Woman: ♪ places that you go ♪
♪ secrets that you keep ♪
♪ as you keep me in the dark ♪
Siegler: It was in December of 1990
That emmaline croft was discovered brutally murdered
In her house.
Did you look at those pictures?
- I did. - Those pictures were horrible.
It seemed like overkill, you know.
You're either really, really high
Or really, really sick to be able to do that.
As a cold-case prosecutor,
I've seen lots of crime-scene photos,
But it's really rare for a prosecutor
To be the one that walks in on a crime scene.
And I can only imagine the horror
Of discovering miss emmaline's body back in 1990.
Carroll: I got a phone call from miss croft's son.
He said, "have you seen granny croft out?"
And I said, "no, I haven't seen her in a few days actually."
And he said, "would you do me a favor and go check on her?"
I opened the door.
[camera bulb flashing]
[sobs]
Rider: That's quite a big file.
Yeah, I know.
- Hello. - Hi.
We're here to see lieutenant sparks.
Okay. I'll let him know you're here.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
Siegler: I first heard about this case
Because of a retired florida cop named ron schroeder.
He moved here and started helping out
The alcoa police department with their cold cases.
With tonya being from ohio and me being from texas,
That makes law enforcement from four different states
Working on this case.
- Hello. - Hello, guys.
- How are you? Woody hughes. - Woody, I'm kelly.
- Tonya. - Nice to meet you.
- Doug sparks. - Nice to meet you.
Oh, ron, who I've been talking to.
Nice to meet you. I told tonya I've been talking to you.
The lack of a clear motive has really haunted law enforcement
And this whole community for three decades.
And because this case is so old,
This really could be our last chance to solve it.
What was emmaline like? What was her world back then?
Everybody loved her. She was a grandmother, a mother.
She had five kids.
How about grandkids? How many?
Schroeder: Four boys. She was very active in her church.
She took care of all people in the neighborhood.
They all called her granny. Didn't have any enemies at all.
I previously worked for the toledo police department's
Special victims unit, where we focused on investigating
Sexual assaults against women and children.
Mrs. Croft was killed the year that I graduated
From the toledo police academy.
And for her murder to go unsolved through
My whole entire professional law enforcement career
Is really a tragedy.
So on December 8, 1990, they found emmaline
Laying on a sofa in the living room.
The nightgown she was wearing was ripped,
And there's two pieces of nightgown
Laying on the floor in front of the couch.
She had blunt force trauma to her head.
She had been stabbed in the neck several times,
And she had puncture and scrape marks
About her face and her torso area.
They found a large kitchen knife in the hallway.
And actually, they found a bent fork
Laying by one of her feet on the floor.
And they actually thought that she'd been sexually assaulted.
- With an object or by a man? - We don't know for sure.
And there was no forced entry, right?
- Correct. - Okay.
Emmaline was stabbed with a knife and a fork
And raped vaginally and anally.
The strange thing is, this was such a violent crime,
But yet there are no viable fingerprints,
There was no semen left behind,
And all the dna testing came up empty.
Was there anything at all
That made her vulnerable to something like this happening?
No.
Siegler: That's what makes this case so crazy.
In all cold cases, you have to consider the possibility
Of an unknown assailant,
That some violent criminal out there
Picked poor emmaline as an easy target.
And while we keep all that in mind,
There were others that the investigators believed
To be persons of interest.
All right, how about we start with thomas norfleet?
- Sparks: He was her neighbor. - Also longtime friends.
Sparks: A few people believed that miss croft and norfleet
Were having an affair at some point.
She had told family members and other friends
That she and he had a falling-out.
It was over her visitation of his wife.
- She was very sick, right? - Yes.
And I think we care because we want to know
How much of a stressor that is on him, right?
Thomas norfleet was emmaline's neighbor, and at the time,
He was taking care of his terminally ill wife.
And his wife that was so sick back then
Really did pass away pretty soon after all this.
Some people thought that maybe emmaline and thomas norfleet
Might have been having an affair.
If so, could that have played a part in all this?
- And he's passed away. - He passed away two years ago.
Okay. At some point, the investigation
Also kind of went down the road of--
How about in the family?
Let's do the one that's passed away first.
That is dennis.
Dennis is her grandson.
Isn't he the one that she let stay at his house, too?
When he had run out of every other resource,
He would go there for a hot meal and someplace to sleep.
Siegler: So we know he has priors for drugs, right?
- Yeah. - Correct.
Siegler: Does he have any kind of violent priors?
Rider: Dui, of course. Vandalism.
Assault with an automobile.
There's ag burglary.
So ag burglary is what we're talking about.
Rider: One witness said dennis raised his hand to granny.
Siegler: Because she wouldn't give him drug money?
- Yes. Right. - That's a good one.
He's the only one on the board
That actually did something like that directly to her.
I wish we could ask him about that.
All right. So next up--
Darren is related to emmaline because he is her...
- Grandson. - Rider: Grandson.
How much was darren ethridge looked at back then?
Hughes: I don't think he really was.
- Being a juvenile at that time. - Siegler: He was 16.
Schroeder: Yeah, he was kind of like a wild child,
Kind of running the streets and that.
Grandma gets murdered and then they just got out of here.
Yep.
Siegler: Darren ethridge was emmeline's grandson
And our suspect, dennis kimsey's, cousin.
He was only 16 years old at the time,
But his parents appeared to have moved him away to texas
Really quickly after this happened.
What's our million-dollar question?
Why leave to texas so soon?
And in the years since, he's been accused of several crimes.
Stalking. Stalking. Stalking. Stalking. Stalking. Five times.
So in 2000, he's arrested in texas.
He picks up a stripper.
Then they decide to go off on their own to a park,
And then things go bad, right?
Darren was accused of stalking when he was 21.
And at 26, he was involved in an incident
Where he was allegedly raping a woman,
Was interrupted by police, and assaulted the officer
With his car as he tried to flee.
The question is, how early
Did darren's criminal activities really begin?
Did they have any issues between them that we know of?
- Granny and darren? - I don't think so.
I can see him being mad at granny,
But that kind of mad
That a 16-year-old kid could do that to his own blood--grandma.
- Oh, yeah. - And if you're that messed up,
It's not a one-time thing.
So we got to be looking for a pattern here.
There's some good pieces under each of the suspects,
But not a whole lot under any one of the suspects.
What I'm encouraged about is that there were so many people
That were never interviewed hard about anything back then.
I mean, we might find out something huge
And really, really get somewhere.
You got tim kimsey coming in today. Emmaline's grandson?
- Correct. - He knows we're going to talk
About some of his family members, too, right?
- Yes. - Okay.
Tim, how are you?
- Hey, buddy. Doing well. - Good.
I think you remember me. Detective hughes.
I do, yeah.
Tim: I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's.
She just loved unconditionally and was always there
For a pat on the back if you did well
And some harsh advice
If you weren't doing as good as you should have been.
She was always kind and amazing, and everybody loved granny.
What was she like?
Amazing lady. She, uh...
You just have to bear with me here a second.
Um...
Very forgiving person. Very loving individual.
She loved the lord.
And it was her faith that made her as strong as she was.
She taught us how to pray.
She come in there and make funny prayers even.
Very good sense of humor.
You think she's part of the reason
Why you're a preacher today?
She is unquestionably the reason
Why I'm a preacher today.
I get a-- get a lot of values...
From my granny, and, uh...
She, uh...
She taught me how to love.
She was my best friend.
When granny got killed,
I had emotions to run through me like I've never had in my life.
I was very angry as well as hurt.
Could you see from talking to your brother dennis
That he was just as angry as you?
Or did he do or act in a way
That made you be suspicious of him?
Tim: It made me suspicious.
He just didn't react the way that I felt like that he should.
Help us understand. If your brother is the person
Who murdered your grandma, why?
What would make him go to that extreme?
Drugs.
You know, my brother was a criminal.
He did a lot of bad things in his life.
There's nothing he wouldn't do.
Siegler: And then there's darren.
Tim: As far as I know,
Darren and her was not real, real close.
I don't know darren had anything to do with it.
If it's darren-- we're just trying to consider
All possibilities here-- what would get him so angry
Or worked up to sexually assault her that way?
That's the part that blows me away.
- Right. - I think that whoever it was
Had to be high.
- You would think, right? - Yeah.
I couldn't believe that something like this
Has happened to her in the manner that it did.
If it was found that it was somebody
That was in our family, it would hurt.
It would hurt bad to know that it was somebody close.
But no matter who it was,
They need to be brought to justice.
My granny deserves that.
Siegler: You know, we work murders all the time.
To me, this case is still different
Because they were able to sexually assault
An 80-year-old woman.
I'm building this defendant, whoever it is,
Up to be pretty much a monster.
And I don't like to use that word a lot,
But whoever did this is really, really sick.
We have three known and one unknown suspect
In the horrible murder and rape of emmaline croft.
Danny, this is ron schroeder.
- Mr. Schroeder. - And this is tonya.
- Hi. - Hi, tanya. How are you?
We want to talk to her friends and her family
To ask them about her two grandsons
And her neighbor, thomas norfleet.
Which, if any of them,
Is sick enough to kill her this horrible way?
Could you tell much about emmaline's relationship
With her grandkids?
Well, one grandson in particular, dennis kimsey.
One summer, he parked his little camper right there.
He adored his grandmother, and she adored him.
So she was really close with him.
He was there more than any of them.
Was there any talk that you heard
Of who was responsible for the murder?
There was speculation and rumor
That my first cousin, denny, could be involved.
Denny battled with a lot of demons.
He was an addict.
Was involved in everything
From burglaries to selling drugs.
Naturally, when this happened,
Everybody brought denny's name up.
- So you're trena's daughter. - We are both trena's daughters.
- You're both trena's daughters. - Yes. We're sisters.
Hughes: I know there's a sister somewhere in there.
Denny was always in trouble.
Like, he had put explosives in the sheriff's mailbox.
And one time when he got pulled over by the cops,
He tried to run over 'em.
Like, literally tried to run 'em down.
On the other hand, I guess there's a good side
Of denny somewhere, which is towards his grandmother.
Granny was probably denny's closest friend.
When denny was in trouble or had issues or whatever,
Granny was always the one
That would help him in any way she could.
Although denny was probably capable
Of doing that to someone else,
I just couldn't fathom him doing that to his grandmother,
Especially as much as he loved granny.
Walk in there, get mad and accidentally kill her--
Hands down, I could totally see that.
But to carry through the sexual stuff,
I find it very hard to believe.
Okay.
He was my brother, you know, and I loved him,
Despite his faults.
But you had a hard talk with him about what happened?
Yeah, I talked to him several times after that.
You know, he was like me.
He was just pulling stuff out of the sky.
"what if this." "what if that."
That's important for us to know.
Because if danny's trying to figure it out just like you are,
- We need to hear that. - Okay.
Would she have opened the door for any of denny's friends
Coming looking for denny? Drug friends?
You know, granny was...
Probably a trusting soul.
You know what I mean?
Siegler: Everybody agrees that dennis was violent
And capable of killing someone, maybe even his own grandmother.
But he wouldn't have been able
To commit the sexual act part of this.
And he was out there trying to figure out
Who committed this crime, too.
You spoke about how denny's history was.
What about darren?
What kind of stuff have you heard about darren?
Did anybody in your family ever think
About darren being involved?
Mm-mmm.
Darren couldn't handle--handle--
He couldn't handle granny, number one.
Because?
'cause he's not strong enough.
She's strong as an ox.
She'd have beat him half to death if he'd tried that.
Rider: According to these witnesses,
We should rule out darren as well.
He was too young and too small.
Not to mention, emmaline was his grandmother, too.
Did granny ever say anything
About having any kind of romantic interest
Or any guy on the street flirting with her
Or anything like that?
So we're talking about norfleet, right?
If emmaline thought that thomas norfleet was mean,
It's hard to imagine that they were romantically involved.
Unless she was keeping some big secret.
That someone would do that at someone like granny ethridge,
It just goes to prove that evil's out there.
Siegler: Dr. Pinneri's coming in today.
If she can tell us the order in which the injuries occurred,
I think that will give us a lot of insight
Into how that played out at the crime scene.
- There's so many of them. - Yeah.
After talking to everybody we have so far,
We still have no clear motive in emmaline's murder.
Guys, this is dr. Pinneri.
- Doug sparks. - Nice to meet you.
Siegler: Hopefully, if we get dr. Pinneri to tell us
More about the weapons used, the injuries,
More details about the sexual assault,
We can get better insight
Into knowing where we need to focus next.
Pinneri: So, we have an 80-year-old female.
She's found dead on a couch.
There's a lot of blood around her neck
And on the pillow underneath her head.
There is a knife on the floor in a hallway.
There's a bent fork right by her foot.
There's a big area of contusion
That encompasses the cheek and nose and then also the ear.
And there is a lot of bruising there.
So these did happen before the knife injuries.
She does have evidence of defending herself.
Cut marks on the backs of her hands
And the back of her forearm.
Those are defensive injuries
As you're trying to fight off somebody.
So she's seeing--
Looking at the person as she's being attacked.
What was found in the neck area is that the carotid arteries,
Which are the main blood vessels
That take blood from the heart up to the brain,
Were completely cut on both sides.
The one on the right actually goes deep enough,
And it cuts all the way to the vertebrae.
This tells you how forceful these stab wounds were.
This is brutal.
Did the injuries look sloppy, like somebody's first time,
And they're just going crazy with a knife?
They're very well placed.
If you want to kill somebody, that's how you do it.
Then she does have these groups of four puncture marks
On the face, what look like they could be fork wounds.
Some of the injuries look dry, almost postmortem.
This is a very horrific crime scene.
A whole lot of injuries.
That was overkill, basically, is what people would say.
Any one of those injuries to the neck
Would have been enough to have killed this elderly female.
The fork injuries. All of that is way excessive.
Then the other part of this is sexual assault,
Both vaginal and anal.
The way that the vaginal trauma is described
As small linear abrasions around the vaginal orifice.
So it had to be something large.
Are you saying a thing? Not a penis.
It could be a penis, just not a finger
Or not the end of the knife.
Is there anything that helps you say
If the sexual assault happened last?
I don't see her having the injuries and be standing up.
I could definitely see that that could have happened
After the other injuries.
What would be your explanation for how come there's no semen?
Pinneri: Well, not everybody ejaculates.
Maybe they couldn't. But if it was an object,
Then that would certainly explain the lack of semen.
Siegler: Emmaline wounds tell us that she was struck in the head
And then stabbed and then she was sexually assaulted
Before she was probed with that fork.
If the person who did this is miss emmaline's neighbor
Or an unknown suspect, then that's somebody
Who's really sick or really messed up on drugs.
- Thank you so much. - Yes. Thank you.
All right, thank you.
And if it's one of her grandsons,
That makes it even sicker.
Siegler: The house is still standing?
Yes. Our main focus is on that living room.
And so I'm hoping that that's still the same.
It's important for us to go to the crime scene
To get a firsthand look at how the crime took place.
So, we're headed to her house to recreate the crime scene.
In the original scene,
The couch where miss croft was located
Is gonna be right about this area here.
We know that the back leg of the couch was broken.
She's found with one leg on the sofa,
One leg kind of dangling off.
And the gown that's on the floor is still part of this gown,
- Not a separate one. - Correct.
It's almost like the jacket stayed on
And then the gown was just ripped off
And they were thrown onto the floor.
- Siegler: No bra? - No bra.
- But her bra was found.
It was on her clothes, inside her...
How about her panties?
- No panties. - No panties.
Are the panties anywhere in the room?
- No. - No.
Siegler: There's seemingly only one thing missing
From emmaline's house-- her underwear.
It's possible that the killer took her panties
Because they wanted to take away the evidence.
But they left the knife behind.
So we're all thinking they took the panties
To keep them as a trophy.
Tanya gets to be emmaline.
Woody, go play the intruder, killer, rapist.
- Who is it? - [knocking]
Oh, hi. What are you doing here?
I just come to talk to you. I need some help.
She's seen me. She's recognized me.
And she's comfortable with letting me in.
We start talking, but something sets me off.
And so my first instinct
Is just to punch her right inside the face,
And that's going to knock her down onto the couch.
So she's dazed. She's confused.
And I just grab whatever I can find.
And I come back. She's blocking me.
And then we're fighting, and I'm ripping this gown off.
That is where it ends up, right?
- Yeah. - Okay.
I'm trying to shield my face
Because that's, like, your vulnerable part.
But I'm still exposing my neck. I can't do both.
He's coming in and going here.
So the two fatal are going to be on each side right here.
So it's going to go in here and then in here as well.
And the left one's the deep one
That goes all the way to the vertebrae.
But the way she's laid with this propped up and I'm on top,
All that blood is shooting on me.
- And she's not getting away. - Mm-mmm.
I felt extremely vulnerable, and I'm not 80 years old.
But when someone's over you, they have all the power.
And so knowing that she was in defense mode
And trying to fight off her attacker,
It had to be completely horrible for her.
She's bleeding out. She's most likely dead already.
So being the sadistic person that I am,
I just grab a fork, and I'm coming in,
And I'm poking in the face.
Maybe that's not doing what I need.
And I start poking down here.
'cause that's where the fork injuries are? Even down here?
Yeah, there's some on the torso as well.
And given the force used by this,
Because obviously you're really jabbing it in there,
It's going to bend that fork,
And then that's just tossed down.
Okay, so y'all think the sexual assault happened
- After she's dead? - I would think so.
Like I said, I think there would still be a lot more destruction
Around the place if it happened during...
Y'all want to think he's raping a dead woman?
That's even sicker.
I'm covered in blood now,
So before I leave, I've got to clean up.
So I go back towards the bathroom,
Drops the knife, whatever else, washes his hands.
We think he's just straight out, opening the door,
Maybe touching the wall or something.
Where's blood inside the house? Anywhere?
A little on the back, but then right here in this doorframe.
And then he grabbed the handle,
And there's blood around the handle here.
It's almost like you want to think
That whoever did this is some unknown monster out there.
With all the people on the board
That these people out here all know,
It's just hard to picture any one of them
Being able to do that to sweet little emmaline.
I'm trying to picture a 16-year-old able
To do that that young to his own grandma after she's dead.
- That's a lot. - It is a lot.
Or trying to picture denny, who loved his grandma,
Who worshipped the ground he walked on
Being able to do that.
You almost want it to be an unknown person.
- Yeah. - It makes it more...
- Believable. - Believable.
Rider: So, I'm exciting to talk to janice,
Because now that he's deceased,
Hopefully as a former spouse,
She'll be able to give us some more insight
Into him as a person,
If he's ever mentioned this to her.
Our suspect, thomas norfleet,
Passed away a couple of years ago,
And his wife at the time died of natural causes
Shortly after emmaline's murder, but he did remarry in 1992.
Sparks: Janice, do you mind talking with us out here?
Rider: That ex-wife could be the best witness we have
Into norfleet's character, his demeanor,
And if he said anything incriminating.
Yeah, I have always hated it
That miss croft's murder was never solved.
And everybody had their own opinion.
Rider: Had tom ever been violent toward you?
One time...
I was getting ready for work,
And he was fussing about something.
I was saying, "I don't know what you're mad about,"
And he slapped me.
Do you think tom would be capable of hurting miss croft?
I don't think so. I think he respected miss croft,
And I really don't think that he would have hurt her.
I really don't think he was capable of murder,
Especially not her.
Yeah, we talked about it several times,
And he said that the grandson came over
And asked him to pull up his shirt.
He wanted to see if he had any marks
Where she had fought back.
Tom said, "I pulled my shirt up
And I showed him I didn't have any scratch marks."
He said, "now pull your shirt up and show me your back."
And he said, "the boy didn't have any marks."
Rider: Janice confirms
Thomas norfleet was not a nice man.
But according to her, after the murder,
Dennis confronted thomas about it,
But neither of them had scratches or marks.
Well, thank you again for your time, ma'am.
While neither of them are alive to confirm it,
That helps to clear thomas and dennis.
Hughes: Hopefully she's willing to talk.
Well, it would be helpful for the best victim
In darren's life back then to tell us how bad was it?
- You know what I mean? - Definitely.
Siegler: Neither thomas norfleet or dennis kimsey
Have ever been accused of sexual crimes,
But darren ethridge was.
Even though he was never tried for sexual assault,
We know all about his alleged rape in texas,
Where he fled and assaulted a police officer with his car.
- Oh, I bet that's her. - Oh, I'll guarantee it.
She's going to want some ac.
Hey, I'm detective hughes with alcoa. How you doing?
Siegler: We can't confirm the conviction,
But darren was also accused
Of stalking a woman here in tennessee,
And it's important that we talk to her.
We're looking into the emmaline croft homicide,
So we're trying to get a better feel
For what was going on with darren.
Siegler: Darren ethridge. Your old boyfriend.
Woman: He ain't my boyfriend. Oh, no, ma'am.
Siegler: Old boyfriend.
- Woman: No. - He wasn't your boyfriend?
You need to check more county records.
- He wasn't your boyfriend? - No.
Okay, so starting-- how'd you meet him?
Was he actually making statements and doing things?
What was he saying?
When you run the report,
You come back with these stalking incidents
That happened a long time ago, back in 1995,
Five years after our murder.
We think that we're going to go talk to the girl
That was a victim of a stalking,
A girlfriend from way back in the day.
And then she tells us that they never dated.
She met him at work
And everything went crazy right after that.
He broke into your apartment?
He took your panties.
And our panties were missing.
He burglarized her apartment.
He stole her panties.
And then you start comparing this beautiful, credible witness
To the murder case that we're looking at.
And I don't know.
Miss emmaline's panties have never been found.
Tonya, she says, "he scared the hell out of me.
I'm scared to death of him today."
And she said nobody would listen.
Can't have a more believable witness.
And she says he's scary crazy. What you thinking?
Just about the underwear and then hers being missing.
And they're never recovered. I never understood it.
- Where's her underwear? - Right.
Okay, so your hoping
When darren walks into his parole visit,
He has to cooperate somewhat.
- That's a condition of parole. - Correct.
Siegler: Darren ethridge was never really looked that hard
As a suspect for his grandmother's murder back then,
So he was never really interviewed at all.
You have to wonder when did his criminal activities begin.
We do know that his mother and dad
Moved him to texas sometime after the murder.
- Hello. - How are you?
I'm a parole officer. I was just notified.
Woody hughes. How are you?
Darren is currently on parole for driving while intoxicated.
So our hope today is to surprise interview him
When he comes in for his regular parole visit.
We're doing a deep dive into the murder of your grandmother.
So, would you care to talk to us about that?
How old were you?
Siegler: Often did you talk to our grandma back then?
The day of the murder or the time frame or whatever,
Where were you at? If you can remember.
When you heard the news, what did you do then?
Does your dad think that some unknown person did it
Who just got away with it?
'cause the file says that maybe some people
Thought denny was involved.
What does your dad think?
You talked about you've been in trouble with the law.
The file says something about you were
In a little trouble back in tennessee,
And that's kind of why y'all moved to texas.
Is that a girlfriend?
And what, she broke up with you or you broke up with her?
She dumped you?
Because, you know, we can pull up the report
Where we see the back-and-forth kind of juvenile
Throwing eggs at each other bull--, right?
Is that all it was?
Serious enough for your dad to move you to texas over that?
What's the ugliest it got?
Hughes: Did you get arrested for that?
Siegler: She said something
About her panties in your apartment.
What happened with the case you went to tdc on
When you went out with that girl to the bar?
What was going on there at the lake
To make him want to stop, check on y'all on the first place?
And the girl?
Consensual making out?
She screamed something else? What, like rape?
But it wasn't rape.
During darren's jury trial
For assaulting the cop as he tried to flee,
All the facts from that night were admissible.
And his texas victim testified that he was raping her
When that cop showed up and saved her.
Did you hear the family ever talk about
How granny was found without her panties on,
Somebody took her panties?
And then we have--
Who says you came into her apartment
Without her permission and took her panties.
No correlation?
You don't seem to have very healthy relationships
With women, though, mr. Ethridge.
It is.
You can break into--apartment and take her negligee,
Her pajamas, and her panties.
That's what she says.
Just like the girl at the park here in texas.
She exaggerating or embellishing when she cried rape?
Hughes: I mean, the worst-case scenario for her at that time
Would have just been a citation
For being in the park after dark.
If I'm just looking at a misdemeanor citation,
I'm not going to scream rape.
How are we supposed to believe you
About what happened with your grandma
If you won't tell us the truth about the rest of it?
Not important whether or not we believe you
That you committed a capital murder of your own grandma?
Well, you're looking at two people
Who suspect you of that, sir.
Every single thing that we brought up,
He didn't tell the truth about.
You know, what happened with the girl
That he worked with back in tennessee,
What happened with the girl that he got arrested
For sexually assaulting here in texas.
He's not emotional about losing his grandmother.
That doesn't make him guilty,
But it sure keeps him on the suspect board.
I think it's crazy that after we leave,
His parole officer asked darren
Were they looking at you as a suspect,
And he says, no, like he thinks we don't know a single thing
With a police report anywhere.
He's definitely odd, weird, creepy,
Whatever you want to call him.
He's all the above.
- Rider: Morning. - Good morning.
Siegler: Good morning, guys.
It's time we review everything we've learned.
What can we prove today 33 years later
In the murder of emmaline croft?
Why don't we start with deceased thomas norfleet first?
Now that we've talked to family members
Who had working theories all these years,
Any witness or piece of evidence that points straight at norfleet
Being the person who killed miss emmaline?
- We don't have anything. - I don't think anything.
We didn't even have anybody that confirmed
That he was messing around with miss emmaline
That would have been the motive for all this.
- Do we? - No.
I really don't think he was capable of murder.
Do y'all all agree that we can clear him
Once and for all as a suspect?
- Yep. - I agree.
- Yes. - Okay.
Circumstantial evidence can clear suspects
Just as much as it can incriminate them.
And when it suggests that they're innocent,
It's our responsibility to rule them out.
Okay. Dennis kimsey, emmaline's grandson.
And we talked to lots of people in that family, mostly women,
Who gave us the good, the bad, and the ugly on denny.
Right? I don't think they held back.
But what do they all tell us about
Would denny be able to sexually assault and murder
His own grandma that way?
Everyone said no.
Get mad and accidentally kill her--
Hands down, I could totally see that.
But to carry through the sexual stuff,
I find it very hard to believe.
Would he be capable of killing someone?
Yeah, but not his granny.
I agree with lieutenant sparks on that.
I don't think he would have been able to do that,
Especially throwing in the sexual assault part of it.
And it feels like even denny himself
Was trying to solve the case.
The grandson asked him to pull up his shirt.
Tom said, "I showed him I didn't have any scratch marks."
I think he should be taken off the board.
- Yep. - Yes.
- Yeah. - All right.
Denny's off the board.
But denny's world of people, what are y'all thinking?
I think that when you run
With the type of individuals dennis ran with,
That you're liable to make someone pissed off.
He could have owed somebody money or ripped somebody off
Or something to that effect
To cause them to go over there and do that to him
'cause they knew also how much he loved granny.
And the one way to get him back is to do something to her.
So, unknown suspect--what do we do with up here on the board?
- Keep him up there. - He stays.
Gotta stay.
Here's where things get muddy.
While we don't believe that dennis had it in him
To sexually assault his grandmother,
He ran with a really rough crowd.
So the possibility still exists
That somebody from that really rough crowd
Could have come looking for him or come seeking revenge.
And then you have darren ethridge.
He's a convicted felon now,
But back then, what do we have evidence-wise
That points to darren be the one who killed his own grandma?
We just don't know.
What was going on so bad in that boy's life
That his family felt the need to get him out of the whole state?
And then the girls.
You had this history of behavior.
Yesterday, he could have sat down and said,
"yeah, I did that. Man, I messed up."
Anything you brought up, he didn't own a thing.
You can break into--apartment and take her panties.
Just like the girl at the park here in texas?
She exaggerating or embellishing when she cried rape?
But other than the similarity with the stolen panties,
Does any of this directly point to his grandma?
- Nope. - No.
No. To me, I'm walking away from this town thinking,
I still believe the evidence leans toward darren,
But you're not even close
To having enough to file any charges.
There's no nice way to put it. We did not get there.
We didn't solve the case.
We did not get the answers we wanted.
We did not get justice
For miss emmaline or for her family.
I just don't understand how when you have a victim like her
And she gets murdered this horrible, horrible way,
Maybe even by her own family member,
And god won't let us solve this case right now.
It doesn't make any sense to me
When I'm trying to make it all make sense.
I don't know how to say how bad it feels
To leave a case this way.
The only good news we can say is that we're leaving this case
In very capable hands with detective hughes,
Lieutenant sparks, and ron schroeder,
'cause they're going to continue to do whatever they can
To try and get justice for miss emmaline.
We're going to keep knocking on doors.
We're going to keep calling people
Until we get something.
Now that it's out there again, something's going to happen.
- You're still hopeful? - I am.
- You, too? - Oh, yes.
Good.
♪ my blood spills its red for you ♪
♪ your love flows it slows my bones ♪
Siegler: Remember when you first talked to tim?
He was worried that it was denny.
Yeah. I don't know if he's held any animosity
Against him over the years.
Just in the back of his mind, thinking that it's him.
I think one of the worst things about this job is having
To tell miss emmaline's grandson that we didn't get justice
And we didn't get the answers he wants.
The good thing that we can tell him, though,
Is that his brother was not involved
In what happened to his grandmother,
And I hope that makes him feel better.
So, it's been a long week.
- I wish I had better news. - Okay.
So, we did a deep dive into everybody,
Including the neighbor, mr. Norfleet.
We feel comfortable ruling him out as a suspect,
And then we can move on to denny.
A bad past,
Was into a lot of stuff and everything like that.
But everybody we talked to,
He could never do that to granny.
That doesn't rule out somebody he may have ran with.
But with confidence, we can say that he's not the one.
Okay.
It gives me relief.
And it's my prayer that it'll give others relief
To know that--that he is-- he's cleared.
Maybe his legacy could be different.
Then we move on to darren.
Now, we don't have enough right now
To definitively say that he's responsible,
But we can't rule him out yet.
I understand.
It's just hard for us to sit here and think
That a woman like her,
With all that she did for everybody,
We can't get the answer and we can't get her justice.
So we're frustrated.
He couldn't have tried any harder.
- He's going to keep trying. - This isn't the end.
We've stirred the pot again, so we're not quitting.
I appreciate that.
You know, my grandmother deserved it.
She deserved you doing as much as you can do.
And you also know with what you do for a living,
There's a chance you might not get the justice
Here on this side.
No. But I know I serve a god.
And I sincerely believe she's there with him.
And she's--she's good.
Well, it was wonderful meeting you.
- Thanks. - Thank you very much.
If you have any information about this case
Or about the suspects involved in this investigation,
Please contact the alcoa police department.
You could have the missing piece of information
That solves this case.
- Really good, brother. - All right.
- Call me if I can help anyway. - Oh, yeah.
Siegler: You did good. That was good.
I think he heard you.