>> she's on a conveyer belt. only her feet were exposed. the workers thought it was a mannequin. her last hours on earth were not pleasant. >> young women murdered or missing. families in anguish. >> i would text her and she would text right back, but this time nothing. >> when they killed her, they killed me. >> a serial killer at work, and maybe he had a friend. >> that's crazy. they don't work together, serial killers are loners. >> very rare.

>> two suspected killers on the hunt. hunting them, a detective devoted to justice and more. >> it's almost like you adopted these young women. >> there was a lot of visits to my local church, saying, please don't let me screw this up. >> "good and evil". hello, and welcome to "dateline extra". i'm craig melvin. they were horrific crimes. young women with their whole lives ahead of them. sexual assaulted. it would take a determined detective willing to go into dark places to unravel it. here's keith morrison. >> reporter: how do you measure a mother's love or gauge the veracity of her impulse to protect? >> i loved her as much as i could. >> reporter: how to measure love as visceral as the beating heart

in her own body? >> she was my first born. she was my best friend. >> reporter: how to understand the four mothers and their connection, one that not one of them would ever have thought possible, not in a million years. anymore than they would have expected to meet her, their guardian angel. >> if i don't bring her home, who will? >> reporter: it's a rare mystery that's truly a confrontation of good and evil. >> you have to go to the dark places in order to find answers. >> reporter: a rare mystery that needed an urgent answer before the evil struck again. it was march 14, 2014, early morning. an army of garbage trucks made their growling clanking way around the thousands of dumpsters and trash bins in anaheim, california. their destination, a landfill

that is also a literal mountain of garbage, 500 feet high. then mid-morning, an attendant separating debris on a conveyer belt saw something. was that a human foot protruding from the pile of trash? surely not. >> she was on the conveyer belt. only her feet were exposed. initially the workers thought it was a mannequin. >> reporter: but it wasn't a mannequin as she could plainly see. it was, or had been, a woman. her body wrap in a blue plastic tarp. >> we had no idea who she was, we had no idea where she came from. how did she end up there? >> reporter: something about the dead girl got to detective trapp, ending up this way. an anonymous child of god in a garbage dump. so the detective did what she always does, she bought a rosary. >> it's a way for me to kind of

connect to my victim. >> reporter: unusual? maybe. but the detective should lean on her profound catholic faith to help solve crimes. but julissa trapp does. >> cases don't always get solved in 48 hours. >> reporter: surprise, surprise. >> they take time and they take work. >> reporter: and that little rosary helps you? >> it does. >> reporter: if she could solve that case, she'd give that rosary to the dead woman's family. but first she had to figure out who she was. from just one identifying mark on her neck, a tattoo -- jodi. was that her name? reaching out, detective trapp pulled up the anaheim police department's data base of tattoos. yes, they have one. descriptions of tattoos collected from anyone they encounter. and what do you know? there was a match. but her name was not jodi. it was jerree.

jerree estep, she was 21-years-old. >> she had been contacted a year prior here in anaheim on beach boulevard. >> reporter: beach boulevard? suddenly detective trapp's case took on a whole new connection. >> if you want to buy drugs, beach boulevard is where you come. if you are looking for a girl, beach boulevard is where you come. a lot of them came from good stable families who happened to run into the wrong guy who somehow got them into this job. these pimps are really good about breaking down the women and getting control over them. >> reporter: making them a prime target for predators. >> a lot of predators will start with prostitutes, because they think that people won't miss them. >> reporter: somebody does. >> yes, somebody does. somebody did. >> reporter: like jerree's

mother, who it would reveal, live in the a tiny town of oklahoma. that tattoo on jerree's neck, this was jodi. even before the detective got the words out -- >> i felt it that she was gone. >> reporter: her daughter had been so happy, so charming, outgoing, but then, said jodi, a boyfriend convinced jerree that to please him, she'd have to turn tricks. this is jerree. >> we just honked to try to get her attention. >> on tv a self-proclaimed video vigilante group in oklahoma city caught her on camera back in 2012. but jerree left the boyfriend, turned her life around, so jodi thought. then that awful phone call from detective trapp. >> i was screaming -- like, screaming. >> reporter: the detective made a promise to that mother -- it didn't matter what choices

jerree may have made, she, the detective, would work this case as hard as any she had ever had. >> we literally went from each little motel to each little motel showing her picture and having the clerk run her name to see if she had stayed there. >> reporter: and eventually, she found the room where jerree had been staying, in which $700 in cash, lipstick, constant lens solution, but nothing whatever to lead her to a suspect. not here, anyway. from the disposal company, she got a list of the dumpsters the garbage trucks serviced that morning. and then she and other officers went dumpster diving. hundreds of dumpsters. what could you be looking for? >> they were all given pictures of the trash that looked like that was around her. if it looks similar, take pictures of what's inside. >> reporter: no luck. a waste of time. then back on the conveyer belt, an odd thing turned up in the trash collected near jerree's body. >> we got a print hit. >> reporter: you are talking

about a finger print. >> a finger print, yeah. >> reporter: it was on a caulking tube. and it matched someone. a window installer who worked for a company called hardy windows. >> he told me we never throw trash out at customer's homes. we always bring it back to hardy windows. >> reporter: where they found one dumpster no one had checked. the trash company inadvertently had left it off the list they gave police. detective trapp looked inside. >> that same blue plastic wrapping. and it was almost like i was looking at the same trash i had seen on the conveyer belt. >> reporter: bingo. if not for that lucky finger print, they'd have missed it. what was that like? >> it was a combination of frustration. but, okay, all right, we're moving somewhere. >> reporter: so jerree was dumped here some time before the morning of march 14th, miles and

miles from the spot where, according to cell phone records, she placed her very last outgoing call at 7:00 p.m. the night before. how far away would it have been? >> 20 miles. >> reporter: but that's all the detective knew. a week had gone by, everyone at hardy windows was cleared. so no suspects in all. detective trapp went to church, said her rosary, worried, prayed and wondered. >> i heard a story on the news that there was three missing prostitutes in the city of santa ana. >> reporter: just next door, basically. >> right next door, yeah. >> reporter: what if this wasn't the killer's first time or last ? >> coming up -- four young women in two neighboring towns now missing or dead. was there a link? >> we were like, what are the

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welcome back. jerreeestep was just 21 years old when she was found dead on a garbage dump conveyer belt. defense found a finger print need the body that led them to a local business. that's when the leads dried up until the detective working case got a hunch. one thing could become clear -- she needed more rosaries. here's detective keith morrison. >> reporter: detective julissa trapp couldn't sleep, kept awake by the puzzle of the girl someone threw away in the trash. that's when something jogged her restless mind. hadn't some women vanished in the town next door, santa ana? >> we were like, what are the odds if they're related?

>> reporter: so she looked them up and learned about quinna jackson just 30-years-old she disappeared five months before jerree's death. her mom is kathy menzes. >> she was always a fun loving child, always made you laugh. >> reporter: just look at her childhood photos -- that silly grin. she loved her dog, her little brother, playing softball. then it started happening. said kathy, eighth grade or so. >> she was kind of getting, you know, typical teenage, mouthy, and then high school came, getting around the older kids she kind of got a little worse. >> reporter: how'd you cope with that? >> just one day at a time. i loved her as much as i could. it was about the only thing. >> reporter: after high school, quinna went to college about a three-hour ride from home. a year later, she moved to las vegas. though, far from home now, she got closer and closer to her mom. >> she would call me every day, talk to me every day, text message. >> just a loving daughter.

>> yeah. i didn't think anything bad was happening. >> reporter: no idea, even if october 2013 when she called the say -- >> she was on the bus towards santa ana. >> reporter: did she tell you why? >> visiting friends is what she told me. >> reporter: but then the girl who called her mother almost daily stopped calling. >> anything over a day or two, i'd go, wait a second, this is not right. i would tech her, she would text right back. but this time, nothing, nothing. >> reporter: gone, not a peep to her mom, to her friends, to her boyfriend. kathy went to the police. >> when i called to file a missing person's report, they said, she's an adult and there is nothing we can do for you. >> reporter: but you knew there was a problem. >> yeah. >> reporter: she did her own digging, tracked her down to a motel in orange county, where the trail ended. her clothes was there but she wasn't. again, she called the police.

>> and they said, oh, that happens sometimes. prostitutes work circuits. >> reporter: prostitutes? >> first i was, okay, no, that can't be. >> reporter: then the truth came crashing down, undeniable. quinna had missed a scheduled court date in santa ana for a prostitution charge. wait a minute, you talked with her every day, texted her all the time in. >> exactly. >> reporter: and you knew nothing of this secret life? >> no, nothing. >> reporter: what does it feel like to hear that? >> heartbreaking. >> reporter: when she heard kathy's story, detective trapp began to think she was onto something. then she discovered that just two-and-a-half weeks after quinna disappeared, there was another one, josephine monique vargas. >> she had a beautiful personality. they used to call her giggles because she always made people laugh. >> reporter: josephine's mother priscilla had been on the local news searching for her answers for months, after she left a

family barbecue, telling them she was going for groceries. >> reporter: that was the last time any of us heard or saw her. >> reporter: she when to the the santa ana police department, filled out a report. >> they didn't really do anything to look for her. >> reporter: so she did. >> nothing was going to stop me looking for my daughter, nothing or no one. >> reporter: it was pure chance when she lan ran into another mother, desperate to find her daughter, martha, 28 years old and a mother herself who vanished one day. >> translator: i said, there was no way she would have left. to say i'm going and i've leaving everything behind. >> reporter: so martha's mother and priscilla went together up and down the boulevard. >> we make thousands of flyers. me and her were on a mission to find our daughters. >> reporter: but no sign of their daughters anywhere.

detective trap collected their portraits, hung them on her office wall and she stayed away and prayed in her catholic way. do you ever wonder why god would allow this to happen? >> i do. there are plenty of times i have been angry with our maker because you have to wonder, why does this happen? i mean, i wish he would talk back to me and tell me, that would be very helpful. but i just have to figure out what happened. read the clues, collect the puzzle pieces. the more you can kind of keep a neutral mind the easier the puzzle pieces fit together. >> reporter: no getting around it -- the pieces pointed to a chilling conclusion, those mission women, just like jerree, may have been murdered. if that was true, it would mean there was a serial killer out there in the night, had to be, more deaths would be coming, unless -- one idea, it was grasping at straws, yes, but -- >> you know what? it might work now. why not? it's a hail mary, but let's try it. coming up --

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welcome back. one woman dead, another three missing. detective trapp believed the case may have been lunched and was about to get another one of her hurcnches. if she was right she may be able to tie one suspect to all of the victims. here again is keith morrison. the autopsy came in. the one for jerree estep, the girl on the conveyer belt. >> it's bad. it was bad. it was bad. >> reporter: strangled, beaten, sexually assaulted, viciously, according to deputy d.a. larry yellin. >> should have been a college girl worried about grades and football games and boyfriends and those things. >> reporter: one wrong turn and you never know? >> yeah.

>> reporter: but almost three weeks in, detective julissa trapp seemed stuck. >> i think she got a little frustrated and got a little desperate and came up with the idea of using the computer database. computer database of sex offenders. if they had a serial killer on their hands, there was at least a chance he'd already run afoul of the law at some point. it was a bit like just poking a finger into the haystack, frankly, and hoping to encounter a needle. worth a trapp. so trapp called this woman, sexual assault detective laura la mella. >> all sex offenders on parole will have an anklet, a gps monitor. >> reporter: trapp asked, where any of those here where jerree placed her last phone call or here where she wound up with a dumpster? and you find the same guy in both locations, you get somewhere. >> mm-hmm.

>> reporter: she ran the search. what were the chances she got a hit in both locations? she called detective trapp. >> there's only one person. she says, i know him. i say, who? his name is frank canno, he's a sex offender. >> reporter: in 2007, frank canno pleaded guilty to performing a lewd act on a minor. now, the next question, did canno's monitor put him near the places those other three women, according to phone records, made their last calls? one by one the detective got the coordinates. >> reporter: at every intersection for that date and time that they gave me, frank canno came up. >> reporter: wow. >> for every single intersection. i was shocked. >> reporter: but something about that man, frank canno. he had a buddy.

and lamela had run into them both. >> i mentioned, i do know he has a friend, stephen gordon. >> reporter: steven gordon, he had done time for molesting a minor and later kidnapping. he and canno were inseparable, apparently. once again, the detective pulled up the gps coordinates to check the place martha was last seen in santa ana, and no gordon. not there. but when she checked locations for quinna and josephine, there he was. so why not at the first location? she checked the record and discovered at that particular moment, gordon wasn't on a gps monitor, but he was wearing one at the other three places, and so was canno. the electronics made it absolutely obvious. here they were. canno and gordon, driving together up and down beach boulevard and all around santa ana and anaheim.

>> even when they're on the freeway. >> reporter: they were in the same car. >> they were in the same vehicle. >> reporter: julissa trapp prayed for a hail mary but never expected anything like this. >> i soon realized, i'm not just dealing with one, we're dealing with two. two sex offenders wearing gps bracelets? >> reporter: but for all the electronic cross referencing, the case against canno and gordon was purely circumstantial. detective trapp would not arrest them, not without more evidence and, that was terrifying. i mean, there were young women who were at real risk here. >> yeah. >> reporter: and if you waited too long -- >> yes. >> reporter: how would you feel if somebody else was attacked? >> let's just say there were a lot of rosaries being prayed for sure. >> reporter: she set up a surveillance team to watch canno around the clock and got authorizations for wiretaps and

pulled cell phone records. we started reading the text messages and seeing how good they were at hunting. >> hunting? >> hunting on almost a daily bases and how nonchalant they were about it. it was almost like ordering takeout. you start reading, what do you feel like today? asian or mexican? >> reporter: oh boy. what would they call these girls? >> that was the other thing -- cats. >> reporter: cats? >> cats. be careful, when the cat knows it isn't getting away, it's going to fight. >> reporter: the next victim couldn't be far away, because gordon texted canno, kitty cat later yes? to which canno responded, okay. then a sudden change. had they spotted the surveillance? as trapp listened to the wire stop, she heard gordon talk to canno about skipping town. >> i could hear the desperation in frank canno's voice.

that desperation just kind of sent a hair on the back of my neck and i said, no, i'm not waiting anymore. >> they're going to run. >> they're going to one. . >> reporter: time to move, fast. they caught one frank canno as he was boarding a bus and steven gordon, they found him where he worked, an auto body shop next door to hardy windows, but -- >> he made a run for it. >> reporter: ran out the door. >> on a bicycle, yes. he had a little collision with one of our surveillance units, and a little flying over the handlebars. and he was taken into custody. >> reporter: both men were charged with four counts each of first degree murder and forcible rape. and detective trapp prepared to confront the suspected serial killer. coming up -- >> i knew this was going to be a lot different than any other interview i had ever done. he's cunning.

manipulative. >> he didn't have to talk to you. >> he did not have to. >> takeout with a killer. >> spicy. >> i told you be careful. >> when "good and evil" continues. inues. and it also targets the cause of diarrhea. the 3 times concentrated liquid formula coats and kills bacteria to relieve diarrhea. while the leading competitor does nothing to kill the bacteria, pepto® diarrhea gets to the source, killing the bad bacteria. so, try pepto® diarrhea, and remember to have it on hand every time you travel. also try pepto®-bismol liquicaps for on-the-go relief.

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each week for me in school is just an accomplishment. i feel proud every step of the way. they do one of the most is jdeven in normal times.s, our frontline health care workers. and when these heroes lack the resources they need, that risky job gets ten times harder. prop fifteen makes corporations pay their fair share. to invest in our communities, in our clinics,

in the essential workers who treat everyone- rich, poor, and in-between. whether it's this pandemic or the next health crisis, vote yes on prop fifteen. for all of us. welcome back to "dateline extra". i'm craig melvin. frank canno and steve gordon

were in police custody, arrested on four counts each of first-degree murder and forcible rape. detective trapp was about to go face-to-face with them in the intear gags room. here again is keith morrison. for six months, kathy menzes hoped for news, waiting for a call or text, or deading a knock at the door, which in april 2014 is what happened. >> my heart ached right away, because i knew it wasn't going to be good news. >> reporter: no, got good news at all. anaheim police told her that two men, frank canno and steven gordon, were now under arrest for the murder of her daughter and three other young women in orange county. what were you like that night?

>> i just wanted to sleep. i wanted to like go to sleep and wake up and pinch myself. >> reporter: and make it a different world. >> exactly. >> reporter: detective julissa trapp wanted to speak with both men, of course. but canno lawyered up, so she tried gordon, still in a wheelchair after his bike accident. >> hi steven. >> hi. >> how are you? and i knew this was going to be a lot different than any other interview i had done. he's cunning, manipulative. >> reporter: he didn't have to talk to you. >> he did not have to talk to me. >> are you cold? do you want toe blanket? >> if you don't mind. >> no, not at all. >> reporter: but detective trapp has a way as they say. you acted compassionate. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> reporter: you were kind to him. you brought him a blanket, food. >> here is our food. >> yes, we actually shared two meals together. >> it is spicy.

>> i told you. i told you be careful. >> reporter: even so, gordon was reluctant at first. >> i got nausea. >> would you rather talk to anybody else? >> i don't want to talk to anybody. >> he watched me very carefully. if i swallowed too hard, if i looked at him differently, he would say, what's wrong? >> you had a weird look on your face when i said, where, why? >> so he was constantly trying to keep a poker face to continue to illicit information from hem. >> reporter: did he try to play you? >> oh, i think he definitely thinks he did, for sure. >> reporter: bit by bit, she pulled out answers for herself and for those four mothers. >> did she go by the name kayla? >> it starts with a k -- keana. >> she told me her name was kayla.

>> detective trapp starts with photographs. he identified all four women. >> so her, her, her, her? right? >> reporter: each murder went the same way, he said. he and canno picked them up in the suv, drove them back to the auto body shop where gordon worked. they took turns having their way. and then, just as each woman prepared to leave -- >> i starangled her with my han. >> you strangled her? >> reporter: some of the details in that 13-hour interview were almost more than a seasoned detective could stand to hear. >> as he was hurting martha, she told him, i didn't believe in god, but i do now. there is a part of me that's grateful that she found god at the end. it's disturbing to me that in his response, he said, i picked a hell of a time to start believing in god.

i'll never forget that. >> reporter: but she had it. a full confession. she called jerree's mother, jodi. >> i dropped to my knees. detective trapp gave me her word that she would find who killed my daughter. >> reporter: detective trapp had kept her word. now she bought three more rosaries, and wondered, could she bring those women home? gordon had told her all of them had been left in the same dumpster, the contents of which were brought here, orange county's brea land fill, where except for jerree, they all still were in there, somewhere. >> we did a lot of research, and we had every intention to try to dig for them. >> reporter: but the bodies had been 40 feet deep by now, digging for them would cost millions. they might never be found, and the county couldn't afford that.

and they're just over there, somewhere, you know, 40 feet down. >> yeah. >> reporter: what's that like? what's that feel like? >> it's frustrating. it's frustrating knowing that they're here and we can't bring them up. it's like the one thing that the mothers want, and i get it. and to not be able to do that, it feels -- it's incomplete. >> reporter: does it drive you crazy? >> yes, it does. >> reporter: kathy menzes knows logically, her daughter must be dead, but how to truly accept it without her body? >> i would go there today and start digging if they would let me. >> reporter: it matters, doesn't it? >> it does matter. >> reporter: to get her back? >> yeah. >> reporter: you give birth to them, you got to see it through to the end? >> yep, exactly. exactly. >> reporter: in an attempt to make sense of it all, kathy

asked detective trapp and her partner to drive her to the place where the killers had picked up keana. >> you wanted to go to this last spot. why? may i ask why? >> kind of because it was the last known spot that she was at, that i was told she was alive at that spot. so kind of a closure, you know, just to see where she was at before they took her. >> reporter: but that broke her heart to do, take a tour of her daughter's last hours. >> i think this is the dead end street that gordon and canno entered and turned around, and somewhere in this little intersection right here is where she was at. >> reporter: just an ordinary place, but so painful. >> it was hard. it's difficult to see.

i mean, it's not what i expected, the area. i mean, of course, what she was doing is no mother's wish, but just to see this area, to know that it wasn't what i envisioned. it wasn't a dirty, dark, nasty, gross area. >> reporter: kathy found some peace in that, the knowing, the seeing. but why keana's life was taken? so much harder to comprehend. >> i don't think i'll be able to accept it. it's hard. it's hard. >> reporter: criminal trials are one way to grieve and find answers, and with a confession on tape, the trial of steven gordon looked like a formality. or so the prosecutor might have hoped. then the judge made that ruling. oh, boy. >> a suspected serial killer turns the case against him upsidedown. coming up --

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♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ (burke vo) start with a quote at 1-800-farmers orange county deputy d.a. larry yellin liked his chances against accused serial killer steven gordon, especially when gordon decided to act as his own defense attorney. >> he's very bright. very bright. >> reporter: smart enough he should know not to do that sort of thing. >> definitely, smart enough to know he shouldn't be representing himself. >> reporter: but representation can be a dangerous thing. before the trial began, gordon struck the prosecutor's case a major blow. remember that moment early in his interview when he seemed to

reject detective trapp's questioning. >> i got nausea. >> would you rather talk to somebody else? >> i don't want to talk to anybody. >> reporter: gordon argued that continuing the interview at that point was a miranda violation. even though detective trapp had read him his rights at the outset. the judge agreed. ruled that the jury could not see a frame of gordon's confession. >> when he makes the ruling and it's out, it's a punch in the stomach. >> reporter: oh, man. because what are you missing then? >> well, a confession. it's the piece that brings everything together and focuses on the four girls. >> all of these women have special meaning, and when it got thrown out, i had a really hard time. >> reporter: then gordon asked for a meeting and sprang another surprise -- he wanted yellin to drop the rape charges.

what would he give you in return? >> he said i'll give you a statement can you use against me in this case. >> okay, mr. gordon, we're going to start. >> reporter: and so on the eve of trial, detective trapp once again sat face-to-face with steven gordon, and he, once again, took her through each crime. >> is it fair to say your intention was pick a prostitute and ultimately kill her? >> yes. >> reporter: that was played for jury, but then, how bizarre was this? gordon decided he wanted the jury to hear his first confession, too, which meant the mothers had to hear every graphic detail of there daughter's murders. >> then i thought, maybe i prayed that rosary a little too hard because now we've got two statements in. >> reporter: the jury wasted no time convicting gordon of four counts of murder. >> guilty of the crime of fellthy -- >> reporter: they recommended a death penalty. >> i order the verdicts be

recorded. >> reporter: for four mothers, a measure of justice. >> thank you. >> reporter: kathy menzes sat through the entire trial, as brutal as it was. what has it done to your understanding of human beings? >> very evil. there's lots of evil in this world. lots of it. >> reporter: the mothers will have to sit through another trial. frank canno is still waiting for his. he's pleaded not guilty. but for detective trapp, there was a measure of relief, and finally, she gave those rosaries to four grieving mothers. it's interesting to discover in this line of work that homicide detectives are actually softies. >> i think that the more you allow yourself to feel, the better you're going to be as a detective, and we have to go to the dark places in order to find answers. the quicker we can get in and out, the better it is for all of us. >> reporter: answers from dark places. we went to the jail where gordon

was kept before transferred to death row. here he was, a man who claimed to know the nature of his evil acts. but did he, we wondered? >> i screwed up. >> reporter: is screwed up the right expression to use? >> huh, probably not. i just didn't want to say it, what i really think. >> reporter: well, why don't you? >> it's, it's beyond evil what happened. what me and him did was beyond evil. >> reporter: then came sure enough the excuse. he's worked it out in his head that the parole system is somehow to blame for his minds. after all, as sex offenders, he and frank canno shouldn't have been allowed to be together. that was a parole violation. the fact that his parole officers didn't prevent that, he said, means the state is responsible. >> we chose to be together. but we were allowed. there is a difference. >> reporter: no, no, are you 3?

that's what little kids to say to the parents. you let me do a bad thing, it's your fault. >> i didn't say they let us do a bad thing. i said they let us sleep and hang out at the same spot, and they did. beside what anybody believed. >> you will parse that argument? >> to the day i die, that's true. >> reporter: i want to know, that's on you, what was going on in your head to make you want to do it, to participate in whatever way you participated, to get whatever thrill? what was the thrill? what was it? >> i don't think there was a thrill. >> reporter: if there is no thrill, why'd you do it? >> there is no thrill in watching women die like that. but i'm going to go back to it again and again -- it was my anger issues that i have from everything that happened while we were on parole and probation. >> reporter: we may never know exactly why jerree was killed or martha or josephine or keana. but there is one more mystery hiding somewhere in this

mountain. the final mystery. coming up -- >> to me, she's an angel in disguise, an angel that carries a badge and a gun. >> an angel whose job isn't done. >> he looks at me and goes, you're missing one. she's an unknown, and i feel like i know there is a family wondering where she is. >> when "good and evil" continues. until i realized... ...something was missing...me. you okay, sis? my symptoms were keeping me... ...from really being there for my sisters. so i talked to my doctor and learned... that's us. ...humira is for people who still have... ...symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief in as little as 4 weeks. and many achieved remission that can last. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections,

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welcome back. after a disturbing trial, steven gordon was contradicted on four counts of first-degree murder. but for detective trapp this case was far from over. she would soon find there was one more secret buried in that mysterious landfill. now with the conclusion of our story, here's keith morrison.

>> reporter: four mothers, four dead daughters. there's sorrow, of course. >> when they killed her, they killed me. >> and a measure of solidarity they have each other, especially priscilla and linda. >> now that we know what's happened to our daughters, i know we will still be friends until the end, because she's walking in the same shoes i am. >> reporter: we asked them about julissa trapp. >> translator: this case was solved because of her. >> to me, she's an angel in disguise. an angel that carries a badge and a gun. >> reporter: their own guardian angel who brought all of them answers. but how, the moms wondered, did two men who were supposed to be under supervision by parole officers, who were being tracked in realtime by gps ankle

bracelets -- how could they have committed the terrible crimes they were charged with? how could this happen? >> how can this happen? why were they not being monitored? but it was definitely a hard question to get from the mothers themselves as well. why wasn't it caught sooner? >> reporter: sure. >> reporter: jerree's mother sued the department of the corrections saying it failed to adequately monitor gorden and cano. the state denied the claims and the case was dismissed. jodi also sued the u.s. government and agents of u.s. probation. that case was dismissed as well. and the administration office of the u.s. court published a report that said federal probation officers followed policies and procedures. as for detective trapp, there was one last mystery to solve. because when she first talked to steven gordon, he revealed

something she wasn't expecting. >> he looks at me, and he goes, you're missing one, which caught me offguard, and i tried not to show too much emotion. and i said, okay. and that was the first time i learned about jane doe, was from him. >> reporter: jane doe. according to gordon, there was a fifth victim. >> did she say where she was from? >> she said she was from compton. >> i feel a responsibility, because jane doe is not a missing person. she's -- she's an unknown, and i feel like, if i don't look for her, who will? i know there is a family out there wondering where she is. >> reporter: and so she looked. she combed through missing persons reports. she put up fliers, searched, prayed, and, yes, bought another rosary. why is it so important to give

jane doe a name? to you, personally? >> i just think because she's so helpless. you're on the street, you're working as a prostitute, and you run into steve gordon and frank cano, and your last hours on this earth are horrific. and then they discard you like trash. >> reporter: trash. detective trapp is still haunted by trash. that keeps bringing her mind back here. >> even though it is a landfill, i mean, it is quite peaceful when it's quiet. >> reporter: somewhere under here, in addition to keanna, josephine, and martha, there was victim number five. and so detective trapp worked her sources until she had a name. it would be reasonable to say, okay, that's her. she's here. >> absolutely. logically, yes.

absolutely. >> reporter: and yet when we first spoke with her, she couldn't quite bring herself to tell yet another mother her suspicions. >> i -- not only do i have to tell her she's dead, i have to tell her that she's one of these girls. so that's going to be hard, i think. >> reporter: out here with us, she seemed to be willing herself, pulling strength from jane doe herself. >> i think in her own way she'll help me. she'll help me. i don't think she wants to be jane doe forever. >> and then a couple of months later, she let us know she'd called on the fifth mother and delivered the news, that sable pickett, just 19 years old, crossed paths with gordon and cano in the streets of orange county and did not survive. no charges are pending for her murder, but another family can finally stop wondering.

homicide detectives often tell us they work for the dead. up here on landfill mountain, we understood that a little better. as detective julissa trapp gripped her rosary, the one for sable, we walked away and gave her time. and our microphone picked up something. >> hail mary, full of grace. >> mountains of trash, things we use and cast away. but for detective julissa trapp, this will always be hallowed ground. >> it's hard to look at that and know that's where you ended up, and i know you guys are all in a better place. and i know that you're together and you're helping each other. you can rest now. and i can take it from here.

>> that's all for this edition of "dateline extra". i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie moralis. >> and this is "dateline." >> i called my mom immediately. i just cried. i cried. i couldn't feel. my body went numb. i told her, car lean's gone. she's gone.er >> she was a beautiful young mom doing important work. >> she was an intelligence en specialist. >> some ofce her work was very e important, top secret. >> when she wasop found dead, everyone wondered did her work cost her her