The Lake Erie Murders

Narrator: A young woman is tortured and killed.

Her throat had been cut.

- - man: Shut up!

Well, it was a violent, violent killing.

Narrator: A predator is on the loose.

At this time, we don't have a suspect.

Narrator: Friends and family are devastated.

It was horrible.

And who could do this?

There's no sense of reality,

it's just a sense of helplessness.

Narrator: As police struggle to catch the killer,

his darkest secrets are revealed.

Nothing was gonna satisfy him

until he got to the absolute worst

of what you could do to somebody.

'78, '79, we were on our honeymoon.

And we went up to the acropolis,

did all the tourist things.

That was one of the trips we made.

We saw a good portion of the world,

and she enjoyed every minute of it.

So the fact that suddenly she was gone

just changed everything, you know?

All of our thoughts about what our future would be

just didn't exist anymore.

Narrator: On a cold winter evening in 1991

57-year-old retired tv producer art ludwig

drops off his wife, flight attendant nancy,

at the airport.

Ludwig: I always took her to the airport.

So it was just a normal thing for us.

I didn't attach any special meaning to it.

Narrator: Tonight she's staffing a flight to detroit

on the banks of lake erie.

She'll spend one night in the airport hotel

before heading back to her home in minneapolis.

The following morning at 11 a.M.,

the housekeeping maid knocks on the door of nancy's room.

Housekeeping.

the maid came down, she was pretty freaked out, she said,

"I think maybe we had -- a lady had a miscarriage."

she'd seen all the blood on the bed.

at the end of the bed, I see part of a heel.

Then I see part of the lady's throat

and this area right here being cut.

then I kind of felt for a pulse, and there was no response.

And then I said, "I gotta get out of here."

narrator: Homicide detectives arrive at the murder scene.

They quickly confirm

that the room belonged to nancy ludwig.

they were confronted with a horrific crime scene.

There was a tremendous loss of blood.

Um...

There were multiple stab wounds.

Walker: Her throat had been cut with some kind of weapon

that was vicious enough

to go all the way through the esophagus

and nick the bones in the spine at the back of the neck.

That's unbelievable.

Larson: The wounds to her hands are very disturbing.

I mean, she literally had that knife with a grip

so hard on it, trying to hold it.

He was just stronger than she was.

He was able to pull it out of her grasp,

and nearly sever her fingers.

It was a violent, violent killing.

Narrator: As samples of semen are taken from the sheets,

detectives find drops of blood on the bathroom floor.

In the tub, there was just the remains

of some, like, bloody water.

Narrator: It suggests that after his frenzied attack,

the killer calmly washed himself down.

Based on the hotel registry,

investigators assume the body is nancy ludwig.

However, they can't find

a single personal item in the room,

including her underwear.

Everything that belonged to her was gone.

Her suitcase was gone.

All of her clothes were gone.

They couldn't find anything at all in the room.

Narrator: As the hotel goes into lockdown,

tv news rushes to the scene.

Reporter: Why the woman on this stretcher is dead

is still unknown.

Police were able to get fingerprints on the victim.

More elusive, however, are the fingerprints of a suspect.

At this time, we don't have a suspect.

Just getting positive confirmation on the victim.

Reporter: The body was taken away by medical examiners,

and an autopsy should tell us more.

Narrator: Back home in minneapolis,

nancy's husband, art, is concerned

that he hasn't heard from his wife.

He has no idea that a body has been found in detroit.

She hadn't called me,

so I knew there was something very bad.

I get a phone call from her supervisor, she says,

"oh, please go to the door and let in --

uh, there's a policeman at your door," so...

Hi, come in.

Well, I knew then there was something up.

Got back on the phone with her, and said,

"I think we should go to detroit."

what?

She told me that they had found a body,

and we're gonna go identify it.

At that point, there's no sense of reality.

It's just a sense of helplessness.

I guess that's the thing I remember most.

Narrator: When art arrives in detroit, he goes straight to the morgue.

Instantly, I could see it was her.

You don't practice it.

You don't plan on it.

You can't study for it.

Everything just stops.

Narrator: Now, all nancy's loved ones are left with are their memories.

The thing that probably brought us together

more than anything else was

she had a great sense of humor.

It was a good marriage.

Really, a good marriage.

She had a great smile.

Her eyes would almost -- they'd gleam.

Oh my god, she turned everybody's head.

She was beautiful

is my best -- the best way I can describe her.

Nancy always wanted to be a flight attendant.

That was just something she really aspired to do.

And I think that art encouraged her.

Ludwig: She absolutely loved her job.

She was just a fun-loving person,

and adventurous, she would be willing to try anything,

go anyplace.

narrator: Nancy's autopsy reveals that her body

was covered in small puncture wounds,

suggesting she was tortured before her neck was slashed.

She was also sexually assaulted.

With dna in its infancy, the experts begin to analyze

the blood and semen samples found on nancy's body.

The following morning, police go room to room

looking for witnesses.

It pays off when they find a flight attendant

who reports something unusual she saw the night before.

She was someone who had a habit

of doing her exercise by running the stairs.

Shortly before 9 p.M., she reached nancy's floor

and glimpsed a man hovering on the stairs.

Something about him

made the hair on the back of her neck rise.

He creeped her right out.

Narrator: Hotel employee paul janiga

also remembers seeing a strange man on the stairs.

Janiga: I recall I was getting my time cards,

and I just briefly pass this guy, and I glanced up,

and I didn't feel this guy's right.

You know, I really didn't focus on him that much,

you know, but he looked kind of agitated.

He had glasses and short, bushy hair.

That's what I think I remember about the guy.

Narrator: Suspecting both witnesses could be describing nancy's killer,

detectives try to work out how he executed his attack.

He goes up the stairwell to wait 'cause he knows she's coming.

And then when she opens the door,

he popped out of that hallway.

You know, boom, the fight is on.

Narrator: But with only brief glimpses of the man on the stairs

and no security cameras in the hotel,

detectives fail to make a positive I.D.

News of nancy's murder hits the national headlines.

Rod: It was horrible.

And who could do this?

And I had to pinch myself many times to make sure

that I wasn't dreaming.

every time her picture, her face was on the screen,

you just -- I cried.

Narrator: As the news of nancy's death

races through the airline community,

flight attendant phil arcia recalls with horror

that he stayed in the same hotel as nancy

the night she was murdered.

He saw what he believed was another flight attendant

leaving the hotel carrying his pull-along suitcase

and with what appeared to be his uniform

kind of rumpled up under his arm,

putting it in the trunk of a car.

He thought to himself, "your uniform

"is gonna be all jacked up tomorrow.

Why are you doing that?"

narrator: At the time, phil didn't think much more of it.

But after hearing about nancy's murder,

he's now convinced he saw her killer.

Narrator: Flight attendant nancy ludwig has been brutally murdered

in her detroit airport hotel room.

Fellow airline employee phil arcia

is convinced he saw her killer.

so detectives sit him down with a sketch artist

to get an image of the man he saw

while it's fresh in his mind.