Wrong Turn - Kidnappings and Old DNA

0:00You just got back to your Toyota truck and you can't feel your fingers. You've been out here for 13 days. Now, 16, 15, you've lost track. You're eating something you wouldn't dare look in the eyes while taking directions from a phone that ran out of signal miles ago. Every bone and muscle in your body has filed a formal complaint. And the only gas you've got left is in the tank of your truck. But you know what? You're the happiest you've been in years. Toyota trucks outlast outlive. I love football season. The games, the rivalries, the food, getting everyone together, no game day feels complete without a trip to total wine and more. I can find everything from cold beer and canned cocktails to wines and spirits for the whole crew. And if I want to bring something different to the watch party, the total wine team always has ideas. Plus it's nice knowing I'm getting the lowest prices. Get your game day lineup ready at total wine and more. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly, beat 21. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore.

1:00Stand still, not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University, what can't you do? Visit Capella.edu to learn more. Stoveleg Media, Igniting Conversation. Welcome to True Crime to Go. What can I get for you? Yeah, hey, do you all have those milk containers that have the missing person picture on the back? I'll take one of those, hold the milk and make sure it's really cold. We'll love to the second window and I'll see you next time. Welcome to True Crime to Go. I am John here with Jamie. Didn't get to finish my order. Hopefully you all knew what I was going with that. If they hold the milk is just the carton cold. I was really just meaning just give me the kidnapping. That's a weird thing to say, buddy.

2:00I'm just kidding. Yeah, it's odd that we both ended up here today without talking. Each of us did research on the two True Crime to Go cases coming today and they are more similar than they should be probably. It is weird that our brains went here, but here we are. And El Myra, New York for my case. And we're going to back in time, 1964. And this one just got solved this year after 61 years. That's insane. That's so long. I know families grow so I don't know. Hopefully sometimes as a case grows colder and it's energizing for me to see a case gets solved after that long. Yeah, it's insane. 61 years. This is one of the oldest cases that has ever been solved. And of course, you know already that this was helped by DNA. So let's set the scene. It's March 15th, 1964.

3:0012 year old Mary Teresa Simpson is the youngest of four kids. And on this particular Sunday, she leaves her father's apartment just to go visit some other family members. Seems like a normal Sunday, nothing really out of the ordinary, nothing really remarkable. She's seen walking near a store on the east side of El Myra and then nothing. It's like she vanished out of thin air and never made it home. And her family started looking for her pretty immediately, right? Yeah, absolutely. They buy around 1030 that night. She's officially reported missing police and volunteers are out searching El Myra and the surrounding area for days. And that search does not have a very peaceful ending on March 19th, four days later. A man is out hiking with his two sons and they find this young girl's body in a wooded area off Combs Hill road about seven miles from the city.

4:03So this is just a brutal sight for you and your young boys to be walking up on. Yeah, I can't imagine what it would be like for these kids to see this. And as a dad, how are you trying to explain this to your kids and how to help them process this? I really don't know. Unfortunately, Jamie, this case would go like we said earlier, 61 years before it would ever be solved. And I can't imagine what life had to be like for her parents to spend the rest of their lives without her. It's actually, it breaks your heart if you think about it. But we do have a result. So Jamie, they only had one piece of evidence that was found in this case. It was a hair that was on or some kind of DNA that was on her clothing. I won't speculate as to what it was.

5:03I said here, but that that was me not saying that accurately. After 61 years, thank God they managed to save this evidence because that is so rare nowadays. But how did it end up getting solved? Yeah, I mean, just the fact that they had forethought to do that is wild to me. They started looking into this with genetic genealogy, which is something we've covered on the show and been used to crack a lot of other cold cases, most notably the Golden State Killer. It's basically you're building out a family tree of the individual who's DNA that you have on whatever evidence it is. An investigator is land on a name tied to an unidentified body that had been buried decades earlier. Essentially, they find a jondo, which I can't imagine the ups and downs there of the investigation and be like, well, we have a match. It's going to somebody that we don't know who it is. Yeah. They found this guy and then they dug around. They had to find, like they had to build the family tree.

6:07My brain is not working right. I know we interviewed someone who works for the genetic testing center. Ramapo. Karen Vinder. Yeah. Their work is awesome. This is exactly what's happening. They found someone through his family tree. They built the family tree. They tracked down the last known relative. That's when they found the guy's identity Alfred Raymond Murray, Jr. born in 1931, born and raised right there in Elmara. He passed away in 2004. He was alive for decades after the murder, but just never connected to it. Trying to figure out how he was connected, they couldn't find any connection to Mary Teresa Simpson or her family at all. Now, I've never heard of Elmara in New York. I have to assume that it is a smaller area, not necessarily the big city.

7:07He did have documented history of prior offenses against children and he did live in the area. So to me, it seems like this may have been a crime of opportunity instead of a crime of targeting a family or targeting somebody close to you. It seems like that. I do wonder, like was this seriously the guy's only a child that he would have raped and murdered or were there more? And I pray there wasn't, but I pray also that if there were, that those cases can be solved too. I just have a hard time thinking that this was a one and done. Yeah, it rarely is unfortunately. And man, the work that goes into doing this is next level, puzzle solving, next level science, things that I think we never thought we would get to as far as crime solving techniques. It continues to find answers. She had been gone for 61 years. Her existing relatives do get that news and they get some answers there.

8:14Luckily, none of them knew her well unless some of her siblings were just really, really old. But man, really glad they solved this when and after the break, we'll talk about another kidnapping that they've been able to solve. I'm Livy Dunn, all American gymnasts and Vyory athlete. When you travel and train as much as I do, you find happiness where you are. On the mat or on the sand, movement and comfort are essential. That's why I live in performance joggers by Vyory, made from dream net fabric that's made of 89% recycled materials, effortlessly soft and made to move as much as I do. My happiness starts here in the softest joggers on the planet. Get 20% off your first purchase at Vyory.com slash Libby. That's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash L-I-V-V-Y. Exclusions apply. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on US orders over $75 and free returns.

9:19Go to Vyory.com slash Libby and discover the full versatility of Vyory clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. I love football season. The games, the rivalries, the food, getting everyone together, no game day feels complete without a trip to total wine and more. I can find everything from cold beer and canned cocktails to wines and spirits for the whole crew. And if I want to bring something different to the watch party, the total wine team always has ideas. Plus it's nice knowing I'm getting the lowest prices. Get your game day lineup ready at total wine and more. Spirits are not sold in Virginia, North Carolina. Drink responsibly B-21. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still, not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we're here to help you keep going further. Capella University, what can't you do? Visit Capella.edu to learn more. We're going to take this story up to the great white North in Canada.

10:29I still like that's my dignity. Is that the great white North? The great white North. Large person. You are great John. I will say that you're a great guy. You know, I just I thought great just meant big. So you're a great guy. I really appreciate you. We're going to go to Ontario. And this is going to be in a town about 70,000 people at the northern end of Lake Huron split by the St. Mary's River. And it's Twin City Salt State Marie, which is what it's called on the Ontario side and the Michigan side. These two were connected by an international bridge of five span structure carrying traffic across the city. And it's a traffic across the river to and from Canadian. That's a joke. I know it's Canada, but it's controlled by at the Canadian end by the Canada border services agency on the evening of September 19th, 2026. Two men were driving through that city with a 15 year old in the back seat who was not allowed to leave the vehicle.

11:35They take this teenager to a hotel and they didn't make it because they made a wrong turn. They ended up on an international bridge when they tried to go back to Canada. The Canadian border services agency was waiting for him. Yeah, thank and thank God they were because God only knows what could have happened here. 40 year old, saw him alarm was arrested alongside 29 year old Hassan Al Manoum. The two men were charged with kidnapping a 15 year old who by all available evidence was saved by a horrible navigational air that put them back on this international bridge. Again, all allegations are just that all these things are alleged. Everybody's presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law, but it seems like earlier this month we were able to catch kidnappers and save somebody's life potentially not we you and I, but authorities.

12:37Well, I'm really glad these guys made the mistaken turn and I think the geography is really important. It's one of those situations that when you turn on this bridge that you don't have any options you either go into America or you turn around and go back to Canada. There's no exits. It's a five mile stretch of road sounds like you can take back roads off a bridge that's called drowning. Yeah, it's your only option. So once they entered that bridge, I'm sure that you know reality kind of sit in on them because they probably knew we don't want to go to America and now can't really get back into Canada either. Yeah, and as far as we know, of course the 15 year old's name has not been released and I hope it isn't it doesn't come out during the covering of this and I want we know so far. I'll them an Almanoum were not connected to this individual at all, but they did connect to the 15 year old and we're not even told whether who this person is, but they connected with them on September the 19th.

13:45Police were very clear that there's no known connection and this is I don't know different from a lot of other child abduction cases where somebody is exploited by people already in their lives. Police say the victim was not allowed to leave the vehicle after being picked up so they were essentially holding them hostage inside the vehicle. They believe that the destination was a hotel somewhere in the city and what's attended to happen at that hotel we don't know this could have been an issue of assault this could have been an issue of trafficking we don't know exactly what their plans are, but we do know in a very thankful for the fact that they didn't happen. Yeah, I mean not even the victims gender was released and and rightfully so you have to do everything you can to protect the identity of that person. So the Canada border services agency is not primarily a law enforcement agency in the conventional sense, but it is a mandated border security office if you will.

14:53So they control the movement of the cars to and from this bridge and thank God that they were trained to identify human trafficking and exploitation and are specifically empowered to detain individuals and refer matter to police when they feel like there's some criminal activity going on and and really they got only knows what they spared this young person from maybe not everything but definitely. This could have lasted a lot longer if they hadn't got involved and it was something that they're training prepared them for it was an observation noting that the occupants demeanor was certainly one of nervousness and that they were acting anxious about something they noted that there was a teenager in the back seat that looked uncomfortable and afraid some unclear responses questions triggered all of that training. So they immediately called for backup and once authorities arrived and got the perpetrators alleged perpetrators out of the vehicle they were able to confirm what was happening an official statement was released on September 22nd said an investigation revealed the two accused had picked up the youth earlier that day and would not allow them to leave the vehicle.

16:15While attempting to drive the victim to a hotel the accused made a wrong turn onto the Saint Salt St. Marie International Bridge and were intercepted by CBSA officers when they attempted to reenter they declined to specify the victims gender like you said and very, very grateful for that and the anonymity there but this could have been a horrendous situation John and you know there there are so many times that this happens when they're. Is no wrong turn when there is nobody that notices the odd behavior I don't have the numbers directly in front of me but the number of kids and young people that are human traffic every every day is staggering in mind blowing so this is a problem that happens everywhere whether you think that you live in a small town and it could never happen there I guarantee you it is you just don't know about it so you know praise god these.

17:15People saw something suspicious and they acted on it but yeah man they are going to be tried to the full extent of the law I'm sure this is all very new so all of this is allegedly until further processes that occur in court yeah absolutely and and for what we know all accounts the teenager was unharmed except from the trauma of being kidnapped which obviously is. A big deal in and of itself so today John we were talking about two cases a cold case missing person and kidnapping being solved after 61 years and here a potential trafficking case being stopped before it started so kind of two ends of the spectrum two different countries two different stories in 10 minutes or less would you like crime with that. You've listened to true crime cast distributed by stove leg media check out stove leg dot com to find out more about your hosts and find other podcasts to listen to stove leg media igniting conversation.

18:26There's a fire inside you you can't ignore stand still not a chance you're a lifelong learner who's come this far now we're here to help you keep going further cappella university what can't you do visit cappella dot e to learn more.