Crime Junkie - CAPTURED: A Secret Stalker

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

In 1992 Lisa Ziegert felt like someone was watching her at a gift shop where she worked. People would tell her no one was there; it was just in her head. But when she goes missing from that very same gift shop everyone begins to wonder if Lisa had been right. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/captured-secret-stalker/ 

Hi crime junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Britt, and today we have a story that will remind anyone who is still seeking justice that it's never too late. Don't give up hope, and it will serve as a warning to anyone who's committed a crime that it's the season of justice, and just because you haven't been arrested yet does not mean you've gotten away with it. This is the story of Lisa Siegert. Lisa was a 24-year-old recent college grad working in her small town of Aguam, Massachusetts. Lisa wanted to be a teacher, but since she was just starting out in her career, Lisa

had to start as a teaching assistant at the local middle school. Now anyone who's worked in education will know that doesn't pay a whole lot, but that was okay with Lisa. She was just happy to be getting her foot in the door, and she was able to supplement her income with a second job at a gift shop called Britneys. So Lisa had a pretty regular schedule. She would work at the middle school during the day, and then she would leave and head straight to Britneys right after to work there from like 5 o'clock to 9 o'clock.

But that regular schedule was disrupted on April 16, and more than one person took notice. Almost simultaneously, two things were happening. First, those who worked at the middle school with Lisa realized that she was a no-call no-show on the 16th, which was super unlike her. So right away, they call Lisa's mom D to see if she knows anything. Maybe something happened to Lisa, maybe she got tied up, whatever. But D is just as surprised as they are. Admittedly, her first thought, though, is like, maybe she just overslept.

Like everything's probably fine. Now the second thing that was happening was that another young woman named Sophia was scheduled to work the opening shift at Britneys. But as soon as she pulled into the parking lot, everything felt wrong. Lisa's car was still in the parking lot. Now, automatically, her mind starts to try and kind of rationalize this. Maybe she forgot something last night that she wanted to pick up before she went to the middle school.

But the closer and closer she got to the front door, the less she could quiet that concerned voice in her head. The front door to the store was unlocked. And when she walked inside, all the lights were still on. And the music that they always played, the kind that was supposed to give this happy ambience to the store, now felt eerie and out of place. Sophia called out Lisa's name. Hello?

Lisa? Lisa, are you there? Over and over again, her calls are met with nothing, just the same music playing overhead. It's when she gets behind the front counter and sees Lisa's purse that everything changes. It's the moment that she stops believing that she's paranoid and starts realizing that something bad has happened here. Those suspicions are reinforced when Sophia walks to the back of the store in the back room.

The entire thing is a mess. And every cell in her body is telling her to get the heck out of there. So she runs out of the back room, out of the store completely, and to a neighboring business where she calls 911. When detectives arrive on the scene, that mess that Sophia described was very telling to them. According to what the lead detective told Dateline NBC, there was an indent in the door, like someone had been banging it or kicked it, and there were boxes that were flattened

and even splatters of blood around the room. They knew that a struggle had taken place here, and they begin to fan out immediately looking for Lisa. So do they have any idea when this could have happened? Obviously you said earlier that her schedule was to work there from 5pm to 9pm, but no one even noticed that she was missing until the next morning. It was a huge window, but one that police were able to narrow down in those first couple of days thanks to tips that were coming in.

The first tip was from someone who had actually been a patron of the store. They said that they came in the night before. This is the 15th, and they made a purchase around 8.20pm the night that Lisa went missing. According to NBC Dateline, that 8.20 transaction was the last one run through the register. Then another tip comes in, and another customer says that they stopped by the store. But the times about this second tip are a little contradictory depending on the source, so Dateline reported that this person came in about 8.50, which has been just like 30 minutes after that last transaction.

But the Berkshire Eagle, which released an article the same month that Lisa actually went missing, said that it was 9.05. So still pretty small. We basically got like a 30 to 45 minute window. Either way, this other person tells police that when they entered the store, it was completely empty. They walked to the counter, no one behind it, no one walking around the store. But they did hear muffled noises and banging coming from the back room.

So what do they do? Call 911. They just leave. What? Listen, I know. I couldn't believe it when I heard. And you know, I'm sure they didn't think the worst. No one thinks the worst.

Like maybe they thought it was some kids fooling around in the back or more embarrassingly, like maybe hooking up in the back. I have no idea what went through that person's mind, but I think it's important that we learn a lesson from it. We talk all day every day about personal safety and being your own advocate. But we have to also look out for one another. Like I have replayed in my head a thousand times how this could have gone differently, like how Lisa could maybe still be with us here today if that person would have said

something. Now, to be clear, like if you notice something like this, if you were that patron, I'm not saying you have to put yourself in the middle of that situation. I mean, if that person would have gotten nosy and gone in the back room, they could very well have mediterrable fate too. But like what if they would have left and gone to another store and called the police? Like tell them someone needs to go check on the store clerk because no one would come to the front.

They hear noises in the back. Like I know it's so easy for us to go about our whole lives without really looking up, but we have to get out of our own heads and pay attention to what's going on around us. Like do it for others in hopes that one day if you ever need it, someone will do the same for you. I mean, that kind of sounds like a new crime junkie life rule, you know, like pay attention and don't be afraid to say something. And honestly, like, yes, there could have been more done in the situation, but the fact

that this person called in a tip in general is probably more than a lot of people do in a lot of other situations. No, absolutely. I think about this all the time when I wonder how much stuff doesn't go reported because people say like, oh, it's probably nothing. There's clothes on the side of the road. That's probably nothing. They're banging in the back room.

It's probably nothing. And I think, I mean, we'll double up on the life rules, right? Like I think another life rule is it's okay to call the police. Even if you think it's silly, let them do their jobs and find out because if they would have been called to the store that night, I don't think they would have found anything to make them laugh. Now police believe that in that 30 minute window, from the time of her last sale to when the other customer came in and found the place empty, someone came into the store

incapacitated Lisa and then took her out of the store through a side entrance and then drove her off. But the question was to where four days later on Easter Sunday, their question was finally answered. A call comes into police from a man who was out walking his dog when he came across a woman that he could tell was clearly deceased. Lisa was found in a wooded area just a few miles from the car shop that she was taken from.

And based on the way she was left, which according to MassLive was with her denim skirt torn in half, it was clear to the lead investigator that Lisa had been sexually assaulted before being stabbed in the neck, which would ultimately be ruled her cause of death at her autopsy. The entire town was shaken to its very core with the discovery of what happened to Lisa. It didn't make sense. Like she didn't have any enemies. This was a small, safe town who could be capable of doing something like this. But when that question was asked right away, one name kept coming up over and over again.

That name was Ed Borgatti, Jr. Anyone you would ask around town would tell you it was him. Why? It was so obvious. His father owned a restaurant across the street from where Lisa was taken. And her boyfriend was his roommate at the time. The more time passed, the more elaborate the rumors got. They said there was this love triangle that Lisa caught her boyfriend and Ed together,

so Ed had to kill her. And they would say police weren't doing anything about it because Ed's dad was police and they were covering it up. And all of this sounds very scandalous, but it's only part true. Like yeah, Ed Jr. roomed with Lisa's boyfriend, but there was never any proof of some kind of affair or relationship. And Ed's dad used to be a police officer, but he wasn't actively employed by the force at the time of Lisa's murder.

Like he was just a guy who owned a restaurant. Police weren't covering up anything for him. In fact, they weren't even doing him any favors because even after Ed Jr. had passed a polygraph, even after his DNA didn't match the sample from Lisa's rape kit, the police wouldn't come out and tell the public that. They said that it was against their policy to do that no matter how much Ed Jr. begged because I mean, again, his name is being like dragged through the mud around town. So they let the town continue to talk and to speculate and to look at Ed with a side

eye, wondering if anyone should ever leave their daughters alone with him. But while the town spun in circles like vultures around Ed Borgatti Jr., the police had to keep looking in other directions. They had to find someone who they could match to their DNA sample. One by one, people who knew Lisa get ruled out, unofficially, of course, they rule out her boyfriend, family members, people she worked with. And it becomes increasingly more clear to police that as personal as this attack felt, it had to have been someone Lisa didn't know, though that didn't mean her killer didn't

know her. One of Lisa's friends, Kim, told police and then later recounted the date line, a strange incident that happened just before Lisa was murdered. Kim was at the store visiting Lisa one night while she was working, and you can almost picture it. It's late enough in April that the sun has set. The lights illuminate the inside of the store, making it impossible to see out, but clear as a picture to see in.

Lisa shudders and she tells her friend that she can't shake the feeling that someone is watching her, that someone's been watching her for a while. And right now, she said, in that moment, she could feel them watching her. Now Kim tried to reassure her friend that she doesn't see anyone out there. It's just a feeling. But you all know, I believe in those gut feelings. There is this book called The Gift of Fear that I recommend everyone go out, get right now and read it at least 12 times.

We have the gift of fear. We can sense things that maybe we can't explain, but that's because our mind is processing so many subtle and unconscious clues. And I think Lisa was subconsciously processing something because just days after this interaction is when she went missing from that same store, the same store that she felt like she was being watched from. Now police had no luck confirming if there was a mystery stalker and more importantly, no luck figuring out who it might be.

They worked lead after lead after lead tested DNA from every male subject that was willing to give it. Time and time again, investigators were hitting a wall. Eventually, the case that baffled this small town went cold, though that's not to say they ever stopped working it. Every year they still had new tips coming in and every year they would question someone new each time making a little file on that person for their records. Now along with the DNA evidence, the lead investigator told Dateline that they had one

other clue in their back pocket. When they found Lisa's key ring, her apartment key was actually missing. So their theory had always been that the killer must have taken that key. So anytime they would bring someone in for an interview, you know, days, weeks, months later, they'd say, Hey, let me see your keys real quick. And they would compare it to the lock they took off of Lisa's door. So one day they get this tip about a local guy, they bring him in for questioning and they do the whole routine.

Hey, let me see your keys. The lead officer passes them off to someone else who leaves the interview room and then just a short time later, the officer comes back and he leans into the investigator's ear and says something that stops him from breathing. It's a match. Now of course their heads are spinning. They have their guy. They try to play it cool though and they just kind of ask him about it like, Hey, you know,

what's this key to? We find it interesting. We the guys like, Oh, that's no big deal. That's just the key to my apartment. Sure it is their thinking. So they say, Okay, why don't we just take a little drive and go visit your apartment? So they get in the car, make their way through town to a local apartment complex. And as they stood in front of this man's door, everyone's jaw dropped.

When he puts the key in and it opens as it would turn out, his apartment complex was owned by the same management company that owned Lisa's. And apparently management companies sometimes use the same keys or at least they did back then. What? Yeah. To me, it seems like kind of a safety issue. Like as someone who's lived in an apartment before, I did not know this was a thing that

happened. Yeah. I've lived in two different apartments owned by the same management company. And now I feel really weird about this. Yeah. Someone might have had your key. So as crazy as this seemed, it really turned out to be a strange coincidence and they let the man go.

More and more time would pass without answers until eventually the family was counting time without Lisa in years and then decades. Over time, the case gets turned over to new hands, people with fresh eyes and fresh perspectives. And in 2016, the Hamding County DA's office announced to everyone that they're holding a press conference because they have some big news. Here's a clip of the press conference, which the DA's office posted on their YouTube page. Good morning. Thank you all for coming.

And thank you in particular to Zebra family who's here as well. From day one to present day, members of my staff and investigators continue to meet to discuss the case, including identifying new forensic testing procedures to identify Lisa's assailant from the available evidence. For recent years, investigators have vetted and eliminated hundreds of persons of interest, many through DNA analysis and follow thousands of leads. Two months ago, in July 2016, I authorized evidence previously seized in this investigation to be analyzed by Parabon Nano Labs, a DNA technology company located in Virginia that

specialized in what's called DNA phenotyping. DNA phenotyping is the process of predicting physical appearance and ancestry from unidentified DNA evidence. It employs revolutionary DNA analysis, built with funding from the United States Department of Defense to produce a composite sketch from forensic case evidence. Just like a sketch, artist uses information from an eyewitness to create an image. Parabon uses genetics as an eyewitness to produce its composite sketch. Today, I am releasing the snapshot composite sketches as developed by Parabon to the public.

This forensic testing has predicted that Lisa's assailant has fair to very fair complexion with some freckling, hazel or brown eyes and brown or black hairs. He has an ancestry that is most likely a mixture of northern and southern regions of Europe. These facial images represent a new and significant development in this investigation. The nature and character of the others tested as well as their condition and location upon discovery suggests this person was in the immediate crime scene at a time relevant to Lisa's sexual assault and killing. All evidence and leads previously developed in this case are now being evaluated in view

of this forensic development. If you recognize these images, members of the public, or have any information relative to Lisa's disappearance or death, please contact what we've just created, the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit Zegertip Line at the Hampton District Attorney's Office. So Brent, I'm going to send you these pictures that they showed at the press conference, but you can also, anyone who's listening can find them either on our website, WWLP still has them on theirs, but we'll link out to it. So based on a profile that they had from the FBI, they estimated that this guy was in his

early 20s. So they said they created a sketch of him at 25 years old and then a sketch of him at 50 years old, what he might look like at the time of this press conference. Okay, so I'm looking at them and it's pretty normal looking dude. Honestly, he kind of looks like Jim Halpert from the office just a little bit. Okay, random. But honestly, Ashley, the more I look at these snapshot predictions, the more they all kind of look the same.

They do, right? Like they kind of like blur together. And I remember when this technology first came out a few years ago. I mean, I remember even us being like, Oh my gosh, we have a picture of the killer. Like we all got really jazzed up. But I think, you know, as this has kind of played out, we've seen it play out in a couple of cases. We've kind of come to figure out that it's not quite all we thought it was going to

be, but these really do help narrow down a suspect pool. I will say that because like the DA said in his tape, they have already taken hundreds of people's DNA, they've compared hundreds of people and how do you begin to reinvestigate a file that is that big? Well now they at least know with a pretty high degree of certainty that this guy has very fair skin. He's of European descent. So they can at least start to eliminate anyone with a darker skin tone.

I know that's not a lot, but when you are looking at a case file that is binders and binders big and you've got hundreds and hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, if you can cut that list in half, I mean, I think it is a big deal. So I don't think this is what we thought it was going to be, but I also wouldn't write this off and say that the phenotyping is useless either. So they put this sketch out to the public and reorganize their investigation based on the probabilities that Paribon has given them, hair color, eye color, skin tone, and they look at their files and say, okay, who matches the profile and of those people who match

the profile, who hasn't given us a DNA sample yet? By 2017, the list begins to shorten and narrow. Police are putting aside one file at a time until, according to Stephanie Berry's reporting for MassLive, there were just 11 people on their desk, 11 men that they had in their case file who met the physical description, but for one reason or another refused to give DNA to the police for testing. So through a grand jury, they get court orders that would force each of one of those 11 men to give them a sample.

They knock on door one, talk to guy number one, collect the sample. They knock on door two, but behind door two, isn't their suspect. It's his roommate who tells him that the guy that they're looking for isn't home right now. He's actually staying at his girlfriends. So police tell him, all right, have him give me a call and he gets back. We have some important papers for him. Now the fact that he wasn't home didn't stress them out.

This was very routine, plus they had nine more people to get to. And really, this guy didn't stick out more than any of the others. He had just been kind of like a blip on the radar for all of these years. So how did guy number two get on the radar to begin with? Well, it's actually an interesting story. So this guy, guy number two, his name is Gary Sharra. And when investigators read back through the old case file, they see that he first came on police's radar in 1993 through a tip from out in Seattle.

Of course, Seattle. Like if it doesn't come back to Washington, like is it even a crime junkie episode? I don't know. I know. Somehow we always end up back here. I'm so sorry, Washington, but what's going on? I know. So back in 1993, they get this tip that Gary's estranged wife is living in Seattle with her

and Gary's child. She basically left with the child and they had a bunch of custody stuff going on. But she says that she's convinced Gary is the one who murdered Lisa. She says that he came home super late the night that she went missing. He couldn't tell her where he was or account for any of his time. He was kind of like scratched up, like it didn't make sense. And then she said, anytime someone would come on the news or something about Lisa was mentioned, he would literally like run from wherever he was in the house and be like glued to the

TV. He obsessed with the case and had to know every single thing that was happening. Now this is fishy, but at the time it wasn't super damning, but they're willing to look into it. They call up Gary. He says he's willing to come into the station and talk. But before he can come in, Gary's lawyers call back and are like, listen, we're in the middle of this pretty ugly custody battle.

I'm not letting Gary talk to anyone until we get this sorted out. Because to me, he says it sounds like his wife is trying to make up allegations so that he doesn't get their kid. And this might be true because when police look into Gary's estranged wife, Joyce, they learned that she's an alcoholic and even people in her own family told Mass Live in another article by Stephanie Berry that they didn't really believe anything she was saying about Gary. So police back in 1983 moved on.

There was nothing else pointing to Gary and they didn't have enough for any kind of warrant to get his DNA. Now over the years, he popped up a couple more times here and there, mostly when investigators were taking like a fresh look at the case and reinterviewing people, they would, you know, bring him in and years later with the custody battle behind him, he would come in, he would chat, he would be nice, he would leave. But every time they would ask for his DNA, he would refuse. But even this isn't like a really huge red flag.

Police know that people are protective of their DNA. Like Gary wasn't the only person refusing. They had nothing on him. But now in 2017, they could finally be sure. They had a warrant for his DNA and they could figure out real quick whether he could be ruled out once and for all. They were just waiting for him to call them back after they left that message with his roommate.

But the next day, they don't get a call from Gary. What they get is something no one could have predicted. A woman walks into the police station and says that she's Gary's girlfriend and she has something to show them. Three letters that she said she found at her place when she got home from work that night and all three are from Gary. And the first is by far the most shocking. It is a full confession.

Now the Republican did a full records request with the police department and reposted excerpts from the letters on their mass live website. And here, Brett, why don't you read some of the excerpt? The first one is the start of his confession letter to his girlfriend. Quote, I've been dreading the day I'd need to write this letter for almost as long as I can remember. First off, I love you. I hope you never doubt that.

Now the hard part. You're going to find out some awful things about me today. They will tell you that I abducted, redacted, and murdered a young woman approximately 25 years ago. It is true. All of it. I had no intention of killing her when I grabbed her, but events spun out of my control and in the eyes of the law, it is all the same.

I have never regretted anything so much. I was young and headstrong and foolish. Emphasis on the last part. End quote. And he points out to his girlfriend at some point in time that, quote, I also never did anything of the like again. I hated what happened. I despised myself.

I thought of turning myself in hundreds of times over the years, but I truly am a coward. Today it will end. I will take my own life or face the music as it were. I always knew it one day catch up with me and now it has. I received a text from, it looks like it's redacted here, but I assume it'd be his roommate, that last night the state police were at the house with some important papers for me. That will be a warrant to take DNA and that will send me away for life. I'm still trying to decide, even as I write this note, if I have the courage for that

or if I will take the coward's way out. Either way, I apologize again so much. End quote. Yeah, Gary ended the letter by telling his girlfriend, quote, I have no real useful advice to offer you, except no matter which course I choose, let me go. If I turn myself in, I will have confessed and accepted that I will live out my days in prison. Move on.

Don't go looking for a lawyer to get me out. I'm definitely not worth the time, the effort or the money, end quote. The other two letters that he wrote were a last will and testament and then an apology letter to Lisa's family. Wow, that is an incredibly heavy thing to even consider reading as like a member of her family. The more we talk about these stories of cases that are solved through DNA decades later, the more crazy I truly believe the world we live in is, he never did it again, ever.

I know, I keep expecting, when you see these cases, before we knew this, you would see a case like Lisa's, she's abducted from a store, she's raped, she's murdered and you would think this guy can't just blend back into society, like he's gonna do this again. But we saw this with April Tinsley, we've seen this over and over with these DNA cases that these people are just blending back into society. They can do it once. Which is somehow more terrifying than someone who's doing like serially committing crimes. Well, I mean, it has me looking at everyone differently.

Oh, definitely. Who I thought was, you know, the type to be a killer, like, apparently the type is everyone now. Now, at this point, when police get these letters, they are now in a race against time to find Gary, because from his letters, there's a very good chance that he may take his own life. According to the Hamden County DA's website, they're able to trace him to Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, where they find his car parked in the lot

with yet another ominous note. The note said, quote, to whomever finds my body, I apologize for the psychological trauma incurred. Call Mass State Police. Thank you. End quote. But the thing is, there was nobody anywhere in the car. Police check front seat, back seat, trunk, nothing.

So they check inside the hospital where they find Gary is in the ER. He had checked himself in after taking a bunch of pills. He was too scared to die, and in that moment, the one right after he took the pills and he decided that he was terrified of death, I hope he thought of Lisa, of how scared she must have been, of every chance he didn't give her to decide for herself if she should live or die. Now, ultimately, Gary was placed under arrest and charged with the murder of Lisa Siegert. When they collected his DNA, it was in fact a match to the scene of the crime.

Now, when Gary is first brought before a judge, he originally pled not guilty, but by September of 2019, he changed that plea to guilty and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. You know, I bet his ex-wife has to feel like a little bit vindicated in that moment. Like, everyone was trying to make her seem like this crazy drunk who just wanted to bad mouth him, and all these years later, everyone realizes that she was right all along and without her, Gary may have never even been caught. Oh, it's so true.

Like, she is very much the reason he's in prison today, but the sad part is she never actually got to see that. Her alcoholism was very severe, and she lived a rough existence until she passed away in 2014, so long before Gary would ever be arrested. Did Gary ever explain, like, why he did this or what led him to commit this crime, like either in court or in any, like, interrogation documents or anything? Not really. I mean, I think that's still the confusing part.

Gary did kind of allude to why he did this in one of the letters he left. He wrote, quote, I've never really been or felt normal. From a very young age, I was fascinated by abduction and bondage. I could never keep it too far from my mind for long. On that fateful day, I let myself do something terrible, end quote. Now, back when she was alive and interviewed originally, his ex-wife Joyce attested to what he said in the letter. Basically, she said that he had these pretty dark fantasies and that he would make her

act those out when they were together. But I think the bigger question that so many people have is, okay, maybe he was dark, maybe he had these fantasies, maybe he was sick. But why Lisa? What was his connection to her? And no one really knows. There has never been a firm link between Gary and Lisa. His ex-wife suspected that there was this jewelry box that he had given her from around

the time that Lisa was murdered. And she suspected that it was from the gift store that Lisa worked at. Like, maybe he went in one day, maybe he saw her, but that's never been fully proven. So it seems like it could be probable that one day a young man with dark demons could cross paths with a young, vibrant woman like Lisa and become fixated. Maybe even watching her through the windows until watching wasn't enough anymore. Now one killer is behind bars today and Lisa finally has gotten justice. But her story is a reminder to all of us that evil is out there, sometimes in the most unsuspecting

of places and it doesn't always look like what you picture. So keep yourself safe and watch out for those around you. We have to stick together. You guys, again, I cannot recommend highly enough the book Gift of Fear. It is incredible. I have read it and re-read it and it is literally everything we've been screaming on this podcast for two years. Go out, get the book.

I mean, again, this is all about personal safety. Be weird, be rude, stay alive. If you want to see any of the pictures that we talked about, the press conference, all of that along with our source material is going to be on our website. You can find that at crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production, so what do you think, Chuck?

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