Trace Evidence

On a cool October afternoon in 2007, forty-seven year old Irina Malezhik walked out of her Brighton Beach apartment and mysteriously vanished. Nearly two years later, the FBI finally identified the prime suspect: Dmitriy Yakovlev. However, what they believed was an investigation into identity theft would quickly become something much more hideous.

While the FBI dug into Dmitriy they quickly uncovered a complex history in which Yakovlev had been the last person to see Irina alive, but also two others; Michael Klein and Viktor Alexseyev. Klein, like Irina, has never been found. Alexseyev's dismembered remains were found just a few weeks after he was last seen alive.

Quickly investigators uncovered a pattern; every two years someone Dmitriy knew vanished and within days he, and his wife, would reap the benefits of the missing persons bank account. It soon became clear that Dmitriy wasn't just an identity thief, but an active and previously undetected serial killer.

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Forty-seven year old Irina Malezhik mysteriously disappeared from Brooklyn after leaving her Brighton Beach apartment in October of 2007. Employed at the time as a Russian translator for the Federal Court system, tackling cases involving the Russian mafia, many were concerned that Irina had been targeted by someone from the mob.

However, as the FBI began digging into the case they quickly discovered that someone was using Irina's identity to make large purchases; expensive clothes, watches and linens. They'd even gone and withdrawn thousands of dollars from her bank account. That trail did not lead to organized from, but to a married couple with a direct connection to the missing woman.

What began as a case surrounding identity theft quickly developed into something more intense. Soon, they discovered a second missing person tied to the married couple. Then, the dismembered remains of a third were also linked to the identity thieves. It became quite clear; this was not just a one off crime, but a series of murders and disappearances driven by greed at the hand of a yet unidentified serial killer.

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Music Courtesy of: "Lost Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Sandra Prince was well known throughout Florida's Bay Avenue for her dedication to the community, her craft real estate acquisitions and for being one of the nicest and kindest friends and neighbors you could ever want. For much of Sandra's life, things had gone just the way she'd wanted them to until the night she vanished.

For months investigators struggled to gain a foothold on Sandra's life. Notoriously private, few people knew exactly what she was up to nor who she spent time with. Eventually, one name came to the surface: Earl Pippin. Pippin worked as a contractor for Sandra and, reportedly, had been in a relationship with her for close to five years.

Nine long months after her disappearance, the Temple Terrace Police officially named Pippin as a person of interest in the case. The hunt for Sandra's remains began in earnest as detectives had few reasons to believe the missing woman might still be alive. Pippin, allegedly the sole beneficiary to her estate, valued at nearly $3 million, quickly became the central focus of their investigation.

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In late December of 2005, fifty-nine year old Sandra Prince went missing from Temple Terrace, Florida. For several days, friends and neighbors assumed she had gone out of town to celebrate the New Year but when January rolled around and Sandra didn't appear, they grew concerned.

Detectives working the case noted that they hadn't found any signs of a struggle, nor indications of forced entry at her home but the cell phone she always carried was left behind while her purse was missing. A notoriously private woman, investigators struggled to learn more about her as they tried to find anyone in her life who may have stood to gain from her disappearance. They had no way of knowing that a secret romance might be the key to discovering what truly happened.

Breaking News After fifteen long years, an arrest has been made in the brutal 2007 slaying of eighteen year old Minot State University student Anita Knutson whose case was profiled in episode 137. In this episode we'll go through all of the details currently available and, as more information is released, a full length update episode will come out at a later date.


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Seventy-six year old Walter Page was a pillar of the community in Manchester, New Hampshire. A resident for nearly fifty years, he and his wife Fae had built their home, raised a family and were now slowing down to enjoy a little more of their golden years. Just over a week before Christmas, in December of 1995 however, a series of threatening phone calls and a fiery attack would forever change their lives.

Believing he had discovered banking inconsistencies, Walter began digging in to his Lodge's financial paperwork. Following a meeting with the then treasurer of the Lodge, Karl Bickford, as well as the president of the association, Conrad Ekdahl, disturbing things began happening. Ekdahl arrived home to find a homemade incendiary device wedged against his front door. Walter, among others, received a threatening call alluding to a bombing at his home.

Less than two days later -- Walter was brutally murdered in the basement office of his home before the killer set the home ablaze. While investigators initially believed the crime may have been conducted in retribution for the conviction of an embezzler, they soon began wondering if perhaps the crime had been done not in revenge for a crime that had already been revealed but in order to conceal a crime which had not yet been discovered.

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Eighteen year old Lynn Burdick mysteriously vanished from her evening shift at the Barefoot Peddlar, a small convenience store in her hometown of Florida, Massachusetts. After weeks of grueling searches headed up by law enforcement and Lynn's family, no trace of the high school senior could be found.

By the beginning of summer, the senior prom Lynn hoped to attend had come and gone and, at what should have been her graduation ceremony, only an empty chair and a bouquet of yellow flowers marked her place. For the next forty years, the search for Lynn and the investigation of her disappearance would hit countless roadblocks and dead ends.

Had Lynn been abducted by someone local, someone who may have known her? Did she fall victim to a yet unknown serial killer stalking the rural areas of Massachusetts or, was it possible, that Lynn was taken so she couldn't identify the man who had robbed the store that night?

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Eighteen year old Lynn Burdick was born and raised in the small Massachusetts town of Florida. Throughout her life she worked hard in school earning high marks, dedicated her free time to volunteering for different fundraisers and charitable organizations and helped look after her mother. She was always there, reliable and trustworthy until the night she vanished.

Scheduled to work the closing shift at a local convenience store, The Barefoot Peddlar, Lynn began her night without a worry. However, in the final hour before closing, Lynn disappeared from the store without a trace. Investigators quickly discovered the high school senior had likely been abducted during the course of a robbery.

Massive searches were launched covering a fifty mile radius around the store; local and state police joined up with volunteers to scour the main roads, side streets and countless miles of state forests and difficult terrain. When a failed abduction earlier in the night came to light, investigators began to wonder if perhaps Lynn had been the next target.

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On a warm Sunday afternoon in April of 1981, thirty-two year old Naomi Wilson walked out of her Cedar Rapids home, climbed in to her Ford Fairmont and drove off never to return. Two days later, her car was found abandoned at a local K-mart just a few miles away. There was no sign of foul play, no evidence of a crime and no trace of Naomi.

Despite large searches through the area and a media barrage -- Naomi has never been found. As the years progressed, her story slowly evolved into one of the oldest unsolved missing person's cases in Iowa. Did she truly drive off that afternoon, falling victim to a yet unidentified assailant or is it possible the story we've been told all of these years was merely a lie to cover up something closer to home?

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In this Special Update Episode we will revisit four cases previously covered on Trace Evidence which have had major breakthroughs in the past few months.

In September of 2021, Chapel Hill police announced they had arrested and charged a suspect in the 2012 murder of UNC Chapel Hill student Faith Hedgepeth. Just last month, in December, investigators with the Miami-Dade Police officially closed the case of seventeen year old Daniel Jess Goldman who was abducted from his family's home in March of 1966.

This month, January of 2022, South Yorkshire Police announced that they had arrested two suspects believed to be connected to the 2007 disappearance of fourteen year old Andrew Gosden. Finally, after thirty-six years, an arrest has been made in connection with the 1986 abduction and murder of four year old Jessica Gutierrez, taken in the middle of the night from her family's Lexington, SC home.


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On the first day of Fall in 1972, thirteen year old Gail Joiner rushed home from school to her parents house in Thonotosassa, Florida. An hour later, the teen attached a leash to her beloved pet racoon's collar and strode out of the house to take him on his daily walk. She never returned.

Despite exhaustive searches involving more than 200 people, not a trace of Gail was ever found. Within a month of her disappearance the case had grown cold and the investigation was scaled back. For the next decade, her case lingered in the limbo of joining other cold case files.

Then in October of 1982, a confessed serial killer took credit for Gail's murder. After allegedly leading police to where he had disposed of her body, Gerald Stano retracted his confession and Gail's remains were never found. Had Stano been responsible, or was this another case of a murderer taking credit for crimes he didn't commit?

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Music Courtesy of: "Lost Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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