A Promise to Helene

I'm Lester Holt tonight on Deadline a cold-case mystery and a 40-year mission to solve it what I focus on when I'm working a case What drives me the most is the victims? I wanted to speak for them. I wanted to speak for Helene. I Just turned on the news woman found murdered in Denver, Colorado. I just grabbed my son and screamed and cried Was it somebody she worked with at the radio station? Could it be the boyfriend that she just broke up within December? You're giving the detective names of people. Yes, he looked at everything I was even like where was Ted Bundy at that time. We have to look under every stone every pebble. We're talking about hundreds of names Hundreds thousands. She's driven Her tenacity is just remarkable. I knew I was gonna find him. It was a competition between him and I The hardest pounding like oh my god. This is real. I said I found him. I know who killed Helene Here's Josh Mankiewicz with a promise to Helene 40 years is a long time. That's 40 winners here in Colorado and countless snowfalls It was on a day like this that a young woman disappeared Her name was Helene and Helene had a friend named Kimberly a friend who kept her word Do you have any idea how many years you were signing up for when you made that promise? No For those nearly four decades Kimberly LaTorette kept her promise 40 years looking at faces 40 years meeting with detectives 40 years retracing Helene steps When I make promise and make a commitment, I follow through Helene never knew it but she had another friend. You never met Helene. You feel like you know her? I do. I feel like I know her well as well as I possibly could She and then was three years old when Helene disappeared. It was in 2019 that she accepted a challenge I had to win. I wanted to win for Helene Helene Prasinski grew up as the baby daughter in a close-knit family of five in Hamilton, Massachusetts Everybody that met her liked her company Janet was her older sister by nine years But you didn't treat her as like this annoying younger sibling. You guys were probably died We were we were she was my best buddy um She came she was a surprise I think to the family and she just brought sunshine and life to our household I met her my freshman year of high school. She was a sophomore We both were part of a singing group called Harmony and that's really where I got to know Helene very well She loved to sing. Yes, she loved to perform. I'm involved with our Harmony, which is a musical group At the regional Helene spoke about her school life for a classmate's local radio show My uh philosophy on life. Yeah, I have one. Um, you should just I don't know Be yourself and make the best of everything Be a smile. Smile. Yeah, that's what I do all the time Here she is smiling along with Kimberly and their music group also joining in Kimberly's older brother John there was a real Feeling of camaraderie but also dedication to excellence in our in our singing He remembers the day camaraderie turned to something else We started talking and for me There was an immediate spark It was that kind of fluttery feeling that you have when you you know you're talking to somebody that you realize you really like All immediately they were just uh in love they were you know the each other's first loves in high school but very genuine It didn't last beyond high school, but John and Kimberly both kept in touch with Helene after graduation Helene attended Wheaton College in Massachusetts Where she sang in another group the Wheatones There she is in the back row with the black dress on One more thing as much as she loved her singing Helene had another passion Journalism. What did you think was going to happen to her? Where was she headed? For great things. I saw Helene the Christmas uh December Of 1979 um at church. She told me that she was going off to Denver to do this internship to further Her interests in journalism Um, and she was very excited about it Helene arrived in January 1980 to begin that internship at a radio station in Denver A long way from home Fortunately, she had some relatives nearby Your family didn't worry about her going off to Colorado because she wasn't going to be alone and she was staying with your aunt Uncle exactly Then came that day January 16th Helene had barely been there two weeks when she grabbed the bus from the radio station around six p.m To go back to her aunt and uncle's house She'd made the commute before without a problem That night Helene Presinsky never made it home My parents called me and said um they would they just got to call for my aunt and uncle and this was I think maybe 10 o'clock at night What do you think it happened? We had no idea it was this was so unlike Helene something had to be wrong The next morning the news none of it good made its way back to Massachusetts That was the first thing that came up Hamilton woman found murdered in Denver, Colorado and then from there it was just horror and chaos I went crazy my son was 16 months old. I just grabbed my son and screamed and cried and I just couldn't believe it was happening not totally [Music] That moment would launch a 40 year quest for justice To find Helene's killer and to learn what happened on that wintery night When we come back detectives family friends desperate for clues grasping at straws She gets off the bus and then she just disappeared She just disappeared was it somebody that she worked with at the radio station Could it be the boyfriend that she just broke up within December I thought I would be a suspect actually In Helene Przyski's small Massachusetts town her family and friends sat stunned She'd been found murdered in a snowy field in Colorado She was my first love so she had a very special place in my heart And what happened to her was so devastating Her wake was just horribly sad. I mean no one could even speak what could you say You just go through the motions and then when it's all over then you sit and you You still say I can't believe it's happened murder changes everything Oh it does It changed the mood in rural Douglas County, Colorado a high-profile murder case will do that As snow began to fall in the field where the body of young Helen Przyski was found the obliterating any clues authorities Back in 1980 Tony Spurlock was a rookie sheriff's deputy in Douglas County, Colorado He later became the sheriff. What was Doug was like then? You know Douglas County was a Completely rural Community between Colorado Springs and Denver not a lot of homicides back then maybe one every four years Investigators determined Helene was last seen alive getting off that bus after work From the bus driver we knew that she got off that bus From there and nobody got off with her. She didn't have any trouble on the bus There was no indication from any witnesses there that she was in any distress or anyone was following her She gets off the bus and then she just disappears She just disappeared Helene's body was found the next day in a field nearly nine miles from that bus stop She'd been stabbed nine times and autopsy revealed she was also raped Would you learn from the body the scene the autopsy a number of her clothes were missing She was wearing a mid-size winter jacket for Colorado at that time and a scarf she was lying on her back She had no defensive wounds, but she had wounds on her knees and lower leg area Which would tell us that she had either crawled on her knees at some point into that rough area of the grass based upon the injuries And she didn't have defensive wounds suggesting that she was not fighting her attacker She was trying to go along with them maybe get him to let her go Right. and some of the forensics that they shared with us led some of us to believe that it wasn't a stranger that it must be somebody that she knew. But she didn't know anybody there, did she? She didn't know anybody there, but she was working at a radio station, so was it somebody that she worked with at the radio station? Could it be somebody that she turned down for a date or a ride or something that got angry? Elaine's friend Kimberly started thinking about the man in Elaine's life. They were mostly just friends, but she passed their names to investigators anyway. You're giving the detectives names of people and saying, "You need to check out this guy and this guy." And this guy? Yes, we said, "Could it be the boyfriend that she just broke up with in December? Could it be?" You know, I looked at my brother, I said, "John, you know, could it be you?" Of course, John was Elaine's ex-boyfriend. As John worked through his own grief, it occurred to him, police might come knocking. I thought they would. I thought I would be a suspect, actually, but they never contacted me. That's because investigators quickly determined John was in Massachusetts when the murder happened. Back in Colorado, investigators focused on what little evidence they had. Different oral law enforcement back then. No surveillance cameras, no license plate readers, none of that. Yeah. This was during the age of law enforcement where we still did not have DNA. There was no technology that would help us track where she was at. Their old school police work did turn up something. A witness had seen a young man of medium build in his 20s or 30s. Five-nine, maybe five-tan. He was standing by a car at the side of the road. It wasn't much. Investigators wanted more from the witness. Investigators put that person under hypnosis and used a sketch artist to draw a rendition of the person that she saw standing next to a car on Daniels Park Road, which would have been 100 yards or so away from where the body was found. That works. Putting somebody under hypnosis. Here's the thing. I've been doing this business for 40 years and I heard where it worked and I've heard where it didn't work. The result was this sketch. Was it the killer? And would it lead anywhere? Coming up. A chilling new possibility. I was even like, where was Ted Bundy at that time? And put a serial killer have committed this crime. These prolific serial killers that certainly fit. It certainly fit. When Dateline continues. The weeks after Helene Prasinski's murder in 1980, police at last had a possible image of their suspect. Except it wasn't leading them any closer to her killer. You start showing that sketch around and you put it up every place and nobody knows who that is. That is correct. No one came forward and said, "Oh, I know who that guy is." Months went by and detectives just hit a dead end. It was clear that they had exhausted all of the leads by the winter time of 1980 going into '81, the case had gone cold. For a victim's family, there may be no greater frustration than having a loved one's case go cold. Often someone needs to play the role of the tireless advocate. Even at only 26, Kimberly realized that and made her promise. I saw Helene's parents and I just promised them that I would not stop for as long as I was living in doing everything in my power to find Helene's killer. Everything to Kimberly meant constantly calling detectives, generating press coverage. Anything to keep a laser focus on the case. I didn't want to see her parents or her sister or her brother have to not only deal with just day-to-day living, take some of that burden off of them and for them to feel good that somebody was still actively working on it and keeping that case alive. And then in 1983, the case did seem to gain new life. Throughout the 70s and early 80s, a number of serial killers had been grabbing headlines. We looked at every serial killer. You know, was he in Colorado? And so we even looked at every known serial killer that was active at that time to see if they could possibly have been in Colorado. And then there were these two men, Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toul. They were drifters arrested and jailed in the early 80s and began telling law enforcement something astonishing how they had killed more than 200 women in a dizzying spree across the country. Crime analysts there have painstakingly recorded hundreds of details of dress, mode of travel and method of killing in the Lucas Toul murder cases. That's Dennis Murphy reporting on the pair for NBC Nightly News. They're known as serial killers and according to law enforcement officials, there are at least 35 of them roaming the country now. And these two admitted killers told police about one particular victim in Colorado. They confessed to committing the murder of Helene Prasinski. What was unique about that is that detectives often thought that there might have been another person maybe in the car waiting for whoever they took out into the field. That was one of the theories. And so these two guys who work together, these prolific serial killers, that certainly fit. It certainly fit. It's pretty seductive when a couple of serial killers who are on the hook for a lot of other murders confess to your murder because you can close a lot of cases if you can link them to these guys. That's right. Obviously they were like, this is awesome. We've got a confession. Colorado investigators headed for Texas to interview Lucas themselves. Did you be questioned in connection with the crime of homicide? The detectives showed him a map and asked him to pinpoint where he and Toul picked up Helene. We stopped there on the street and took her out to the car and we took her all the way out to the country. After a bunch of rocks stuck out in there, she was stabbed to death rate and covered up with, I think, a sheet and some plywood. Then Lucas added another detail. She was stabbed to death and shot once in the head. Two shots. I shot her on the head. At that moment, they had a problem. Helene was stabbed, not shot. To detectives, this confession was starting to sound phony. They dug deeper, looking into Lucas and Toul's long trail of arrest records. We could link them to other jurisdictions by other legal documents that could be authenticated. That there would be impossible for them to be in two paces at one time. So they weren't in Colorado at the time that Helene was killed? They were not in Colorado at the time she was killed. Why would somebody confess to a murder that they did not commit? What would be in it for them? They were becoming famous and they knew that they were going to spend the rest of their life in prison if not on death row. So why not be there as the most prolific serial killer in the country? Exactly. As for any other serial killers on the prowl back then, none could be placed in Colorado at the time. Ted Bundy actually had spent time there in the late 70s, but he was behind bars in Florida at the time of Helene's murder. The serial killer leads had dried up. Was that disappointing? When that didn't pan out? That was disappointing because we knew at that point we were again back at 0.0 with nothing to work on. It wouldn't happen quickly, but over time this case would go from 0.0 to 100 with a young detective up for a challenge. Coming up. What I focus on when I'm working a case, what drives me the most, is the victims. A new investigator and a bold new approach. You're talking about hundreds of names here. Hundreds, thousands. I knew I was going to find him. Really, it was a competition between him and I. Helene Przezinski's murder had become the textbook example of a cold case. But in 1998, a ray of hope sprang up. It came from a somewhat newer textbook. The use of DNA evidence had become a revolutionary tool in criminal investigations. And Douglas County detectives realized there was DNA from their suspect in evidence. There was body fluids on these pieces of material. or swabs from the autopsy that had not been tested. And so, we were very excited at that time because we had an abundance of DNA evidence available to us. Investigators were able to put that DNA kit into the FBI's database of criminal profiles known as CODIS. That's a huge, lucky break. Very huge. Except, it doesn't match anybody in CODIS. It doesn't match to anyone. Spurlock and his team were disappointed and so was Kimberly, but always mindful of the promise she'd made. Kimberly wasn't about to let the case freeze up again. I would jump on it and shake the trees, and I was never met poorly. I was always met with welcome arms by the Colorado detectives. She was key in connecting us to other people that we felt was very important to the case. In 2004, Kimberly was arranging a reunion concert of their singing group Harmony to celebrate Helene's birthday when she had an idea. I said, "It's time we need to get this solved. Let's fly out on the anniversary of Helene's murder and retrace her steps in real time." I mean, you know that detectives had done that before, probably right after the murder and probably a bunch of times since. What did you think you were going to get out of it that they hadn't done? Create a media stir in the news, hoping that the killer would see us, would know that there's eyes still on the case, make a lot of noise. Four high school friends of a young woman murdered 26 years ago say there is still hope that their friend's killer will be found. The plan worked. They made all the local newsguests. 30 of us decided to band together to do whatever we could to make sure that this case is reopened and solved. They also set up a website about the case, hoping the killer might click on it and reveal his internet address. That was our hope, was just to get the worm to crawl out from under the rock. That didn't happen. The worm stayed hidden. He did. In 2009, Helene's brother died, then her mom and dad followed in 2012. Sister Janet was the only one left. You've settled into this life where you don't know. Right. It was heartbreaking. By June 2019, Helene had been dead almost 40 years, the coldest of Colorado cases. That's when a new detective, Shannon Jensen, was assigned to the case. Jensen had been a competitive rower at Cal Berkeley before she enrolled at the police academy and joined law enforcement. She got to know Helene through all the pictures and information in the case file. And she was hoping to get to know someone else. What do you know about your unknown suspect? You know it's a man. You know he's between the ages of. We don't know his age. We know that the witness said he was in his early twenties. But ultimately, nobody else saw him. Detective Jensen decided the key to all of this was that DNA profile. She decided to consult with a genealogist and upload the suspects profile into a website called JADMatch. A site people use to track down relatives, but it's also a tool for law enforcement. Absolutely, they allow law enforcement to upload kits or DNA. That DNA is matched with other kits who opt in, who want to assist law enforcement. So Jensen started looking for any people with DNA similar to that of the suspect. This is not just a matter of plugging jumbles of code into a computer. It's the equivalent of old-fashioned shoe leather detective work, but for the 21st century. That's because a similar DNA profile is just another lead that needs running down. So instead of knocking on doors, Jensen was picking up the phone. Interesting, thank you for returning to my call. Asking for cooperation from possible distant matches. You're this disembodied voice on the phone saying, "Tell me about one of your relatives who might be a murderer and I need you to help me. And I need you to give up some personal information." Yes. Would they be willing to share their entire family history on the chance they were related to a murderer? It's a big ask. And I would contact these matches and they would give me their family trees and any family history that they had so that we could fill in, say, for adoptions or unknown pregnancies. We're talking about hundreds of names here. Hundreds, thousands. And the people that spoke to me about it all said, "Hey, if this is somebody in my family that did this, then they should be arrested for the crime." There should be justice for this young victim. What's that like for you knowing you're sort of pursuing this cipher? Having been a competitive athlete most of my life, I think really it was a competition between him and I. I wanted to win for Helene. And by the fall of 2019, Detective Jensen seemed to be making progress. After speaking with contacts through the database and building those family trees, she had found a woman whose DNA was so close to that of the killer. She might be a first cousin. There was just one problem. "That first cousin didn't really know her family. The family wasn't close." Would there be any way to fill out that possibly critical family tree? The cousin put Jensen in touch with another cousin. When you talk to that woman, you think, "This is it. We're getting close." Yeah, and I knew. This is it. I'm on the right track, and I'm going to figure out who he is real soon. Coming out, she's like, "I know who did it. I'm like, "Did what?" And she's like, "I know who the killer is for Helene." The beer mug that just might seal this case. And I mean, the hardest pounding like, "Oh my God, this is real. This is the guy." When Dateline continues. Kimberly Latter-at had spent years determined to help solve her friend Helene's murder. And she was nothing if not resolute. That said, fate tends to keep its own schedule. Kimberly, with a husband and kids, learned that in 2010. My older one went off to college right the same week that my husband died, his dad, and my younger one was 15 and fell into deep depression. I didn't know how depressed until he went off to college at Northwestern University and ended up taking his own life. It was a one-two punch that would have crushed a lot of people. Despite that, Kimberly never lost sight of her friend Helene. Certainly no one would blame you for saying, "I still want to solve Helene's murder. "I still want to help the police." But that's on a back burner now. I have other things to deal with. Well, maybe that's when I became obsessed with Dateline episodes. Because any tiny thing that I could pick up on an episode I would immediately call Douglas County or the Colorado Beer Investigation as they did you think of this. Did you look at that? At her desk in Colorado, Shannon Jensen was asking some questions of her own with a computer screen and a telephone as her tools. And she had tracked down a promising lead. She spoke with someone whose DNA profile was close enough to that of the killer that they were likely cousins. That cousin told Jensen about two men who'd been estranged from her family for years. There were two brothers and essentially it had to look at both of them. And as she started digging, something stood out about one of the brothers. Outcomes a criminal history for Curtis Allen White. Curtis White was convicted of rape in the late 70s. He served time for a rape before he was purled here to Douglas County. Douglas County, Colorado, where Helene Prasinski was murdered. It all fit. He was how old at that point? 21 when he was purled here. Same age as Helene. It was time to tell Lieutenant Tommy Barrella, the boss of the cold case unit. And I come around the corner, I seared and she's like, "I know who did it." I'm like, "Did what?" And she's like, "I know who the killer is for Helene." And I'm like, "No, you don't." Barrella knew all about the investigative dead ends in this case. He'd seen plenty of them over the years. I'm like, "How do you know you do?" And she understood the DNA. She understood the genealogy. I didn't, so she had to explain it. Well, then there's still that little bit of doubt. You know, like, "Ugh. Do I go upstairs? Don't I?" So I did. Lieutenant Barrella and Detective Jensen made the walk upstairs to face the sheriff. And they say, "We believe we've got him. This is the guy." You'd been on the business end of a few others. The guy conversations where it didn't pan out. I was. Detective Jensen laid out her case. Two brothers, only one in Colorado at the time of the murder. And there was another thing. As Jensen dug through White's criminal history, she discovered an old mud shot from 1998. Remember that initial witness sketch, The sketch drawn. with the help of a hypnotist, you get that booking photo from 1998 in Florida and it looks like the sketch, doesn't it? It looks like one of the sketches pretty remarkably. Those two, you could blame over each other. It was the mustache, the hair, the eyes. I mean, it was so eerily positive. The sheriff was sold. I was convinced very quickly by their determination and I think also their confidence in what they had learned through this genealogy that this was the one we needed to go after. I mean, the hardest pounding like, oh my god, this is real, this is the guy. They needed to find Curtis White and tracked him to Florida where he'd been living under a new name. James Curtis Clinton. He became James Curtis Clinton and just went on with his life. Got married, had had a child, built a career for himself and just went on with his life as if nothing happened. And stayed out of trouble? Yeah, pretty much. Douglas County detectives went to Florida to watch him. He's living in a trailer on somebody's property. We see his van. He had a white van with a shark on the side of it. We knew that was his van. We see it. Okay, we got his house. We got the van. When you're down there and you're surveilling this guy, the first time you see him, you think that's Helene's murderer right there getting into his truck. Yes. Yes. They surveilled the newly minted Mr. Clinton as he drove to a local bar to grab a beer. Then investigators asked the bar's owner to save those mugs. He grabbed them, put them in bags for us and met us at the back door and hand them to us. Three beer mugs. Yes sir, three beer mugs. The detectives brought the mugs back to Colorado. Do you say to the DNA lab, this is it? Step on it? They knew. Call out of your investigations. They had been working on this case since 1980. Everyone waited until finally Shannon Jensen got the call. The lab texted, hey, it's a match. One of them had your suspect's DNA sample on it and it matched the seamen that was left on the coat. What's that like? I don't even know if I can describe what it's like. It's extremely rewarding. And then the bad news. The statute of limitations had expired on the rape, meaning Clinton could admit to that with no consequence and then deny the murder. To make their case stronger detectives needed to get Clinton to talk with them. So Berella and his team came up with a strategy. The plan was to go talk to Mr. Clinton to see if we can get him to come down voluntarily, to talk to us and kind of slow play into why we're really there. The technique we use was that his social security number had been used in a large identity theft case. The officers wore body cameras. After four decades, what would he have to say? Coming up. Would Helene get justice at last? I lost it. I really, really freaked out. I just was paralyzed. I couldn't even breathe. Colorado investigators were finally in the room with the man who might have killed Helene Prasinski more than 40 years ago. James Clinton thought he was there to answer questions about an identity theft ring. That was important. Clinton was now on tape saying he'd been in Colorado when Helene was killed. It was time to change the subject. Clinton stopped speaking with investigators. It didn't matter. His DNA spoke for itself. Later that day, Janet Prasinski looked down and saw a Colorado number on her phone. It was Sheriff Spurlock. He said we want to tell you that we have found the murder and so I lost it. They were saying it. It was the realization that after 40 years, there will be justice served and it was just hard to comprehend. Because it's relief, but it's also a reliving. Lieutenant Tommy Barrella began escorting Clinton back to Colorado. As they spoke, the detective began gaining his trust. You're building a rapport with this guy. Kind of yeah, I'm just a personable guy. Yeah. Their suspect had clammed up in that interview room. Then suddenly seemed to have a change of heart. He wants to talk. He wants to talk and they want to talk by gosh, got to let him talk. As they drove to the airport, Barrella grabbed his iPhone and pressed record. My name is Lieutenant Tommy Barrella. Jim advised me to like to talk to me about the crimes that he's been accused of. Clinton told Barrella he wasn't surprised when detectives asked him about Helene. I knew that was going to come and get me one day. Why was it going to come up and get you? Did you murder someone? I did it. Okay, you did what? I killed the girl there accusing me. And at that moment, I was like holy crap. It pinched me. He just admitted it. Like, oh my god. Clinton laid out the details of that cold day in January 1980. How he'd seen Helene getting off the bus and forced her into his car. I put him all around there and had a knife in my hand and showed it to her. Did she say anything? She said I'll go. Helene, he said, was cooperative, which explained the lack of defensive wounds on her body. He confirmed that he raped and stabbed her multiple times, then left her in that snowy field. The fact that she was alive and on that bus was the only reason that he kidnapped and raped and murdered her. And he's going to pay for that. Yes. And Clinton had one more thing to say. He claimed his life of crime could have been much worse. He said it wasn't because something about Helene had haunted him. You know, I got a conscience. And in my mind, I had actually took the step over to become a sterile serial killer with Helene. I couldn't because of who she was. And I'm a serial killer of one. Kimberly, who'd made so many calls trying to keep the case alive, now received a call herself. It wasn't jumping for joy. It wasn't crying. It was just pure shock. After 40 years, the end came quickly. There was no trial. James Clinton pleaded guilty to Helene's murder. Many of her friends and family traveled to Colorado in July of 2020 to speak remotely at his sentencing hearing. Leane was never forgotten. Her spirit never died. What's your plan? I sent you to a sentence in the Department of Corrections for the rest of your natural life. And then they had a reunion of sorts with some of the many investigators who'd worked Helene's case over the years. It was amazing to sit across a table from them all. And just soak in who Helene Prasinski was in their minds. Janet still thinks about her baby sister every day. You're doing okay. You have grandchildren now. Two grandchildren, yes, yes. And one of them was born on Helene's birthday, my granddaughter. What do you tell him about Helene? Well, we have pictures of Helene in the house. She's only five, so I haven't said too much yet, but she will know a lot about Helene. You finally have justice for Helene and her family, all the victims that were left behind. It's kind of why you got in the police work, isn't it? It is. After a 40-year crusade for answers. It was the truth that connected to women. The detective who took on a quest and the friend who never forgot. Helene needed to be heard. She needed people to know what happened to her. So she's not alone anymore. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us. (upbeat music)