I just turned on the news, woman found murdered in denver, colorado. I just grabbed my son and screamed and cried. Was it somebody she worked with at the Radio Station . Could it be the boyfriend that she just broke up with in december . Youre giving the detectives names of people . Yes. He looked at everything. I was even like, where was ted bundy at that time . We have to look under every stone, every pebble. Theyre talking about hundreds of names here. Hundreds, thousands. She is driven. Her tenacity is just remarkable. I knew i was going to find him. It was a competition between him and i. Your heart is pounding like, oh, my gosh. This is real. I said, i found him. I know who killed helene. Hello and welcome to dateline. Helene pruszynski lift by a simple philosophy, smile and make the best of everything. The budding journalist did just that as she started a College Internship in radio. Then helene was murdered. The Investigation Led detectives into the darkest corners of the criminal world, before a groundbreaking investigative tool helped bring the killers secret to light. Heres Josh Mankiewicz with a promise to helene. 40 years is a long time. Thats 40 winters here in colorado. And countless snowfalls. It was on a day like this that young woman disappeared. Her name was helene and helene had a friend named kimberly. A friend who kept her word. You have any idea how many years you were signing up for when you made that promise . No. For those nearly four decades, kimberly kept her promise. 40 years looking at faces. 40 years meeting with detectives. 40 years retracing helenes steps. When i make a promise and make a commitment i follow through. Helene never knew it but she had another friend. You never met helene. You feel like you know her . I do. I feel like i know her well. As well as i possibly could. Shannon was three years old when helene disappeared. It wasnt until 2019 that she accepted a challenge. I had to win. I wanted to win for helene. Helene pruszynski grew up as the Baby Daughter in a close knit family of five in hamilton, massachusetts. Everybody that met her liked her company. Janet was her older sister by nine years. But you didnt treat her as this annoying, younger sibling . You guys were pretty tight . Not at all. She was my best buddy. She was a surprise, i think, to the family. And she just brought sunshine and life to our household. I met her my Freshman Year of high school. She was a sophomore. We both were part of a Singing Group called harmony and thats really where i got to know helene very well. She loved to sing . Yes, she loved to perform. Im involved with harmony, which is a Musical Group at the regional. Helene spoke about her school life for a classmates local radio show. My philosophy on life . Yeah, i have one. You should just, i dont know. The yourself and make the best of everything. And smile. Smile . Yeah, thats what i do all the time. There she is smiling along with kimberly in their Musical Group. Also joining and, kimberlys older brother john. It was a real feeling of camaraderie, but also a dedication to excellence in our singing. He remembers the day camaraderie turned to something else. We started talking and for me it was an immediate spark. It was that kind of fluttery feeling that you have when you know youre talking to somebody that you realize you really like immediately. They were just in love. They were each others first loves in high school, but very genuine. It didnt last beyond high school, but john and kimberly both kept in touch with helene after graduation. Helene attended Wheaton College in massachusetts where she sang into another group the wheatones. There she is in the back row with the black dress on. One more thing, as much as she left her singing, helene had a another passion. Journalism. What did you think whats going to happen to her . Everywhere she headed . For great things. I saw Helene The Christmas Of December of 1979 at church. She told me that she was going off to denver to do this internship to further interests in journalism. And she was very excited about it. Helene arrived in january 1980 to begin that internship at a Radio Station in denver. A long way from home. Fortunately, she had relatives nearby. Your family didnt worry about her going off to colorado because she was not going to be alone and she was staying with your aunt and uncle. Exactly. Then came that day, january 16th. Helene had barely been there two weeks when she grabbed the bus from the Radio Station around 6 pm to go back to her aunt and uncles house. Shed made the commute before without a problem. That night, Helene Pruszynski never made it home. My parents called me and said they just gotten a call from my aunt and uncle and this was i think maybe 10 00 at night. What did you think that happened . We had no idea. This was so unlike helene. Something had to be wrong. The next morning, the news, none of it good, made its way back to massachusetts. That was the first thing that came up, Hamilton Women Have found murdered in denver, colorado. And then from there it was just horror and chaos. I went crazy. My son was 16 months old. I just grabbed my son and screamed and cried. I just couldnt believe it was happening. Not to helene. That moment would launch a 40year quest for justice to find helenes killer and learned what happened on that wintry night. Detectives, family, and friends desperate for clues grasp at straws. Who would want to harm helene . Coming up. She gets off the bus and then she just disappears. She just disappeared. Was it somebody that she worked with at the Radio Station . Could it be the boyfriend that she just broke up with in december . I thought i would be a suspect, actually. When dateline continues. Your glucose le and where its headed. No fingersticks needed. 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It changed the mood in rural Douglas County, colorado. A high Profile Murder Case will do that. As snow began to fall in the field where the young body of Helene Pruszynski was found back in 1980, Tony Spurlock was a rookie sheriffs deputy in Douglas County, colorado. Today, hes the sheriff. What was douglas like then . Douglas county was a completely Rural Community between Colorado Springs and denver. Not a lot of homicides back then . Maybe one every four years. Investigators determined helene was last seen alive getting off that bus after work. From the bus driver, we knew that she got off that bus. From there and nobody got off with her . She didnt have any trouble on the bus . There was no indication from any witnesses there that she was in any distress or any one was following her. She gets off the bus and then she just disappears . She just disappeared. Helenes body was found the next day in a field at nearly nine miles from that bus stop. Shed been stabbed nine times. An autopsy revealed she was also raped. What did you learn from the body, the scene, the autopsy . A number of her clothes were missing. She was wearing a mid sized Winter Jacket for colorado at that time, and a scarf. She was lying on her back. She had no defensive wounds that she had wounds on her knees and lower leg area. Which would tell us that she had either crawled on her knees at some point into that rough area. The grass, based upon the injuries. And she didnt have defensive wounds suggesting she was not fighting her attacker . She was trying to go along with him, maybe to get him to let her go . Correct. Some of the forensics they shared with us let some of us to believe it wasnt a stranger. That it must be somebody that she knew. But she didnt know anybody there, did she . She didnt know anybody there, but she was working at a Radio Station. So, was it somebody that she worked with at the Radio Station . Could it be somebody that she turned down for a date, or a ride, or something that got angry . Helenes Friend Kimberly started thinking about the men men in helenes life. The or mostly just friends, but she passed their names to investigators anyway. Youre giving the detectives names of people and saying, you need to check out this guy and this guy, and this guy. Yes. We said, could it be the boyfriend that she just broke up within december . I looked at my brother, i said, john [laughs] could it be you . Of course, john was helenes exboyfriend. As john worked through his own grief, it occurred to him, police might come knocking. I thought they would. I thought i would be a suspect, actually. But they never contacted me. Thats because investigators quickly determined john was in massachusetts when the murder happened. Back in colorado, investigators focused on what little evidence they had. Different world of Law Enforcement back then. No surveillance cameras. No license plate readers. None of that. This was during the age of Law Enforcement where we still did not have the dna. We did not have technology that would help us track where she was at. Their old School Police work did turn up something. A witness had seen a young man of medium build in his 20s or 30s. Five foot nine, maybe five foot ten. He was standing by a car at the side of the road. It wasnt much. Investigators wanted more from the witness. Investigators put that person under hypnosis and use a Sketch Artists to draw a rendition of the person that she saw standing next to a car on daniels park road, which would have been 100 yards or so from where the body was found. That works. Putting somebody under hypnosis . Heres the thing, ive been in this business for 40 years and i heard where it worked and theyve heard where it didnt work. The result was this sketch. Was it the killer . And would it lead anywhere . Coming up theyre known as Serial Killers. And according to Law Enforcement officials, there are at least 35 of them roaming the country now. A chilling new possibility. I was even like, where was ted bundy at that time . Was he in colorado . A string of notorious killers on the loose. Could one of them have committed this crime . Youre being questioned in connection with the crime of homicide. These prolific Serial Killers, that certainly fit. That certainly fit. When dateline continues. [doorbell ring] trick or treat. Happy halloween [zombie grunt] [dog bark] [woman screams] [children screaming] happy halloween. Aww, happy halloween. The power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. And thats a good thing . Great in my book who are you . No power . No problem. Introducing stormready wifi. Now you can stay reliably connected through Power Outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery backup to keep you online. Only from xfinity. In the weeks after helene home of the xfinity 10g network. Pruszynskis murder in 1980, police atlas had a possible image of their suspect. Except, it was leading them any closer to her killer. You start showing that sketch around and you put it up every place and nobody knows who that is . That is correct. No one came forward and said, oh, i know who that guy is. Months went by and detectives just hit a dead end. It was clear that they had exhausted all of the leads by the wintertime of 1980, going into 81. The case had gone cold. For a victims family, there may be no greater frustration than having a loved ones case go cold. Often someone needs to play the role of the tireless advocate. Even at only 26, kimberly realized that and made her promise. Which was . I saw helenes parents and i just promised them that i would not stop for as long as i was living in doing everything in my power to find helenes killer. Everything to kimberly that constantly calling detectives, generating press coverage. Anything to keep a laser focus on the case. I didnt want to see her parents or her sister, or her brother, have to not only deal with just daytoday living. Take some of that burden off of them and for them to feel good that somebody was still actively working on it and keeping that case a life. And then, in 1983, the case did seem to gain new life. Throughout the 70s and early 80s, a number of Serial Killers had been grabbing headlines. We looked at every Serial Killer. I was even like, where was ted bundy at that time . Was he in colorado . So, we even looked at every known Serial Killer that was active at that time to see if they could possibly have been in colorado. And then, there were these two men, Henry Lee Lucas and otis tool. They were drifters. Arrested and jailed in the early 80s. And began telling Law Enforcement something astonishing. How they had killed more than 200 women and a dizzying spree across the country. Crime analysts there had painstakingly reported hundreds of details of dress, mode of travel and method of killing in the lucas, tool murder cases. Thats Dennis Murphy reporting on it for nbc nightly news. Theyre known as Serial Killers and according to Law Enforcement officials, there are at least 35 of them roaming the country now. And these two admitted killers told police about one particular victim, in colorado. The confessed to committing the murder of Helene Pruszynski. What was unique about then is that detectives often thought that there might have been another person may be in the car waiting for whoever they took out into the field. That was one of the theories. So, these two guys who worked together, these powerful prolific Serial Killers, that certainly fit . It certainly fit. Its pretty seductive when a couple of Serial Killers who are on the hook for a lot of other murders confess to your murder, because it would close a lot of cases if you can link them to these guys. Thats right. Obviously they were like, this is awesome. Weve got a confession. Colorado investigators headed for texas to interview lucas themselves. Youre being questioned in connection with a crime of homicide. The detectives showed him a map and asked him to pinpoint where he and tool picked up helene. We stopped her on the street and took her out of the car. And we took her all the way out to the country out there well, theres a bunch of rocks and stuff out there. She was struck to death and raped and covered up with, i think, a sheet and some plywood. Then lucas added another detail. Sh