CUSHING: No identification, no phone.
This is gonna be a hard case to solve.
BELTON: I kept asking, how did she die?
And they didn't want to tell me.
ZYGAJ: Nothing like that has ever happened in my career.
I was stunned.
CUSHING: He betrayed his badge. He betrayed his oath.
If an officer is committing a crime, all gloves are off.
I'm Sheriff Garry McFadden.
I was a homicide detective for 20 years.
I've worked more than 800 homicides in my career.
But even for the most dedicated detective,
there's no one harder to stop than a killer with a badge.
[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[man speaking]
[operator speaking]
[man speaking]
[operator speaking]
[man speaking]
[operator speaking]
NARRATOR: The call is coming from
a desolate area at the edge of Hapeville,
a suburb of Atlanta.
Police race to the scene.
Normal citizens that live in the city don't even know where
this street is, because it's such an unusual wooded lot,
dead end street that no one would drive to.
CARROLL: The scene was not pretty at all.
There was a body there that was burned up.
It was a female,
and I could still see, like, a small flame on her fingertip.
The person had been brutally killed.
CUSHING: She's been shot in the head.
She's been burned with gasoline
and just dumped out here with yard trash.
NARRATOR: Investigators process the scene, but
there's not much left to find.
McFADDEN: Having a body set on fire prevents detectives from
finding much evidence that could be traced on the scene.
All of your evidence is up in smoke.
You're starting now from ground zero.
NARRATOR: Detectives estimate the woman has
been dead for approximately two hours.
A preliminary examination of the body
reveals no signs of sexual assault.
CUSHING: The coroner found four gunshot wounds to the victim,
two in the head,
one in the ear, and then one defensive injury
to her forearm.
So what it looked like, she was holding her arm up like,
please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me.
CARROLL: I had quite a few years on my belt.
So, uh, homicides are not new to me,
but I seen the body laying there.
It was charred up.
You know, it's somewhat surreal.
You're like, I can't believe this person just did this.
CUSHING: Here's this poor woman, just dumped out here
with yard trash.
McFADDEN: So at this point, you need to think like
the suspect and ask yourself this,
why choose this site to dump the body?
Why set the body on fire?
The suspect wanted to destroy any evidence that he may
have left behind or destroy any of his or her DNA.
NARRATOR: Investigators find a single 40-caliber Winchester
shell casing,
but they're unable to identify the victim.
CUSHING: Whoever did this crime took the cell phone,
took her ID, and ignited the body.
The only thing we had was
a small heart-shaped tattoo on the victim.
And we found a locket that appeared
to have a picture of the victim's child.
And you know that this child's waiting at home
for mommy to come home, and mommy's never coming.
That's a sad thing to see.
This is gonna be a hard case to solve.
I became a police officer in 1999,
and I was promoted to detective in 2010.
Your victim is somebody that really needs help
to catch whoever did this crime to them.
And chasing down that bad guy was what
piqued my interest and my partner's interest a lot.
We, uh, we were a very good team.
NARRATOR: Two days after the murder,
the team gets a lead.
CUSHING: We spoke with a woman who made a police report
because she hadn't heard from her daughter since Friday.
They came out
that afternoon,
and I had to...
keep my granddaughter occupied in another room.
She knew that her daughter was going to the bank to make
a deposit into an account to give her $20
that she desperately needed.
BELTON: I kept calling her and calling her,
and it kept going straight to voicemail,
and I knew then that something was wrong.
But when the police came in,
I -- all I could ask them is please, just tell me she's okay.
CUSHING: We showed the mother that photograph of the tattoo
that was on the deceased, and she positively identified her
as Miss Vernecia Woodard.
BELTON: When they told me that she was gone,
I kept asking them, how did she die?
They didn't want to tell me.
And then finally, they told me she was shot.
It was very hard.
She loved to cook.
She loved to sing.
She was a loving mother,
most definitely.
Her daughter was top priority in her life,
and whatever she had to do to make sure her daughter had,
she was gonna do it.
I didn't know how to tell my granddaughter.
So I talked to my oldest daughter,
and she agreed that she would tell her when she came in town.
GILYARD: I took her outside, and we sat on the curb,
and...
I did the best I can to express to her that
her mom
was no longer with us.
That was a very hard conversation
to have with a seven-year-old.
It's like, although I didn't commit the act,
I feel like I took part in having to break her heart.
NARRATOR: Vernecia was 26 when she died.
Now, detectives need to find the brutal killer on the loose.
We requested a search warrant for T-Mobile to provide
the data from the telephone that would have belonged to
Miss Woodard.
They're looking for location, last calls, and cell tower.
That may take some time,
but that is critical in any investigation,
and they will probably talk to family members and friends.
And that will also create a timeline for the detectives.
CUSHING: We got her last known address as
the Motel 6, 25 miles away in DeKalb County.
It's approximately 30 minutes from Hapeville to DeKalb County.
So now we needed to find out how
did this woman come to the city of Hapeville,
and who brought her over to the dump site?
NARRATOR: Detectives retrieve motel security footage from
the morning of the murder and catch a break.
They can see Vernecia exit
the motel and head toward a white car.
CUSHING: A moment later, you could see
the car leaving the hotel.
The surveillance video showed the same shoes,
pants, and shirt as when her body was later discovered.
And that suspect vehicle was shown arriving at 11:42 at
the Motel 6, and at 11:48,
the victim's walking towards the car,
and at 11:50, the vehicle's leaving the scene.
NARRATOR: Vernecia's body was discovered four hours later.
So you're like, okay, that's what we're looking for.
We can confirm this is the car.
It's just kinda like slowly putting
the pieces together in a jigsaw puzzle.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the tag number of
the car from the security camera footage,
and the make and model of the car was a little unclear.
Make and model may not be determined,
but they do have a color, size, and shape of the car, and that
is a key piece of information.
So saddle up, it's time to go looking for that missing car.
BELTON: Vernecia and I talked a lot about
her trying to pursue a career in singing.
We actually tried to get her
to go and audition for "American Idol."
She refused, because she didn't want to stand in line.
She hated lines, but
I couldn't tell her what to do, because she was grown.
GILYARD: I had went down to Georgia, regular visit,
and Neci was talking about a song that she
had written for the day that she gets married.
Her intentions were to come down the aisle singing the song.
It was a reminder that she was no longer my baby sister, like,
she was my baby sister, but she was no longer a baby.
BELTON: Vernecia used to always want to go in the kitchen.
She wanted to cook.
Cheesecake was her specialty -- cheesecake and meatloaf.
She loved to cook.
One day, she had found a job, and she called me, and she was
like, "Mommy, I'm going to New York."
GILYARD: She landed a job that she was
supposed to be starting the following week.
The plan was to get a place situated for her and my niece,
her daughter.
BELTON: She was due to start that Monday,
but that never happened, because she was murdered.
NARRATOR: Who killed this young mother?
Police reach out to Vernecia's roommate
to see if she has any ideas.
She was able to give us some good information.
She told us that Miss Woodard had a boyfriend.
His name is Scarface,
and that was the only name that they had.
BELTON: Scarface -- I knew him to be her boyfriend,
and I met him once.
When I say met him, he was introduced, and they left.
I heard talk of him for a long time.
As far as I know, he just was cheating on her,
taking advantage of her,
and he was reaping the benefits of it.
Vernecia and I got into an argument
about it once, because I voiced my opinion,
and she felt like I wasn't helping her enough.
This boyfriend was somebody that did odd jobs,
including landscaping
kind of work and was from the DeKalb County area.
The body was dumped in an area where
a lot of people will take grass clippings
and yard debris.
And if he's doing odd jobs, he might know about this area.
McFADDEN: Scarface is just a nickname, but for every detective,
a nickname is a valuable piece of evidence.
You're going to have to track down every Scarface or anybody
who calls himself Scarface.
So, what is that called?
That's called boots on the ground.
NARRATOR: At the same time, the team digs
into Vernecia's past for other possible suspects,
and they make a shocking discovery.
CUSHING: We find out she was arrested for prostitution.
That opened up this case to a whole new set of difficulties.
It leaves a lot of suspects,
a lot of doors open.
It makes it more difficult, but you must understand this.
You still have to bring the family
answers and still seek justice for the victim.
So it doesn't matter what she did, it's just know who did it.
GILYARD: I found out that she was engaging
in that type of activity
not long before it happened.
And the way I found out is because she had got arrested.
She needed money for her daughter,
and whatever she had to do, she did,
to make sure that Naya was good.
BELTON: She had to do what she had to do to make ends meet,
to keep a roof over her and her daughter's head.
None of us, none of my mother's children,
we're not people who reach out when we need help.
We're always trying to take care of it,
figure it out ourselves.
I think what disturbed me the most was that, at the time,
there was a trend that
prostitutes were getting killed in different counties.
CUSHING: Some of them were prostitutes that were dumped somewhere.
McFADDEN: You need to find out if there are
similar cases in the area or similar occurrences.
You wanna find out if they are connected or if they're not
connected, because if it's a serial killer,
then we're in a whole 'nother ballpark
at a whole 'nother league.
NARRATOR: Investigators reach out for information from other
jurisdictions to compare those cases to their own.
CUSHING: We were not able to find any link
between this homicide and any other unsolved homicide.
NARRATOR: As police track down leads, Vernecia's family
fears her killer may never be caught.
BELTON: Nobody knew exactly who it was that killed her.
So I did my own investigation.
CUSHING: The mom told us there was a group of girls
who were out to get her,
and that they could be armed, and she felt like they were
a danger to her.
BELTON: She was in a fight with some girls,
and one of the girls was supposedly ex-military.
A friend of hers got beat up -- when it's the underdog,
she has an issue with that.
So she went to protect them.
She fought, she won,
and they came back with guns.
BELTON: Vernecia had told me that the girl pulled
a gun on her and tried to shoot her.
And she jumped in some bushes.
She rolled down in some bushes and got all scratched up.
McFADDEN: This is a great lead.
She has a grudge.
She has a gun.
Could she be the person who dumped
the victim at the site and set her on fire?
Is she the key to this whole puzzle?
NARRATOR: Hapeville detectives are working
Vernecia's murder from multiple angles,
but they have failed to land on a suspect.
CUSHING: The victim's mother said that there was a group
of girls that was out to get her daughter.
So we went back to the hotel in DeKalb County where
her real residence was in an attempt to find out
who these girls were.
NARRATOR: Detectives speak with Vernecia's roommate again,
but she's unable to identify anyone who may have been
targeting Vernecia.
CUSHING: You had nothing to go with.
You don't have any way to show
that these girls were out to get her.
NARRATOR: At the same time, the team continues their hunt for
Vernecia's boyfriend, known only as Scarface,
but they hit another dead end.
CUSHING: After looking through several different people,
we were able to find the identity of
the victim's boyfriend.
He provided an alibi for the date of the murder.
He was out of the area doing work in another location,
and we were able to verify that information,
and we were able to rule him out as a suspect in this case.
So detectives are doing their work.
Any time they open a door,
they get to close it -- person with a grudge?
Door's closed.
Scarface? Door's closed.
But now they have no open doors.
NARRATOR: Back at square one,
detectives look again at the scene of the crime.
Could the location itself be a clue to solving
Vernecia's murder?
If she was from DeKalb County,
why did her body turn up all the way in Hapeville?
Here we are at the end of Elm Street.
This is a dump for the city to put lawn refuge,
leaves, and tree limbs,
and we found a body.
This is no way to die.
When you run out of all of your first set of leads,
what do you do?
You go back to the beginning where you created
your first leads, and that is to the crime scene.
Why would the suspect use this dump site?
The incident happened in an area
where no one would hear a gunshot.
It was approximately 5 to 10 minutes from the airport.
If a plane is going over, and the gun is fired,
it's gonna blend in with the noise.
CUSHING: Normal citizens wouldn't be going to that area.
I realized that this killer knows right where Elm Street is,
that he knows where that dump site is.
He's right here in Hapeville.
NARRATOR: Could the killer have been here before?
Investigators look to see what other
crimes have been reported in the area.
CUSHING: We find out about this incident that occurred
the year before the homicide
involving a firearm being discharged at
the end of Elm Street.
An officer was driving down
the road, and he heard some shots fired.
He investigated it and found a subject named Tom English
right in front of his residence on Elm Street.
Mr. English advised that he was discharging
this 40-caliber firearm in his backyard.
NARRATOR: Detectives dig into Tom English's background.
He doesn't have a criminal record, but they
can't overlook his possible connection to Vernecia's murder.
This is a great door that they have opened.
They found a person who lives near the area, who
fired the same caliber of gun used on the victim.
So they need to walk into that room and find a pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow.
NARRATOR: Detectives bring English in for questioning.
When you have a suspect that's not talking to you,
you need to find out how to make them talk to you.
Talk about anything, talk about sports,
talk about your shirt, just get them to start talking,
then ease into where you want them to go.
You're gonna lead this horse to water,
but now, it would be up to the detective
to make that horse drink that water.
CUSHING: Mr. English denied everything.
So we pressed him a little bit and try to explain,
you know, that we're investigating a murder,
and we needed to solve it.
Mr. English is saying, "Well, you know, if -- if this
"person's a prostitute, well,
"it's okay for her to die like this.
You know, that's how prostitutes die."
You know, we're sitting here thinking, wow,
what is wrong with this person?
McFADDEN: Looking at the video is very disturbing.
A good detective, you don't stop there.
You bring him back and humanize the victim for him.
Talk about his family.
If this was your sister, if this was your mother,
wouldn't you want someone to still seek justice for her?
[English laughs shortly]
NARRATOR: Detectives press English about the 40-caliber gun
used in the shooting incident at his house.
He tells them the gun belonged to someone else.
CUSHING: And Mr. English stated that he was in
the backyard with another person named Tahreem Rana.
He said that they grew up in Hapeville
together, so they did know each other very well.
NARRATOR: A new name.
Detectives turn their attention to finding Tahreem Rana.
CUSHING: Four days after the murder,
as we're driving to the house,
the garage door opens up, and a car starts backing out.
It is a small white car, very similar to
the car that we saw in the surveillance video at
the hotel.
Now we have the person connected to
the white car and also connected to a gun.
That is the big break that they needed.
That is the double door that they need to walk through.
When an investigator gets a break like this,
it is more than an ah-ha moment.
It is now dancing in the rain.
CUSHING: So we're following this car, and it starts
driving towards the crime scene, and we're like, wow,
wouldn't this be crazy if he's going
back to the scene of the crime?
We're about two blocks away from
the crime scene, and we do a traffic stop.
In the traffic stop,
the driver identifies himself as Tahreem Rana,
and he hands us the one thing that we don't expect...
Atlanta police identification card.
McFADDEN: When the detectives find out that their key suspect
is an Atlanta P.D. officer,
they're no longer dancing in the rain.
Now it's a thunderstorm with a whole bunch of lightning,
because now they are investigating one of their own.
CUSHING: Me and my partner were looking at
each other like, what have we gotten into?
CARROLL: They brought him back to the station.
Once I seen who he was,
I remembered that he was a young man who grew up here
in Hapeville -- he was a high school football player.
He was the ideal citizen, did everything straight.
ZYGAJ: Rana worked for me. He was a young, young officer,
just brand-new out of the academy.
He was a hard charger.
Very, very intelligent, a very good cop.
I mean, he was really taking charge.
His career was really taking off.
[distant indistinct conversations]
CUSHING: We've explained everything that's going on,
thinking there was going to be nothing there.
This can't be right.
You know, an Atlanta police officer wouldn't commit this
kind of crime -- this is not gonna be our guy.
I used an interview technique where you try and get
the suspect to admit that he was at the scene.
So I told him that we had a citation
for him discharging his firearm at his home residence.
So detectives set a great trap -- when they said, "Well,
weren't you over here?"
And he took the bait said, "No, no, no,
I was over here," and that's what they needed.
They needed to place him in this position
so they can say that this is
the same area of where the victim was found.
Um...
NARRATOR: The detectives know that Vernecia
met clients through social media platforms
like Craigslist.
CUSHING: Officer Rana admitted to purchasing prostitutes
on Craigslist.
It just surprised my partner
and I -- here you are a police officer.
You're not above the law.
You are responsible for upholding the law.
He was so nonchalant.
He was so surprised, like, we cared.
CARROLL: I think what happens with a lot of officers,
you get what's called a God complex.
You feel like you're untouchable.
You start doing things to violate policy,
that violate the law.
And I think he felt like because he was a cop,
no big deal.
McFADDEN: We have a officer who
admits to having relationships with prostitutes.
When you got them to admit to one crime,
you have to ask yourself, how many more is it?
NARRATOR: Although Officer Rana claims he doesn't
recognize the woman in the photograph,
investigators confront him with a key piece of
new evidence.
The telephone information that we requested
from T-Mobile has come back,
and we were able to get the last two
phone numbers that were made from the victim's cell phone.
The first one was to the victim's mother.
And the second one was Tahreem Rana.
NARRATOR: Presented with this information,
Rana is forced to admit he and Vernecia were in contact on
the day she was murdered.
Mm-hmm.
CUSHING: He felt like it was too far of
a drive for him to go to DeKalb County.
And it did seem a little strange, you know,
most people deny things,
but it's possible that he felt like because he was
a police officer, that we're gonna cover for him.
McFADDEN: There is a brotherhood in law enforcement that we all love.
You come to your brother when you need help.
I will be there for you in your toughest time.
But when that toughest time is a homicide,
you are on your own.
McFADDEN: So you have to look at what the detectives have.
He brings them to a point and then drops them.
He talks to her, he knows her, he contacts them,
but he will not put her into that car.
They need to put the victim in that white car.
CUSHING: So at that time, we needed to do a search warrant on the car.
Mr. Rana's car was one of the cleanest
used cars of -- anybody's ever seen in their life.
It was cleaner than you get off a showroom.
He used his skills as a police officer to cover up the crime,
and we didn't find any kind of evidence in it whatsoever.
So we couldn't definitely put Miss Woodard inside the car.
We decided at that time that we needed to get
the search warrant for Rana's house
before he has any opportunity to get rid
of any evidence.
We told him we'd drop him off of his friend's house, and after
the search warrant, we'd go pick him up and bring him home.
We started by doing a full view recording of the entire
residence, and I was thinking there was gonna be
nothing there,
but we found a huge amount of evidence against him.
NARRATOR: Officers find two shell casings similar to
the ones found at the crime scene...
and two gas cans in the garage.
Then look in this garbage can, and plain
as day, a used condom stuck in the can.
He didn't throw out that trash can that
had the evidence inside it for some strange reason.
I don't know.
After we executed the search warrant,
we went to pick up Rana at his friend's house,
and the friend advises that Rana has left.
We didn't know where he's going.
Wouldn't you know it, the house is a pot of gold.
We found all the evidence.
If the detectives have any doubt,
they should not have any doubt now.
But the bird flew the coop.
All we need to do now is find the bird.
NARRATOR: All evidence points to Atlanta police officer
Tahreem Rana as the killer of Vernecia Woodard.
But while detectives were searching his house,
he took off.
CUSHING: We immediately contacted
the City of Atlanta Police Department.
They were very helpful, because just like us, it would be
a black eye on our profession and the city of Atlanta if he
actually was committing this crime.
One of the worst calls you could ever receive from another
law enforcement agency is that
they are looking for one of your own.
The most important issue here for both agencies
at this moment is to get him into custody.
ZYGAJ: I was trying to get a hold of him.
He didn't answer the phone.
Finally, he calls me about three o'clock, and he says,
"You know, you've been really good to me.
"You've been like a dad to me.
"I'm not gonna lie to your face.
"They got me for murder.
I committed a murder,"
and I was stunned.
So the next thing I said was,
"Well, what are you trying to do now?"
He goes, "Well, I'm gonna get on a flight to Cancun, Mexico."
And I said, "We're coming for you,
and you need to turn yourself in."
He goes, "Man," he goes, "LT, was a pleasure working for you,"
but he goes, "I got to go," and he hung up.
CUSHING: We had a contact at the airport.
He set us up with a group, and they
made a plan to apprehend Mr. Rana at the airport.
We found him in the airport and took him into custody.
Also, striking new developments in the case of an Atlanta
police officer accused in the murder
of a woman that he had just met online.
My mom runs in the room --
"They found who killed your sister,"
and I just couldn't believe it was a freaking cop.
CARROLL: It -- my heart dropped when it was confirmed
that it was him.
I knew him and his family personally.
You see people on the news, and you don't know
them really, it doesn't affect you.
But when you've seen them on a regular basis, it was --
you know, it's somewhat surreal.
You're like, what happened?
Where -- where did he go wrong?
ZYGAJ: Nothing ever stood out to me.
Maybe he had -- with his friends
or something had a different life.
I think he was a sociopath.
He just was able to hide it from everybody.
NARRATOR: Investigators find proof that Rana lied
during his interview,
beginning with GPS data from his phone and Vernecia's.
We're able to look at the GPS coordinates from
Mr. Rana's phone -- at the exact same time that Rana was driving,
Miss Woodard's cell phone was matching up
to the exact same cell phone towers.
So that would prove that Miss Woodard was in the car.
McFADDEN: Technology is a beautiful thing.
The detectives always wanted to put her into that car.
They have both the phone and the car
now in the same location -- that is the slam dunk.
CARROLL: And then Rana's phone showed a video of Mr. Rana
and the deceased having relations right there in
his house.
And DNA evidence on the condom came back to Mr. Tahreem Rana
and the deceased Ms. Woodard -- the entire time
he said that he never went to see her,
the evidence said that he did.
It appears that on Friday the 22nd,
Mr. Rana picked up Miss Woodard from the Motel 6 in
DeKalb County.
He drove the victim to his house.
Sexual acts occurred.
And, at some point, there was some kind of argument that
happened that made
Mr. Rana enraged, and he shot and killed her
right there in his house.
[distant gunshot blasts]
And he took that body and brought her over to the dump
site and was just gonna throw her out with the trash.
Then he's like, I gotta conceal this body.
McFADDEN: Setting the body on fire, in his mind, would
destroy any link that it may have to him.
Fibers, body fluid, hairs -- anything that would link him,
his car or his home would be destroyed by fire.
That's cold-blooded.
NARRATOR: Although Tahreem Rana never explains why he killed Vernecia,
he's tried for murder and sentenced
to life without parole plus 16 years.
CARROLL: One day after it happened and I was patrolling,
I just seen a couple of cars, they were lost,
and, uh, they stopped me, and they --
they said, "We're the relatives of the person that, you know,
"got killed, and we're trying to find
the location of where she got killed at."
And, um, I took them over there
and kinda showed them where she was laying at.
GILYARD: We all had her face on us.
So we were all wearing her on our shirts, and he walked us
through everything, and I thought
that was -- I really appreciated that.
They gathered around over there, and they prayed and, uh,
it was -- it was a touching moment, you know,
um, for me and for them.
I requested to go see
the gentleman that murdered my daughter,
and he agreed to meet with me.
But then his attorney told him not to.
Why did you take my baby from me?
I just miss her.
Her singing and her cheesecake.
[Vernecia singing] ♪ Oh no, no, no ♪
♪ There is no doubt ♪
♪ In my mind ♪
♪ That you were made for me ♪
GILYARD: I miss her voice.
[Vernecia singing] ♪ Right here and right now ♪
That's one of the first things you kind of forget.
Like you -- you think you hear it, it kind of fades, like,
I can think of things that she may say,
but I can't hear it in her voice.
BELTON: I just want it known that Vernecia
was not defined by what she did as her occupation.
She loved her daughter unconditionally,
and she just...
needs to be remembered as a loving sister,
daughter, and mother.
I know that she was loved by her whole family.
CUSHING: When we concluded this case,
it actually gave our department a feeling of pride.
It's a special feeling, speaking to a deceased person's
mother or -- or a child
and letting them know that you have apprehend
the person that committed this to their loved one.
If an officer is committing a crime, really all gloves
are off.
You would never dream that someone that the public
expect, uh,
protection from to actually be the suspect of the crime.
He betrayed his badge. He betrayed his oath.
I just was surprised that he didn't understand that.
This wasn't just trying to scare a guy
this was trying to kill a guy.
[gun shot]
He was trained how to use a weapon and how to kill.
The bullets were meant for her.
He knew everything that the detective was going to do
and how to do it.
This killer knows a lot about law enforcement.