True Crime ABC Videos

Our first report about the Gilgo Beach murders happened on an impossibly cold December night in 2011. They had found bodies on a remote beach. Eyewitness News reporter Josh Einiger and his photographer, Tony Saturno, were shooting another story in Suffolk County at the time. "We were on our way back and we got a call from our assignment desk saying 'there's a crime scene, there's a maybe body discovered', way down south on Ocean Parkway. Go check it out," Einiger recalled. When they arrived at the scene, it was cold and pitch black. There were four crime scenes along the beach and spotlights set up. For more: https://abc7ny.com/gilgobeach/

On June 25, 1975, Patricia Kaye Humphreys, 15, and her sister Debra, 16, went to the Thunderbird Drive-In located in Houston, Texas for a double feature. Two Dustin Hoffman movies were playing: "Lenny" followed by "Midnight Cowboy." It was the first time their mother let her girls take the family car out by themselves. Mom, also named Patricia, gave her daughters a strict warning: go straight to the movies, don't pick up anyone else and come right home afterward. But as teenagers are known to do, the sisters ignored their mother and picked up Deb's boyfriend, Eddie Garcia, followed by another classmate, Mike Hunter. Rhonda Pizzitola remembers it clearly because a few minutes later, the group showed up to her house in the Humphreys' white Mercury Montego, asking Rhonda if she'd like to come along. For more: https://abc13.com/post/abc13-unsolved-houston-true-crime-patricia-kaye-humphreys-movie-theater/11067104/

On November 3, 1989, lawn crews found a 33-year-old newlywed dead under a bridge in League City, Texas. Police determined she had been strangled and sexually assaulted. Her name was Cheryl Martin. Her death didn't make big headlines. She had been a prostitute at one time. But Cheryl had a family - a family who for 30 years, never knew what happened to her. Detectives on the case call Cheryl the "forgotten victim" of the Texas Killing Fields. Now, 33 years later, detectives believe they may have the unlikely murder weapon. For more: https://abc13.com/post/texas-killing-fields-13-unsolved-true-crime-cold-case-murder/13201789/

On the afternoon of March 27, 1979, Angela Kelley said goodbye to her best friend at Montrose apartment, saying she'd be right back. Angela wanted a Coke from a convenience store, then was headed to a pawn shop less than a mile away to sell some jewelry. She needed money for a bus ticket, Angela had said. The 17-year-old Alief ISD student planned to visit her boyfriend in Arkansas the following week. But Angela never made it to the store. Or the pawn shop. For more: https://abc13.com/post/angela-kelley-13-unsolved-murders-houston-murdered/14391497/

There are stories behind the jewelry we wear: a special gift; a family heirloom; a promise for a future life together. Inside a yellow evidence envelope at the Manvel Police Department, one woman's jewelry tells a story detectives don't yet understand. A delicate pearl bracelet; a diamond band; a silver ring with a unicorn made from turquoise stones. A woman treasured these pieces until she was found dead at the end of a gravel road on Sept. 10, 1990. For more: https://abc13.com/post/13-unsolved-princess-blue-found-dead-on-gravel-road-nearly-30-years-ago/5709619/

Life in small town South Texas is simpler. Slower. Quieter. Awful things are not supposed to happen here, but they do. Daughters don't come home, couples are targeted, hardworking fathers are ambushed. Their cases are some of the more than 250,000 unsolved murders in this country and every year that number goes increases. Victims whose killers go uncaught. Families destroyed. These people come from all walks of life. Though their lives never intersected, they have one thing in common -- their murders are some of the oldest cold cases in their tiny Texas towns. So when a murder happened more than 30 years ago and their faces have long since faded from the headlines, do their cases gone cold go unsolved forever? For more: https://abc13.com/videoClip/10590430/

In 1996, a working-class neighborhood in Richmond, California, was shaken by an unthinkable crime. A 6-year-old boy was arrested for allegedly attacking a newborn, Ignacio Bermudez, so violently that the baby ended up in intensive care with severe brain damage. The story grabbed national headlines as the 6-year-old child became the youngest person charged with assault. For more: https://abc7news.com/post/unthinkable-documentary-ignacio-bermudez-murder-baby-beaten-abc7-originals/14449952/

Surveillance is life today. Doorbell cameras, convenience store security tape, traffic light cameras. We know we're tracked. We're used to it and frankly, we expect it. Those cameras are supposed to make us feel safe and when unsafe things happen, that video can go viral. It can capture gas station robberies, gun store heists, car break-ins. Surveillance video has become so normalized, do the most dangerous criminals even care about getting caught on camera? When Donna Brown was murdered on the island city of Galveston, Texas, her alleged killer was seen on video walking away from the scene. However, despite the surveillance, the killer is still out there. For more: https://abc13.com/videoClip/10590867/

For over a decade, Anthony Shore preyed on girls and young women. To outsiders, nothing seemed amiss about Shore. He was a husband, a father, and a brother. No one suspected he had a dark secret: he was also a serial killer. "He wasn't evil looking or evil acting, but inside he was the example of evil," said retired Houston Police Homicide detective DD Shirley. "He always knew how to say it, the right thing," said Gina Shore, sister of Anthony Shore. "How to act the right way. He presented very well. You'd never know that there was that demon hidden behind the facade." For more: https://abc13.com/post/tourniquet-killer-anthony-shore-signature-weapon-string-murders/14855563/

Before they were the center of one of the strangest murder mysteries in Houston history, they were a glamorous couple at the top of Houston society. She was the glamorous River Oaks socialite who had it all. Joan Robinson Hill was a strikingly beautiful woman, and a talented national equestrian star. In the 1960's, she and her plastic surgeon husband, Dr. John Hill, were well-known in the highest circles. Then it all came crashing down. The murders and conspiracies that swirled around the Hills would become one of the biggest stories to come out of Houston's fanciest neighborhood - River Oaks. For more: https://abc13.com/post/texas-true-crime-river-oaks-murder-mystery-joan-robinson-hill-john/13235480/

In the early morning hours of June 9, 2013, Dr. Stefan Andersson, an accomplished biochemist and research professor at the University of Houston, arrived home at his Museum District apartment in the Parklane high rise with his ex-girlfriend, Ana Trujillo, after a night of drinking. At 3:41 a.m., a call came in to 911. It was a hysterical Trujillo. "Listen, he's about to die!" Trujillo yelled through sobs to the dispatcher. The woman on the other end of the line could barely understand the frantic 43-year-old. For more: https://abc13.com/post/stiletto-killer-texas-true-crime-man-killed-with-high-heeled-shoe-stefan-andersson-ana-trujillo-stabbed-to-death-by-heels/13832183/

In daylight, Houston's T.C. Jester Park is a haven for runners and cyclists. But 30 years ago, it was a shortcut for two innocent teenage girls - and what happened to them while cutting through the park at night was unspeakable. On June 24th, 1993, Elizabeth Peña and Jennifer Ertman crossed paths with what those involved in their murder cases have called "pure evil." For more: https://abc13.com/post/pure-evil-elizabeth-pea-jennifer-ertman-fatally-attacked-1993-taking-shortcut-houstons-tc-jester-park/13419380/