Hunt, hunting them a detective devoted to justice and more. Its almost like you adopted these young women. There was a lot of visits to my local church saying please dont let me screw this up. Good and evil. Hello. Welcome to dateline extra. Im craig melvin. They were horrific crimes. Young women with their whole lives ahead of them sexually assaulted and murdered. They left behind families who loved them and it would take a determined detective willing to visit dark places to unravel this mystery. Heres keith morrison. I love her as much as i could. How to measure love as advice rahal as the beating heart in her own body. She was my first born, my best friend. How to understand the four mothers and their connection, not one that one of them could ever have thought possible, not in a million years, any more than they would have expected to meet her, their guardian angel. If i dont bring her home, who will . Its as rare mystery thats truly a confrontation of good and evil. We have to go to the dark places to find answers. A rare mystery that needed an urgent answer before the evil struck again. It was march 14th. Their destination, a land fill that is a literal mountain of garbage, 500 feet high. And then midmorning, an attendant separating debris on the Conveyor Belt saw something. Is that a human foot protruding from the pile of trash . Surely not. She was on the Conveyor Belt, only her feet were exposed. You but it wasnt a man i can as jolisa could plainly see. It was or had been a worm. Her body wrapped 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 . 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. Its a way for me to kind of connect to my victims. Unusual . Maybe. That a detective should lean on her catholic faith to help solve crimes. But she does. Cases dont always get solved in 48 hours. Surprise, surprise. They need time and they take work. And that little rosary helps you . It does. If she could solve this case, shed give that rosary to the dead womans family. Just one identifying mark on her neck, a tattoo, jody. Was that her name . She pulled up the Anaheim Police departments database of tattoos. Yes, they have one, descriptions from anyone they encountered. There was a match. But her name was not jody. It was gerai. She had been contacted a year prior here on beach boulevard. Beach boulevard . Suddenly the detectives case took on a whole new direction. If you want to buy drugs, beach boulevard is where you come. If youre looking for a girl, beach boulevard a where you come. A lot of them came from good, stable families that just happened to run into the wrong guy who somehow got them into the job. These pimps are really good about breaking down the women and getting control over them. Making them a prime target for predators. A lot of predators will start with prostitutes. Because they think that people wont miss them. Somebody does. Yes, somebody does. Somebody did. Like gerais mother, who records revealed live in lived in a tiny home in oklahoma. And even before the detective got the words out i felt it. She was gone. Her daughter been so happy, charming, outgoing. Then a boyfriend convinced her to please him shed have to turn tricks. This is gerai. He just honked trying to get her attention. A selfproclaimed Vigilante Group in Oklahoma City caught her on camera back in 2012. But gerai left the boyfriend, turned her life around, so jody thought. But then that awful phone call from detective trapp. I was screaming, like screaming. The detective made a promise to that mother. Department matter what joyces gerai may have made. She, the detective, would work this case as hard as she 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. And eventually she found the room where she had been staying, in which were 700 in cash, mascara, contact lens solution but nothing to lead her to a suspect. Not here anyway money fr. From the disposal company, she got a list of dumpsters they serviced that morning. They went dumpster do i haiving. No luck. Waste of time. Then back on the Conveyor Belt, an odd thing turned up in the trash collected near her bodys. They got a print hit. Youre talking about a fingerprint . Yes. It was on a caulking tube and it matched someone, a window installer who worked for a Company Called hardy windows. He tells us we never throw trash out at customers homes. We always bring it back to hardy windows. Where they found one dumpster no one had checked. The trash company inadvertent had left it off the list they gave the 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 Conveyor Belt. Bingo. And if not for that lucky fingerprint, theyd have missed it. What was that like . It was a combination of frustration but, okay, all right. Were moving somewhere . So gerai was dumped here sometime 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 p. M. The night before. How far away would it have been . 20 miles. But thats all the detective knew, a week gone by. Everyone at hardy windows was cleared so no suspects at all. Detective trapp went to church, said her rosary, worried, prayed and wondered. I had heard a story on the news that there was three missing prostitutes in the city of san ana. What if it wasnt the killers first time or last. Now coming up, four young women missing or dead. Was there a link . What are the odds that theyre related . When good evil continues. Us. Its what this country is made of. But right now, our bond is fraying. How do we get back to us . The y fills the gaps. And bridges our divides. Donate to your local y today. Because where theres a y, theres an us. [ drathis holiday. Ahhhhh ahhhhh a distant friend returns. Elliott. You came back and while lots of things have changed. Wooooah woah its called the internet. Some things havent. Get ready for a reunion 3 million light years in the making. Woohoo yeah welcome back. She was just 21 years old when she was found dead on a garbage dump Conveyor Belt. Investigators discovered a fingerprint near the body that led them to a local business. Thats where the leads dried up until the detective working the case got a hunch and one thing became clear, she would need more rosaries. Here again is keith morrison. Detective Julissa Trapp couldnt sleep, kept awake by the puzzle of the girl someone threw away in the trash. Thats when something jogged her restless mind. Hadnt some young women vanished in the town next door, santa ana . We were like, well, you know, what are the odds that theyre related . Reporter so she looked them up and learned about kianna jackson, just 20 years old when she disappeared five months before jarraes death. Her mom is Kathy Menzies. She was just a very funloving child. Always made you laugh. Reporter just look at her childhood photos. That silly grin. She loved her dog, her little brother, playing softball. And then it started happening, said kathy. Eighth grade or so. She was kind of getting, you know, typical teenage. You know, mouthy. And then, you know, high school came, getting around the older kids, she kind of got a little, you know, worse. Reporter how did you cope with that . One day at a time. Love her as much as i could was about the only thing. Reporter after high school kianna went to college, about a threehour drive from home. A year later, she moved to las vegas. But though far from home now, she got closer and closer to her mom. She would call me every day, talk to me every day, you know, text message. Just a loving daughter . Yeah. I didnt think anything bad was happening. Reporter no idea. Even in october 2013, when kianna called to say she was on the bus towards santa ana. 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 would start going, wait a second. This isnt right. Somethings not right. I would text her. And 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 persons report, they said, shes an adult. And and theres nothing we can do for you. But you knew there was a problem. Yeah. Reporter so kathy started doing her own digging tracked her daughter down to a motel in Orange County, where the trail ended. Her clothes were there, but she wasnt. Again, she called the police. And they said, well, that happens. Sometimes prostitutes just work circuits. Prostitute . At first i was like, no okay, no. That cant be. Reporter but then the truth came crashing down, undeniable. Kianna had missed a scheduled court date in santa ana for a prostitution charge. But wait a minute, you talked to her every day. That texted with her all the time. Exactly. And she ask you knew nothing of this secret life of hers . Nope. Nothing. What does it feel like as a mother, to hear that has been going on all that time and you didnt know . Heartbreaking. Reporter when she heard kathys story, detective trapp began to think she was on to something. And then she discovered that just two and a half weeks after kianna disappeared, there was another one josephine monique vargas. She had a beautiful personality. They used to call her giggles cause she always made people laugh. Reporter josephines mother priscilla had been on the local news, searching for answers for months, ever since her daughter left a family barbecue, telling them she was walking to buy groceries. Thats the last time we any of us heard of her or saw her. Reporter priscilla went to the Santa Ana Police department, filled out a report. But they didnt really do anything to look for her. Reporter so she did. Nothing was gonna stop me from looking for my daughter. Nothing or no one. Reporter and it was pure chance when priscilla ran into another mother desperate to find her daughter. Martha. 28 years old, and a mother herself, who just vanished one day. Theres no way she would have left. To just say im going and im leaving everything behind. Reporter so marthas mother herlinda and priscilla went together up and down the boulevard. We made thousands of fliers. Me and her were on our mission to find our daughters. Reporter but no sign of their daughters anywhere. Detective trapp collected their portraits, hung them on her office wall, and she stayed awake and prayed in her catholic way. Do you ever wonder why god would allow this to happen . I do. Theres been plenty of times that ive 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. Just read the clues, collect the puzzle pieces, and 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 three missing women, like jarrae, may have been murdered. And 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 . Its a hail mary, but lets try it. Coming up all sex offenders on parole, they will have an anklet, a gps monitor. Reporter tracking a killer victim by victim. When good evil continues. Es what does help for Heart Failure look like . The beat goes on it looks like emily cooking dinner for ten. The beat goes on it looks like jonathan on a date with his wife. Ladiladidi entresto is a Heart Failure medicine that helps your heart, so you can keep on doing what you love. Entresto helped people stay alive and out of the hospital. Heart failure can change the structure of your heart, so it may not work as well. Entresto helps improve your hearts ability to pump blood to the body. Dont take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. Dont take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren, or if youve had angioedema with an ace or arb. The most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. The beat goes on ask your doctor about entresto for Heart Failure. Ask your doctor about entresto for Heart Failure yeah entrust your heart to entresto. The beat goes on we dont see who youre against, through or for,rs, whether tomorrow will be light or dark, all we see in you, is a spark we see your spark in each nod, each smile, we see sparks in every aisle. We see you find a hidden gem, and buying diapers at 3am. We see your kindness and humanity. The strength of each community. Weve seen more sparks than we can say. About 20 million just yesterday. The more we look the more we find, the sparks that make america shine. Welcome back. One woman dead, another three missing. Detective Julissa Trapp believed the cases may have been linked. If she was right, she might be able to tie one potential suspect to all of the victims. Here again is keith morrison. The autopsy came in. The one for jarrae estepp, the girl on the conveyer belt. Its 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. Should be worrying about grades and boyfriends, and Football Games and and those things. Reporter one wrong turn, and you never know, huh . 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. Reporter that is the computer database of sex offenders. If they had a serial killer on their hands, there was at least a chance hed 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. But worth a try. So trapp called this woman. Sexual assault detective laura lomeli. All sex offenders on parole, they will have an anklet, a gps monitor. Reporter trapp asked lomeli, were any of those gps monitors here, where jarrae placed her last phone call, or here, where she wound up in a dumpster . And if you find the same guy at both locations, youre getting somewhere . Uhhuh. Reporter lomeli ran the search. And what were the chances . She got a hit. In both locations. She called detective trapp. Theres only one person. Shes like, i know him. I said, who . And shes all, his names franc cano, hes a registered sex offender. Reporter in 2007, franc cano pleaded guilty to committing a lewd act on a minor. He was now on parole wearing a gps monitor. But now next question, did franc canos monitor put him near the places those other three women, according to phone records, made their last calls . Kianna, josephine, and martha . One by one, the detective entered the coordinates. And every intersection for the that date and time that they gave me, franc cano came up. Wow. For every single intersection. It was it was i was shocked. Reporter but something about that man, franc cano. He had a buddy. And lomeli had run into them both. I mentioned, you know, i do know that he has a friend thats Steven Gordon. Reporter Steven Gordon. Hed done time for molesting a minor and later for kidnapping. He and cano were inseparable, apparently. Once again, detective lomeli pulled up the gps coordinates. She checked the place martha was last seen in santa ana, and . No gordon. Not there. But when she checked locations for kianna and josephine, sure enough, there he was. So why not at that first location . She checked the record and discovered that at that particular moment, gordon wasnt on a gps monitor, but he was wearing one at the other three places, and so was cano. The electronics made it absolutely obvious, here they were, cano and gordon driving together up and down beach boulevard and all around santa ana and anaheim. I mean, even when theyre on the freeway they were in the same car . They were in the same vehicle. Reporter Julissa Trapp had prayed for a hail mary, but she never expected anything like this. I soon realized, im not just dealing with one, were dealing with two. Two sex offenders wearing gps bracelets. Reporter but for all the electronic cross referencing, the case against cano and gordon was purely circumstantial. Detective trapp could not arrest them. Not without more evidence. And that was terrifying. I mean, there were young women who were at real risk here. Yes. Reporter and if you waited too long yes. Reporter how would you feel if somebody else was attacked . Let me just say, there were a lot of rosaries that were being prayed, for sure. Reporter she set up a Surveillance Team to watch cano and gordon around the clock. And got authorizations for wire taps and pulled cell phone records. When we started reading the Text Messages and started seeing how prolific they were at hunting. Hunting . Hunting, on almost a daily basis. And how nonchalant they were about it. It was almost like ordering takeout. When you start reading, what do you feel like today, asian or mexican . Oh, boy. What would they call these girls . That was the other thing, cats. Cats . Cats. Be careful, when the cat knows it isnt getting away, its going to fight. Reporter the next victim couldnt be far away. Because gordon texted cano, kitty cat later, yes. To which cano responded, ok. And then a sudden change. Had they spotted the surveillance . As trapp listened to the wiretap she heard gordon talk to cano about skipping town. I could hear the desperation in franc canos voice. That desperation just kind of sent a hair on the back of my neck and i said, no, im not waiting anymore. Theyre going to run. Theyre going to run. Reporter time to move. Fast. They caught up to franc cano 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. And ran out the door . On a bicycle, yes. He had a little collision with one of our su