Spring Break Vacation Turned Nightmare | The Case of Christine Lazzaro

Spring break, it's the time of year when the rules of our everyday routines don't matter, when we can leave behind the stresses of work in school and embrace the freedom of the moment. It's a time for adventure and excitement for spontaneous road trips and lazy afternoons basking in the sun. That's exactly what Christine Lazaro was looking forward to on her spring break. What she didn't expect was that it would be her last adventure and she wouldn't, becoming home alive. Hi everyone. Welcome back to my channel. I'm Kimberlaya. If you've never been here before, nice to finally meet you. Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Christine Lazaro. She was born August 8th, 1972 in Rochester, New York, to her mother, Kathleen and her father, Frank. She was the middle child of three children. She had an older brother, Frank the third named after his dad in his grandpa. He was two years older than Christine and she had a little sister, Daniel Lynn, that came nine years later in 1981. Around 1984, the family moved to a quaint suburb of the city of Rochester called Iranda Coyte. Hope I'm saying that right. I'm trying here. The population was about 50,000 at the time. It's known to have big city culture, but small city charm. And its name means where the land and the water meet. It does border Lake Ontario, just south of Toronto and Ottawa, Canada. But it's not what you would typically think about, at least for me, when you hear land and water meeting. I usually think of the beach and the closest place to find a beach next to the ocean was most likely Atlantic City over 300 miles away. And living in this part of New York, the summers are warm, but the winters are freezing, snowy and windy, and it's partly cloudy all year long. Over the course of the year, the temperatures can vary from 18 degrees Fahrenheit to 80 degrees. And it's only warm about June to August and then it's back to living in the cold. The snowy season there lasts for five months. I couldn't do it. I live in California and I feel like it's cold here and the lowest it gets is like the 50s. But when that's all you know, you make the best of it and have fun no matter what. When Christine, who by the way, went by Chrissy, was just a kid. Her parents actually split up. They got a divorce. It was hard on her and her family, but a thing about Chrissy is she was always looking on the bright side. She made the best of every situation and she had always been a daddy's girl, especially after the divorce. Her dad would say that Chrissy was sugar and spice and everything nice, but of course, wearing jeans and a baseball cap. He was so proud of his little girl. Despite things not working out with her mom, Frank truly believed he had done everything right with Chrissy and she was turning into an amazing young lady. He even wrote a poem about Chrissy as she was growing up. And this is what it said. Somewhere between a girl and a woman, this gift of God stands. She's a rose, a ray of sunshine, joy and laughter wrapped in lace or jeans, a treasure to hold yet one to share. And I was actually really touched by that as a mom of a young girl myself. I feel like I could write something similar. Daughters can be such a joy to have in your life. And her dad also said that she had an excitement for life that was contagious. It must have been true because she attracted a lot of people her way. Chrissy was very popular among all types of group of people growing up. She was very fun and you'd know when she came into a room mostly because of her looks first. She looked like she could be a model. She had long wavy brown hair, a big smile, high cheekbones, green eyes, but it was Chrissy's personality that made her even more beautiful. She was just fun. She had a goofy silly side you can tell in this photo. She's all dolled up with friends but making a funny face to the camera. Speaking of being dolled up, Chrissy had dreams of becoming a fashion designer. She was very stylish. She loved doing her hair, her makeup, picking out the perfect outfit and her eye for detail and unique style made her stand out. She always wanted to make sure that everything was just right. She took pride in her appearance and her dad encouraged her to go after what she was passionate about. So when it came time to choose a college Chrissy's choice was to study fashion design at the local Monroe Community College which was only 15 minutes away from where she lived. By 1993, she was 20 years old. She was going to school. She was working part-time as a waitress at Galveston's restaurant in Barr on East Ridge Road. It's right here two minutes away from her house. Very convenient. It had opened in the fall and Chrissy had been working there for six months since its grand opening. Chrissy was perfect for this job. She was very bubbly. She would jump from table to table. She would enthusiastically welcome the guests in as they sat down and tried to make friends with each and every one. Tim Piccolo was her assistant manager at the time and he'd say that the group of about 20 of them, the employees, they all loved Chrissy. They were like a big family. And she was a hard worker and she had a good reason to be. She was saving up to move into her own apartment but she didn't plan to be alone. It was going to be a place that she would share with her very best friends. The three girls who knew Chrissy the best. Rita, Phillipone, Lauren, Maradi and Kelly, Pogone. They were inseparable for many years. They did everything together. If you saw one of them, you saw all of them because they would go everywhere as a group. That's another thing. Christine took pride in being a good friend. A loyal friend. Somebody you could always count on. For her, friends meant the world. I had to pause the video really fast to give you all a very important message. I apologize. I accidentally referred to Chrissy as Chrissy. I know I did it several times throughout this video and I am so sorry. It usually doesn't happen. For some reason, Christine, Chrissy, Chrissy, it all kind of blended together for me in this video. So I am very sorry. I try to get everything right every time. I just kept slipping up and I know what happened more than once. So I want to let you know, I am aware of the mistake I made. I try my best to respect everyone I speak about in these videos. So I did want to apologize. I hope it does not distract you from this story. By early 1993, Chrissy had just started dating a guy named Carl Jeffries. He played minor league baseball and she was pretty smitten. Her dad approved as well. He liked the way Carl was very gentleman-like. He would open the doors for his daughter and he was very well mannered. And Frank really liked that about him. Not many guys still do that by the way. I have one that still does. And I like being treated like a princess trivelry is definitely not wasted on me. And Chrissy felt the same. She enjoyed Carl's company. But they were just starting their romance. It wasn't serious just yet. Especially since Carl wasn't around that much. He was very busy with his baseball career and spent most of his time in South Carolina practicing with his team. So they didn't really get to see much of each other. But when they both had spare time, they enjoyed spending it together. And that was okay because Chrissy was very busy herself juggling college work. And of course, hanging out with the girls. They were planning a really fun trip to Florida for spring break. Their sunny destination, Daytona Beach, Florida. It's the perfect place to enjoy fun in the sun and so much more. Chrissy loved the beach and she didn't get to go very often because like I said, the closest one was probably about 300 miles away. So all she did was talk about this trip. She couldn't wait to get her toes on the sand and bake in the sun. She liked getting a nice bronze sun tan. And Daytona is like paradise for someone living in colder weather. Snowbirds flock to the sunshine state to escape the frigid weather up north. But as a native Floridian myself that knows the coast so well, I wondered why Daytona though. It's true that Florida beaches are the perfect location to spend your time looking for that tropical vacation experience. But with so many other more popular destinations like Miami or Fort Lauderdale where I was born, I wondered how did this small coastal town that's not even in the middle of the Panhandle become so popular? Leave it to MTV. Of course, in 1986 MTV made its first trip to Daytona Beach with a debut of their new show called MTV Spring Break. It launched at the Plaza Hotel in Daytona Beach and I remember this. I watched this show and I love researching these cases because I learned so many new facts. This was a live show that MTV used to broadcast for eight hours a day during Spring Break and featured live music performances by famous bands and musicians plus all the other Spring Break related antics. Bikini Cloud women, alcohol and lots of hot looking co-eds. The president of MTV at that time was Doug Herzog and he said this about being in Spring Break. He said Spring Break is a youth culture event and we wanted to be part of it for that reason. It makes good sense for us to come down and go live from the center of it because obviously the people that are there are the kinds of people who watch MTV and it's true. They were definitely hitting their demographic but see by the 1980s other coastal cities in Florida like Fort Lauderdale started to discourage college students from spending their spring and summer breaks on their beaches. It brought a lot of destruction, crime and chaos to the beautiful cities. Well the mayor of Daytona at the time Larry Kelly he saw this as an opportunity to have his town on the map and invite tourists to here. his beach instead. It was all about business, but sometimes seeing green can blur your vision to the dangers and downsides of such an open invitation. Daytona actually started to market itself as of the destination for spring break for tourists back in 1989. It was a huge moneymaker. That typical spring break in Daytona brought in $160 million back then in a mere three-month period and an estimated 400,000 spring break vacationers, mostly college age individuals who came there to run wild. And I can tell you this, the locals are not fans of this at all. In 1993, the biggest stars of the time were performing on MTV Spring Break Show. Joey Lawrence, remember him, he was the host, and some of the performers were Warren G on his regular tour, Stone Tuble Pilots, M&M, Exhibit, and Dr. Dre just to name a few of them. And of course, this was a major event. Just look at this picture. This is a bird's eye view of one of those performances in what they called the Banshell. Kind of looks like a castle and look at all of those people. However, Chrissy and her friends, they weren't going to Daytona for MTV. They just wanted everything else they came with the spring break capital that MTV had put on the map. Chrissy's trip wasn't until April, which was about a month after MTV was going to be there. It wasn't just the core group of girls that were making their way a thousand miles from New York to Daytona. It was a group of 17 of them, guys and girls. The plan? Drive in separate vehicles as somewhat of a caravan and get a bunch of hotel rooms at a really cool hotel that's close to the beach and has everything. They picked the Howard Johnson Hotel on Atlantic Boulevard. It's right on the beach. Steps away from the ocean, just look at these views. It makes me miss Florida. It's called the Plaza Resort in Spa now, but it's close to everything. Lots of bars, restaurants, clubs, music venues, and of course. Lots of others bring breakers that are there for the exact same things. The road that it's on is known as A1A and it's littered with hotels, gift shops catering to out-of-towners, and it was the perfect choice for Chrissy's group. So what did Frank think of this? His 20-year-old daughter taking a trip so far away from home? Well, he trusted Chrissy. Even though he said she could be impetuous at times, like most young adults are, she was also responsible and firmly grounded. Just five weeks prior to the trip, her father was proudly sharing the fact that he was so overjoyed that Chrissy had accepted Christ into her life. Besides that, they were going in a group? What could happen to a group of them? It was as though a piece of home was coming with Chrissy. They'd have one another. They'd be safe. On Friday, April 9, 1993, the group of 17 Rochester guys and gals got to the beautiful Daytona Beach Florida beaches to spend the next week having the time of their lives. Chrissy and the girls checked into the room on the 13th floor and I'm sure there had to be an amazing view. Then they made their way down to A1A to get acquainted with the place that they'd call home for the next several days. By the next day on Saturday, they were ready for their first full beach day and party night. They didn't really want to go out the night before because they wanted to be well-rested and ready to dance all night long at the most popular nightclub in Daytona Razzles. At 6-1-1, Sea Breeze Boulevard. So they saved their energy for Saturday night, which was also one of the busiest and best nights to go there. It's still a super popular venue today. Their website says Razzles is Daytona Beach's hottest nightclub and has been electrifying Daytona Beach for over three decades. There's even a dedicated spring break tab on the website. You can click it and it shows you what to expect by visiting Razzles, which they say is the spring break headquarters for over 35 years. It definitely looks like a party to me and even advertises free drinks until 10 pm and this place is packed most nights. Where you are literally crammed in, shoulder to shoulder and their Facebook page on February 22nd of this year was looking for security guards for this upcoming spring break season. So it is still jamming. The place is huge too. It's over 15,000 square feet. There's a number of different rooms, tables, booths, lounges, VIP sections, bars and dance floors to choose from and the best part is. It was only a two-minute walk from their hotel right around the corner which made it super convenient, especially after drinking all night. At Razzles, you can be 18 to enter, but you must be 21 to consume alcohol. And Chrissy was only 20, but she brought a fake ID with her from New York so that she could bypass their restrictions. And back in those days, it was really easy to get your hands on a fake ID. Not only that, the loads completely different than the driver's licenses do today. I got mine in 1996. I remember mine was paper and it was just laminated. There was a not much to it. After spending all afternoon at the beach, the girls headed up to their room, they showered, they did their hair, their makeup, they got dressed, and they headed out in their group to Razzles around 9 p.m. as soon as the doors opened. They got a table, they ordered their drinks, they started dancing the night away, and there's a lot to see and experience in a big night club like this. Lots of new people, loud music, and though they did come as a group together, they weren't glued to one another all night. Last call was announced, and the group met back up at the table. And that's when they noticed that Chrissy wasn't there. Her friend Rita jumped into action immediately. During the night, the girls had been separated a number of times, but each time, they made their way back together. So Rita just figured that Chrissy was somewhere in the crowd. So she went looking around. She was asking friends if they'd seen her. And one of their friends from their group said they remembered seeing her around midnight, talking to a guy, and leaving with him out the front door. So Rita and the girls, they do remember seeing Chrissy walk off a couple times, but figured you know what, she's gonna be back. And of course, when you're busy having fun, the time kind of slips away. And you don't always keep track of your adult friends whereabouts. As a matter of fact, none of them were even concerned about Chrissy leaving. In their minds, she was living it up. She was having a good time and maybe continuing the fun elsewhere. No big deal. So they made the two-minute walk back to their hotel and figured she would surely show up soon. But at some point, the girls drifted off to sleep. And by the next day, Easter morning on Sunday, April 11th, Chrissy still wasn't back. They didn't have cell phones back then. They couldn't reach out by text or calling her, and there was no social media. Or the fine might advise apps. All you could do was wait. So that's what they did. They were gonna wait until Chrissy made her way back to the room. The girls did ask some of their other Rochester friends if Chrissy had crashed with them in their hotel rooms, but she had not. They knew their friend and they figured you know what? She's probably having a little too much fun with the guy that she met the night before. And if something was wrong, they figured that Chrissy would have called the hotel. By now, they are a little surprised that Chrissy would choose a guy that she didn't know overspending her vacation with her best friends, but they figured what could they do, right? It was her choice. They weren't going to wait around and let the sun go down without getting out there on the beach and enjoying every minute of it. So they left the room and headed out to the sand, assuming they'd see Chrissy anytime now, prancing down the shoreline with a story to tell them about last night. They still really were not that concerned at all, but they should have been. What Chrissy's best friends didn't know was that earlier that same morning around 7.06 am, 30 mile southwest, in a sleepy bedroom community called DeBerry. And I've heard that phrase before, I never knew what it meant. A bedroom town refers to a town that's small and tucked away from the city. It's a place that people will move for cheaper rent, but it's close enough to commute into the town for work, so they live there basically just to sleep there and they spend most of their time elsewhere. Make sense. I never heard of this town before either. It's located in Volusia County. It's 45 minutes inland from the hotel that the girls were staying at. In this area is definitely like night and day compared to Daytona Beach. Much more residential and rural in nature, it's spread out with way less coming on. In that Easter morning, a resident was on his way to work when he saw a flash of something white in the grass along a very busy road called Turksten Drive. It was out of place enough for him to stop and take a closer look, so he did. And from his vantage point, he thought he could see a woman lying on the ground. So he raced to the nearest convenience door to call 911. Officers made their way out to the road just outside a wooded residential neighborhood in Chernaf. They see something that appeared to be a deceased human body. A few minutes later, Officer Greg Arthur, crime scene investigator from Volusia County Sheriff's Office, gets a phone call. They tell him to go out to the scene. It was the supervisor of the major case unit that handled homicides in that area. Officer Arthur had been to many crime scenes. He had seen his fair share of very gruesome murders, but he had to compose himself when he arrived on scene into buried that holiday morning in 1993. Seeing her just lying there, curled up on her side, the strikingly beautiful woman, there was just something about it, just a sleeping beauty frozen in that moment. Lifeless, yet with the air of potential she could have had in life, had she had the chance to live it. The officer was overcome with emotion. This was someone's child. He had so many questions, but he had to. pull it together so that he could find the answers. And the first thing he noticed was the blood. It contrasted against the white baseball jersey that she was wearing. She had it on in this picture with a pair of shorts taken the night before. Hours earlier, she was smiling and laughing with friends, and now it was soaked with her blood. It was pooling underneath her head. She still had her purse in her hand. What was she doing on this road? And who would have wanted to harm her? It's clear that she has been shot. And it appears that the wounds are on her head. But there are no other distinctive marks on her body. Could she have been walking here at night and been ambushed by someone? There was a very noticeable and fresh tire track right next to her body in the grass. So, Officer Arthur used a cement-like substance to make an impression of this track, while the corner arrived to transport the woman's remains to the medical examiner's office. They also recovered a spent shell casing, which was located around four feet away from where she had been laying. Since her purse was collected at the scene, they were able to look inside and they get their first lead. A clue about her identity. But it's not crystal clear who she is because they find two New York state identification cards. One with information about a 26-year-old woman and the other for a woman named Christine Lazero, who was only 20. Now, Officer Arthur thinks he knows who their victim is. The young girl that's one-year-old in town for spring break. It doesn't take long for him to match her face to the younger woman's ID. And it makes sense. She would have wanted to have this fake ID so she could drink, especially because she's on this vacation from out of state. It's not uncommon at all. Plus, there was a big clue on the top of her hands. Stamps from a nightclub, but she's so far from anywhere with the happening nightlife. So it's a mystery how she ended up this far inland. The officer knows she was most likely staying in Daytona. Now he has a dreadful task of notifying next-of-can about the devastating reality that their loved one is dead. Frank was the first one to get that call. It was unbelievable to him. He kept saying no, no, no. That's all he could get out of his mouth. There wasn't anything else to say. It was going to take him a while to come to terms with what the officer was telling him, and they still did not have much information to provide. However, Frank was able to give them some information. He confirmed what Arthur had suspected. Chrissy was on a trip to Daytona Beach with her friends. He gave the officer the name and location of the hotel they were staying at. Chrissy's brother didn't get the chance to hear about his sister's death from a loved one. He sought on the news. He said he would never forget seeing the empties loading a body bag into an ambulance. And that had to be extremely devastating. I cannot begin to imagine the pain of someone you love dying tragically, but to find out about it on TV like that, I can't help but feel so sorry for him. And meanwhile, back in Daytona, it was close to 5 p.m. when the trio made their way back to the hotel room from spending the day at the beach. They had to be back to get ready for dinner reservations that they had made before the trip. They had planned a nice Easter dinner at a fancy restaurant, but where's Chrissy? At this point, the girls start to talk about how they're feeling. In regard to the fact that they feel like Chrissy has just abandoned them and all their plans on this planned vacation, it was a holiday. They were all looking forward to this night, Chrissy had helped pick out the restaurant, plan the event, and she even set out a special dress. It was hanging in the closet. So what's going on? What could be more important than this plan with her closest friends? They just didn't understand it, and it started to annoy them. They were just trying to make sense of it all. I mean, they weren't thinking that their best friend was dead. That's for sure. They thought that she had opted to spend time with someone else. Detective Jodie Palermo was assigned as the lead detective on the case. He didn't understand what a spring breaker in Daytona would be doing in DeBerry. Nearly an hour away from the beaches, and why she was just left, not even covered up. It was as though she was dumped out of the side of a cardboard and just left there, thrown away like trash, and that was heartbreaking. What could she have done to make someone do this to her? Well, the only lead that he has is the information given to them by Chrissy's father, so they make their way to Howard Johnson's hotel, looking for her friends. Time is not on their side. Those first 24 to 48 hours are crucial and had already been 16 hours by the time they set out to find her friends. Kelly Lauren and Rita had made it to dinner, but there was just this eerie feeling around them. And Rita just had this wave of fear come over her one point. She could not just sit there anymore enjoying this night without Chrissy. She turned to the other two girls and she said, "This is serious. "Something is right, something's wrong, we gotta go." And they left to go back to their hotel, and that got feeling was right. When they get to their door, they see a business card in their hotel room door. It's from Detective Palermo, and at this point, they feel a little relieved, but it turns to concern. Like, what did Chrissy got herself into now? Their girls were thinking she got arrested, maybe for having a fake ID or something worse. They don't have much time to put it together, though, because just as they step inside, the investigators are back at their hotel room door. Without hesitation, one of the investigators pulled them together and said, "Girls, "there's no easy way to say this. "Christine is dead." That's unbelievable. It was so difficult for them to hear this. That is not what they were expecting. All three of them just stood there speechless. They were in shock. Their minds went completely blank. They didn't know what was going on. Rita actually thought the detective might have been speaking a different language. It sounded like a foreign language to her, because it wasn't making sense. But when she looked towards Kelly and Lauren, she knew. And just broke down. All three of them broke down hysterically crying. There were so many emotions and thoughts going through with their heads, their shock, guilt, sadness. And then the realization, did they never see Chrissy again? They never hear her laugh, get her style advice. They were so young and alone and so far from home. And now knowing their best friend is never going back home with them. It was a lot for them to take in. And there was no time to grieve at this moment because detectives need these girls to pull themselves together, to help them understand what happened to their friend. And they explained the last time they saw Chrissy. It was the night before it razzles. And they didn't see her leave, but friends of their said that she left the club with a dark, skinned male. He could have been Hispanic or African-American, but he wasn't someone in their group. But they do say this. They say Carl, the guy that Chrissy's been seeing, does match that description. He is an African-American male. However, he's supposed to be in North Carolina. But it was only a six-hour drive. So could he have surprised her and come out to Daytona? By 7 p.m., the autopsy report had come back. Manor of death homicide, cause of death to gunshot wounds to the head. There were no signs of forced intercourse or any other physical harm to Chrissy's body. No defensive wounds, nothing. However, the medical examiner does find something on Chrissy's body, a clue left behind. Remember the stamp I talked about on her hand from razzles? The medical examiner could still see the R on one of her hands. But there was another stamp on the other hand, and that one her friends didn't have. It wasn't from razzles. It was smudged, but he was able to make out three numbers. 701. That's the name of yet another hotspot in Daytona Beach. 701 South, it's a nightclub inside the Texan hotel on Atlantic Avenue. Present day, the hotel is called the Harbor Beach Resort. It's about a six-minute drive from razzles, but it is about a 29-minute walk. So now investigators know Chrissy wasn't just at razzles that night, which means maybe the guy she left with wasn't the last person to see her live. She could've met up with a lot of people. This is a very confusing case, 'cause there doesn't seem to be a motive. It was hard to imagine why someone would want Chrissy dead. They do have somewhat of a description to go off, so now they can look around, they can canvas the area where the body was found, plus the two nightclubs, hoping that someone heard or saw something the night before. Maybe someone would recognize Chrissy, and remember who she was with, or whether anything was out of the ordinary. If there was anything suspicious or wrong with her or anyone she was with, they get a lead. One of the servers at razzles says she's 100% remembered Chrissy. She even told detectives what she was wearing that night. She says, "Oh, I remember her." She was wearing a white baseball jersey. She had a long, dark, wavy hair and shorts on, and she was with the black guy. They were sitting right at my bar together right here. And he was wearing a dark blue shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap. She said they were having a very good time, very close. Look at a couple. The guy was very polite, he was buying her drinks, and everything looked normal. Wow, okay, so this really did sound like it could be Carl. Maybe he came to surprise her after all. So they get the credit card receipt from the server and they look, and they see this guy signing with the initials B.C., that's definitely not Carl's initials. The server pulls up even more receipts, and they see that the full name is Brent Cole. So they contact the credit card company. They pull up all of Brent's information, They find out he's a college student for minutes. and they figure this guy was probably vacationing in Daytona just like so many other students that week so they need to track him down ASAP because this could be Chrissy's killer. Meanwhile, back at the neighborhood next to where Chrissy's body had been found, a resident said she remembered hearing a bang around 4.30 in the morning and then hearing a vehicle racing away. She returned from Easter Sunday's service later that afternoon and that's when she saw the crime scene tape and she connected the gunshots from earlier that morning. But another resident says no gunshots are super common early in the morning, it's a rural area, the hunters are out there, they're shooting vermin, it wasn't too much to go on. They were just trying to make a timeline but for now, tentatively saying that Chrissy could have been murdered around 4 o'clock in the morning. By the next day, Rita, Lauren and Kelly had decided to take the 1,000 mile trip back home and end their spring break vacation early. They couldn't cope with Chrissy's death all the way in Florida, far from their loved ones and of course their families were worried about them. They felt so guilty about not being there to protect their friend. They worried about Chrissy's family and the pain that they were going through. They just had to get back in town, it was equally as hard to leave though because this was the last place that they spent time with Chrissy and they knew she would never be going back home, not alive anyway. Frank definitely wasn't taking it well, I don't know him personally, of course not. But from the interviews and everything I read and watched, he reminded me of my own father. He couldn't help but want to get down there to Florida himself and start looking for the man who killed his little girl. But then he said to himself, what am I going to do? I'm just going to go door to door and say, did you kill my daughter? So he realized this wasn't logical. He wouldn't be much help, but it was so hard to sit back and do nothing, he was angry and sad and anxious to know what happened to Chrissy. Investigators are about to knock on Brent Cole's apartment door at this time. Without warning, they had already made their way to Minnesota. They couldn't wait to get a good look at the sky who was last seen with Chrissy Lazaro. And when he came to the door, he was well dressed, clean-cut, polite, not what they were initially expecting to see, and he agrees to speak with them. They inform him that they're there to investigate a murder. And he looked really confused, like why in the world would these guys be coming all the way here? And they inform him, this is the woman we're looking for, Chrissy Lazaro. And of course, when someone hears that they're being interviewed about a murder makes them nervous and in Brent's case confused. He's like, I don't have anything to do with that. He's looking at the picture and he denies knowing Chrissy or anything about what happened to her. He was in Daytona. He says he was on spring break and he did go to Razzles Nightclub, and he also had drinks with an attractive brunette that night. But she's alive and well, Jennifer Weathers, his girlfriend. The detectives aren't going to just take him out his word, but he goes one step forward and says, look, here's the picture of that night of me and my girlfriend. And when Detective Palermo looked at that picture of Jennifer, his jaw dropped. He could not believe the resemblance to Chrissy was unbelievable. They could have been twins. And they were wearing the exact same outfit the night. Wow. And Jennifer's there to speak to Detective herself. And she explains that they were there on that Saturday night having drinks at the bar together, but they didn't see Chrissy and they went back to their hotel room together alone. So now everything that the detectives thought they knew about Chrissy leaving the club wasn't accurate. Her friends mostly caught a quick glimpse of Jennifer and Brent, not Chrissy and another guy leaving together. But she did go to the 701 club that night without her friends. How'd she get there though? And who was she with? The friends were re-interviewed. And though they were given this new information, they held strong to the fact they know they saw Chrissy leave with a dark skinned man that night. And they knew it was her regardless of whether there was another couple that looked similar. They definitely saw Chrissy leave with a similar looking guy. The detectives go to the 701 club and they ask the staff if they recognize Chrissy. They bring a picture with them and they show all of the people, especially the bouncer, the manager at the door. And the manager recognizes Chrissy right away. And there's a reason it was because of the guy she was with that night. He was giving the bouncer issues as soon as they walked up to the door. His ID didn't quite look right. And the bouncer wanted to ask him a few questions. And this guy kind of took offense to it. He snapped back at the bouncer and it's the manager's job to keep her patron safe. And she looked at Chrissy and could tell she was nervous and scared. At that point, the manager made a mental note of this guy's appearance in case anything else were to happen inside the club that night. He was muscular, medium-build. He had high-cheap bones, dark skin, a mustache. And what she described as having a very distinctive Arseneal Hall style haircut. Now if you're not familiar, he was a famous comedian and talk show host back then. And to me, it's like a high flat top fade. Tell me what you think. Here's the picture. As you can see, it's unique and distinctive. You definitely remembered if you saw it. So now that they have this feature to go on, they interviewed the staff members from the 7-1 South Club. And they recalled seeing Chrissy and the guy having a great time together. He was a complete gentleman. She definitely wasn't there against her will. But since they had seen him get kind of loud with the bouncer, who knows what he was capable of? Maybe he had a short fuse and something happened after he had a few drinks in him and they left the bar. The manager is able to provide a sketch artist with every detail that she can recall. And they create a composite and start taking it all over the town, asking if anyone had seen this man with Chrissy. No luck. So they released the sketch to the media. Now this is the one I was able to dig up from old newspaper articles. The ones that I saw on shows were completely different. So I truly believe that this is the one they handed out and plastered all over the news. And it started to bring in a bunch of tips. One was from a guy who said he had seen this man. He frequented strip clubs according to this guy up and down the coast of Florida. Last seen in Orange County. So this is the biggest thing that they've had at this time and investigators go and they hand out flyers with Chrissy's picture and this guy's picture of two clubs all over. Regular clubs bars and even strip clubs from Daytona to Orange County, which was about an hour away towards the Orlando area. But they still do not get any leads. And on October 17th, a week after Chrissy's body was found, she had been sent back to her family in New York and they were finally able to lay her to rest. They had a beautiful memorial service at Pittsburgh Community Church and over 500 people came out to mourn the loss of Christine Lazaro. Childhood friends, college friends, family relatives, co-workers, they piled into the church to pay their respects. Frank was blown away. He said holy cow when he looked at the crowd, however, Chrissy's mom Kathleen declined to participate in the service. A family representative said she was not ready to talk about what happened. So she sat at the back of the church. She was too overwhelmed by her daughter's death and she wanted to grieve privately. There were about 20 people who spoke about their memories of Chrissy and what she meant to them. Frank said that Chrissy was trusting and curious. She embraced life and explored it. But he had a message for everyone. Something he thought Chrissy would have wanted them to hear. A word of wisdom and caution so that her loss was not in vain. He said that she would have wanted her friends to learn from her murder. His message was don't drink and drive, don't do drugs, and don't make hasty decisions. Within emphasis on the last one, Frank said quote, "I know for a fact she would say use the buddy system," end quote. This was in reference to the fact that Chrissy broke away from her friends. That she was left alone and if someone would have been with her, if someone would have been watching. If they would have used the buddy system to alert one another of their plans to leave and not have left anyone behind, she might still be there. Her dad was haunted by his daughter's voice. He imagined her calling out to him in her final moment saying, "Daddy, Daddy, help me." And knowing that he couldn't be there for her and that just broke my heart. It's got wrenching. A friend of Chrissy's named Brad Denker didn't want to speak at the actual funeral, but he did send a poem in to the newspaper that he wrote about Chrissy. And I wanted to read it to you. I remember a face of beauty with eyes that would grab your heart and a smile that shine like a star in a black and sky. Sounds of laughter and kindness that could enchant a room and bestow happiness on those around her. He ended with, "We love you Chrissy. She was very loved and lost way too soon." Detectives were determined to find the person who did this to her, but every lead that they had went cold. That's when they turned to someone more closer to home. Chrissy's boyfriend Carl. He did somewhat match the description and he was only six hours away at the time. So they tracked him down to ask him about his whereabouts. The week Chrissy was in Florida. His coach made a statement with proof of a roster that showed that Carl was in South Carolina playing a game the night that Chrissy was murdered. But still, there were hours after that that were unaccounted for, so they still needed to speak with Carl himself. And it was a good thing they did, because when they do, they get their next lead. They fly out to South Carolina. to me with him, and he's a visibly distraught. And just like Frank mentioned Carl is very polite, he cooperated fully, and unbelievably, he tells the detectives, he spoke to Chrissy the night she was murdered. No, he wasn't in Daytona. But she called him around sometime in the middle of the night. He was asleep when he answered, and he estimated it was between midnight and 2am. She sounded just fine. Bubbly, happy, told him she was having great time, but she missed him, and wanted to reach out and say hello. He said they chatted for about 30 minutes. Detectives asked if he could tell where she was calling from. And he said he was sleeping, and there wasn't much he could say, he didn't hear a lot of loud noise in the background, it wasn't a bar, but he could hear a TV on, and he didn't hear anyone else. Back then, in order to make a long distance phone call, especially when you're like out of town, you buy what's called a calling card. It basically has minutes on it, and you type in a number before the number that you want to call and be connected to, and that's how you pay for long distance charges. While Christine had one of these, and they traced the calling card, and they see that late night call, it was at 1.30 in the morning, but they can't trace where it came from. But the club 701 South is in the Texan hotel, and the timeline would match up. If Christine left razzles around midnight and made her way to the Texan, she could have placed that call either before going to that club or afterward. And maybe she was with someone that was staying at the Texan, and she was in their room. It had been 10 days, and they were still no closer to knowing what happened to Christine. And that's when Christine's friends give detectives some information that they thought was not that important in the beginning, but maybe now it would be. Remember the first night the girls got there, and they kind of laid low? Well, Chrissy kind of didn't. She went down to the hotel bar all by herself to get a drink, alone. And when she came back, she told the girls that she met a really hot bartender, named Scott Hinson. Now the girls had already mentioned this to police, but when they said he was white, they ruled him out, because it wasn't a priority to check on since she was seen with a dark skin man leaving the club the night or so they thought. So Chrissy's friends said that she and Scott had exchanged numbers and they planned to meet up sometime that week, but Chrissy couldn't wait. She decided to go out with him that night after her shift ended. However, she came back alive, and she told her friends that they just walked down the beach and talked. They go to speak with Scott at the hotel bar, and he admits, yeah, I went out on a late night walk with Chrissy, and when they show him a picture, that's when it finally hits him, that she's the spring breaker that they found murdered on Easter morning. He tells investigators he was not even in town that day, he left early Saturday morning, a day before her body was found, to celebrate the holiday with his family out in Georgia, and they confirmed his alibi. By now, all the locals in Daytona Beach are scared. Chrissy's death happened the last week of spring break when many of the students that flocked to this area were finally leaving, and her murder started a debate, including the mayor, because he was now realizing that Daytona's reputation as a place to go and let loose and party till you pass out with uncontrollable crowds was really damaging the city's image. He felt it put an undue burden on the police and the community workers who had to clean up all the mess that was left behind, but others in town who wanted their town to thrive, so that it brought in way too much money to worry about that, and it would make up for all the trouble that the spring breakers may bring. They point out there hasn't been a murder in 13 years. Sure, there were petty crimes and hotels get trashed, but they argued did anyone turn up dead till now? No. Well, an officer named Ajay Tali from the Daytona Beach Police Department said, "Listen, the reports of men forcing women to have sex with them against their will and other indecent incidents were being reported more and more, and just march alone. There was a dozen reports. It doesn't look good for the city." But more importantly, these are victims, and they're coming forward. And yes, someone did die. Just two days afterward, there was already a headline in the front page of a local newspaper that said, "Time to deemphasize spring break." It looks like the mayor got more than he bargained for when all he saw was dollar signs chasing after those MTV viewers. That case they were referring to, that happened 13 years before this, was the murder of Carol Ann Barrett. She was an 18-year-old from Ohio. She was on spring break in Daytona in March of 1980, and just like Chrissy, she had dreamed of spending her vacation in the sun. She also traveled with a group of eight of her friends, and they all stayed at the Treasure Island Inn Hotel on the beach, just like the one Chrissy's friends ran. And in Carol's case, she was partying in her hotel room with her group of friends when her and a guy decided to leave and go to a store down the street. When they were going down the hotel hallway, a man stopped them at gunpoint and forced them to open their hotel room door. He wasn't expecting to see all those people inside, but he didn't care. He proceeded to tell all of them guys and girls to strip down. Then he robbed them all and tried to kidnap a girl named Pam, but she started to scream. So he took poor Carol instead, because she was calm and quiet. Then he forced the rest of them, the whole group, onto the balcony where he locked the sliding glass door behind him. They were stuck out there screaming. No one was coming to help them, so one boy climbed onto a neighboring balcony, and he was able to knock on the door and get the people inside to call the cops. Unfortunately, he was too late. Carol's barely clothed body was later found on the side of the road 100 miles away in Jacksonville. She too shot in the head like Chrissy was. This case is still unsolved, despite the fact that a number of her friends had seen this man who took her, and they could give a clear description to the police. Both Chrissy and Carol had execution-style deaths. These are the type where there's no time to fight. You don't even realize you're going to be harmed. You're defenseless, and you're not expecting it to happen. It's quick, but it's no less horrifying. And now there's one more similarity between these two cases. They were both cold. Four months go by. Chrissy's family are desperate for answers. They put out a $100,000 reward for any information that would lead them to her killer. No one comes forward. By September, Chrissy's brother Frank finally makes his first public statement. He was at his aunt's table talking to reporters for the very first time through a pictures of Chrissy all over the house, even one from the night she was killed wearing that white baseball jersey. Frank said, "Why couldn't I protect her?" That's something that bothered him. She was all alone. His little sister didn't have a chance. And the fact he couldn't be there to save her haunted him. He told reporters that the pair were always there for each other. It was as though they knew what the other was feeling or when they were in trouble. Frank was 23 at the time and a student at the University of Rochester. The loss of his sister had torn him apart. He said it was the hardest thing he ever had to go through. She was a friend, not only a sister, and he said it crippled him, like a part of him was gone, and he wanted to make one thing clear. It wasn't Chrissy's fault that she was killed because many people had questioned why she left without her friends at night. And they placed blame on her. Frank said that tarnished his sister's memory and that she was portrayed poorly by the media as an underaged partier, a boozer, and even a drug addict, and she wasn't. He said she was a typical 20-year-old. She was doing what everyone else her age was doing. And it is something that happens. Victim blaming. She should have done that. She could have done this. And I know it's easy to judge, but we don't know what position she was in. We don't know what we would have done in a similar position, but we can only learn from these situations. And that is one of my goals in telling these stories. It is not Chrissy's fault that she was murdered. Only person that's responsible for that is the evil person who chose to commit that crime. And she wasn't a bad person. As a matter of fact, she was someone that was always there for others. She was the type to never say goodbye without saying she loved you. Frank recounted a time when he was really sick, and Chrissy was by his side all night. She even fell asleep on the floor next to his bed, taking care of him. His message was don't take things for granted. Don't take the people you love for granted. He said that the relationships he has, he treasures a more than ever, because you don't know how long they will last. He also mentioned he was trying to heal, and that he thinks Chrissy would have told him, "Go live your life with the energy and excitement that she did." He was trying. Any ended with someday, I hope I can do that, and it's so bittersweet. I think it's a great takeaway. We don't know how much time we have with anyone else so cherish every moment. And in this case, those moments went by. Months turned in two years. And Chrissy's family and investigators held onto the hope that one day, with advanced technology or some other method, her murder would be solved. It wouldn't be until 2010 when someone, who was keeping a secret about Chrissy's murder, would finally be compelled to reveal the truth. 17 years after Chrissy was found dead, a call came in to Volusia County Sheriff's Office. It was April 20, 2010. Warden Burrell Cain, from Louisiana State Penitentiary, was on the other end. This penitentiary is better known as Angola, you might have heard that name before. or it's the name of the slave plantation the prison is built on. It's a very famous prison. And the warden there at the time held the key to solving the case, a key to an inmate cell that is. Inside, they were housing 38-year-old Romallus Gordon. He was serving two back-to-back life sentences for being caught on CCTV robbing Lucky's truck stop casino in Louisiana and murdering two women execution style. Assistant manager Shaefer Francis, a 29-year-old mother of two, and a 64-year-old woman named Brenda Granny Robertson. She was an unarmed security guard. Romallus was a regular there in 2006 when the crime occurred. Shaefer, the 29-year-old he gunned down, was a hard worker who never complained about her shifts at Lucky's. She was the first to volunteer her time to help others out. She always had a great attitude according to her friends and family, and she was willing to take on extra tasks. Everyone that knew her said she was also an amazing mother who was always by her daughter's side. But now she was gone. During her time, as the assistant manager of this small casino, Shaefer monitored the flow of money from poker machines that were emptied by their employees. And she would distribute that money to players as change. Math and numbers were her thing. This was her passion, and she enjoyed her work. In her free time, she spent time watching movies with her boyfriend. Romallus Gordon's other victim, Brenda Robertson, the 64-year-old, weighed less than 100 pounds. But she was the one that always helped Lucky's stay trouble-free, and there hadn't been any trouble until this double murder occurred. Shaefer and Brenda had a great working relationship, and they loved one another like family. No one at Lucky's casino had ever felt threatened or unsafe. So these murders were a shock to everyone. The prosecution in this case was initially planning to seek the death penalty against Romallus. However, he pleaded guilty to Brenda and Shaefer's murders in exchange for two life sentences for first-degree murder in 2007. While he was serving that sentence, he heard a sermon from a visiting pastor. His name was Pastor Jim Ceballa of the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City. He visited Angola once a year in this sermon inspired Romallus to write a letter to the warden, and it was laced with biblical references like this one, where he said, "How can I praise God on one hand? And in my heart and mind, I know what pain I've caused someone for years and years. God sent me here for a reason, and until I confess what I've done, I cannot be freed from the belly of the whale." He said in his letter that the programs that the prison made him realize that you can't run from your past. He wrote, "All my family problems in sickness were because of my secret. I want to confess what I have done. I have all the details that only the murderer would have. I want to confess now. Now I'm going to hurt my own family by telling you the truth, but at the end, he wrote, "Give the family closure. It's the right thing to do." That closure was in the form of confessing to the warden that he killed Christine LeZero. Romallus told details to the warden about the murder that had never been released to the public, like the shots were at close range, and that one was to her cheek and the other above her ear. The warden relayed all this information to the police department, and they ran his name, and they saw that Romallus Gordon was arrested on a trespassing charge just 40 miles from DeBerry, where Chris's body was dumped on the side of the road just two months after her murder. When they arrested him, they confiscated a 38-calibre weapon, and that was the same caliber as the one used on Chrissy. So of course, they tried to find this gun. They wanted to see if it was stolen evidence, but it had been so long, and because they didn't know that it was connected to any other crimes, especially a bigger crime, it had been destroyed. Detectives flew out to Louisiana to speak with Romallus, to make sure he was telling the truth. And right away, he becomes very emotional. The detectives do not think that he's putting on a show. By this time, the inmate, he works as an orderly at the prison. He's in charge of making sure that other inmates that have committed disciplinary offenses are on their best behavior, and Romallus has a really good conduct report. He truly seemed to want to just get the secret off of his chest. Once they believe that they've got their man, they have a lot of questions, and the biggest one is why? Why? He explains that he was 21 years old at the time. He moved to Orlando about four months before the murder, and he was on the run from police in Louisiana. And one night, he was having some fun, hanging out in Daytona for spring break, and he ran into Chrissy at razzles. They started chatting, and they were hitting it off. He really liked her. They were having a great time, so he kind of wanted to impress her, and he lied about what he did for a living. He said he was a really rich record producer. So they leave, and they go to the seven-in-one club. They grab some food, and then they went to his motel room that was out in DeBerry, according to him. They had sex together, and he had also done a lot of cocaine and had been drinking all night long. Chrissy had made a phone call when he went to the bathroom to do some more drugs. He said when he came out, he saw Chrissy going through some of his things, which included a couple of his fake IDs, and he had warrants for his arrest. He was using an alias at the time. So when he saw her doing this, he believed in the state of mind he was in. He was super paranoid. He believed she was going to turn him in. At first, he said he was just going to drop her back off in Daytona Beach, but instead, he just freaked out, according to him, on the way to drop her off, and he told her to get out of the car, and that's when he ended up taking her life instead. Wow. A completely senseless motive. There was never any indication that Christine ever had intercourse with him, or with anyone before her murder. So I'm not really sure I believe that this is exactly how things went down, but if I were to give my perspective, it would be mere speculation. We will never know the truth. I just kind of find it hard to believe because it really reminds me of the Samantha Chosephs in case, and we all know there was a big struggle in that one and not in this case. Her malice wrote a letter to Chrissy's dad, asking him for forgiveness, and it was something that wasn't easy for Frank to read, or to come to terms with. How could he forgive this man that had callously taken his innocent daughter's life? But he's a question, and he thought about it, and he realized he wasn't the ultimate judge, so he was able to extend forgiveness to this man. But Chrissy's friends did not feel the same way, and I think I have to lean more towards signing with her friends on this one. After hearing that someone had confessed to Chrissy's murder, it brought them back to that day in that hotel room when they first got the news. Rita said she hates her malice. She doesn't matter if he's sorry, it doesn't bring Chrissy back, it doesn't fix anything, and Kelly said she's thankful that he confessed, but she believes that he should pay. For taking away their friend and for taking someone's life, and he will pay, he is paying. A year later on May 25, 2011, Ramallah scored an pleaded guilty to Chrissy's murder. He was given yet another life sentence in Angola Prison, and this was a case that Detective Palermo, who was now retired by that time, had never forgotten. So he was so happy that the family could get closure, and also to know that Chrissy's killer was behind bars forever. He doesn't think this case would have ever been solved. They put so much work into it, but without this confession, they would probably never know who killed Chrissy. This was another very sad case. My heart goes out to all of Chrissy's friends and family members. Thank you all for spending time today hearing Chrissy's story, and let's remember to never leave any of our friends behind. Thank you so much, I will see you in one of my next videos. Bye.