Post Mortem | The Detective and the Chewing Gum Sting

[MUSIC] Welcome to a new season of Postmortem. I'm your host Ann Marie Green, and I'm so excited to be back in the studio taking you behind the scenes of every 48 hours episode. With me is 48 hours correspondent, Peter Vansant. And today we're discussing our season premiere. It is moving. It's an emotional rollercoaster. It is maddening at times. It is a wild story of a cold case detective who used an undercover chewing gum roost to solve not one, but two decades-long murder cases. Welcome Peter, it's really good to have you here. Hey, I'm Rick, great to see you again. A reminder, of course, for everyone. If you haven't watched or listened to this episode, it's called the detective and the chewing gum sting. Go check it out now and then come on back for our conversation. So let's take you back to 1984 on the evening of June 1st, 42-year-old Judy Weaver, and her fiance, Bill Richards. They are out with friends celebrating the sale of a bar that he owned, called the Belness in Everett, Washington. As she had been drinking, Judy decided she was going to walk home alone. Bill stayed behind at the bar to continue celebrating. Back in her apartment, she was attacked by an unknown assailant. She was sexually assaulted, bound with electrical cords, and strangled. Her bedroom was then set on fire in what investigators believe was an attempt to destroy evidence. Bill Richards became the prime suspect. And Judy's daughters immediately suspected him as well. Peter, why? Well, Judy's daughters, they didn't like Bill very much. They had described Bill Richards as verbally and physically abusive toward their mother. Now, they never witnessed Bill hitting their mom, but they saw bruises on her. And one of Judy's daughters, Kathy, told me that Bill was her only suspect in this case. And it never occurred to her that it could have been a random act by someone else. But investigators never had enough evidence to charge Bill Richards or clear him either. And he died in 1994 while still under suspicion. All right, so then fast forward to 2023, their advances in DNA technology. And those advances prompt the Everett Police Department to submit evidence for testing. And in the hour, we meet Detective Susan Loguthetti, who specializes in cold cases. So how did this case end up on her desk? Loguthetti, by the way, it's just a rock star in this in this story. But so she had a colleague who was the cold case supervisor at the Everett Police Department. And he was getting ready to retire. I want to play a clip that wasn't in the show where I asked her about this. So when you're working with this man who's about to retire, you end up asking him a question that really sent your life in a whole new direction. What was it? I asked him who was taking over the cold cases when he retired, and he said nobody was. And so I asked if I could. And I asked if I could shadow him and learn from him before he left. What is it about cold cases that fascinate you? I love the science. I love how fast it's growing and progressing and the things that we can do now. I love that people who thought they could get away with it are looking over their shoulder now, wondering what they left behind. According to Detective Loguthetti, she learns that Bill Richards was the prime suspect in Judy's case for more than 40 years. And her colleague believed that this new DNA testing would finally confirm that Richards was the killer. Well, months later, Detective Loguthetti received those DNA results and there was a match to a name, but it was not Bill Richards. It was Mitchell Allen Gaff, a stranger, unknown to Judy and her family. So this is a stunning twist of events. And it must have been shocking for Detective Loguthetti. She then starts like pouring over Mitchell Gaff's case file. And then she learns some shocking details about his past. He was a sexually violent predator. He had a criminal history. He was a registered level three sex offender. And if people don't know what that means, that is a status that means that you're most likely to reoffend. Right. It's the most dangerous classification that they assume. If you get back out in the public, you will assault someone again. Now back in 1979, as far as we know, this is when it all began for Gaff. He was just 21 years old. And he attacked a woman named Jackie Brown at her home during the day. Jackie had just finished mowing her yard and he cornered her in her garage with a gun. It was revealed later that it was actually a pellet gun, but it was so realistic. Jackie told me she thought it for sure was a gun. And she was afraid Gaff was going to sexually assault her. And she told us during this terrifying attack that her father's voice came to her. And he taught her that if you were ever assaulted like this, she was to fight dirty. Quote. Bite. Fight. Scratch. Kick. Do whatever you need to do to survive. And that advice saved her life. Jackie, now keep in mind, she was an officer for the Washington State Patrol. And she slept with a gun under her pillow. She tried to entice Gaff to go to her bedroom. Why? Because she said, I'll blow his brains out. Gaff didn't go up there. And now during this assault, Gaff cut her hand with a knife. But that did not stop her from fighting back. Even after she ends up escaping because she threw herself against him and there was a struggle and she managed to escape. Instead of going to the hospital, she was determined to first find Gaff. Incredibly, she was able to eventually identify him near some railroad tracks about a quarter mile from her home. Gaff was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, but since he was a first time offender, get this, he was only sentenced to one year of work release and five years of probation, which shocked Jackie. Absolutely. The level of violence, it's just that she was such so incredible and had the presence of mind to fight back in a very strategic way that she was able to escape that. That is shocking to me that his sentence was so light. Detective Lugatetti discovers that Gaff was on probation for Jackie Brown's assault when Judy Weaver was murdered in June of 1984. And then later that same summer, in August, Gaff attacked teen sisters, Angela and Myra. They were asleep in their home, miraculously they survived as well. And this time Gaff was convicted of aggravated rape and served ten years in prison. In the hour, we learned that when his sentence was up, he was sent to a facility for therapeutic treatment instead of being released. I never heard of this sort of post-conviction program before. What did you learn from your reporting about this program? Well, I grew up in the state of Washington, about 30 miles from Everett and I knew Everett very well, by the way, and Washington State has always had a philosophy that people can be rehabilitated. And this center was part of that experiment. It's a therapeutic program. It was created in the state of Washington called the Special Commitment Center and it's a program that still exists today. And it is designed for sexual predators like Gaff who have served their time in prison, and are deemed to be too dangerous, we've touched on this, to be released back into society. So they are civilly committed to this treatment center for public safety and to undergo treatment. And in order to be released, they must undergo a psychological evaluation and a court review. Some people, like Gaff, they're in there for years. Special Commitment Center sounds like a place you go for a retreat. It doesn't sound like these are very dangerous people that are being housed here. And it was in this treatment facility where Gaff met author and journalist Tom Juno, who profiled him for an article in DQ Magazine in 1995. The article went on to win a National Magazine Award in 1996. Tom spent several days with Gaff. What did Tom learn about him and the treatment center at the time? Well, first of all, according to Tom Juno, this treatment center was a controversial facility at the time. You know, explored whether it was even constitutional because men who have technically served their prison sentences are yet being held by the state despite not committing a second or a new crime. You know, questioned if the behavior of these violent offenders could be fixed through therapy. Essentially, if someone is that broken, can they ever be fixed? And this detention center, as I just touched on, is not a prison. According to Tom Juno, Gaff had some freedom. For example, he could dress however he wanted to, but obviously he couldn't leave the place. But he was in intensive and constant therapy for his predilection for sexual violence. And Tom Juno spent hours interviewing Gaff, and he witnessed some of his therapy sessions. And Gaff admitted to the heinous acts of sexual violence he'd been convicted of. But back in 1995, no one then knew Juno did not know. that he had committed a murder as well. Tom described him as two Mitchell gas. There was the man who was soft-spoken and gentle-seeming, but what would come out of his mouth was some of the most horrific things you had ever heard. So when you interviewed Tom Gino, he actually read some excerpts from his article in which he describes his impressions of gas. So I want to play a clip of that that was not in the show. The first thing that strikes you about Mitch Gaff is his voice. The voice is not merely soft, not merely sincere, not merely considerate, not merely kind. It is the essence of softness, sincerity, consideration, and kindness. It is the kind of voice that seems incapable of telling a lie, mustering aggression, or even allowing itself the freedom of an insult. It is the kind of voice that begs you to trust it, that pleases you to trust it. And if you heard it on the street or in a bar, you would trust it immediately. It is the voice of the nicest guy you've ever met. It is a voice Mitch Gaff has put together, has devised and constructed with great care, great courage, great effort, and at the cost of great pain. And that is why he is horrified and heartbroken. When he opens this thoughtful mouth, starts speaking in his thoughtful syllables, and scares the living hell out of people. I listen to Gaff, I watch some of the video tape of him from these hearings, and the way he speaks is so welcoming and so almost soothing. He seems like somebody you'd be comfortable babysitting your children. You have no hint whatsoever that this is the sound of a violent predator and murderer. Yes. I asked Tom if he ever saw in Gaff's face or eyes a flash of danger while he was speaking with him. And Tom had a fascinating response. I saw a flash of vacancy. When you look into the eyes of a shark, they don't look like they hate you. They look like they don't care about you. And that was Mitchell Gaff. Well, Gaff was eventually transferred though to McNeil Island in Washington. He continued his therapeutic treatment. He would continue with the program until he was released, which is in 2018. So that's 23 years in civil confinement. And he's finally a free man. What did Detective Logothetti learn about his life post release? A lot of time had passed and Detective Logothetti learned that Gaff, who was now in his 60s, had married a man. He changed his name to Sam Wise Price. He became a Buddhist and he seemed to be living a peaceful life. And perhaps he thought he had gotten away with murdering Judy Weaver after all this time. It's been almost 40 years. But Gaff likely had no idea that Detective Logothetti was closing in on him. But she needed fresh DNA evidence to lock Gaff up for good. She chewed over some options and came up with a creative plan that involved tricking Gaff into sampling different flavors of gum. Welcome back. So let's get into this brilliant undercover sting operation where Detective Susan Logothetti and her colleagues devised this plan to get Gaff's DNA from saliva. They post as a fictitious, healthy energy gum line to fool Gaff into sampling some chewing gum. Can you please tell us just how they came up with this plan because it's ingenious? Well, detectives knew from surveillance that Gaff rarely left his home. So they would have to go to him. And they created this fake gum company called Zolt, you know, like Bolt, Zolt Energy Gum. And they that went above and beyond to make it look like a real company that they made flyers, survey forms, and even wore t-shirts with a name and a logo on them. And their attention to detail even extended to the fake company's logo, which read proudly owned LGBT company on it since they knew Gaff had married a man. So Logothetti and two other detectives knocked on Gaff's door, pretending to be salespeople for this company, face to face with their target. Logothetti dressed in a Zolt gum shirt, cheerfully asked if he would participate in a gum taste test in exchange for a gift certificate to a nearby Safeway grocery store. They'd seen him go in and out of the Safeway. So detective Logothetti said he was a little hesitant, but when he heard about the gift certificate to Safeway, well, he was all in. Oh, yeah, who can pass up a gift card? I don't know. So this is like a pretty brilliant plan. And they have these little plastic crafts that they get them to put the gum in. So now it's like perfectly packaged evidence. But the thing I kept on thinking, how did he fall for this? You know, somebody's going door to door asking you to sample a product and then asking for the product back after you've sampled it. Right. Logothetti was such an actress and she did this so convincingly. She says that he didn't seem suspicious at all. And in fact, she thinks he really enjoyed it. She said he got really into the sampling and gave extensive notes back on each flavor of these various sticks of gum. I have an extended clip of detective Logothetti describing this. Let's take a listen. He chewed that gum. It was like he was at a wine tasting. You know, he was talking about the notes of this and hints of that. He wound up chewing four pieces overall, two tropical, two watermelon. You're sort of the gum sommier. And he's giving you the notes and the tasting and hint of this. And then you're writing all this down. Yeah, I'm writing notes. Oh, oh, and then he's telling us which one he preferred over the other and why unbelievable. I mean, when I heard how much he got into it in the hour, I thought to myself, you know what, this makes perfect sense. It's totally appealing to his ego. You know, I just like that. And he's a man of sophistication even when it comes to gum. You nailed it. So eventually he's standing there for so long that Gaff gets cold. And he invites the detectives inside. I'm kind of curious. Was Detective Logothetti nervous? I mean, considering what they believe this man is responsible for and what they know he's responsible for. He's got a violet past. How do they feel about walking into his home? Yeah, I asked Detective Logothetti about this and she said they were briefed by their sergeant to try and stay outside. But she was less nervous. She says that once they were inside and he was chatting about the art he had painted that and was displaying on his walls. It was a clean and cozy home. He seemed so disarming. So the team eventually leaves his house with four samples of his gum. And he neatly sent it to the lab and DNA results confirmed Mitchell Gaff was a match to the evidence recovered at Judy Weaver's crime scene. This brilliant sting operation and what satisfaction. So now I'm going to surprise him. Police went to the lucky lunch box place they discovered he really liked for breakfast and told him they wanted him to come down to the station. But they did not explain to him why. I was surprised that he was willing to go with them. Well, the officers, you know, they gave him a vague explanation that they were part of a task force. But they were just there to transport him like taxi drivers and that they didn't know why. And we saw the body cam footage of this exchange and they're chatting him up about the breakfast spot talks about the sandwiches that he likes and making a lot of small talk. So they made him feel comfortable and at ease while they were also taking him into custody. At the sheriff's office, Detective Logan Thetti interviewed him along with another detective, but they didn't immediately launch into Judy Weaver's case. Instead, they questioned him about the crimes that he had already been convicted of. Why did they use that tactic? They want to get details. And so she wanted him to talk about how he picked up women, how he chose his victims that he sexually assaulted and they wanted to see what he would admit to. Detective Logan Thetti finally then circles back to Judy Weaver and then hands him a warrant signed by a judge to obtain his DNA. And that's when he notices that the crime on the warrant is murder. So I want to play an extended clip where she reveals why Gaff is there and his reaction as you will hear Gaff claims that when he left Judy, she was alive and quote, fine. I love to tie it up. That was it. I love to reply. How do you know that though? It seems like just a little bit ago. I didn't do anything to her. I mean, I don't know the way. I tied her up right. What else? I think she knew her DNA fitting and I probably talked to them. You know what I'm saying? - That's really bad. You can't even relate to this fucking murder. - So Detective Logan Fettie said he was in complete denial mode. - Peter, I find this so revealing though, right? Because there's this sort of grandfatherly figure, there's like the soft voice that we've talked about. But it's to me more than denial. When he says, I didn't do anything to her. She was fine. Oh, oh, this isn't, this is murder. Like, oh, it's not just rape. Like to me, what I hear is someone who is completely disconnected from the damage that he has done. - Absolutely. It just gives you a sense of he had no respect for other people's lives, these women's lives and what he did to them. - 40 years later though, Mitchell Gaff, now his name is Sam Weiss Price, was arrested for the murder of Judy Weaver, a killer undone by a stick of chewing gum. But it didn't stop there. In January, 2025, as Detective Susan Logan Fettie's for pairing for trial, she receives a very unusual voicemail. - Yeah, this is, this is not scripted folks. This is real life. Detective Logan Fettie listened to a voicemail from a man named Ken VC in hopes they would reopen the investigation into the 1980 unsolved murder of his wife, Susan VC. Now, Ken VC's brother was a suspect for many years as was Ken. And they both lived under this cloud of suspicion that we've talked about for decades. The police really believed that one of them had committed this murder and even members of their families believe that. In fact, in 2017, the Everett Police Department asked prosecutors to file charges against Ken VC. Prosecutors declined, but this murder rocked the VC family. And the voicemail suggests Ken was hoping that fresh eyes would help to finally find his wife's killer. So Detective Logan Fettie decides to call Ken back. And he described what had happened and how horrifyingly similar that was to Judy's case. Susan had been hog tied on the floor of her bedroom. She had been sexually violated and strangled with electrical cords. Detective Logan Fettie ran Gaff's DNA from the chewing gum ruse and sure enough, it was all over Susan VC's crime scene. So Logan Fettie had now solved two cold cases. Mm-hmm. Mitchell Gaff was finally slated to San Trial for the murders of Judy Weaver and Susan VC in September of 2026. But then five months before it was scheduled to start, he pleaded guilty, a judge later sentenced him to 50 years behind bars. So these two murder cases would have never been solved without the dogged investigative work by Detective Susan Logan Fettie and her team. I was impressed by her. It is difficult to take on these challenges of these cold cases for a variety of reasons, but witnesses forget or witnesses may not be around anymore if we're talking about decades going by. Yeah, in fact, the lead detective in this case had passed away as well as a member of his team, which makes it so challenging for prosecutors 'cause you want the people who are at the scene to describe what they had seen and they're gone. Detective Logan Fettie, she's a real hero because of her passionate connection with these people. Now, everyone we spoke to, they love her and one of the big reasons is she will stay on top of her cases. For instance, she called Ken VC nightly before he died in 2025, which was on the very same day Susan was found 45 years earlier. And in the end, she was able to handcuff Mitchell Gaff, what a moment this is to watch, after he was sentenced to 50 years behind bars. It meant so much for her to do that. She felt like a woman should be the one to put handcuffs on a predator of women. Yeah, absolutely, there's a poetry in that. I want to ask you about somebody else. Gaff's first known victim, Jackie Brown, who you interviewed. How is she doing? She's doing very well. She is a tower of strength. By the way, she still owns that house where all of this occurred, that property. She took me back to that garage. When she was there, she stiffened up a bit. She doesn't live at the house full time, though. And she says she will never stay there alone. She always has to have someone with her. And she told us that the boards of the fence on this property that Gaff had broken through were not replaced but tacked back onto the fence as a reminder to never let her guard down. We went up and looked at that fence. Her current husband was her boyfriend at the time of the attack. And she says he's been a great source of support for her all of these years. She's got a lot of spunk, a lot of courage. And I'm really honored to have interviewed someone like that. She was amazing. Gaff is where he should be. I just think about, like I said earlier, the amount of damage sort of left in his wake, lives lost, women living with trauma, men who spent years under sort of the weight and the cloak of suspicion. I am so happy he is where he deserves to be. And you took us on a wild ride, Peter. Yeah, I was so honored to tell this story. And particularly one, like I said from my home state, it took a lot of time, but they got him. Peter, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. If you like this episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This family is on the brink of civil war. Mobland is back on Paramount Plus. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosden, and Helen Mirin. The clock is ticking. You want to walk and give you a walk? Mobland, new season is now streaming on Paramount Plus.