The Deck - Myrtle Cole (Queen of Spades, Minnesota)

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Our card this week is Myrtle Cole, the Queen of Spades from Minnesota.In the early morning hours of December 12, 1981,81-year-oldMyrtle Cole was fast asleep in her securely locked, small-town Minnesota home when someone broke in and brutally murdered her. For more than 40 years, the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office has dedicated countless man hours to finding out who killed her, and the answer may no longer be far out of reach. If you know anything about the brutal murder of 81-year-old Myrtle Cole in 1981, please reach out to the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office. You can reach Investigator Kotschevar directly at 320-259-3733, or scan the QR code in the blog post for this episode.To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org Follow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new! 

Our card this week is Myrtle Cole, the Queen of Spades for Minnesota. In the early morning hours of December 12, 1981, 81-year-old Myrtle Cole was fast asleep in her securely locked, small-town Minnesota home when someone broke in and brutally murdered her. For more than 40 years, the Sterns County Sheriff's Office has dedicated countless man hours to finding out who killed her. For more than 40 years, the Sterns County Sheriff's Office has dedicated countless man hours to finding out who killed her. And the answer may no longer be far out of reach. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. Music When 71-year-old Milo Cole awoke on a freezing December morning to fresh-fallen snow outside

his rural Minnesota home, he decided to give his aunt Mertle a ring, just to check in on her. Mertle, who was just 10 years older than Milo, lived just two miles down the road in Fairhaven. And because she was a widow and didn't have any children, Milo had kind of taken it upon himself to look after her. Milo was known to check on her almost every day, and he would be the person that typically took her to most of her appointments or shopping with her or for her. So Milo called her up at about 8.30, but on this morning there was no answer.

He decided to wait 30 minutes before trying her again, but same thing. Another 20 minutes, and another call later, Mertle still wasn't picking up. This was definitely unusual and a bit concerning, so Milo decided to just drive by, pay her a visit and make sure she didn't need anything. It was around 9.30 when he pulled up to his aunt's run-down two-story home that she lived in for the past 20 years. Before going inside, he cleared off the snow from Mertel's front steps, so she wouldn't slip and fall when she went outside to feed the neighbor's trade cats, which was her daily routine. He then went around the back door to go inside,

and that's when he noticed something alarming. The glass pane on the door had been shattered. He quickly made his way inside through the kitchen and found shards of glass all over the floor and stove. When he stepped into the living room, he found the nightlight-murtle-use still a glow. And all at once, it sunk in for Milo. Something terrible had happened. With a pit in his stomach, Milo walked to Mertle's bedroom, and there,

he saw a scene he would never forget. His aunt laid motionless face down on the bed, her legs hanging over the edge. She was naked from the waist down and her head was covered with a quilt. Milo touched Mertel's hip to see if she was alive, but she didn't respond. According to the star Tribune, Milo didn't see any blood and he assumed she'd been strangled or smothered or something, so he frantically ran to the kitchen and called police using Mertel's landline. The state patrol was actually first who arrived on scene, different troopers that were assigned to the area, made it their first, and they confirmed Mertles' life status

as deceased. Once Sterns County employees started arriving, they used the log to document any of the people who were coming into the house and only allowing certain people to come into the house. That's investigator Tony Kochivar with the Sterns County Sheriff's Office. Even though Milo said he hadn't seen any blood on Mertle,

police did. They saw lots of it because Mertle had actually been stabbed multiple times in the general area. This was one of the most brutal murders they had ever seen, and it was truly difficult to take in. Soon enough, Mertel's small home was swarming with law enforcement. Members of the Minnesota BCA, the medical examiner, the local coroner, an investigator from the St. Claude Police Department, Wright County Sheriff's Office, and the Sherbran County Sheriff's Office as well as other members from the Sterns County Division.

Investigators carefully combed through the home looking for any evidence to collect and dusting for fingerprints, of which they found several, though they had no way of knowing if those prints were left behind by innocent visitors or the killer. Aside from the shards of glass lying around, everything else in the house seemed to be in order, and it didn't look like anything had been taken. Detectives at the scene took Milo aside to get his statement, and he recounted to them how he had discovered Mertle and when his last contact with her was, which was the previous day when they'd spoken on the phone.

He made sure to tell them that when he got to Mertel's house that morning, before brushing off the steps, he didn't notice any footprints in the freshly fallen snow, which told investigators that the killer likely arrived and left before the snow started piling up in the wee hours of the morning. While police were processing the scene and talking with Milo, officers were canvassing the neighborhood, asking around to see if anyone had witnessed any suspicious activity the previous night, and bad they ever. Some neighbors reported seeing a car parked just outside of Murdles' home at around 2am.

Another had seen a car stuck in the snow at Murdles' Neighbor's Yard around that same time. Others say that there was a suspicious snowmobile driving around with its lights off, and still others reported seeing peeping tombs in the neighborhood a bit after midnight, and the tips didn't stop there. During the canvas, it was fallen that there were actual parties going on that evening, several different parties throughout the town site, where people were actually intermingling from each of these locations.

They were phoned up and walking back and forth between the parties or their residences. So already in the first few hours of the investigation, police had their hands full with leads to chase down, and they got busy. They somehow managed to track down the car that was seen out front of Murertel's house that morning. A younger couple was identified in question regarding why they were parked there and unfortunately

they were believed to not be involved with the incident and were just parking before they had gone home. Investigators also located the driver of that snowmobile. They questioned him and determined that he wasn't involved. They even tracked down a lot of the reported party goers and got statements from them. Really, the only people police weren't able to identify and clear were the peeping tombs, but they weren't actually convinced that lead-held bunch water in the first place. We do have to remember back in that day. Obviously there were no cell phones.

It was common for kids to come up to a house to appear in the window to see if their friend was there or not on the door and see if their friend could come out and go with them. Later that same day, Mertel's autopsy was conducted, and the medical examiner determined her cause of death to be multiple traumatic injuries. Like I mentioned earlier, we know that she had been sexually assaulted in the form of genital mutilation. But whether or not the exam found that she had been raped, that's something that police today still aren't willing to comment on.

The fact that she was nude from the waist down would suggest it's a real possibility, but authorities have never come right out and confirmed or denied. Over the following days of the investigation, police spoke with Mertel's family in the area. Most of them were relatives by marriage. They were related to Mertel's late husband. And one of the in-laws told police something interesting. The date prior she had talked with her sister-in-law

at least four different times. During one of the conversations Mertel had told her sister-in-law that the Tri-CAP workers were finished winterizing her house and they were going to be leaving around $1,600. Tri-CAP stands for the Tri-County Action Program, which is an organization in Central Minnesota that assists those experiencing poverty. Obviously, investigators were intrigued by this and wanted to learn more about these tricap workers. Now, Mertel hadn't said that these guys were acting suspicious or anything while they were over there.

In fact, she'd spoken barely highly of them to friends and family, saying that they brought her mail inside and even took out her trash while they were there. It was more the fact that these were three men who were at Mertel's house multiple times the week she died. That in and of itself was enough to make investigators want to chat with them. So they learned it was a group of three men, and they'd been at Mertel's home the three days prior to her death, putting plastic over the windows and placing heavy-duty

tar paper at the foundation of the house to prepare the home for winter. None of them had a bad thing to say about Mertel. They seemed to really like her, in fact, and said that she had cooked them meals while they were there. All three also provided alibis that investigators vetted, so ultimately the three men were cleared. The days continued to pass with no one standing out as a suspect, and the sheriff's office was feeling the pressure from the community. Not only were people fearful of a crazed killer on the loose, but they were devastated by the loss of a beloved fixture of Fair Haven,

and they desperately wanted justice for her. Even though she didn't have any kids or grandkids of her own, she had been kind of adopted by many in the community as the grandmother figure. And she fully embodied that sweet, midwestern, or grandma stereotype. She fed all the neighborhood-strait cats, she hosted weekly Bible studies, and she would feed just about anyone who came knocking on her door. She lived off of food stamps and social security checks, and lived in a rickety house without running water.

But what little she did have, she was willing to give away to other people. And in return, people in the community gave back to her. They'd go over and help with her household chores, shovel her driveway, and bring over cans of water. In learning about who Mertle was, police also learned her biggest fear. This also learned her biggest fear. In the 80s, especially in a town of about 200 people like Fair Haven, it was pretty unusual for people to lock their doors regularly. But Mertle always did, even during the daytime and even when she was home. Others would criticize her for being so worried. They say things like that doesn't happen here.

But little did they know, her worst fears would come true. While everyone who loved Mertle mourned her loss, the Sheriff's Office made an announcement. According to the St. Cloud Times, the Sheriff announced there would be a press conference to be held the following day to bring the public a much-awaited update in their investigation. I can only imagine how exciting this was for everyone in the community. Maybe they were expecting them to report an arrest or a promising development. But the community would never learn what exactly was going to be revealed, because just two hours after the press conference was announced, the sheriff suddenly canceled it.

A reporter asked investigator Kochavar what was supposed to be announced at this presser. Like what was so important that a press conference needed to be called, but then suddenly so unimportant that it was canceled on a whim. Kochivar said he honestly didn't know. And look, I get it. Like this was the 80s, we know things weren't recorded well back then, but I just can't help but wonder. My best guess is that it was to announce a special partnership with the FBI, because the

day after the presser was supposed to be held, it was made public that the feds had completed a psychological profile of Mertel's killer. What wasn't made public though were the details of that profile. Even today, the Sheriff's Office is pretty hush-hush about what the profile said. The most information I could find on it was from an article published by the St. Cloud Times that reported the following summary. Quote, The profile indicates that the killing probably was sexually motivated, and that the murderer probably was acquainted with, or at least new love, coal.

The profile also indicates that the killer may be young, mentally disturbed, and sexually malagested." The days continued dragging by for the community of Fair Haven, and the rumor mill was stronger than ever. You see, many people were beginning to question their trust in the Sheriff's Office because, within Stern's County, population just over 100,000, there were seven other unsolved murder cases aside from Mertles, the murders of Alice Huelling and three of her children in 1978, the post-office bombing death of a man in 76, and the slangs of Marion Susan Raker in 1974. And some people were starting to speculate that perhaps one or all of the homicides were

connected to Mertel's case. The sheriff quickly tried to put those rumors to bed, telling the St. Cloud Times that he had no reason to believe Mertel's murder had anything to do with the other unzalt homicides. But as the days passed, these weren't the only rumors surfacing. More names were popping up on the radar. Even though the talent sight appears small, the amount of people who possibly could have been a suspect keeps expanding. There were two people who kind of stood out to investigators.

28-year-old Jesse Dinkins and 26-year-old Donald Steinmeier. It's not clear why exactly people suspected them other than the fact that they had skipped town shortly after Mertel's murder. But whatever suspicion existed was enough for detectives to want to sit down with both of them. Since they both up and left, though, tracking them down was proving to be a difficult task. But authorities had their fingerprints on file, so they compared those with the prints collected from Mertel's home. And what was their best lead quickly fizzled out because none of them were a match. Now this wasn't enough to entirely knock the two off the persons of interest list, because,

like I said, Mertel often had lots of people coming and going from her home. Realistically, those prints that they collected could have been from innocent visitors and not the killer. But investigators moved on for the time being, pursuing other leads. At the end of December, something kind of odd happened. The Sheriff's office seemingly just out of the blue announced that Mertel's cause of death was actually strangulation. It's definitely worth noting that when you ask the Sheriff's Office today, they still say that her cause of death was multiple traumatic injuries, just like it was initially reported, and they declined to elaborate on that. So, it is a bit confusing to me

why there was this sudden change of cause of death at the end of 81. Like I don't know if there was something uncovered during the investigation that pointed toward her having been strangled at some point during the attack and authorities just don't wanna talk about it. Or if strangulation is what the Emmy originally determined

and then the Sheriff's Office is trying to keep that under wraps and it's something only the killer knows if they were to ever get a confession, I don't know. Anyways, as 1981 rolled over into 82, the investigation was still progressing. The lab was thoroughly looking over evidence from the crime scene and they had actually found something really promising. It was this bloody mark on Mertel's pillowcase that they had determined to be a print of some kind, like maybe a palm print or possibly a thumb print.

This was a pretty big breakthrough because this print couldn't have as easily been left by a random visitor. This print was in blood, assumed to be Mertel's blood, so it could only have belonged to one of two people, the killer or Mertel. Now Mertel's pomprints hadn't been taken during the autopsy, and there's kind of a bit of controversy surrounding that. Some say that's normal for an autopsy, you just get the fingerprints not pomprints, but others say that it's routine to take pomp, and this demonstrates how careless the Emmy was. Either way, authorities didn't have the print they needed from her.

So they had to do an exhumation to see if it belonged to her, and it didn't. They also got Milo's Palm Prince and Thump Prince, even though he said he only touched her hip. They were doing it just to be safe, but those weren't a match either. So police were confident that they had the print of the killer. And so once again they got busy. The recovered image was uploaded in the EFS and at the time Detective Medical Examiner Steve Soika, who's now the sheriff, first turns county, found that not every agency who prints a subject's palm or whole

hand had been uploaded into AFIS. So, Sheriff Soika individually reached out to any agencies that we knew did not report to AFIS so that a request could be made to individually check and compare to what was recovered from the profile. Over 1,500 people were originally fingerprinted and palm printed to be compared. But no one was a match. Weeks faded into months, and even though the Sheriff's Office was hard at work, their efforts did little to calm the tiny community of Fair Haven.

With the other unsolved murders in the area, the public had very little confidence in police to solve it. Even members of law enforcement were doubtful. An anonymous officer told the St. Cloud Times, quote, I'll tell you, I don't think they're one step closer to solving it than they were the day of the murder. They're no closer to solving this thing than they were to solving the others.

I think they're lost." But just as people were losing faith, there was a ray of hope. Jesse Dinkins and Donald Steinmeier, two of those initial persons of interest, were finally located. They were in Washington State being held on unrelated charges, so authorities had them extra diited back to Stern's County. Not just for questioning in Mertel's case, but also to face some theft by check charges. Investigators asked them about their whereabouts during their time in Minnesota prior to skipping town, and both of them were able to account for most of their time in state. They said they were, with each other, almost the entire time. Investigator Kachibar didn't want to go into detail about any specific alibi that they

had for the night Mertle was killed, but he did say that their palm prints were taken, and neither one was a match for the bloody print. So another dead end. The next big development in the case was something that no one saw coming. In May, someone turned over a knife that they had found on Mertel's property to the Sheriff's Office. Now, who this person was, when they were on Mertel's property, and where exactly the knife was found, the Sheriff's Office won't publicly say. But they did say it was found somewhere outside. The Sheriff quickly announced this discovery to the public, saying that it was

possibly the murder weapon. Now, why this knife hadn't been discovered by investigators when they were processing the scene and scouring the property? I don't know. Maybe the snow kept them from finding it. But of course, all of this was confusing to the public because the sheriff had already announced that Mertel's cause of death was strangulation. So I'm guessing he meant that the knife was used to stab her in the genital area, and then he just used the term murder weapon because she was, in fact, murdered.

But still, it was a point of confusion. Also confusing was that there was no blood on the knife when it was found. But authorities did say that that could have been because it was laid out in the snow, and all of the weather for so long Because of its proximity to the home they were holding on to it and considering it as a possible quote-unquote murder weapon But without blood or anything on it there was little evidentiary value that it held After that things slowed way down Investigators continued chasing down leads

as they were trickling in. But at this point, many of them were like, hey, this guy's kind of sketchy or this person left town a few days or weeks after the murder, which is helpful, but everything boiled down to if the person's prints matched the bloody print on Mertel's pillow. And none of them did.

Before police knew it, the one-year anniversary had come and gone with still. My heart was beating, and I was just a little bit more. I was just a little bit more nervous. I was just a little bit nervous. I was just a little bit nervous. I was just a little bit nervous. I was just a little bit nervous. I was just a little bit nervous. I was just a little bit nervous. I was just a little bit nervous.

I was just a little bit nervous. I was just a little bit nervous. I was just a little bit nervous. when your old came forward with a story that caught everyone's attention. The kid said that he and two other teenagers were visiting with an 18-year-old guy named Steve Berry at his house when Steve began talking about the murder cold case, and then things took a turn. This teenager said that Steve admitted to them that he had done it. He broke into the house via the back door, put a knife up to Myrtle's neck, then sexually assaulted, stabbed, and strangled her.

After this confession, Steve then supposedly reached into his couch cushions and pulled out a huge knife that was almost a foot long with a stain near the handle, and he said that it was the murder weapon. According to the star Tribune, the tipster said that Steve also told them that his motive for the slaying was robbery. Supposedly, he and one of his pals had followed myrtle home from the store and they knew that she lived alone so they decided to target her. Now, this was actually not the first time police had heard Steve's name in relation to

Mertel's case. In March of 82, he allegedly threatened to kill someone while he was robbing them. So naturally, after hearing this teen story, police wanted to have a conversation with Steve. They brought him in for questioning and got a search warrant for his home, which was about five miles from Mertel's place. And when they searched there, officers found not one, but two knives that they sent off for testing. When police confronted Steve with a teenager's story, he said that that teen was boldface lying. He said, yeah, he did have three teens over to his house to hang out,

and he admitted that they did talk about Murdle's killing, but Steve claimed that he was just chatting about a guy he knew from jail who'd already been looked at as a person of interest. He said he wasn't talking about himself and he certainly wasn't confessing anything to them. He also insisted that he literally couldn't have killed Murdle, that he was in another town about an hour away hanging out with his mom and sister that night, and he said both of them would corroborate his story. Police also asked him about the knives found at his house, and he said, yeah, it got knives

but those are exclusively used for cooking. After police spoke with Steve, they grabbed his pomeprice, took him into custody, and held him on a $5,000 bond, not for Mertel's murder, but for another charge that he was facing related to him helping a friend rob a gas station. News of Steve's arrest quickly spread, and soon reporters began reaching out to him.

From a jailhouse phone, Steve told the star Tribune, quote, ain't no way I'd do anything like that. Not even in self-defense. I have too much respect for someone that old." End quote. And to the same cloud times, he said quote, I've never seen the lady. I don't know her.

I don't know nothing about Cole's death and they have no proof that I did it." End quote. Steve's friends also took to the press to defend him. Basically telling everyone that Steve was definitely the kind of person to make stuff up, but he wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone murder someone. It wasn't long until that claim was seemingly proven true. Results came back and showed that his prints did not match the bloody print for Mertel's pillowcase.

So, police moved on. They weren't back at square one. In June of that same year, a different person of interest came on the radar. Perhaps the most promising person of interest yet. Detectives learned that a man named Henry Lee Lucas had been arrested and imprisoned in Texas for killing an 80-year-old woman and an unidentified hitchhiker,

and that he also been arrested 23 years prior for killing his own mother. What really brought him on the radar though was that he'd recently confessed to killing more than 100 women in 16 different states, including Minnesota. The Drifter serial killer theory made perfect sense to investigators back then. That would explain why they haven't gotten any matches to the bloody print when they compared it to thousands of locals.

So authorities wasted no time. Two Sterns County detectives hopped on a plane to Texas to interview Lucas in person. One of the detectives later told the St. Cloud Times their discussion with Lucas was beyond disturbing. He talked so casually and openly about his murders, you would have thought they were just chatting about coffee or something. The detectives asked him about the murder or murders that he committed in Minnesota.

And he was like, yeah, I killed an elderly woman in that state. I strangled and stabbed her in her home. But Lucas was positive that it was in the Duluth area, which is like 160 mile drive from Fair Haven. They asked him more specifically about Murdles killing, described it to him. And he said, certainly sounded like him.

That's how he killed people, but this one wasn't him. And he said, certainly sounded like him. That's how he killed people. But this one wasn't him. He said the timeline didn't make any sense either. At the time, Mertle was killed, he was living in Florida at a recovery residence. Because Lucas was so open and willingly talking about all of his other slangs, the Sterns County detectives were suddenly not so convinced he was involved. But they collected his prints for comparison just to be safe, and the lab came back saying it wasn't a match. But just when everyone thought the serial killer theory was out the window, there was a new development in the Lucas investigation.

Officials were learning that Lucas didn't actually work alone. He had an accomplice named Otis L. Wood Tool. So the thought was maybe the bloody print on Murdles' pillow was from him. But when they got his prints for comparison, once again, there was no match. After that, things really slowed down for Mertel's case. Local law enforcement and the community alike were desperate to see it solved. But at this point, it seemed like they printed and compared everyone on that side of the Mississippi with no matches, so things kind of fizzled.

Over the coming years, Mertel's case grew stagnant. Her champion Milo passed away, and the passage of time took with it the hope that Mertel's killing would ever be solved. That hope was renewed when investigator Katchivar began actively working the case in 2018. In 2018, our office purchased a new program for evidence keeping or tracking.

So all the evidence that we had for this case and everything else in the sheriff's office needed to be reviewed, retagged, repackaged, numerous items of evidence had been sent to the lab from the initial crime scene, if you will, just to be re-examined. Although there weren't any big breakthroughs from that re-examination, everyone remained hopeful that technology would advance to a point that the lab would be able to crack the case wide open. And Kochvar wasn't just sitting around waiting for that to happen.

He continued working the case, looking for new ways to get the public's eye on it. Around the 40-year anniversary of her death, there was a big media push for attention because this hasn't been something that's really been talked about much. So there was a plead for people to submit any tips. With that push, authorities also put up a billboard in a high traffic area close to Fairhaven. So we felt like that billboard would get a lot more attention, a lot more views.

A lot of people who lived in the Fair event onsite during the incident either still live there or they have relatives who live there even to the state. And that billboard worked. Some new names were provided to look into and have been researched and are still being worked to the state. Since the 40th anniversary, almost a dozen leads have been provided through Tri-County Crime Stoppers. Each of these leads were looked into somewhere found to be somewhat repetitive or information that was already discovered and looked into,

but other leads added a few names of people to look into. Kochivar said he's still actively investigating many of those leads, so he didn't want to get into them. But if one of those doesn't lead to the case being solved, he's hopeful the physical evidence will. We're hoping, you know, with advancements and technology that are occurring almost daily, we feel it's just a matter of time when something new can be developed from evidence collected there over 40 years ago. We can't help but think that at one day some of these advancements in technology will help discover something we might not have seen. We asked investigator Kochivar what he thinks happened and what kind of person he thinks

did this. And though he tries to keep an open mind, he did say this. Speculating one would think this individual knew her and or had some resentment to maybe women in general. The house didn't appear to be ransacked or gone through. Most people that knew Mertle knew she did not have many valuables or money available. Until that person is found, Kochivar isn't giving up. We're constantly reviewing it, what else can be done,

and what can else can be looked at, almost like every day. I think eventually, something's going to open up or fit with what we know right now. Either somebody's going to be able to provide a name of someone that was there

or knew somebody that might not have been mentioned in the case file yet that we can start looking into or when all of that there might be advancements and technology that will help us to make a match to the missing link. I guess we'd like to know what people who were in the area who grew up in the area who might have attended parties in that area if they thought of somebody else that may not have been mentioned or they had a cousin visiting or a friend that was in town that they may have forgotten to tell somebody

about or more than willing to listen. Usually when I've been talking to anybody about this case I usually like to stress to them to tell them that I only have one pair of ears. The more people out there that are listening when this is being talked about, the more I can hear if they share it with me. If you know anything about the brutal murder of 81-year-old Myrtle Cole in 1981, please reach out to the Sterns County Sheriff's Office. You can reach investigator Kochivar directly at 320-259-37333 or scan the QR code in the blog post for this episode. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis to learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work. Visit thedeckpodcast.com.

So, what do you think Chuck, do you approve?