Who Killed Chrissy?: The True Crime Memoir of a Pittsburgh girl's Unsolved Murder in Las Vegas (16 page)

In the newspaper report
it stated there was a foul odor when the person found her. I thought there
might be a chance that due to Christine's body being in the advance strange of
decomposing, that could possibly cause the blood in the tub and hide trauma to
the head. The only way to find out for sure is by autopsy and that is the best
way to make the determination of no trauma.

Just so you are aware,
the coroner is the person who determines the cause of death and the manner that
person died, not the detectives. If he said it was an accident or it was
undetermined, whatever investigation we conduct as homicide detectives is over.
There is no reason to conduct a criminal investigation by the homicide
detectives if the coroner finds the cause of death undetermined. We as police
officers cannot call a homicide a homicide by law. Of course there are
murders that are clear cut like shootings and robberies where we know for sure
that the coroner is going to call the crime a homicide and we begin our
investigation so we don’t have to wait 36 vital hours to officially find out.

I don't know which
detectives you talked to reference Christine's death. I am sure the detectives
that arrived to investigate her death conducted an investigation until the time
the coroner announced Christine's death was undetermined. That would explain
why no case file was started in our office and why she was never listed on our
homicide log.

I will call our records
department to see if there is any reports or paper work filed under Christine
Casilio's name. If there is not, I can't think of anything else to do.

I know this is not the
news you wanted to hear. I am very sorry for the loss of your friend. I will
let you know reference any reports related and I am almost sure I did this back
in June with no luck.

Detective
Michael J. Blasko

The Las
Vegas Metropolitan Police Department

Robbery/Homicide
Bureau - Homicide Section

4750 W.
Oakey Blvd 3rd Floor

Las
Vegas
, Nevada 89102

Beverly,

I tried to find out who
investigated her death when I looked for any traces of paperwork for her. We
have no file on Christine so there isn't a way for me to look for who investigated
her death. If I could have found out who investigated her death, I would have
contacted them for you and told them to call you with the information they
knew. I am sorry I couldn't do more than that.

Detective
Michael J. Blasko

The
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department

Robbery/Homicide
Bureau - Homicide Section

4750
W. Oakey Blvd 3rd Floor

Las
Vegas
, Nevada 89102

Ron
Franscell, a seasoned, successful true crime author, generously gave me a
theory that chilled me to the bone. I was chatting with him when I first
started my research and told him the entire story. He theorized that fighters
of any persuasion, such as street fighters, boxers or even hockey players were
all taught that to quickly disable someone, the first move is to yank the victim’s
shirt up over their head.  This stops them immediately from being able to move
or retaliate. I’d never thought of this, and when Ron suggested it, it stunned
me. It sounded very plausible to me and made sense, but then I found myself
asking questions again about what the Las Vegas Police had found, and without
any reports in my possession, I would have no way of knowing anything.

T
he first shocking discovery for me was that Chris’s
hideous murder had not even been investigated as a homicide.  It was a crime
report by the detectives, who then investigated what leads they had and
couldn’t find enough evidence to continue the investigation or to warrant it
being a homicide case. It never went any further than that point.

To
my knowledge, no one ever went to Las Vegas from Pittsburgh to pursue anything.
Again, this is to my knowledge. Chuck Werner told me that Chris’s aunts made
phone calls through the years only to continuously receive the same answer from
the police, “People just die, that’s all we can tell you, they just die.”

When
Chris’s body was brought back to Pittsburgh, her aunts paid Dr. Cyril Wecht for
a second autopsy. I contacted Dr. Wecht, our internationally famous coroner
from Pittsburgh, in August of 2008. I first asked him if he remembered the
autopsy, but of course, he did not remember. He told me that if I had possessed
a copy of the autopsy report he may have been able to help me, but since I did
not have a copy, I resorted to giving him a scenario and asking his  professional
 advice about  another  mystery that was eating away at me. Here are the copies
of our email correspondence. Please note that I am a great admirer of Dr.
Wecht’s amazing expertise in his field. I believe his response here says
something about a missing link in all of this:

Dr. Wecht,

I wrote to you back in
January about this case from 1982. Since then I have interviewed many
concerning Christine, and have basically hit a brick wall on it. The two aunts
that raised her and paid for her autopsy are deceased. There are no other
family members to talk to, at least not to be found in Pittsburgh.

I would greatly
appreciate it if you could possibly answer some questions for me, for my book
research.

*If someone is found
dead and decomposed in their apartment, the coroner (in Las Vegas) would automatically
do an autopsy, right? Would he automatically be looking for rape? Would he save
anything in 1982 before there was DNA?

I remember reading the
autopsy report that came from you at Chris’s funeral. I only remember that at
the end it said “inconclusive”…I realize you’re very busy; I have the greatest
respect for what you do, and I thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Beverly
Simcic

Here is the response I received
from Dr. Wecht:

Dear Ms. Simcic:

The Las Vegas Coroner should have done appropriate
testing to determine if there had been a possible sexual assault. I doubt
very much that any materials are still around to be tested for DNA now.

I'm sorry that I cannot shed more light on this matter
for you.

Sincerely,

Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D.

Early
on in my investigation, I dug out a famous cold case detective named David
Hatch, who is a retired Las Vegas detective and author. I was hoping that maybe
he had been involved in Chris’s investigation back in 1982. He was not, and the
only light he could shed on the subject for me was that without the family’s
cooperation I wouldn’t be able to access any files on the case. He also
reiterated that the files may have been shredded long ago.

One
of the first contacts I had with the LVPD was a woman named Pat Janjetovic, a
supervisor with the records department who told me that she was certain there
was a file, but that it was buried somewhere in an old warehouse.  I was
excited to hear this. Pat told me that she would have to recruit someone to go
there and dig through the files and see what they could find. She then informed
me that she had found someone willing to do her a favor and go to the
warehouse. I never heard from her again and my phone calls were ignored.

I
found Kent Clifford, who served as the commander of the LVPD until 1983, and
questioned his memory on the case.  He remembered nothing and offered no
assistance.

Chuck
Werner told me that Chris’s body was identified with dental records based
mainly on the fact that she had two false front teeth. 

Did
you personally travel out to Las Vegas to research this book
?

No,
I did not, and for various reasons, but mainly because I am still emotionally
stunted about returning there. Maybe one day I will face that fear.

Ultimately,
I don’t believe I would have found out more information by going to Vegas.

Did
you interview surviving family members and to what degree
?

Yes I
did, and they shared information with me that I cannot verify or hold as truth.
I always had an underlying feeling that they were interviewing me to see what I
knew.  The other feeling I had all along was that they had a complete lack of
empathy towards my years of fear and suffering and my purpose in writing this
book, which I had to overlook and keep on writing so I could complete my story.

How
do you feel about Chris today
?

I am
truly sorry for the family’s loss and have always been.  Chris was full of the
zest for life that some people never experience. She had tremendous passion and
curiosity, and although she was misguided, manipulated, and misused by certain
individuals in her young life, she was still a victim in all of this, a victim
of people who prey on innocent girls from a young age and recruit them for
their own subversive intentions. I did learn many things from the interviews
with surviving family members, and I believe they are correct in
their
theories
that Chris was targeted in her early teens by predatory
individuals or
monsters
if you will.

Why
is there only one photograph of Chris in this book
?

It’s
the only one I own and I took the photo in front of the Riverview Apartments. I
wasn’t offered any other photographs by surviving family members.  Chuck Werner
in-formed me that he had one photo of Chris, which Marty asked him for and he
gave it to him. Some of the people I interviewed from the North Side that grew
up with Chris offered me childhood photos, which I declined due to feeling it
would also invade the family’s privacy.

You’re
making it sound like the family didn’t want this book written. Were the
surviving family members against you writing this book
?

There
were many emotions and opinions from the family. I was never given a solid
answer on how they felt about it. I can only give you what I feel about it, and
that is I walked away confused and incomplete about their true feelings.  There
is nothing more to say about it. I have always felt that people’s request for
privacy is important in life and one must honor it.

Do
you think that the family suspected you were involved
?

I
asked that question directly to the family member who gave me the revenge killing
theory, and they said, “Yes, everyone was suspect back then. We didn’t feel you
were directly involved, but possibly indirectly through someone else.”  I
personally had always felt that, but my nature is a little different from
theirs. I would have tried to sit and hear the person’s story and determine for
myself whether they were telling the truth or not. That’s just my way of
thinking. Eye to eye contact with people usually reveals much.

The
intense feeling that I’ve carried around with me all these years is one of
comparison. I asked myself what my family would have done, and the only answer
I have for that is that they would have pursued all angles, all people, and all
stories until dead ends were reached. They would have wanted to know every single
little detail, and especially from the person (I), who was the only person from
Pittsburgh who last spoke with Chris before she was murdered. I do believe
though that Chris’s family was divided, and to what degree I don’t know.

Yes,
I have often wondered if things would have been any different if the family had
chosen to contact me and ask me for my story.  I will never know what they
knew, what they found out or what they theorized because they are secretive.

What
are your feelings about the warnings, the

premonitions
you experienced
?

Truly,
I believe that most people do not pay attention to what I refer to as
synchronicities in daily life. I was no exception. I did not think of it or
recall it until I brought silence into my life when first being inspired to
write.  Then and only then did I start to have flashbacks of the real feelings,
what happened and how things happened. When that happened for me it made the
experience even more frightening, because then I started wondering why I was
spared from being murdered, too.  I convinced myself that I had been spared. 
The other side of it told me that I should have paid more attention to what was
happening with the warnings, meaning I should have tried to sit Chris down and
tell her that there were warnings and premonitions and that she should heed
them. I didn’t feel at the time though that anything strange was happening, I
dismissed all of it as gut reactions, quirks or coincidences. I don’t feel that
way today. I strongly believe there was divine intervention, and I often wonder
if Chris herself had experienced any warnings herself that she ignored, as I
did.