Man horribly butchers teen in Mall parking lot. It took Detectives 39 years | True Crime Documentary
[Music] A warning to our viewers. What you’re about to watch is a true story. The following program contains content that some viewers may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. December 19th, 1979. Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The temperature hovered just below freezing as Christmas shoppers hurried through Westale Mall.
No one noticed the horror unfolding in a green Buick Electra parked in the shadows of the lot. Inside that car, 18-year-old Michelle Martino fought for her life. Her hands slashed as she tried to defend herself from a frenzied knife attack that would leave her stabbed 29 times in the face, chest, and hands. By 4:00 a.m., police flashlights would illuminate a scene that would haunt Cedar Rapids for decades.
Michelle’s body slumped over, her blonde hair matted with blood, her white winter coat now crimson. The killer had vanished without a trace. No fingerprints, no witnesses, no suspects, just blood. Michelle’s and someone else’s. For nearly four decades, Michelle’s murder tormented Cedar Rapids like an unsolved riddle. A generation of teenagers grew into middle age, carrying the memory of a killer who vanished without a trace.
Her ex-boyfriend lived under a cloud of suspicion that followed him across the country. Her parents went to their graves believing justice would never come. And with each passing year, the chances of solving the case seemed to fade like the ink on the aging case files. Then science caught up with a killer who thought he’d gotten away with murder.
A discarded straw at a pizza restaurant. DNA preserved for four decades. A family tree built from a genealogy website. All leading to a man no one suspected. A respectable businessman with no criminal record who’d been hiding in plain sight for 39 years. Welcome to the Shadow Files crime series. Tonight’s case will shake you to your core.
Take a moment to hit subscribe, drop a like, and please let us know where you’re watching from. And now we begin. December 1979, Jimmy Carter occupied the White House. Gas cost around 86 cents a gallon, and Americans were still reeling from the Iran hostage crisis that had begun the month before. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, factory whistles punctuated the day as workers at companies like Quaker Oats and Wilson Foods clocked in and out, providing the backbone of this hardworking Midwestern city.
The new Westale Mall, opened just 2 years earlier, represented progress and prosperity. A gleaming two-story shopping center where teenagers gathered after school and families tackled their Christmas shopping. The mall’s bright fluorescent lighting and holiday decorations created an illusion of safety and security that would soon be shattered.
Cedar Rapids in 1979 was a place where violent crime remained rare enough to shock the community. The murder rate hovered below the national average and residents still viewed their city as immune to the type of violence plaguing larger urban centers. Police officers knew most residents by name. Parents let their teenagers drive to the mall alone without a second thought.
18-year-old Michelle Martinko embodied the wholesome promise of Cedar Rapids youth. A high school senior at Kennedy High with dreams of college, she sang in the choir and twirled batons at football games. On December 19th, she attended a choir banquet at the Sheran Inn, then headed to Westdale Mall alone to check on a winter coat her mother had placed on layaway.
It was the last night of her life. What followed was a murder investigation that would span four decades, baffled two generations of detectives, and ultimately be solved by a technology that didn’t even exist when Michelle drew her final breath in that mall parking lot. The vicious nature of the crime, 29 stab wounds, many to her beautiful face, suggested a deeply personal rage.
Yet for 39 years, investigators couldn’t connect her to her killer. What happened to Michelle Martino in that mall parking lot didn’t end when the killer slipped away into the night. For 40 years, her murder haunted Cedar Rapids like a ghost, driving investigators careers, tormenting the wrongfully accused, and teaching a Midwestern city that monsters can hide behind ordinary faces.
But in Michelle’s final moments, as she fought desperately for her life, she unknowingly collected the evidence that would one day speak her killer’s name. In the darkness of that mall parking lot, more than a young woman’s life ended. A killer’s clock began ticking. Michelle Marie Martino was born on October 6th, 1961 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Albert and Janet Martino.
Her arrival was something of a miracle. Janet was 44 years old and had already suffered through five miscarriages before Michelle was born. The Martino family, including Michelle’s older sister, Janelle, who was 12 when Michelle came along, cherished their miracle baby. But Michelle’s early life wasn’t without challenges.
At age 12, she was diagnosed with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that required her to wear a restrictive medical brace from her neck down to her hips. For a young girl entering adolescence, the condition was devastating. She felt very different, very self-conscious. Her sister Janelle would later recall she couldn’t move around like other kids could move around, so that was a tough period.
Yet, these struggles shaped Michelle’s character. By age 14, she was finally able to shed the brace, and what emerged was a young woman determined to make up for lost time. Her transformation was remarkable. The once restricted teenager blossomed, growing her blonde hair long in the style of Farah Faucet, and developing a distinctive sense of fashion that turned heads.
At Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School, Michelle excelled both academically and socially. She maintained above average grades while joining the twirling squad as a sophomore. She performed in choir and theater productions, showcasing a natural talent for performance. Teachers and school officials regarded her highly, impressed by both her academic dedication and positive attitude.
Despite her growing popularity, Michelle maintained a smaller circle of close friends. Some speculated the jealousy over her beauty and stylish clothes kept some potential friendships at bay. But those who knew her well described Michelle as kind, determined, and warm-hearted, someone who had overcome physical limitations and emerged stronger for it.
As a high school senior in 1979, Michelle had her sight set firmly on the future. She planned to attend Iowa State University to study interior design, a perfect outlet for her creative talents and meticulous eye for detail. Her parents, supportive as always, were preparing to help launch their youngest daughter into adulthood. On December 19th, 1979, Michelle attended a banquet for the Kennedy Concert Choir at the Sheridan Inn in Cedar Rapids.
She wore a black jersey dress with a black scarf, black panty hose, and heels, and a waistlength white and brown rabbit fur jacket. After the event, Michelle asked two different friends to join her at Westdale Mall to pick up a winter coat her mother had placed on layaway. When both declined, she decided to go alone.
It was the last decision Michelle Martino would ever make. By morning, the vibrant 18-year-old with a bright future would be found dead, her promising life cut violently short in the darkness of a mall parking lot. As we go into the most chilling details of this documentary, take a brief moment to like and subscribe to our channel if you haven’t already for more in-depth investigations and analysis of significant cases like this.
On the evening of December 19th, 1979, Michelle Martino attended the Kennedy Concert Choir banquet at the Sheran Inn in Cedar Rapids. After the event ended, she needed to finalize the purchase of a winter coat her mother had placed on layaway at Westdale Mall. With $180 in her purse, Michelle drove the family’s tan and green 1972 Buick Electra to the shopping center, arriving some
time after 7:00 p.m. Security footage didn’t exist, but witness accounts pieced together Michelle’s final hours. Several mall employees and acquaintances reported seeing her browsing stores. Tracy Price, a classmate, ran into Michelle and cautioned her about displaying the cash she was carrying. “Put that away,” he warned. “Don’t be flashing money out here in the middle of everybody.
” What Price didn’t know then was that Michelle had confided in another friend that she felt nervous about being at the mall alone and thought someone might be following her. Michelle was last seen alive around 900 p.m. outside a jewelry store in the mall. She had decided against purchasing the coat after all. As the mall prepared to close, Michelle walked alone through the darkened parking lot to her car, parked in a remote section near JC Penney.
What happened next would remain unknown for decades, but the evidence would tell a chilling story. When Michelle didn’t return home by 2:00 a.m., her worried father reported her missing. Police began searching, and at approximately 4:00 a.m. on December 20th, officers discovered the Martino family’s Buick in the northeast corner of the mall parking lot.
Inside, they found a scene of shocking violence. Michelle’s body was slumped over the passenger seat, her clothes soaked in blood. The medical examiner would later determine she had been stabbed 29 times in the face, neck, and chest. Deep cuts on her hands showed she had fought desperately against her attacker.
The stab wounds were clustered, indicating a frenzied, personal attack rather than a random act of violence. A medical examiner estimated she died between 8 and 10 p.m. during regular mall hours with hundreds of shoppers nearby. The killer had been methodical despite the brutality. Police found no fingerprints in the car, leading investigators to believe the perpetrator had worn gloves.
The cash in Michelle’s purse remained untouched, ruling out robbery as a motive. She was fully dressed and there was no evidence of sexual assault. The lack of blood outside the vehicle indicated Michelle had been attacked inside the car, suggesting she either knew her killer or had been surprised before she could escape.
What the attacker didn’t realize was that in Michelle’s desperate struggle, he had left behind crucial evidence. Blood that didn’t belong to Michelle was found on her black dress and on the car’s gear shift in 1979. This meant little DNA profiling wouldn’t be invented until 1984 and wouldn’t be used in criminal cases until the late 1980s.
But that blood, carefully preserved in evidence storage, would become a silent witness, waiting for science to catch up with justice. For now, though, all Cedar Rapids knew was that a young woman had been brutally murdered in a mall parking lot just before Christmas. The killer walked free. and no one knew why Michelle Martino had been targeted or who would commit such a savage crime.
The discovery of Michelle Martino’s body triggered the largest criminal investigation Cedar Rapids had seen in decades. Every available officer was called in, including Detective Harvey Deninger, who would later recall, “I had never seen anybody stabbed that many times. Something like that was unheard of around here.
” The investigation faced immediate challenges. This was 1979. Before DNA analysis, before mall security cameras, before cell phone tracking, detectives had to rely on traditional police work, witness interviews, physical evidence, and gut instinct. Within a week, more than 200 people responded to appeals for information.
Police administered polygraph tests, questioned everyone who knew Michelle, and followed hundreds of leads. They interviewed a juvenile found carrying a knife and a shopping center employee who admitted to following women around the mall. Both were cleared. The community reacted with fear and outrage.
Parents wouldn’t let their teenagers visit the mall alone. Women shopped in groups. Rumors spread. Some claimed Michelle had received threatening phone calls before her death, though police found no evidence of this. As investigators dug deeper into Michelle’s life, attention focused on her ex-boyfriend Andy Cidle. The 19-year-old had dated Michelle for two years before they broke up.
Friends described how Andy struggled with the breakup, constantly asking about Michelle’s new relationships and tracking her movements. Investigators learned he had encountered Michelle at the mall that night. At Michelle’s funeral, Andy’s behavior raised eyebrows. He was almost in the casket. He was so emotional, recalled Gail Dawson, Michelle’s friend.
He said to me, “I have to know who she loved when she died. Did she love me or did she love Mike?” Though Andy had an alibi provided by his mother, claiming he was home shortly after the mall closed. Police remained suspicious without physical evidence linking him to the crime scene. However, they couldn’t make an arrest.
By June 1980, six months after the murder, police released a composite sketch based on descriptions from two witnesses under hypnosis. It showed a white man in his late teens or early 20s with curly brown hair. A $10,000 reward was offered. Psychics were consulted. Still, the case gradually went cold. For the Martino family and the Cedar Rapids community, the lack of closure was agonizing.
Someone had gotten away with murder. As the 1980s turned into the 1990s, Michelle Martino’s case gradually faded from headlines, but never from Cedar Rapids collective memory. Each December 19th, local news stations would run anniversary stories, keeping her face and the unsolved mystery in the public consciousness. For detective Matt Denlinger, who was just 5 years old when Michelle was killed, these annual reminders ensured that it was really hard to miss the severity of it.
The investigation that once consumed the police department became a cold case file, gathering dust. In 1995, Albert Martino, Michelle’s father, died without ever seeing justice for his daughter. Three years later, in 1998, her mother, Janet, also passed away, taking to her grave the anguish of never knowing who murdered their miracle baby.
For those who knew Michelle, life continued under the shadow of her unsolved murder. High school classmates moved away, started families, built careers, but carried with them the memory of violence that had shattered their youthful sense of security. Perhaps no one felt the burden more heavily than Andy Cidle, Michelle’s ex-boyfriend.
Though never charged, the cloud of suspicion followed him for decades. He left Cedar Rapids after high school and joined the Navy, trying to build a life far from the whispers and sideways glances. Andy was a victim himself. Michelle’s brother-in-law, John Stonereaker, would later acknowledge because many, many fingers were pointing at Andy.
In the Cedar Rapids Police Department, the case refused to die. As officers retired, they passed their commitment to younger detectives, creating an unusual inheritance of determination. Harvey Denlinger, one of the original investigators, eventually saw his own son, Matt, join the force and take up the same unsolved murder that had haunted his father.
By the mid200s, the file had grown thick with interviews, tips, and dead ends. But science was evolving, opening new possibilities for a case that had gone cold, but was never forgotten. In 2005, a new cold case investigator, Detective Doug Larrison, took a fresh look at Michelle’s file. Coincidentally, Larrison had gone to high school with Michelle, though they weren’t close.
“I felt a responsibility toward my classmates, actually, to get this case solved,” he would later explain. “While reviewing the case, Larrison discovered something remarkable. Blood scrapings from the gearshift of the Martino family’s Buick had previously been sent for testing, but no one had followed up on the results.
The report showed male DNA present in the blood. DNA that didn’t belong to Michelle. It had probably cut himself, and that’s how his DNA and his blood got mixed with her blood in the gear shift selector, Larrison concluded. Following this lead, he sent Michelle’s dress to the lab, finding another spot of blood with the same male DNA profile.
The DNA was entered into Cotus, the national DNA database of arrested offenders, but no matches appeared. Undeterred, investigators began collecting voluntary DNA samples from more than 100 people connected to the case. Each negative result narrowed the field. Then came the moment Andy Cidle had waited decades for.
His voluntary DNA submission cleared him completely. After nearly 30 years living under suspicion, the cloud was finally lifted. Though Michelle’s parents had died still believing he might have been their daughter’s killer. By 2017, science offered new possibilities. Cedar Rapids police hired Parabon Nanolabs, a company specializing in DNA phenotyping.
the practice of predicting physical appearance from DNA. Using the blood samples, Parabon created composite images showing a suspect with blonde hair and blue eyes, marketkedly different from the 1980s sketch based on hypnotized witnesses. The breakthrough came in 2018. Inspired by the Golden State Killer case that had used genetic genealogy to identify a suspect, Arabon uploaded the DNA profile to Jed Match, a public genealogical database where people voluntarily shared their DNA to trace family history. They found a
match. Brandy Jennings, an office manager and single mother living in Vancouver, Washington. She wasn’t the killer, but her DNA showed she was a second cousin once removed of the man whose blood was found on Michelle’s dress. This tenuous connection would become the first thread investigators would pull to unravel a 39-year-old mystery.
With Brandy Jennings DNA connection established, Detective Matt Deninger began the painstaking process of building a family tree. Working backward through generations, he traced Jennings lineage to her great greatgrandparents, then methodically worked forward, identifying every possible branch that could contain their suspect.
We use genealogical records, birth records, gravestone records, anything we could find on the internet to fill in a bunch of these unknowns, Denninger explained. As more relatives provided DNA samples, branches of the family tree were systematically eliminated. By October 2018, the investigation had narrowed to a startling conclusion.
The killer was likely one of three brothers living in Iowa. Donald, Kenneth, and Jerry Burns. Even more surprising, they weren’t in Cedar Rapids, but in Manchester, a small town just 45 minutes away. The Burns brothers had no obvious connection to Michelle Martino. They’d never been interviewed or considered in the original investigation.
Nothing in their background suggested a capacity for such violence. Police needed to collect their DNA without alerting them. A clandestine surveillance operation began. For the first brother, investigators collected a discarded straw after watching him eat lunch. For the second, they retrieved a toothbrush from his garbage.
And for Jerry Burns, a team followed him to a Pizza Ranch restaurant in Manchester. He drank at least two sodas out of a glass with a straw, Deniger recalled. When Burns left, officers retrieved the straw from the trash. The lab results eliminated two brothers, but delivered a stunning conclusion about the third. Jerry Burns DNA was an exact match to the blood found on Michelle’s dress 40 years earlier. The match was definitive.
The probability of the DNA belonging to anyone else was less than 1 in 100 billion. But nothing about Jerry Burns fit the profile of a cold-blooded killer. At 65, he was a respected businessman who owned a powder coating company. He had no criminal record, had been married with children, and was well regarded in Manchester.
How could this ordinary man harbor such a dark secret for nearly four decades? Detective Matt Deninger chose December 19th, 2018 to confront Jerry Burns. Exactly 39 years to the day after Michelle Martino’s murder. With a hidden camera concealed in a coffee mug, Deninger entered Burns’s powder coating business in Manchester.
Hey, how are you today, Jerry? My name’s Matt with the Cedar Rapids Police Department,” Dentlinger began casually. Then he cut to the heart of the matter. “The reality is, we have your DNA at the crime scene, and so we know you were there that night. This happened.” Burn’s reaction was perplexing. He showed virtually no emotion, no shock, anger, or panic, just a flat affect that investigators found unsettling.
When asked directly how his DNA could have been found at the crime scene, Burns replied simply, “I don’t know.” He acknowledged having visited Westdale Mall with his family in the past, but couldn’t remember specific dates. When pressed about Michelle’s murder, Burns repeatedly deflected, saying only test the DNA when asked if he had killed someone that night in 1979.
After his arrest, Burns made an even more curious statement during the ride to the police station. When Deneling asked if it was possible he’d committed the crime, but didn’t remember it, Burns replied, “I’m sure something like that would be possible.” To block out, “You block things out of your memories.” Most disturbing was Burn’s unprompted mention of Jodie Husentrude, a blonde news anchor who disappeared in 1995 from a parking lot in Mason City, Iowa, 2 hours from Burns home.
Her body was never found. Though investigators have not publicly connected Burns to Husen Troop’s case, the random reference raised alarming questions. News of Burns arrest stunned both communities. In Cedar Rapids, residents who had lived with the unsolved case for decades experienced a complex mix of relief and shock.
In Manchester, neighbors and friends of Jerry Burns simply couldn’t reconcile the quiet businessman they knew with a monster described in police reports. His family was devastated with his daughter Jennifer insisting, “We did not believe it. This cannot be our dad.” In February 2020, 40 years after Michelle Martino’s murder, Jerry Burns entered a Scott County courtroom to stand trial.
Due to intense publicity in Cedar Rapids, the proceedings had been moved to Davenport, an hour away. The courtroom was packed, filled with Michelle’s aging friends, curious locals, and a family divided between victim and accused. Prosecutor Nick Maybanks faced a daunting challenge. built a compelling case around DNA evidence from a crime scene four decades old. “We’ve got the science.
We got the guy.” Maybanks told jurors, “There’s a 1 in 100 billion chance that it could be somebody else’s. There’s only 8 billion people or so in the world.” The prosecution called retired investigators, the doctor who performed Michelle’s autopsy, and forensic experts, who confirmed that Burn’s DNA matched blood found on both Michelle’s dress and the car’s gear shift.
They played video of Burns police interview, highlighting his inability to explain how his DNA ended up at the crime scene. Burn’s defense attorney, Leon Spece, argued that DNA transfer could have occurred innocently. Every time you come into contact with something, you’re shedding DNA. You’re leaving a biological trail of yourself.
Spies told the jury. He suggested that Burns, who had once worked at a car dealership that sold Buicks, might have inadvertently left DNA in the car through his job, though he couldn’t explain how it also appeared on Michelle’s dress. The trial took an unexpected turn when Michael Allison, a jail inmate who had befriended Burns, testified about disturbing comments Burns had made.
According to Allison, when asked directly if he had committed the crime, Burns replied, “I can’t talk about this.” Most chilling was Burns’s alleged statement during a card game. If Allison kept beating him at peanuckle, he was going to have to take me to the mall. After nearly two weeks of testimony, the jury needed just three hours to reach their verdict.
Guilty of first-degree murder. The courtroom was eerily silent as the decision was read. Janelle Stonereaker, Michelle’s sister and only surviving immediate family member, later described the moment. We almost couldn’t breathe. It was just amazing. It was fabulous. On August 7th, 2020, Jerry Burns was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He maintained his innocence throughout, filing an appeal that would ultimately be denied by the Iowa Supreme Court in 2023. Even after his conviction and failed appeals, Jerry Burns maintains his innocence. His family stands by him with his daughter, Jennifer, insisting, “I don’t think there’s any way that my dad could have done this.
Yet the DNA evidence speaks with scientific certainty of his guilt. The most haunting questions may never be answered. Why, Michelle? Why that night? Did Burns target her specifically? Or was she tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time? No connection between victim and killer has ever been established.
In a poignant twist, Michelle’s desperate fight for her life ultimately brought her justice. She fought so hard that she caused the murderer to cut himself. He left his DNA. Her sister Janelle observed. Michelle helped solve her own murder. For Detective Matt Deninger and his father, Harvey, the case represents a generational pursuit of justice.
I’m proud as heck of him, Harvey said of his son, who could barely hold back tears when reflecting on completing the case his father began. Theater Rapids still remembers Michelle Martino, not just for her tragic death, but for how she lived. Her case has become a landmark in forensic science.
Proof that time may pass, but DNA doesn’t forget, and justice, though delayed, is not denied. As Cedar Rapids passes another winter, Michelle Martino is remembered not as a victim, but as a vibrant young woman who loved music, had dreams of designing beautiful spaces, and left an indelible mark on all who knew her. Her case stands alongside others like the Golden State Killer as testament to the power of genetic genealogy to speak for victims long silenced.
For dozens of cold cases across America, DNA evidence waits patiently in evidence lockers. Silent witnesses that may yet identify killers who believe they’ve escaped justice. Michelle’s story reminds us that for the murdered, time never truly runs out. If you enjoyed this content, join our community by subscribing and turning on notifications.
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