MURDERED: Melanie Howell
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: Melanie Howell
00:00 / 00:00
AI Summary
This episode of Crime Junkie tells the story of 22-year-old Melanie Howell, who was brutally murdered in her Los Angeles apartment in 1976. Days before her death, Melanie had reported seeing a man watching her through her window, prompting her to stay with her boyfriend Dale. When she returned to her apartment to finish packing for a move, she was attacked by an intruder who stabbed her 47 times. Despite having a bloody fingerprint from the crime scene, the case went cold for nearly 40 years. In 2014, new fingerprint technology finally identified the killer as Paul Bustamante, who had died in 2006. The investigation revealed that Bustamante had also killed another woman, 27-year-old Elizabeth Wolfe, in Davis, California in 1977. Both women were in the process of moving and were attacked in similar ways. Strangely, the detective who solved the case never publicly revealed the killer's identity or documented it properly in the case files. The podcast team conducted their own investigation to uncover and share Paul Bustamante's identity, believing he may have been a serial killer responsible for additional unsolved murders.
Key takeaways
- 01Melanie Howell was murdered in 1976 by Paul Bustamante, whose identity wasn't revealed publicly until this podcast investigation despite the case being 'solved' in 2014
- 02New fingerprint technology in 2014 matched a bloody print from the crime scene to Bustamante, who had died in 2006 before he could be prosecuted
- 03Bustamante killed at least two women - Melanie Howell and Elizabeth Wolfe - both of whom were in the process of moving and were attacked in similar ways
- 04The killer may be responsible for additional unsolved murders, but his body was cremated before DNA could be collected for comparison to other cold cases
- 05The case demonstrates how investigative gaps and lack of information sharing between departments can leave important details hidden from public record
Timestamps
Topics
Companies mentioned
Quotes
"I have never heard a story that starts like this. One of our reporters reached out to an LAPD cold case guy to ask him about an unsolved case from the 70s. And he's like, oh, that case? That case is actually solved. But he couldn't tell us who did it."
— Ashley Flowers
"At one point, a detective told a friend of Dale's that the case wasn't solvable, which you don't hear that very often."
— Ashley Flowers
"He said he felt like the world was exploding around him. And in some ways it did. I mean, he tried to put on a brave face, but he was so traumatized. He almost failed out of med school."
— Ashley Flowers
"Do you think Paul Bustamante is a serial killer? And he told us, yes. He thinks the only reason investigators haven't connected him to other cases is because they don't have that DNA."
— Ashley Flowers
Transcript
Hi Crime Junkies, it's Brit. If you're like me and you're ready to dive into even more cases, there's another podcast I think you're going to love. Park Predators. In Park Predators, host Delia D'Ambra dives into the haunting crimes that happen in some of the most beautiful and unexpected places across the globe. Delia has helped host a couple of episodes of Crime Junkie in the past, and if you've listened to her before, you already know her investigative approach brings the facts of each case and their chilling details to life, making Park Predators the perfect mix of captivating and informative storytelling. So once you're done with this episode of Crime Junkie, go check out Park Predators. New episodes drop every week. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hi Crime Junkies, I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brit. And Brit, in all my years of not just making true crime stories but consuming them as well, I have never heard a story that starts like this. One of our reporters reached out to an LAPD cold case guy to ask him about an unsolved case from the 70s. And he's like, oh, that case? That case is actually solved. But he couldn't tell us who did it. What do you mean he couldn't? He couldn't tell you? Same reaction. So we pressed him like, how can it be solved if you don't know who committed the crime? And he said, well, the detective who worked the case, when it was solved, wouldn't tell him the killer's name, which made no sense to me. Police departments normally w…