Transcript of The Suitcase Murders

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My name is Jason Smith.

I work for the Town of Geneva Highway Department.

So on a typical day when I'm mowing roadsides, we would come in, we have our morning meeting.

Have some coffee, get the tractor ready, check over the mower, check the blades, make sure everything is in good working order, and hit the road. Mowing the roadsides, we mow basically back to the right-of-way. We do that to keep the weeds from spreading.

So I was mowing along and I noticed something. There was some brush in the way that I had cut out of the way. I went down and it turned out to be a suitcase. So I grabbed it. It was pretty heavy.

I just assumed it was some wet clothes and I drug it up to the edge of the road, put it right on the road to start with. And then I saw a second one behind that. So I went back and grabbed that one. Same thing. I drug it up to the road, set it right on the road.

Because it was so close to the end of the day, I didn't call anybody. Finished mowing. And then when I got in, I said, hey, we had a couple suitcases out there we should go pick up. My name is Eric Anderson. We're going to be pulling up to the area where the suitcases were on North Como Road.

I was a second shift patrol officer for the Town of Geneva Police Department. On June 5th, 2014, I was contacted for someone that called in regarding, uh, Suitcases on the side of the road. When I approached the suitcases, I saw a lot of flies. I took the black suitcase. I ended up taking it by the handle, laid it down, and unzipped it from the top and opened it up.

And I saw the remains of a decomposing human body, which appeared to be a female. Nothing can prepare you. Am I really seeing what I'm seeing right now? It's not normal. Opening a suitcase and seeing body inside.

Then I went to the second suitcase, the purple one, grabbed the handle, lifted it up, and felt the weight inside of that. So we proceeded to lay down the suitcase and open that one, and where we found another appeared-to-be human body inside. Who could possibly do this to another human being? And I determined that I needed to take a step back, close this off as a crime scene, and I needed to call my dispatch and let them know what was happening. We had to figure out, first off, who the victims were, then to try to figure out how they had lost their lives, and then to try to figure out who was the person responsible for that.

Geneva is just a small community. A lot of Chicagoland individuals come here to relax. It's a real quiet town. Population's around 5,400 people, but during the summertime, it doubles, even triples with vacationers. They come here for a place to relax.

Suitcases found on the side of the road with 2 young ladies deceased in there just flipped this town upside down. Became national news for the wrong reasons. Law enforcement was out on Como Road for about 5 hours yesterday evening when those 2 bodies were discovered. Nothing can prepare you for what but you can see upon opening a suitcase and finding a corpse inside of it, does it affect you? Of course, because police are not robots.

I had to let other people know to get down there, so I had to get a hold of the Walworth County Sheriff's Department to send detectives down to help me out with the scene.

Jeff Ragnogo was one of the first responding detectives from Walworth County Sheriff's Department. When I pulled up, Eric Anderson came up to me, and you could tell, like, there was something really important that had happened because he had that certain stare in his eyes. And he said that he had opened one of the suitcases and it contained a dead human being.

So one of the suitcases that was on the side of the road— This is terrible stuff. And when we open this up and you smell what you smell, I mean, it takes me back in time. To the same day when we discovered these things on the side of the road. And from the suitcase, what could you gather? There was no name identification on either of the suitcases, so it was pretty tough at first to try to figure out who they were.

Both of the victims' bodies were severely decomposed? Yes, they were so decomposed that we weren't able to get any DNA from their bodies. And the bodies were not dismembered? No, they were still all intact. Both of the women were about 5 foot tall, weighed right around £100.

We're trying to figure out cause of death, the manner of death. We noticed that both of the victims had tattoos, so we were trying to figure out from their tattoos who the people were. We had an anthropologist come in, take a look at one of our victims, and so what she did was she tried to do a drawing of her, a composite drawing. What could you gather from this? Not a whole lot.

The big thing obviously is that the victim had Larger-sized teeth, but not much luck really came from that composite drawing.

Cops made a couple more observations. One is that one of the bodies, the one in the purple suitcase, seemed far more preserved, almost in a state of mummification. They also noted that both bodies were bound with rope. This is a knotted piece of rope that was around one of our victims' wrists. What kind of person would do this?

That's what I asked myself when I first arrived at the scene.

The town of Geneva police chief providing few details. He is calling this a death investigation that they are treating as criminal. There really is not much more I can tell you at this time. But this quiet town is now buzzing with questions about safety. Everybody's just shocked and scared.

I can't even imagine what the people were thinking in this community. It hit like a Midwestern tornado and probably brought back some memories of Jeffrey Dahmer, that human predator who murdered 17 men, 16 of them in nearby Milwaukee. Definitely came to my mind thinking, are there more bodies somewhere else that some of this might be a serial killer? And what did I just get myself into? How many more people could there be or could this still be going on?

We were unaware of these 2 people missing from our immediate area, and we needed to go statewide because I thought that this was something not from our immediate area.

After casting a wider net, investigators are alerted about another case in neighboring Minnesota. It involves a woman who disappeared several months earlier. Under extremely suspicious circumstances. When I received the call that 2 bodies were in 2 suitcases down in Geneva, Wisconsin, I was wondering, is this connected with Laura?

Along this rural Walworth Highway near the town of Geneva, a lawn-cutting crew found abandoned suitcases containing the bodies of 2 women. It's a horrible, horrible crime that we're going to work real hard, and I have a lot of confidence in the investigators that they're going to be able to put some of these pieces together. I felt like we needed to have a bigger net to talk to people from a bigger area, from the whole Midwest, to try to find out who these victims were.

By widening that target area of investigation, cops learned that state authorities in Wisconsin are teaming up with nearby Minnesota police to investigate the disappearance of a woman several months earlier. Hey, just to let you know, one of our agents was helping out a detective from Minnesota in trying to find a missing woman. Maybe you should communicate with that detective. They then connected with Detective Lee Howitz from Farmington, Minnesota. So tell me about Farmington.

We're in Bloomington, Minnesota. What kind of people live here? Ah, totally a bedroom community, so it's kind of the last ring of the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburbs.

7 months before those suitcases are found in Wisconsin, Detective Lee Holitz is investigating the disappearance of 37-year-old Laura Simonson. Her abandoned van was found At her mother's home. And her van was parked right here on the right-hand side of the garage. And myself and Detective Sundgren, when searching it, we found her cell phone, we found her purse and medication. So I thought that was very odd when we found that in the van.

You get an indication that Laura's in trouble? You know, just reading through on what— who Laura was and what she had all gone through, especially in the past year. Ooh, a lot of red flags here.

Laura was raised in this general area. She was raised in Northfield, which is about, you know, roughly 20 miles south here of Farmington. And she was well-known in school and popular in school. Is it taping? Taping what, Laura?

Taping my— yes, it is. Hi! I met Laura in elementary school. Everybody loved Laura. She just would light up the room when she walked in.

Just the smile on her face always would brighten your day.

This is the Northfield Middle School. This is where Laura and I, uh, first met.

Laura had blonde hair and she was bubbly. She was She was fun to hang around with. She was a funny girl.

Oh, here's a nice one when we were younger. Yikes, look at those pigtails. But we had to have our hair done the same way and the same outfit. She looked up to you though, huh? Yeah, she did.

Yep, that's my little sister.

She was my, you know, little sister who was annoying at sometimes, but then, you know, at the same time I was her protector. When we got older, we really connected when we started having kids, when we started getting our own family.

Laura, out of high school, eventually got married and ended up having, you know, a family, actually quite a large family with 7 children. Their marriage was really ups and downs. It was like either it was really good and they got along really great, or it was the other side to where there were fights, and it was hard to watch. Well, ultimately, this marriage hits a dead end, and the couple divorces. And the darkness isn't over because after that, Laura's daughter Alyssa has a terrible accident in a pool, and she is rendered disabled.

Laura lived this, you know, for 13 years with Alyssa and took care of her every day, day in and day out. And Laura shut down. She didn't want to talk to anybody. Having to deal with the whole situation of the kids, that all just finally came to a head. And that was part of the downward spiral?

Yes, it was. Laura, I think at that time, had admitted that she needed help because she had started using drugs. The state, they took the kids. They separated the kids, put them in foster care. I feel like Laura lost her way and she didn't know how to recover from that.

June of 2013, the same daughter that had all the medical conditions ended up passing away, and I know that was a devastating blow to Laura. And she got an infection in her heart that nobody knew about and just passed away in her sleep. And what impact did this have on Laura? It crushed her. And her mental well-being in general, you were worried about that?

Yes, very worried about her. There were periods where we weren't sure where she was staying. We, we didn't know where she was.

On November 1st, 2013, Laura's mother received a text message from Laura, and it was quite alarming, saying, you know, Hey, I'm sorry I'm this way. It's not you, it's me. I'm no good for the kids either, and you know it. Best thing I can do is stay away. Love you all, always.

How concerning was this text to her family? It was very concerning, but they did not— you know, right when they got that message, they didn't act on it, as it was quite— let's say it's quite common that Laura would go missing at times.

The next day, there's that unsettling discovery of Laura's van in her mother's driveway. And inside, another note. I'm so sorry to leave the van here. Call and have it towed. She mentions her food card.

Take my food card and all that, which to me was kind of a red flag. But you were trying to find out where might she have gone, right? Correct, correct. Then I started calling, uh, you know, like local homeless shelters, churches. And things like that.

And I called, you know, her ex-husband, called boyfriends, contacts that she had with, but I was coming up with nothing.

Then another note, and this one is found at the door of Laura's mother's house. It comes from some mystery man, a guy the family never heard of. And then the case takes a sinister Hey, I haven't seen Laura since November 1st, and she's without her meds. I'm very concerned on her whereabouts. She has never disappeared like that.

We're like, all right, you know, who's— who's this guy? What's this all about? And now I'm getting more scared.

When Laura disappeared, it was a shocker. What do you mean Laura's missing? Laura would have never ditched her kids. That wasn't Laura. Her kids were her life.

We already know about the note that Laura left for her mother instructing her what to do with all her belongings. Well, 2 weeks later, another note appears. At Laura's mother's door. And this one is from a man named Jeff Madison. So Jeff leaves a note and saying, hey, I haven't seen Laura since November 1st, and she's without her meds.

I'm very concerned on her whereabouts. She has never disappeared like that. None of us know where she's at, and I'm very concerned. I had never heard of him. And, you know, we're like, who's this guy?

Now I'm getting more scared. Because she's missing. Her van's here, and now a friend of hers is reaching out to say, hey, I haven't seen her, you know, what's going on? Tell me more about this man, Jeff Madison, who left that note. Jeff Madison was a friend of hers that lived up in St. Paul, which is about 20 miles from here, and they were close friends.

Then something that comes as a big surprise Jeff Madison sends an email to Detective Sergeant Hollitz. In it, he says that Laura had been on an online dating community called Collar Me, and it caters to people involved in something called BDSM. BDSM stands for bondage and discipline, as well as domination and submission. As well as sadism and masochism. And so it's really a lifestyle that is largely consensual and related to the dimensions of power and control.

I was floored. I was very surprised. Do you think she was doing it because she wanted— I honestly think she wanted someone to take care of her. And, you know, in a submissive role, that's what that other person does, is They take care of everything. Not only does Jeff Madison know all about Laura's participation in this online community, but he actually knows her username and password.

Jeff made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The way he would communicate in emails, but also him having her usernames, her passwords. He knew too much. Exactly. Yeah, it was a little bit on the creepy side.

You must have asked yourself, who is this guy? Oh, I very much did. When I'm looking at his emails, I'm like going, is there a possibility there is some jealousy here? Is he hiding her out? Does he know something else?

I didn't know, but it was still kind of— it was just odd. But he was just that individual that actually cared a lot and knew his way around computers and all that. Detective Hollett says he decides not to bring Jeff Madison in for questioning at this time because there are still no signs of foul play. But Hollett says Madison maintains constant email contact with him.

And that's good news because he keeps delivering information that's helpful to the police, such as the actual profile name of the main person Laura has been communicating with on that CallerMe site. Mr. Handcuffs. Yeah, Mr. Handcuffs himself.

Looking at Mr. Handcuffs' profile, there is a picture of this guy sitting back on the couch. Mr. Handcuffs basically looked like a— probably somebody in their, like, young 50s. White Caucasian man, dark hair, well-groomed, you know, saying seeking a long-term permanent 24/7 slave for absolute ownership in slavery.

Jeff Madison continues to deliver the goods. This time he hands over a series of emails dating back a couple of months of communication between Laura and Mr. Handcuffs. She's constantly, you know, calling him sir and master, and he's kind of giving her marching orders. Here's how we're going to do it.

Here's how we're going to meet and all that. One of these emails that was sent to Mr. Handcuffs was quite haunting. She says in the, in the middle of the message, I have no self-esteem, no trust in myself, no judgment, no faith, no hope. No direction, no desire, no confidence, no will, basically.

The kids gave me the only thing to live for.

Reading these emails, it starts putting pieces of the puzzle together. I think Laura was still grieving and, you know, turned to these online sites. Might have been looking for, you know, a relief. Into distracting her from the death of her daughter. I would say that, you know, all those emotions created this, you know, perfect storm that created this person that nobody recognized.

Is it possible that Mr. Handcuffs has something to do with the disappearance of Laura? Then investigators uncover some startling video that really Heats up this investigation. And I'm like, holy moly.

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Terms apply.

Every time that I lift, you know, it's like a therapy.

It's very much a stress reliever and like meditation.

I'd be in the middle of lifting, just kind of thinking of the case, who to contact next and all that.

When I received this case, it just happened to be at a time in my personal life that my son was first showing signs of some serious mental health. Reading what Laura lived with and suffered with, what really resonated with me and really kind of hit me that, like, that, like, this person is suffering and going through a lot, and that's why.

Detective Holitz relentlessly continues with his investigation. He decides to send out a statewide bulletin about Laura's disappearance. I sent out what's called a Minnesota Crime Alert.

I sent it to shopping malls, Homeless shelters, hotels, law enforcement agencies, etc., with Laura's picture on it saying, anybody know anything about Laura Simonson?

Just by sheer luck, some hotel clerk sees this alert come over the fax machine.

This is Microtel. Inn& Suites by Wyndham. What was your job at the hotel? At that point in time, I was just a front desk agent.

You're working there and you receive a fax. What struck you about this particular fax? Well, the picture of her, that caught my attention. And then when I seen the name, I thought that That's familiar. I knew she had been at our hotel.

Christy from the Microtel Hotel in Rochester calls our police department and makes a report. I'm like, holy moly, we got Laura down in Rochester.

I talked to the hotel manager and I said, you got anything else that shows that was there? Okay, yeah, we have a registration card. It has a signature on it. It says Laura Simonson. This?

Correct.

You see so many guests. What do you remember about Laura? What struck you about her? I seen her a couple of times at the hotel. My antenna was up with her.

Laura looked sad, like, um, I guess he's like a beaten horse. Really? The guy she was with was always standing right behind her. Like, she was controlled. That's what I felt.

What did he look like physically? Kind of a pockmarked face, pale. I'd say medium height.

Ah, you know, there's certain people you meet where the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? Stand up. Yeah, he was one of those.

Because Christy was paying attention, we now have Laura at this time in Rochester, Minnesota, 1 hour away, with this unknown male. What evidence was the motel then able to give you guys? From there, I asked for the video surveillance of the hotel. I spoke with the manager. He says, okay, we got it.

But he goes, good news and bad news. Good news is I got a Sunday when they checked out. The Saturday when they checked in, they lost because of the, like, a 30-day time frame. Just by a day, you missed it. Correct.

I never got to see Laura on the hotel video. Never saw her checking in. There's this bombshell of surveillance, the checkout video. Correct. Let's play it.

What do you see here?

You'll see this unknown white male pushing a luggage rack full of suitcases. Okay. And he goes out the door. Then he comes on back.

Goes up here, he checks out. We know that Laura checked in. Do we ever see her checking out? We, we did not see her check out. She's nowhere on the video.

Any idea who he is, this man? I had no clue. Your mind must have been racy when you see this video. You got to find this guy. Correct, because he has information on my missing person.

He was with Laura. Everything's pointing that he was with Laura. At that time, I sent out another Minnesota Crime Alert with a still photo of him and asking again, police departments. I'm hitting the Rochester area hard. Who knows this guy?

Somebody must know him, right? For you, it's a race against time. It is, because every day that she is missing, She doesn't have any money. She's vulnerable. She could be in danger.

Correct. Once that man is spotted in that hotel video, Laura's friend Jeff Madison is cleared as a person of interest in this case. In the meantime, there's one person that she had been interacting with online. Correct. Mr.

Handcuffs.

Is this the man in the video? What do you see? And when his identity is revealed, it has law enforcement stunned. Whoa, now what do I got? I ran into my detective.

I go, you will not believe this.

By the time that I got the that video back. So I have this unknown, you know, middle-aged white male. So I'm like, all right, who is this guy that is involved with Laura Simonson? Okay, I don't know. Jeff Madison has become quite the citizen sleuth.

2 months later, he sends this email to Detective Hollitz, and he says he has new and very important information. This is huge news. He says he's identified Mr. Handcuffs. So Jeff Madison, digging into all of Laura's profiles and her emails and all that, he somehow figures out that this Steve is Steven Zelich.

Mr. Handcuffs. Yeah, Mr. Handcuffs himself.

So the next thing I did is I put it into a database that we have access to, and eventually it comes back to a Steven Zelich from West Allis, Wisconsin. West Allis is basically going to be like a suburb of Milwaukee. So I contact West Allis Police Department and I said, hey, I'm, you know, I'm looking, you know, for this Steven Zelich that lives at, you know, this apartment in your And then he tells me that Zelich used to be a police officer. A police officer? A police officer with that department.

Now, you're not just dealing with any suspect. This is a trained law enforcement officer. Correct. So that changes your approach. Oh, it absolutely does.

Stephen Zelich was from this area. He went to high school at St. Thomas More, which is a Catholic school. His dad was a Milwaukee police sergeant. So I suppose that was always something he thought about doing and started as a police officer in Mequon, which is a suburb northwest of Milwaukee. Zelich resigned from that department after 5 years and applied for a new post at the West Allis PD.

Now, of course, they're going to do a background check. Here's what came back: not any negative information and Zelich was a very good officer. He was an upstanding guy. Everybody liked him, very popular. This woman, who asked us not to reveal her face or name, dated Zelich while he was at the West Allis Police Department.

He was like the perfect boyfriend. I was a police officer for a different jurisdiction, and he was also a police officer, so we all hung out in the same crowd.

His apartment was meticulously clean. Very much a clean freak. But she says that after several years together, something changed with this seemingly buttoned-down cop and a darker side emerged. We had gotten home from a night of drinking and he was pretty intoxicated and he starts coming at me and he had handcuffs in his hand. What did he do?

He basically handcuffed me. He physically overpowered me, handcuffed me. She says the incident left her deeply shaken, but says she didn't report it at the time because of Zelich's position in the police department. And you wind up breaking up. After what he had done to me, and I, I couldn't trust him anymore.

In the years that I knew him, and years later, something changed.

Barry Waddell, the captain of the West Allis Police Department. He says, why are you asking about Steven Zelich? And so I, I kind of start telling him what I have and, you know, my case, and he pauses and he goes, let me tell you about Steven Zelich. He would get constantly women calling the department saying, he's harassing me. He had a habit of visiting people During his shift, stopping in at strip clubs, talking to the dancers, intimidating them in a way that— trying to get them to go out on dates and not taking no for an answer.

The West Allis police chief decided it is time to confront Zelich about these allegations.

If you're asking, intimidating, pressuring a Young women that go out with you, how long has this been going on? I have not done any of those things at all. I have politely asked, would I have a single woman? More than likely it's been for lunch date. There's been no harassment, pressure.

In addition to hanging out at strip clubs while on duty, Zelich was accused of harassing a woman who He was showing up here in the parking lot and waiting for her to leave work. Wouldn't take no for an answer. He certainly wouldn't.

What is this? So this is the fire escape. She would park right there where that white car is, and Steven Zelich was parked over there, and he pulled his car around and he would park right here. She was trapped. It was very dangerous and she was very scared.

Have you ever blocked her with your squad so she could not leave? No, I have not in any way blocked her in or intentionally blocked her in. Do you think it's proper, Steve, for an officer on duty in uniform to be approaching a woman and continually asking her for lunch? My behavior was never badgering. Never was I, uh, I'm not pushy or out of line.

I'm always professional and gentlemanly. Even though you're in uniform, on duty, carrying a gun? Well, I don't know if the uniform or the profession itself, um, lends to pressure, but it was a casual, very low-key contact with her.

Perhaps the most serious accusation against The incident against Zelich occurred one night when he was off duty and he took a woman home to his apartment. Well, she alleges he attacked her. She said she was scared and was in some state of undress at that point and still ran out of the apartment to try to get help. When confronted by his chief about the incident, Zelich maintained that he was just trying to stop the woman from stealing money.

She immediately goes right to my wallet. I grabbed her neck and hand area. I certainly don't want to hurt her, and so I stopped. And she then immediately goes out the door. I think I acted very appropriately, you know, with restraint.

You don't think you did anything wrong? No, absolutely not. I did nothing wrong. Steve was seen, uh, A pattern developed in the last few months. All of these women have felt intimidated by you, and I don't blame them.

I'm going to be drafting up charges with the Police and Fire Commission. After findings of multiple conduct violations, he's placed on administrative leave and eventually gets a 20-day suspension. So rather than face being fired, He resigned, and they did not pursue any criminal charges. That was the end of his law enforcement career.

Now the question, did this former police officer have anything to do with the disappearance of Laura Simonson?

And then I told Captain Waddell, I go, hey, I have a— I have a still picture from the video surveillance from a hotel in Rochester, Minnesota. He gets it, he calls me right back. He goes, that's Zelich. So now I know that we have somebody that was with Laura when Laura went missing. Now it's time for cops to pay a visit to Zelich.

They only have one thing on their mind: is Laura being held captive in his apartment? So the reason why we're here, we're regarding Laura, she's missing. What we're here for is to ask you when, when you last saw her.

After Steven Zelich resigned from the West Dallas Police Department, he became a security guard working for some corporations as As I'm digging around on this case more and more and more, I'm kind of getting frustrated because everything is pointing to Zelich.

So the captain of the West Allis Police Department, I asked him to go talk to Zelich. Remember, I'm working a missing persons case.

And I'm hoping that they knock on the door and Laura's there.

The officers are allowed in to look around and all that. They don't see Laura. They don't see any, you know, female clothes. Nothing.

Unfortunately, Detective Holitz has reached a dead end, and 2 months have now gone by since Laura disappeared. There are really no other investigative avenues for him to pursue. And then a phone call. Help is on the way. I get a call from an FBI agent right at the end of February.

Can you tell me about this case? I said, sure, I'll take anybody that has a big badge that, you know, cares about this case. My name is Carrie Gibson. In 2014, I was a special agent for the FBI assigned to the FBI field office in Minneapolis. The missing person cases would have come in to our unit specifically.

Detective Hollitz had shared that he hadn't interviewed Steven Zelich yet, and we needed to know what was he saying about his relationship with Laura. Well, when Agent Gibson heard that, she goes, can I send one of my Milwaukee agents, you know, with the Wisconsin State Police? And I said, yeah, 2 big badges better than one.

Steve? Hi. How are you? Good. Good.

I'm Gilbert Hernandez with the Department of Justice. How are you doing? Good. Uh, he says, do you want to come in? Happy to have a conversation.

Come into my residence. When they're speaking with him, they notice that he is, like, very nervous and sweating profusely. Did you ever want to meet? And she said no. Well, I think there was some insinuation of meeting.

I had no intention of actually meeting. You had no intention of meeting? No.

Why? Just because it was, it was really just interesting, fun recreation conversation online. That's really what it is. Okay. Did you even know what Do you know what state she was in?

No. Or at least I don't recall.

He said that they had met online, that he had never seen Laura. It was all fantasy-based conversations that he had had and really tried to distance himself from her.

He lied. We already knew that he had had a lot of contact with her. So we knew we were in the right direction with him. Thank God Agent Hernandez and the FBI agent ask Zelich, will you give us, you know, a sample of your DNA? If I ask you for a sample of your DNA, would you be willing to offer it to me?

Yes. Just because I want to, uh, as you know, being law enforcement, eliminate anybody, because I'm very worried about her. Yes. But keep in mind that this is still a missing persons case, and with no evidence of a crime being committed, investigators say there's not enough to move against But from there, we have no other information. But that is basically when the case went really cold.

No more leads. We don't know where Laura is. We have no contact. We have nothing. I know the family was getting frustrated.

What was it like waiting for answers? Horrible. But I wanted to know where she was. Why wasn't she here? Why wasn't she at Thanksgiving?

She never would have missed a holiday. It just didn't make sense.

The one thing that always ran through my mind is that she's going to be home today. We're going to hear from her. It was, I think, a few months after I was told that she was missing that, you know, I started to think, is she okay? Is she going to be back?

It's now April, 5 months since Laura vanished, and Detective Holland says his supervisor tells him to move on. There was no— really no more leads and all that. And the supervisor came in and he says, you need to close that case out. You have other things to do. Oh, boy.

At that time, he walked into his office And I went, no way am I dropping this case. You just couldn't put this case aside. I wasn't going to put this case aside. Then a couple of months go by, and I remember receiving a phone call. This is Carrie Gibson calling.

I didn't get to the phone in time, so it's on a voice message, and it's from Agent Gibson. There was 2 bodies that was found tonight in the county close to Milwaukee. 2 bodies, 2 suitcases. Correct. One petite individual who might be our Laura.

I rushed into work and I'm like, okay, let's see what's going on here.

I've lived in Walworth County for 25 years. Where's your mark? Right there. Good. Watch.

Watch. It's kind of a quiet rural area. Aim.

It's a very hometown, tight-knit community.

The dogs are always happy to see us. So what's nice about that is you have such a stressful environment at work, and then when you come home, now you have a friend who's happy to see you every day when you come home. To me, that's a great stress relief.

In June of 2014, I was a detective with Walworth County Sheriff's Office. This was a very big investigation for our entire agency. I've worked for a number of years at the Sheriff's Department, and During my time here, I mean, we did have homicides, but nothing to the severity of this kind of a homicide.

On June 5th, when I first got to the scene, I walked over to the black suitcase with Officer Anderson, unzipped it, and we saw an adult woman that was inside the Suitcase that was deceased. I could see that there was a tattoo on her ankle, and it had words and numbers. Then I walked over to the purple suitcase, opened it, and saw that it also contained a deceased adult woman.

The next day, we started to do the autopsies right away so we could try to figure out who the victims were. We decided that we wanted to communicate with all the local police agencies and several states in our area. We shared information about the height of the people, how much they weighed, their hair color, hoping that someone had reported these people missing. Please, this is Carrie Gibson calling. There was 2 bodies that was found tonight in the county close to Milwaukee.

One petite individual who might be The next morning, I rushed into work and I'm like, okay, let's see what's going on here. I speak with the local authorities down in southern Wisconsin. They asked me, what tattoos did she have? And I knew she had tattoos. I contact Laura's sister, Nikki.

Nikki tells me that she has like an outline of a heart on her ankle with her daughter Alyssa. And that's the one who had passed away earlier in the year. Passed away. Now you're convinced it's Laura. It's Laura.

It's Laura. We knew it was Laura.

The tattoo had her daughter's name. Mm-hmm. Who had died. Alyssa.

That must have been devastating for you. Yeah. I didn't want to believe it. And I remember thinking, I can't tell my parents.

How do you tell your parents that their daughter's It's not supposed to be that way. Could you ever imagine that the sister that you grew up with could have met her end in this manner? No, not at all. She didn't deserve it.

When I found out that they had found Laura, it was on the news.

That's how we— I found out.

She was found in a suitcase.

It's gut-wrenching. I mean, your worst nightmare comes true, you know. That's what that is.

So the victim inside Inside of this also had a rope that was wrapped around part of her body. We removed the rope from her body, and then we had that rope analyzed.

So in thinking about how someone might handle a rope, and particularly tying a knot, the parts that you're going to come in contact with your hands are going to be the portions of the rope going into the knot. So I swabbed the inside of the knots and sent those for DNA processing. On June 13th, we developed DNA profiles from the rope. By now, Steven Zelich is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Laura Simonson. Remember, he willingly gave up some DNA a while back.

Well, now cops are eager to try to match that to the DNA found on the rope. The DNA sample that the agents got from Zelich was a perfect match. Right there is a slam dunk. We had Zelich involved with Laura Simonson's death. I met with all the detectives.

I explained that she found Steven Zelich's DNA inside the rope, and you could have heard a pin drop. Uh, I was elated. Everybody was elated.

Now Wisconsin investigators reach out to Detective Travis Riggett of the Rochester, Minnesota PD. Remember, the Microtel is the place in Rochester where Laura is believed to have had that encounter with Steven Zelich. Steve Zelich was seen on camera checking out of the Microtel where him and Laura had checked into the day before. We did believe that Laura was probably in one of them suitcases that were pushed out of that lobby.

That led to doing a search warrant there. Knowing that how old the crime scene was when we arrived here and the information we had coming into this investigation, we were just hoping to find some sort of forensic evidence that may have been left behind. Forensics teams come through there and just swab the room looking for DNA samples. And at some point, we did get a return that, that yes, there was DNA evidence there from Laura. I told everyone that we were now going to move forward to the next step of the investigation of actually confronting Steven.

You got to strategize because this isn't just any suspect. This is a former law enforcement officer. Absolutely. He knows what we're going to ask him. Investigators want to question Zelich about what happened to Laura.

But then, out of the blue, he says something that takes them by surprise. She was like 16 or 16 and a half years old. And as he was going on, I didn't know who he was talking about. When you say the first one, which one? I mean, which name?

We had no idea who our second victim was.

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If anyone wanted to commit a murder, up here would be the greatest place in the world to hide the body, because no one will find it. He acted friendly. He talked friendly. He sounded friendly. They all knew that I did the scary boogie stuff.

And I said, maybe she'll find out where this girl is. I saw him violent, backhanded her. Pow! And that's exactly what made us all think he had something to do with it.

The clock is ticking down and the woods are calling. There are a lot of demons in Putnam County, but I've met the devil and he's real. I'm Paul Solotaroff, and this is season 2 of The Devil's Quarry.

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So from the biggest names to the biggest moments. ESPN is where you call home. Opening week begins October 21st. Once we discovered that we had Steven's DNA on that rope, that gave us enough evidence that we could do a search warrant on his home. Officials were seen carrying large paper bags back and Zelich's apartment was 3 steps short of squalor, a far cry from that meticulous clean freak described by his ex-girlfriend.

I mean, looking at the police video, the toilet and the bathtub alone looked like they hadn't been cleaned in maybe years. We took out 2 large suitcases that were full of evidence. BDSM equipment, collars and handcuffs and rope, things that, that we took as evidence. When they are searching his apartment, kicking the door in, Zelich just left for work like an hour earlier. DCI agent Gil Hernandez and I went to Johnson Controls to meet with Steven Zelich.

Steve agreed to talk with us. We get into the backseat of the squad car, and he said that although he wasn't a police officer anymore, he held his right hand up in a fist and bumped his chest. He said, in my heart, I feel like I'm still one of you.

We drove from Johnson Controls down to DCI's office on Wisconsin Street in Milwaukee. He was wearing this security guard uniform that looked very similar to a law enforcement officer's uniform. Essentially, he had everything except for a firearm. I decided not to remove anything from his belt because I didn't want him to feel like he wasn't one of us anymore.

We talked to him for several hours. At first, it was kind of nerve-wracking because you don't know how it's going to go.

Kerry Gibson was really good with psychology. She has that in her background, so she was very helpful in trying to— how do you talk to a person like this? The hope is to get a full confession from him, right? He sits back in his chair, and he looks at his nails, and he cleans his nails like this and listens to what the detectives have to say. I don't think it's going to be as interesting as you anticipate.

And I was just taken aback by just how incredibly calm he was and that he was not at all intimidated by that setting. So what was your nickname or call name on Collar Me? Mr. Handcuffs. Okay.

And that was a play— the name was a play off of probably the old Police Profession. So of course you asked him about the bodies in the suitcases? Correct. Did he deny responsibility for that? No, not at all.

We're gonna go the route of talk, no attorney. I can tell you already, uh, trial, none of that shit. So we're gonna go the route of condensing the process. Well, start off just like from the beginning.

Give me a starting point.

Uh, let's talk about the first girl.

When we interviewed Zelich, we had no idea who our second victim was. We only knew the identity of Laura Simonson. But then, without any prompting at all, Zelich starts talking about that unknown victim.

I first started talking to her online, so I would call it meeting her would be— she was like 16 or 16 and a half years old. Steve Kazdok, when you say the first one, which one are you— which name? I only know them by names. I don't know which one is first one and second one. Um, Jenny.

Jenny? Okay, thank you. When he mentions that name Jenny, how big a moment is that for you? Oh, that's— that was huge. Again, we didn't know who she was, and so you just let them continue to talk and talk, and you don't want to interrupt them.

Do you remember her last name? Gomez, or no, well, something similar to that. Gomez, something similar to Gomez. She contacted me, was interested in, uh, you know, uh, you know, coming out here. She was from, uh, West Coast.

Let me think a moment.

Oregon, I believe. He doesn't give you many more details, so how do you figure out exactly who Jenny was? So in the other room, we had FBI agents. Carrie Gibson was there, and then she started networking with her computer system. Do you have any passwords or anything on your cell phone?

Uh, no, it should be— Ultimately, he agreed to show us his phone where it had her screenshot from her CallerMe profile. It said that she was from Cottage Grove, Oregon.

So then we call Cottage Grove, Oregon police, and we ask if they can run Jenny Gomez in their system. I called the police department in Oregon, and I had asked, can you please send me a copy of her driver's license picture? I showed that picture to Steven, and he said that that was Jenny. What was it like to finally have the identity of both of these victims? It was relieving, very relieving.

We arrested him for hiding the corpses on the side of the road. For investigators, that's one huge mystery solved. But now the question is, who exactly is Jenny Gamez, and how did she become entangled with Mr. Handcuffs? I think maybe she thought that Steven Zelich actually cared about her and loved her.

Oakridge, Oregon is It's a small town. Everybody knows everybody.

People don't lock their houses here.

There's one stoplight. There's not much to it. One high school, one elementary school.

Jenny Gomez is my sister. Yes, she was my foster sister, but I mean, we were like siblings. Jenny had a very difficult childhood and a very rough home life, which eventually put her in the foster care system. My relationship to Jenny is I'm her sister. We were in the same foster home together, but we never said foster sister.

The 3 of us were inseparable. The 3 of us were the 3 amigos. Jenny was very funny. She was very kind. She had one of the biggest hearts.

She cared about everybody. Jenny was a very genuine soul. She was very giving, very trusting, almost too trusting.

But underneath Jenny's bright and cheerful exterior was someone struggling to cope with past trauma. Growing up, she had some minor brushes with the law and had given birth at a young age.

Jenny had been exposed to trauma, had lost custody of her child, and found herself in the BDSM community as probably a way to cope with some of that and to find again a place for her identity. So I think it was very shocking when we eventually discovered that she had a very, you know, big secret life. Steven Zelich first interacted with Jenny when she was 16 years old, and he interacted with her on the BDSM webpage, callherme.com. They ceased contact for several years. She reaches back out to him when she turns 18.

I think maybe she thought that Steven Zelich Actually cared about her and loved her. He had asked Jenny to get rid of all of her belongings, to play this, what I would call, disappear game, where it's her purposely getting rid of different belongings and changing her life. Zelich told her that he would take care of her for the rest of her life. So he made arrangements to fly her from Oregon If Jenny would have told one of us, I'm gonna go meet some guy in another state that I've never— like, that would— that we don't know, it would have never happened. We would— both of us would have found a way to shut that down.

When police officers searched Steven Zelich's home, one of the pieces of luggage had an identification card tag on it, and the phone number led them to Bradley Tenner. He had been friends with Jenny Gomez. He was present when she was packing for her trip. And we are speaking with Mr. Bradley Tenner. When was the last time you saw her?

Probably that August when she flew out. That morning I drove her to the airport. You're also pointing to a suitcase on a photograph on your personal computer you've shown me that is a female with this same suitcase. Who do you know that female in the picture you're showing me to be? As, uh, Jenny.

At that point, it seemed like she was trying to cut everything away, you know, channel off, and she suddenly seemed a little different. She traveled from Cottage Grove, Oregon to Kenosha, Wisconsin, August 26th, 2012. But he doesn't take her to his apartment. He takes her to a motel that is in Kenosha after picking her up from the airport.

Zelich knew in the back of his mind he was not bringing her home. Now, how is he going to deal with that problem? So Steven Zelich is describing a pretty horrific scene inside that motel room, and he's talking about this BDSM. SM encounter he's having with Jenny when he starts to strangle her with a rope. Basically, I had the rope around her neck and pulled it hard enough and long enough without releasing it.

Okay. And resulting in He says this was an accident, uh, you know, this is absolutely an accident. I got caught up in the moment. It was, you know, it was so enjoyable to me. I got way out of hand, and obviously, uh, my fault, and I'm gonna pay a price for that.

But Zelich's deadly narrative isn't over. In his flat, emotionless voice, he goes on to reveal something even these seasoned detectives cannot begin to imagine. Well, that's the— that's the moment of truth. That's the moment I have to decide.

In a steady procession, investigators appear from an apartment building near 80th and Lincoln in West Dallas.

I was in West Allis, and we were doing the search warrant, and I saw helicopters flying over, and news cameras everywhere. At a certain point, and I was standing right over there, they bring out this full-size kitchen refrigerator. You figured that was somehow critical to the investigation and, and what happened here.

It was Zelich himself who explains the significance of that refrigerator. Investigators bring him into a more comfortable interview room to keep him talking. Now remember, he's already admitted to strangling Jenny to death. Well, that's the— that's the moment of truth. That's the moment I have to decide.

I either— I can either call 911 or panic and do what I did, uh, um, put her in one of the suitcases.

I bought a luggage cart, stacked all the luggage including the pink luggage which had her in it now, and rolled it out to my car.

He proceeds to drive to his residence in West Allis, Wisconsin. When he gets there, he takes Jenny and all of his suitcases right out of the car and brings them into his apartment.

She comes in. The pink suitcase comes into the house.

I take her out.

She was put in the refrigerator.

Really, my thinking, I think, was to buy time and figure out what I'm going to do. So that is where she stayed for quite a while, and I can't use the refrigerator, so, you know, a lot of, uh, Fast food or eating at work or whatever. In retrospect, it's ridiculous, but that's exactly what happened. Authorities say it was that cold refrigerator that explains why Jenny's body was in a state of mummification. She was almost mummified and, and had mold on her body.

What was very clear to us is that hands down, the only time you ever have mold on a body is if the body is kept in a refrigerator, not a freezer. It just tells you how sick he was that he puts her in his refrigerator and he holds it for months. In fact, Zelich kept Jenny's body in his refrigerator from August of 2012 all the way until November of 2013. That's when he had that encounter with Laura Simonson in that Hotel in Rochester, Minnesota. And if you can believe it, Zeletz says the exact same thing happened again.

Very similar circumstances.

And that was the first incident after Jenny, second girl, Laura. What does he tell you about Laura's death at that point? Essentially the same thing that he told us about Jenny. He took a rope, wrapped it around her neck. He again pulled on it too hard, too long, and then she died.

He didn't do anything to help save her life.

Intensity and duration went too long. Okay. And at some point went past the point of a person You know, it cut off breathing too long. Zelich told us that he put her suitcase with her body in it on the luggage cart, and then he pushed it from the hotel room right out to his car. We were able to see that obviously in the video that we recovered from the Microtel Hotel.

Once he kills Laura, now it's colder, so he Puts her in the trunk, never brings her into the apartment. And at some point, he takes Jenny's body out of the refrigerator and puts her in the trunk of his car along with Laura. You would think that if somebody kills somebody, they're going to dispose of the body right away. Zelich's sick mind, those are his possessions. He owned them.

Can you imagine all winter long, home to work, work to home? Trunk full for all winter. With both, right? Yes. It amazes me, and I was living it.

It's crazy. Both in the trunk through the winter into the spring. Ultimately, it was getting warm up. I can't keep both suitcases in the trunk all summer. By June, It's warm.

He had those bodies in the trunk of his car. And an employee at Johnson Controls, who— one of his coworkers said something about his car stinking. I'm in a security uniform, so that's why he mentions it to me. Well, he said there's an odor over there. Well, I knew immediately what he was referring to.

He then becomes panicked, is what he says, and ultimately leaves work. Starts driving around trying to figure out what he's gonna do. Didn't know where he was gonna put them, what he was gonna do. Didn't know what to do. Drove until it was dark out.

Do you know where you were? Uh, no, I had no idea of this area whatsoever. I just was really looking for, you know, a quiet, dark place off the main freeway. Ultimately, where they were left was It was just dark and quiet. I really had no idea where I was.

I took both suitcases and put them on the side of the road.

You would think that as a former cop, Steven Zelich would be meticulous about covering his tracks, but he wasn't. Yeah, he could have done things better, but I'm glad that he didn't because eventually all these things, when they add up, helped us greatly with solving who killed these people.

Zelich has been saying all along that these 2 deaths were accidental. Now he faces confrontation by a room full of suspicious investigators who want to prove both women were murdered. I don't buy that Laura was killed by accident. I don't. You knew what you were going to do coming into this.

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Steven Zelich has admitted to strangling both Jenny and Laura to death, keeping Jenny in a refrigerator for months, and then putting both bodies in suitcases and abandoning them by the side of a road. But he still insists that both deaths were just accidents. It got way out of hand, and obviously, uh, my fault, and I'm gonna pay a price for that. He says it was an accident. What did you make of that?

Um, minimization. When people do bad things, a lot of times they don't want to take full responsibility for them, so it's easier for them to say softer words to, to what they did. Now a team of investigators from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the FBI are going to confront Zelich once again and try to get him to admit this was no accident. These were murders. My name is Detective Jeff Roknakel, and I'm meeting with Steve Zelik in the soft interview room at the sheriff's office.

We had learned all the details in the prior interview the day before, and we transitioned into more of an interrogation, trying to get him to admit what he did. He'd say the word death, but he never said that he killed them. During the interview, I was able to talk about, you had The ultimate power and control over their life, and then making that final decision whether they lived or died. This is the perfect crime because from a law enforcement perspective, if I go to do a missing person investigation, first I'm going to check their bank accounts. He was directing her to close out every aspect of her life and make it look like it was consensual.

Close all your bank accounts. Get rid of your vehicle. Donate all your belongings. All of this would look like Laura herself had orchestrated this on her own. That whole organized thing, I certainly can't take credit for that myself.

That's a very common thing in BDSM. The day that Laura disappeared, Zelich had methodically planned everything, telling Laura where and when to meet him Laura parked her van and then left it in her mother's driveway, where she exited her van, walked a couple of blocks down to elementary school, and was picked up. Looking through these emails between Laura and Mr. Hankuffs, they were all very haunting. One of these emails that was sent to Mr. Hankuffs, she says in the, in the middle of the message, I'll be dead whether it's with you alive as your slave or dead, murdered by you. Do you think she had a premonition?

I think she had an idea that it might happen.

When you talk about the inherent risk that's there, what does that mean?

It's just, just by the nature of constricting It's potentially dangerous. Is it potentially deadly? Well, it certainly can be, yes. You did not buy that? No, no.

I felt that there was more to this than the fact that we have 2 victims that were killed almost in identical ways. How does it happen twice? When you put them up to each other, they're just almost identical. When I look at the 2, obviously they're very similar. There's a pattern here where you have young women that are traumatized and looking for some type of security through a dominant partner.

And then you have a predator that's preying upon that. And they're mirrored. What he does with Jenny, he does with Laura. Are you trying to recreate that experience, that feeling from when you were a child? From the first one to the second one.

I can't say consciously that I consciously said to myself, I'm going to recreate. I like this so much that I'm going to recreate it exactly.

I was done listening to him be one of the guys. He had killed this girl, and I wanted him to admit that. I fucked up once, shame on me.

I still have a dead body in my refrigerator. I fuck up again? You have to know that what I'm doing is dangerous, is most likely going to kill her. It's dangerous and risky. I wouldn't say most likely going to kill her.

He makes no attempt to He puts her in a suitcase the same way that she died, and that's where I kind of turned it on him, saying, you knew what you were doing. I don't buy that Laura was killed by accident. I don't. You knew what you were going to do coming into this.

There's no motivation there. That's not my intent.

I will not go where Travis is inferring. Travis is inferring something different. What am I inferring? That this is just an intentional, intentional homicide, and that is inaccurate. He kept saying, I don't like what Travis is insinuating.

I said, what am I insinuating? And he still wouldn't say that I murdered her. It was the callousness of Zelich during his interviews that he took zero responsibility for anything. Zelich is ultimately charged with multiple counts of murder and hiding a corpse. He pleads not guilty to all counts.

And as prosecutors gear up for trial, Zelich delivers an 11th-hour twist. Twist that takes everyone by surprise. We were convinced that we had what we needed, but then it all changed.

For months, Stephen Zelich was awaiting trial in Kenosha County for the 2012 murder of of 19-year-old Jenny Gomez. I did have a concern that, is there going to be one jury member or 2 jury members that would kind of, you know, maybe give him the benefit of the doubt? This case was just about the only thing I was thinking about for weeks, and we were geared up. The state of Wisconsin had a compelling criminal case against Steven Zelich for the murder of Jenny But then it all changed. The weekend before the trial, Steven Zelich decided he wasn't interested in a jury trial.

He was interested in entering a plea. He must have thought that was his only shot of ever seeing daylight again. Steven Zelich was originally charged with first-degree intentional homicide, and he pled guilty to first-degree murder. I'm very sorry that this occurred, and I'm very sorry, uh, Jenny was the victim and I wasn't able to protect her the way I was supposed to. The judge sentenced Zelich to 35 years in prison and 10 years extended supervision.

In Minnesota, Steven Zelich pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Laura Simonson. And he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Later, he got 10 more years in prison in Walworth County for 2 counts of hiding a corpse. Now, add it all up, Steven Zelich will die behind bars. I was relieved.

It's a devastating case, devastating thing that happened to Laura and her family. And I saw it as a closure. At the end of the day, I'm glad that he pled guilty and was held accountable for his actions so that way the victims' families could start to heal. I think he's pretty lucky to still be alive in prison. I felt relieved that they got another monster off the streets.

He can't hurt anybody else for the rest of his life.

Despite the convictions, investigators say they still have work to do. They say they need to determine if there might be other victims of Steven Zelich somewhere out there. Now that we had opened Pandora's box, essentially, how many more victims were we going to find? I know you're saying that there are no more victims, but I'm, I'm scared that there might be something There's no future— there's no future victims. There's no additional victims.

None. Zero. In the search warrant at his residence, we located 35mm pictures with different women that were in BDSM sessions. These are all your pictures? These are my pictures.

These are photographs I took.

How many different people are in these pictures? Who are in these pictures?

I've got time that we can sort through them a little bit. We started trying to identify who these women were, trying to see if we can develop anything further as far as other women he may have killed. That didn't turn up anything for us at the time. I don't know that he killed anybody previously to these 2. But I think if left unchecked, he would have continued to do what he was doing.

And we had information that he was immediately upon dropping off these 2 bodies, making plans through email to try and meet another woman, where he starts up with this same pitch of, you're going to come and live with me and be my slave. So I do believe that if Steven Zelich was not arrested It's actually hard to fathom the whole thing, how all the things lined up. I'm just thankful that that happened the way it did because it easily could have been a whole other year before we found the suitcases. I think it's important to remember that Anytime you lose somebody like that's like so close to you, like your sister, your life's never gonna be the same. It's never gonna be whole.

There's always gonna be— it's like that puzzle where you— there's always that one missing piece.

So I figured We figured we could go to Green Waters Park, um, just like in remembrance of Jenny. And release some flowers in the water. Yeah. Because we have so many memories with her having to do with water, in water, the pool. Always swimming.

Always swimming somewhere.

Jenny was a very genuine soul.

I don't think she had a mean bone in her body.

She was just a beautiful soul. I'm waiting for her mom.

Laura was a good friend. She was outgoing. She was full of life. She's a funny person. She's full of humor, and she could make your, your day a better day if you had had a conversation with her.

And her smile is just one that one can never forget.

Laura was a loving mother, and she was a great aunt, a great sister, a great daughter. And the fact that this happened is just horrible and heartbreaking. Laura taught me a lot of patience, and a lot of kind of like where I ended up came I love her. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her, and I miss her every day. And I know they're all looking down on us, trying to make sure we're safe.

I'm so proud of you. Well, we know that family was the center of Laura Simonson's life. Her legacy lives on in her 5 children and now 4 grandchildren. And David, there's an update on Ginny Gammas's family. Her son recently graduated from high school and now has a thriving career in the military.

That's our program for tonight. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Deborah Roberts. And I'm David Muir. From all of us here at 20/20 and ABC News, good night.

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