MURDERED: Jodine Serrin Part 1

On Valentine’s Day in 2007, 39-year-old Jodine Serrin was brutally murdered and desecrated in her own bed – while her parents were just down the hall. Over the next 10 years, using new forensic techniques, the Carlsbad Police Department identified her killer. But when they did, everyone was forced to confront the chilling realization that this man had been leading a double life – on one hand, living like you and I, acting as a father, partner and employee. On the other, he was a monster.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ashley Flowers?

  When you're out in nature, you learn to trust your instincts. You pay attention to the trail, your surroundings, and you stay alert to protect yourself from harm. But what if the biggest threat isn't the environment at all? On Park Predators, host Delia Diambra explores true crime cases that happen in national parks and remote wildernesses, the places we usually think of as safe and peaceful. Each episode reveals what happened and how much more there is beneath the surface. Listen to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. And I have a story today that is gonna stay with you. And be warned, it is not for the faint of heart. What was done to the victim and how she was found is truly one of the most haunting images

• 0:45Ashley Flowers?

  that I've had to convey in probably over 600 episodes at this point. But I am gonna walk you through it all. From the night of the murder on Valentine's Day 2007, to the brand-new forensic techniques used today to identify the killer, and ultimately, to the chilling realization that our suspect was leading a double life. On one hand, he was moving about the world like you and I, acting out the part of father, partner, and friend. He lived and worked in the very town where he also took on the role of monster, a man who set up a crime scene in a way that allowed him to watch as he desecrated the corpse of a young woman he'd killed in her own apartment.

• 1:28Ashley Flowers?

  This is the story of Jodeen Serrin.

• 2:03Ashley Flowers?

  It's Valentine's Day 2007, and even after 53 years of marriage, Art and Lois Serrin don't skip out on a chance for a romantic date night of dinner and a movie to celebrate. They tried to plan a day just for themselves because like many parents, decades of their lives have been consumed with taking care of their six kids. And even more so for them because their youngest daughter, 39-year-old Jodeen, who goes by Jody, she had developmental disabilities that were told gave her the mental capacity of a girl in her early teens. And Jody lived on her own, but in many ways, she was still dependent on her parents. They checked in on her every day. They helped her get from place to place because she didn't drive.

• 2:45Ashley Flowers?

  But on this day, they hadn't been able to get a hold of her. 72-year-old Lois tried pushing it out of her mind, like just one day where she and her husband could just focus on themselves. It wouldn't be the end of the world. But all through dinner, it was like nagging at her. And as she sat in the dark of the movie theater, she just couldn't focus on the screen. With every scene change, she just grew more and more anxious till she couldn't take it anymore. Like, what's the point of being there if she can't actually enjoy it? Whatever feeling was crawling under her skin, she like just had to give in. So mid-movie, she and Art leave the theater. It's around 10:00 PM when the Sarans get to Jody's condo.

• 3:29Ashley Flowers?

  At first, they knock and wait, expecting to hear their daughter's footsteps, see the knob turn. But there's nothing. So Art pulls out his spare key, unlocks the door and tries to push it open, but it barely budges. The chain is latched from the inside, and this stops them cold because Jody never chains her door. And now the Sarans are starting to panic. So at 77 years old, Art throws himself against the door and breaks it down. Now, the lights are on inside the condo and the Sarans head straight for their daughter's bedroom. Art opens the door, and even though the room is dark, in the shadows, he sees two people in bed.

• 4:13Ashley Flowers?

  It looks like Jody with a man, and it looks like they're having sex. And he's obviously taken aback, probably a little embarrassed, probably mad at whoever this man is. So he quickly shuts the door and calls out, is basically like, listen, you need to get decent. You both need to come out to the living room. We are gonna be here waiting for you. And honestly, I would probably be stewing a little bit. But a few minutes go by and then some more. And no one comes out to join Art and Lois in the living room. Not even Jody. So I don't know if it's stewing as much as it is just like something's wrong. Like they're getting curious, something's going on. So Art gets up to check again, just to like nudge the two along. But this is when everything shifts.

• 4:57Ashley Flowers?

  Not just like his perception of things, but it's like Art's whole world flips on its axis in this moment. And forever, his life is going to be changed. When he opens the door, the man isn't in Jody's room anymore. It is just his daughter laying naked and lifeless on the bed, covered in blood. She's not breathing. She's actually cold to the touch, all of which Art tells to a 911 operator in a frantic call. Based on their recommendation, he moves Jody from the bed to the floor to begin CPR. But there is no saving her. And when first responders get to the scene, it is quote, immediately clear to them that Jody is dead.

• 5:38Ashley Flowers?

  And given the state of her body, she has likely been dead for several hours. Way before the Sarans even got to her condo.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  So it's not like Art could have stopped anything when they got there?

• 5:50Ashley Flowers?

  No, the medical examiner will end up determining that Jody died around noon that day. So almost 10 hours before they got there. Which I imagine has to be some relief. Like, I mean, to even for a moment think that you were just sitting feet away as someone killed your daughter would be mental torture. But then there's that relief for a second, but you also then have to reconcile what it was you actually walked in on.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:12Ashley Flowers?

  Which was this man desecrating Jody's corpse. And in that moment, I don't know how much relief there is in that.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they were all in the apartment like at the same time. Did this guy escape through a window or something?

• 6:25Ashley Flowers?

  No, so the way that Jody's condo is laid out, it's kind of split down the middle by a dividing wall. So when you walk in the front door, you can either turn one way and go to the bedroom, or you can turn the other way and get to the kitchen and living room.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 6:37Ashley Flowers?

  So with the sarin sitting in the living room, this guy could run right out of the front door without them actually even knowing. And investigators used bloodhounds to track the man sent from the condo, out the front door, down Jody's street, all the way to a main road where he tossed his sweatshirt into a bush. But then that's where the scent stops. Their man is long gone. But he did leave plenty behind at the scene. And not just physical evidence. There is evidence of how devious and methodical this man was. I mean, it is clear that he took his time setting up this crime scene in exactly the way he wanted. Sheets and blankets had been placed over the windows in Jody's room.

• 7:20Ashley Flowers?

  And a full-length mirror was moved next to the bed so this guy could see what it was he was doing to Jody. He had beaten her over the head, strangled her, but she must have fought back because she had defensive wounds and bruising all over. And along with sexually assaulting her corpse, the man also inflicted at least one cut, a laceration across her throat that likely happened post-mortem. This guy clearly had a plan around what he was doing to Jody. But her parents busting her front door down was obviously not part of the plan. And in his hurry to leave, he made some mistakes. First of all, there is blood all over Jody's room and in the bathroom, on the walls, the carpet, the linens.

• 8:05Ashley Flowers?

  I mean, it's everywhere, as is his DNA and tons of partial fingerprints. And in his rush to sneak out without being seen by Jody's parents, he'd even left his sneakers behind. And these sneakers actually end up being a major clue because they weren't just like kicked off randomly. They had been taken off and neatly placed next to the rest of Jody's shoes by the front door, which is where Jody always instructed her guests to remove and place their shoes before coming inside. Like Jody was like super neat and tidy, especially when it came to her place. So this tells investigators that whoever killed Jody must have been invited in.

• 8:47Ashley Flowers?

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• 9:31Ashley Flowers?

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• 10:49Ashley Flowers?

  Aside from Art's own work on the condo door, there were no signs of forced entry to Jody's place. And there were even dishes for two in the sink, which made it seem like things had started out friendly with whoever this person was before they took an unthinkable turn.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Well, and it is like Valentine's Day. Like dishes for two seems kind of like a date.

• 11:11Ashley Flowers?

  Date-ish, but whatever this started off as, like given the state of the condo and the story that the evidence told, it seemed like, like almost in an instant, things switched from good to bad. The change from neatly arranged shoes and dishes placed in the sink to rage-filled violence in the bedroom suggested to detectives very early on that drug use may have been a part of the picture. But it would only have been on the part of the offender because Jody's parents were clear she did not use drugs and her autopsy would later confirm that.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  No, I know it was dark and like obviously traumatic on multiple levels, but was Art able to see what this guy looked like at all when he first saw him in Jody's bedroom?

• 11:52Ashley Flowers?

  So in initial interviews, he actually claims to have gotten a good look at the suspect, like enough to say that he was 5'8" to 6' tall, a little chubby. And I think his brain was like trying to fill in the gaps because early on he was even convinced that it was someone Jody knew, someone specific named Robert Burns. This was a guy that had similar developmental disabilities as Jody. They used to have some sort of relationship at some point, which would have put them together, maybe on Valentine's Day. But investigators quickly rule Robert out because of his alibi and they would later confirm it definitely wasn't him because his DNA did not match what was left at the crime scene. And with him ruled out, then all they've got is like a description of a kind of chubby guy who's about 6' tall.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Well, and like you said, like all this DNA.

• 12:39Ashley Flowers?

  And that, but any hopes of a quick slam dunk get crushed because even though they had the DNA and DNA that's good enough to go into the state and national databases, this dude is a ghost. He's not in any database because like this is a case where we don't have a lot of these where it's like what 2007 you can put it in the database is there the database is populated people know how it works and still he doesn't exist.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Which seems bonkers to me because of how like you said methodical this was it doesn't feel like a first time like how?

• 13:12Ashley Flowers?

  It's a shock to everyone. I mean, the only thing I think they assume is that like whatever this guy has done, he just hasn't gotten caught for it because nothing about this like you said is giving like first time offender.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:25Ashley Flowers?

  But also like I kept thinking, I wonder what the crime scene would have looked like had this man not been interrupted.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:32Ashley Flowers?

  Was he planning on cleaning up? Would he have even left Jody there? Like we usually talk about MO based on what's been left behind.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  But maybe he wouldn't have left anything behind if he had had enough time.

• 13:45Ashley Flowers?

  Exactly. Jody's dad could have completely changed the trajectory of things. Like dude didn't even have time to put on his shoes. So what else did he not have time to do? So they've got to find someone who's not in a database, who Jody either knew or recently met and would willingly let into her home. They start by building out the timeline of her last known movements. The last confirmed contact Jody had with anyone was a phone call with her mom on the 13th, so just the day before. And she'd actually told her mom on the phone that she was planning to go to a Valentine's Day party on the 14th. But we know she never made it to that party. There were several voicemails from people wondering where she was.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Do they think that she met up with this guy on the 14th or I mean, is it possible that he was actually there on the 13th? Like her time of death is noon on the 14th, but I mean, I have to wonder how long they were together before that happened.

• 14:40Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, that's the big question. When did she meet him and where? Now, interestingly, they come to learn that while Jody didn't have a full-time job, she was very involved in volunteer work and would help out at nursing homes or facilities for people with similar developmental disabilities. And one of the facilities that she would go to was co-located with a substance abuse treatment place, which, considering their early theory that the offender was on drugs, they begin to wonder if maybe she crossed paths with someone around there. And not even necessarily that day because she wasn't volunteering on the 14.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Right, but maybe someone saw her, had been following her, had had some contact before.

• 15:21Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, or even just ran into her another time and then on this day was like, yeah, hey, remember me, whatever. Because the other thing about Jody, she was trusting, very overly, people say, trusting of strangers. I mean, she was the kind of person who saw everyone as a friend and was so innocent in her thinking. So detectives actually hear that Jody would have let anybody into her home.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Which makes those like neatly placed shoes and dishes a little less like, they mean less, right?

• 15:50Ashley Flowers?

  Right, it just had to be in my mind, someone that was like, nice to her, right? To start out, but we know that switch from good to bad happened really quick. And unfortunately, knowing this now makes narrowing down a suspect pool early on nearly impossible. So detectives spend the first weeks of their investigation making a hail mary list of anyone and everyone who could possibly be responsible. People in the area, people Jody was associated with or might have crossed paths with, people they're tipped off to. I mean, there are over 50 men on this list and they go out and knock on all these guys' doors. They swab every single one of them and send each and every swab to the lab for comparison. But there are no matches.

• 16:34Ashley Flowers?

  And when they reach the bottom of their list, there really aren't any other obvious directions for investigators to go in. By this point, the case has been highly publicized as the "Valentine's Day murder." Tips are coming in by the hundreds, but like, nothing is panning out. So at one point detectives even reach out to the VDOC Society, which is a group of retired detectives, FBI agents, forensic experts, whatever. Basically, they bring together anyone who's like an expert in their field. They're located in Pennsylvania and they take on some of the coldest, most baffling murder cases that no one else can crack. They'll like come in and consult for you. You have to present your case, whatever. But even they don't have a magic wand. I mean, they can suggest what type of offender this guy is,

• 17:19Ashley Flowers?

  maybe confirm that some of the theories police had are probably right, but they can't make this guy materialize.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  And it's so much more frustrating when you have all this DNA on file. And like, I want to say no one, but no one else, right? Like, they've already tested it against 50 guys.

• 17:36Ashley Flowers?

  And the database.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  And nothing is hitting.

• 17:39Ashley Flowers?

  I know. So this is the same story that we know and hate. Weeks turn into months and then turn into years. And then with every day that passes, they just hope and pray that their guy will slip up and his DNA will get collected. Until then, this case just kinda ends up looming over Carlsbad PD as it gets passed from one detective to the next and the next. And it becomes sort of the department-wide white whale. Everybody wants to see this thing get solved. And they try everything. A $52,000 reward, pleas to the media. Per the San Diego Union Tribune, Jody's family even puts her cold case information on display in public buses, just in case there's someone out there with info. Like, if there is someone out there with info, though,

• 18:23Ashley Flowers?

  they are holding on tight to their secret. But, lucky for police, we are about to hit an era of investigating where DNA can do all the talking. In 2016, this is now nine years after Jody's murder. A new detective takes over the case. Lieutenant Eric Covanda. And this is just after the PD decided to tap Parabon Nano Labs in Virginia to do forensic phenotyping with the DNA sample they have. Now, I know we've touched on this before, but for like our new crime junkies, Britt, would you mind?

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Obviously. The phenotype composites can predict suspects' eye color, hair color, skin tone, even like facial structure based on the DNA makeup. There are obviously like a ton of other factors at play that might make someone look different.

• 19:10Ashley Flowers?

  Right, like weight, facial hair.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Right, and like substance use can change your appearance. But this gives police kind of like a baseline of some key characteristics that they can at least use to like help rule people in or out, like eye color. That's pretty like cut and dry.

• 19:25Ashley Flowers?

  Exactly. So Jody's case was actually the first time that Carl's Bad PD ever used this kind of technology. And Lieutenant Covanda says he's sort of treating the composite as a filter. It might not look exactly like the suspect, but if a person of interest pops up with, like you said, a different eye color, different hair color, skin color, he can at least like rule people out much quicker, right? So they get this composite back and Lieutenant Covanda literally says, "It looks like every other surfer dude out there right now."

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Which I've seen a lot of the Parabon composites and they kind of do just look like a guy.

• 20:00Ashley Flowers?

  They all blend into the same person. It was like very cool the first couple of times we saw it.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  And then like, it's just the same dude.

• 20:06Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, eventually we're like, got it. So truly, you are just looking for like color of like eyes, hair, something like that. So yeah, they end up getting this sort of nondescript white guy with bluish-green eyes, dirty blonde hair, fair skin and some freckling. But the trick is they do have the ability to make some tweaks using the information that they have or based on their theories. Like substance use, right? Well, you said it was a part of the profile and substance use usually alters someone's appearance. So Covanda had the lab increase the composite's BMI, had him age him a little bit, adding like deeper creases, a five o'clock shadow. So that's the photo that they released to the public on the 10th anniversary of Jody's murder. And they do this on the steps of the San Diego courthouse.

• 20:51Ashley Flowers?

  And immediately tips start pouring in, tips that they probably had, like not in a way that they've seen in a long time. But even with this influx of new information, nothing pans out.

• 21:03Ashley Flowers?

  Still, this new technology has really gotten Lieutenant Covanda's wheels turning. He's made a lot of connections by that point with people in like the DNA science world. And he's learning about all of the other ways that they can use DNA to get more info. Info like a suspect's name with something called YSTR profiling, which that's a method used to analyze DNA on the Y chromosome. And that is what's passed down from father to son, virtually unchanged. And since last names are also typically passed down the paternal line, Y profiling testing can be used to predict a person by their last name, by comparing their Y profile to entries already in DNA databases.

• 21:45Ashley Flowers?

  But you have to remember that there are certain limitations when it comes to this kind of testing. Things that can break the pattern like infidelity or genetic mutations.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Or adoption.

• 21:55Ashley Flowers?

  Or adoption, right. That's actually one of the most common. But listen, take what you can get, right? And then we'll figure out the next steps from there. So this, again, is like a first for Carl's Bad PD. This is the first time they're ever using this kind of technology as well. And they do get a last name after all the YSTR work. Miracle. Which of course is like a detective right out of CSI Miami, taking off his sunglasses and like squinting into the sun. You can like see it, right?

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 22:25Ashley Flowers?

  These detectives could not help themselves. They begin saying, "It's gonna take a miracle to solve this one."

• 22:33Ashley Flowers?

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• 23:17Ashley Flowers?

  Visit sofi.com/crimejunkie to see how much you can save. That's sofi.com/crimejunkie and start making smarter money moves with SoFi. SoFi's student loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.

• 23:38Ashley Flowers?

  Detectives spend the coming year looking for their miracle. But it turns out there was no one they could find with that last name who also fit the composite sketch. So it was looking more and more like one of those pattern breakers happened in this family line. Infidelity, adoption, something. But in the year or less that it's taken to feel pretty sure of this, guess what happens? 2018 is upon us.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Oh, and with all this science talk, you're talking about the Golden State Killer.

• 24:08Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah. Golden State Killer gets caught using the most current version of what we all now know as IGG, investigative genetic genealogy. You know, Golden State dude left his DNA all over crime scenes, but he, like this one, wasn't in the database. So instead of looking for the offender himself, GSK investigators decided to look for distant family members whose DNA might be on file in public databases like Jedmatch and then create this extensive family tree that might connect back to their suspect. Now, when they started down this path, it took them four months to catch a serial killer and rapist who eluded them for decades. So when Lieutenant Covanda sees this, this gets his gears spinning. Forget turning, they're like almost smoking, right?

• 24:53Ashley Flowers?

  Like, here he is, working on another case where the offender's DNA is all over the crime scene and a full profile is in CODIS, but they just keep striking out. So Covanda starts doing his homework, trying to figure out if he could make use of the same techniques. And it just so happens that around this same time, this is May of 2018, the lab that did the initial phenotyping for Jody's case comes back to Carlsbad PD and basically says like, "Hey, by the way, we've still got your offender's DNA on file from that test that we did last year. Do you want us to evaluate it using IGG?"

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, please.

• 25:29Ashley Flowers?

  Yes, please. Exactly. Like, you do not have to ask twice.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:33Ashley Flowers?

  So they do this, they get the blessing, and just two months later, the lab reaches back out. Lieutenant Covanda says he literally gets on a Zoom call with them where they share their screen. They're showing what he calls a hasty family tree, which basically shows the closest connections and the most recent common ancestors associated with the DNA sample. Now, it's not one name. There are a few possibilities. But now, it's up to Carlsbad PD to run each one of these down.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Okay, of these names, like, are any of them miracles? Like the YSTR suggested?

• 26:11Ashley Flowers?

  Surprisingly, no. Lieutenant Covanda actually said that the lab wasn't really focusing on the miracle last name. And, you know, when they got a few of them back, they... There were some that they discounted pretty quickly, like, um, there was one last name, Mabrito, that they just kind of brushed aside for a couple of reasons. Like, they, they told the detective, A, Mabrito is of Italian origin, and the offender's DNA suggested someone of Northern European descent. And B, they're like, this Mabrito guy is dead, so...

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Dead before 2007?

• 26:40Ashley Flowers?

  No, he was alive in 2007. But this is why it is always good to gut check yourself. Not to get too tied up in what you expect something to be. Because, basically, investigators get all the way to the end of the list of all these last names and people that the lab really thought it could be, and they still have nothing to show for it. But Lieutenant Covanda is not willing to give up just yet. If you want to get something solved, like the GSK case, why not go to the exact person who helped solve it? And that is Barbara Ray Venter. Barbara isn't a cop, she's not a detective, she is a retired, seven-year-old patent lawyer who just happens to be really, really good at genealogy.

• 27:23Ashley Flowers?

  Which she only discovered after retiring, by the way, when she started mapping her own heritage as a hobby. And that hobby quickly turned into volunteering as a search angel. That's someone who helps adoptees find their biological parents by creating family trees from DNA. And when she got really good at that, police departments started calling. So Lieutenant Covanda gets ahold of Barbara's number. And while he's in Northern California trying to get some more reference DNA samples for Jody's case, he calls her up and invites her to breakfast with him and this other investigator from the DA's office named Tony Johnson. She says, sure. So they go to breakfast together in what Barbara describes as this total hole in the wall. And they're eating eggs and pancakes and talking about genealogy.

• 28:07Ashley Flowers?

  And Lieutenant Covanda says, it's just like mind confetti for him. Because all the labs he'd spoken to before had basically just told him how much he should pay them and how long it would take. But here is Barbara, totally like pulling back the curtain, explaining her entire process.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  And does she agree to take on the case?

• 28:28Ashley Flowers?

  Yes. Yes. After this meeting, Lieutenant Covanda gives Barbara access to the offender's DNA profile in Jedmatch, and she goes to work.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  So is her process different than that original lab?

• 28:39Ashley Flowers?

  It's the same. She's just better at it. Because interestingly, Barbara actually comes back to Covanda with a name that was on the first lab's list.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Wait, Mabrito?

• 28:51Ashley Flowers?

  Mabrito. That's the one that the other lab had totally discounted. But Barbara is saying, this, she believes, is where Carl's Bad PD needs to spend their time. Because this last name actually does have a connection to, get this, the Miracle last name.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  What?

• 29:08Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, because when Barbara looks deep into the genealogy, she sees a double adoption in the Miracle family. So basically, at some point, a man with the last name Miracle had a son named Robert, who was adopted, and took on the Italian last name Mabrito. Robert then has two sons of his own, Steven, who gets adopted, and David, who carried on the Mabrito last name.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  So it could potentially be Steven or David?

• 29:35Ashley Flowers?

  Or even their dad, Robert. Covanda is gonna need DNA from all three to be sure, but he is feeling so confident. In a matter of like a year, he went from an endless pool of suspects to three. Now, as it turns out, both Steven and David were deceased at this point. They both died after Jody's murder, so that doesn't rule them out, but it does make getting their DNA slightly more challenging. Or at least it might have. You see, Steven passed away in an accident in 2017, which meant that his DNA was actually still on file at the medical examiner's office. So they get it, they run it. And it's not Steven.

• 30:15Ashley Flowers?

  As for the dad, Robert, he was totally estranged from his sons and living in a different area at the time of the murder. Plus, just looking at his age and capability, like, they didn't think they were necessarily compatible with the specific manner of the crime, which really, like, if they're gonna look at anyone, their next person they wanna look at is David. Now, they find out he passed away in 2011, and his DNA is nowhere to be found. But, he does have an ex-wife and an 18-year-old son that are both still living right there in Carlsbad. So Kovanda gets this idea to have the lab do a sort of paternity test, where they could use the ex-wife's DNA, the son's DNA, to basically reconstruct David's.

• 31:00Ashley Flowers?

  But obviously, like, he's gonna need permission for that. And at this point, no one in the Mabrito family even knows that police are, like, going down this road.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Can you imagine, like, the police showing up at your door and being like, "Hey, we think your ex-husband did this absolutely horrific thing 10 years ago, not sure if you knew about it?"

• 31:18Ashley Flowers?

  Every time there's an IGG solve, yes, I do imagine this specific thing exactly. But, they, at least in this case, they're a little, like, more surreptitious than that. So, on the evening of October 26, 2018, Lieutenant Kovanda and Tony Johnson, they show up at the home of David's ex, Marissa Mabrito. It's actually Marissa and David's son, who answers the door. And we're gonna use a pseudonym for him and call him Dan. So Dan answers the door, he goes to get his mom, who is out in the backyard having an after-work drink, and he says, "There's some Carlsbad detectives here, and they wanna talk to you." And of course, mom's first thought is like, "Oh my god, what did my kid do?" You know what I mean? But right away, when she goes inside and talks to the detectives, they put that thought out of her mind.

• 32:02Ashley Flowers?

  First thing they say is, "Nobody's in trouble, we're here to investigate a cold case." Now, Marissa's totally confused, but she agrees to sit down with them, and that's when they start explaining the details of Jody's case. Now, because Jody's story got so much coverage, Marissa sort of remembered hearing about it. But in her mind, at this point, she's like, asking the question, right? Like, "What does any of this have to do with me?" Right. And this is when Lieutenant Kovanda starts explaining all of the genetic genealogy work that he's been doing. But the way that they were explaining it, I think it maybe seemed like they were looking for either a cousin or an uncle.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Like a relative.

• 32:41Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, a relative of David's dad even, not even David. So she's not thinking in this moment that her ex-husband has anything to do with this crime. And so Marissa starts giving investigators David's whole family history. She says that his heritage was actually somewhat complicated.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Which they obviously kind of know already.

• 32:59Ashley Flowers?

  Yep, and she confirms the double adoption stuff, the miracle last name. And then she eventually tells them that David took his own life unexpectedly in 2011. That's how he died. And when she's done laying everything out, they're like, okay, well, would you and your son be willing to give your DNA to rule you out of like this whole situation? And obviously both Marissa and Dan are like, yeah, totally.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  But investigators want to use this DNA to confirm David's involvement.

• 33:26Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and it's not totally clear to me if they're like trying to skirt around the truth a little bit, or if Marissa doesn't totally understand the gravity of why they're asking this. Because I do know that like when they first brought up David's name during the visit, Marissa got really upset. And she straight up says like, if you think David did this, you need to get the [bleep] out of my house. You're out of your mind.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Oh, so they might have like backed off.

• 33:50Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, so after that, it seems like all the questions kind of focus more on just like David's family. But looking back, you can see why they might have wanted to use any means necessary to get her to talk. Because every suspicion they had, every DNA clue, led them to the right David. And when the results came back on Dan and Marissa's DNA, the lab says they are confident David is their guy. David murdered Jodeen Serrin. But before Kovanda is going to tell this to Marissa, before he even tells Jody's family, he wants to be 110% certain. I mean, this information is going to totally upend both families' lives, right? So.

• 34:35Ashley Flowers?

  He wants to go back to Marissa one more time. And this time around, his questions are a bit different. They are more pointed. He wants to know about Marissa's relationship with David. He wants to know about their sex life. And he's got Jody's case file with him and he's taking everything down in a notebook. And Marissa, in this second one, she's starting to get really frustrated. She's like, all of these questions are about David and not his family. Like, do you think he did this? And the reality must be setting in because she starts hyperventilating. And that's when she sees it. One of the images Kovanda brought with him from Jody's file is visible. It's from the crime scene. And it's not anything graphic, but it makes her sick to her stomach nonetheless.

• 35:20Ashley Flowers?

  Because it's a photo of the suspect's sneakers. Of David's sneakers. And Marissa was sure of it because she was the one who bought those sneakers for him.

• 35:33Ashley Flowers?

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• 36:17Ashley Flowers?

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• 36:38Ashley Flowers?

  Investigators obviously noticed Marissa's reaction to the sneakers. And so they ask her, do these look familiar? And in that moment, she says, no. It's a lie, but I mean, she can barely process what's going on. And her mind just immediately goes to her son. She's like, how in the world am I going to tell this to Dan? And so she really just says no to buy herself some time. Like she has a ton to digest. And even though she's totally flustered, she doesn't kick investigators out of her house or anything. She continues answering their questions about her and David's life together, their separation, and then ultimately David's untimely death in 2011. And as she's telling them this story of the days and events leading up to his death,

• 37:21Ashley Flowers?

  something clicks for both her and police kind of at the same time. You see, she had never known why David took his own life. He didn't leave behind a note, nothing. I mean, his poor son is the one who found him when he and his mom came back from a trip. David was actually staying with them at the time, sleeping on the couch. And Dan found his dad dead of an overdose that ends up getting ruled a suicide. They never knew why. But now she's realizing, maybe this was why. Because Marissa tells investigators that a week before David took his own life, there was this incident that happened. He was driving in Oceanside, which is just the town over from Carlsbad,

• 38:05Ashley Flowers?

  when his truck broke down. So he's behind his truck trying to push it when an officer from Oceanside PD stopped him and said that he matched the description of a suspect that they had in an Oceanside bank robbery. So the officer asks him, would you be willing to give your DNA? And David consented to that. Officer took an oral swab, got a photo of David, lets him go. And it's after this that David began to spiral, Marissa says. I mean, he spent the next week freaking out, acting super strange. And I don't mean just like general anxiety. He was losing it. At one point, he was like even rubbing spices all over. His face.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  What?

• 38:47Ashley Flowers?

  And at the time, he tried to say it was like helping him with headaches or like fine lines or something, but even then Marissa knew that something was off. Like this isn't normal behavior for him or for anyone.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  But at the time, she's not connecting it to anything?

• 39:01Ashley Flowers?

  No, I mean, like she knew about the stop and the DNA swab and like she knew that that happened, but I guess she really didn't think anything of it at the time. I mean, it's not like she's thinking David's DNA is going to connect him to the brutal murder.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:13Ashley Flowers?

  From a couple of years before. And she didn't even make the connection after his death because by the way, the whole bank robbery thing, that really had nothing to do with David. And because of that, guess what? They never had to run David's swab or put it into CODIS. Which is probably the very thing David feared so much that it drove him to suicide. So it's not till now, sitting with Lieutenant Kovanda in her house, seeing the photo of David's sneakers at the crime scene, that Marissa is starting to put the pieces together. And so is Lieutenant Kovanda. But his mind is spinning for a different reason.

• 39:53Ashley Flowers?

  Because if Oceanside PD still has David's DNA from that 2011 swab, he might be able to do a direct comparison with the DNA found at Jody's crime scene. And sure enough, by some miracle is the magic word for this episode, Oceanside PD has it.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 40:12Ashley Flowers?

  So on November 7th, Kovanda sends the sample to the lab to be tested for the first time since it was taken seven years ago. It takes two days for the results to come back. And when they do, it is a match. Which means that now Kovanda is 110% sure. He can finally tell the Sarans that after 11 years, the wait is over. And they were so close to losing hope. But finally, they know who that man was in Jody's room that Valentine's Day back in 2007. Now detectives can't give them every answer. Like where Jody might have come into contact with this guy, or why he even attacked her.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Well, that was gonna be my next question. Did David have any connection to her? There was nothing?

• 40:56Ashley Flowers?

  None that they can find. Like so many of the IGG solves that we've seen over the years, his name never so much as came up in the case file from even a random tip. Like this guy was not on their radar at all. Now, they did find out that in the past, he'd abused drugs. Marissa thought he'd been clean and sober like her for years when they were raising their son together. And even after they split up, she was like letting him stay at her place on her couch. But it's very possible he was using again. Also, I think about that substance abuse clinic that was next to the place that Jody volunteered.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Right, like had he been there?

• 41:31Ashley Flowers?

  So this is the thing, right? So this is how it all got teed up. We know he used or used to use drugs. We know this clinic was there. So I was gonna say this could be somewhere that they would have met, but I don't know because it never really got run down. And like we see this all the time. That kind of stuff, like making those connections is all stuff that you learn when you're like building a case against someone.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Like for trial?

• 41:55Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, but I'm seeing this all the time with these IGG cases. When you work backwards, and especially when the person is deceased, like you don't have to go back and figure out the like where and whatever.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Like all the little details to build the full puzzle out. You kind of have the picture at the beginning.

• 42:13Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and so investigators just don't. And listen, on one hand, I get it. Like there's a hundred other unsolved cases like Jody's that they need to focus on. They don't need to be creating work for themselves. But it still kills me. Because we talked about this at top. We know how devious this crime was. Was this really a one off? What if he did commit other crimes? I mean, we know his DNA in the database hasn't matched anything else. But like we said, the MO, what if he would have cleaned up? What if there's nothing left? What if by tracking him, we can figure out where they met? And then that shows an MO to like other missing people? Or something like, again, I have a zillion questions after a case like this, especially like who was this guy?

• 42:56Ashley Flowers?

  How did he have a wife and a kid and just live a normal life? Did he actually live a normal life? Or were there red flags? Could anyone have seen this coming? And normally, these are questions that you and I spiral on and we get left with. And then we have to move on to the next case, but not this time. Because this time, our reporter Nicole Kagan traveled out to California and met with the one person who had all the answers that I'm looking for. The one person who could give us insight into who David Mabrito was in 2007.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Can you say and spell your name for us? Marissa, M A R I S A, M A B R I T O. He was my family. He's my son's dad, gave me the best thing in the world and did the most horrific thing to somebody in the world. I don't know how to reconcile those two.

• 43:54Ashley Flowers?

  But Marissa has tried. She's gone back over every moment since meeting David on the beach in 1995. And she's had to rewire her brain to understand how he could have been capable of such a vicious crime all along. And yes, there were potentially signs, but how do you know what to look for if no one talks about it? In the interview, there was a moment where Nicole, our reporter, is like, are you sure you're good with all of this being on the record? Yeah. And Marissa's like, yes, this is my truth and this is David's truth as I know it. And you guys, this is a side of the story that we almost never get to tell you. And we didn't want to cut it short by trying to squeeze it all into one episode.

• 44:36Ashley Flowers?

  And more importantly, I wanted you to hear it directly from Marissa in her own words. So because Jodeen Serrin was the seven of diamonds on a cold case playing card deck before her case got solved, we have dedicated a full episode of The Deck to Marissa's attempt at solving her own mystery. How could the man she loved and trusted have committed this unthinkable crime? Now, new episodes of the other weekly true crime show I host, The Deck, by the way, this is if you didn't know, now you know, those come out every Wednesday. But because we've paired these episodes together, we're making this week's episode of The Deck available right now in the Crime Junkie Fan Club. So if you're in the Fan Club, you don't have to wait.

• 45:21Ashley Flowers?

  And if you don't mind waiting, make sure you follow The Deck wherever you get your podcasts so you can listen first thing on Wednesday.

• 45:43Ashley Flowers?

  You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And if you want to listen to more episodes like this, and bonus episodes we've never released, and every episode completely ad-free, be sure to join our fan club. You'll also get early access to new episodes every week, and you can go there now to listen to the deck episode that pairs with this one.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  And you can follow us on Instagram, at Crime Junkie Podcast.

• 46:09Ashley Flowers?

  And we actually have something special for you guys next week, so don't miss it. And don't forget to go check out The Deck wherever you get your podcasts.

• 46:31Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Growing up in a small town, I know how deeply a crime can shake a local community. And I know that what makes the headlines is rarely the full story. That's what Kylie Low explores on her show, Dark Down East. She digs into cases from Maine and New England using original reporting, archival records, and conversations with the people who knew them best. Each episode takes you inside the communities these stories shaped, and the families who never stop searching for answers. Listen to Dark Down East wherever you get your podcasts.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing: Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.