Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness, invite
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward, and present evidence that could potentially
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone is
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: In the summer of 1980, 16-year-old Maria Rodriguez was living
Speaker 2: with her boyfriend, Milton Colbert Jr., in Long Branch, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Long Branch is on the Jersey Shore. It's about 50
Speaker 2: miles south of New York City. These days, when people
Speaker 2: think about the Jersey Shore, in my mind, they're mainly
Speaker 2: picturing the highly developed places along the waterfront, like Atlantic
Speaker 2: City and Seaside Heights, where the TV show Jersey Shore
Speaker 2: was filmed. But, especially back in 1980, Long Branch was
Speaker 2: a much more remote area. On July 22nd, Maria and
Speaker 2: her mother, Ana Rodriguez, and two of her sisters, went
Speaker 2: to play bingo at a local synagogue. According to an
Speaker 2: article from August 10th, 1980 in the Asbury Park Press,
Speaker 2: everyone was in a good mood that night because they
Speaker 2: had won at bingo. Now, Maria was living with Milton,
Speaker 2: her boyfriend. He was much older than her. He was
Speaker 2: 27 years old at the time. And again, she was
Speaker 2: only 16. We're going to go more in-depth into their
Speaker 2: relationship a little bit later, but for now, I'll just
Speaker 2: say that even with the controversies around that age difference,
Speaker 2: Maria's family seemed in general to approve of Milton. They
Speaker 2: told law enforcement that Maria loved Milton and was happy
Speaker 2: with him, and vice versa. There seemed to be zero
Speaker 2: drama that night. Maria's mom was driving. She pulled up
Speaker 2: to the home on Union Avenue to drop Maria off.
Speaker 2: When she went inside the house, Milton later told police
Speaker 2: he was already in bed. He remembered mumbling goodnight to
Speaker 2: Maria and then falling asleep again. At 3 a.m. in
Speaker 2: the morning, Milton left the apartment to start his shift.
Speaker 2: He worked as a garbage man. He told police that
Speaker 2: he kissed Maria's cheek and walked out the door. At
Speaker 2: about 4.30 p.m., he came home from his shift. He
Speaker 2: looked around for Maria for a few minutes. Then, when
Speaker 2: he went back to his bedroom and opened the closet door,
Speaker 2: he found Maria's dead body. She had been strangled with
Speaker 2: a belt. I'm Katherine Townsend. Over the past eight years
Speaker 2: of making my true crime podcast, Telling Gone, I've learned
Speaker 2: that there is no such thing as a small town
Speaker 2: where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages
Speaker 2: from people all around the country asking for help with
Speaker 2: an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145.
Speaker 2: Or you can send us a message on Instagram at
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Pod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Police
Speaker 2: were taking a close look at Maria's relationships. Even though
Speaker 2: she was 16 years old, It turned out she had
Speaker 2: been living independently of her parents for years. One of
Speaker 2: Maria's sisters, who the paper didn't identify by name, told
Speaker 2: the Asbury Park Press that Maria discovered boys at an
Speaker 2: early age. In eighth grade, Maria stopped going to school.
Speaker 2: At the time of her death, she had not been
Speaker 2: enrolled in school for two years. She seemed to spend
Speaker 2: most of her days kind of hanging around her boyfriend's apartment.
Speaker 2: there had been some drama around Maria's decision to stop
Speaker 2: attending school. When she was about 14 years old, she
Speaker 2: ran away to Rhode Island and lived with a relative
Speaker 2: for several months. Police eventually found her and brought her home.
Speaker 2: But according to the Asbury Park Press, when they went
Speaker 2: to pick her up, they found her living in North Jersey.
Speaker 2: The paper reported that when Maria's family went to pick
Speaker 2: her up, that they found her living with another man,
Speaker 2: meaning not Milton. Her sister told the Asbury Park Press
Speaker 2: that Maria had had boyfriends before Milton, but that she
Speaker 2: loved him and was faithful to him. Milton met Maria
Speaker 2: three years before her death. He was actually living next
Speaker 2: door to the Rodriguez family at the time, and at
Speaker 2: the time, he was married and had three children with
Speaker 2: his ex-wife. That would mean that Maria was around 13
Speaker 2: years old when they first met, and he would have
Speaker 2: been around 24. By the way, it was reported by
Speaker 2: several media outlets that police did speak to Milton and
Speaker 2: that they never considered him a suspect in Maria's death. Eventually,
Speaker 2: according to media reports, Milton and his wife went their
Speaker 2: separate ways. She and the children moved to Florida, and
Speaker 2: Maria and Milton moved in together in New Jersey. Maria
Speaker 2: and Milton didn't seem to socialize much, and they didn't
Speaker 2: really have people over to the house. Most days, she
Speaker 2: would hang out at his house and watch TV. though
Speaker 2: sometimes she would venture out to the store to buy
Speaker 2: picket lottery tickets. Apparently, Milton played the lottery a lot,
Speaker 2: and she would pick his favorite numbers. So there's actually
Speaker 2: an interesting contradiction in this Asbury Park Press article, which is,
Speaker 2: by the way, one of the only articles I could
Speaker 2: find about this case. The reporter interviewed Milton. He said
Speaker 2: even though he and Maria were different ages and races,
Speaker 2: he was 27 and black, she was 16 and Hispanic,
Speaker 2: that he wasn't aware of anyone having a grudge against
Speaker 2: them or her. racial or otherwise. He also said he
Speaker 2: and Maria didn't go out much or have a lot
Speaker 2: of visitors. But then the reporter talked to neighbors on
Speaker 2: Union Avenue, who said there was a lot of traffic
Speaker 2: going into and out of Milton and Maria's house. It
Speaker 2: turned out that Milton had a sister, Sue Elliott, who
Speaker 2: lived upstairs. And Milton told the police that the visitors
Speaker 2: were actually at the house for his sister, not him
Speaker 2: or Maria. Milton said that Maria was good to him,
Speaker 2: He said she cleaned his apartment and took care of him.
Speaker 2: Milton told police that when he came home after his
Speaker 2: shift that day, he did think it was kind of
Speaker 2: weird that Maria wasn't at home because normally she seemed
Speaker 2: to kind of wait around the apartment for him to
Speaker 2: get back. But at first, he said he thought maybe
Speaker 2: she went out to buy some lottery tickets. He noticed
Speaker 2: that the front door was unlocked, but he said that
Speaker 2: wasn't unusual because Maria would sometimes forget to lock the door.
Speaker 2: Milton said he turned on the TV and hung out
Speaker 2: for a while. Then, after a few minutes, his sister
Speaker 2: Sue came downstairs and said she hadn't seen Maria that day.
Speaker 2: After that, Milton said he went outside to talk to
Speaker 2: some people, and when he got back inside the house,
Speaker 2: he noticed that Maria's keys were there. Now, this alarmed
Speaker 2: him because he said even though Maria would sometimes forget
Speaker 2: to lock up, she always took her keys with her
Speaker 2: when she left the house. So that's when he started
Speaker 2: looking around again for Maria inside the house. Milton eventually
Speaker 2: opened the bedroom closet and saw the horrific sight of
Speaker 2: Maria's naked body in there. One of Milton's belts, described
Speaker 2: in Maria's autopsy report as a green braided belt, approximately
Speaker 2: 73 centimeters long and 3 centimeters wide, had been wrapped
Speaker 2: twice around Maria's neck. The belt had a square metal
Speaker 2: buckle marked Peter, with what the medical examiner described as
Speaker 2: an animal figure resembling a horse. there is not a
Speaker 2: lot of reporting out there about Maria Rodriguez's life. This
Speaker 2: Asbury Park Press article is one of the only ones
Speaker 2: I can find that talks about her and her life,
Speaker 2: her family. And this article says police confirmed they were
Speaker 2: able to figure out that Maria had had sexual intercourse
Speaker 2: before her murder. And there's also another sentence there that
Speaker 2: says they had ruled out rape. So I wonder, who
Speaker 2: did she have sex with? And I wonder how exactly
Speaker 2: they determined that. And how were they able to figure
Speaker 2: out that it was not rape? Was the person that
Speaker 2: she supposedly had intercourse with her boyfriend or someone else?
Speaker 2: It was reported at the time that police were looking
Speaker 2: for a suspect described as being around five foot five
Speaker 2: inches tall. That was someone who police supposedly wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to. but then that never seemed to go anywhere.
Speaker 2: To my knowledge, there was never a composite sketch put out,
Speaker 2: and it seems as though that was one of those
Speaker 2: kind of dead-end leads that seemed to go nowhere. Now,
Speaker 2: police have not said a lot about this case, but
Speaker 2: one thing they did say is that they believe that
Speaker 2: Maria knew her killer and that she let her killer
Speaker 2: into the house. So, a logical question to ask is,
Speaker 2: was the someone who Maria was having some kind of
Speaker 2: consensual sexual relationship with? Because her family continued to insist
Speaker 2: that Maria loved Milton and that she was not having
Speaker 2: any type of relationship with anyone else. Milton told the
Speaker 2: Asbury Park Press that he believed that as well. He
Speaker 2: believed Maria was faithful to him. police began talking to
Speaker 2: someone else, a 37-year-old man named Damaso Vega. Damaso wasn't
Speaker 2: a stranger. This was someone who knew Maria's family. According
Speaker 2: to accounts of the case, Maria was the daughter of
Speaker 2: one of Damaso's closest friends. Damaso had come to the
Speaker 2: family's aid after Maria was murdered. He had actually helped
Speaker 2: comfort Anna, Maria's mother, after hearing about the murder. He
Speaker 2: was even a pallbearer at Maria's funeral. He even collected
Speaker 2: money from people in the community to help Maria's family.
Speaker 2: But investigators would eventually come to believe there was more
Speaker 2: to Damaso Vega's relationship with Maria than just the friendship
Speaker 2: with her family. they believed that DeMasso and Maria were
Speaker 2: romantically involved. But suspicion isn't evidence, and at this stage,
Speaker 2: police still needed more connecting DeMasso Vega to Maria's murder.
Speaker 2: So they started to interview people, and eventually, they would
Speaker 2: announce they found three witnesses. The first one was Maria's sister,
Speaker 2: Wilda Rodriguez Soto. Wilda told police that before Maria's death,
Speaker 2: she had seen Maria and DeMasso hugging and kissing. This
Speaker 2: was a big deal because it potentially established the relationship
Speaker 2: that police believed existed between them. If this was true,
Speaker 2: this was a shocking revelation that could point to a
Speaker 2: potential motive for murder. Then there was a second witness.
Speaker 2: This person put DeMaso Vega somewhere much more important because
Speaker 2: according to the testimony that was ultimately presented at trial,
Speaker 2: this second witness had seen DeMaso Vega on the porch
Speaker 2: of Maria's house the night before her body was discovered.
Speaker 2: Then a third person, a friend of DeMasso's named Jose Pizarro,
Speaker 2: told detectives that DeMasso Vega had talked about killing Maria
Speaker 2: before the murder. And he said after Maria's murder, DeMasso
Speaker 2: told Jose that he did it. So now police weren't
Speaker 2: dealing with an anonymous tip or some vague rumor. They
Speaker 2: appeared to have three people independently pointing toward the same man.
Speaker 2: police began to build a case against DeMaso Vega, and
Speaker 2: the lead investigator, Detective Pat Lipka, believed that DeMaso Vega
Speaker 2: was their man. On February 4th, 1982, approximately 18 months
Speaker 2: after Maria's death, a grand jury in Monmouth County indicted
Speaker 2: DeMaso Vega for murder. His trial began on June 2nd,
Speaker 2: and obviously the prosecution's case depended heavily on those three people.
Speaker 2: Maria's sister described the relationship she said that she'd observed.
Speaker 2: The second witness put DeMasso at Maria's house on the
Speaker 2: night she was killed. And finally, Jose Pizarro gave jurors
Speaker 2: perhaps the most incriminating evidence of all. According to him,
Speaker 2: DeMasso Vega had essentially talked about the killing before it
Speaker 2: happened and then confessed to it afterwards. DeMasso Vega maintained
Speaker 2: that he was innocent. There was testimony stating that around
Speaker 2: 5 a.m., after Maria's boyfriend left for work, that DeMasso
Speaker 2: would go to Maria's house so that they could hook up.
Speaker 2: but DeMasso totally denied that and reportedly said that he
Speaker 2: had an alibi. By the way, he always claimed that
Speaker 2: even the idea of any kind of hookup with Maria
Speaker 2: was totally false. He said he never had any kind
Speaker 2: of romantic relationship with her and described their existing relationship
Speaker 2: as more like father-daughter. But in the end, the jury
Speaker 2: believed the prosecution. On June 8th, 1982, DeMasso Vega was
Speaker 2: convicted of murdering Maria Rodriguez. He was sentenced to life
Speaker 2: in prison. with the possibility of parole in 25 years.
Speaker 2: For Maria's family, the criminal justice system appeared to have
Speaker 2: produced an answer. They seemed to be getting justice and
Speaker 2: the killer was going to prison. Case closed. Except that
Speaker 2: less than two months later, something happened involving the prosecution's
Speaker 2: star witness. On July 30th, 1982, the Daily Register published
Speaker 2: a small story out of freehold. The headline read, Charges
Speaker 2: Dismissed for Murder Trial Star Witness. It turned out that
Speaker 2: Jose Pizarro, DeMasso's friend who said he confessed, was defending
Speaker 2: some criminal charges of his own. Jose had been indicted
Speaker 2: over an incident that occurred on July 11th, 1980, so
Speaker 2: shortly before Maria's murder. Jose was accused of beating another
Speaker 2: man with a tire iron. The charges included aggravated assault
Speaker 2: and two weapons offenses. But after DeMaso Vega's trial, those
Speaker 2: charges were dismissed. And according to this contemporaneous newspaper report,
Speaker 2: the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office acknowledged that Jose Pizarro's cooperation
Speaker 2: in the DeMaso Vega murder prosecution was one of the
Speaker 2: reasons for that dismissal. Now, that doesn't automatically mean that
Speaker 2: Jose Pizarro lied. Prosecutors make agreements with witnesses all the time.
Speaker 2: Cooperating witnesses can receive consideration in their own cases. That's
Speaker 2: not uncommon. Their testimony isn't necessarily false because they get
Speaker 2: some benefit from giving it. But the important question, however,
Speaker 2: is whether the defense and the jury know about this
Speaker 2: potential incentive and precisely what the witness was told or
Speaker 2: understood before taking the stand. At sentencing, according to a
Speaker 2: later Los Angeles Times article, DeMasso made an extraordinary declaration
Speaker 2: of innocence. He said that he would eat stone, dust,
Speaker 2: or anything to prove that he wasn't the man responsible
Speaker 2: for Maria's murder. So DeMasso Vega went to prison, and
Speaker 2: that's where he stayed for the next seven years. Over
Speaker 2: the years, he filed several appeals, all of which he lost.
Speaker 2: And that might have been where this story ended, except
Speaker 2: that there was another strange twist in the case. Eventually,
Speaker 2: DeMosso Vega's case reached a man named Jim McCloskey. Now,
Speaker 2: Jim is a fascinating character. He served in the Navy
Speaker 2: before working in the corporate world. He worked for a
Speaker 2: management consultant company specializing in Japanese business affairs. So he
Speaker 2: actually lived in Tokyo for a while, but he came
Speaker 2: back to the United States and settled in Philadelphia. In 1979,
Speaker 2: he left the corporate world and went back to school
Speaker 2: to become a minister. And after graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary...
Speaker 2: He founded Centurion Ministries in 1983. The organization's mission is
Speaker 2: to investigate cases in which prisoners claim to have been
Speaker 2: wrongfully convicted. Jim's story actually inspired the John Grisham book,
Speaker 2: The Guardians. Jim heard about DeMasso's case and he went
Speaker 2: to interview him in 1984. Jim later said that after
Speaker 2: he spoke to DeMasso, he became convinced that DeMasso was
Speaker 2: telling the truth, that he was innocent. So Jim went
Speaker 2: back to all the witnesses and talked to them again.
Speaker 2: And what he found made the case against DeMosso collapse. First,
Speaker 2: Jim spoke to Jose Pizarro, who admitted that he had
Speaker 2: been promised a deal in exchange for his cooperation. Jim
Speaker 2: also figured out that back in July of 1982, immediately
Speaker 2: after the trial, the prosecutor's office had publicly acknowledged that
Speaker 2: this cooperation in the murder case was part of the
Speaker 2: reason that happened. But Jim went further. He was about
Speaker 2: to find a problem with another witness, one that had
Speaker 2: the potential to blow the entire case wide open and
Speaker 2: make people question everything that they thought they knew about
Speaker 2: Maria's murder. The other witness, the one who said that
Speaker 2: he saw DeMosso Vega at Maria's home on the night
Speaker 2: in question, also recanted his story. And his new account
Speaker 2: was even more disturbing because according to the National Registry
Speaker 2: of Exonerations, this second witness said he had seen a
Speaker 2: man near Maria's home, so that part was true. but
Speaker 2: this witness said the person he saw did not fit
Speaker 2: DeMasso Vega's description. And the witness said he told the
Speaker 2: lead detective, Pat Lipka, that the description didn't match from
Speaker 2: the very beginning. This person said Detective Lipka pressured him
Speaker 2: to identify DeMasso anyway. And remember, DeMasso had said that
Speaker 2: he supposedly had an alibi. Well, it turned out that
Speaker 2: the time when this witness originally remembered seeing the unidentified
Speaker 2: man was created a problem for the prosecutor's theory because
Speaker 2: DeMosso had an alibi during that period of time. That
Speaker 2: would have conflicted with the case being built against DeMosso.
Speaker 2: The witness said Detective Lipka pressured him to change the
Speaker 2: time when he said he saw the man outside Maria's home.
Speaker 2: This was shocking enough, but what about Maria's sister, the
Speaker 2: third witness? Maria's sister changed her story too. When Jim
Speaker 2: talked to her, She said she admitted she had helped
Speaker 2: Detective Lipka fabricate the case because she said Detective Lipka
Speaker 2: had convinced the family that DeMasso Vega was Maria's killer.
Speaker 2: She later was quoted by the Asbury Park Press as
Speaker 2: saying she felt guilty because even though she mainly blamed
Speaker 2: Detective Lipka, she felt bad about helping fabricate the case
Speaker 2: against DeMasso. She clearly really regretted her role in that.
Speaker 2: So after Jim interviewed these three principal witnesses and all
Speaker 2: of them took back their testimony, which meant that all
Speaker 2: three crucial parts of the case, the confession, the sighting
Speaker 2: of DeMasso and the kiss, were all bogus. Then things
Speaker 2: got even weirder because investigators started looking into DeMasso's conviction.
Speaker 2: They found that some of Detective Lipka's reports had been altered.
Speaker 2: All three witnesses were brought back into court in 1989
Speaker 2: when Superior Court Judge Robert Figueredo heard the post-conviction case
Speaker 2: and evaluated the testimony for himself. The witness who had
Speaker 2: placed DeMasso near Maria's home now said DeMasso was not
Speaker 2: the man he had seen. Jose Pizarro now said that
Speaker 2: his original testimony about DeMasso confessing was not true. And
Speaker 2: the testimony that had supposedly established a romantic relationship between
Speaker 2: Maria and DeMasso had also fallen apart. Judge Figuereda said
Speaker 2: he believed the witness's new testimony, and that alone was
Speaker 2: devastating to the state's case. But then the hearing exposed
Speaker 2: something else, that some of Detective Lipka's reports had never
Speaker 2: been turned over, either to the prosecution or the defense.
Speaker 2: So police reports aren't static. Really, they're a moment in time,
Speaker 2: but together they kind of tell the story of the
Speaker 2: evolution of an investigation. So if a witness initially gives
Speaker 2: one description and then later gives another description, the original
Speaker 2: report allows lawyers and eventually jurors to see that change.
Speaker 2: And if a story or details change, a judge and
Speaker 2: a jury can normally see those changes and factor them
Speaker 2: into their decisions. But according to the court proceedings in
Speaker 2: DeMaso Vega's case, some of Detective Lipka's reports had been
Speaker 2: doctored to remove information that the judge later described as
Speaker 2: vital to both the investigation and to the cross-examination. The
Speaker 2: 1989 hearing took place in Middlesex County. Due to the
Speaker 2: fact that so many of the people who had been
Speaker 2: involved in the original hearing by this time were now
Speaker 2: judges in Monmouth County. Judge Figuereda addressed the physical evidence.
Speaker 2: and said the semen samples had been taken in Maria's case.
Speaker 2: DiMasso's original lawyer had considered having those samples independently tested,
Speaker 2: but that testing apparently was never done. On November 15th, 1989,
Speaker 2: the judge vacated DiMasso's conviction and ordered a new trial.
Speaker 2: The judge concluded that the problems surrounding Detective Lipka's investigation
Speaker 2: were so profound that they called into question the whole
Speaker 2: process underlying the original prosecution. The judge even went so
Speaker 2: far as to apologize to DeMasso Vega for his false imprisonment.
Speaker 2: And he praised the investigative work done by Jim McCloskey
Speaker 2: that had exposed what happened. So DeMasso had spent seven
Speaker 2: years in prison for murdering Maria Rodriguez. Now he was
Speaker 2: going free. But technically, the murder case wasn't over yet.
Speaker 2: The conviction had been vacated, which meant that the state
Speaker 2: could try DeMasso again. But would they want to try
Speaker 2: him again? The Monmouth County prosecutor, John Kay, said that
Speaker 2: in his opinion, there was never any doubt about anyone
Speaker 2: who worked on the case that DeMosso was guilty. But
Speaker 2: now prosecutors were dealing with three witnesses who all completely
Speaker 2: changed their stories. And they had no new witnesses or
Speaker 2: no new physical evidence. And the lead investigator's credibility was
Speaker 2: completely destroyed. So on December 14th, 1989, Monmouth County prosecutor
Speaker 2: John Kay dismissed the murder charge. Now, DeMosso Vega was
Speaker 2: not just free, he had been completely exonerated. He later
Speaker 2: filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Monmouth County. It
Speaker 2: was settled for an undisclosed amount. DeMosso moved on with
Speaker 2: his life. He eventually settled in Philadelphia with his wife
Speaker 2: and family. DeMosso died in 2004. But it's not the
Speaker 2: end of Maria Rodriguez's story, because after DeMosso was set
Speaker 2: free and exonerated, her killer has never been found. Once
Speaker 2: we accept that the evidence used to convict DeMaso Vega
Speaker 2: couldn't be trusted, we have to go back, all the
Speaker 2: way back to 1980, to that home and that closet
Speaker 2: on Union Avenue, where a 16-year-old teen was found strangled
Speaker 2: with a belt. And back to the question, who killed
Speaker 2: Maria Rodriguez? It turned out that Jim McCloskey had some
Speaker 2: leads on that as well, because according to a 1990
Speaker 2: Los Angeles Times profile of Jim, He had found not
Speaker 2: only evidence that witnesses had lied under pressure, but evidence
Speaker 2: that detectives had hidden that he said pointed toward another
Speaker 2: person entirely. That person was identified in a 1987 article
Speaker 2: by the Asbury Park Press, who claimed that a man
Speaker 2: named Luis Rosa who shot his ex-girlfriend and her co-worker
Speaker 2: at a furniture store on March 19, 1987, before fatally
Speaker 2: shooting himself, had a relationship with Maria before her death.
Speaker 2: On that day, March 19, 1987, Luis was in a
Speaker 2: standoff in the furniture store because he mistakenly believed that
Speaker 2: his girlfriend was having an affair with a male co-worker,
Speaker 2: who he shot. Police rushed to the scene, and following
Speaker 2: a brief standoff, Luis hijacked a police car and managed
Speaker 2: to grab one of the officer's guns. After a standoff
Speaker 2: with police, Luis fatally shot himself in the head. It
Speaker 2: turned out there was a connection between Maria and Luis.
Speaker 2: Maria had worked for a brief period of time at
Speaker 2: a die casting business called Donmar Manufacturing a few weeks
Speaker 2: before her death. And a manager there told the Asbury
Speaker 2: Park Press that Luis would speak to Maria in Spanish
Speaker 2: and that the things that Luis said would make Maria
Speaker 2: visibly upset. Maria's supervisor at that job testified in court
Speaker 2: that Maria had lied and told everyone she was 18
Speaker 2: so she would be allowed to work, and he said
Speaker 2: no one suspected otherwise. This is interesting to me because
Speaker 2: we've been hearing since the beginning about how Maria was
Speaker 2: at home by herself, how she didn't have many friends,
Speaker 2: but it turns out she was exposed to a lot
Speaker 2: of different people. She had a large family, she drove
Speaker 2: around to places, and she interacted with a lot of people.
Speaker 2: at events like Bingo, and now we know she also
Speaker 2: had a job, one that she quit shortly before her murder.
Speaker 2: This was a job where she interacted with a coworker
Speaker 2: who allegedly made sexual remarks to her that upset her,
Speaker 2: which makes me wonder if detectives have identified everyone who
Speaker 2: was integral in Maria's world. Did they really know her schedule?
Speaker 2: The Monmouth County prosecutor reopened the case after someone called
Speaker 2: them and told them that shortly before he took his
Speaker 2: own life, that Louise had bragged about killing a woman
Speaker 2: in Monmouth County. and had said that the wrong person
Speaker 2: got convicted for the murder. However, the prosecutor also said
Speaker 2: at the time that a lot of the information that
Speaker 2: police were fielding was second- or third-hand information. In the end,
Speaker 2: no one was arrested or charged based on these tips.
Speaker 2: Brick Township police indicated back then that they were interested
Speaker 2: in speaking to Luis's ex-girlfriend, the one that he shot
Speaker 2: at the furniture store. but that she had understandably been
Speaker 2: traumatized by the hostage situation and shooting and was reluctant
Speaker 2: to talk about it. Which brings up even more questions
Speaker 2: because if evidence actually pointed towards someone else, what was
Speaker 2: that evidence? Who was that person? Was that lead thoroughly
Speaker 2: investigated in 1980? And could that lead be investigated today?
Speaker 2: In September of 2025, a member of the public filed
Speaker 2: an Open Public Records Act request with the Monmouth County
Speaker 2: Prosecutor's Office They were looking for information about Maria's homicide.
Speaker 2: This person asked for the medical examiner and autopsy records,
Speaker 2: investigative material, witness statements, evidence information, and records concerning DeMasso's arrest, prosecution, conviction,
Speaker 2: and exoneration. The prosecutor's office, as they sometimes do, required
Speaker 2: the request to be narrowed, but eventually, in October of 2025,
Speaker 2: the office released a limited set of responsive records. Maria's
Speaker 2: autopsy report, the DeMaso Vega indictment, the judgment of conviction,
Speaker 2: and the agency's response letter. And some of those documents
Speaker 2: have been posted online, even though the complete investigative case
Speaker 2: file and witness statements were not part of that release.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be posting those documents on our Instagram
Speaker 2: and on Patreon at Katherine Townsend Investigates. In a strange way,
Speaker 2: that limited release kind of illustrates the problem that I'm
Speaker 2: having with trying to understand Maria's murder today. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of information in there about DeMasso, his indictment, his conviction, etc.
Speaker 2: But there's not a lot about what detectives did otherwise
Speaker 2: and the actual contents of their investigation. There are some
Speaker 2: clues in Maria's autopsy report. The medical examiner determined that
Speaker 2: Maria died from asphyxia caused by ligature strangulations. Maria had
Speaker 2: small hemorrhages on her face and eyelids and larger hemorrhages
Speaker 2: in both eyes, findings that were associated with asphyxia. Internally,
Speaker 2: the medical examiner documented congestion and edema in her lungs
Speaker 2: and brain. There were also contusions on Maria's face and
Speaker 2: on her left thigh, and one of her fingernails was broken.
Speaker 2: That raises the possibility that there was some kind of struggle.
Speaker 2: although the autopsy itself does not tell us for sure
Speaker 2: how that fingernail was broken. But there's another part of
Speaker 2: the autopsy that I think may be even more important.
Speaker 2: There's been, since the beginning of this investigation, a question
Speaker 2: in my mind about how police determined that Maria had
Speaker 2: sexual activity before her death and if there was any
Speaker 2: testing done on her body. We learned from her autopsy
Speaker 2: that the medical examiner did collect swabs for Maria's mouth, vagina,
Speaker 2: and rectum. The report also specifically documents a vaginal swab
Speaker 2: and saline washings for acid phosphate testing. In 1980, acid
Speaker 2: phosphate testing was commonly used as a presumptive test when
Speaker 2: investigators were looking for seminal fluid. But the autopsy report
Speaker 2: that's available online does not contain the results of those tests.
Speaker 2: It doesn't tell us whether sperm was identified or give
Speaker 2: a blood type or any other clues. And it doesn't
Speaker 2: tell us how investigators later reached the conclusion that was
Speaker 2: reported in the newspapers, that Maria had had sexual intercourse
Speaker 2: shortly before she was killed. So that information had to
Speaker 2: have come from somewhere else, possibly a separate laboratory or
Speaker 2: serology report. And we still don't have that report. In 1988,
Speaker 2: the Asbury Park Press quoted DeMasso Vegas attorney Paul Casaliero
Speaker 2: as saying that semen samples taken from Maria's body could
Speaker 2: potentially have helped identify her killer. But he said those
Speaker 2: samples had been lost by investigators. If that is true,
Speaker 2: that is absolutely heartbreaking for Maria's family. That is only
Speaker 2: an allegation from DeMasso's attorney. I have not found the
Speaker 2: original evidence property documentation showing exactly what happened to those samples.
Speaker 2: I would love to know if any semen samples survived
Speaker 2: and what happened to them because, if anything did survive,
Speaker 2: testing that was impossible in 1980 might be possible now.
Speaker 2: And there's another unresolved question buried in the old reporting.
Speaker 2: According to what Milton, Maria's boyfriend, told police... he and
Speaker 2: Maria last had sex several days before she was killed.
Speaker 2: But the contemporary reporting said investigators had evidence that Maria
Speaker 2: had had sex only hours before her death. And if
Speaker 2: investigators really did establish that, that Maria had had sex
Speaker 2: a few hours before she was murdered, if their timeline
Speaker 2: is correct, then one question becomes incredibly important. Who did
Speaker 2: she have sex with? And could that person have killed her?
Speaker 2: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcast. It's written and narrated by me, Katherine Townsend,
Speaker 2: and produced by Edelise Perez. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
Speaker 2: for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review.
Speaker 2: Noah Kammer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
Speaker 2: is by Ben Salih. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Speaker 2: and L.C.
Speaker 1: Crowley.
Speaker 2: Listen to Hell and Gone ad-free by subscribing to the
Speaker 2: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you
Speaker 2: are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
Speaker 2: you can follow the show on Instagram at hellandgonepod or
Speaker 2: my Patreon at Katherine Townsend Investigates. If you have a
Speaker 2: case you'd like me and my team to look into,
Speaker 2: you can reach out to us at our Hell and
Speaker 2: Gone murder line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145.
Speaker 1: School of Humans.