MURDERED: Nori Amaya

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today about the 2009 murder of a Washington, D.C. salsa queen is one that haunts me. At first, investigators thought this might be an easy case to close. They have surveillance footage, a clear recounting of the victim's final steps. But there is one huge problem. It was Halloween. The clubs were packed and the streets were full of people in masks and costumes. So even on camera, police can't always tell who they're looking at. Was that a coincidence? Or was it part of a careful plan to hide in plain sight? It seems like this killer knew what he was doing. He took things from the crime scene that might have led back to him. But in doing so, he actually might have left the biggest clue. This is something that is never been reported before. And me and our reporting team went deep on this one and what this clue might mean. And we think we could be just one tip away from solving this one. So Crime Junkies, listen close and make sure you share this episode with a friend, especially any friends that you have in the D.C. area. This is the story of Noria Maya. Our story begins first thing Monday morning, November 2nd, 2009. And we're going to talk about what happened to Noria Maya. We're going to talk about what happened to Noria Maya. The client is like, no, no, no, your sister never confirmed the order. So we tried to call her and tell her that it was canceled. Oh, I'd be so pissed at my sister. Carlos was. His 38-year-old sister, Noria Maya, is the other half to the business. He's the chef. She works like front of house on the customer side of things. It's like a good arrangement because she's the people person of the two siblings. So normally it works out. But something has been up with her the last couple of days. The day before, Noria didn't show up to help with the private party like she was supposed to. Carlos kind of blew that one off because he knows that she had been going through a breakup and he was trying to like cut her a little bit of slack. But now they're like losing business and he is over it. He wants to call her and like read her the riot act. The problem is he can't because her phone is with him. You see, two nights ago, what would have been Saturday, that was Halloween. And Noria had apparently left her home. She was like, I'm going to call her. I'm going to call her. She took home that night or technically it would have been like early Sunday morning. The cabbie found the phone and at some point called Noria's mom who sent Carlos to go meet the cabbie and pick it up. OK, so why is Carlos still holding on to it, though? Well, because he thought he was going to be seeing her at work that same day. He's just going to like give it to her then. But she didn't show. And remember, it's like 2009. Like we actually at that time all knew how to live without our phones for a day back then, especially Noria, because apparently she was prone to losing her phone maybe more than most. So unable to call her, Carlos decides to go by Noria's apartment because he's got the time now that he doesn't have to like do this, you know, big 170 person catering order. So when he gets to her complex like 10 minutes away, he signs in at the front desk before going to her unit on the 11th floor. He knocks, he checks the door, but it's locked. So he crouches down and even looks through the mail slot and he can see inside, but the lights are off. So the apartment is completely dark. And so Carlos is thinking like, OK, you know what? Noria is clearly going through it with this breakup. She's probably still asleep or maybe she just doesn't want to talk to anyone right now. So he decides to give her a little bit more space. If she's not at the restaurant by the dinner shift, then he'll take more drastic measures to like shake her out of it. And guess what? She doesn't show up. By closing time on Monday, Carlos's frustration is turning into fear. He has made some calls. Nobody in their family including their mom, who normally talks to Nori daily, has heard from her. So that night, Carlos and his younger sister Liz, they go to Nori's building together. And they're not just knocking at this point. They told us this time they asked the security guard to unlock Nori's door. And it's the guard who leads the way into her living room. Everything is still dark except for a bathroom light that's on. So Liz flips on the light switch. They see Nori's Halloween costume laying on the floor. And a feathered Venetian-style mask. But no Nori. And nothing seems to be out of place. So Carlos calls out to her, like to give her the chance to come out or get decent before he just like opens her bedroom door. Now the room is dark when he finally goes in. But he can tell that Nori is in her bed, partially covered by a comforter. And then the rest happens quickly. He turns on the light. He sees Nori's hair and one of her hands peeking out from under the covers. And when he gets closer, he notices marks around her neck. So Carlos pulls the comforter back. And his sister is blue. She's only in her black underwear. So he can see all of the bruises all over her body. But there's something in him. Like he cannot stop calling out her name. Like begging her to just like get up. Even though like looking at her, you and I would know that's not computing for him. He's in shock. He's just like desperate to get some kind of reaction out of her. So he even like hits her, trying to prove to himself that what he's seeing isn't real. Because his mind cannot accept that she's gone. And that's when Liz walks into the room. And she reaches out to touch Nori. But her skin is so cold that Liz literally jumps back. She and Carlos cling to each other and just like drop to the floor while the security guard calls 911. By 9.11 p.m., the apartment is full of D.C. Metro police officers. The detective who is assigned to the police department is retired now. So he was able to talk to us for this episode. I actually don't know if we could have done it without him because D.C. Metro police department denied our FOIA. And while the new MPD detective assigned to the case did talk to us, like he didn't go into much depth with us. Still, he gave us some information, verified some details. So like grateful. But much of what we've come to learn about this case will be from Detective Patterson's memory. But going back to that night inside Nori's apartment, by that point, Detective Patterson has been with MPD for decades. A lot of that time was spent in homicide. So he knows what he's looking for when he gets onto a homicide scene. And here we've got locked door, no signs of forced entry. The apartment isn't ransacked. In fact, nothing valuable seems to be missing. Nori's purse is still on the couch. So this wasn't a robbery gone wrong. This looks like somebody came here for Nori with the goal of either sexually assaulting her, killing her or both. It was a one eighth inch ligature of some kind that ultimately was used to strangle and kill her. But the autopsy shows that she fought back. There were injuries around her mouth and her chin, including a laceration inside her lower lip. There is a hemorrhage under the back of her scalp, bruising across her upper right chest and both breasts and lots of bruises and abrasions on her arms, right. hand and right leg. Detective Patterson remembers that bruising on her arms. It made him think that someone may have like pinned her down on the bed while she fought back. And there's also lacerations and bruising to Nori's genital area. And one of the few details we did get from the new investigator is that they believe Nori was sexually assaulted. But whoever assaulted and strangled her was calculated and at least had a basic understanding of forensics. Because there was no semen found during the autopsy and no nail clippings that produced anything useful because the fingernails that Nori always kept long had been cut all the way down. And Brett, the killer had to have taken the fingernails with them because there weren't any in her apartment. I mean, I have so many questions, but like, did the killer bring their own clippers? Did they have to use like, what was there, hers? The current detective told us that they don't know what her nails were cut with. They also don't know what she was strangled with. Like it could have been a cord of some kind. I know they tested a USB cord in her room, but that didn't have any of her DNA on it. So whatever that was, he may have brought it or found it. But either way, they probably took that with him too. And with all this like, caution, this person either watches like a lot of CSI or they've done this before. I mean, my own opinion, I don't think they were some kind of like brilliant mastermind. Like, I think they knew about as much as the general public, like you're saying, from, like, CSI or something. Like, they're going to know that police get DNA from semen, from nail clippings, like, the end. Otherwise, I think this killer would have taken more precautions because the killer didn't get rid of all of the physical evidence. During the autopsy, unidentified male DNA was collected from two areas of Nori's body. And I know they got touch DNA from either her chest or her breast area. Like, actual touch DNA? Or could it have come from, like, saliva? So the autopsy report doesn't show any of the results from the testing. It just shows me what areas they swabbed. They should be able to tell if saliva was present or not. I've seen that in other cases. No one from MPD could or would provide us the details. They just said that it was touch DNA. But Carlos is pretty dialed into the investigation, Nori's brother. And he said that he remembers being told. That it was, like, true touch DNA. Like, from skin to skin, like, contact kind of thing. Now, one would assume that would be, like, a hand. But if it was, that's wild to me. Because the police didn't find any fingerprints on her body or apartment that they believe were from the killer. But, you know, who needs prints when you have their DNA, right? Right. Well, it's only good if we can find someone to compare it to. Because even though this sample was. Was good enough to be put into CODIS, there were no matches in the system. So, who could have been in Nori's apartment? And when? The autopsy doesn't include a time of death window. So, that's one of the first mysteries that Detective Patterson has to solve. Like, before you can ever ask somebody for an alibi, you need to know, like, what your critical window of time is in the investigation. Well, lucky for him, Nori's apartment building has decent security. It is one of the biggest apartments. It is one of the biggest apartment complexes in D.C. It is 12 floors and more than 1,100 units. That's basically a small city. Yeah. So, if you live there, you need a key card to swipe into the main entrances. The front desk is staffed around the clock and visitors are supposed to sign in. There are also at least six cameras in the lobby and more cameras around the building and garage. So, of course, Detective Patterson thinks that all of that surveillance is going to just hand him Nori's killer on a silver platter. Yeah. right to the night of Halloween when he's looking at this footage. That is the last time that anyone says they saw or spoke to Nori. That's the night that she left her phone in the cab. So he scrubs through Saturday into the early morning hours of Sunday and he spots her coming into the building alone around 2.30 a.m. They know it's her because she's got on a black dress and she's holding the mask that they found on her couch. But guess what? It's Halloween and everyone is wearing costumes. Everyone. All weekend people are coming and going in masks and wigs and costumes. So even if someone came through the front and was captured, we might not even have their face. And that's if they came through the front. Carlos told us at the time there were other ways to get into the building, like near the parking area. that weren't covered by cameras at all. And Nori's floor didn't have any cameras either. So is the killer on film? I think the answer is yes and no. No, they're probably not showing their face in the building security footage. But yes, I think their image could have been captured on film, actually by Nori herself. Because as the police start working backwards, tracing Nori's movements before she got to her apartment building, they realize that she had something else with her that night. A small red digital camera. But they never found a small red digital camera anywhere in her apartment. Which means the killer may have taken something from Nori after all. Nori's family tells Detective Patterson that she had a small red digital camera that she took everywhere. I mean, it's 2009. We all did. My little Sony Cybershot went everywhere with me. Mine was blue. And that is actually what her family thinks they remember her having, a red Sony Cybershot. Detective Patterson told us that he knows she had it out with her that night. He found video proof of it because he traced her movements that night. And he found out that she had spent Halloween at a club, like salsa dancing with friends. And salsa dancing was like her big thing. It became part of her recovery after she went through some health issues when she was younger. And she got so good at it that she even competed locally. She knows basically every salsa club in DC and people even called her the salsa queen. Now, this club that she was at, police say there were no standout incidents that happened while she's out dancing. No big fights or anything that gets like caught on surveillance cameras that they look at. But there was drama. So remember how I said that Nori was going through a breakup? Yeah. So the club was owned by the guy she was breaking up with. Breaking is active. So she was ending things. Well, yes, kind of more complicated than that, which I'll get into. But she was planning to end it that night. So let me give you a little bit of backstory, and then I'm gonna jump back into the timeline. Detective Patterson learned, from Nori's family and friends, that for a few months before she was murdered, she was involved with the club's owner, this guy named Gustavo. Gustavo didn't respond to our outreach. So his perspective comes from a 2010 interview that he gave to the Washington Post about Nori's murder. But he said that he and Nori had a lot in common. I mean, both were immigrants from Latin America who had made like the DC area home. Nori's family came to the US from El Salvador when she was younger, and Gustavo came to DC from Argentina. And both had built their lives around the restaurant business. Nori took over the Italian restaurant with Carlos, and Gustavo opened his Latin American club. So they both knew what it was like to build something of their own here. The same long hours, the same stressors, same business problems, and the same passion. And he said they were exactly alike. But there was a major part of Gustavo's life that Nori didn't know about when they first started seeing each other. He was married. And Nori only found out after she was already in deep. People close to Nori told us that after Nori confronted Gustavo, he told her that the marriage was basically over, but getting divorced could cost him everything. The restaurant, his money, all of it. So he apparently told her that like, you know, him and his wife being together, that was just like a financial arrangement. Now, whether that was true or not, Nori kept seeing Gustavo. But Carlos says that over time, it was clear to her that Gustavo didn't want to build a future with her, at least not the kind that she wanted. I mean, Nori wanted to get married and have kids. And she was tired of feeling like she was stuck in the middle of someone else's marriage. Now, Gustavo said in that 2010 interview that he felt like things were moving fast as the relationship got more serious, like a little too fast. And know who else might not have liked how fast things were moving? Gustavo's wife. Yeah. Carlos said that about two weeks before Nori's murder, the main phone rang at their restaurant. Carlos picked it up. And the woman on the other end asked to speak with Nori and said that she was Gustavo's wife. So Carlos says he takes down her name and phone number on the restaurant's reservation clipboard. And he gave that message to his sister. He doesn't know if Nori called this woman back or what happened, but clearly, like, Kat was out of the bag. And if the two women were sharing notes, Nori might have realized that she was getting worked. That's the headspace that she seemed to be in by Halloween. She was at a breaking point. And so normally, Nori loved Halloween. Like, every year, she would make these elaborate costumes and celebrate by going dancing. But that year, Carlos says that she was so upset about Gustavo that she didn't even bother to make a costume. He actually made the mask for her that she wore. I guess he found this, like, old Venetian took it apart, added some bright feathers. And that's what Nori wore with, like, a black dress. So back to Halloween night. That night, it was Nori's turn to get off early and Carlos's to close the restaurant. And around 9.30 p.m., they sat at the bar to have dinner and share a bottle of their favorite wine together. And Carlos says that over dinner, Nori started crying about Gustavo. She felt like she was finally done with him. Like, ready to break up for good. Carlos told her that she deserved better. And then around 10.30 p.m., Nori headed out for the night. Her first stop was Gustavo's club, the Roomba Cafe. Like I said, there's video footage from her time there that Detective Patterson reviews. And everything's normal. People were dancing, drinking, moving through the room in costumes and masks. And at one point, he sees Nori sitting at a table taking pictures with the small red camera. And he's like, oh, that's me. And he's like, oh, that would later go missing. But here is where the drama starts, though none of it is really, like, caught on film. Detective Patterson pieces it together through talking with people who were there that night, like Gustavo and Nori's two friends, who I'm going to call Amanda and David for privacy reasons. Detective Patterson learns that Nori spent at least part of the night around Gustavo. At some point, she asked him to sit with her, but Gustavo said no, he was working. And Gustavo remembered later that Nori seemed sad behind her mask. I mean, I wonder why. Right. And Detective Patterson remembers even texts that Nori sent to a friend around this time of the night. She said that she was upset because Gustavo wasn't paying any attention to her. So eventually she left without saying goodbye to anyone. And she left on her own? Yeah. So her one friend, David, said that he got pretty drunk. And so someone took him home from the club. And her other friend, who I'm calling Amanda, said that she stayed and partied into the night with Gustavo and his group near Roomba after Nori left, which at first I thought was kind of weird. Like, why are you staying with your friend's ex that she's like having problems with? But Amanda actually worked at Roomba Cafe before. So she was actually friends. Kind of like her group. She was friends with both of them. Right. Wait. Like, did Nori actually break up with Gustavo or no? Well, according. No. No. So according to Gustavo, she did not. Now, Nori doesn't go right home from here when she leaves Roomba Cafe. She never let anything, even a bad night, get in the way of her dancing. So Detective Patterson said that she went to a lounge and then to a club downtown to meet up with her dance partner. But tonight, something was different. She got to the downtown club called Bravo Bravo. Around 1.45 a.m. And her dance partner told Detective Patterson that she wanted to leave almost immediately. It looked to him like she was crying under her mask. So within 15 minutes of being there, he walked her outside, helped her into a cab back to her apartment and watched her leave. That is the cab that took her home. We know she gets there by 2.30. And Carlos told us that he remembers police's best guess being that she died sometime in the window of 2.30 a.m. to 6 a.m. So there was nothing else on her phone or anything about something happening or like meeting up with someone. Current investigators would not go into detail about her phone. They just told us that there was nothing in there that had any bearing on her murder. Now, Carlos actually used to have her phone like after police extracted all the data off of it. They gave it back to him. But of course, like he lost it during a move, which like broke my heart because I would give anything to be able to go through that and like try and piece things together. So I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But the only thing that Carlos really remembered is that Nori called him around midnight that night to like maybe meet up, which may have been, I think, around the time she left Roomba Cafe. But he told her that, you know, he was just at a friend's party. It was like more of a chill hang when she called. And he's like, you know, it's not gonna be worth it for you to come, which like, of course, he said, imagine. Yeah. He spent like years wondering like what would have happened if he told her just to come to that party anyways. And how long was she at that like lounge place before she went to the downtown club? Like the timing of it all? I don't know exactly. I'm sure it is in the case files. But we, like I said, don't have those. And Detective Patterson couldn't remember. Okay. I'm just trying to like gauge whether something maybe happened there or if she was just like upset by the Gustavo stuff like the whole night. Because she leaves crying. As far as we know, she was just upset about Gustavo. No one has ever come forward with anything else. I mean, if someone out there knows something else, like now is your time to shine. But if it really was just the Gustavo stuff, I'm thinking that she was probably like drinking all night. She's in her feels like maybe all of those emotions just caught up with her later and overwhelmed her. Right. And like everyone else is having a good time around her and stuff like that. Yeah. You just want to go home. I assume that the police checked Gustavo's alibi, right? Yes. He was one of the first people that they brought in for questioning. I mean, they have Nori's siblings saying, look at him. Her friend David was even saying, look at him. And David didn't just know Nori. Like Amanda, he also knew Gustavo, too, because apparently one of his family members said that he picked up shifts at Gustavo's club. So like that probably carried some weight. Well, not only does Gustavo deny killing Nori again and again, he gives Detective Patterson an alibi for the night of Halloween into the morning after. He says he was out with his friends like Amanda and that group the whole time. Those friends later backed that up. And after that, he was out with his friends like Amanda and that group the whole time. After he called it a night, Gustavo says that he went back to his apartment, which is above the club and just went to sleep. I mean, we don't know when she died, though. So it's like, is that an alibi? It's soft, which is why they still collect his DNA. And they ask him about the third person in this love triangle, his wife. Why did she call Nori a couple of weeks before her death? Was she threatening her? And Gustavo's response is surprising. Gustavo said that Nori told him about the phone call, so he confronted his wife about it. But she denied making the call. She denied it again when she talked to the reporter for that Washington Post article. Like herself, she talked to them. But Gustavo said that this call scared him even more because if his wife didn't call Nori, then who did? And why would someone pretend to be his wife? Well, that would open a whole can of mystery worms and speculation that Detective Patterson thinks aren't necessary. He said, quote, that was Gustavo's wife, end quote. So it seems like he thinks she did make that call. And he took it seriously enough during the initial investigation to question her, get a verifiable alibi from her, and even get her DNA as well. But like, why get hers? I thought like male DNA was found. Yes, but I don't. You can never be too sure. Yeah. And I mean, like, when you think about it, like one of the things Detective Patterson considered was whether a third person could have been acting on behalf of Gustavo or his wife. I mean, there was someone in particular that Patterson even had in mind back then, this employee at Gustavo's club who lives in the same building as his boss located above the club. This guy raised eyebrows because not long after Nori's death, Nori's friend David alerted police that this employee just like up and left the country. Went to Argentina. The employee said that it was for a family funeral, but the timing was just like a little too perfect in detectives' minds. So they actually concocted a little sting operation to surreptitiously get his DNA. Detective Patterson and his partner, they fly down to Argentina with two FBI agents. They meet the employee under the guise of being interested in buying some property from him. So they like then make plans to have dinner with him. And then during dinner, they have dinner when he's away. This is like a whole spy drama. I'm telling you, they swipe his glass and his spoon. They bring the samples back to the U.S. and the investigators test all three samples, Gustavo's, his wife's, this employee's, and then they wait. But the DNA results come back one by one. No match to Gustavo, no match to the wife, and no match to the employee. Did the employee have an alibi? Yeah. So as much as anyone can when you don't know the time of death, right? And surveillance footage showed him still at the club for hours after Nori left. And investigators also find out, by the way, that that funeral in Argentina was legit. They didn't just like make that up to get out of Dodge. Okay. But I can't come up with a scenario where any of these people taking like her camera makes sense though. I'm obsessed with this camera. I don't think the wife would have a reason. Like the only thing that possibly makes sense would be like if the wife was like seen in the background of a picture, that would prove that she was not the wife. And I don't think that's she was like following Nori that night. Yeah. But police know that she wasn't out that night based on her alibi. And we know that she didn't match the DNA. So not her. I guess the employee wouldn't want to be seen in a picture if it was like at one of the last two places she went to. Like him being in pictures from like the Roomba Cafe doesn't mean anything because he works there. We know he's there. Right. If it was Gustavo, I think he has the most to hide if there were pictures of him and Nori together on the camera. But that would be like if his wife didn't know about the affair. And we have Detective Patterson saying that like he absolutely believes that she did. Right. So the question becomes like who else would have been on that camera from that night? I think the other people who were with her that night probably. And investigators check those people. I mean, they look at her dance partner. He was the last one with her. Right. He's the one that puts her in the cab to go home. But there's no motive there. I mean, he was only with her for a few minutes. And icing on the cake, his DNA wasn't a match either. Truth be told, Patterson said they never really even suspected him. They really just tested his DNA to make sure that they were leaving no stone unturned. Crossing T's dotting eyes. But the real person who drew a lot of suspicion from police was somebody that Nori had known for years. Somebody she trusted. The very man who pointed police in the direction of Gustavo's employee. The same man who somehow showed up to the crime scene, by the way, the same day that Nori was found without being called. And that's David. David and Nori knew each other well. One of David's family members told us that he and Nori went way back, like all the way back to high school. They were part of a group that stayed in touch as they grew up, and David would still go salsa dancing with Nori and their friends from time to time and from detective Patterson's perspective David's basically been a part of this investigation from the beginning though to begin with he was just a witness one who was conveniently in Nori's building the night that her body was found like as police were processing the scene so let me lay it out for you Nori's sister Liz told us that after the 911 call police took over the apartment and asked Carlos and Liz to move into the hallway and when Liz walked out David was there waiting in the crowd that had gathered around the door to see what was going on now she can't tell us exactly how many minutes had passed since police got there or what time she saw David like everything was just happening quickly but the way she remembers it they found Nori and then in her words poof David was suddenly right outside the apartment like to her it felt quick like too quick I mean did someone call him not Carlos or Liz I mean and there could be listen an innocent explanation for this okay well what's his explanation well we've tried multiple ways multiple times to get in touch with him we haven't been able to make contact detective Patterson remembers that his explanation was like weird and he remembers asking David about it but he doesn't remember like what it actually was yes unfortunately now what I will say is that Carlos said David was calling Nori at the same time like Carlos had her phone because you know David hadn't heard from her so maybe he got worried and went to go look for her just like Carlos did but another friend of Nori's had this weird interaction with David too she was at work when she found out that Nori was murdered so friends picked her up and drove her to Nori's mom's house and on the way she called the house to like you know let them know she was coming make sure it was okay and it was David that answered he was there and she was there and off the bat David started like launching into this really detailed explanation of where he was the night Nori died and why he wasn't with her like he got sick he had a cold or something so he went home took some meds and then he fell asleep and then he just overslept and Nori's friend was sitting there thinking like why are you telling me like why aren't we talking about Nori yeah but she just let him go on and on and she told us as soon as she hung up she turned to the people in the car and said that was the weirdest conversation but back to Nori's apartment that day like when David showed up to the scene he told police that he was with Nori that night so obviously he went down to the police station with Carlos and Liz to give a statement but Liz said that he just started like throwing out theories and names I mean at that point though police were like taking every lead he'll throw their way jotting names down left and right but as detective Patterson tries to nail down David's relationship with Nori and his movements that Halloween weekend things to him start feeling kind of shifty according to detective Patterson David told him that he was out that night with Nori at Gustavo's club and he got so drunk that somebody from the club drove him home because he couldn't drive himself and wait didn't he tell the friend that he had a cold and went home and took medicine yes that is what that friend remembers but it wasn't a cold it was a cold it was a highly emotional time who knows anyways his place is like 40 minutes away in Maryland meaning that when someone drove him home he had to leave his car in DC so David said that he came back to DC at some point the next day to pick it up and detective Patterson starts asking him okay like where exactly did you leave your car how did you get back into the city when did you get back into the city how long were you here and and that's like the important part right like was he in DC I don't know say between like 2 30 and 6 a.m. want to pull your hair out so all these years later detective Patterson can't remember exactly what David said and we could not get an answer from current investigators on this or from David himself but detective Patterson told us that he remembers David's answers just weren't adding up and he said quote the math ain't mathing and then detective Patterson learned just how much Nori trusted David and how much access he had to her apartment because remember one thing that he took note of when he was first on the scene was the fact that there was no forced entry and the door to Nori's apartment was locked when Carlos tried to check on her he had to get the security guard to open it now there are some alternate possibilities around all of this that I'm going to get into later but based on everything detective Patterson saw at the scene he had to get the security guard to open it and he had to get the security guard to he always thought that this crime was personal somebody Nori knew maybe somebody who even had a key to her place and Nori's brother Carlos tells him David had one for a very interesting reason so at this time back in 2009 David was married to a woman but he was also seeing men detective Patterson says there was one man in particular that they had not seen in the past and he was told that he was the one who had the key to her apartment and he had the key to her apartment and he had the key to her apartment and he had the key to her apartment and he had the key to her apartment who I'll call Eric for privacy reasons and apparently Nori let David use her apartment at this like private place for them to meet up now when David was asked by detective Patterson if he had a key he completely denied it and they were never able to recover one from him so he very well could be telling the truth and really the key thing might not even be that big of a deal because we were told Nori actually left her door unlocked all the time and she was told that she was safe yeah living in a super secure place and like she didn't necessarily always need that extra layer Carlos also told us that she may have started even leaving her door unlocked specifically for David I guess I don't get what his motive would be though because it sounds like Nori was helping him out well that could come back to Nori's camera so a source told us that detectives learned that before Nori died she downloaded a batch of recent photos from her digital camera onto a computer at the restaurant because her own computer wasn't working and in those files were pictures of David and Eric together at a club like dancing and kissing oh yeah now I think it's important to note that our reporter Malika actually tracked down David's wife and she was able to track down David's wife and she was able to track down David's ex-wife now and she told us that she knew David was having affairs she and David were already sleeping in separate rooms and after Nori died they got divorced so I don't think her finding out would have been motive for anything but that doesn't mean that he was ready for the world to know and what was Eric's situation so from what we could tell from like social media Eric was a couple of years out of college working as a waiter back in 2009 not at Roomba Cafe as far as we know and I don't know if he was fully out either but he was like friendly with Nori and her friends through David it seems like he was out with them at least and we actually reached out to Eric during our reporting and when we asked if he would speak with us about Nori even just about like knowing her he said something like no I mean like rest in peace Nori but no listen here's the problem I have with all of that like motive or whatever Nori already downloaded those pictures of David and Eric onto a computer so like if that was something you were hiding either one of them taking the camera you don't need the camera you need the computer at the restaurant yeah but maybe whoever did this didn't know that right like her computer isn't working they might think that like they might not think about the computer at work they could think that everything is still on the camera sure but why wait till that night like if those pictures were so damning to someone like to me you get the you get the camera like the night that those pictures were going to be on the that wasn't Halloween I think that if the camera is relevant the pictures have to correspond to that night and was Eric with David that night it doesn't seem like it I mean remember David leaves on his own when he gets drunk as far as we know which like doesn't mean that they couldn't have been up later but yeah either way they collect both men's DNA and neither of them was a match for the DNA that they have on Nori but even with that there is a lot of evidence that there's something that detective Patterson just can't shake about David he doesn't think that he was the one who killed Nori but in his personal opinion he has always believed that David may have had some involvement or at least knew more than he admitted David only I mean what about Eric I mean detective Patterson didn't say much about Eric like I mean it seems like most of his focus has been David but he is also clear that until they know what happened to Nori like nobody's completely off the table but I guess it doesn't seem like he's really like zeroing in on him at all though I will say Eric may not have been the only man that David was seeing I mean for almost the whole time we were reporting on this story we didn't hear other names just like oh you know David saw men in general but we just learned something from a friend of Nori's that I find very interesting so this friend told us that just a few weeks before Nori's murder she had stopped by Nori's restaurant while David was there and Nori started telling her about a different man that David was seeing who was apparently a diplomat. Nori's friend couldn't remember this guy's name or even where he was from. But Nori told this friend that she and David went to a hotel where this diplomat was staying and Nori got into an argument with this diplomat. She basically called this guy out over the way that he was acting toward David, telling him like, you're not a man. What kind of man acts like this? And apparently she wasn't backing down. And Nori's friend remembers like in that moment, being a little scared for Nori. Like, you know, if this guy really was a diplomat, like he's probably powerful. And Nori was just going off on him. Now she didn't hear anything more about this guy. So maybe this is totally random, but I can't verify an alibi or confirm if his DNA was tested because this came up so late in our reporting. We had already done our interview with Detective Patterson. We tried reaching back out to him, but he has not gotten back to us about our questions surrounding this diplomat. The only person who, who would even confirm that police heard about a diplomat was Nori's brother, Carlos. And he was interesting to work with. Like, I mean, he's great. He wants Nori's case solved more than anyone. And yes, they checked his DNA and alibi, like everything. He has never been a suspect. But, you know, he's really cognizant of not hurting the investigation. So like if we learned something from somewhere else, someone else, he would confirm it. But he wasn't necessarily like serving up any information on his own. Yes. And so that's, that's like how it was with this diplomat. So once we asked him about this, he told us that he remembers the diplomat being from Mexico. And he remembers investigators tracking this guy down and talking to him, but he doesn't think anything came of it. Though I don't know what that means or how far they got with the guy. And I don't know if that guy, whoever he is, was even in D.C. on Halloween night 2009. But I would love to ask. Well, and I was wondering, like, did David and this diplomat ever use Nori's apartment? Me too. I assume police have asked David. I mean, Detective Patterson was thorough, but we can't be sure until he gets back to us. I mean, if Patterson's theory is that David knows more, someone like a diplomat would make sense. Someone he might be afraid of. Or maybe there's somebody else that he was involved with that is yet to be identified. Or maybe David really isn't involved at all. Even though we didn't make contact with him, we did speak to members of David's family who remember him being devastated by Nori's death. I mean, one family member remembers him crying and saying, like, she was my friend. Another remembers how shocked he seemed, saying, I just saw her. I cannot believe this happened. And they don't believe that David was involved in Nori's murder. And he has never been charged with anything in relation to it. Now, key or no key, we did learn that Nori was known to leave her apartment. She left her apartment door unlocked. Like, I told you, the building had a security guy at the front. It had multiple cameras. You had to, like, use a pass thing in order to get in. Like, she felt safe. Yeah, she, like, it was, there were so many layers of security, sometimes she didn't feel like she needed that extra one. Anyone could have come in. Yes, but I'm stuck on how they would have locked up behind them when they left because you would need a key for that. I was going to come back to this. So, I didn't want to get sidetracked. Here's the thing. So, no one could or would tell us definitively if Nori's keys were all accounted for. Police say the only thing missing was that camera of hers. So, I assume that no keys were missing, but we don't know for sure. Especially if she had spares, right? That she was, like, giving to friends. But she had made, like, whatever. There's no count of, right? But, more importantly, we know for certain that someone else was in Nori's apartment after she died and they may have locked her apartment door. When police processed her apartment, they found a card for an exterminator and they found out that the building had scheduled, like, a maintenance thing for the units on Monday, the same Monday that Nori was found. So, an exterminator had a key to let himself in. He sprayed, he left, and when he left, it's very likely he might have been the one who actually locked the door, like, behind him. Wait, so he was in her apartment with her dead body? Which I know sounds bananas. I, like, spiraled on this. Detective Patterson interviewed this guy. He said the guy never actually went into the bedroom. He had no idea. He had no idea that she was in there. And this exterminator, unfortunately, doesn't remember if the door already was locked or unlocked when he went in. Right, it's like one of those things that you don't think about remembering when it's happening. So, like, I don't know. The fact that there's no forced entry doesn't mean anything at all. I have no idea. And they checked this guy's DNA, right? Like, the exterminator? Yep, he's not a match. So, if someone didn't need to be let in or have a key, that could open up the suspect pool really, really wide. Maybe it isn't somebody who knew her. Maybe that's why this case has been so hard to solve. Detective Patterson points to things like the fact that Nori was covered with the comforter after she was killed. Like, he says that's behavior you often see when somebody cares for the victim. Right, but it can also be something that a killer does if they're, like, ashamed of what they did. Like, if the murder wasn't the plan. Right. Yeah, like, you know, maybe they had gone in with the goal of some kind of, like, sexual assault and things, like, got out of hand. It escalated, like, out of hand. Right. Right. Now, interestingly, Carlos ran into a friend sometime a few months ago. Somebody who's known both his family and David for years. And that friend told Carlos that they ran into David recently. And David started talking about Nori. He allegedly described her death as a sexual situation that went wrong that night. Now, from what I can tell, we are actually the first to report confirmation of sexual assault. That was never confirmed by police before. So, back when this was said, it wasn't public knowledge. Carlos obviously told Detective Patterson it piqued his interest because he's like, you know, in all the times that I've talked to David, David has never described Nori's death as a sexual situation gone wrong. Right. Any of the many, many theories that he suggested to police. Now, by this point, Patterson is retired, so he passed the information on to the current investigator. But it might mean nothing. I mean, we are hearing this secondhand. The friend who supposedly heard this from David wouldn't talk to us. And even if it was said, it wasn't a secret that she was found only in her underwear, in her bed. Like, maybe as more was reported or shared with, like, their friend group or family, it could have been an inference that David made since it doesn't look like she was robbed. Like, it's not a wild conclusion to jump to. Right. But, like, not robbed, sure. But we do think something was taken. We think something was taken. We know Nori had her camera out that night. But the truth is, we can't see it in the surveillance video when she comes home. She's got, like, a purse or a bag or something. So, like, it might be in there. Or maybe it got stolen. Like, one of the things I've been wondering, they spend so much time, or at least Detective Patterson did, talking about this camera or this thing missing. I've often wondered if it got, like, left in the cab. Oh. With her phone. Right. Phones are a little easier to trace. Like, you want to get that back to the owner. Cameras, like, poof, gone, easy. Finders, keepers, like. They're also, like, easier to, like, pawn or sell or get rid of or something. My Cybershot got stolen when I was in high school. I don't want to talk about it. That's kind of why I brought it up. Still a tender subject. And listen, I keep coming back to, like, if this was about the camera or the pictures on the camera, the thing I can't figure out is why kill her? Why sexually assault her? Well, that's if the camera had something on it. Like, we've been talking about, like, evidence of an affair. But, like, one of the pictures just showed someone she was with that night who came back for her. Like, maybe it showed their costume and would prove that they were both in her lobby and out, like, with her when she was out at all these places. I've thought about that. I mean, that's totally possible. Like, without the camera, we have no idea what's on it. I've also, I'll tell you, thought, like, thrown around, like, a darker theory. Like, what if somebody used the camera to take pictures of Nori after they killed her? Or even just, like, took it as a souvenir? A trophy, yeah. Yeah, if it was taken. We don't really actually know the reason why. The thing I keep coming back to, and that I just can't let go for some reason, is, like, her complex was so big. I keep wondering how hard they looked at every single person inside of it. Maybe the killer was never caught on surveillance cameras coming or going because they were already there. They could have known her had it. They could have known that she was somebody who didn't always lock her door. They would know that there's no cameras in the hallways. Now, I know Detective Patterson explored that possibility, too. He says that investigators went door to door on Nori's floor, talking to her next-door neighbor and several other people who, like, lived down the hall. And police did collect DNA from some people connected to the building, like even the security guard who let Carlos and Liz into Nori's unit. I don't know exactly who else, though, or maybe not. I don't know an exact number of people. Even hearing, like, oh, we went door to door on her floor, that's great. What I was told is there's more than 1,100 units. Yeah, I was, like, in perspective, the town I grew up in is 1,600 people. Yeah, that's all of Waukarusa. That's all of Waukarusa to be tested. Right. Or talked to or contacted. And that's kind of a huge number for a small place. And what I'll say is, like, it's not like they just looked right then because Carlos remembers at least one resident being tested years later after he, Bye. by suicide i think they wondered you know could there have been a connection seems like no but overall patterson remembers personally collecting dna from around 10 people and later reporting says more than 20 people were eventually tested still again very big building and i wonder if there was someone in there who might have been hiding in plain sight that dna will be a major key to solving this case i really believe it's only a matter of time i mean even though they used the sample to get a profile good enough for codis there was some left that could be used for igg one day now back before patterson retired in 2017 he sent off the sample they had to parabon nanolabs for analysis that was even before igg was really a thing they were doing still phenotyping stuff like that back then but like right on the cusp and at the time they were told to wait like anything they were going to do was going to use a sample it's like all they had left the technology needed to get a little bit better now remember he retired so he doesn't know what has happened with that sample since he left i mean it's been almost 10 years i mean surely there's there's gonna be something they can do now i hope i mean for the sake of everybody who has been pushing to get this thing solved none more than nori's family who have spent the last 16 years trying to hold on hope that her case is going to get solved carlos threw himself into finding answers i mean he chased leads he called investigators and for a long time he tried to solve the case himself and eventually he went to therapy he started helping other people work through their trauma too and he says that today the pain of losing his sister nori doesn't control him the way that it once did his nori sister liz actually took a little bit of a different path though she ended up studying criminal justice and forensics like she had said she always had been interested in that world but she didn't know how to do it nori's case became what she calls this inspirational factor in the path that she took and even though she's found ways to move forward she says that learning how to live without nori isn't the same thing as accepting that nobody's ever been held accountable for killing her so dna might be the thing that solves this case but both liz and carlos believe that somebody in nori's world knows more about what happened than they've said so the answers might not hinge on just the evidence alone they might be with somebody out there listening right now so for our listeners who were in the dc area back in 2009 listen up and if it's not you pass this episode on to somebody who was if you were at one of the dc clubs nori went to on halloween night in 2009 we want to hear from you even if you don't think you have anything super important maybe you have pictures or videos from that night who knows the and bravo bravo and if you lived or worked at nori's building the woodner we want to hear from you too especially if you remember anything from october 31st or november 1st 2009 but honestly any time around then too like was anything going on in the building any weird instances anyone who stood out and i know i had to change a lot of the names in this episode for privacy but if you recognize the people that i've talked about and you have had any interaction with them or if you've heard anything come forward what you know or heard might be something small maybe it sounded like gossip or didn't feel important enough to report maybe you assume the detectives already knew but one tiny detail could be the break investigators have been waiting for you can reach them by calling mpd at 202-727-9099 or you can reach us as always by emailing tips at audiocheck.com crime junkie is an audio chuck production i think chuck would approve