he wanted.

-But if this is how...
-No, she can be here.

It was highly unlikely
that he would have told his wife,

who was not with him
at the time of the m*rder,

"By the way, you realize
I r*ped and m*rder*d people

prior to our relationship."

So we wanted to do it in private,

and no matter how much we suggested it,

his position was,
"No, we have no secrets," et cetera.

So we had to do the interview
in front of her.

-[Lewin] Hear me out.
-I had nothing to do with that case.

Robert, just hear me out.

He doesn't want to admit all of this
in front of them,

and when John began to press him
in a bit more detail about the incident,

he starts to deny.

He became very defensive.

And I'm gonna stay with that story.
I do not know her.

I've never seen her. I never met her.

John did, in the interview,
accuse Yniguez of committing the m*rder.

-[Lewin] You said you never met this girl.
-No!

So what do you think of yours...

What kind of DNA do you think we found?

Probably my sperm.

[Lewin] Yeah. So can you tell me
how that could possibly be, Robert?

It shouldn't be,
because I don't even know her.

I never met her. I never seen her.

-[Lewin] Robert...
-I had nothing to do with that.

[Lewin] We've got your semen
on the pubic hair of this dead woman.

This dead woman
was picked up near the same place

where, within a year of that time,
you picked up Lori [bleep].

This woman had her head bashed.

Pressing him just led to more denials,

but John got him to admit
he wouldn't believe his own denials.

So it kind of came back full circle.

[Lewin]
He had a look on his face of resignation

that he knew where it was going.

I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna go
back to prison for something I didn't do.

[Lewin] Okay, so, listen.

Your DNA...

I know what you're saying.
My DNA is on her, but I don't know how.

Are we done?
This is starting to piss me off.

[woman] Yeah, I'm gonna get a lawyer.
We're gonna get a lawyer.

-[Lewin] Wait. Listen.
-Are we finished?

-We're finished. We're done.
-[Lewin] Robert... No, listen to me.

There's nothing more to say.

[Lewin] If you tell me that
you want us to leave, we'll leave.

-[woman] Yeah.
-Yeah.

[Lewin] Ma'am, I'm talking to him.

-I want you to leave.
-[Lewin] Okay.

All right. That's your option.

[Hernandez] We were confident
at that point that we had enough.

We had the DNA. We had Yniguez's denials.

We have some of his admissions.
We got him.

[intense, suspenseful music playing]

[Hernandez] September of 2017,
we finally make our move.

We have a surveillance team
follow Yniguez away from his home.

[siren squawking]

We get a black-and-white to make a stop.

And they place him
under arrest for m*rder.

He didn't say much,
but it didn't matter at that point.

We had quite a bit of evidence
and quite a bit of information to present.

I still remember walking out
and calling Ronnie.

[Fematt] The phone rings.
It says, "Detective Ralph."

I go, "Oh, sh*t."

"It's too early."

I get nervous,
and my... my feet start tapping.

I answered.

He goes, "Ronnie."
I go, "Ralph, what's up?"

He goes, "Are you sitting down?"
And right then, my heart went boom.

I tell him, "We got him."

"We're charging him."

[somber, emotional music playing]

I just cried.

I sat in my car
and cried and cried, 45 minutes.

[Hernandez] It was
a very emotional phone call for us.

[Broudreaux] I get a phone call saying,

"In one hour,
we're gonna do a press conference."

"They found the person
that k*lled your mother."

And I just started crying.
I couldn't believe it.

They were like,
"We need you in downtown LA now."

I couldn't make it there.

But my stepdad was there, of course.
He was there for everything.

[Hernandez] The press conference
really was for Ronnie

to be able to tell the story to the press

and let them know
what he had been through.

Detective.

Thank you.

The day of the press conference,
you can see me in the back.

I'm sort of edgy.

I was sweating, and I was starting to look
like Rudy Giuliani up there.

At this point,
we wanted to introduce Ronnie Fematt,

who was married at that time
to Teresa Broudreaux.

-Ronnie.
-Thank you.

Hello.

It's been 37 years... longer than 37 years,

and I've been waiting a long time
for this day.

I want to thank my family
for always believing in me,

always being by my side,
and I want to thank these people here.

'Cause without them,
I wouldn't be here today.

It's been a long time
for what I've been through.

And the noncertainty of not knowing
why or how, you know?

And, uh...

I'm just glad this day came.

Thank you very much.

Now everybody knows it wasn't me.

They took the burden off me.

Now people knew the truth.

It was important for me
for Ronnie to have that.

Once they told me it wasn't him,
this other guy did it,

I was like, "Oh, my goodness."

We did try to build a relationship.

But...

Yeah, things don't always work out.

[somber, pensive music playing]

[tense music pulsing]

[Ostrowski] On October 2nd, 2017,

I filed the complaint
against Robert Yniguez.

The first count was m*rder,
and the second count was r*pe.

Based on the circumstances,
the law, and evidence at the time,

we weren't able
to file a charge for the baby.

Before we could pick a jury
and try the case,

the defendant, through his attorney,

indicated that he wanted
to enter a plea agreement.

He was willing to plead
to second-degree m*rder,

which carries a sentence of 15 to life,

and admit that he had in fact
k*lled Teresa.

[Lewin] My feeling is that
he probably did not want his wife

and his stepdaughter
to hear all of the details of the crime.

So, if you're in his position,
and you're gonna get convicted either way,

then you maybe choose an option

where you can maintain your innocence
in your private conversations with them.

Yniguez was sentenced in October of 2019.

[Fematt] You're talking




And I live with torment every day.

[Ostrowski] Had the defendant
been convicted at trial,

there would have been a mandatory sentence
of life without parole as the minimum.

With a plea and pleading to 15 to life,

he will be eligible for parole.

But because you never know
what's gonna happen with a jury,

it's a risk.

[Fematt] I figure at his age, 15 to life...

he ain't getting out.

Now I get to sleep at night

knowing he's not gonna be around
to hurt anybody else.

I was very relieved
when it was all over with.

It was very overwhelming for me.

Now I can, um, start healing.

[tide rolling in]

[Fematt] I made arrangements
to have a flower shop close by Malaga Cove

to make her a real nice wreath in a cross.

[gentle, mournful music playing]

I picked it up. Everybody,
we caravaned all the way over there.

[Hernandez] We're with the family.
They're putting up this wreath,

and on the banner, it says, "It's over."

It was a weird feeling to be there.

I'd been there a couple of times,
but now we had Yniguez convicted.

We had answers.

[somber, sweeping music playing]

Ralph Hernandez, he did me right.

He did me justice.

He gave me everything I needed
to put this behind me.

I can't thank him enough
for the hard work he did.

He's a Chicano done good.
I go, "That's you, Ralph."

"You should be proud of yourself."

[Hernandez] I'm very proud.

It felt great to be able
to get answers for the family.

It was, um, very satisfying,

'cause you realize
the fruit of your hard labor,

all those hours, all those years...

You made a difference.

[music trailing off]

[engine revving]

[cryptic music playing]

[Hernandez] All missing person cases
come through Homicide.

If you're missing, the big question is...

"Why?"

[reporter] Father of three,
the 6'6"-tall Smith has disappeared.

[Hernandez]
Gavin Smith was a Fox executive.

He was larger-than-life.

It was highly irregular
that somebody like him

would just vanish into thin air.

-There's some weird stuff going on here.
-[woman] He was in turmoil.

Gavin had a pretty torrid affair.

It's a mystery,
but somebody out there knows something.

[dramatic outro music pulsing]