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Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So today I'm going to be telling you about another case that is extremely near and dear to my heart. One that I've followed for a really long time and one that recently got solved, which was amazing.
and back when I first heard about it, it was not solved. This is another case that has been recently solved with genetic genealogy, which is such a fascinating thing if you have not heard about what they're doing in the crime world with genealogy these days and how they're literally solving crimes years and years later with genealogy and DNA.
It's amazing. Very interesting. And I really hope it leads to more and more cases being solved. Um, because even though the death I'm about to tell you about is extremely tragic, there is a little bit of a silver lining with this video that it has now been finally solved and the family has answers. So this is Christie Merak.
Christie was born on November 3rd of 1967 and she grew up in Pennsylvania. She was the middle child in her family and her family and her were extremely close. Just by listening to the family's interviews, you can tell how close they truly are and how this whole thing has just broken them in such a deep way.
And she was especially close with her brother and his name is Vince. And Christie was a really well-liked person. And so many of the cases that I cover, the person is a well-liked person, but really Christie was really loved and cherished by those around her.
She was described as kind of like the wholesome girl next door type of person. She was just really, really nice, like salt of the earth type of individual. And literally like no one had anything bad to say about her. There's actually this great clip of her when she was younger. Um, there was this show, this old show, it was called dancing on air and
And I think it was literally just a show of people dancing on air. And Christy wanted to be on this show really, really bad. And she ended up getting onto the show. Not like that. We're gonna have a good time. Don't.
- I do? - She was just that type of person who enjoyed fun situations and was really outgoing. One thing that Christie always wanted was to be a teacher. And I really relate to Christie in so many ways because before I decided to become a full-time YouTuber and really like go for the moon with this job, I was in elementary education.
I went through three years of school in the elementary education major and I met tons of other elementary ed majors and I'm telling you, they're some of the nicest people out there like elementary teachers or just teachers in general are some of the nicest humans you'll ever meet. So Christie's story is especially sad in that sense because she was this amazing teacher.
And you know, not just any teacher. She really, her kids truly, truly liked her. People said they would go into her classroom and she had this way of like captivating her students. What would you...
Look at him. Emily, let's go with what we have up here. And the principal said that she was one of his best teachers. There are certain teachers where you can walk in their classroom and you almost get chills. She was extremely into her job and dedicated to her students. Like, we've all had that one good teacher that you'll just remember forever. Like, I'm sure you can think of someone. And Christy Murak was that person for a lot of kids.
So in 1992, she was 25 years old and she was living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She loved the school that she was working in as a teacher and was truly enjoying her life. The community that she lived in was a really like tight knit, strong community, the school, everyone in this area and life was going really well for her.
Her future was looking bright, she was happy, and then everything would change in December of 1992. It was actually only five days before Christmas on the 20th, and she was at home doing the sweetest thing ever. She would individually wrap books for each of her students so that they would each have their own personal gift from her.
Now that is going above and beyond. She wanted to give them all like a Christmas present and that's what she decided to do. So the next day, it was the 21st. It was wrapping up the semester and Christy started her day off like normal, just getting ready in her house like normal. She had all those gifts wrapped up, ready to bring to school with her.
And Christy was known for being like a super early riser. Like she was always up before the sun came up. On this particular day, Christy decided to watch some TV before getting ready for work. She had a roommate and it was actually Monday morning. So her roommate left for work at around 7 a.m. And Christy usually left around 7.45. However, Christy did not make it to work that day.
And this is like extremely unlike her because she is super into her job. She loves being a teacher. She loves her students and she would never just not show up and not call. Like if something was wrong, she would call and, you know, make sure there's a substitute or something. She wouldn't just ditch her students. Her school principal was literally shocked by this. Like he knew right away something has to be wrong if she's not here.
After attempting to contact her several times, he got worried and decided to give her mom a call. I called her mother and I said, have you heard from Christy? The phone rang. My mom was upstairs. She came downstairs and she said, Christy didn't show up for work. And so her principal was so worried, he jumped right in his car and went to Christy's apartment. She was worried. I was worried. I said, I'll tell you what, I'll drive down and I'll probably end up changing her tire on the car. So...
I started driving. Her mother had given me her address. The farther I went, I did not see her. And then I started to panic. I pulled up. Her car was parked there. And I knew something was wrong. So he went up to her individual unit, and the door was cracked open, which is obviously pretty weird and scary. So he started yelling in there, yelling her name.
So I'm yelling, "Christy, Christy, Christy." And didn't hear back, didn't hear anyone. So he decided to go further in and he eventually saw Christy Murack's body lying lifeless on the floor. Meanwhile, Christy's family is very concerned, knows something's probably wrong and are waiting to hear back from the police.
- Kept calling and calling and calling, and finally when somebody answered her phone at her apartment, they acknowledged themselves as being someone from law enforcement, and that there's been an accident, and she passed. - What was your reaction when you heard that? - Devastated. - And it's terrible, but Christy's body was in horrible condition, so much so that the family were told that they probably shouldn't be
She was sexually assaulted. She was strangled. They think that was the cause of death. Her head was beaten, her jaw was like punched in and she was still wearing her coat and her gloves. So it was obvious that she was headed out to work when this happened. This is really strange, but investigators actually found a footprint
of her doorway. So they think that at one point she may have been lifted up really high. There were also like scuff marks found in the living room foyer area. And in the room, there was actually a cutting board found, um, no knife, but just a cutting board and investigators thought that was weird at first, but then they realized maybe Christie used it to defend herself. And then the killer ended up using it back against her. And the books that she had wrapped up all for her students were scattered all across the
the floor of her apartment. Now, seriously, no one had any idea who could have done this. Like sometimes or oftentimes when women are found dead in their apartment, there's normally someone that you can suspect may have done it. But in this case, Chrissy didn't have like an abusive boyfriend or a toxic relationship. No one really knows who would want to hurt her.
So she was buried at the All Saints Cemetery in Ellisburg, Pennsylvania. And then what's really strange is the next day after this, someone showed up at the school with flowers for Christy. When he was asked what he was doing, he said that he was just there because he was a friend of Christy's and he was just stopping by to say hello, which people thought was completely bizarre because she died. Like it was big news in this area that she had died. And when a close friend of hers, like,
know what happened to her. Very strange. So people started to think that this guy could have been the one who did it because sometimes criminals will return to a crime scene or show up at a memorial. Like there's all types of weird cases of stuff like that happening. So the school staff did end up calling the police because they thought it was so strange. And the next day, the same guy calls back to the school and asked if there were counseling services available for, you know, people who lost Christy.
The principal ended up getting really worried and just told him no and you are not welcome at the school. So this man ended up being Christy's secret boyfriend who was actually 20 years older than her and married. And people started to think that maybe it really could have been him because why would she open the door to a stranger? Like she obviously knew whoever she would let into her house. But the thing was is there was a bunch of DNA left at this crime
And when they ran the DNA through the national law enforcement database, nothing came back. No match. It wasn't long before Christie's boyfriend, secret boyfriend was cleared as being a suspect. They interviewed a ton of people, like a lot.
people because they thought it could have been someone who had a really low key role in her life. Maybe someone who's just like an observer, kind of a stalker from the sidelines. Even though investigators talked to so many different people, not one of them ended up becoming a viable suspect. Like they had no possible good leads and they were left with pretty much nothing for weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years. And Christy's family obviously had to deal with the
of not knowing what happened to her for a very long time. Just before the 10 year anniversary of Christy's death, her mom did pass away from cancer, which was very sad. Although she did feel comforted knowing that she was going to be with Christy soon. It was really hard for the rest of the family and her
Her mom really made a big plea on the news stations one last time, one last interview about Christy, trying to get the public to, you know, reignite interest in this case. And her mom ended up passing away in November of 2002. They want justice for their daughter and sister. To law enforcement, her case is one that has gone on for 19 years too long. And to someone who never knew her, Christy Merak is a name that has always stuck with him. 1990.
THE EAST LAMPETER TOWNSHIP POLICE DEPARTMENT CONTINUES TO ACTIVELY INVESTIGATE ANY AND ALL LEADS, NONE PUTTING ANYONE BEHIND BARS. IT'S FRUSTRATING BECAUSE IT'S BEEN THIS LONG AND YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO SOLVE IT. THAT IS NOT STOPPING POLICE OR CHRISTIE'S FAMILY FROM HAVING HOPE THAT ONE DAY THIS CASE WILL BE CLOSED.
BUT UNTIL IT IS, CHRISTIE'S FAMILY SAYS THEY CANNOT FORGET. THE PAIN IS ALWAYS THERE. I MEAN, THERE'S NOT A DAY THAT GOES BY THAT, YOU KNOW, WE DON'T THINK ABOUT HER. CHRISTIE'S BROTHER VINCE WAS 21 AT THE TIME OF HER DEATH. HE SAYS ALL HIS BIG SISTER EVER WANTED WAS TO BE A
was to teach. She finally achieved that dream and it was taken away from her just like that. Christie's passion for teaching is what inspired Fred Nell to put the unsolved case in the public eye. I kept driving by the school. I kept driving by the place she used to live at thinking about her. I value education.
I value that Christy could still be teaching today, 19 years later. Nell never met Christy or her family, but his signs and T-shirts are reminders that she should not be forgotten and any information should be shared. I just knew I could make a difference, and I know one person could make a difference on trying to solve this case. A sentiment reflected by each person who has been touched by Christy before or after her death. You can end this, and the family can get final closure. So what happened?
to their daughter. We desperately want to solve this case. We're very determined to do so, you know, for the family and for Christy. I don't even want to have to deal with the 20th year anniversary of Christy's death. Barak was a teacher at the old Roarstown Elementary School, and Nell says her absence here is sad. I believe someone out there is going to drive by that eventually one day and say, you know what, I want to talk. This has been an emotional case for us as well. It reminds us...
So two whole decades passed.
When a district attorney named Craig Steadman decided that he was going to get involved in the case and take over so that it could have a fresh set of eyes. Him and his team decided to start completely over from the ground up, like start at square one and see if there was anything that was missed. And obviously a lot of time has passed since Christie was murdered in 1992. It's been over 20 years and genealogy has come a really, really long way.
So the DA and his team decided to get in touch with a company called Parabon Nanolabs. And I've talked about this company before as they were involved in the April Tinsley case. They are really paving the way with this DNA stuff. It's amazing. And they do something called DNA phenotyping. And they basically use a special technology to create a digital picture of what someone's supposed to look like from a DNA sample. And they did this with the DNA at the crime scene and created a picture of what they think the suspect could have
and then it was sent out to the public. - So this is the image that they've come up with, and then down here, you'll see the different characteristics. First the ancestry, and then the skin, eye, hair, and the freckles.
I'll go through these for those of you can't case you can't see it. So they give you the different percentages and the different shades. The orange bar is where they're saying is, is, you know, the most likely appearance. And then they give you the percentage of confidence that they have that as well.
Yes, sir. That's right. They're very clear that DNA doesn't give you the age or the body mass index. They are doing approximations, and those are the ages that they typically pick.
But you're absolutely right. DNA doesn't tell you how old somebody is. Now there is someone that you should know about named Cece Moore. And she is hugely involved in a lot of different cases and is literally solving cases using genetic genealogy. And she's like one of the best in the business.
- For decades, the case of the Golden State Killer had investigators baffled and citizens on edge. Then just in April, former police officer Joseph DeAngelo was arrested and is now awaiting trial on murder charges. The break in that case came through DNA and genetic genealogy. And our next guest, CeCe Moore, is a DNA detective of sorts. You've gotta hear her story. She's become one of the leaders in this field. She is known to do a lot of her legwork,
from her couch, and it is groundbreaking work that could have huge implications for fighting crime. This should tell us which ones we can be more confident. There's no separation between those two populations. Never once occurred to me that I would end up being involved in law enforcement in any way, and certainly not in helping to solve crimes.
More partners with a company called Parabon NanoLabs, which analyzes DNA samples left at crime scenes and then uploads their results to GEDmatch, a public genealogy website where people have already provided their own results from DNA tests. She decided to step in
and try to solve this case. And the test came back with several hits of family members of the killer. Cece was then able to narrow down the family tree to a specific family in Lancaster of European and Latin American descent. Even though she found the family that he was in though, she still had to find the exact person. So this is crazy, but she ended up looking at archived newspaper articles and documents and stuff. And she found an engagement announcement for the son of the targeted family.
And just like that, she was able to narrow it down and figure out exactly who this person was. So she literally solved this case. She figured out who killed Christy Merak, and it only took her a few days after over 20 years of investigators trying to figure it out. So the next step in this is if you don't have the actual suspect's DNA, you only have their family and you're tracing it back through the tree, you have to actually get their DNA to communicate.
firm that they matched the DNA. So they had an idea of who they thought this was and they basically waited for the suspect outside of this school and he came outside and he tossed a water bottle and some gum into a trash can and they took it out and that's how they figured it out. Now they've done this many times. They literally go through criminals' trash. It's how they caught the Golden State
And on June 25th of 2018, it was announced at a press conference that they finally had a match to the DNA that they were holding on for the past 25 years in the Christy Murak case. Thank you, Brian.
Good afternoon. Thanks for coming again. Apologize for holding you up a little bit of this a fluid situation and we just wanted to have things organized before we came in and spoke to you. So he said I'm Craig Stedman. I'm the district attorney in Lancaster County. There could be a lot more people standing up here. So many people have worked on this case, but.
Today we are announcing the arrest of Raymond Charles Rowe for the murder of Christy Murak from December 21st, 1992. He is being charged with one count of criminal homicide by Detective Christopher Herb from my office, a Lancaster County detective from the DA's office.
He was arrested today at his home and will be taken to Lancaster County Prison. He will not be eligible for bail in this offense, for this offense. I will go through some of the facts of the case.
I'm going to allow and ask Steve Armatrout, who's the CEO of Parabon Labs, to talk a little bit about his critical role in this case and getting us here to this point, as well as CeCe Moore. She'll be coming in through Skype. Genealogy is a relatively new technique.
It was thrust into the public spotlight after the Golden State Killer suspect arrest. We used a database called GEDmatch. GEDmatch is a publicly available database. You've inspired me with your dedication throughout my work on this case.
This is Kristi Murak's killer. His name is Raymond Rowe. He's 49 years old and he's actually a popular wedding DJ. Apparently he's so good that people book him like months in advance and he's like the best DJ in this whole area and no one had any idea that he could do something like this. Like people were shocked and it's crazy when you look at the pictures that pair
Paraben produced, like the, you know, computer generated pictures compared to his actual photos, you can tell that it works extremely well. I mean, it's very similar, especially like the nose, the bone structure. And if you think about it, that DNA was from 20 years ago. So it would have been him at a much younger age. And in addition to being a DJ, he was also a successful businessman and a father. He was someone who would often attend church. And for 25 years, he was living a pretty good life as a free man after he killed...
he killed Christie. And what's also really strange is he was actually known as someone who was very against violence, which is kind of awkward. In fact, in 1992, he literally made an event called Stop the Violence. And the event was to get kids to move away from violence. And it turns out that this was actually a few months before he committed the murder.
Raymond Rowe is being held in prison without bail. He is set to appear in court next week to face the charges against him. And, you know, the police didn't have any records on him or anything. They didn't see any red flags about him. But one of his ex-girlfriends did say she was surprised, but she wasn't shocked completely because he was pretty aggressive with her and controlling of her and they had a bad relationship. But the big mystery here is, did Christy actually know this guy?
because her family thinks she would never have opened the door for someone she didn't know. Either she was opening the door and he just barged in, but why target her? Or did she know him? Were they maybe dating secretly if she had this other secret boyfriend? I mean, he was a DJ and she was young. She would go out with her friends. So maybe it was possible they ran into each other one night.
It doesn't explain why he would just violently kill her like that. It seemed like a rage crime, like a crime of passion. So it makes me wonder if there was a secret relationship there, but I'm not sure. One thing that was really strange is they did find a ticket to a certain club that Raymond did DJ at during the time that she was killed. So it is possible they crossed paths. So Raymond Rowe ended up pleading guilty on Tuesday, January 8th of 2019.
Susan, Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stemmon joining me just wrapped up a press conference on the Raymond Rowe, a.k.a. DJ Freeze, guilty plea in Christy Murak's murder back in 1992. Thank you for joining us. You said this is a case that deserved the death penalty, but you were willing to accept the guilty plea today. Explain that.
Well, on the facts, I mean, it's just so brutal. You know, the law, the death penalty is justified. And having said that, we know in Pennsylvania, they're not really executing people for it. And it's what's more important is what's the family feel. And we sat down with the family and the family was very much in favor with this disposition to spare them a trial. And he'll never get out.
Life in prison. Without the possibility of parole, plus 60 years. You do believe he may have been stalking her from a distance? There were incidents leading up to this. Someone was peeping Tom at the residence. We also have, we could show that he worked on the same road that was just down the road from her apartment, and it would have been along his route from the city. He would have driven by that hundreds of times, right by her apartment, which is on the corner. So we have some links in addition to that, that they were frequenting the same
social clubs. He actually would DJs, but we can't, we don't have anything that says they met on a certain day. And apparently when they were in court, he actually said something to her family and said, I can't imagine what you're going through. I apologize. He also said, I'm sorry, sir, to Christie's father.
So even though this is an incredibly sad case, like I said, it is amazing that these cases are being solved. And it's really great to hear of cases that end up getting solved with this genetic testing because two reasons. One, we could still solve all of these past cases that are unsolved. There are so many, it's insane. And there's plenty of DNA that we can start working on. They're doing tons of stuff right now as we speak and killers will be caught in the future. The other reason is that maybe this can prevent other killers from even wanting to commit suicide.
a crime. Like if you're going to commit some violent crime, you're going to probably leave DNA evidence behind. It's almost impossible. And with how good everything is now, good luck getting away with it. My heart truly goes out to Christie Morak's family. This is such a sad story. Christie seemed like such a wonderful, wonderful human, someone who did not deserve to be brutally murdered on their way to school.
It's such a senseless tragedy that just leaves me like without words. It's so messed up. I'm very, very glad though she has justice now. Very late, but better late than never. That's for sure.
That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.
