The Detective and the Chewing Gum Sting

He was a predator of women. He stalked women. He assaulted women. He looked for that power and control. That's what fed him. He's a patient predator. He told me how long it took him to turn the knob of the door so that nobody would hear him. I was woken up with a knife at my throat. Someone grabbing the back of my head and said, if you scream, I'm going to slit your throat. When you look at the crime scene photos, it's impossible not to see all the victims, how connected all of these crimes were. The crime scenes were very, very similar. And the murders were very similar. This went around her, around her neck. It did. That's just terrifying. I saw the stuff that makes nightmares. It's an image that it's as clear now as it was 47 years ago. The women were bound the same way with electrical cords. He used her radio alarm clock cord to bind her ankles. What do you have here? What's this tangle of cord? This is the ligature. Judy Weaver's telephone extension cord that was used to bind her from her neck to her wrists and then to her ankles. To me, it looked like someone took their time torturing her. How would you describe the person who was capable of committing a crime like that? Psychopathic. Monstrous. A sadist. He was a boogeyman. He has no idea that you are hot on his trail. You have to get confirmation of his DNA and you hatch a plan. We were going to go undercover and we were going to represent a healthy energy gum line, Zoltz Energy Gum. The detective usually goes in with a SWAT team. You're now armed with bubble gum. Is that right? Yeah, gum, yeah. So you're going to have this gum and what, knock on his door? Yeah. Exactly what you needed to do a DNA test. Yes. Peter Van Sant reports. The detective and the chewing gum sting. Detective Susan Logitheti lives her professional life deep in the past, investigating cold cases at the Everett Police Department north of Seattle. I love that people who thought they could get away with it 40 years ago are looking over their shoulder now wondering what they left behind. One case in particular from 1984 came to consume her. The killing of Judy Weaver, 42, a divorced mother and a manager of a bar and cafe. It was called the Bell Ness Cafe, one of the roughest bars on U.N.L. Avenue, if not the roughest. Judy Weaver was beloved by her rowdy regulars for her generous shots of hard liquor and for being a little rough around the edges herself. She could stand up to anybody. The former local beauty queen could turn ugly when it came to dealing with intoxicated patrons, says her daughter Kathy. She'd just throw them out. What, grab them by the collar and you're out of here? By the back of the neck, back of the pants. This is the beauty queen? This is her mom when she was the salmon derby queen. She was a good mom. Judy's other daughter, Colleen. She worked hard to make sure us girls had what we needed. For years, it was just the three of them, Colleen, Kathy, and their mom. But all that changed when Judy started dating the owner of the bar, Bill Richards. This is Bill Richards, my mom's boyfriend. They eventually got engaged. Judy's daughters didn't like him very much. He didn't treat my mom very well. He was mean to her. He'd yell at her. He hit her a few times. Did you witness that? I never witnessed it, but I've seen the bruises. Wanting a fresh start, on the evening of June 1, 1984, Phil and Judy popped some champagne. They were celebrating the sale of the Bell Ness. They were there with friends, and they were partying. Judy, she got pretty excited. She got pretty tipsy that night. Too tipsy to drive and too tired to wait for a cab, Judy decided to walk home, leaving Bill at the bar. Their apartment was about a half mile away. At some point, along these darkened streets, Judy was spotted and followed. This is where Judy Weaver would have walked to, to come home. That last door you see down here? Judy likely left the back door unlocked when she came home. She goes inside. What do you believe happens next? He comes, finds the door unlocked, and enters, and attacks Judy. About an hour later, says Logothetti, a neighbor saw smoke billowing out of Judy Weaver's apartment. When firefighters enter that apartment, what do they find? The bedroom door was closed. When they opened it, it was filled with black smoke. Inside the smoldering bedroom was Judy Weaver, tied up and motionless. She was obviously deceased. Why do you suppose the suspect set this fire? To cover up the evidence and destroy the scene. Logothetti spent hours examining the physical evidence, the silent witnesses to murder. This was a pillowcase found next to Judy Weaver's body, and it's believed that it was covering her head. There's blood on it. Her clothes have been cut with a knife. It just looks like he did one straight shot. Cutting all along this line, you can see. In one straight line. And up here. Because she didn't have cuts on her body, I feel like he took his time doing this. Drawing out the terror, right? Yes. And what did that suggest about the assailant, someone who's somehow took pleasure in inflicting this kind of pain and ultimately death? He's a monster. And I didn't believe that he hadn't done it before. Judy Weaver was bound, sexually assaulted, and strangled. I was told that her hands were tied. And at that moment was when I, you know, took a second for that to sink in, what that meant. And I instantly thought of Bill, and out loud, I said, "Oh, my God, he killed her this time." Other men were questioned, but it was Judy's fiancé, Bill Richards, who emerged as the prime suspect. My only suspect was Bill. But there was not enough evidence to charge him or to clear him. Bill Richards died in 1994, still a suspected murderer. He was the prime suspect for 40 years. In January of 2023, this coldest of cold cases got another look. Logothetti says a colleague back then believed recent advances in DNA technology might finally identify Judy Weaver's killer. He told me it was likely Bill Richards, but he sent in evidence just to confirm it. Months later, the DNA results landed on Logothetti's desk, revealing a match — and a name. To her surprise, that name was not Bill Richards. Detective Logothetti hoped a four-decade-long mystery was about to be solved. In the Judy Weaver cold case, there was a DNA hit. And with that hit comes a name. Yes. What name appeared? Mitchell Allen Gaff. A name she had never heard. I immediately did a routine name check, and the first thing I see is Mitchell Allen Gaff is a level three registered sex offender and a sexually violent predator. What does a level three offender mean? They are the most likely to reoffend. Detective Logothetti poured over Mitchell Gaff's case file. He was a free man after decades of incarceration for ultra-violent sexual assaults. His first known target, Jackie Brown. She was a young police officer, beautiful woman, mowing her lawn and caught Gaff's eye. He was just out walking in her neighborhood. Right? He was. It was the day before Thanksgiving 1979. you're in this very spot where are we right now we're in the backyard of my house i had just finished mowing the backyard you're in your garage putting the lawnmower away what happens i heard someone yell get down on your knees and don't turn around of course i turned around and is he standing right about where i am he's standing right about here a young man she says was pointing a gun just inches from her head he took the gun and slammed it across the side of my head he kept hitting me he kept kneeing me and i thought he's gonna rape me and i just kept talking i said talking pleading and plotting jackie tried and failed to coax him out of the garage and into her bedroom because i slept with the 30-year-old 38 caliber smith and wesson under my pillow and i knew that i'd blow his brains out and i would have and then he said put your hands behind your back in that whirlwind of fear a childhood memory came rushing back says jackie a lesson from her father if attacked fight like hell and he would say fight fight kick me what are you gonna do fight dirty if you have to when the assailant put down the gun to handcuff him he said i'm gonna kill you i'm gonna kill you i'm gonna kill you i'm gonna kill you i'm gonna kill you you bitch all of a sudden he pulled out a hunting knife and he slashed me where'd he slash you across my left palm and again i shoved him and i just ran out of the garage and i sprint down the alley are you thinking he's right behind you absolutely yes i was screaming for help so i'm flying down the middle of the road here a neighbor heard the commotion and called police it wasn't long before everett pd officers detained a man down by the railroad tracks not far away they needed jackie to identify him when we pulled up i looked and we were this far away and i said that's not him he wasn't wearing anything that i described so you're thinking they got the wrong guy they got the wrong guy yeah she started to leave but something inside jackie caused her to turn around and i i said say something to me and i said it again really loud and he turned and he said what the do you want me to say and as soon as he said that i knew it was him wow i lunged for him you lunged for i lunged for him her attacker then 21 year old mitchell gaff was arrested police later found his duffel bag which contained the clothes he had worn during the attack gaff was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon but as a first-time offender he was sentenced to one year of work release and five years of probation what was that like for you to know he was out on the street awful awful he got to carry on with his life and it changed mine forever combing through the case file detective logothetti began connecting the dots she realized that mitchell gaff was still on probation for the jackie brown assault when judy weaver was murdered in june 1984. by the end of august gaff struck again this house right here is the house where the teenage sisters angela and myra were attacked and assaulted by mitchell gaff in august of 1984. angela was 14. myra was 16. it was close to midnight they were both asleep angela on the living room couch myra down the hall in her bedroom the front door was unlocked mitchell gaff slowly silently crept into the house says logothetti collecting cords for ligatures and a knife from the kitchen after he found the items he wanted in within the home he went to angela first he grabbed me by my hair and pushed my head back and had a knife to my throat and said if you scream i'm going to slit your throat in a 1996 interview on 60 minutes australia angela and myra then 27 and 29 relived the most terrifying two and a half hours of their lives some cloth was shoved all the way down my throat and a gag was put on and a pillowcase thrown over my head and then mitchell gaff tied up the teenage sisters and he proceeds to rape each of them was it headed toward a killing then of two young girls 100 he grabs a blow dryer and uses the cord to strangle angela but he's choking her he's killing her and it's my belief that he's going to kill her and my reaction was to protect her of course myra took her free leg and started kicking him and screaming he lost control and came over and just beat me to a pulp he went over to start hitting her and i just all of a sudden got up got up and just took off out the door she comes out of that front door she's sprinting where does she go she comes right over here to this house her neighbor's house over here i was naked and i ran across down my yard all the way through across the street to the next door's neighbor she couldn't understand why she couldn't scream and she realized that this blow dryer cord was still wrapped tightly knotted around her neck so she took the blow dryer and started hitting their door with the blow dryer that was around my neck and what does angela shout he's killing myra he's killing myra horrified neighbors called police and turned just in time to see gaff run out the front door fully naked and run off into the darkness myra and angela had saved each other mitchell gaff was arrested about a week later in september 1984. married with a pregnant wife gaff was convicted of aggravated rape and served 10 years in prison considered too dangerous to release he was sent here to mcneil island in washington for therapeutic treatment and possibly indefinite civil detention the only way these guys could get out was to convince people that they were no longer a threat tom junot has authored dozens of acclaimed articles and written his first book a memoir in 1995 he profiled mitchell gaff for gq magazine and is now a member of the police department of the state court of the state court of the state of the state junot spent several days with the man prosecutors have called the boogeyman and was struck by his mellow demeanor did you ever see on his face in his eyes a flash of danger 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 gaff was released in 2018 having spent 23 years in civil confinement and in therapy there were some professionals there who did think that they had cured him since then logotheti says gaff became a buddhist married a man and changed his name to sam wise price detective logotheti said gaff now in his 60s appears to be living a peaceful life but knowing his violent past logotheti shifted her focus back 40 years to the judy weaver murder and that dna breakthrough linking gaff to her killing but logotheti said she now needed a fresh sample to lock him up for good logotheti had a plan that centered on a stick of chewing gum i really thought it was a long shot do you have a dark curiosity heart starts pounding horrors hauntings and mysteries is a weekly podcast hosted by me kailyn moore each week i'll take you on a dark journey through terrifying true urban legends bizarre true crime cases chilling tales of backwoods horror and more so if you're looking to join a passionate community of the darkly curious check out heart starts pounding on the free odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts and remember stay curious it was bold ingenious and risky the detective usually goes in with a swat team you're now armed with bubble gum is that right yeah yeah detective susan logotheti believed mitchell gaff had gotten away with murdering judy weaver for almost 40 years she was going to change that but first she had to prove it this is items we used in the gum ruse and proving it meant coming up with a plan to collect fresh dna from her prime suspect a plan that involved going undercover to fool gaff into sampling some chewing gum we were going to represent a healthy energy gum line that we were launching at safeway and it was called the name of this company zolt energy gum they knew from surveillance that gaff rarely left the home, so they decided to go to him. I tried to doll up a little bit that day, hoping that would help our chances. On the morning of January 17th, 2024, three detectives, clad in their Zolt Energy t-shirts, knocked on Mitchell Gaff's front door. And he kind of opens the door crack, and we start giving our gum excitement, spiel. This is what that gum looked like. They gave him four unmarked pieces to compare two flavors, watermelon and tropical fruit. Gaff went with it. He chewed that gum. It was like he was at a wine tasting. He was talking about the notes of this and hints of that. You're sort of the gum sommelier. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm writing notes. Oh, oh, he got into it. After each tasting, he would spit the gum into a container held by one of the other detectives. I could see the saliva coming out of his mouth, on the gum, in the container. Yes. After about 30 minutes, they said their goodbyes. Detective Logofedi immediately sent the chewed gum to the crime lab. And the results came back in record time. Everything was confirmed. As far as the DNA, there was vaginal swabs, her shirt, the ligatures. They all matched to Mitchell Gaff. They all matched. Police showed up at the Lucky Lunchbox, Gaff's favorite breakfast spot. We're here to talk to Sam. Sam, Mitchell Gaff's new name. There's some detectives that'd like to talk to you down at the police station. - That's interesting. - Yes. I don't know what it's about. He was completely off guard. Before we let you in, we just gotta pat you down for weapons and stuff like that. - I'll hold your sandwich and stuff. - No, no, no. Do I need, like, ID or anything, or.? Eh, no, we know who you are. When they arrive at the local sheriff's office, Gaff is led up the stairs to the interview room. Hi, he could be Logofedi. Detective Logofedi, whom Gaff didn't seem to recognize as the Zolt gum tester, finally has him where she wants him. She gently broaches the subject at hand. Well, you know, you don't want to know why we're here. Oh, yeah, 'cause right now, yeah, my anxiety and my adrenaline are off the chart. - I'm like, "What the hell?" - Oh, okay. I'm scared what this is about because, holy crap, I've been out for a while, I've done nothing. Detectives Logofedi and Karen Kowalczyk, on the left, back off the subject until Gaff, can't take the suspense any longer. Why are we here? What.? Um. Why are we here? You didn't answer that? No. Okay, you wanted to hold off. I did hold off. So, instead, she steers the conversation to the crimes he was convicted of. I wanted him to talk about how he picked women that he raped. Though she knows from her conversations with the sisters that he is lying. Mitchell Gaff, while he was raping Myra and Angela, told her, I came here for you, but I couldn't pass up the little treasure that was on the couch, meaning her sister. He does admit, however, that he would have killed them if Angela hadn't made that escape. I think I had, yeah, I think I had decided that I needed to kill them. The detective then circles back to Judy Weaver. There is an incident, and that happened in Everett, where there was a coded pic to your DNA. And that's kind of what brought it here today. I mean, do you have any idea what the link is? No. I think so, yes. That's what I want. Mitchell Gaff could see where this conversation was going. I gave him a copy of the warrant. And then he went into denial mode. He was like, what? What? Wait a minute, this says murder. I didn't kill anyone. Nobody died, no. She was fine. The thing is, is she wasn't fine. Um, I think you know that deep down. There she is. No idea. I don't know who that is. Okay. I mean, there's kind of DNA all over her body. Okay. I don't remember this, but. Okay. I really don't. Um. The detectives take DNA swabs. This is really bad. This isn't even a rape. This is f***ing murder. It's like, I guess she probably had some legal advice. At this point, you're going to be placed under arrest for the murder of Judith Lieber. The elusive case. The elusive killer undone by a piece of chewing gum. In January 2025, Detective Susan Logathetti was in the thick of the Judy Weaver murder investigation, preparing for trial. The last thing she expected was this voicemail. My name is Ken Vesey. My wife was murdered. On July 12th of 1980, you guys have stumbled through doing absolutely nothing about it. Detective Logathetti had never heard the name Ken Vesey before, but that didn't stop her. I called him immediately. I let him know that I was unfamiliar with the case, and I was hoping he could tell me more. And so he did. Ken described in horrifying detail finding his 21-year-old wife, Susan Vesey, hog-tied on the floor of her bedroom, sexually violated and strangled. I said to him, "I need to go get your wife's file, and I'm going to call you back." And I spent every night reading the file. During that time, I talked to Ken Vesey a lot. Ken Vesey had lived under a shadow of doubt for more than 40 years, as a subject of a law firm. Ken Vesey had lived under a shadow of doubt for more than 40 years, as a suspect in his wife's murder. But Detective Logothetti saw the sinister signature of another man in those pages: Mitchell Gaff. It was all there. This would have been part of the neck ligature as well. The strangulation, the electrical cords. So this went around her neck? It did. The clothes cut off. So these are super-thin clothes. These are Susan's jeans that she was wearing the day of. I called the forensic scientist and I asked, "Can I send some evidence up in this 1980 case to be compared with Mitchell Gaff's DNA that we got in the gum rooms?" The answer was yes. Three months later, the report was in her inbox. Mitchell Gaff's DNA was all over the Susan Vesey crime scene. One of the first calls she made was to Ken Vesey. I said we got him. I said it was Mitchell Gaff. Prosecutor Craig Matheson, who was preparing for trial in the Judy Weaver case, immediately hit Mitchell Gaff with a second charge, the murder of Susan Vesey. So it was, at that point, you know, game on. But Matheson and his co-counsel, Sarah Johnson, who was in charge of the murder of Susan Vesey, Sarah Johnson, knew the Vesey case would be tough. We didn't know if there was anyone alive who had been in the crime scene, who could talk about what they saw. But thankfully, Mike Perrin was there and he remembered everything. Mike Perrin was a young detective at the time. What do you see as you enter the apartment? The person who we later identified as Susan Vasey was on her back, deceased, a sign that she'd been abused sexually and probably tortured also. Whoever did that had a lot of hate. There's some things that humans aren't meant to see, and this is one of those times. It's an image that is as clear now as it was 47 years ago. Detective Perrin later learned that Susan's two-year-old daughter and three-month-old son Josh had been found alive in the apartment, Josh on the bed next to where his mother lay dead. Just to this day. Thank God that he spared both the children. Ken Vasey was the one who called 911. At the time, Ken and Susan were getting back together after a brief split. He told detectives he had worked the graveyard shift at a gas station the night of the murder. When he returned to the apartment around 10:30 the morning of July 12th, the door was locked. He climbed up the balcony and entered the apartment. He grabbed a knife to cut some of the ligatures off. He tried to do both mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions. That didn't work. It was way too late. Your instinct told you what about Ken's story. Was he credible to you? He was credible. He was as upset as any human I've ever seen. Despite having an airtight alibi, witnesses corroborated Ken's story. Ken Vasey was a man of his word. He was a man of his word. He was credible. Despite having an airtight alibi, witnesses corroborated he was at work. Some detectives on the case continue to believe Ken somehow was the killer. I knew it couldn't be Ken. He loved her. She was the love of his life, you know. Paula Keeler and Susan Vesey were best friends since childhood. We were soul sisters. There was a lot of unconditional love between the two of us. She was a woman who loved life and loved people. And always longed to be a mother. Susan was a very loving, nurturing mother, a very caring mother, a very attentive mother. Susan Vesey turned 21 on July 11, 1980. Before she was discovered dead, the two friends, who at the time lived four hours apart, spoke on the phone for the last time on Susan's birthday. We would always say, "I love you." And those were her last words to me. Decades passed without answers, 45 years of heartbreak before Detective Logothetti made her breakthrough. She found him. She found him. She found him. She found him. She found him. She found him. She found him. It's changed my life. I'm afraid to be alone. He knows how much we're hurt. He did it to us. will die behind bars. For the first time in 47 years, Jackie Brown believes she can reclaim what she lost, maybe even start listening to music again. I will forget it now. I'm determined with the sentence that Judge Okoloko put on gaff this time. Paula Keeler hopes Susan Vesey can now shed the tragedy that overshadowed her life. I don't want her to be defined by how she left this world. I want her to be defined by the amazing person that she is, what she stood for in her life, and what she lived for while she had the short life that she had. As the sentencing hearing ends, Detective Susan Logothetti, there with her back to us, approaches the man she pursued as relentlessly as he pursued the women he attacked. It was important for me to handcuff him myself. I just felt like for his victims, a woman should be the one putting the handcuffs on him and walking him into custody where he wasn't going to be free again. It was important for me to make sure he didn't have to go to jail for the crime he had committed.