[tense music playing]
The victim was strangled, beaten, stabbed and suffocated.
It's a horrific scene. Absolute violence.
[Nelson Whitney] Terri Lynn Brooks was an assistant manager
at the Roy Rogers restaurant.
Terri had plans for her future. She was a good person.
As a boss, she was strict. She was by the book.
[John O'Donovan] This could be a disgruntled employee who has a score to settle.
[harrowing music playing]
[Whitney] Within two weeks, another female restaurant worker
has been murdered, and the crimes are eerily similar.
This is an alarm going off in my mind.
It looks like we have a killer on the loose in the community.
[narrator] Every day in North America, dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case,
detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline.
The minutes and hours containing evidence
that can help unlock the mystery and catch the killer.
[tense music builds and fades]
[serene music playing]
[narrator] Falls Township, Pennsylvania.
A quiet suburb less than an hour northeast of Philadelphia.
Falls Township was a very small farming community
in the early part of the 20th century.
And in the 1950s, U.S. Steel built a steel mill.
So it's mainly hardworking, blue-collar people.
[O'Donovan] It's a good, close-knit community. Families work hard.
And everyone pulls together.
Everybody considers Falls Township a very safe place to live.
[narrator] But at 6:10 on a cold winter morning in 1984,
that feeling of security is shattered
at a local restaurant.
[harrowing music playing]
The manager of the restaurant arrives for work.
He comes up to the vestibule and finds that the outer door is unlocked,
but the inner door's locked.
He makes his way towards the offices in the back.
And he sees some droplets of blood along the way on the floor.
And then when he gets to the office,
he finds a body laying on the floor.
He picks up the phone and calls the Falls Township Police Department.
[Whitney] Investigators arrive at the restaurant
and begin to process the crime scene.
We see the victim lying faceup. A woman in her mid-20s.
The general manager informed us that the victim was an assistant manager
that had worked the night before.
[narrator] The victim is 25-year-old Terri Brooks.
[tense music playing]
[Whitney] Processing the crime scene, we begin by taking pictures.
[O'Donovan] It's a horrific scene.
There's a knife protruding from the victim's throat.
And there's a garbage bag wrapped around her head.
It's... It's absolute violence.
[narrator] Detectives read the crime scene for the story it might reveal.
[O'Donovan] The victim is wearing her jacket.
This tells us that she was about to leave the restaurant
when this murder occurred.
The victim's purse and keys are on the floor nearby.
Her shoes are nearby.
[O'Donovan] It looked like she was actually knocked to the ground,
and her shoes went flying off her feet.
She had a defensive wound to her right ring finger.
There's no doubt that she put up a struggle.
This young lady fought for her life.
[Whitney] We find a pipe in the trashcan.
The one that is normally used to lock the drive-through window.
And this tells me that the killer took the pipe out of the track
and opened the window.
It looks like the killer came in through the front door.
And exited through that drive-through window.
[tense music playing]
[narrator] In 1984, DNA profiling isn't widely available
and won't be for nearly a decade.
So finding readable prints is critical for detectives hunting Terri Brooks' killer.
We collect fingerprint evidence from the pipe
that was used to lock the drive-through window.
From the countertop surfaces, the inside and outside of the drive-through window.
And from the trash bag liner that was wrapped around the victim's face.
[O'Donovan] It's obvious that the murder weapon is the knife
that's protruding out of this young lady's throat.
Investigators bagged the evidence to make sure that it's preserved.
[narrator] Evidence found in the restaurant's office adds to the picture
of what may have transpired.
[Whitney] In looking at the register drawer
that's on top of the desk in the office, there's no paper money in it.
The general manager informs us that there should've been $2,500 in paper money there.
[O'Donovan] The safe in the office was open.
There's coins strewn around the floor.
Paper bills are missing.
This looks like a robbery that's gone bad and developed into a homicide.
[narrator] While detectives continued to work the crime scene,
they send the remains to the morgue.
[Whitney] The autopsy reveals that the victim was strangled,
beaten, stabbed and suffocated.
She had a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
Her hyoid bone in the neck was broken in two places,
which can only happen from deep, manual strangulation.
[narrator] The autopsy also reveals a shocking detail about Terri's final moments.
The bag that was wrapped around her head has condensation on the inside,
indicating she was alive when it was placed there.
[narrator] Detectives can now piece together a rough narrative
of what happened to Terri Brooks in the final moments of her life.
[O'Donovan] We believe that Terri Brooks was leaving the restaurant
when she encountered her attacker in the vestibule.
Was pushed back into the restaurant,
and this is where the violence occurred.
[Whitney] The robber pushes her forcefully.
Then she's knocked to the ground.
[O'Donovan] Terri was scratching her attacker.
It looks like she didn't go down easy.
[Whitney] At this point, we don't know the gender of the killer.
But we know it was someone who possessed adequate strength to commit the crime.
We speculate that the killer was male, but we really don't know.
We believe that the killer was straddling Terri while she was laying on the floor
as he was choking her,
banging her head against the floor and ultimately stabbing her.
And then, when she's still alive, he puts the bag over her head and finishes her off.
The killer, the robber...
He then takes the cash and gets out of there through the drive-through window.
Because he doesn't want to be seen from the street.
[narrator] To find Terri Brooks' killer, investigators begin
piecing together the last 24 hours of her life.
[Whitney] The timeline of events begins with Terri working her shift,
which started at 3:30 in the afternoon, February 3.
She worked until the restaurant closed at midnight.
And was last seen alive at the restaurant
when the last employee clocked out at 1:30 in the morning.
That's when her coworker, Betty McDonnell left the building.
We believe that Terri was killed between 1:30 a.m., when her coworker,
Betty McDonnell, left the restaurant,
and 6:10 a.m., when the manager opened up in the morning.
[narrator] An hour after Terri's body is discovered,
her fiance and family called the restaurant.
[O'Donovan] At 7:15 a.m., Terri's fiance, Scott, phoned the restaurant
because he's concerned that she hasn't been home.
[Whitney] A policeman answers the phone
and tells Scott that he can't really give him too much information
because he's not family, but that Terri's been hurt.
Scott then hands the phone to Terri's father.
Her father is informed
that she's been murdered.
[harrowing music playing]
So we traveled to Warminster to talk with the Brooks family.
[narrator] By the time police arrive at the Brooks residence,
Terri's devastated fiance has already left for work.
Her shocked and grieving parents welcome the investigator inside.
[Whitney] We interview her father and are told
that Terri's life is on an upward trajectory.
Things are going well for her.
She just graduated college. She had a 3.75 grade point average.
Terri went to work for Roy Rogers Corporation
because it's owned by Marriott.
And at the time, they had a management training program.
So she had every belief that she would end up with a high-level job
in Marriott Corporation.
[O'Donovan] We learned that Terri helped her dad.
She helped her younger siblings.
She helped around the home.
She was a good person.
She may have come from a very modest background,
but Terri had plans for her future.
She had just put down a deposit for a honeymoon in Hawaii
with her and her fiance, Scott.
[narrator] It's a trip that Terri and Scott will never take.
[O'Donovan] Her father and her stepmother last saw her
on February 3 in the afternoon, when she left to go to work.
[narrator] Terri's parents tell investigators that early the next morning,
they were woken by knocking on their door.
It was her fiance, Scott Keefe.
Scott tells them that...
he was driving by their home on his way to work.
He noticed that Terri's car was not in the driveway.
And that he was concerned.
The Brooks family then checks and sure, it's true.
Terri's not in her bedroom.
They call the restaurant.
We ask Mr. and Mrs. Brooks about Scott,
and they described him as a caring fiance.
Scott would give her rides to work,
and frequently drive by to make sure she was safe.
[O'Donovan] Terri's dad asked us not to interview Scott
because he was so distraught and so upset that she had died and been taken from him.
[narrator] Police honor Mr. Brooks' request
not to visit Scott right away.
They stay focused on Terri's colleagues,
who were the last to see her alive.
At this point, we know we have a robbery homicide on our hands.
So we have enough information from the family,
that it's time to move back to the restaurant
and talk to the people who last worked with Terri.
[Dr. Michael Arntfield] When you have a homicide committed
at or near the workplace,
coworkers are critical to the investigation.
Uh, they can either be key witnesses
in terms of determining the victim's final movements,
but they also can be people of interest.
[Dr. Keira Stockdale] The second leading cause of death at work
is actually homicide.
People in the workplace can hold grievances and things can snowball.
[O'Donovan] So we talked to employees at the restaurant,
and were building another bigger picture of Terri.
She took her job very seriously.
As a boss, employees know that she was strict.
She was by the book.
Do it the right way, and if you're gonna do it the wrong way, don't do it.
[Whitney] As we interviewed the employees of the restaurant,
one name keeps coming up.
Betty McDonald.
[O'Donovan] We find out that Betty,
has a history of money going astray from her till.
We learn that she also possibly has a large debt to somebody else.
[narrator] Betty is also the last person to have seen Terri alive.
Eight hours after they first arrive on scene,
investigators summon Betty for an interview.
Betty tells us that she's worked at that restaurant for six or seven months.
And that Terri was transferred about a month prior...
...from a different location Roy Rogers.
[O'Donovan] Betty McDonald told us that...
...Terri was a strong character, she was a good boss.
She didn't take any nonsense.
[narrator] And Terri didn't take any on the night she was killed either.
Other employees tell police that on February 3rd, Terri had reprimanded Betty.
And it escalated from there.
This is an alarm, definitely, going off in my mind.
This could be a disgruntled employee who has a score to settle
with the manager, Terri.
[Whitney] She's in debt to someone for a large sum of money.
For us looking at a robbery-homicide, this looks like motive.
[narrator] Eight hours after Falls Township police arrive
at the homicide scene,
They have their first lead in the murder of 25-year-old
restaurant manager, Terri Brooks.
It's Betty McDonald, a waitress with money problems.
Betty McDonald was in the restaurant the night of the homicide,
working alongside our victim.
At around midnight, before Terri was murdered,
there's $40 missing from Betty's till.
[Whitney] Things at the restaurant become tense.
In 1984, the minimum wage was $2.75 an hour.
So, $40 was a lotta money back then.
Terri confronts Betty about the missing money.
[narrator] Is it possible that Betty was desperate enough to kill Terri
over stealing cash and then took off with the rest of the money?
[Dr. Stockdale] Workplaces can be almost like family.
There's close relationships,
so if something happens where somebody is,
say, caught stealing, or confronted around an issue,
they may be harboring a grudge
and potentially things could've escalated into violence.
[narrator] But Betty denies any role in the theft or murder.
[Whitney] Betty claimed a little while later,
Terri came up to Betty and said the missing money's been recovered.
The other police thought Betty slipped the money back
so that she wouldn't get caught and get away with it.
[narrator] To be sure, Betty agrees to provide
her fingerprints for comparison
to those on the drive-thru window security bar.
They don't match.
And she has an alibi for the time after 1:30 AM.
Betty's picked up from work by her boyfriend who corroborates her alibi.
So at this point, she's no longer a suspect here.
[narrator] With no other colleagues, friends or family suspected,
the early morning murderer and thief
may have been a stranger to Terri.
So the police ask the public for tips.
[Dr. Arntfield] Designated tiplines can become a bit of a double-edged sword.
By establishing one, the investigators have essentially acknowledged,
that they require the public's help,
so they need those tips.
At the same time, there are people who will call in
with all sorts of ideas
and send police, quite frankly, on wild goose chases.
[phones ringing]
[narrator] But after hundreds of calls within 24 hours of the murder,
one stands out.
We receive a chilling phone call from a woman
who will only identify herself as Maureen.
And she tells us Terri was terrified of a man named Stuart Dunning.
[narrator] Stuart was a cook at another Roy Roger's location
where he had worked with Maureen and Terri.
And a month and a half before Terri's murder, Stuart screamed at her.
[Whitney] Terri had asked Stuart to make a hamburger.
And he flew into a rage, because he had already closed his station out.
He began throwing metal objects and trays.
He was making obscene gestures and completely flew off the handle.
It was very terrifying for Terri.
[O'Donovan] On the night of that argument, Terri called Scott,
and asked him to come to the restaurant to... to be there
while she was closing up.
She was that scared of Stuart.
Scott did come,
and he remained with her while she closed up the restaurant.
So Stuart is fired the next day, after his tantrum...
...but he continues to harass Terri.
And he shows up at the restaurant as a customer,
and he taunts her.
Terri took the new job in Falls Township,
which is a good 25 minutes drive from the old restaurant.
But Stuart continues to show up at now her new job,
and he continues to harass her.
[narrator] Investigators also discover that Stuart Dunning
was recently discharged from the Marines for smoking weed,
and that when he got drunk, he couldn't control himself.
So here we have a guy who...
...has been openly hostile and aggressive towards our victim.
Who is recently out of a job.
And may well have a motive to commit this crime.
[narrator] Four days after Terri's murder,
investigators track Stuart down in Atlantic City.
Interestingly, one of the first thing's that Stuart says to us
is he was expecting our arrival.
[narrator] Falls Township police bring Stuart Dunning
back to Pennsylvania for questioning.
[O'Donovan] He had nothing good to say about Terri.
He described her as being a nag,
and very difficult to work for.
And he even said that if she was a man,
he woulda punched her in the face.
[Whitney] It's a little shocking.
Here's a guy who knows we're looking at him for a major crime,
and he's making no efforts to hide his hatred for our victim.
He says...
...the last time he saw Terri was about two weeks prior to her homicide.
[narrator] Stuart also tells investigators
that on the night of the murder,
he was with his girlfriend.
[Whitney] They tried to get into a club,
but they were unsuccessful.
And they drove around until he took her home
about 1 o'clock in the morning.
So we go to the club.
We look at the security footage.
And there's no evidence of Stuart ever being there
and trying to get into the club.
[Whitney] When you look at everything involving Stuart,
he knows how the business operates, he's got inside knowledge.
He's got well documented and open animus towards the victim.
And he's got an alibi that doesn't really check out.
So he's looking like the guy.
[narrator] To confirm their strong suspicions,
detectives ask Stuart to take a polygraph.
To their surprise, he agrees.
Pretty hard to get around a polygraph test.
You can't control your breathing.
You can't control heartrate.
And the person that's interviewing you
is a professional interrogator.
So, either that machine's gonna give you away,
or that interrogator's gonna give you away.
It's a pretty good tool.
[O'Donovan] Stuart takes the polygraph test...
...and he passes it.
And then Stuart volunteers to give us his fingerprints.
We compare them to fingerprints that're found at the scene.
And there were no matches.
[O'Donovan] As much as we don't like Stuart,
all the evidence points to say
that he's not responsible for killing Terri.
[narrator] As investigators are forced to strike a second suspect from their list,
their hit with more alarming news.
[Whitney] Within two weeks of Terri's homicide,
another murder is committed in a town nearby, Dickson City, Pennsylvania.
And the crimes are eerily similar.
Another female restaurant worker,
has been murdered at her place of employment,
and stabbed with a kitchen knife.
[narrator] Police and the public fear
the two homicides are connected.
The police are under tremendous pressure here.
People are afraid and people want answers.
It looks like we have a killer on the loose in the community.
[narrator] Two weeks after the murder of Terri Brooks,
another female restaurant worker is slain in nearby Dickson City, Pennsylvania.
That victim is a 19-year-old waitress
who worked at a restaurant called Genetti's.
[Dr. Stockdale] There's possibly one person on the loose,
preying upon vulnerable women.
And so you can certainly imagine how terrified a community would be.
Anyone working late or potentially on your own is at risk.
[Whitney] So with now two crimes taking place
in two different jurisdictions,
we have to partner up with the local PD in Dickson City.
[O'Donovan] There's a lotta similarities between these two crimes.
They're both young women that have been killed.
They're both restaurant employees.
They're both engaged to be married.
Both of these young ladies are alone in the restaurant at around 1:30 AM.
And they've both been killed with knives from the restaurant.
[Whitney] There was a car parked behind the restaurant in Dickson City
on the day of the murder.
And investigators linked this car to a man named Steven Duffey.
[narrator] Duffey is a dishwasher
that started working at Genetti's just four days before the murder there.
Police bring him in for questioning.
[Whitney] During the interview,
Duffey's caught in a lie.
He says he was at home watching TV
at a time when investigators can prove his car was at the restaurant.
So we do a background check on Duffey.
[O'Donovan] Investigators learn
that Duffey has recently been released from prison
where he was serving three years for rape.
He's definitely high up on the suspect list.
[Whitney] Duffey's confronted about his lie.
And is told we're going to get a search warrant for your car.
And he does an about face and provides a different statement.
Duffey now confesses to the robbery,
and the murder at the restaurant in Dickson City.
He states that during his four days of employment,
he found out how much money the restaurant brings in
and what the closing procedures were.
He went into the restaurant after it was closed,
confronted the victim,
and demanded money from the staff.
Only to find out the money had already been taken
from the restaurant to the bank.
He then attacked the victim, stabbing her to death.
So, two similar homicides committed,
looking like by the same person.
They confront Duffy about the first murder in Falls Township.
At this point, Duffy requests to speak to a lawyer,
and he refuses to cooperate further,
and he's not gonna say anything about the Falls Township murders.
[narrator] Undeterred, Falls Township police obtain a warrant
for Duffy's fingerprints.
[Nelson Whitney] We compared them to the prints
that were recovered at the crime scene, and there is no match.
We also discovered that Duffy was not in Falls Township
at the time of Terri's homicide, and he's got an alibi.
[John O'Donovan] So despite the similarities between the two crimes,
Duffy is off the hook for the Falls Township murder.
He is no longer a suspect.
[Nelson] This is the rollercoaster ride
of thinking you've got somebody
and then finding out that you don't.
It's immensely frustrating.
[narrator] But detectives' frustration doesn't last long
once they receive news from the lab.
[Nelson] We start getting some fingerprints developed
from some evidence at the crime scene,
and they match an employee of Roy Rogers, named Roger Merrick.
[narrator] Roger was one of the four employees
working with Terri the night she was murdered,
and he was one of the last people to see her alive.
[John] Roger was present when the $40 went missing earlier in the evening,
and he may very well have been confronted by Terri about the missing money.
Roger's fingerprints were found on the garbage bag
that was wrapped around Terri's head.
They were also found on the drive-through window,
which is, we believe, the escape route that the perpetrator used.
[narrator] Police pick up Roger Merrick for questioning.
[Nelson] Roger told us that on the night of the homicide,
Terri had assigned him to work the drive-through
and that he had also worked that assignment on previous shifts.
He also tells us that it was his job
to take out the trash that night
and put new liners in each trashcan in the restaurant.
This explains his fingerprints being on the trash liner and on the drive-through.
[narrator] Roger also claims that he left the restaurant
when his shift ended and didn't return.
[Nelson] He drove a coworker home,
and he spoke with his mom before going to bed.
He's got two corroborating sources.
Roger is not our killer.
[narrator] As police hunt for a new lead,
a few weeks after Terri Brooks' murder,
her devasted parents and fiance lay her to rest.
[Nelson] At Terri's funeral, the Brooks family is in anguish.
They don't have an idea who the killer is.
[John] They're frustrated because the police have not made an arrest.
Scott is distraught, and the family are doing their best
to support him and to keep him from falling apart.
We want justice for our victim and closure for the family.
[John] The investigators are getting very frustrated.
There's not too many more places to turn.
[Michael Arntfield] I think people need to appreciate
just how frustrating cold cases are.
Not only for investigators but for families of victims and communities.
[narrator] And that frustration only grows over the next year,
as Terri Brooks' case grows colder.
That year stretches to a decade,
with Terri's ruthless killer still at large,
free to strike again anytime and anywhere.
[narrator] 14 years after Terri Brooks was murdered
at a restaurant in Falls Township, Pennsylvania,
new police personnel breathe new life into the open homicide.
[Nelson] We get a new chief of police in Falls Township
who joins us from an outside agency
and directs that we're going to examine
the cold homicides that haven't been solved,
and the first one is going to be the murder of Terri Brooks.
[narrator] Detective Whitney is assigned to the cold case,
his first homicide investigation.
[Nelson] I'm a little worried. I've never done a homicide investigation before.
But I'm gonna work 110% on this.
The killer is out there somewhere, and I'm gonna find him.
[John] Cold case investigation is extremely difficult.
Witnesses have moved, or they've died.
People's recollection of what happened has changed,
and you've gotta go back and review everything with fresh eyes
and reexamine everything as if it was just after occurring.
[narrator] But as challenging as cold cases can be,
detectives can also benefit from advances in methodology.
In the early '80s, victimology wasn't really well known
as a procedure in homicide investigations,
at least not in Falls Township.
But by the time the late '90s rolled around, it was standard procedure.
Now we have the training and the understanding
that victimology needs to be part of a homicide investigation.
Victimology is literally the study of the victim,
and it helps us solve homicides
because it provides us every conceivable detail
of what was happening in the victim's life
leading up to the time of the murder.
Our investigation is gonna be a fresh start.
Investigators reach out not only to speak to people who were involved
in the investigation in 1984
but also people who knew Terri as a person.
[Nelson] Many of our interviews
corroborate what the 1984 interviews established.
But in one interview, we hear something new that was totally unexpected.
We're talking with Cindy Bradney,
who is not only a coworker of Terri's from a different restaurant
but was a close, personal friend of hers.
Cindy tells investigators that the relationship between Terri
and her fiance, Scott Keefe, was not what it appeared.
In fact, it was actually on the rocks.
[Nelson] It turns out that Scott was jealous of Terri.
He was controlling, verbally abusive,
and she believes that Scott may have been physically violent towards Terri.
Cindy recalls an incident where Terri appeared with a black eye.
Terri refused to explain how she got it,
and Cindy often observed her friend crying a lot.
In 1984, this wasn't even on anyone's radar.
Scott was believed to be a grieving fiance,
someone who had lost a love of his life to violent crime,
and people had sympathy for him.
[Keira] Scott was reportedly a very caring individual.
Going to Terri's workplace at the end of her shift to pick her up-
that could be a sign of a very loving partner,
but it could also be somebody checking up,
making sure that you're not hanging out with coworkers.
So some of the things that family may view
as a caring reaction in a relationship
could also be somebody who is controlling
and may actually be a very negative sign.
[narrator] This darker possibility about Scott Keefe's behavior
adds new heat to the cold case.
14 years later, the investigators are talking
to other friends of Terri, and they find out
that Cindy is not the only person
who thought this about Scott Keefe.
[Michael Bouchard] Her friends wanted to know
why she was actually going out with Keefe
because they thought that he was just not up to the level that she was.
[John] For whatever reason,
they were afraid to bring this knowledge forward in 1984,
but now they were not afraid to talk to police.
We learned that Scott and Terri were always fighting.
Always fighting about money.
That Terri always seemed to be paying for everything.
When Terri went to work for Roy Roger's corporation, she took a pay cut,
and Scott was upset about that because he said they needed money for their wedding.
[John] Terri regarded Scott as possessive,
and from speaking with Terri's friends,
investigators learned that a week before the murder,
Terri was ready to call off the wedding,
but she didn't know how to approach Scott about this.
We now have to consider, "Is that what happened the night of the murder?"
If she was breaking things off with Scott, how would he react to that?
Could Scott have murdered Terri in a jealous fit of rage
after being told she was breaking up with him?
[narrator] In 1984, Scott Keefe was not a person of interest to police.
Not only because police, like Terri's family,
had no reason to believe that Scott's grief wasn't real,
but also because the motive for the crime appeared to be robbery,
and Scott was gainfully employed at another, more upscale restaurant.
[Nelson] So, now here we are all these years later,
and we have the advantage of not being trapped by a robbery-homicide theory
but being open-minded and seeing where the evidence leads us.
[narrator] With modern forensic analysis 14 years later,
investigators now have more precise tools
to identify or eliminate suspects.
In 1998, the scientific world has advanced,
and we are now using DNA technology on a regular basis.
Thankfully, in 1984, the investigators preserved all the evidence.
They kept the knife that was used to kill Terri.
They kept the scrapings of her fingernails,
and everything was useful again.
[Nelson] The knife used in this homicide was a common serrated kitchen knife,
as opposed to a hunting knife, where there's a guard on the knife
that keeps your hand from sliding forward
from the handle onto the blade.
In this particular case, no such guard was present,
so if you're stabbing someone with a kitchen knife,
it's entirely possible and even probable
that your hand is going to move forward
from the handle onto the blade
and that you're going to cut yourself.
And that's going to put your blood, as the killer, onto that knife,
and now we can get a DNA analysis done.
[narrator] Luckily, the lab is able to extract DNA other than Terri's.
So I have a critical new lead and a prime suspect.
[narrator] But despite suspicions pointing to Scott Keefe,
there's no proof the DNA on the murder weapon is his,
and 14 years after Terri's death,
her ex-fiance could be anywhere.
[narrator] Investigators in the Terri Brooks murder
have a critical new lead and a new prime suspect.
Terri's ex-fiance, Scott Keefe.
At this point, I knew that Scott and Terri's relationship was on the rocks,
and I knew that there's one male contributor to the DNA samples
on these key pieces of evidence.
Now I just need to see if that male contributor is Scott.
[narrator] Police search all of Scott's known addresses
since Terri's murder 14 years earlier.
After this crime happened in 1984,
Scott went on to get married and have a child,
but his life has come full circle.
It's 1998, and he's no longer with his fie and child,
and he's living back home with his mom, just like he was in '84.
[narrator] But police still don't' have enough probable cause
to compel Scott to provide DNA,
and they don't want to tip their hand by asking him for it.
I may only have one shot at interviewing him,
and I certainly don't want to lose that opportunity or inspire him to flee.
Investigators try something very covert to get a DNA sample from him.
[Nelson] I'd done a lot of surveillance at the Keefe residence,
and I'd observed Scott to be a heavy smoker.
[John] Investigators want to get hold of the cigarette butt
that's gonna contain Scott Keefe's DNA.
So, the plan is to collect the trash from the Keefe residence.
[narrator] In Pennsylvania, once trash is put out on the curb,
it's considered abandoned property,
so detectives team up with a local trash collection agency.
I'm about four or five houses down the street from Scott's house,
close enough that I could see what was going on
but not close enough to be seen.
I watched the trash collectors collect the trash from the curb
and place it in the back of their truck,
and then I followed them right around the corner,
and I took the trash out of their truck and put it in the trunk of my vehicle,
and I drove right to the lab.
The scientists who we were working with
began an analysis of those articles of trash that she's been given,
and a little while later, I get a phone call.
I'm told that the DNA profile from the cigarettes in the trash
match the DNA from key pieces of evidence from our crime scene.
[narrator] It's strong evidence,
but it's by no means a slam-dunk for a conviction.
Scott often picked Terri up from the restaurant,
so finding Scott's DNA there, collected with primitive technology
and stored for 14 years, still leaves reasonable doubt.
And in 1984, there were no security cameras,
nor were there any witnesses to the murder beside Scott himself.
[John] This is a very high-profile case.
This is the first time that DNA has been used in a cold case
in Bucks County,
and investigators want to be able to present
their best case to the prosecutor.
[Nelson] We don't wanna risk losing the prosecution at trial,
and the best way to ensure that we have a high chance of success at trial
is to get a confession from Scott.
[narrator] Since Scott is the only witness to Terri's murder,
a first-hand account from Scott himself
would be enough to convict him.
On the 15th anniversary of Terri's murder,
police get Scott to come in on his own
by telling him they just want to update him on the case.
Still unaware that his DNA was found at the crime scene,
Scott is seated in the most comfortable room available.
[Nelson] We choose the anniversary date very deliberately
because we know that anniversary dates can heighten anxiety
and make it more likely for them to confess.
We're bringing him into a conference room, not an interrogation room,
to make the environment more friendly to him.
[John] They tell him that they've reopened the case,
they're reinvestigating the case,
and they firmly believe that he can provide information
that is gonna help them close this case once and for all.
[Nelson] In a very casual way, we're telling Scott that we think
he's in a unique position to help us,
and we are filling the room with boxes labeled, 'Brooks homicide.'
The boxes are empty, but they're designed to give Scott the impression
that we know everything.
We begin the interview,
and Scott tells us that Terri was the love of his life
and that this crime took her away from him.
He's telling us he's distraught victim,
and he has no idea who did this.
He continues with his same old story.
He said that she phoned him that evening between 18:00 and 20:00,
and they chatted, and they laughed,
and they agreed to meet up again the following day.
Scott tells the investigators that the last time he saw Terri alive
was the day before, when they went out to dinner together.
[Nelson] Scott told us that the morning of the homicide,
he drove past the Brooks family residence, which was his custom,
that he drove by there all the time
to check on whether she had arrived home safely.
[John] But at this point, the investigators knew that he was lying
because if Scott was driving to work,
he would have had to go the opposite direction of where Terri's house was.
His story's starting to fall apart.
[Nelson] We decide that we're going to give Scott a polygraph
and that his polygraph result may turn the corner in the interview.
Scott, being arrogant, says, "I'll take the test."
But he fails.
He fails the polygraph test, and he is angry and upset.
Investigators now confront him with the DNA evidence.
He starts leakage- that's what we call it-
where he'll say, "I didn't mean for this to happen,"
and he'll look down at the floor, and then he'll look up and say,
"But I had nothing to do with this."
So we took a break.
And when I came back, I said, "I know you didn't mean for this to happen,
but you can do this. Just tell us the truth."
And he said, "I didn't mean for this to happen,
but she came at me first."
[narrator] It's the first time Scott Keefe admitted to being at the crime scene.
[John] As the interview progresses,
Scott Keefe is starting to break down.
When investigators confront him with the total evidence
and everything that they have, Scott makes a full confession to what he did.
[narrator] Detective Whitney finally knows exactly what happened
on the night Terri Brooks was killed.
[Nelson] Friday, February 3rd, at 3:30 pm,
Terri Lynn Brooks starts her shift as the assistant manager
at the Roy Rogers restaurant.
[John] On February 4th, at 1:30 am,
the last employee clocked out of the restaurant,
and Terri Brooks remained to finish off the paperwork.
[Nelson] Somewhere between 1:30 am and 6 am on February 4th,
Scott Keefe arrives at the restaurant.
[John] Terri tells Scott that their relationship is over.
Scott loses it. He attacks her.
He pushes her and knocks her right out of her shoes.
[Nelson] Scott gets her on the floor and straddles her,
strangling her, bashing her head into the floor,
and stabs her in the neck.
Scott then checks her to see if she's alive
and then puts the bag over her head.
[Keira] I think when Scott's covering Terri's head with a plastic bag,
he's engaging in an act of depersonalization.
"If I cover her head with the bag,
I'm not necessarily seeing the person that I'm killing.
It was easier for me to overcome barriers
to take the final step in killing her."
[Nelson] Scott then proceeds to the office,
where he admits to cleaning out the safe
to make it look like a robbery.
Scott removes the bar from the drive-through window,
and he climbs out the window because he doesn't wanna be seen from the street.
[Nelson] February 4th, at 7 am,
Scott drives to the Brooks family residence
in a deliberate attempt to deflect suspicion from himself.
This deflection and deception worked for 14 years, but we got him in the end.
[narrator] After the interview,
Scott Keefe is arrested and charged
with the first-degree murder of Terri Brooks.
On June 6th, 2000, he's found guilty
and sentenced to life in prison,
without the possibility of parole.
People like Scott Keefe- they're the ultimate bully,
and it's highly likely that Terri Brooks
just eventually worked up the courage to end it, and he couldn't handle it,
and then he killed her.
It's tragic.
[Nelson] This is one of those cases that didn't close right away.
I think it was most painful on Terri's family.
I feel honored that I was able to solve this case
and give them closure in the end.
But even making an arrest, I mean, it doesn't bring your loved one back.
Terri was a bright, young woman.
She had her whole life in front of her,
and just for breaking up with someone
that she never should have dated, she lost her life.
It's truly sad.