Beyond The Boardwalk
Harold Dow Reports On Four Grisly
Killings In Atlantic City
Comments 2 | Page 1 of 7
Feb. 23, 2008
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(CBS) This story
originally aired on May 19, 2007. It was updated
on Feb. 21, 2008.
"We're in the midst of rejuvenating Atlantic
City," says local radio host and Atlantic City
legend Pink Kravitz. "The casinos this past year
generated $5 billion.This industry has created
over 40,000 jobs for people right here in
Atlantic City. Come see for yourself."
But a few short miles from the Atlantic City’s
glittering casinos sits a strip of low-rent
motels. Behind them, a lonely path runs along a
drainage ditch.
As correspondent Harold Dow reports, police in
the Atlantic City suburb of Egg Harbor Township
were alerted on Nov. 20, 2006, to a grisly
discovery: spaced out along the drainage ditch
were four dead women.
At the time, John DeAngelis was a captain on the
force. When police examined the first body, they
immediately noticed something strange. "They had
discovered that the victim did not have shoes on
and was barefoot," he explains.
In fact, it turned out that all four victims
were methodically positioned in the same bizarre
manner. "All facing east, all with no shoes on,
no purse, no cell phone, no personal
belongings," DeAngelis explains. "It appears
that these women were killed just for the sake
of being killed."
And DeAngelis believes that most likely, one
killer was involved with all four victims.
Fear of a serial killer on the loose rocked
Atlantic City and the entire Northeast. Police
had a high profile case on their hands with few
clues. And as they began to identify the
victims, it took on a new and more troubling
dimension. All four murdered women had friends
and families who loved and supported them. So
why and how did they end up in a place like
this?
Barabra Breidor’s sisters Francine and Valerie
were not surprised when they learned that she
was one of the victims; Barbara had been missing
for weeks.
Fran and Val prefer to remember their sister in
happier days, growing up in the Philadelphia
suburbs, spending summers with Barbara on the
Jersey shore. “Barbara was raised in a very
stable, loving home,” Val remembers.
But Barbara had trouble coping with the sudden
death of her father. The death, says Val,
completely devastated the family and left
Barbara depressed.
After a tough year at Penn State University,
Barbara left school and returned to the South
Jersey shore. She held several steady jobs, and
in 1997, achieved a life-long goal: motherhood.
Barbara Breidor was 42 years old. Her daughter
Dominique is only 9.
Solving Barbara’s murder was the job of Atlantic
City Prosecutor Jeffrey Blitz. He formed a
special task force to crack the case. Even
before Blitz identified Barbara Breidor, he
revealed the name of the first woman found in
the ditch: 35-year-old Kim Raffo.
Kim’s cousin Juliette remembers the two of them
growing up on the streets of Brooklyn. “Always
smiling, you know, always happy,” Juliette
recalls.
As Kim grew into a young adult, she seemed to be
headed in the right direction. “She really had
it together. I was so proud of her,” Juliette
says.
Hugh Auslander fell in love with Kim and married
her in 1989. The young couple moved to Florida
and had two children; Hugh worked a good
construction job, while Kim devoted herself to
the kids.
“Everything was about as good as it gets,” Hugh
remembers.
But then things began to fall apart. Kim fell in
love with another man, a chef she’d met at a
cooking class and by 2003, the marriage was
over. Kim eventually moved to Atlantic City with
her lover. Three years after they arrived in
town, Kim Raffo was dead.
Kim was strangled to death. The second victim
identified died similarly. She was 23-year-old
Tracy Ann Roberts, who, according to DeAngelis,
came from a small town in Delaware and trained
to be a medical assistant.
Tracy had only moved to Atlantic City within the
past year. “Everybody that knew her said that
she was a really nice, pretty, young person that
had her whole future ahead of her,” DeAngelis
says.
Beyond
The Boardwalk
Harold Dow Reports On Four Grisly
Killings In Atlantic City
Comments 2 | Page 2 of 7
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) Six days after the bodies were
found, Barbara Breidor was identified
through dental records.
Identifying the fourth victim was
difficult, because she had been in that
ditch for more than a month. To
determine who she was, Jeffrey Blitz’s
office released images of her tattoos.
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“There was a tattoo of a bulldog, an English
bulldog. And all the family members recognized
it immediately,” explains the victim´s uncle,
Steve Taylor.
The woman’s name was Molly Dilts, just 20 years
old. Her uncles Steve and Sam Taylor struggled
to cope with the loss. “She was a warm and
loving caring kid,” Steve recalls. “She had a
lot of good to spread to the world and it’s just
a shame that she won’t be able to do that.”
Molly was from Black Lick, Pa., a mining town
where money is tight and family is tighter. “For
everything that that poor girl had gone through,
I think she came out pretty damned well,” Steve
says.
Molly had endured her fair share of hardship,
losing both her mother and her brother when she
was just a teen. Her uncle Steve says that’s was
the start of a rebellious side.
Molly had had some minor scrapes with the law,
but after she gave birth to her son Jeremiah,
she seemed to be getting her act together.
But in the summer of 2006, Molly left Jeremiah
in the care of her family, and left Black Lick
behind her. “She was just going out there to
pursue a better life,” Steve says.
In the first week of October Molly contacted her
family, calling collect from a New Jersey
number. Steve says the call was traced to a
payphone in downtown Atlantic City.
They would never hear her voice again.
Four lives were lost, with little apparent
connection. But investigators quickly discovered
that the four victims did have something in
common: they all had a dark side. The hunt for
the killer would lead deep into that darkness.
For decades, Atlantic City has been an iconic
American vacation land - a powerful magnet for
people trying to escape their troubles. Kim,
Barbara, Tracy, and Molly were no exception.
“These are four people who came to Atlantic City
to remake themselves,” explains historian Prof.
Bryant Simon. “Something that fantasy cities
promise all the time.”
“Summer 1940, it would be wall to wall people.
You could not walk a full stride down the
boardwalk,” Simon explains.
But in the 1970s, the city’s economy collapsed,
so New Jersey made the ultimate gamble by
legalizing casinos. In the 30 years since, the
impact has been profound.
Today, the Atlantic City casinos generate more
than $5 billion dollars in annual revenue, and
roughly 30 million people come there each year.
Most come for a visit; a few come to stay and
start a new life. But everyone’s hoping for the
same thing: to get lucky.
Kim Raffo took a chance on Atlantic City, moving
there in 2003 with her new man, Kenny Bilecki.
“Things were really good when we got up here. We
were making money and we were trying to build a
life,” Kenny remembers.
Kim and Kenny, a trained chef, both held steady
jobs at a restaurant in the Taj Mahal casino.
Kim became close friends with a local bartender,
John Pesce.
“When I first met her, she had an apartment and
a job. And she was just a regular person like
everybody else,” Pesce explains.
But it didn’t take long for Kim to learn that
life in Atlantic City changes the second you
walk out the casino doors. “The wealth generated
by the casinos has created a boom outside the
city. Leaving the core of the city with the
least fortunate,” Prof. Simon explains.
Beyond The Boardwalk
Harold Dow Reports On Four Grisly Killings In
Atlantic City
Comments 2 | Page 3 of 7
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) The result? An almost surreal
juxtaposition: magnificent, opulent casinos
surrounded by dead zones of poverty and crime.
“It's definitely a dichotomy. It’s a small town
with big city problems,” says Jim Hutchins, a
recently retired Atlantic City police captain,
who took Dow out on the streets.
Dow and Hutchins cruised Pacific Avenue, known
locally as “the track,” just a block inland from
the boardwalk, where Hutchins says prostitutes
wait for clients. “They’re working girls,” he
says. “I don't think they're selling girl scout
cookies over there.”
It was in this double world of glitz and grime
that Kim Raffo struggled to make ends meet.
“Every time we would leave our building, you
know, we would be approached by drug dealers and
to buy drugs,” Kenny recalls.
Kenny says that eventually, they both got caught
up in the scene. “We started drinkin' and fell
into the crack scene, you know, and started
smokin' it,” he admits.
Kim had left her kids with Hugh. John Pesce says
that searing regret drove her drug abuse. “She
was in pain mentally, emotionally. It was
important to her to take care of her kids. And
when she didn't, it really upset her,” he says.
Kim had used drugs socially before. But now, she
was a full-blown addict. Asked how crazy things
got, Kenny tells Dow, “Absolutely crazy. I
thought I was losin' my mind, mentally. I mean,
just losin' it.”
Unable to hold their jobs, Kenny launched a new
career as a shoplifter, while Kim started
turning tricks on the track to support her
habit.
Papa Joe Boccino runs a café just off the track,
on Tennessee Avenue. He knows all the local
prostitutes. But he says Kim was different. “You
would think she would be the last person that
would be on crack,” he explains. “Kim was too
clean cut.”
Kim’s murder hit Kenny hard. “I got a lot guilt
because she’s dead. And I shoulda watched her a
little better,” he says.
During the interview, Kenny allowed 48 Hours to
videotape him smoking crack. “I loved her with
all my heart. I’m dyin’ a slow death right
here,” he says.
Like Kim, Barbara Breidor also worked the
casinos. She was a cocktail waitress. But her
sisters say she got trapped in an abusive
relationship with Dominique’s father.
Asked how she ended up on the streets, Val tells
Dow, “She was a victim. A victim of domestic
violence.”
“She ended up self-medicating herself ... with
drugs,” Fran adds.
Barbara spent years in and out of rehab programs
for heroin addiction, but the situation didn’t
improve, especially for Dominique.
“None of my parents watched over me because they
were, had something to do. I was left all alone
to do nothing,” Dominique says. “My dad locked
me out of the house. I called police because he
was trying to beat up my mother. He ripped her
hand open right there,” she adds, pointing to
the palm of her left hand.
Her father ended up in prison; Dominique was
taken away from her mother, and briefly put into
foster care.
Alone in Atlantic City, Barbara sank into the
dark world of the track.
Tracy Roberts, herself a young mother, had
developed a bad drug habit back in Delaware.
“Tracy gave me the impression that she was a
street girl,” explains Papa Joe Boccino.
Friends in Atlantic City say Tracy worked for a
time at a local strip joint, and was then out on
the track with the other working girls.
Twenty-two-year-old Kristen is a five-year
veteran of the Atlantic City streets. Her daily
struggle mirrors what Tracy and the other
victims were living through shortly before they
were killed.
Driven by a $200-a-day heroin habit, Kristen is
constantly working, soliciting johns on the
track or in the casinos. “You walk through the
casino. Like, say you play a slot machine or
somethin’. Somebody's going to say something to
you,” she explains.
The streets make anyone tough but Kristen’s pain
is never far from the surface. “You just miss
everything. You miss, I have a little sister, I
miss her growing up, you know? It's hard. I
can't get out of this damn place, though,” she
admits.
Like Kristen, Kim, Barbara, and Tracy were deep
into the street life. “I have to support my drug
habit. Killer or no killer,” Kristen admits.
Kristen is still out there, and so is the
killer.
Beyond The Boardwalk
Harold Dow Reports On Four Grisly Killings In
Atlantic City
Comments 2 | Page 5 of 7
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) Not wanting to tip the killer, Atlantic
County Prosecutor Jeff Blitz has remained
tight-lipped since his first-and last-press
conference. But retired Atlantic City police
captain Jim Hutchins thinks the prosecutor
should do some explaining.
Hutchins says his former squad, the Atlantic
City vice cops who actually knew the streets and
the girls, were not brought into the
investigation until precious time had been lost.
He says he was contacted three days after the
bodies were found.
“I would have gave them whoever they asked for
to help to knock on doors, to interview
witnesses, neighbors. The neighborhood where the
girls live. And I wasn't asked to do that,” he
says.
Hutchins says that may be why, to this day,
investigators still don’t know if the murders
occurred right where the bodies were found, or
another location such as a hotel room or a car.
Retired Egg Harbor Township Police Captain John
DeAngelis points out another problem: there is
no apparent motive.
On top of all that, an FBI source tells 48 Hours
that the scene at the ditch was contaminated by
some of the first responders, limiting the
amount of forensic evidence that could be
retrieved.
“Decomposition occurred, which made it very
difficult for investigators to take fingerprints
or any other kind of forensic evidence,”
DeAngelis explains.
The prosecutor denies Hutchins’ claims, and has
recently stated that crucial evidence was
recovered from the victim’s clothes and bodies.
Still, with few signs of progress, some in law
enforcement started paying attention to a
profiler named John Kelly. “The profile’s goal
is to flush the person out. To try and inform
the public. To help stimulate the
investigation,” Kelly explains.
Kelly thinks he can get inside the mind of the
Atlantic City killer.
For one, he believes the killer is a local, from
the area.
Kelly, a psycho-therapist, runs STALK, Inc.: an
organization of former cops and mental health
professionals. They created a profile on their
own to help the investigation.
“Some people look at the work of a profiler as
some kind of voodoo or something. Does it really
work?” Dow asks.
“Certainly it works in many cases. It should be
used as a tool. But it’s not some answer all,
end all,” Kelly explains.
Certain aspects of the profile are rather
exotic. Kelly thinks the killer may be into
photography or another visual art. “In watching
many of these serials killers, what we've seen
is this underlying artistic nature,” he
explains.
Other elements are more predictable: for
instance, the profile describes the killer as a
social misfit, and a patron of prostitutes. “The
stroll areas are his hunting grounds. And drug
addicted prostitutes are his prey,” Kelly
theorizes.
Pursuing the theory that the killer knew the
streets, police took an interest in an ex-con
named Bill Schlue.
Dante the street hustler and his buddy Smiley
say they hooked Schlue up with drugs and hookers
- among others, Kim Raffo and Tracy Roberts.
“So he would have these binges with these women
for days?” Dow asks.
“Yeah, days,” one man replied.
Schlue was questioned by police, but never
arrested. He has denied 48 Hours’ repeated
requests for interviews.
Asked what kind of a person committed these
crimes, criminal profiler John Kelly says, “A
man on a mission. And his mission is to
eliminate prostitutes.”
Could the killer be on a religious mission?
Kelly thinks the strange fact that all of the
victim’s faces were turned to the east could be
a sign of reverence for the Holy Lands of
Jerusalem or Mecca.
“Whatever the demented message is that he's
sending has something to do with the east,”
Kelly explains.
That’s how a Muslim named Charles Coles, a
convicted drug dealer and a friend of Kim Raffo,
says he also wound up being questioned and
released.
Beyond The Boardwalk
Harold Dow Reports On Four Grisly Killings In
Atlantic City
Comments 2 | Page 6 of 7
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) Whatever the killer’s religion, Kelly
feels strongly that he’s left a more important
clue - one that could be the key to the case:
all the victims were found barefoot. “He's taken
their shoes and he's taken their socks. I have
to believe we're looking at a serial killer with
a foot fetish here,” Kelly says.
The foot-fetish theory reportedly led police,
and 48 Hours, to an ex-con named Mark Hessee,
who’s now an aspiring minister. At the time of
the murders, Hessee was living at a flop house
on the track, the Fox Manor Hotel. He once
offered a woman there a foot massage.
“Do you think you became a suspect because they
heard about you massaging someone's feet?” Dow
asks Hessee.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I admire women that take
care of their bodies. I mean, you know, and when
I see a woman in sandals, and her toes are all
painted up. And her feet are taken care of. I
will compliment her.”
During his stay at the Fox Manor, Hessee crossed
paths with both Kim Raffo and Barbara Breidor.
He remembers trying, unsuccessfully, to get Kim
to give up prostitution. “And that's what
bothers me the most. Is these people that are
not ready to come to the Lord, and walk away. A
lot of 'em end up dead,” he tells Dow.
Asked if he killed those four women, Hessee
says, “No. No I didn't. I can't kill anybody. I
never have. Never will.”
Hessee is apparently not the only man in town
with a thing for feet. Denise Hill, an
experienced prostitute, told police she had a
close personal encounter with a foot freak at a
Best Western the same week the bodies were
discovered.
“He was talking my shoes. He liked my shoes. But
at this time I didn't know anything about the
murders. But he was so obsessed with my shoes,”
she recalls.
Denise says she even gave the john a pair of her
shoes. “I got him the shoes. They were just like
this color, same color,” she says.
But then the date went from strange to
terrifying. “He was talking about some crazy
stuff. He was talking about like really bizarre
stuff like he's killed some people,” she
explains.
If Denise had seen the killer, what did he look
like? To find out, 48 Hours hired criminal image
profiler Jeanne Boylan, who frequently works
with the FBI. Boylan is the artist behind
thousands of famous sketches, most notably the
Unabomber.
Denise told Jeanne she spent several hours with
the man, and though he was wearing glasses and a
hat the entire time, she claims his face is
seared in her mind. Getting that image on paper
took all day. But by nightfall, the sketch
revealed what had been locked in Denise’s memory
for months.
(CBS/Jeanne Boylan)Looking at the sketch, Denise
was convinced it was the same man she had spent
time with in the hotel.
48 Hours sent the sketch to investigators, but
Prosecutor Blitz would not comment on Denise’s
story. Still, Boylan thinks it can be useful,
despite its limitations.
“The likelihood is that this is a common outfit
for him, something that might trigger a memory
with a landlady, a neighbor,” she says.
In fact, the sketch caught the eye of Barbara
Breidor’s daughter, Dominique. She thinks the
man may have come by her parents’ house years
ago. “Well when I was in the middle of playing
with my mom she opened the door. He tried to
sell her something. I've just seen him. And I'm
pretty sure it is him,” she explains.
Still, as the months roll on, none of these
leads pan out. Schlue, Coles, and Hessee are
never charged with the murders. And some of the
victims’ families grow frustrated.
But soon, and suddenly, a new suspect was about
to emerge. After five months of dead ends, the
harsh spotlight of the investigation turns
toward this man - 35-year-old Terry Oleson.
Beyond The Boardwalk
Harold Dow Reports On Four Grisly Killings In
Atlantic City
Comments 2 | Page 7 of 7
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) On April 3, 2007, police, acting on a tip,
searched Oleson’s home in rural southwest New
Jersey. They discovered a surveillance camera
inside a birdfeeder. Oleson came in for
questioning.
As it turns out, in the fall of 2006, Oleson was
doing odd jobs at the Golden Key motel, just
steps from where the bodies were found. He
stayed in a corner room, and fellow guests say
he was a loner.
Relatives say Oleson was estranged from his
family for years, and had been having domestic
difficulties with a long-term girlfriend. That
seems to match the trait of social alienation
mentioned on John Kelly’s profile.
“Mister Oleson comes across as being a very
non-social, shy person,” Kelly says.
Days after the search, Oleson was charged with
an unrelated offence - videotaping a minor in
the nude with a hidden camera. He is being held
on $100,000 bail.
“He is charged ultimately with being a peeping
tom…. Yet, they’re treating him like he is ‘Jack
the Ripper,’” says Oleson’s attorney, James
Leonard. “Terry Olson is not a serial killer. He
is not a monster.”
Leonard points out that his client, a divorced
father, has no felony convictions and is
supported by his family. “In our opinion, he is
an innocent man who has been caught in this
tangled web of an investigation,” he explains.
But Olesons’ alleged interest in surveillance
video is consistent with another trait on
Kelly’s profile: visual artistry. “If that’s
enough to call someone a serial killer, then
that list of suspects is gonna grow a lot
longer,” Olesons’ attorney argues.
Leonard says Oleson actually helped
investigators search for evidence back when the
bodies were first found. And so far there’s
nothing to suggest he’s ever had a foot fetish,
or any kind of contact with the victims. “I did
ask him, very candidly if he knew any of these
women. And he answered me, very adamantly,
‘No,’” Leonard says.
And last October, a clean-cut Oleson , out on
bond, recalled how he was questioned by police.
“’We know you did it.’ That was their exact
words. And I’m like ‘You knew what. How did you
get from this to this that’s it that’s it I’m
done,” he said.
Atlantic County authorities took a hard look at
Terry Oleson, even getting him to give a DNA
sample to compare with evidence from the
victims. But so far, they have not charged him
with anything related to the murders.
“I wish I had some information for everybody. I
have no idea how I got involved in any of this
but I hope they find whoever did this,” Oleson
said.
The identity of the man in the sketch still
remains a mystery.
For now, there will be no Hollywood endings or
clichés about closure for the families of the
victims. Precious memories, and heartfelt tears
will have to suffice.
“Dominique is holding up well considering,”
Barbara Breidor says.
Like Barbara, Tracy, Molly and Kim sadly all
left young children behind.
In the meantime, in Atlantic City, tourists
swarm the boardwalk, and the working girls on
the track maintain their wretched routine.
“I make some money, then I go get some drugs.
Then when the drugs are gone I go and make more
money,” Kristen says. “I’m a good person, I’m
just stuck in a bad life.”
For Kristen, the young drug-addicted
streetwalker, the future is painfully clear.
“It’s hard cause part of you wants to get better
and part of you is sick,” she says. “I know what
is going to happen. I am not going to lie to
myself, I’m not going to lie to people. It’s
jail or death.”
But for all the lost souls trapped on Atlantic
City streets, there is one ray of hope. Val and
her husband have adopted Dominique and are
raising her with their two sons in Florida.
Dominique’s homelife is stable, she’s getting
counseling, and she’s performing superbly in
school.
“I plan to go to college, all the way up to
college. And stay in college for ten years,” she
says, laughing.
“Dominique's future is very bright,” Val says.
“This isn't the end for her, at all.”
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Atlantic County now has a new prosecutor. He
says the case remains open and under
investigation.
Anyone with information about this case can call
the Atlantic County Major Crime Unit at (609)
909-7666. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
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