Young murder victim helps solve her own cold case
The 1979 case of a murdered 18-year-old baffled local police officers for decades, until they got a break from evidence Michelle Martinko left behind.
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In the early hours of December 20, 1979, the body of 18-year-old Michelle Martinko was found in her car in the parking lot of a mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She was stabbed multiple times. The murder baffled investigators for several generations. CBS News Correspondent Jamie Yuccas explores the unrelenting quest to solve one of Iowa's most haunting cases and how Michelle Martinko may have helped them solve her own murder.
Just before Christmas in 1979, every single police officer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was called to work on the horrific murder in the parking lot of Westdale Mall -- including, now-retired Detective Harvey Denlinger.
Harvey Denlinger: I had never seen anybody stabbed that many times. ... Something like that was unheard of around here..
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A trip to the mall turned deadly for Michelle Martinko. She had been stabbed and cut in her car 29 times.
Michelle Martinko, an 18-year-old high school senior, had been found violently stabbed in the front seat of her car. Her killer was unknown, confounding generations of investigators.
Harvey Denlinger: We couldn't come up with anything … and we just kept plugging away.
Jamie Yuccas: How old were you?
Det. Matt Denlinger: I was 5 years old.
Jamie Yuccas: Do you remember the case?
Det. Matt Denlinger: No, not from when I was little.
Matt is Harvey's son.
Det. Matt Denlinger: But every single year on Dec. 19th … the local news would have a Michelle Martinko segment … So, it was really hard to miss the severity of it.
2006 NEWS REPORT: Michelle Martinko was a bright eyed, blonde … 27 years ago her life was cut short …
Decades later, Matt — now a detective himself — joined the investigation into Michelle Martinko's murder 36 years after his father had begun working the same case.
Det. Matt Denlinger: Wouldn't it be something if I could find our suspect and my dad is still alive?
And as he dug into the thick files, the son went to his father to help him make sense of it all.
Det. Matt Denlinger: I wanted someone to talk to about it and I wanted someone that really understood it.
The crime had stunned this small city of 110,000.
Tracy Price: It scared the hell out of us.
Tracy Price went to high school and sang in the choir with Michelle.
Tracy Price: It just hit me like a brick … Why? [shakes head]
Mike Wyrick [Shakes head]: It was just shocking.
Mike Wyrick had dated Michelle in high school, and says her murder shattered the city's All-American image.
Mike Wyrick: If that could happen and the person wasn't caught, anything could happen.
Janelle Stonebraker is Michelle's big sister — 12 years older. Michelle was the flower girl at her wedding. She and her husband John say nothing could have prepared them for the horrible news they got the morning after Michelle was killed.
Janelle Stonebraker: We just hugged and we couldn't believe she was gone. … my dad was very stoic about it, but he was angry. My mother was just brokenhearted [emotional].
It was a devastating blow to parents who had been through so much with Michelle already.
Janet Martinko had suffered five miscarriages and was 44 years old when Michelle was born.
Janelle Stonebraker: It was great, I mean, it was just so exciting when my sister was born … and she was the "miracle baby."
When she was 12, Michelle was diagnosed with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. She had to wear a brace that went from her neck to her hips.
Janelle Stonebraker: She felt very different, very self-conscious. She couldn't move around like other kids could move around, so that was a tough period.
But at age 14, she was able to shed the brace and then, Janelle says, everything changed for Michelle.
Janelle Stonebraker: Farrah Fawcett was in with the hair and my sister always had the long blond hair. So, she thought, "OK, I can do the hair."
John Stonebraker: Michelle was blissfully unaware of all this attention she was getting from men.
She caught the eye of Andy Seidel, who, at 16, was a year older than Michelle.
Gail Dawson: We met him roller skating.
Michelle's friend Gail Dawson remembers him.
Gail Dawson: There was this flashy, sports car guy, you know.
Michelle and Andy were together for two years, and then broke up. Friends say she didn't want to be in a committed relationship—and Andy apparently didn't take it too well.
John Stonebraker: After they broke up, he wanted to know her every move, who she was dating, why she was dating that particular person. He would talk to her friends … he just wouldn't go away.
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Andy Seidel and Michelle Martinko, seen in a 1978 prom photo, dated for two years before breaking up. / Credit: Rob Riley
Police learned Andy had run into Michelle at the mall that fateful night. They brought him in for questioning.
Jamie Yuccas: Did he have an alibi?
Det. Matt Denlinger: Andy did have an alibi—Andy was at home shortly after the mall closed … and his mom provided an alibi. The problem with Andy's alibi though is that moms would say a lot to protect their children.
Gail Dawson: Every male that knew her was a suspect they had to clear.
Jamie Yuccas: You must have been a suspect?
Mike Wyrick: I was.
Mike Wyrick was questioned as well. And even though he was more than 100 miles away at college when Michelle was murdered, police knew he had also dated her.
Mike Wyrick: All of it was a little intimidating. It was hard. It was scary.
Mike says the police were tough on him.
Mike Wyrick: At one point they thought that I wasn't telling them everything, and they laid the crime scene photos out in front of me. And it was hurtful.
Mike was never considered a serious suspect because he was not in Cedar Rapids at the time of the murder — but Andy was. And Andy's behavior at Michelle's funeral only reinforced many people's suspicions about him.
Gail Dawson: He was almost in the casket. He was so emotional. He had his arms around her, and he was just sobbing …he said to me— "I have to know who she loved when she died. …Did she love me, or did she love Mike? Who did she love when she died?"
But police had no hard evidence pointing to Andy Seidel. He left Cedar Rapids soon after high school and joined the Navy.
Gail Dawson: There's a large amount of us that were convinced that he did kill her.
John Stonebreaker: I thought it was just a matter of time before he was arrested and charged.
Janelle Stonebreaker: There was no one else. There really wasn't another suspect.
As police investigated those closest to Michelle Martinko looking for potential suspects, they were also looking at the possibility that Michelle may have been killed outside the mall by a stranger.
Tracy Price: She was out there, and she was looking for a coat that her mom had put on layaway for her for Christmas, and she was gonna pay it off.
Michelle had a $186 with her to pay for the coat, but ultimately decided she didn't want it. Tracy Price had run into her at the mall that night and gave her a protective warning when he saw her holding the cash.
Tracy Price: "Put that away," you know … "don't be flashing money out here in the middle of everybody. "
Tracy only learned later that Michelle was a little anxious that night.
Tracy Price: She was nervous about going out to the mall by herself and that she told someone she felt like she was being followed.
Jamie Yuccas: You didn't notice anybody watching her, paying close attention her?
Tracy Price: I never got that feeling.
Michelle headed to her car in the dark.
Jamie Yuccas: So, she was parked pretty far away.
Det. Matt Denlinger: Yeah, she was parked a ways out here. … I think she gets in, I think she turned that car on by herself and was warming it up to get the frost off the windows … and I think in that moment before she puts it in drive and leaves, he's at the door, pops it open, pushes her over and climbs in.
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Michelle Martinko was found stabbed to death in her family's Buick in the Westdale Mall parking lot. / Credit: Cedar Rapids Police Department
Jamie Yuccas: Sounds like a robbery?
Det. Matt Denlinger: On the surface it would sound like a robbery, but she did have the cash on her, it wasn't taken. She did have a bag with some items she had purchased in the back seat, those weren't taken.
Jamie Yuccas: So, is it a sexual assault?
Det. Matt Denlinger: It very well could have been the plan.
Although the autopsy showed she was not sexually assaulted, Michelle had defensive slice wounds on her hands and body.
Det. Matt Denlinger: You have to assume that pretty much any motive you can think of was a possibility and that Michelle decided she wasn't gonna allow that to happen. She fought.
Whatever the motive, the assailant had come prepared.
Det. Matt Denlinger: They found rubber glove indentations on the outside of the car in dirt. They found them inside the car in blood … it was clear that the person was trying to conceal their identity.
Investigators had no fingerprints, no witnesses and few leads. Although they had a blood-soaked crime scene, DNA technology was still years away.
Det. Matt Denlinger: It's frustrating -- by 1986 this case is sitting on ice, it's that cold … no one can think of anything more to do at that point.
Michelle's family was even more frustrated.
Janelle Stonebraker: It seemed that everyone had been looked at.
John Stonebraker: We thought the case was pretty much dead in the water.
It would take almost two decades, but the case would come alive again. In 2005, Detective Doug Larison was in charge. Coincidentally, he had gone to high school with Michelle. Although they weren't close, her murder had deeply affected him.
Jamie Yuccas: So that had been on your mind since you were 18 years old -- how do we get this solved.
Det. Doug Larison: Right. … I felt a responsibility toward my classmates actually to get this case solved.
In the years since Michelle's murder, DNA had emerged as a forensic tool.
Det. Doug Larison: Technology changes, science changes. … So, I wanted to proceed and move the case forward.
And Larison did just that. He was reading Michelle's file when he discovered that sometime earlier, another detective had sent blood scrapings found on the gearshift of the car out for testing. But nobody had followed up on the results.
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Blood scrapings found on the gearshift of Michelle Martinko's car were later sent out for testing and results showed male DNA was present. / Credit: Cedar Rapids Police Department
Jamie Yuccas: And it just stays in the file until somebody finds it?
Det. Doug Larison: And it can get lost in the file.
Jamie Yuccas: … and until somebody sits down and reads the file do they go, "Oh wow, we have DNA. "
Det. Doug Larison: Those different investigators don't necessarily network with one other.
But Larison found that lab report, and it showed that not only did the gearshift have DNA, but it was male DNA.
Det. Doug Larison: He had probably cut himself and that's how his DNA and his blood got mixed with her blood in the gearshift selector.
Larison then sent Michelle's dress -- which had been safely tucked away in an evidence locker -- to the lab for further testing.
Jamie Yuccas: What did they find?
Det. Doug Larison: A spot of blood on her dress with a full male DNA profile. And it was consistent with the male DNA profiled on the gear shift selector.
Larison had identified a crucial piece of evidence.
Det. Doug Larison: I think it's just common sense that that's probably your killer right there.
Detectives had the lab work. Now, all they needed was the suspect.
Det. Matt Denlinger: We know we need just one person. We just need to get lucky. You know -- have the sun shine on us just one day when we find one person that matches that.
But it would take many days -- more than a decade. And it wasn't luck -- it was cops who wouldn't quit until they finally narrowed in on one very surprising suspect.
Janelle Stonebraker: So, we -- oh boy, this is it— we have finally gotten down to the wire on this.
In America's heartland, for friends like Tracy Price who saw Michelle Martinko the last night of her life, for ex-boyfriend Mike Wyrick, and for close friend Gail Dawson, Michelle's murderer left a mark on all their lives.
Tracy Price: Every anniversary, it goes through your head.
Mike Wyrick: We were all victims in a way.
Jamie Yuccas: Your innocence was stolen.
Mike Wyrick: Yeah, exactly.
Gail Dawson: Then the fear set in. .. You're scared. You're afraid to go places.
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The killer had vanished. But by 2005, investigators were onto something new: science and that male DNA profile on Michelle's dress and the DNA from the blood on her car's gear shift.
Jamie Yuccas: Would it be fair to say you found a needle in a haystack?
Det. Doug Larison: I think there's a lot of needles in a lot of haystacks in this case.
For lead investigator Doug Larison, old evidence suddenly had fresh potential. He shipped the blood samples to CODIS, the nationwide database of DNA collected from arrested offenders. If Michelle's murderer had a previous record …
Det. Doug Larison: … CODIS will give us a hit and tell us who matches the profile.
Jamie Yuccas: So, you send it to CODIS and what happens?
Det. Doug Larison: Well, we never got a hit.
It was a dead end. The DNA from Michelle's dress and car did not match up with anyone in the huge government file.
Det. Doug Larison: So, now we had a job to do.
Starting with locating all the people Cedar Rapids cops had originally interviewed.
Det. Doug Larison: We collected DNA samples from over 100 different people.
Cops had to convince them to take a DNA test.
Det. Doug Larison: It was time-consuming.
Mike Wyrick and Tracy Price were tested; both came up negative. At the top of Larison's list was Michelle's old boyfriend, Andy Seidel.
Det. Doug Larison: I think he was probably the main suspect from the very beginning of this case.
Andy Seidel had lived for 27 years with many in his hometown believing he was a killer.
Det. Doug Larison: I said, "listen Andy, if you give us your DNA, and it doesn't match. Then you're eliminated. You're cleared". … he voluntarily gave his DNA and he was eliminated.
But whoever ended Michelle's life, left a different, but lasting mark on Andy. Michelle's parents both died before that DNA test exonerated him. They likely went to their graves believing Andy was their daughter's killer.
Janelle Stonebraker: I feel really bad about that.
John Stonebraker: Andy was a victim himself because … many many fingers were pointing at Andy.
Larison moved on -- classmates, friends, family -- searching for a match with that male DNA.
Jamie Yuccas: So, you do a hundred people. What comes back?
Det. Doug Larison: Everybody's eliminated. No matches.
It had been 10 frustrating years for Detective Doug Larison.
Det. Doug Larison: I was kind of burned out. And so, I went to my supervisors and said, "I think you need to get somebody to replace me on this case." … And that's when Matt came in.
