Allison Feldman, a 31-year-old woman from Scottsdale, was found murdered in her home in February 2015. The crime scene showed signs of a violent, intimate assault with no forced entry, leading investigators to suspect a close acquaintance. Early suspects like her boyfriend, Alex Stone, were ruled out by DNA analysis. A key piece of evidence—a brown stain (PMH) on the dining room floor—was eventually linked through DNA profiling. After years of investigation, familial DNA testing in Arizona in 2018 connected the evidence to Ian Mitchum, a man with no prior ties to Allison. He was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, but faced a lengthy legal battle. The defense argued that the DNA evidence was obtained without proper consent, and a Maricopa County judge initially barred its use. The case was appealed multiple times, culminating in the Arizona Supreme Court affirming the admissibility of the DNA evidence in 2024. Despite this, Mitchum pleaded not guilty, and the prosecution's case remained unproven. The case exemplifies the challenges of solving cold cases: despite extensive forensic work and public scrutiny, no definitive conviction was achieved. The Feldman family continues to seek justice, while the case underscores broader issues in forensic science, privacy laws, and the legal system’s handling of long-term investigations.
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It's currently 95 degrees.
Allison was kind of a character.
She grew up in the 80s and the 90s.
So, love.
80s and 90s pop.
She loved to have fun and sing along with the radio.
We went down to Tucson.
We throw some music on, and I happened to catch her belting out.
Cyndi Lauper's girls just want to have fun.
In the morning and the night, my love
You're gonna live your life
We're not the fortunate ones
It's just her.
That just amazing person.
She lived in Scottsdale.
She worked out of her home.
She had a good relationship with her family, and that was very, very important to her.
We talked almost every day.
Allison's mother, Elaine, told people she would text Allison every night.
And Allison, she'd always text her back.
And then, one February afternoon, the clockwork calls and texts stopped.
I called her when I was leaving my office, and it went straight to voicemail.
My wife said, "It's just not right."
Things were out of normal.
One of the neighbors reported hearing a long, intermittent scream.
Yes.
Was it Allison?
We believe so, yes.
If it could happen to Allison, it could have happened to any one of us.
As it turned out, the critical piece of evidence ended up being this stain that just didn't have an explanation.
This becomes key to solving this case.
In Arizona, Saturday is like the Sabbath. College football is religion.
The marching bands, a sea of red and blue, and tens of thousands of Wildcat fans roaring as one.
For Allison Feldman, this was home turf.
If you take a look at Allison's Facebook page, you're going to find pictures of Allison at U of A sporting events.
She really liked to be a part of the university.
She graduated the University of Arizona.
Yes, yep, she was a huge Wildcat fan.
Allison was from Minneapolis, and once she graduated from U of A, she moved up here to the valley, which is what we call the Phoenix metro area.
Tucson was too small, and the city girl in her said, "I'm going to move to Phoenix."
By the age of 31, things are going very well for Allison.
She even buys her own home.
She loved that house.
Yes, she had just bought that house.
Less than a year earlier.
People generally consider it to be very safe, especially where Allison was living.
Scottsdale rises from the Sonoran desert like an oasis.
Beneath rugged mountains and towering saguaros, where coyotes and road runners still roam.
But neighborhoods, restaurants, and resorts have transformed the desert floor.
And in February, when much of the rest of the country was gone,
the rest of the country is locked in winter.
The days here are often warm, dry, and bright.
It was here, in this corner of the Arizona desert, Allison was building a life of her own.
Allison was really at the top of her game in early 2015.
And for a 31-year-old, she had her whole life ahead of her.
She sold wound care products in hospitals.
So Allison was the burn specialist for my region.
She was somebody who wanted to succeed.
When you meet Allison, it's difficult not to get drawn in.
She's kind of like gravity.
She was very active in Camp Courage, a camp in Arizona for kids who've been burned.
That was a really important cause to Allison.
She loved working with the kids.
What was it that they saw in Allison?
Her unconditional acceptance.
And she approached all of the children and everyone, really, in her life equally the same.
Really remarkable young woman.
Alex Stone comes into her life.
Yep.
That was her first really serious boyfriend.
Wanted to marry him?
Yes, she did.
They were really happy.
And that was the first guy.
The first guy really saw her just sparkle over.
On February 17th, it was a pretty normal day for Allison.
She got up.
She did work.
She had a performance review.
And then later in the day, she had errands to run.
She went to Kohl's.
She went to Walmart.
And then she came home.
And really, that was kind of going to be the end of her day.
I tried to text her.
And the text didn't go through.
But I didn't think anything of it.
But the next morning, we tried to call her.
The number you have called is not available.
And her phone was off.
It's never off.
So Alex, being her boyfriend, was in communication with her the previous evening.
Tuesday night.
He sent her a good night message.
And then sent her a good morning message, which went unanswered.
Video catches Alex pulling up to Allison's house to go check on her.
So he gets there.
And what does he find?
At first, when he arrived, he checks the garage to see if her vehicle is there.
Maybe she's out on a sales call or something else.
He knocks on the door, rings the doorbell even, until he eventually uses his key to go inside.
Later on, you see him come out of the house.
come out of the house and it's at that time that he makes a 911 call. 911 emergency. Oh my god,
oh my god. Where's the blood from? The blood, the blood is in our head.
The next day, the 18th, Alex went to her house. Yes. What did he find when he got there? So he
walked in and saw he was like, you know, the house was disheveled a little and found her
laying on the floor. So then he called 911.
It was horrible to listen to.
I mean, he was screaming and just raw, really distraught.
I overheard the radio dispatch when they said that the boyfriend,
had found his girlfriend unresponsive.
Lieutenant Hugh Lockerbie, with the Scottsdale Police Department,
was one of the first investigators to arrive on the scene.
So this is the house where Allison actually lived?
Yes, that is correct.
When you arrived here, what's the first thing that struck you?
When I got on scene, and I'm standing right where we're at today,
the doors open, all I could smell
is overwhelming smell of bleach.
All the way out here?
What did you find when you got inside?
So when we got in the home, there was bloodstains smeared throughout the home.
And then when we looked down a hallway, we see Allison lying on the floor, in the hallway,
with her dress covering her face, and she was completely naked.
That looks like it was a blitz attack.
Like she. wasn't expecting this attack from this individual.
She was very beat up.
It kind of took your breath away a little bit, just the brutality that she went through.
And you can tell that there had been a struggle?
Oh, for sure, yes.
There was broken nails from her fingers in different places throughout the house.
I think just by her injuries, you could tell that she was fighting.
She wasn't going down easy.
I also had the chance to meet with. Detective John Heinzelman, a seasoned veteran of the Scottsdale Police Department.
He walked me through the mountain of forensic evidence recovered from Allison's home.
Now these are the three pictures of her backyard pool.
What did you find back there?
We believe at some point this assault spilled out into the backyard.
In the pool, we found an earring that was lying on the bottom of the pool.
The matching earring was still in her earlobe.
The other thing we found is a carpet remnant that Allison used to have
on the outside of her sliding glass door.
That was in the bottom of the pool, and that was stained with blood
that we determined to be Allison's.
And what we recovered as well was this clump of Allison's hair.
And this is ultimately where she ended up before she was brought back in the house.
There was a couch in Allison's home.
What did you find underneath it?
So. After a few days. After a few days of processing Allison's home and processing evidence,
we moved this couch, and as we lifted it up, there was a broken beer bottle.
And that's this picture, right?
That's the beer bottle?
Yes, it was a Leinenkugel's beer bottle.
Did that suggest that maybe Allison was drinking with this man who killed her?
Initially, we didn't know exactly what significance that bottle had to the investigation.
So with all the evidence that the police are uncovering, what can be of equal
importance is what they're not finding.
And in this case, what they're not finding is any sign of a forced entry.
So what that can mean, but not always,
that the victim knew her killer and might have let them in.
So we're walking down the same alley that runs behind Allison's home right now.
And this alleyway is, you know, significant because we had no evidence that our killer
came through the front door or through the garage door.
And that explains why the killer,
was never captured on that front yard security camera.
So he had to come this way.
He had to come down this alleyway, John.
He could have potentially opened the gate to go in.
This dark here too, you can easily hide.
Could have been here, peering through the window, looking over there.
And with her lights on, he could see her, but she could not see him.
Correct.
That is chilling.
To figure out who killed Allison, detectives first have to turn back the clock and read
to the police.
To reconstruct the final hours of her life, on February 17th, 2015.
So this is Allison on the 17th.
She went to the Kohl's department store and she was shopping.
So as a matter of fact, she walks right across the camera.
She's wearing her blue jean jacket and that black dress that we found in the house
later that evening after her murder.
This is roughly 6:30, 6:45,
she's shopping right before she returns home.
Allison was home by 7:15 that night.
Now detectives began combining security videos, her alarm system records,
and witness accounts to narrow down when the attack began
and how long her killer remained in the house.
When do you think she was killed?
Based on a witness that heard a scream sometime around 9:30,
that Tuesday evening is when I believe the murder occurred.
And then the killer left at what time do we think?
At 1:04 AM the following morning is the last door activation.
There's no more door activity until the following day.
So you think the killer spent almost four hours in that house?
That is correct.
What did you determine was the cause of death?
There were multiple causes.
So she had lost a great deal of blood.
She also had some blood force trauma injuries to the back of her head
and manual strangulation.
So it was a combination of strangulation and a loss of blood
that ultimately was the cause of her death.
Allison's autopsy showed that she was also violently sexually assaulted.
I got a phone call from the Scottsdale detective.
And he said, "Are you driving?"
And I said, "Yes."
And he said, "Pull off the road."
And so I knew what was coming next.
My dad called me and said she'd been killed.
I was screaming.
And I was just in disbelief.
Like, this can't be happening right now.
There's no way.
She didn't have any enemies.
So that makes it difficult to start.
You know, who would want to do this to her?
Alex was the first person that detectives looked at.
I have the weapons.
We had a group.
We had a relationship.
Asking friends, family, whatever you want.
In the back of my mind, I was wondering if he played a role in her death.
Do you recall about what time you got to her house?
The 13th person that's asking me this, bro.
Okay.
This is getting old.
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My Mom's Market, a podcast from Audible.
Lauren Malloy spent 30 years thinking her mom had died of natural causes.
That's what everybody told her.
That's what she believed until one day she got a phone call that changed everything.
A woman claiming to be her mom's best friend told Lauren that her mother was actually murdered
and that no one had ever investigated it.
Well, she became kind of a detective.
She pulled the threads, knocked on doors and confronted the contradictions and what she
found was worse than she imagined.
Something happened to Lori Malloy.
Someone killed her.
And Lauren won't stop until she finds out who.
The sister may have given up on her mom, but family never will.
Listen to My Mom's Murder wherever you get your podcasts.
Audible subscribers can binge all 10 episodes early and ad-free right now.
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I'm Lauren Malloy, and I'll see you next time on My Mom's Murder.
Bye!
♪ ♪
Here, there's another matching, oh yeah, here's another matching.
I had the chance to sit down with Allison's big sister, Kelly.
She was on the dance team.
She really loved dance.
Who shared photos and memories.
Two little girls growing up together, once side by side in matching dresses.
My mom loved the matching outfits for a long time.
And years later, dressed for Kelly's wedding day.
This is one of my favorite pictures, she was my maid of honor.
I love this picture, it's just, it reminds me of such a happy time in my life, her life.
It's a murder case that put the valley on edge, the death of Allison Feldman.
And this is Alex Stone, Allison's boyfriend, he's the first person you look at, right?
That's exactly it, and there's already some sort of built in relationship, there's all
kinds of things.
Detectives immediately focused on Alex, because not only was Alex dating Allison, but he had
access to the house as well.
And found Allison.
And then at the crime scene.
A neighbor told me that, he went into the house and he's the one that discovered her.
And she told me he came out and sat on the sidewalk and just wailed.
And this is Alex, and he's arriving at home at her house.
You see actually him getting out of his car and him using the keypad on the garage to
open up the door.
He also goes to the front door.
And he rings the doorbell before he actually uses his key to go in.
So as you can see at 4:05 p.m. now, you see Alex has come out of the house.
He's actually on the call with 911.
As in all these cases, you've got to interview him.
What did you hope to learn and what did he say?
We're trying to get a pattern of life.
We're trying to get the last time someone spoke with Allison.
Was there anybody that she was having issues with?
Was there any issues between them with their relationship?
Hours after finding Allison at the crime scene, investigators sat down with Alex Stone
for an interview.
Okay, let me explain some things we have to do first, if you're okay.
We're just doing some procedural things so we can investigate what exactly happened.
We have to look at him as a potential suspect.
So we want to get his DNA, anything on him that would lead us to believe that he might
be involved.
If someone did something to her, there might be possible evidence on your clothing, DNA,
or whatnot.
So we want to make sure we preserve all that.
They collected all of his clothes.
They were looking for marks on his body because she had gotten some good scratches in.
But despite the signs of a struggle inside Allison's home, investigators say Alex had
no visible marks on his body.
I got to her house 30 seconds before I called 911.
Okay.
And when you got there?
The 15th person that's asking me was broke.
Okay.
And this is getting old.
They met, I believe, on a dating site.
They had been dating, not for very long, but she was happy.
You just don't know.
You know, they'd been dating for some months and, again, you watch those true crime shows
and it always leads back to the boyfriend or the husband.
Did that thought cross your mind that Alex might be responsible?
I mean, yes.
It did.
You know, you don't want to think that.
But, I mean, it did.
But while detectives were scrutinizing Alex Stone, evidence back inside Allison's house
was beginning to point somewhere else.
Do you find something you refer to as PMH?
PMH.
So PM stands for photo marker.
That's how we identify each item.
So PMH was a brown dripped stain on the dining room floor, literally in the middle of the
crime scene.
It was the sore thumb that sticks out amongst everything else.
What it appeared to be, in my opinion, looked like someone who was chewing tobacco and had
it on the ground.
We all knew right away that PMH was going to be the hot ticket item in this investigation.
It was collected and taken to the lab.
The abbreviation PMH, especially useful in producing another one, DNA.
DNA in crime solving is a game changer.
If there's DNA at a crime scene, it's probably your fastest way.
To solve that case and get to an identity.
To help us understand what DNA can reveal, we turned to forensic experts David and Kristen
Mittelman of Othram, whose work has previously been featured on 2020.
You're basically building a library surrounding this sample of DNA.
DNA is just like a camera, instead of a visual field, it's an identity feed.
It's recording the identity of people that have been in that area at that time.
And it's not something you can conceal.
It's one of those very honest biometrics, that if it's you, it's you.
Within a few days, we had a DNA profile of an unknown male that, quite frankly, shouldn't
be there.
And this wasn't DNA found in just one isolated spot, there was also DNA found on a knob inside
the laundry room, there was DNA found on the door handle going out to the patio, and that
broken bottle of lean-in kugel beer found under the couch.
So now we've got four locations inside the house where this unknown suspect's DNA has been located.
And sure enough, when investigators compared the unknown male DNA profile to Alex Stone, it wasn't a match.
He just could not be included any further, and we eliminated him as a suspect.
So investigators entered the unknown male DNA profile into the national database called CODIS.
And we found that the DNA profile was not included in the DNA profile.
The available resource working to get the case solved.
But right now, Allison's killer is still out there.
days.
Checking the latest developments as the battle. Allison's case was getting a lot of coverage.
People were terrified.
It could be somebody that lives in the neighborhood.
It could be a random act of violence.
There were community meetings that were standing room only.
That was collected. It will be analyzed.
Because people wanted to hear from police.
Neighbors eager for any information about the recent murder of Allison Feldman.
I didn't want to be a home alone.
If it was somebody we knew, are they coming after any of us?
What was it like thinking that the killer might be in that community?
It was horrible because all I could think is my sister's in a coffin and he is out living his life.
As far as who it was, whether it's somebody she knew or didn't know, it really doesn't matter to us.
We just want him caught.
You attend?
I attended the memorial service here in Scottsdale.
She so much enjoyed helping others, especially children.
What were you looking for?
Looking for someone suspicious.
A lot of times what you'll see is someone involved in these cases will want to keep tabs on what we're doing.
Are they any closer to solving this or finding me?
So we're looking not only at what's going on in front, but also in the back of the room and who might be in the shadows.
With no name for the DNA left inside Allison's home,
detectives began comparing that unknown male profile against people across Allison's life and her community.
Police interviewed everyone.
The pool person who came to Allison's home, handyman, transients in the area, sex offenders who lived in the area.
Investigators relying heavily on forensics to help them find her murderer.
We collected DNA samples from. Over 130 different individuals.
They were taking everybody's DNA at that point.
My brother lived right around the corner.
They took his.
They took my fiance's.
They took, you know, just anyone and everyone's that they would come across.
That became the investigative pattern in this case.
Identify somebody in Allison's life, collect their DNA and compare it to the unknown male DNA found inside her home.
And among the people investigators scrutinized was someone,
a specialist.
She was actually close to Allison.
Her boss and mentor at her medical supply sales job, Jeff Ciardi.
Jeff Ciardi was the last person to actually see her alive on the 17th.
They had their meeting, their lunch meeting, that he went over his annual review with her.
Maybe this was something, maybe he could be someone that we need to talk to further.
Allie was like a little sister.
She's one of my closest friends.
Because of the amount of text messages, phone calls between us, and the fact that I was probably the last friend or family member to see her alive that day, that naturally I would be a person of interest.
I had just sat down with her Tuesday afternoon, we just did her performance review, then racking my brain, was there somebody following her?
And then 10, 15 minutes into the discussion, they immediately asked for a DNA sample because my DNA was in the home as well.
I had been to Allison's house on numerous occasions, both for social and work functions and the DNA that that's ultimately what cleared me.
Back at Allison's home, detectives are leaving no stone unturned.
And because the DNA didn't leave them to a suspect, they even start examining everyday household items looking for another trail of evidence.
One of the items we processed was a Swiffer box of mop inserts that we found in Allison's laundry room.
That box contained a fingerprint that was unknown.
It could be the killer.
This is exactly what we're concerned with.
The blood in the other parts of the house, you know, they had used a Swiffer to kind of try to clean it up.
So in processing that fingerprint, we identify the person who left it as this man, Francisco Martinez.
He works at the Walmart distribution center on the west side of Phoenix.
But police quickly realize Martinez, like countless others, is a false lead.
That particular Swiffer box was one of the items he handled, which was transported to the Walmart where Allison purchased it at some point.
There's no way of knowing when it happened, but this is the lengths that we went through to identify people,
to rule them out.
So we brought him in, ruled him out, and in this case, we completely ruled him out as this is just an innocent person.
In my heart of hearts, I always thought that it was going to be somebody that she knew, someone in her life.
I couldn't get out of my head of who would have done this.
And then another person of interest emerges, someone turned in by his own mother.
And I'm just kind of looking at the pictures, and here he is.
I'm apologizing and saying sorry and asking for forgiveness.
When Allison's case was covered here in the Valley,
in the first few months, people were scared and trying to figure out what happened here.
There were so many different stories on Allison's case.
Despite the lack of any solid leads pointing to the killer's identity,
eight weeks after her murder, it's clear Allison's father, Harley, will not allow her case to go unsolved.
She didn't have any enemies, and so that makes it difficult to start.
You know, who would want to do this?
There were no other crimes that we could put two and two together to say this was anything similar to anything else we've investigated or anywhere in the Valley.
Nothing you could connect it to.
Nothing we could connect it to.
It's not like watching CSI that in an hour they solved the crime.
They have the person's DNA, but there's no match.
That's when police receive an anonymous tip about a new person of interest.
It's a man living less than a mile from Allison's home.
So they bring him in for questioning.
His name? Alex DeLucio.
The only thing I could have thought of is that I do go dogging in the area,
so I don't even know who in that area would even, like, know my name.
Like, yeah, this person knew your first and last name.
So I'm guessing it was someone, like, stirring up trouble.
Alex DeLucio lives in the neighborhood.
He was cooperative with us.
But one of those key pieces that we were looking for, DNA,
he chose not to share.
I work at a law firm, and my criminal lawyer advised me,
just don't do DNA without a court order,
because even later, once that's on the record,
people mishandle it, people misuse it, and it's just not good.
When he refused to give his DNA,
police basically had to come up with a plan to get a sample from him.
One of our surveillance teams actually followed him
until he went to a local coffee shop.
He discarded the cup.
One of our agents was able to pick that up,
impound it, and bring it to our lab for testing.
DeLucio's DNA is then tested, and what do you find?
Yes, so he did not match our unknown profile.
Just another dead end.
As weeks turned to months, hopes of finding the killer began to fade.
That's when, out of nowhere,
detectives receive a call in October of 2015
naming another person of interest.
Christopher Haidt is an Iraqi war veteran,
and intermittently, he's living with his mom, Patricia.
His mother called us and said,
Christopher attended a medical conference
or a medical training up in Flagstaff,
and he had just called her and said he has a new girlfriend.
He was showing me the phone.
I was saying, what is the girl's name?
And he said, Allison.
He said that she had a boyfriend, and I said to be careful,
and he said nothing to worry about.
After seeing the news coverage,
he felt it important to call us
and at least let us know this information.
And so Patricia is concerned that he might be the killer here.
They live in the foothills of Tucson,
so it's about 100 miles south of here.
So we went down, we spoke with them.
He's, you know, apologizing and saying sorry
and asking for forgiveness.
That has to be a tough call to make.
As a mom, to be so worried
that your son might have committed a horrific crime,
that you turn them in?
Could this finally be the break detectives were searching for?
So investigators dig deeper.
Christopher, at the time of the murder,
was determined to be somewhere up in Prescott Valley,
somewhere about 120 miles away from here at the time.
Kate is eliminated as a suspect.
Kate is eliminated both in terms of he was not in the valley at the time
and the DNA did not match our unknown profile.
As investigators,
they're going through all of these DNA samples.
They're not getting a match.
They've done this extensive canvas.
They've looked into pretty much every aspect of Allison's life.
And this is when they find out
the case really starts to grow cold and our biggest fear too is will our offender re-offend
again will we have another innocent victim out there the case was absolutely stalling where does
that leave you leaves us with i think the next thing we were planning on doing is starting over
from scratch this must have been frustrating absolutely on the steps of the scottsdale
justice center this group clenching candles sharing songs hugs and memories a huge smile
she was amazingly bubbly and happy and always you know always on her game a 31 year old allison
feldman was found murdered inside her scottsdale home near the 101 in pima road allison's file is
right there on the on the corner of my desk it never moves but detective john heinzelman says
there are still no clear suspects in the case
we're hoping that we get that phone call that gives us the lead we need the anniversaries the
vigils for allison's case they served as a reminder to the community that the killer had still not
been caught did you ever fear that this case might never be solved there were times absolutely there
were times um but i had faith too meanwhile the feldman family is trapped in the scottsdale
limbo but then a development halfway around the world breathes new life into this investigation
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31 year old allison feldman's death is still a mystery her killer is still on the loose
the investigation showing she was assaulted and tried to fight off the attacker who left with
only a few of her belongings investigation though harley thinks is making progress yeah there's been
some good tips um leading to some good investigations uh not getting to the right
person yet but getting uh much better um and leading to the right path harley worked really
hard to keep the case in the forefront of people's minds because he was hoping that
that could help solve the case but with so few answers allison's case faded from the headlines
the second year anniversary was really hard because you're still unsolved
how does the lack of answers affect your ability to grieve it's horrible it's horrible did your
father ever lose faith no that the killer would be found no he didn't i would say my
mom and i definitely did but he was always positive it was going to happen and so it gets solved
that's when a chance meeting during a family trip taken by allison's mother and grandfather
sydney schaffner would finally lead to a major break in the case the story goes like this in
2016 there was a mission organized to bring together the survivors of world war ii concentration
camps with the troops that liberated them so elaine feldman went with her dad who was a world war ii
vet overseas he was getting an award because her father had actually helped free a concentration
camp and save people so he was chosen as one of the people to go on this trip my mom went with him
and it went to auschwitz and then on to israel
while they're there they meet barbara leff a politician here in arizona barbara leff is right
for arizona families and really the feldman family bonds with her they tell her about their daughter's
case and how there's still no answers and she had said oh if there's anything i can do like i'm a
former state senator in arizona and my mom said well there is something you could do eventually
this becomes the spark for figuring out can familial dna be used here in arizona familial dna
allows you to use the same piece of evidence to expand your search by one relationship
now remember investigators had dna from allison's presumed killer but it did not match anyone in the
criminal database system called codis so instead of just the person that left the dna at the crime
scene you are now able to search the person and their nuclear family that might have left the dna
at the crime scene while the use of dna was not uncommon in police investigations familial dna
still was not being widely used to help unravel cold cases the hope is that using familial dna
might allow detectives to narrow their surge by at least pointing to the killer's family
but the question was was it legal here in arizona could it be used in arizona
in this case and what was the answer to that question i don't know i don't know i don't know
even though there was no law against it as it turns out arizona had never used familial dna before
in a criminal case so with urging from former state senator barbara left the attorney general
gave the green light to use it for the very first time and senator left made some phone calls
got that process rolling and introduced familial dna into arizona and that was groundbreaking
it was groundbreaking allison's case is the very first case in arizona
where familial dna was used in 2018 that familial dna a match was made through it
that hit wasn't a direct match it was not the dart into the bullseye but it got us really really close
after years of dead end you finally have a solid lead we have a solid lead we have a name that we
can follow up on the close match identifies mark mitchum so mark mitchum's dna is already in the
system because he was convicted of child sex crimes how was he eliminated mark mitchum from
the investigation so well first off he was in department of corrections custody at the time
he had an alibi and secondly we take a look at the dna profile and mark's profile and there our lab
compares those two and they rule him out they say this is not your person but again it's a relative
of mark someone who's related to him yep as it turns out mark mitchum has
an alibi so mark mitchum is related to the dna and mark mitchum's alibi so mark mitchum is related
to the dna and mark mitchum's alibi so mark mitchum's alibi is related to the dna and mark mitchum's
alibi is related to the dna and mark mitchum's
alibi is related to the dna and mark mitchum's alibi is related to the dna and mark mitchum's
let's get his DNA and let's compare it to our unknown and see if they match.
That's when investigators make a startling discovery.
They realize that police had crossed paths with Ian Mitchum once before.
Good evening. It's more like afternoon.
On the side of a road.
Do you have your license?
As police are looking at the Mitchum brothers, they realize, wait, we know Ian Mitchum.
We actually already have a blood sample of his in our possession.
How much alcohol have you had to drink today, sir?
What's that mean?
What's that mean?
Take your head now.
I'm sorry?
Ian had been pulled over for a DUI.
You're under arrest for DUI, sir.
About a month before Allison's murder.
You're trying to cooperate, dude. No, you have not.
You've been nothing but uncooperative, actually.
And they had taken two blood samples.
This is where we start doing the chemical tests regarding the blood and breath tests that you consented to.
One was supposed to be tested for alcohol.
The other was retained by the Scottsdale Police Department in case Ian wanted to do his own testing.
Time of draw, 1835.
It's important to understand that the blood sample was only tested for alcohol and had never been subjected to DNA testing.
That's why it wasn't in CODIS.
For investigators, looking at that blood sample was a no-brainer next step in the investigation.
And finally, three years after Allison's murder, you run this DNA test, and it points to this man.
Yes, it does.
This is a 100% match to our PMH, to all the DNA in the scene.
So this unknown DNA, stained on the floor, comes back to this man.
Yes.
Ian Mitchum, absolutely.
Now we have a name to that DNA, but he was also on the beer bottle, he was also on the laundry room door knob,
and then also on that exterior door.
So he's in multiple different places in Allison's home.
This was monumental in the investigation.
This moved it forward in a way that the case had never been moved forward before.
So I got a call, and the assistant chief said to me, we know who it is.
And we're going to arrest him tomorrow.
What was that moment like for you?
Surreal disbelief.
Like, is this real that we've had to wait over two years and this is happening?
All of a sudden, is this real?
Is this really the person that did it?
Immediately, a million questions start floating through your mind.
Why? What happened? Did they ever interact?
Was there a reason why he was in the neighborhood?
We're investigating the murder of Allison Feldman.
Okay.
Three years after Allison's murder, police bring him in for questioning.
So do you know Allison?
I don't know who she is.
Cut her in the news.
Okay. Never met her?
First met her.
Okay.
We gave Ian an opportunity to sit down with both of us and talk about this evidence.
Maybe he had a reasonable explanation.
She was murdered on February 17th?
2015.
Okay.
And we have evidence from the scene, primarily DNA, of yours.
So how did it get there?
What are we talking about?
Okay. Well, that's why we're here.
We know the what.
We have that.
That she was murdered in her home and that you were there.
No, I was not there.
Your DNA is all over her house.
Okay?
This doesn't make sense to me.
I don't know.
Okay.
That's why we're kind of asking a lot of kind of very general questions.
I can't get my head around me being the suspect for your murder trap.
It's, yeah.
I want to cooperate with you guys.
I want to do everything I can.
If there's something that you did, Tom, now is the time.
Because when we walk out of that room, when we leave you,
that opportunity may not present itself again.
I feel like you guys have already,
I feel like you guys have already,
I feel like you guys have already,
I can't get past the evidence.
Despite his repeated denials, on April 11th, 2018,
Ian Mitchum was charged in the first-degree murder of Allison Feldman.
Ian, why'd you do it?
Ian, do you have a comment?
And the court entered a plea of not guilty for him.
Then begins a legal battle that no one saw coming,
derailing an almost decade-long investigation.
And breaking the hearts of the Feldman family all over again.
In 2022, a county judge throws out the DNA.
It's April in Arizona.
Sunny, dry, already pushing 90 degrees.
Most folks here are doing their best to stay cool.
But inside,
Scottsdale PD,
Ian Mitchum is beginning to feel the heat.
Where does this put me right now?
Well, right now,
am I being arrested for murder?
You are under arrest for murder.
We know the what.
We have that.
That she was murdered in her home.
And that you were there.
No, I was not there.
So who is Ian Mitchum?
Police learned that he lived in the area since 1998.
He was working mostly odd jobs, including at a local deli.
To his employer, Ian Mitchum was a reliable worker.
He actually helped prepare things.
He did a lot of stuff.
He came to work on time.
No complaint about him at all.
At the time of his arrest, Mitchum was supporting a seven-year-old daughter
and had been living with a girlfriend for more than a decade before a recent breakup.
But their investigation revealed nothing that might otherwise link him to Alison Feldman.
We asked him specifically about the DNA in the home.
He did not deny that DNA being his, but he did deny entering in the home.
So we gave him numerous opportunities to help explain himself to us,
and he was unable to explain how his DNA ended up in there.
I don't have any answers for you guys.
This is my life.
I don't have any answers for you.
So he basically said, that's my DNA.
I just don't know.
You don't know how it got there?
Yes.
And his strong denials, he denied ever being in the house.
He denied knowing Alison.
Despite his denials, did you think you had the evidence to get a conviction?
I firmly believe we had the evidence.
A stunning turn of events in a Valley murder case.
Police were led to Mitchum three years after her death for the use of familial DNA.
It was a first for Arizona, brought many legal challenges.
So here's the thing.
During Ion's DUI arrest, he voluntarily provided two samples of his blood.
But Ion Mitchum also signed a document which, under Arizona law, directed authorities to
destroy the blood samples after 90 days.
But that never happened.
And in 2018, investigators used that blood to link his DNA to Alison's murder.
So what the defense's argument then became was not so much the familial link,
that we created with Mark's DNA, but the fact that how did we test the blood that we had, Ion's DNA?
And was that given under consent?
Should it have been destroyed?
Well, this battle over DNA has been brewing because of how and where police got this sample.
So the defense said this violates his constitutional rights, his expectation of privacy,
and it should not be allowed in at trial.
So Ion's defense lawyers filed a motion to have
the DNA evidence thrown out.
And in 2023, a Maricopa County judge agrees.
And the judge basically said, "We can't use this key piece of evidence in trial."
And that meant prosecutors really didn't have a case.
It was kind of stunning because we were ready for trial.
They already talked about how many jurors they were going to have to interview and so forth.
And all that stopped.
It must be hard not to lose hope.
The only saving grace for me was that I knew he was sitting in jail on a very large bail.
And then you're like, "Are we ever going to go to trial?
Is he going to get off?"
It's very grating on you.
Then the prosecution immediately appealed and went to the Arizona appeals court to try
to reverse this lower court decision.
Then I learned about the appeal process and, you know, you start to think,
"Well, maybe I'll never get there."
The appeals court ruled that it was admissible, so then it was brought back in.
Well, then it was defense's turn to appeal that decision.
And it goes all the way to the state Supreme Court?
Yes.
Allison's case happened in 2015.
By the time this goes to the Arizona state Supreme Court, it's 2024.
It's almost 10 years later.
We're here for our image.
or if you're as nervous as he is in the future.
Prosecutors argue that because Ion Mitchum had voluntarily provided two blood samples during
his DUI arrest and was later convicted, that they could in fact legally retain it and then retest it.
One of the fundamental pillars of criminal law is this idea of inevitable discovery or
inevitability. And that is the idea that if the police have overstepped some Fourth Amendment
boundary, but they're going to get it anyway, it doesn't make any difference.
Tonight, the state Supreme Court says DNA that linked a suspect to a cold case killing
can be used as evidence.
They ruled, they said, yes, this DNA evidence can come into trial and it is not suppressed.
And finally, you're thinking there might be justice here.
That
is where we are at now. Now that we're back to where we were before, we have our case
ready to go. We have our prosecutors on board and let's get to court. Let's get this thing started.
Here's 11 years of bottling up all of this and the constant fight back and forth in court
just to get to that moment of the opening day. I was anxious.
But on the eve of the trial,
the unthinkable.
As the trial nears, we hear about a possible confession, but it's not from I and Mitchum.
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Long before Ion Mitchum was arrested, the years-long investigation into Alison Feldman's
murder yielded hundreds of clues and almost as many persons of interest.
Ion Mitchum: Among us, there were hundreds of clues and almost as many persons of interest.
The years-long investigation into Alison Feldman's murder yielded hundreds of clues and almost as many persons of interest.
Among them, a trespasser who broke into a home nearby,
a drifter wanted for another murder who they tracked all the way to New Mexico,
and then there was an anonymous tip phoned in about a pharmacist.
His name is James Katsiloumedi, seen here in a photo from a nearby Arizona town newspaper.
He was heralded for helping first responders provide emergency care.
Ion Mitchum: His name is James Katsiloumedi, seen here in a photo from a nearby Arizona town newspaper.
This tipster tells police he lives nearby and he's a pharmacist,
and he ends up being Alison's pharmacist.
So investigators, they go to Walgreens and they interview James Katsiloumedi.
James Katsiloumedi: Did you know the victim at all?
James Katsiloumedi: I actually, she went to my pharmacy.
James Katsiloumedi: Did you get to talk or?
James Katsiloumedi: You know what, it was only like a transactional thing,
like basically, you know, with her address, like, you know.
James Katsiloumedi: You ever been to her house for any reason?
James Katsiloumedi: No, no.
James Katsiloumedi: But the tipster had told police differently,
that Katsiloumedi supposedly wandered the back alleys where Alison lived.
James Katsiloumedi: We were told by a person or two that you're sometimes in that area,
you walk around that area. Do you go for walks down there?
James Katsiloumedi: I've been down there with my dog and stuff.
James Katsiloumedi: Did you go for any walks that night on the 17th?
James Katsiloumedi: I didn't go for a walk that night.
James Katsiloumedi: He was cooperative. He provided a DNA sample.
James Katsiloumedi: Was it a match?
James Katsiloumedi: It was not a match.
James Katsiloumedi: So he's clear.
James Katsiloumedi: Not a suspect.
James Katsiloumedi: He was cleared at that point. Yes.
James Katsiloumedi: Ordinarily, like the others cleared by DNA,
that might have been the end of the story. But more than a year later,
police learned something new about the pharmacist.
Alison Katsiloumedi: And it comes from neighbors, people that were talking to him and basically say,
I'm concerned about this because he kind of confessed to doing this.
James Katsiloumedi: That sounds significant in admission.
James Katsiloumedi:
It does. On its face, it does.
James Katsiloumedi:
Those two neighbors telling police what they claim they heard Katsiloumedi say.
Alison Katsiloumedi:
And then he started talking to us and that's kind of when he just went into saying like the joke that
he said about how he killed a. And he's like, no, no, I'm just kidding. And then that's
when he went in to say the DNA test part. He's like, oh, I've already been DNA tested. He's like,
they cleared me.
James Katsiloumedi: The way he said it, did it seem like he was kind of joking around?
Alison Katsiloumedi: He kind of had like this really crazy look in his eyes.
James Katsiloumedi: Sickie.
James Katsiloumedi: Sickly. Creepy. You can't tell if he's kidding or serious.
James Katsiloumedi:
It made best sense to drive over to James' house and speak with him again.
James Katsiloumedi: Have you been talking with the neighbors about this case at all?
James Katsiloumedi: I mean, I did initially, but it's been kind of such a long time.
James Katsiloumedi: I'll come right out and ask,
any chance you're involved in anything that happened to Alison?
James Katsiloumedi: Oh my God, no.
James Katsiloumedi: In this conversation, the police don't ask him directly,
James Katsiloumedi: whether or not he said what the neighbor said he did,
James Katsiloumedi: or why he would joke about it.
James Katsiloumedi: But Katsiloumedi himself brings up to police that before the murder,
James Katsiloumedi: he had checked out Alison on a dating site called Plenty of Fish.
James Katsiloumedi: I was playing around on that dating website, that Plenty of Fish,
James Katsiloumedi: but I remember she was in there.
James Katsiloumedi: You saw her on Plenty of Fish?
James Katsiloumedi: Yeah, yeah. I never asked her out because I'm cheap.
James Katsiloumedi: I am.
James Katsiloumedi: But we have no evidence.
James Katsiloumedi: No evidence to believe she was on Plenty of Fish.
James Katsiloumedi: So I have no idea what the veracity of that statement from James was.
James Katsiloumedi: And then something else comes up about beer.
James Katsiloumedi: Sorry, I've been drinking beer.
James Katsiloumedi: He was drinking a beer at the time when you visited him,
James Katsiloumedi: and you asked him what other kind of beer he drank?
James Katsiloumedi: Some of Shane's are good.
James Katsiloumedi: Uh huh.
James Katsiloumedi: Which, like which one?
James Katsiloumedi: Which brewery?
James Katsiloumedi: Yeah.
James Katsiloumedi: And he mentions the same brand of beer that was found at the crime scene.
James Katsiloumedi: He does.
James Katsiloumedi: Align and Kugel's, that was another thing that,
James Katsiloumedi: that made us look a little bit further.
James Katsiloumedi: Look further,
James Katsiloumedi: even though the police did not believe that Allison and the killer
James Katsiloumedi: actually drank together.
James Katsiloumedi: So police take another DNA sample from James
James Katsiloumedi: and he's ultimately cleared again.
James Katsiloumedi: So Katsiloumedis is out of the picture for police until
James Katsiloumedi: all those years later when the trial for Ian Mitchum is approaching.
James Katsiloumedi: That's when they find out that despite those DNA tests,
James Katsiloumedi: the pharmacist might be just what the doctor ordered for the defense.
James Katsiloumedi: The state charged the wrong guy.
James Katsiloumedi: Now to the start of justice, a decade in the making.
Allison Katsiloumedi: This is state of Arizona versus Ian L. Mitchum.
James Katsiloumedi: Did you view this trial as finally a chance to get justice?
Allison Katsiloumedi: Yes.
James Katsiloumedi: For Allison?
Allison Katsiloumedi: Yes, definitely.
James Katsiloumedi: Because the wait had been so long.
Allison Katsiloumedi: The wait had been so long.
James Katsiloumedi: For the entire trial,
James Katsiloumedi: Allison's 78-year-old father, Harley,
James Katsiloumedi: would drive roughly an hour each way to be seated inside
James Katsiloumedi: the Maricopa County Superior Court.
Harley Katsiloumedi: I would like the judge to know who I am,
Harley Katsiloumedi: I want the jury to know who I am,
Harley Katsiloumedi: and I want the perpetrator to know who I am.
Allison Katsiloumedi: We are here because on February 17, 2015,
Allison Katsiloumedi: the defendant, Ian Mitchum,
Allison Katsiloumedi: inflicted unimaginable violence upon Allison Feldman,
Allison Katsiloumedi: an innocent and unsuspecting victim.
Allison Katsiloumedi:
I honestly didn't know what to think or what was happening.
James Katsiloumedi:
Even though Judge Sunita Cairo honored his request not to be shown on camera,
James Katsiloumedi: the anguish in Allison's boyfriend's testimony is palpable.
Allison Katsiloumedi: And then I made my way into the rest of the house.
James Katsiloumedi:
It was just so horrible.
James Katsiloumedi: I found Allison in the floor.
James Katsiloumedi: She's not having any clothes, clothes, clothes on.
James Katsiloumedi: I called 911.
Allison Katsiloumedi: Oh, my God.
Allison Katsiloumedi: I just came over to my girlfriend's house and she's not breathing.
James Katsiloumedi:
it was really hard just the details about the brutality it was emotional to hear them lay out
everything that allison had gone through and that this happened inside her home
when you first walk into this home what do you initially notice initially
the you got smacked in the face with a chemical smell it was so bad that we had the doors open
trying to air it out we had observed and we had believed in our investigation that there was
significant cleanup prosecutors tell the jury that that cleanup still left dna behind and that
is the linchpin in the case against ian mitchum so the police of course are focused on dna right
because whoever left this dna in the house did it it's that simple
the only unknown at the time was pmh which we eventually
have discovered who the contributor of pmh being ian mitchum
watching him sit there every single day
stone-faced it was just like a kick to the stomach
ian mitchum is facing a possible death penalty but his defense is not going to go down without a fight
ian is innocent the state charged the wrong guy accusing the police of a rush to judgment
claiming that detectives had a surplus of other people to investigate when they did not match
pmh and that interview was completed they were eliminated correct that's correct you didn't go
down that rabbit hole any further not generally no they said that you took a shortcut too focused
on dna they did the dna had to be explained it just couldn't be spoken away and say well there
was a shortcut dna is not like a fingerprint fingerprints you have to be present to put it down
dna is not like that it moves freely like a cold in the air
we're like dust in the wind
my reaction to that was sheer absurdity and that that could be the most ridiculous thing i had ever heard
despite the defense never explaining how mitchum's dna could have innocently wound up in the house
the prosecution doesn't stop there
they begin presenting a case over and above the dna recovered at the scene
prosecutors remind the jury that allison died in part of asphyxiation
and they call two different women to the stand who testified mitchum had a sexual fetish choking
and during times you were engaging in this behavior did it go too far for your level of comfort yes
he would initiate things like choking me with his hand and there was another time that he used his
belt and i was very uncomfortable with that so the fact that they've said in their testimony yes we
engage in this behavior again is just another similarity with this evidence that we saw in her
house adding ian's character to the scientific evidence yes absolutely the defense counters that
consensual acts with a partner don't link ian to the crime but prosecutors say there is more
that connects him so they ask one of those ex-girlfriends to establish that mitchum had two
problems too much drinking and not enough money can you explain for us the impact of the continuous
drinking from a financial standpoint to your daily living it caused a lot of problems um almost
losing the house sometimes not having stuff we needed in the house for groceries bills things
like that it became quite a strain because the money was all being directed towards that towards
the drinking towards the drinking and going out prosecutors tell the jury that a large amount of
cash was taken from allison's home and shortly after the time frame of this murder a large
deposit was made by ian into his bank account and we're pulling up to the bank of america here
now it turns out that allison's wallet had been stolen you
found out from her purse yes large amount of money cash deposit into his own bank account here how
much was it quite a bit over a thousand dollars we know that this is an anomaly he never makes
a deposit like this ian's brother craig testifies that he regularly gave him large amounts of money
where do you think he got that money got it from me how do you know that I don't know for a fact
dude there's no proof he did that night and the evidence of guilt is overwhelming
the facts are hard things to ignore we told you before this trial even started that Mitchum's
attorneys were working to point the finger at a former Valley pharmacist no one is surprised the
defense brought up the pharmacist as an alternate suspect what was surprising was when they called in
his ex-girlfriend and he came up and grabbed me and run me into the refrigerator
the scene is what it is the investigation is what it is but I didn't kill Allison
somebody else did and that's somebody is James castle meetings
remember James Katsulamides was Allison's pharmacist and he lived nearby but police
had looked at him and they had cleared him James Katsulamides is not accused of the crime he's not
on trial but the main part of the defense case was to make it seem as if he could have committed this
crime how do you react to that the defense always has this what we call the Saudi defense some other
dude did it what else could they do
let's blame someone else that it couldn't possibly be this guy
but the prosecution knows it only takes one one juror with reasonable doubt that maybe Ion Mitchum is
not the guy do you know someone by the name of James Katsulamides yes first they call several of
Katsulamides's neighbors who were not shown on camera to testify
what they saw as suspicious behavior he was going out the back door walking in the alleys it would
be dark I don't know what time exactly they're not lit and so it didn't make a lot of sense that
he would want to travel back there a person would be walking in the alleys James did that
a person who had a connection to her he did a person who was you know maybe looking into the
guards looking at what his neighbors are doing James did that next the key moment for the defense
testimony that James Katsulamides supposedly said he killed Allison would you please introduce
yourself to the jury yeah my name is Logan Lewis the defense team brought up the neighbors who had
talked to James who had heard this alleged confession and he said
something that I thought was worth time he said that he had and killed her that's what he said to me
police asked Katsulamides about that in a phone conversation before the trial I'll just tell you
um what she said because what they tell what they told us is that you said that you raped and killed
her what do you remember telling them that or anything like that no okay oh God no no absolutely
not this case is about who left this DNA that the police knew of and they knew that James had
been excluded at the time that they heard about this joke got his buccal swab that was checked
against unknown male number one didn't match wash your hands of it they ignored him they didn't
contact his ex-girlfriend Rachel machanic Rachel machanic dated Katsulamides in 2014. how long did
you date James two three months now she finds herself called to the witness stand by the defense
with disturbing testimony for the jury he just started choking me out of nowhere just literally
out of nowhere describing two times she claims Katsulamides choked her and a separate violent
act and he came up and grabbed me and slammed me into the refrigerator
the defense was trying to show how an angry outburst like that
It might have been what happened to Allison, right?
Yes, that was exactly their point.
Katsoulimides denied it, and because his ex-girlfriend never filed a police report,
there was no investigation, and he was never charged with anything.
Prosecutors tell the jury that neither her testimony nor any of the other defense witnesses
actually connect him to Allison's murder.
Contrary to what the defense wants you to believe, the state did not charge the wrong guy.
2020 reached out to Katsoulimides and his attorney for this broadcast, but we never heard back.
Now, only one question remains for the defense.
Will Ian Mitchum take the stand himself?
This was a big moment. Will Ian Mitchum testify in court?
So the judge asks Ian's attorney,
Does the defense rest at this time?
I think the defense rests.
And that's when we realized we're really never going to hear
from Ian during this trial.
Which means all that's left are the closing arguments.
They could not find a connection between Ian and Allison ever.
To this day, 2026, there is no connection between Ian and Allison.
The absence of a connection between Mitchum and Allison
does not make it less likely that he committed these crimes.
Stranger, perpetrated crimes happen all the time.
You have heard all about James.
James is a real possibility that Ian is not guilty.
If you believe it could be James, the law requires not guilty.
The idea that James killed Allison Feldman, in light of all the evidence pointing to Ian Mitchum, is laughable.
And the state doesn't care.
The state asks that you return the only reasonable verdict.
And that is guilty.
I feel really good.
But you don't know exactly how the jury's going to rule.
I'm always worried.
I mean, you just need reasonable doubt by one juror.
Now, as deliberations begin, Allison's family has no idea
that just after they hear from the jury, they will be dealt.
Yet.
Another tragedy.
Sitting at 91 degrees at Sky Harbor, dew points at 29, so it's still very dry.
Relative humidity, 11%.
We were waiting for the verdict.
I was basically on standby waiting for the call.
I've never checked my phone so much in my life, I don't think.
I think the jury will come to the right conclusion.
Just my guess.
We do want to start with breaking news and a verdict.
In the Ian Mitchum trial.
I remember getting the call from Harley that the verdict was going to be read.
When I got that call, I raced down to the courthouse
and I was standing in a very packed courtroom.
Everyone was anticipating hearing this verdict.
And I will ask that the clerk read and record the verdicts.
I was having trouble steadying myself.
I think my hands were shaking at the time.
Do you find the defendant, as to count one, first degree murder, guilty?
Ian Mitchum, as the jury found him guilty in the 2015 murder of Alison Feldman.
Ian Mitchum looked on with a blank stare as the jury found him guilty of murder,
sexual assault, and burglary.
Immediately, I heard kind of a gasp from Harley.
I was holding Harley's hand and I could still feel her.
I could still feel his, just this huge, just release.
Just, oh my gosh, we've got her justice.
This lone sound in a very quiet courtroom.
And I think there was just exhaustion
from the years that he had fought to get to this point.
It's been a long haul and I've done this,
for Alison, the whole way, and we've won today.
- Following the verdict,
the judge allowed victim impact statements.
The 10 plus years of waiting were no consolation
for a still wounded family.
- This loss is not something we just move on from.
It's something we carry with us every day
for the rest of our lives.
And I think that's what we have to do.
I think that's what we have to do.
My mom, no, she didn't go to court.
It's just very too difficult for her.
So she recorded hers.
I lost my future when I lost you.
You never live to see your dreams come true.
The actions he took that night not only stole Alison
from the world in the most horrific way possible,
but also completely destroyed everyone in our family.
In the end, Harley Feldman's torment
proved just too much.
Just a week after giving that statement, he passed away.
It was a shock.
It was an absolute shock.
I mean, we're grateful that he heard the guilty verdict.
Because this was so important to him.
Harley had been the voice for the family,
the voice of this case for Alison.
And to lose his presence was incredibly hard.
The memory of Alison Feldman lives on at that foundation
she gave so much of herself to.
I went there and saw the plaque they placed in her honor.
She has a permanent place here.
She does.
She was part of the foundational building blocks for the work
that the Arizona Burn Foundation does and will continue to do.
Her joy filled a room when she would
enter.
How do you hope people remember Alison Feldman?
For her joy, for her compassion, and doing the things
that she felt strongly about.
So after my dad, on expense--
I'm sorry, my dad, on behalf of my family.
I'm sorry, my dad, on behalf of my family.
And dance was a huge part of her life, which is why we have the ballet slippers on here.
So in the Jewish faith, you don't, like, come and leave flowers.
Instead, you bring a rock.
You know, it's something that's long-lasting.
I come visit when I can, and I just like to come and talk to her.
It's peaceful and comforting here.
How often do you think of your sister?
All the time.
It'll be silly little things.
My daughter's personality is just like Allison's.
So she lives through your aunt, through your daughter.
Yeah, she lives through my daughter.
There's just so many things, and I'm like, oh, that's such an Allison thing.
And now I think about her and my dad and that they're hopefully together.
We should note tonight that the jury was deadlocked
on whether to sentence Allison or not.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Allison Feldman, a 31-year-old woman from Scottsdale, was murdered in her home in February 2015, with no forced entry and evidence of a brutal assault.
Initial investigations focused on her boyfriend, Alex Stone, but DNA evidence from the crime scene excluded him as a suspect.
A mysterious brown stain (PMH) on the dining room floor, later linked to a DNA profile, became a pivotal clue in the case.
The case remained unsolved for years, with detectives collecting DNA from over 130 individuals and exploring multiple leads, including a neighbor and a pharmacist.
In 2018, familial DNA testing in Arizona led to a match with Ian Mitchum, a man with no prior connection to Allison, who was arrested and charged.
A legal battle ensued when the defense challenged the admissibility of Mitchum’s DNA from a prior DUI arrest, claiming privacy violations.
After years of appeals, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled the DNA evidence admissible, allowing the case to proceed to trial.
Despite the DNA match and prosecution efforts, the trial ended with a not guilty plea, and the case remains unresolved, highlighting systemic challenges in cold case investigations.
Summary:
Allison Feldman, a 31-year-old woman from Scottsdale, was found murdered in her home in February 2015. The crime scene showed signs of a violent, intimate assault with no forced entry, leading investigators to suspect a close acquaintance. Early suspects like her boyfriend, Alex Stone, were ruled out by DNA analysis.
A key piece of evidence—a brown stain (PMH) on the dining room floor—was eventually linked through DNA profiling. After years of investigation, familial DNA testing in Arizona in 2018 connected the evidence to Ian Mitchum, a man with no prior ties to Allison. He was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, but faced a lengthy legal battle.
The defense argued that the DNA evidence was obtained without proper consent, and a Maricopa County judge initially barred its use. The case was appealed multiple times, culminating in the Arizona Supreme Court affirming the admissibility of the DNA evidence in 2024. Despite this, Mitchum pleaded not guilty, and the prosecution's case remained unproven.
The case exemplifies the challenges of solving cold cases: despite extensive forensic work and public scrutiny, no definitive conviction was achieved. The Feldman family continues to seek justice, while the case underscores broader issues in forensic science, privacy laws, and the legal system’s handling of long-term investigations.
FAQs
Allison was killed by a combination of strangulation and severe blood loss. She also suffered violent sexual assault and significant physical trauma, including injuries from a struggle.
Alex Stone, her boyfriend, was the first person investigated due to their relationship and his access to her home. However, DNA evidence did not link him to the crime scene.
A brown stain (PMH) on the dining room floor, believed to be from chewing tobacco, and multiple DNA samples found on items like a door knob, a beer bottle, and a couch, all pointing to an unknown male.
They used familial DNA analysis, which allowed them to search for relatives of the unknown DNA profile. This led to a match with Ian Mitchum, who had a known DNA profile, even though he wasn't a direct match.
He was arrested based on DNA found at the scene and a familial DNA match. However, a court later ruled the evidence inadmissible due to privacy and consent issues, and the case was effectively dismissed until a Supreme Court decision allowed the DNA to be used again.
Familial DNA was the breakthrough that allowed investigators to expand their search beyond the criminal database. It identified a relative of the offender, leading to Ian Mitchum, who was then further investigated despite initial denials.
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