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Krystal Clear Evidence

17 March

Krystal Beslanowitch
Joseph Michael Simpson's booking photo.
M-Vac used to suck up DNA on stone.

The murder of Krystal Beslanowitch was solved with the help of a vacuum. Joe explains how that worked, and Sandra gets a cleaning boner (not because of Sheriff Todd Bonner).

Sandra got her information from:

  • An article translated from Finnish. Translation can be found on Teller Report, original article can be found here.
  • Article on hermoments.com, by Kelsey Nighthawk
  • Article in The Salt Lake Tribune, by Jessica Miller
  • The photo of Krystal Beslanowitch and the photo of the M-Vac can be found here.

Joe got his information from:

Audio transcript

Midweek Murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised.

Hello?

Hello!

Did you hear my hello this time?

Yeah. yeah i waited forever i was like

wait a minute wait a minute wait what

hello

it's my birthday and i cry if i want to

thought that was the most apt song for

today

[Music]

[Laughter]

mildly amusing i recorded that whilst

outside with ollie walking

so if anybody

came along they would have been like who

the [ __ ] is this great

it was funny i've had a weird day

did father vagina get you everything

that you wanted

yeah i woke up really early because i

had to pee

not because you were just too excited to

open all your presents

no you'll know how it is when you get to

my age

well i don't know what the time was but

it was probably like six or seven

ish and then i went to the toilet

then i got back to the bed and i was

like i'm gonna sleep for a bit more

so i slept for a bit more and then i

woke up and had

like a nice breakfast i went out

yesterday to get my meds so i bought

like uh

bread like a bread

i don't know if you've heard about that

one before but i bought a bread

i thought i should treat myself it's my

birthday i bought bread

i did and then i woke up and nicholas

got things ready while i was like

my face when i was ready he was like

yeah i have 10 minutes until my meeting

i was like [ __ ]

so when he was in the meeting i started

opening my presents because niklas

said like you couldn't make up your mind

which is true

i really tried to come up with something

i wanted for my birthday

the only thing i could come up with was

like huge

goth boots and i was like is this like a

middle-aged

crisis i don't know

so i was like i don't know what i want

for my birthday he was like okay i got

you something but you couldn't make your

mind up so you know

and i was like yeah that's totally fine

expecting it to be like

socks because that's the only thing i

had

on my wish list so he got me a phone

and he was in the meeting and i opened

the gift and i was like

[ __ ] hell it's a [ __ ] phone it's a

very thoughtful gift as well yeah

yeah because i don't actually own a

phone i just have yours

you wrecked your last one

oh the drama the drama is still fresh in

my mind

[Music]

it's wednesday which means that it's

time to talk about crime i'm your host

sandra

and i'm your host joe today we're going

to talk about the murder of

crystal beslanovic i got my information

from

telereport.org which was a translation

of a finnish article that i could read

nothing of because i don't know any

finnish

except for isa pate which is

do not cover and an article

on her moments dot com by kelsey

nighthawk great last name and

an article in the salt lake tribune by

jessica miller that's very interesting

because i also have the same article

from her moments

and two articles from the salt lake

tribune

so one of those probably the same one

from

mvac.com which is the manufacturer

of the forensic vacuum

forensictales.com spokesman.com

i'm assuming this is pronounced desiree

but it's about deseret

oh i read that one as well and

casetext.com

which is the court report

of the trial i do like a hard

tea

on the 14th of december 1995

in salt lake city utah tracy

boslanovic told her boyfriend chris that

she was going to get

some snacks at circle k gas station

when she didn't return home chris got

worried and drove

out to the gas station to look for her

there was no

sign of tracy though at the gas station

and chris knocked on some neighbors

doors but nobody had seen

anything the next morning a farmer and

his son

spotted a body by the utah river

approximately 45 miles from salt lake

city

the police were called and sheriff todd

bonner sorry accidental burner

began investigating the case beside the

body

the police found granite rocks with a

lot of blood on them

and because of this the police surmised

that the rocks had been used as

the murder weapon the only thing the

crime scene

technicians could find was a pair of the

victim's socks

but no identifying things like a wallet

or

id she was therefore labeled as a jane

doe

what she did have though was two tattoos

slight thing for the listeners

and the russian bots is that if you

if you want to get identified tattoos is

probably a great thing to have

only if you've got friends yes too

because my parents don't know about my

tattoos

so yeah and they're not on any national

register

so your body can be identified by

tattoos but only if someone knows you

well enough to

know what your tattoos are true

i would recognize your tattoos also you

flashed a party with your

thigh tattoos you and some other guy

got into your pants at one party

we didn't get into our pants the pants

were always there

that is true so the police released

sketches of these tattoos to local

newspapers in an effort to find the

identity of the victim

chris saw the sketches and contacted the

police immediately to inform them

that the body they had found was his

girlfriend

tracy beslanovic so the police contacted

tracy's father to inform him of the

terrible news but tracy's father told

them that tracy was in fact alive and

well

he said that the victim was not

tracy but his stepdaughter crystal

who i think stole her stepsister's

identity for a lot of things

yeah so she often disguised herself or

used her sister's identity

for a multitude of things we don't know

why

she was using her sister's identity

with her boyfriend although

varying sources say he was boyfriend

fiance

and something else beginning with p

and ending with imp oh okay

i remembered that i should have asked

you for

in what state the body was found

probably should have done yeah

yeah do you have anything on that

when they performed the autopsy they

found that

she had been dead for about 10 to 12

hours at the time of performing the

autopsy which would have related to

about

8 or 10 p.m of the

previous day the autopsy report

found that crystal had suffered at least

a dozen injuries most of them

to the head and the pathologist that

performed the autopsy in court

said that the injuries were almost too

numerous to count

oh god yeah the official cause of death

was craniocerebral

injuries which is essentially blunt

force trauma

to the head they also took

a series of swabs and

they clipped her fingernails the reason

behind clipping the fingernails

is that more commonly than you'd expect

there is

the suspect's dna under the fingernails

unfortunately the fingernail clippings

came back clean

there was nothing in there but i feel

like i should grow

my talons out just to collect more dna

you'd be surprised how easy it is to

collect dna and

regular length fingernails i usually cut

mine with a point

i like that because i feel more wolfish

in them yeah okay my hands

are [ __ ] scary when i was a

kindergarten teacher one of my

children was like you have the longest

fingers of anyone on this planet i was

like yes yes i have

i'm scaring eagle talons

that's my thing i want them to be long

and sharp

and scary

yeah sorry you were i was trying to be

serious

but um

seriously the vaginal swabs that they

took

of crystal came back like the rocks

with partial profiles and at the time

they weren't able to match that with

anybody

so when they recovered the body they

found that on one of crystal's wrists

there was

a bloody fingerprint or thumbprint

however when they tested that they

couldn't get a match to

any fingerprint on their known database

worth mentioning at this point

fingerprint recovery

from skin is incredibly difficult

mainly for the reason that skin is

absorbent so for things like latent

fingerprints that are not

visible to the human eye that are left

by

sweat deposits they could get absorbed

by your skin

your skin itself has its own ridge

patterns

so that's gonna cross interfere with the

ridge patterns on the fingerprint

it's an incredibly difficult matrix to

try and recover a fingerprint from

they are working on it and they are

getting closer to being able to do it

oh cool but definitely at the time

there's basically no way the only real

way to be able to determine a

fingerprint

in blood on skin is to be able to

photograph it

and if it's a partial print or it's a

smudged print

you can basically rule it out it's

impossible to recover

so that was a bit of a dead end really

yeah

so turns out chris hadn't known his

girlfriend's

real name either that or he had lied to

the police

which was what the police saw and this

raised red flags for the police and

chris was now the main

suspect but sheriff bonner couldn't find

a motive

as chris was financially dependent on

crystal

and he had no car which made the 45

odd miles journey from their home to

where the body was discovered

a logistical implausibility

so the sheriff found another suspect

a taxi driver who was obsessed with

crystal

had made statements such as if i can't

have her

no one else can crystal's friends

knew about this taxi driver's unhealthy

stalking

which i feel like you can't have a

person

just get over it [ __ ] but police could

not find any hard evidence to connect

the taxi driver to

the murderer and so the case went cold

chilly minus agrees

in 2008 the blood on the rocks were

tested

and the male dna profile found was not a

match for either chris

or the taxi driver as soon as you point

out here

that there was a profile that was

matched to crystal

so they knew that it was used to

bludgeon crystal

and there was also another partial

male dna but from what they could gather

at the time in 2008

that partial profile didn't match either

chris or herb

yeah and herb is the taxi driver the

taxi driver yeah

yeah so almost 20 years after the murder

had taken place

the police finally had a break in the

case

which was not only because of

advancement in technology but also

because

they tried to solve the case in the

police

which is good just on that point in the

they were trying to solve it in the

police so that dna profile

was obviously tested in 95

when the crime was discovered they

tested it again

in 2008 when there was an advancement in

dna techniques but couldn't make a match

they tested it again in 2011

and then finally they tested it a third

time

or fourth time sorry in 2013

so they were really trying to identify

who was responsible they weren't letting

it lie as

uh oh it's a cold case we haven't got

any evidence let's just

stick in the cupboard and forget about

it yeah the police actually

tried in this case which was good yeah

detective boner

was great and now i'm

and now i'm gonna ask you about why

they had a break in the case oh well

you see it was down to magic

so in 2013 there was a

new dna recovery technique

that was established called the mvac

originally the mvac was designed

to remove microbes from food

but the researchers and inventors behind

the mvac thought that there might be

other applications behind it so moved

into the forensic

world so to give you a little

information on

what the mvac is it's essentially

a sterile wet vacuum

so if you've ever had your carpets

professionally cleaned

you'll know that the machine that does

it

will spray detergent in the case

of carpet cleaning onto the carpet and

then the vacuum will suck up

all of the [ __ ] so that's essentially

what the mvac does

so it sprays the surface of your

sample with what they call a collection

solution and vacuums that up at the same

time

so in that vacuum head you've got a mini

hurricane as they describe it of the

vacuum but also

the wet solution and the theory behind

it

is when they spray that solution down

any dna or skin fragments

or cellular material will be

dissolved into that wet matrix

and then the vacuum will suck it up so

if you've got dna

in this case on the rock you apply

the mvac that applies the collection

solution which

dissolve any skin matrix or dna or

anything like that that's on the rock

into the collection material and suck it

up into a sterile container

that bottle is then passed through

a filter the filter is really really

small

it's 0.2 microns

which is a millionth

of a centimeter oh god it's so tiny

really really really small

just like my dick sorry i have the big

stick

no your dick's massive just like my dick

i measured it once with an electron

microscope and it came back as

inconclusive

[Laughter]

so yeah once you've applied the mvac you

will have a bottle

of solution that will contain both your

collection

solution and your dna material

so you pour that over onto the filter

and because the filter's so small it

will trap

your skin cells or dna material

but the water and potassium phosphate

and whatever other chemicals are in the

solution will pass through

so all of your analyte of interest is

collected onto that filter paper

that's so crazy that it could be so tiny

yeah and to be fair those kind of

filters

are commercially available they're not

specially made

oh my god i want them

i've got some if you want a 0.5 micron

filter i have a cleaning boner right now

my ocd is just like get it

get it this technology isn't

majorly advanced it's just the first

instance of this technology being able

to be used

in this kind of situation so the reason

that

when they tested it in 2008 and

any time before that 2011 and 95

the reason that the dna profiles came

back as

impartial incomplete is because at the

time

the science would have been just a swab

sample

and a swab sample is essentially

you wet a cotton bud like an earbud

a sterile version with some distilled

water

you wipe that around your surface and

send that off

and then you do it again with a dry swab

and send that off

and they'll run both of those samples

and see what kind of

evidence they get back now the reason

that those came back as

incomplete is because you're limited to

the amount of

material you can pick up from just

wiping over the surface with a swab

all you can pick up is what you rub off

of your surface

whereas the technique of the mvac the

whole point of that

is that you get a load more

dna material because it's using a vacuum

system

as well as a high pressure collection

solution

so it's not advanced technology

but it is a lot more useful with

smaller samples than the traditional

swabbing

is so then they would have sent that

filter plate

off to a forensic science lab

for pcr analysis we've talked about pcr

analysis before

but just a quick summary pcr stands for

polymerase chain reaction and

essentially

it multiplies the amount of dna sample

that you have

until it gets to a readable level and

then they can run a full dna profile

with that result from the pcr and what

they found

was they got a full dna profile

with using the mvac rather than the

incomplete

or partial profiles that they got

previously

when they ran that full profile in

their known suspect database they

found a match and the match was to a

joseph michael simpson so

they now have a suspect yeah

so joseph michael simpson

had been a bus driver in the area

at the time of crystal's death because

he was a shuttle driver wasn't he for

the

airports he was going to multiple

different locations

but the area where crystal was found

was one of the areas in his shuttle run

so yeah okay i also read that he would

use his shuttle vehicle to pick up sex

workers

regularly after he'd finished his shift

a couple of reports

say that there were no obvious signs of

sexual assault

and a couple of other reports say that

dna of the suspect was found in her

vaginal cavity and she was a known sex

worker

so from that i guess you can conclude

that she was working that night and he

was one of her

customers maybe yeah that might have

been the case

yeah we can't confirm it yeah which

might mean a connection

between her and the suspect because

nobody

of her friends and family knew this

suspect which is an interesting point

because that's why he wasn't on the list

of suspects

from the beginning so the police

when they ran the profile through codis

the usa based dna collection

database i'm suspecting they got a

partial hit

because they went to florida where

joseph lived

in 2013 i guess

yeah and waited for him to give them

something with his dna

on it and this is where i have a

question

the vacuum obviously gave them a good

profile but did it give them a

cold profile because from what i

understand it they got a hit

because they knew the person's name but

why would they go to florida

if they had a full profile they got

a full profile from the mvac

collection and that provided a

match on their database to simpson

for some reason what they needed to do

next was

make sure that the profile they had on

their database

was actually his so what we have seen

from the first blood grouping ever

we covered it or we discussed it where

the guy

got somebody else to provide his dna

sample for

him call him pitchfork that's the guy

pitchy fork so what they needed to do

was make sure that the profile

that they had on record matched

the profile of joseph simpson

i didn't know that i was confused

because i was like well if they

had a full profile why would they go to

florida to pick up an

other profile yes see in the uk they

wouldn't have done

because all of the dna profiles that are

on

the national database are taken by

trained police officers or trained

forensic investigators so you know

that that profile matches that person

whether in the us at the time they

doubted whether he'd given the right

address the right

name the right personal detail i don't

know but you're right

in that they went to florida they staked

out

a smoke shop and saw simpson

discard a cigarette butt that he'd been

smoking

they seized that cigarette but ran it

for a dna profile

and that dna profile matched their

database record

for him why they didn't just arrest him

and take a buckle swap

i have no idea but the cigarette butt

dna profile was a perfect match

to the dna vacuumed off of the rocks

which is a sentence i thought i would

never say vacuumed off

of the rocks so in september

2016 a jury found

joseph guilty of murdering crystal and

he was sentenced to life without the

possibility of parole this wasn't the

first time

joseph had committed murder though

when he murdered crystal he was on

parole for stabbing a man to death

even though he already had his chance of

living a normal life

and decided to commit another murder

instead

joseph stated that i know it's going to

be 20 maybe

30 years down the road but it's still

hope that i can have another chance he

said

no dude you had another chance

you decided to commit murder

is what i want to say to him yeah i

would like to exacerbate your rage

by giving you some details about his

first

crime do it i'm ready for the rage

yeah when he murdered crystal he was on

parole for second degree

felony murder now the us has a weird

way of naming their murders

a second-degree murder is essentially

when

you kill someone without going out with

the intention of killing them

so in the u.s first degree murder

is you've planned it you've plotted it

you've gone out and you've done it

second degree murder

is you're out and about doing your

business

and you deliberately kill someone

so you haven't planned it but you have

still

intentionally killed someone and then

manslaughter is when

you kill someone accidentally a

second-degree

felony murder is the second degree

murder so someone has died

deliberately whilst you were also

carrying out a felony crime so like

burglary so the crime

that he was charged for his

second-degree

felony murder was that he was dating a

lady

and that lady said that she was

interested in dating another man

so simpson found the man stabbed him

13 times in the

hip hands arms shoulders

neck head and back

and left the knife in his back

i would say that that sounds a bit first

degree isn't it

yeah it does it does so

he went to prison he got given parole

while he was on parole he bludgeoned

a 17 year old to death

and whilst on trial for said

bludgeoning pleaded for the jury

to give him a second chance because his

[ __ ]

cat died what genuinely

his defense in court was i had a cat

and it bit me and i had to go to the

hospital

and get treatment and it made me look at

my life in a new light

what the [ __ ] jay simpson

i got bitten on the face by my dog i

still don't go out and kill people

no i have a cat i would die for my cat

my cat shat me in the face

that's a true story

my brother was shocked he was like what

the [ __ ]

i was like she accidentally had diarrhea

in my face i was traumatized

i still love my cat enough that i would

die for her

accidentally

it was a very very strange

plead it was it was

unfortunately the jury paid absolutely

[ __ ] all attention to it because within

an

hour the conclusion was guilty

life imprisonment no parole

it's like take your cat story and shove

it up your arsey

dirty dirty bastard we both know

cats are [ __ ] bastards we love them

anyways i love them

because of that like you're the best

even though she

shot in my face other nicholas's shoes

which has never happened in my life i've

never had

poop in my face until my cat

shat in my face i didn't notice at first

because i was like what the [ __ ] where

did this new mole come from

no i was like what the [ __ ] is happening

something smells a bit stanky and then

10 minutes later i went to the toilet

and i was like

10 10 minutes maybe

5 minutes you didn't tell me i'd [ __ ] on

your face for ten

minutes maybe five minutes i don't oh

you're disgusting

i went to the [ __ ] bathroom mirror

and i was like oh my god i have

[ __ ] on my face

i'm gonna die i'm gonna die right now

and i'm not

sad about it but i'm gonna die right now

not sad about it what a way to go

death might catch it in the face

i'm not even like that mad about it

because i love

a little more than my own life but i'm

also like

you sham my face man you're crossing

boundaries here

speaking of which that's the case

no i'm finished okay i've got some

little tidbits

from the trial itself

to jailhouse informants

is how they were described i don't know

what their jobs were

they were employees of some sort there

were two of them

that testified against simpson in his

trial

the first informant said

that simpson said to them i got away

with it

this long what would make them open the

case

now um suspicious yeah

then the second informant said

that simpson would always complain about

finding his dna on a rock

by crystal and that's all i got bro

then that's the case joseph simpson

you're a dick what are you gonna do next

week

i have to deal with this week first have

you tried your rowing machine

i did ten minutes before my back started

aching

[Laughter]

congrats i think it's going to be quite

good it's got quite a high level of

resistance

so if ever the motivation strikes to do

some exercises there for me i

really tried to get you to work out with

me you were like

no way but we have to start doing it

again you know that

i do know that the whole point of the

rowing machine

minus the manic episode is to have

something

to be able to do cardio with whenever

that

urge strikes which admittedly is not

very often

but sometimes it happens and i'm like

well i'm not gonna go for a run

so [ __ ] exercise no we have to do it

i tried to tell you you were like no way

i was like yes we did this beforehand

you know yeah but you tried to get me to

do it when i was in a slump

i tried to get you to do it like 30

different times yeah when i was in a

slump

yeah we still need to do it every time

you get the urge

to do it i can fire you up with my

very good insults your

mother was an amster

and the father smelled of elderberrys

i would also like to say if people are

listening

that are enjoying the podcast please

leave a review on itunes because

we had a bad review and i wanted to stop

everything and just give up yeah we

don't usually

plug for likes and subscribes

so we would really appreciate it if you

could just

leave us a tiny little bit of

positive feedback if you do enjoy

our drunken spiel

i drunken nonsense

yeah just let us know that you love us

or we'll be sad that's the truth

to be honest joe won't be sad but i will

be super sad

i won't be sad it won't make a

difference to me at all

[Music]

true story he's medicated

[Laughter]

i spent 30 hours every week

to do this podcast so to everyone that

does listen to podcasts that they don't

like just

turn it off like i do when i listen to

podcasts that i don't like i'm like

i'm just gonna turn it off yeah we're

not a mattress

that you can't return

that's true okay so bye bye

[Music]

Topics
  • Krystal Beslanowitch
  • M-Vac
  • Joseph Michael Simpson
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