but in the end, people are going to remember him for one thing. being a horrible coward bully. ♪ [ phone ringing ] hello. may i ask who's calling? >> in december of 1994, joanne told friends about a disturbing telephone call she received from someone she had never met. >> stop calling here! >> three days later jo ann and her 4-month-old son disappeared without a trace. records could not identify the caller but investigators suspected the incident might hold the key to their disappearance.

♪ ♪ jo ann was a strikingly attractive young woman, a good student and an outstanding athlete who hoped to pursue a career in the fashion and beauty industry. >> she was very concerned about her appearance. she was very very pretty. i mean, she made sure every hair was in place before she even took the garbage out. she was a very loving child. >> joann was known to family and friends for her upbeat personality and optimism. qualities that were tested when her first marriage ended in a painful divorce. in 1992, she met andrew katranik, a building contractor 14 years her senior and the two hit it off immediately despite

the age difference. after a brief courtship, they married and the couple moved into andrew's home in the small, working-class town of catasauqua, pennsylvania. and 15 months later, joanne gave birth to a healthy baby boy called alex. she called her mother-in-law at 1:15 in the afternoon. she said her and the baby would be right over to pick her up so the three of them could go christmas shopping together. but joanne and the baby never arrived. andrew came home from work around 6:30. he was surprised to find that his wife and son were not home. the baby's diaper bag was missing, joanne's purse was gone, too, so were their winter coats. there was nothing out of place inside the home, no money or valuables were missing. the only thing andrew noticed was that the hinge on the

basement door was pried from the door jamb, and the telephone line in the basement had been cut. four hours later at 10:30 that night, andrew called police to report his wife and son missing. relatives found joanne's car down the street in the parking lot of a local bar, not in its usual location in the alley behind her house. although it was locked, joanne's keys were inside the car. on the back headrest were several strands of long blond hair which did not belong to joanne since she was brunette. on the distal end of the hairs were microscopic traces of dried blood. dna analysis revealed the blood was either from joanne or her son, alex. investigators also began to check out andrew's alibi, that he had been at work all day on a construction site. >> he's the last person that sees her alive. the vast majority of homicides

are committed by a person who the victim knows. so you can't just eliminate that by accepting that an individual says, i wasn't there, i was at work. >> they said that he must have something to do with the fact that she's disappeared. the police actually said that, oh, she probably ran away with someone. in a million years, joanne would never never have run away. i was quite angry with the police, that they accused andy. >> days passed, then weeks. when the banks reported there had been no activity on joanne's credit cards, it was becoming painfully clear that joann and

alex had been the victims of foul play. so,as my personal financial psychic, i'm sure you know what this meeting is about. yes, a raise. i'm letting you go. i knew that. you see, this is my amerivest managed... balances. no. portfolio. and if doesn't perform well for two consecutive gold. quarters. quarters...yup. then amerivest gives me back their advisory... stocks. fees. fees. fees for those quarters. yeah. so, i'm confident i'm in good hands. for all the confidence you need. td ameritrade. you got this. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ welcome back. thank you. it's not home. but with every well considered detail, it becomes one step closer. no wonder more people choose delta than any other airline. (mom) when our little girl was we got a subaru. it's where she said her first word. (little girl) no! saw her first day of school. (little girl) bye bye! made a best friend forever. the back seat of my subaru is where she grew up. what? (announcer) the 2015 subaru forester (girl) what?

(announcer) built to be there for your family. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

christmas passed and so did new year's of 1995, still with no sign of 26-year-old joann or her infant son, alex. they lived on a busy street across from a local bar. neighbors said they saw nothing suspicious on the day of joann's disappearance. police were skeptical that joann and her baby could have been abducted in broad daylight. four months after they were reported missing, the worst fears of the police were confirmed. in the remote stretch of rural farmland, a farmer plowing his field noticed what first appeared to be a bundle of clothing. when he looked closer he discovered the decomposed body of a woman lying on her back, and on her chest, a baby. about 40 feet away was a baby rattle, shaped like a phone.

it was alex's favorite toy. close to the bodies was a milk bottle and diaper bag, with two long blond hairs still attached. the hairs were microscopically similar to the hairs found on the headrest of joann's car. since joann's jewelry was found with the body, the motive did not appear to be robbery. an autopsy discovered that joann had been shot once in the face at point-blank range with a .22 caliber pistol. she had also been beaten. >> due to the fact that she sustained one gunshot wound to the face and then approximately 19 blows to the head led us to believe that the gun probably had jammed. because of the gun jamming, the assailant had to resort to the blunt object and beat her about the head. >> the coroner was not sure

whether little alex had died from exposure or had been suffocated. >> i can remember to this day, seeing that infant being lifted off the abdomen of his mother. it certainly tugged at our heartstrings, it brought a tear to my eye. if nothing more, it certainly galvanized the law enforcement community and got us moving in the right direction. >> the bodies were found in an extremely remote area, about 15 miles from their home, which told investigators something important about the killer. >> the victims were on the trail, so after inspecting the scene very thoroughly, we felt very strongly the person who had killed joann and alex had been in this area before and was familiar with these trails. >> the trails were used by horseback riders and andrew told police one of his former

girlfriends managed a horse stable, the silver shadow farms, just a mile down the road. her name was patricia aurora. she and andrew lived together for two years in the 1980s and again, briefly in 1991. when they broke up, patricia moved to north carolina, had a child with another man and had been living there ever since. when police questioned patricia at her home in north carolina, they immediately noticed she was a brunette and not blond. >> you patricia? >> like the hairs found on the car and diaper bag. she said she was in north carolina on the day of the disappearance in pennsylvania and had witnesses to prove it. >> thanks for your time. >> i think she gave us something like four or five alibis where she was at. one, she was at a private club,

one, she was out buying feed for horses. one, she was at a tanning salon. >> but andrew had another surprise for investigators. he remembered that patricia called his home just three days before his wife and son disappeared. joann answered the phone and when patricia identified herself -- the two argued. >> look, andy has told you to stop calling here. we have a baby now and are happy together. just leave us alone, stop calling here. >> patricia denied making that call and her home telephone records confirmed her story. with brunette hair, an alibi and no evidence she called their home, investigators feared they had hit a dead-end. many people clean their dentures with toothpaste or plain water. and even though their dentures look clean,

in reality they're not. if a denture were to be put under a microscope, we can see all the bacteria that still exists on the denture, and that bacteria multiplies very rapidly. that's why dentists recommend cleaning with polident everyday. polident's unique micro clean formula works in just 3 minutes, killing 99.99% of odor causing bacteria. for a cleaner, fresher, brighter denture every day.

♪ expected wait time: 55 minutes. your call is important to us. thank you for your patience. waiter! vo: in the nation, we know how it feels when you aren't treated like a priority. we do things differently. we'll take care of it. vo: we put members first... join the nation. thank you. ♪ nationwide is on your side

investigators wanted to know as accurately as possible when joann and alex katrinak were killed. although the bodies were discovered four months after they disappeared, it wasn't clear how long the bodies had been in the field. the bodies contained evidence of insect activity and police asked

a forensic entomologist of penn state university for analysis of what the insect activity revealed about the time of death? >> this case was complicated because two bodies involved, two victims involved. at the same time that a body were laying on the ground in the wild in winter-time. and so that there are different waves of insect attacks, insect invasions to the body. >> first, dr. kim found the hard outer shell of a species of blow fly that had progressed to its final stage of development. dr. kim also found another species. it was just beginning its third and final stage of development.

these two factors told dr. kim that the bodies had been in the field for at least 51 days, since early february. when dr. kim looked at the local weather conditions, he also noticed another important piece of information. between december 21st and the 28th, local temperatures were unseasonably warm, reaching 50 degrees. the perfect conditions for these two species to mate and lay eggs. investigators now knew that the bodies had not been placed in the field recently, they were there since february and possibly as early as december, the time of the abduction. patricia rorrer's telephone records revealed she made long distance telephone calls from home almost everyday. but there were no calls made between december 11th and the 16th, suggesting she was not in north carolina when joann katrinak and her son were abducted.

patricia said she was at the cowboys nightclub in north carolina on the night of the abduction. a state law requires all patrons of the club to sign in. but patricia rorrer was not signed in on that date. patricia rorrer also denied owning a .22 caliber pistol and a search of her home turned up nothing. but one of her old boyfriends contradicted her. he told police patricia rorrer owned a .22 chrome-plated semi-automatic weapon like this one and said the gun had a unique characteristic. >> the unusual feature about the gun, he stated, the fact you fire one shot out of the gun and the gun would jam. you couldn't fire a second shot. that really caught our attention, of course. >> police still had the problem with the blond hair found at the scene and in the victim's car, since patricia rorrer was a brunette.

>> we were sitting in our office one day and we were discussing how could we determine what color patricia rorrer's hair was at the time of the murder. and we both agreed the only way to do that was try to obtain a picture of her in and around the time of the murder. >> after a little digging, police discovered that patricia rorrer competed in a horse show in guthrie, oklahoma in december of 1994, and had won a prize at the competition. the pictures of the winners that day showed patricia rorrer with bleached blonde hair. the picture was taken 11 days before joe and alex disappeared. prosecutors needed more than just a photograph, they needed to know for certain whether the blonde hair at the crime scene belonged to patricia rorrer.

intercourse that's painful due noboto menopausal changesit... it's not likely to go away on its own. so let's do something about it. premarin vaginal cream can help

it provides estrogens to help rebuild vaginal tissue and make intercourse more comfortable. premarin vaginal cream treats vaginal changes due to menopause and moderate-to-severe painful intercourse caused by these changes. don't use it if you've had unusual bleeding, breast or uterine cancer, blood clots, liver problems, stroke or heart attack, are allergic to any of its ingredients or think you're pregnant. side effects may include headache, pelvic pain, breast pain, vaginal bleeding and vaginitis. estrogens may increase your chances of getting cancer of the uterus, strokes, blood clots or dementia so use it for the shortest time based on goals and risks. estrogen should not be used to prevent heart disease, heart attack, stroke or dementia. ask your doctor about premarin vaginal cream.

"what is it that we can do that is impactful?" what the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers. it used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day. whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, that's what i'd like to do.

the blonde hairs next to the diaper bag next to joanne katrinak's body and in the car did not contain enough root material for traditional dna testing. investigators only hope was to try a new type of dna test, one

that had never been admitted into evidence in a pennsylvania trial, something called mitochondrial dna. traditional dna analyzing the nucleus of the cell. but outside the nucleus are mitochondria that can be identified although not as precisely as traditional dna testing. >> most hairs from crime scenes have very, very little amounts of dna. however, there is more mitochondrial dna, however there is more dna therefore in hairs obtained from crime scenes most of the time we can't obtain the dna convention where we would fail with neek leer analysis. >> to identify the dna sequence, a pcr test was conducted and the dna sequences from the blonde

hair matched patricia's dna profile. this was enough to convince prosecutors that patricia was at the crime scene and inside joann katrinak's car. she was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. prosecutors believe that she was in pennsylvania and not north carolina when she called for andrew katrinak. >> hello? may i ask who is calling? >> when joann answered the phone, patricia's hopes of meeting andrew for old times sake were quickly dashed. >> we have a baby now. we're happy together. just leave us alone. stop calling here. >> when joann hung up, prosecutors believe rorrer got angry and sought revenge.

for the next three days, rorrer stalked the katrinaks' home to observe joann's daily routine. on december 15th around 1:00 p.m., patricia broke into the basement and overheard joann on the telephone with her mother-in-law. >> we're about ready to leave, okay? >> when she heard katrinak was leaving, she decided to wait for them outside in the alley. and cut the telephone line to prevent any further calls. >> do as i say and don't make any noise. >> at gunpoint, patricia forced joann into her car, ordering her to drive to the remote farm land. >> no! [ gunshot ] patricia rorrer fired a single shot into joanne katrinak. and when the pistol jammed, beat

her to death. the baby was left on her mother's chest and the murder weapon was never found but patricia left two bleach blonde hairs at the crime scene and some hair stained with the victim's blood in joann's car as she drove it back to town. at the trial, patricia rorrer's defense team scoffed at the notion that an alleged argument she had with joann was a believable motive for murder. >> the defense said come on, that can't be a motive. normal people don't act like that. and he was right. normal people don't act like that but this particular person is not normal and acted that way. >> after two hours of deliberation, the jury found patricia rorrer guilty of both murderers and she was sentenced to life in prison. >> she's going to have to live with what she did, and i hope

her life isn't happy because mine isn't. i tried to get on with my life and i've made some, you know, strides. but you never, ever get over the loss of a child or a grandchild. >> the case was a first in the state of pennsylvania, and was only the third time in the united states that a conviction was secured with mitochondrial dna. >> this case is a classic example of the power of mitochondrial dna. the only frefsds in this case were the three hairs from the crime scene. three hairs that unless you looked hard for you might easily pass over. >> i'd have to say this, in all my years in law enforcement, the katrinak investigation is one of the finest pieces of police work that i've had the pleasure of being involved in. there were many unique challenges to this

investigation, the technology that we employed and the development of at least one key piece of forensic evidence was literally 21st century technology in the 20th century. >> all homes have a history, which includes the memories, hopes, and dreams of all who have lived there. but this home, in a quiet, upscale neighborhood in suburban new york, held something more. in a steel drum, stored in a crawl space, was a secret that someone had hoped would last a lifetime. september 2, 1999, was moving day for the cohen family in jericho, new york.