(ominous music)
- Bruce was my brother.
He's my youngest brother.
Me and my brother were close.
We were tight.
Bruce is not the type of person to just go off
And not let anybody know where he was going
And what he was doing.
The fear started to set in
When I had not heard from my brother.
The police are looking to see if there was anything
That may have caused him to disappear.
They can't find him. (suspenseful music)
Nobody wants to feel somebody
That they love to be discarded like that.
I wasn't going to let him go like that.
He didn't deserve this.
And I just kept at it, at it, at it, at it again.
Giving up on him is like maybe giving up on myself.
(suspenseful music)
I was gonna find out what happened to my brother.
(suspenseful music)
(horns honking) (traffic whooshing)
- New york city is the place where people come
To realize their ambitions, their hopes, and their dreams.
It is the land of opportunity.
It's where things happen.
(suspenseful music) (train clanking)
- [narrator] it's Monday morning
And 55-year-old bruce blackwood does something unusual.
At least for him.
He calls into the off-track betting parlor he manages
And tells them he won't be coming in.
- It was a very brief call.
The person that took the phone call said bruce said,
I slipped and fell in the bathtub.
I have to go to the hospital.
I can't make it into work.
I was worried about him.
(suspenseful music)
- Bruce blackwood worked as a manager at the otb in queens,
Out of o'neill's.
He had never missed a day's work.
(suspenseful music)
- They were very concerned,
Especially for the fact that he mentioned
That he hit his head.
(phone ringing)
Just didn't seem right at all.
(phone ringing) (suspenseful music)
- When I heard that bruce called in sick,
I immediately called bruce.
(phone ringing)
When he didn't pick up,
The first time I figured,
Okay, maybe he just didn't get to the phone.
Second time I was telling him,
Bruce, it's tina. Pick up.
It's me.
The third time.
The fourth.
(phone ringing)
Fifth. (suspenseful music)
And I said, something's wrong.
He always picks up for me.
(suspenseful music)
- [narrator] bruce never picks up or calls back.
The next day, he, again, fails to show up for work.
Even his close friends can't get in touch with him.
- I was out on maternity leave,
But bruce and I would talk to each other
At least two or three times a day.
After not hearing from him for a couple of days,
I was in a complete panic.
He was just gone.
- A friend of his told me that she had not heard from bruce.
And did I hear from bruce within those two days?
And I said, no.
Something may have happened to bruce.
'cause bruce is not that type of a person
To just go off and not let anybody know where he was going
And what he was doing.
The fear started to set in.
- No one had heard from him.
So it was a missing person's case.
And his brother went to police.
(suspenseful music)
- We received an official missing person's report
On March 9th, which was three days after he called in sick
At that point.
(suspenseful music)
- When ed made this missing person's report,
I knew it was very serious.
That was scary.
It was like reality hit. (melancholy music)
I felt like I was gonna jump outta my skin.
I prayed that he was okay.
(siren wailing)
- [narrator] the next morning,
Detectives in queens launch an intensive search
For the missing man. (radio muttering)
- The first and foremost thing is to interview
The person who is reporting the individual missing.
And, in this case, it was bruce blackwood's brother, ed.
(suspenseful music)
- We grew up together in queens.
In high school, bruce, he played the clarinet for the band.
He sang in a glee club.
He was very much involved
In different types of organizations.
Bruce was very friendly. (melancholy music)
Me and my brother were close.
I mean, we were tight.
And bruce always had a lending hand.
He helped my mother out quite a lot.
(melancholy music)
- When I was pregnant,
Bruce would come over and rub my belly.
And he'd say, I can't wait till you have this baby.
I can't wait to hold him.
I said to bruce, you're gonna make a great uncle.
He was so excited.
(melancholy music)
- He was a very giving person.
He'd listen to you.
You could always talk to my brother about anything.
He would come through.
He'd be there for you.
Now, my brother was missing.
I'm left out in the cold.
(traffic whooshing)
- [narrator] detectives learned bruce was well off.
At least on paper.
With real estate holdings
Worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
His hard work over nearly four decades
Helped cement his financial security.
- Bruce worked for the airlines for 30 years
As a flight attendant.
And at that time, (melancholy music)
Being a flight attendant was like star quality.
You know what I mean?
Then the twa went outta business.
The otb, he just went from a cashier
All the way up to a manager.
(melancholy music)
- Bruce loved to work.
Bruce's life was work.
He then got into real estate.
He wanted to invest in buying property.
And when he was retired,
He wanted to be able to just live a comfortable life.
He was a go-getter.
- Bruce blackwood was a striver.
A hardworking new york guy who took what little money he had
And bought rundown properties
And turned them into apartments.
(suspenseful music)
- [narrator] after bruce's brother, ed,
Reports bruce missing,
He then begins his own search.
(suspenseful music)
- I went to the building that he owned in bushwick.
I got a group together that consisted of family friends.
And I made up a picture of my brother
And wrote out, had anybody seen him?
And we went into that area, passing out posters.
Went into the stores.
Nailed them up on the trees.
Stopped people in the street.
That's what we did.
(suspenseful music)
- They do what they always do in new york.
They post flyers everywhere.
And they go door to door,
Trying to get any lead about where he might be.
But they found nothing. (suspenseful music)
- [narrator] detectives, meanwhile, search bruce's home,
Looking for clues.
- Detectives from my office
Responded to mr. Blackwood's residence in queens.
Mr. Blackwood's cadillac suv was standing in his driveway.
He had nice things, nice house.
(suspenseful music)
- We searched the house to make sure he hadn't fallen
Or something happened to him inside the house.
There was nothing there to find out where he was.
And there was no signs of any foul play.
- We didn't have any physical evidence
Even to say that this was a crime.
He wasn't on any types of medication.
He wasn't depressed.
He didn't have any financial problems that we were aware of.
And there was no reason why he would be missing.
(traffic whooshing)
- I mean, it was like you're watching a movie
And to say, is this happening to me?
I don't feel that he had any kinda enemies
That would cause him to disappear.
(suspenseful music)
- All roads led us to believe
That there was definitely something nefarious
Had been done to mr. Blackwood.
- There was definitely foul play involved.
But we didn't know what.
(thunder rumbling) (suspenseful music)
- Basically, he fell off the face of the earth.
(thunder rumbling) (suspenseful music)
(melancholy music)
- My brother was missing.
We had not heard from him.
They say that if they're not found within two to three days,
Then the outlook doesn't look good.
(melancholy music)
- When we received the official missing persons report,
Mr. Blackwood had already been missing for four days.
We tried tracking his missing cell phone.
(suspenseful music)
Unfortunately, his cell phone was already powered off
And there was no way of obtaining his location.
We subpoenaed his cell phone for cell phone records.
- We had an all hands on deck.
I was a homicide investigator at the time
And worked in the 113 precinct for a long time.
We do a morgue search, check for car accidents.
Unfortunately, in this case,
He had just disappeared off the face of the earth.
(suspenseful music)
- Nobody had a bad thing to say about the man.
He was loved by all.
- [announcer] they're off!
Country blue is going to the front on the inside.
Babydoll is going...
- [narrator] detectives interview employees
At the off-track betting parlor that bruce managed.
- He handled the money for the otb.
Back then, the otb in the city was making a lotta money.
And people could bet on horses in the bar.
He was responsible for the safe.
So we needed to check to make sure someone didn't rob him
Or hold him, maybe try to take money from the otb.
- We spoke to everybody to try to gain more information.
Nobody knew anything additional.
- Those are crazy gamblers.
But he never led me to believe
That there might be a customer that might be after him
Or anything like that.
(suspenseful music)
- We went down every avenue possible
To see if there was any other potential people
Who may have been involved in bruce's disappearance.
We turned up nothing.
- Nothing made sense.
Nothing jumped off the page as to why, who.
(suspenseful music)
- [narrator] investigators ask the public
To help them find bruce blackwood.
- We had the missing person squad print up missing posters.
We distributed 'em to every precinct in the city,
All 75 of them. (suspenseful music)
We also flooded the neighborhood where bruce resided
And the locations where he owned the property,
In the bronx and in brooklyn.
- Sometimes witnesses come forward.
I've seen that individual.
I last saw him here.
I heard about this.
Things of that nature.
- Unfortunately, we didn't develop any leads
From the missing posters.
So we were very concerned,
But we never turned our backs on anybody.
(siren wails)
(melancholy music)
- [narrator] police question tenants
In the buildings blackwood owned.
If he's met with foul play and not just missing,
A tenant might be to blame.
(suspenseful music)
- Police obviously hit neighbors, tenants.
Particularly tenants because,
If he's gonna have any kinda conflict,
It's gonna be with tenants.
People who don't pay the rent.
People who complain and threaten lawsuits.
People who might be conceivable enemies.
- I went to the hancock street address in brooklyn
To interview the tenants that live in the building
And the handyman slash super.
He lived in the apartment on the third floor.
He invited us in.
We went up to his apartment on the third floor.
- The handyman told detectives
That he saw mr. Blackwood on Tuesday,
The following day which would be March 7th.
(suspenseful music)
- Bruce had arrived at the house
At about 9:30, 10:00 o'clock in the morning.
They discussed renovations that were being done.
And bruce had told him that he had to take a ride somewhere
To run some errands.
(suspenseful music)
- At some point, he heard a horn beeping outside
And mr. Blackwood told him that his friend,
Michael, mike, was outside.
He observed mr. Blackwood leave the building
And enter a black toyota camry
And drove off with this individual.
- The handyman didn't know who mike was.
Never saw him before.
And that was the last time that he had seen mr. Blackwood.
(suspenseful music)
- [narrator] detectives sweeped the brooklyn neighborhood,
Looking for video of the black car.
(suspenseful music)
- We checked the immediate area for video cameras.
There was a supermarket directly across the street,
But the video cameras that they had
Were not working properly.
- I could not think of one person
That bruce ever mentioned to me with the name mike.
There were a couple of coworkers named mike at work,
But no one that bruce was friendly with on that level.
(suspenseful music)
- All cops had was bruce blackwood was last seen
With a guy named mike in a car.
But mike could be anybody.
(suspenseful music)
- We needed to find out who mike was immediately.
We were running outta time.
(melancholy music)
- We tried to locate this guy, mike.
Was the only lead at that time.
We immediately went out and did canvasses
Through the neighborhood.
- Nobody knew any individual by the name of mike
With a black toyota camry.
And certainly didn't know anybody
That mr. Blackwood would just go with
Without letting anybody know.
We were unsuccessful coming up with any mikes.
- We just could not find him.
It really bothered me. (suspenseful music)
Bruce blackwood was an upstanding citizen,
Did everything right his whole entire life.
What happened to mr. Blackwood?
(suspenseful music)
(melancholy music) (traffic whooshing)
- Not knowing about whether my brother was alive or dead
Is the hardest thing to grasp.
I felt that something will show up eventually.
And I was just hoping that the best would show up,
You know, not the worst.
(traffic whooshing) (suspenseful music)
- Mr. Blackwood was not an individual
That would go off the grid for several days.
There was no reason
Other than something must have happened to him
For him to disappear like this.
We believed mr. Blackwood was no longer with us.
And it was extremely frustrating,
Not being able to find any physical evidence
To indicate that he was, in fact, a victim of a homicide.
(suspenseful music)
(siren wailing)
(melancholy music)
- [narrator] bruce's friends tell detectives
They'd recently seen a change in his behavior.
- Right before I went on maternity,
I knew something was wrong. (suspenseful music)
Bruce was very anxious.
He was very moody.
He didn't wanna talk.
And that was not like him.
He said, yeah, everything's fine.
Everything's okay.
As his friend, I just felt like, okay,
I'm gonna respect his privacy.
- Bruce's blackwood had a very good friend
Who lived in pennsylvania.
And he would come up and visit him every other weekend.
(suspenseful music)
- He had been staying with him for the weekend
Prior to him last being seen.
This individual had told us that mr. Blackwood
Was on edge and there was something bothering him.
At some point during the day,
Mr. Blackwood just got very angry and agitated
And started saying stuff like,
I don't know why I got involved with these individuals.
- His friend questioned him on it,
Trying to get him to give him some information.
And he refused. (suspenseful music)
He just wouldn't say who he was actually talking about.
- [narrator] detectives speak to a friend of bruce's
Who says she went looking for him at his brooklyn building
Even before he was reported missing.
There was no sign of bruce,
But she did see something alarming.
(suspenseful music)
- At the time of mr. Blackwood's disappearance,
One of his best friends,
She observed the handyman, luis perez,
Driving mr. Blackwood's cadillac suv.
(suspenseful music)
- She immediately flagged down a police car she saw going by
And relayed the information that bruce blackwood owns
That car and that he would not
Have given it to anybody else.
- The officers actually conducted a car stop
And spoke to mr. Perez.
Yes, this is my boss's car.
Mr. Blackwood asked me to hold onto the car for him
And move it to the alternate side of the street.
- We have alternative side parking in new york
And you have to move your car
To the other side of the street.
Once, twice a week.
Some neighborhoods, every day.
So it wouldn't be out of the ordinary
For a handyman to move someone's car.
(suspenseful music)
- The explanation that luis perez gave us
Was very legitimate
Because alternate side of street was in effect
For that whole week.
- [narrator] looking for a solid lead,
Detectives interview one of bruce's neighbors.
- I spoke to a neighbor who recalled
The weekend right before mr. Blackwood went missing,
That he observed mr. Blackwood involved
In a argument with two individuals
Standing in his driveway.
He described both individuals as being male hispanics.
One of the males he recognized
From doing work on mr blackwood's house.
And he believed that he was a employee
And the handyman for mr. Blackwood.
(suspenseful music)
He stated that the altercation became heated.
Both men appeared very agitated.
He overheard mr. Blackwood say something
To the effect that it wasn't supposed
To cost this much money.
That's not what we agreed on.
The argument was definitely over money.
As we all know,
Money could be the root of all evil.
Money can destroy friendships.
It could destroy families.
So this argument definitely raised our suspicions a lot.
'cause we were looking for a motive
For mr. Blackwood's disappearance.
And money appeared to be a very viable motive
At this point.
(suspenseful music)
Mr. Blackwood was doing very well for himself.
Drove a fancy car,
Had several properties.
And money did provide us a motive
For why he was murdered.
So at this point we were
Looking very much into his handyman,
Luis perez, being a suspect.
(melancholy music)
- [narrator] with money as the possible motive,
Detectives look more closely at bruce blackwood's finances.
- I personally went to the american airlines credit union
And that's when we realized bruce had been
To that credit union to report
That he was missing 13 checks.
- A total of 13 personal checks
That were fraudulently signed.
All forged checks.
12 of those checks were written out to luis perez.
And one check was written out to martin rodriquez,
An individual luis perez basically hired
To do work at hancock street.
The total amount for all 13 forged checks was $7,700.
- Luis perez was somehow involved.
(suspenseful music)
But unfortunately we had to wait on subpoenas
To the banks, to the credit union
To prove it.
- Blackwood, he's a small investor.
And $7,700 is a great deal of money
To a blue collar worker who's trying to make good.
(suspenseful music)
- My brother became very suspicious about the checks.
So he knew that something was going on with perez.
(traffic noise)
(suspenseful music)
- [narrator] detectives dig into luis perez's record.
- It was shocking.
He spent 10 years in jail in massachusetts
For attempting to kill his daughter
And the mother of the child.
(suspenseful music)
State troopers actually stopped him
And he stabbed one of the state troopers.
(suspenseful music)
(melancholy music)
- [narrator] weeks after detectives asked
For bruce's phone records, they finally arrive.
They go over his calls,
Including the one he made to otb.
Bruce had said he'd slipped in the bathtub
And couldn't come to work. (suspenseful music)
- We were able to triangulate that call
And he was hitting off a cell phone tower
Approximately two blocks away
From the hancock street location.
(suspenseful music)
We believed that he was actually inside
And that he was with luis perez.
- [narrator] detectives can't prove bruce was murdered,
But they do have proof someone had been stealing from him.
(suspenseful music)
- We received copies of all the forged checks.
Handwriting analysis was able to determine
That luis perez did write those checks out.
(melancholy music)
Luis perez was arrested and was charged
With multiple counts of grand larceny and forgery.
We also secured a search warrant
For perez's hancock street residence,
Where we believed mr. Blackwood was murdered.
We had extreme high hopes
Of finding any kind of physical evidence
Inside that residence linking luis perez to the murder.
Dna, blood, weapons, knives.
Things of that nature.
Our crime scene unit ripped up carpeting.
They removed drain pipes, traps in the sinks,
And the shower and bathtub. (suspenseful music)
- Unfortunately, there was nothing there that they found
That could help in our investigation.
So it was very disheartening and very upsetting to everybody
Who was involved.
I was very dejected.
(melancholy music)
- [narrator] luis perez pleads guilty
To passing fraudulent checks.
- We put luis perez in jail for at least two to four years.
And he probably was gonna do all four
Because of his past criminal history.
(suspenseful music)
- But all this proves is that these guys
Were stealing from blackwood.
And this still is a missing person's case.
- It was upsetting to think
That luis perez would only get two to four years for forgery
When he definitely had something to do
With bruce's disappearance.
But they had no evidence. (suspenseful music)
- [narrator] police have no evidence, no witnesses,
And no body proving bruce was murdered.
The case of his disappearance goes as cold
As the deep waters of the east river.
(wind whooshing)
- So, unfortunately, we were at a standstill.
Mr. Perez was incarcerated.
And, in essence, the case did become cold at that point.
- I never thought that this case was ever gonna get solved.
There was nothing.
- So I said to myself,
I'm not gonna let my brother die like this.
This is a hell of a way for him to go out.
He didn't deserve this.
Giving up on him is like maybe giving up
On myself, you know? (suspenseful music)
I would find out really what happened to my brother.
(suspenseful music)
(melancholy music)
They had determined that it was a cold case.
They couldn't go any further.
Nobody wants to feel somebody
That they love to be discarded like that.
I wasn't gonna let him go like that.
I was gonna find out who killed my brother.
- If somebody murdered a family member of mine,
And nobody was held accountable,
That would destroy me, my family, anybody's family.
(traffic rumbling) (melancholy music)
- Bruce's brother, ed, never gave up.
He was not letting this go.
He wanted justice to be served.
(suspenseful music)
- I just kept at it, at it, at it, at it again.
- Nypd has really countless cold cases.
And they only hear people who keep trying.
And that's what ed blackwood did.
(suspenseful music)
- [director] take one.
- I retired in 2008.
But I became friends with ed over the years.
Ed told me he was gonna try to get ahold
Of news agencies, tv networks,
Somebody that would show a little interest
In his brother's disappearance.
- I was reading an article from this "daily news" reporter.
I thought it was well done.
So I said, what the hell do I have to lose?
- He reached out to "the daily news."
An investigative reporter took up the story and pursued it.
(suspenseful music)
- I hit the streets and started climbing stairs
And knocking doors, like detectives do,
Trying to find folks who remembered bruce blackwood.
And, much to my surprise,
Five years later, people did.
- [narrator] the "daily news" reporter goes looking
For luis perez,
The man convicted of stealing over $7,000
From bruce blackwood.
Who was now out of prison and back on the street.
- Perez was the key point in my brother's death.
I felt that very strongly. (suspenseful music)
- But luis perez was like a ghost.
I turned my attention to trying to find him,
But this guy moved around a lot.
Eventually, I got him by phone
And he basically denied everything.
(suspenseful music)
(horns beeping)
On March 6th,
We ran the story and it got a kind of response
That was remarkable. (suspenseful music)
- It was in the Sunday paper.
And it was a big article.
They had interviewed me.
And I told them that this case still haunted me.
And I felt I didn't do my job.
I didn't finish what I started.
- In 1 police plaza,
They didn't wanna have any bad publicity going on.
And that's when they reopened up the case.
- [director] take one. Mark.
- I was a first-grade detective at the time
In the nypd cold case squad.
We only focus on homicide.
I'm reading the articles in the newspaper.
A few days go by and I'm getting summons to 1 police plaza
By the chief of detectives
And the police commissioner, along with my boss.
And they're telling me
That I am going to take this cold case.
(dramatic music)
It's my job as a detective to look at every single piece.
I wanna see everything.
Why all of a sudden this man would just go missing?
We checked everything.
Everything led back to perez.
But when you can't even find a body
And you don't have that one witness,
You have nothing.
(dramatic music)
- [narrator] weeks into the investigation,
The detective gets contacted by an unexpected source.
- It was luis perez's daughter.
She proceeded to tell me what she knew about this case.
She says, he's going to do something like that again.
She was so afraid of him, (suspenseful music)
But she was afraid for the wellbeing of her daughter
That she decided to come forward.
- She was willing to come forward with this evidence
Because she did not want him near her or near her kids.
- She goes, he talks about it all the time
Because it's like a trophy to him
About how he got away with killing this man.
And I feel bad, you know, for that man's family,
I asked her,
Would she be willing to record him talking about it?
We had a mini recorder that we gave her.
She can seclude it in any place she wanted.
And I instructed her, listen, don't bring it up.
Let him talk.
If he's gonna talk, he talks.
But I don't need you prompting him to do anything.
(suspenseful music)
- What she did, it was very risky.
Very risky, because he is a terrible man.
I think there was a part of her
That realized that her father was pure evil.
- He talked about how he could do the perfect crime
And no one ever would ever find out.
(eerie music)
- And in that conversation,
Luis perez, in detail,
Told her how he had killed bruce blackwood
In that apartment.
- She probably couldn't live with somebody
Who had killed someone.
That's the only way I could think of it.
- The fact that she came forward is astounding.
I didn't see that happening.
- I couldn't believe it.
I said, our prayers are finally answered.
(traffic whooshing)
- [narrator] but the recordings alone
May not be enough to convict luis perez.
- What he said on that recorder is not really a confession.
Any defense attorney would be like, yeah,
You know, look at him.
He's a braggart.
You know, big guy in the streets.
And we knew, and the da said it too,
You're gonna have to bring in
Whatever witnesses you can find
That can corroborate that tape.
- There was no body.
The body in itself is such a big piece of evidence
In a murder case.
From a prosecutor's standpoint,
That is a very, very tough case
And not a case that is brought often at all.
- It's almost unprecedented
That someone's convicted of homicide without a body.
There is no crime without a victim.
(dramatic music)
- The defense attorney could stand up and say,
We don't know what happened to bruce blackwood.
Then that could have convinced a jury.
There is always that fear.
(melancholy music)
We knew luis perez killed bruce blackwood.
We knew that he had gotten rid of his body
And that he had done a good job in getting rid of it.
There was no forensic evidence whatsoever.
Meaning not even a blood trail.
No body, not even a piece of a body.
(suspenseful music)
(phone rings)
Still, I secured an indictment
And detective strafford went out and arrested luis perez.
(melancholy music)
- [narrator] by the start of the murder trial,
Police locate some key witnesses,
Including perez's former helper.
- Martin rodriquez.
This little squirrely, mousey type of guy
Who couldn't hurt a fly, was scared to death
That perez was out to get him.
Martin rodriquez was perez's fluky,
For want of a better word,
Because that's exactly what he was.
(suspenseful music)
- Martin rodriquez got on the stand.
And that's how we got a lotta insight
Into what happened to bruce blackwood.
It was very clear that martin rodriquez
Had nothing to do with the murder of bruce blackwood.
- [narrator] 14 days into the trial,
Perez's daughter takes the stand
To reveal what her father told her.
- She testified to what her dad had told her
In gruesome, terrible details
Everything that he did to bruce blackwood.
But the jury needed to hear the recording in his own voice.
He said that bruce had found out
He had been stealing checks from him.
And perez said.
- He goes, I tied him to a chair.
(eerie music)
- He then said that he knew he had to get rid of him.
- And then he went to work, his words.
He went to work on his body.
He used a saw.
He used a machete.
(suspenseful music)
- He used bleach to clean out the drains.
- He paid several homeless people.
They didn't know what they were doing.
And they just deposited the bags
That had mr. Blackwood's remains in different locations
So that they would be picked up by sanitation.
(melancholy music)
- [narrator] looking to strengthen their case,
Prosecutors call perez's former girlfriend
And neighbor to the stand.
- She goes into perez's apartment.
And she says, where's mr. Blackwood?
I heard the police have been here.
And perez says, don't worry about mr. Blackwood.
He's gone.
I went to work on his body. (suspenseful music)
He's not coming back.
And he had some type of electrical saw
Or a power saw on top of the table,
Dismantled in several pieces.
And he was placing them inside a garbage bag.
He told her, if you tell anybody, I'll kill you,
I'll kill your family.
Keep your mouth shut.
- She was crucial to my case
Because I think the jury needed to believe
That a whole body has disappeared.
It makes it more real.
(melancholy music)
- [narrator] after a three-week trial,
The jury begins deliberating.
- I was worried thinking that luis perez might go free
Because there was no evidence
And there was no body.
(melancholy music)
- The jury deliberated for less than three hours.
And they found him guilty of murder in the second degree.
(melancholy music)
Ed blackwood broke down in the courtroom and then he left.
- I didn't have a body to bury.
My brother was chopped up.
And for him to be stuffed in bags
Like he was a piece of garbage.
To be destroyed like that,
You know, I mean that hurt really, really tremendously.
(melancholy music)
- Luis perez was sentenced to 25 to life.
And that was the maximum sentence
That was allowable under the law.
So there is some justice there.
Is there justice for bruce blackwood? No.
The way he was tragically taken.
The way his remains were desecrated.
There's no justice in that.
(melancholy music)
- I was a detective for over 20 years.
I have seen some brutal crimes, but this was the worst.
- It's been years since this happened.
(melancholy music)
But I know if he was here, we would still be friends.
Bruce would've made a great uncle.
He would've been so involved and so loving to my son.
I miss bruce tremendously. (melancholy music)
- I've lost my brother.
Someone that I had loved.
My confidante.
And you can't replace that.
You can never replace that.
That's all I can say is I miss him a lot.
I miss my brother a lot. (melancholy music)