(suspenseful music)
[Narrator] A newborn child is found abandoned
and near death in a ditch.
- It's likely for this small town no one can comprehend
who could have committed this kind of crime.
- [Narrator] A community claims the child as their own.
(suspenseful instrumental music)
- This is a horrible tragedy,
but it reveals a community of people motivated to do good.
- There's so little to go on and the case goes cold fast.
- You got a baby here that doesn't have a family.
We need to find out what happened.
- [Narrator] Eventually, technology
and old-fashioned detective work catches up.
- We're gonna solve this.
I'm gonna bring this home.
- Police desperately need clues.
- You almost have to rely on tips,
the community coming together.
(suspenseful instrumental music)
- [Narrator] And one woman will face the past
she tried to desperately bury.
(suspenseful instrumental music)
- The unsolved ones,
we have to stand up.
- And approach these cases in a way outside the box.
(door creaking) - Let the world know,
is for those out there that did commit a murder,
there are people that are coming after you.
- There's just a lot of good people trying
to do the right thing. (emergency siren whaling)
- Because it's something that you have
to be passionate about.
- Solve this, bring some peace to the family at least.
I'm just doing my job.
(suspenseful instrumental music)
(Koki scribbling on paper)
(ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Sioux Falls, South Dakota,
on a chilly winter day.
It's later in the afternoon
when police receive a panicked call for help.
(indistinct radio chatter)
- A baby is found in ravine in the outskirts of town.
The frantic caller thinks
there's still a chance for survival.
- Police speed to the scene.
It's a fluke that this newborn has been found.
- [Narrator] Earlier that afternoon,
a Sioux Falls man, Lee Litz,
is test driving a vehicle.
- It was on the edge of Sioux Falls,
again, farming country,
a dirt field approach where a farmer
would take his tractor into the cornfield.
- Ahead in the distance,
Litz sees what appears to be red wine spilled
on the side of the wintry gravel road.
- He pulls over for a closer look.
(suspenseful instrumental music)
The red wine color is from a newish blanket
that's protruding from the ditch on the side of the road.
- [Narrator] With the terrible premonition,
(dramatic instrumental music)
Litz steps into the cold to examine the site.
- And they saw what looked like,
and one of the comments was a doll.
(somber instrumental music)
Like, why would that be thrown in the ditch?
(dramatic instrumental music)
- It was a baby boy in some blankets and blood.
(somber instrumental music)
(ominous instrumental music)
- The child's umbilical cord
and placenta are still attached,
and Litz notices that the child has been crying.
- This case was so horrific that the baby was left
in a ditch in the winter to slowly freeze to death.
And when the baby was discovered,
there were tears frozen on his face.
That makes me so angry.
(camera shutter clicking) (ominous instrumental music)
- Police lose no time getting to the scene,
but it's too late.
The baby is dead and his tiny body has no apparent injuries.
All they've got so far,
in addition to the wine-colored blanket
the baby is wrapped in,
is a bed sheet.
- It really didn't tell you much at all.
A gravel road that has hundreds of thousands of tire tracks.
- The reality is that weather-related contamination due
to wind and snow is blowing away evidence.
They go over the scene of the discovery in a thorough,
(camera shutter clicking) systematic search for clues.
- When you're dealing with an infant or a child case,
it's at a whole nother level.
I'm not saying we don't work hard on adult cases,
but man, you really give it all you can
when there's a baby involved.
(camera shutter clicking)
- From the outside,
forensics can be seen as gruesome at times,
especially in homicide investigations.
(camera shutter clicking)
But for the professionals
who do this work day in and day out,
it's about the greater purpose.
- There simply wasn't anything at that scene but a blanket,
a baby, (camera shutter clicking)
and some other articles within that blanket.
- There are no more clues and nothing else to go on.
- [Narrator] Officers find clothing
with traces of blood nearby.
A shirt (camera shutter clicking)
(suspenseful rumbling music) and a pair
of women's underwear. (camera shutter clicking)
Meanwhile, the tiny body is taken
to the Minnehaha County county coroner for autopsy.
Lee Litz is only the first
who will become consumed by this case.
(suspenseful rumbling music)
The discovery of the baby's body stuns and horrifies
Sioux Falls residents and they demand answers.
- There's a groundswell of people
who mobilize themselves for this unknown child.
(ominous instrumental music)
- And here, you're talking also before social media,
so people would've found this out listening
to the old radio news and probably the six o'clock news.
And you could just feel,
even from reading the report,
that this shook the community.
- Everyone now pins their hopes on some revelation
from the autopsy report. (ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] The coroner finds the baby is born alive
and the cause of death is likely exposure
and failure to assist the baby in maintaining an airway.
- Police desperately need clues.
- I mean, you're talking about a very safe community.
No one locked their doors,
especially back then.
This was unheard of.
- It's a small community and everyone is looking
at each other and wondering who could have done this?
- You know, where do we start?
There has to be a string to pull at.
There has to be something we can shake loose out
of this tree,
and there just simply wasn't.
- But the unspeakable has happened
and suspicion has been sewn in a small South Dakota city.
(suspenseful rumbling music)
But one woman struggles alone in secret.
She makes a choice that will haunt her
and an entire community.
The police need to find the mother.
(camera shutter clicking) (ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] An anonymous woman steps forward
to claim the body and arrange the funeral.
About 50 residents attend the burial
in St. Michael Catholic Cemetery,
including Lee Litz who found the child's body.
Nearly all the funeral services are donated.
- But the community came together
and gave him a a beautiful funeral.
There was a local funeral home in Sioux Falls here,
he stepped up and paid for the whole funeral.
(somber piano music)
The flower donations coming in, it's incredible.
And to be honest with you,
that's what we should be doing,
especially when it's a baby.
- Next to the casket is a bouquet of flowers
and a ribbon with the name, Andrew,
the name given to the baby by an anonymous donor.
- The child's buried in a tiny, white casket.
There are flowers, stuffed animals,
and a note pinned to his pajamas that reads,
"You are loved."
- [Narrator] Baby Andrew's name is immortalized
on his headstone.
- Andrew John Doe is what is on his gravestone.
(somber piano music)
I don't know how the John Doe got kept,
maybe there's some legalities to that,
but that just became his name.
At least he had a name.
(somber piano music)
- With all of Sioux Falls asking,
how could someone have done this to an innocent newborn,
the mother seems bound to be identified.
The witness describes to police a light-colored vehicle
that was parked near the crime scene.
(ominous instrumental music)
- The clue is big.
Police believe they can close in on Baby Andrew's mother.
- [Narrator] And by closing in on Baby Andrew's mother,
detectives hope they can finally unravel the mystery
of just who is Baby Andrew and who left him to die.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(suspenseful instrumental music)
Tragedy it's a small town in South Dakota.
A Sioux Falls man notices something strange at the side
of a country road and is horrified
to discover a newborn baby boy wrapped
in a heat and blanket. (camera shutter clicking)
(suspenseful instrumental music)
Two items of bloodied clothes are discovered
(camera shutter clicking) but nothing else.
(camera shutter clicking)
As a community clamors for answers,
police receive a promising tip.
A description of a vehicle that was seen in the area
with the glimpse of a woman's legs
and some blankets hanging out the door.
Police hunt for the car,
while they sift through more
and more potential leads that are coming in.
- Meanwhile, local residents are still grappling
with this seemingly senseless act.
- [Narrator] Lee Litz is haunted by the lonely death
of the baby in the ditch. (somber instrumental music)
- [Lee Voiceover] "I can still see the little boy lying
"in his casket and feeling this is so wrong."
- Lee Litz's his wife is pregnant
when he discovers Baby Andrew,
and his daughter is almost the same age as Baby Andrew.
Litz agonizes that he did not find Andrew fast enough
to save him. (somber instrumental music)
- Two days after the funeral,
he hears about a baby that was dropped off
in front of a local fire station.
He wishes Baby Andrew had the same chance.
(ominous instrumental music)
- [Lee Voiceover] "I sure would've adopted him,
"rather than see him die like that," Lee Litz.
Litz turns to alcohol in the weeks following.
- Grief can include symptoms like nightmares, flashbacks,
(suspenseful instrumental music)
uncontrollable thoughts about the event.
- Litz wants justice for Andrew and only the capture
of the baby's killer will satisfy him.
- [Lee Voiceover] "To see a child thrown away like that,
"how could someone do that?
"Someone got away with murder," Lee Litz.
- Police aren't finding the vehicle
but they do have tips about pregnant women
who are no longer pregnant and there's no baby to be seen.
- That was a typical tip
and they would go knock on the door.
She would either answer the door with the baby
in her arms or maybe there's some paperwork for adoption.
Just those dead ends, constantly.
There just wasn't anything to follow up on at all
and you think there would be,
someone would've noticed this.
- There aren't more than a handful of unsolved cases
in the Sioux Falls community,
and unfortunately, this could become one of them.
(ominous instrumental music)
All investigators had to go on was the fabrics
from the ditch and the blood type.
Despite the blood
on the shirt and underwear, (camera shutter clicking)
this is 1981.
It's five years away from the first time DNA will be used
in a criminal case.
The DNA technology that we've come to take
for granted today doesn't yet exist.
- And again, back then their minds weren't on,
gosh, I could send this off for DNA or anything.
They were still relying on that phone call to come in
because it's such a unique case.
- [Narrator] After following up every lead possible,
the police have no suspects.
- This is tough because Baby Andrew
has become important to the detectives.
(ominous instrumental music)
- You do everything you can to have it absolutely run out.
You're working for a victim.
You're working for their family.
You're working for the community and, you know,
part of it, yourself too.
There's a lot of pride.
I'm gonna solve this.
I'm gonna bring this home.
- The lonely death of a helpless newborn is going
to be impossible for them to drop.
- [Narrator] By December of 1981,
the case in the death of Baby Andrew John Doe goes cold.
- The Litz family and everyone who attends
the child's funeral holds Baby Andrews memory close.
(somber instrumental music)
- I think they just came to such a dead end,
what else do we do at this point,
that it ended up in a box,
and with the black marker of murder written
on the side and put on a shelf.
- Justice will have to wait, not forever,
but there's no easy ride to this case.
- They did not anticipate as much incredibly frustrating,
almost tear-jerking dead ends.
- [Narrator] Detectives continue
to pursue all leads in the hope
that they can finally solve the Baby Andrew case.
(ominous instrumental music)
- It's 28 years later,
when the Baby Andrew files are removed
from the cold case room.
- We had moved over to a new law enforcement center.
I was over in our records division,
looking for something else.
I looked up on a shelf way in the back and here it is,
this dusty old paper ream box.
It had black marker with,
"Murder," on the side.
You could almost smell the must coming off it.
But, of course that word,
murder, scrawled on the side gets your attention.
I hate to say the word, forgotten,
but I think it was, it was.
I think they just came to such a dead end,
what else do we do at this point?
It started right there.
(ominous instrumental music)
- All at once,
the torch on the Baby Andrew case is picked up again.
And like other Sioux fall residents still absorbed
by the case,
Detective Webb starts to visit Baby Andrew's grave.
(ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Detective Webb becomes aware of the evidence,
a bloodied woman's shirt and underwear,
a wine red blanket and a sheet.
- Technology has changed a lot in 30 years.
These items could've held the key to solving this mystery.
(ominous instrumental music)
- The very first absolute punch in the gut
on this case was going back to the crime lab
and finding out that someone in the early '90s
had issued a destroyed order for all that.
We had no evidence.
What are the odds of that?
'Cause we don't destroy evidence on an open case.
Somebody must have screwed up.
- It's obviously a major setback,
but this detective is not easily deterred.
- I don't know what you call it.
Either you just call it or is it just fate?
I had just been recently
to a cold case investigator's course in Chicago.
There's a gentleman there talking about exhumations.
I had never done one.
I didn't expect to ever do one.
Here I am a couple months later,
I come home and open this case
and I'm glad I kept his business card
because I called him very quickly, saying,
"What do we do?"
(suspenseful rumbling music)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(suspenseful instrumental music)
- [Narrator] The man who finds the body
of Baby Andrew is haunted by his tragic discovery.
Authorities follow up on every possible tip,
but each one is a dead end.
In the absence of clues,
the community of Sioux Falls must accept
that child's death is now a cold case.
(ominous guitar music)
- A court order is obtained
and Baby Andrew's body is disinterred.
Local residents who made the effort
to provide Baby Andrew a proper burial wouldn't know
that years later it would also provide the key
to solving this killing, DNA.
- I'd already been told,
"You can run with this, Mike,
"but we just don't have the extra money."
Myself and my partner,
we brought a couple shovels from home.
We didn't know what to do.
We didn't know how this was gonna go.
- Digging up a child is a difficult thing to comprehend,
but the officers must do this.
They need the child to finally have an identity.
(camera shutter clicking)
- And the cemetery crew was there,
just a couple guys 'cause to be blunt,
it's a very small grave.
Once the cemetery caretaker kind of started digging,
(camera shutter clicking) we couldn't help ourselves,
we started in too.
We're invested in this and we carefully exhumed Andrew.
(camera shutter clicking) (ominous instrumental music)
It hits you how small those caskets are.
We've all been to our grandparents' funerals and things,
but that baby's a different level.
(camera shutter clicking) (ominous instrumental music)
I carried him
and
I guess if you think about it,
I think my mind just said,
you know, this is mine,
and I wasn't gonna let anybody else carry it.
I don't think that was my intention
but I think back now and I think that's exactly
why I had that in my hands.
And there's a picture of me holding this small casket.
(camera shutter clicking) And again, when you think back
to that and, gosh,
nobody should have to carry a baby casket ever.
(camera shutter clicking)
- But this case gets even stranger.
- When that caretaker at the cemetery took the sod cutter,
took the first inch and a half of grass off,
that sod cutter went over the soil
and made a perfectly nice, flat surface.
There was a penny laying there.
So I bend over and pick it up.
That blade somehow went right over the top of that.
(camera shutter clicking)
I put it in my pocket.
We finished the exhumation.
- The baby is disinterred and Detective Webb
has the penny from his grave site in his pocket.
- It was about at that point in a very long day
that it kind of hit you that the blood sugar's low.
So there's a Chinese restaurant across the street
from the law enforcement center and I ran over and
got my usual.
I'm not a sweet guy.
I was hungry so I ate the fortune cookie.
I normally throw it away.
My fortune that day was,
"A lost penny will bring you a look."
You can believe it and anything you want,
it's just another bizarre part of this story.
That penny and that fortune out of
that little fortune cookie stayed
in the case file for 10 years.
- Now that they have the body and find its
in good condition, the (camera shutter clicking)
North Texas University Science Center gives instructions.
(ominous instrumental music)
- "How do I do this?
"The exhumation went well.
"The baby's in good condition.
"What do you need from me?"
They said, "Well,
"we need to get ahold of your corner.
"The baby needs to be transported there.
"What we need are parts of him
"sent."
I had a hard time with that.
(camera shutter clicking)
I had a hard time with the image of taking
that baby out of his casket
and removing parts of him.
I did not do that.
I made a command decision at that point.
(camera shutter clicking)
The lady at the lab I talked to had made a comment about,
again, more of an adult case.
She said, "Well,
"we don't want the whole coffin,
"adult coffin shipped with the whole body."
She had made that.
That stuck in my mind and I thought,
this isn't an adult.
So
Andrew was sent to them whole.
One of those things where you ask forgiveness later.
- Because the casket is so small,
instead of just sending a part of the body
to the North Texas University Science Center,
detective Webb sends a whole casket.
How do they do it?
By courier. (ominous instrumental music)
- And I waited a few days
and I called down there and I said,
"This has been shipped."
I emailed you the tracking number and,
oh by the way,
the box is gonna be a little bigger than you expect.
And she says, "What do you do you mean?"
And I told her what I did and I held my breath,
'cause these people were doing us a big solid,
working this case for us.
And she just kind of laughs and she goes,
"I get it."
So I couldn't,
I couldn't take him apart.
I didn't even bring it up to the corner.
(camera shutter clicking) (ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] The child's DNA is obtained by the lab,
but when searched,
no matches are found.
- I didn't anticipate that emotion of
hitting that wall,
just when you think you got some momentum.
And I guess that's the nature of cold cases.
They want cold for a reason,
there's not an easy answer.
- Detective Webb has done everything he can at this point
and the case just won't be solved.
(ominous instrumental music)
- I still had 10, 12,
15 cases coming in every day
that required my immediate attention.
I can admit that I broke policy and brought this case home.
I read it at night.
That's when you had to find the time to do it.
And it sounds weird to say,
but there's times where even you'd wake up
in the middle of the night and something would click, like,
hey, I wonder if I could try this?
I wonder if we should do this?
Talk about something that's always on your mind.
It's weird how in depth and obsessed
and part of your life it becomes.
It's a pretty big chunk for 10 years.
(ominous instrumental music)
You really wanna solve that for him
and this case was unique.
- DNA profiles of Baby Andrew are run
through the South Dakota database once a year.
More and more data is inputted all the time.
They're waiting for a hit but it doesn't happen.
- But we're very,
very limited in what we can search.
We could only search the South Dakota database.
- [Narrator] The cold case
of Baby Andrew is now 37 years old.
How does the motivation to solve a cold case continue
over decades like this?
(suspenseful rumbling music)
- We always had a family to talk to.
There's always somebody to keep updated.
And that kind of motivated you too,
to keep going.
Even in those long months where nothing was happening,
sometimes the phone would ring and it would be,
maybe it's a niece or a mom or a dad saying,
hey, what's going on with my loved one's case?
We didn't have that in this one,
so we had to keep that motivation up.
That's just what's so unique about Baby Andrew's case.
- From Andrew's death in 1981 to 2019,
this case that looks unsolvable is now on the verge,
and that really stems
from Detective Michael Webb's persistence.
- Talk about learning patience,
'cause nothing is gonna move fast.
You want those results.
Again, your brain starts going,
hey, we can solve this.
I'm gonna send this to the lab,
and you might wait six,
eight months before that comes back.
Talk about perseverance, patience,
and just sheer stubbornness.
'Cause you can't quit.
Once you're in it,
you're not quitting.
- [Narrator] In 2019, instead of running the DNA
of Baby Andrew just through the South Dakota database
as they have each year,
police try something different.
Baby Andrew's DNA is sent to a company
that makes connections through DNA and genealogy.
- Well, these are the most controversial types of cases.
They're the ones that a lot of my colleagues
in genetic genealogy do not approve
of us using our techniques and databases for,
and so I really struggled with working this type of case.
(camera shutter clicking) But the bottom line is,
everyone deserves an identity.
Everyone deserves that dignity,
whether you're a baby or an adult.
So our job is simply to provide that identification
and then the rest is left to the detectives
and to the courts.
- [Narrator] Detectives work closely with scientists
at the genealogy lab. (ominous instrumental music)
- But in working with those amazing,
smart people at that lab who are doing this profiling,
doing this genealogy family tree,
now, they gave us the tools,
we had to do the family tree.
- Our goal is really to try to zero in.
Optimally, we wanna narrow it down to maybe just one person
or a set of siblings for law enforcement to investigate.
(ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] The lab determines some family trees
and the ones in Sioux Falls interest police.
Detectives piece together a genealogical story
and track women who have had children
who would've been 18 or 19 in 1981.
When they get a sample from a woman in Sioux Falls
that they think might be related,
they check the sample with the South Dakota State Lab.
- The names of a couple come up,
Theresa Rose Bentaas and Dirk Bentaas.
(suspenseful rumbling music)
Police feel they're on the right track
and getting closer to the baby's DNA.
- That's where,
well, I say old-fashioned DNA,
right, a swab,
a something needs to be done to prove that,
to prove our family tree's correct.
So obviously, there's legalities to that too.
We can't just grab somebody and haul them in.
- Then once you find this suspect on the tree
and it fits the time and other criteria,
it still needs a DNA test to see if it is a match.
- [Narrator] Police conduct a trash pull
of the Bentaas home.
- When garbage is put out for collection,
it's fair game.
Law enforcement officers will conduct
these perfectly legal pulls to potentially find evidence
that will help them gain a search warrant for a residence.
This can lead to charging the occupants
with criminal activity.
- [Narrator] Female DNA is found on a water bottle,
a beer can and a cigarette butt.
- On a personal level,
we were nearing my set retirement date,
February 15th, 2019.
I was waiting right up to the day.
I had already briefed my partner
that I already put the case file on his desk,
finger in his face saying,
"You better keep me updated on this, I'm retiring."
Two hours before my retirement ceremony,
which was two o'clock,
I was out to lunch with my family and my kids
and we were eating.
We were gonna go over to the law enforcement center,
meet with my old coworkers and they're gonna wish me well.
My partner walked in the restaurant
and I did a double take and I'm like,
what's he doing here, right?
He's staring at me the whole time.
He's staring at me walking across the restaurant.
He goes, "You're not gonna believe this."
(suspenseful rumbling music)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Baby Andrew is exhumed to extract DNA
from his bones to find his parents
and finally give him an identity.
Years pass with no matches
and justice for Baby Andrew seems unlikely.
(ominous instrumental music)
- When items taken from the garbage are seized as evidence,
they yield shocking results.
(suspenseful instrumental music)
- [Narrator] And on the day
of Detective Mike Webb's retirement celebration,
his partner delivers some unexpected news.
(dramatic instrumental music)
- He goes, "You're not gonna believe this."
He goes, "We got mom."
I still can picture it, but again,
it's almost like a dream.
And he looks at me and I looked at him
and I didn't know what to say.
And he goes, "And dad."
(somber instrumental music) - So again, we didn't know
at that time that was the house.
We knew a sample was hoping to get us closer in that tree.
And it all hit me, (camera shutter clicking)
the cigarette butts the can,
it was just,
it fast forwards in your brain like,
oh my God,
we leapfrogged everything.
We have a positive confirmation through DNA
that this is Andrew's parents.
(somber instrumental music)
- Incredibly, on what would
have been Baby Andrew's 38th birthday,
Detective Webb interviews Dirk and Theresa Bentaas
in their home.
- I thought, well,
this will be the easiest interview
of my life for a homicide,
'cause I think that sheer emotion after 38 years
of a detective saying,
here's why I'm here.
It didn't go that way.
Sitting there
with the person that I had been trying
to find for the last 10 years,
yeah, you can't put,
I don't even know the words for that.
(somber piano music)
You know, there's nothing she could say
because I had already explained to her why we're there.
I mean, DNA,
DNA doesn't lie, we know,
and I wanna know why?
- Detective Webb finally hears the story
in the mother's own words. (ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Theresa Rose Bentaas is a Sioux Falls native
and lives in the far southeastern part of town.
- February 27th, 1981,
she's 19 years old.
She keeps her pregnancy a secret
and gives birth to baby Andrew in her bedroom,
wraps him in a sheet and blanket
and then takes him to a ditch and abandons him.
He's later found by Lee Litz
who notices the red wine blanket.
- Theresa Bentaas sees the news
after Baby Andrew is discovered.
- Against all odds,
her secret isn't gonna die,
she just doesn't know it yet.
- [Narrator] But is in denial that she is responsible.
- Denial's a coping mechanism that can kick in
when the mind is under stress.
- The stress Theresa Bentaas was under was so great
that she may not have recognized what she had done.
- Dirk Bentaas remembers
that around the time Baby Andrew was found,
he notices that Theresa had a bump and then no bump.
- He doesn't think much more about it.
- But there's more to this strange and tragic story.
- [Narrator] In 1985, '86,
5 years after Baby Andrew is born and dies,
Theresa becomes pregnant again.
She's unaware until late in the pregnancy and tells no one.
- She gives birth in her mother's home.
Upon hearing cries,
her mother and stepfather enter her room
and are surprised to see Theresa holding a newborn daughter.
They call 911.
- [Narrator] Theresa doesn't know if she'll keep the baby.
- But her mother insists that she talks
to the baby's father first.
Theresa and Dirk Bentaas decide to keep the baby
and raise it together.
- [Narrator] In August, 1987,
five years after Baby Andrew dies,
Theresa Josten and Dirk Bentaas obtain a marriage license.
They eventually have two children together,
the daughter that Theresa nearly gave up,
and then a son. (ominous instrumental music)
Theresa, now age 57,
admits that in 1980, '81,
when she's pregnant with Baby Andrew,
she is young and stupid.
- Dirk Bentaas remembers hearing
about the child 40 years ago on the news,
but never once entertained the idea
that it belonged to Theresa.
(ominous instrumental music)
- Police strive to keep their emotions,
bias and expectations out of the picture,
and sometimes that's hard to do.
(ominous instrumental music)
- It tripped me up during the interview,
I'm not gonna lie.
There was a lot of personal emotion going on,
and it was hard to remind myself that I needed still
to ask some factual questions.
I keep using the word, surreal,
but it really was, sitting there
with the person that I had been trying
to find for the last 10 years.
Yeah, you can't put,
I don't even know the words for that.
There really wasn't any fulfillment
to those theories of emotion because it was just kind of,
"Yeah, I did." (ominous instrumental music)
And again, I expected more emotion.
Even for somebody
that maybe doesn't outwardly really show emotion,
I mean, this would be too powerful.
I have to have something
and I just didn't get that from her.
Like I said,
I don't know if I'd wanted it,
I needed it, expected it,
but it was a very factual,
the the whole interview threw me off.
It did, it wasn't what I expected.
(ominous instrumental music)
- Detective Webb tries to get a show of emotion
from Theresa Bentaas.
- She only lived a few blocks from where that spot would be.
That's where they lived.
I said, "You drive by there every day,
"doesn't it come back to you?
"You would drive by there to work."
(camera shutter clicking)
Instead of getting an answer that I expected,
it was, she said,
"Well, I don't always take that way."
(camera shutter clicking)
Yeah again, I wanted more.
I thought I'd get more.
It was your baby. (camera shutter clicking)
So yeah, it was a strange interview.
(camera shutter clicking)
I got what I needed factually for the case,
for a prosecutor,
but it certainly wasn't what I wanted.
(ominous instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Police execute a cheek swab
on both of the Bentaas.
- This is a buccal swab or smear,
a common noninvasive method of obtaining DNA.
It can determine whether individuals are suspects.
- It really solidifies it,
although we already know that this is the mother.
It puts that extra layer now,
right from her saliva from her cheek,
that DNA, compared to Andrew's DNA profile
to say a positive, positive match.
I guess that's one way to say it.
- Test results from cheek swabs
show extremely strong evidence
that Theresa Bentaas and Dirk Bentaas
are Baby Andrew's parents.
(ominous instrumental music)
- Police determine that Dirk Bentaas is not involved
in Baby Andrew's death.
- Incredible waves of motion right there.
Like, we did it,
but I didn't.
I'm not gonna bring this over the finish line, you know.
And I have amazing partners and I was gonna be proud
to watch them push it over the finish line,
but I invested way too many years
to walk off into retirement.
(dramatic instrumental music)
(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] A case of an infant's death
that would've remained unsolved if not for advances
in DNA technology and detectives who never gave up.
(suspenseful rumbling music)
- At the bond hearing, Crystal Johnson,
of the Minnehaha County States Attorneys Office says
that the passage of time does not diminish the severity
of the crime.
Bentaas does not seem to understand
that she is facing charges in Andrew's death,
until police arrest her.
(somber instrumental music)
Due to the severity of the charges
and the possibility that Bentaas could flee,
a preliminary hearing is set.
- And all these years later,
watching as a case unfolds in court is Lee Litz,
the man who found Baby Andrew.
- [Narrator] Theresa Bentaas pleads not guilty
to all three charges.
- But her case is scheduled
for a change of plea hearing on October 8th, 2021,
and will go to trial.
- Theresa denies any responsibility,
but a jury may not agree.
- If found guilty,
Theresa Bentaas could face life in prison
or even the death penalty. (suspenseful rumbling music)
- Theresa Bentaas is 19
when she abandons her newborn in a ditch.
Now she's almost 60.
For the many people who never forgot Baby Andrew,
her upcoming trial is a chance to understand
what brought about this tragedy.
- [Narrator] Theresa Bentaas undergoes
a five-hour psychiatric evaluation
with a psychologist who diagnoses her.
The expert asserts she has a textbook case
of complete pregnancy denial,
which is a phenomena that occurs
in roughly one out of 2,500 pregnancies.
- Most who suffer
from this condition misinterpret their symptoms
and end up giving birth at home.
And that is what happens with Theresa Bentaas
with her first two pregnancies,
and she wasn't able to name her first baby.
(ominous instrumental music)
- Theresa Bentaas changes her guilty plea to an Alford plea,
which allows her to maintain her innocence
while authorizing the court to enter a guilty plea.
In exchange, the state drops the first
and second degree murder charges.
(ominous instrumental music)
- Lee Litz is there watching again.
He's deeply invested in finding justice for Baby Andrew.
- [Narrator] Litz and his daughter visit the grave
and leave tokens on the baby's headstone,
next to other items left by unknown people
who have also been touched by the story.
- [Crystal Voiceover] "I'm so glad the parents
"have been found.
"It means justice for Andrew.
"That's what we've wanted this whole time
"was justice for Andrew," Crystal Litz-Oestreich.
- Four decades later,
this case goes to trial at the Minnehaha County Courthouse.
- [Narrator] Despite the plea deal,
Bentaas still can face life in prison
for first degree manslaughter.
It's revealed the baby has a small portion
of air in his lungs and stomach.
But Theresa Bentaas testifies,
"When Baby Andrew was born he is not crying or kicking."
- And the judge finds there's no evidence
to suggest the baby would've survived,
even if Bentaas had sought medical help.
- In the end,
the judge doesn't condone what happened,
but he also doesn't condemn Theresa Bentaas.
- Theresa Bentaas is sentenced to 10 years in prison
and the judge suspends nine years of that.
Finally, this long cold case is resolved.
(ominous instrumental music)
- Mr. Litz was an amazing man,
showed up to the court trials
when this thing did get solved.
He was there for sentencing.
When I shook his hand and I thanked him and he thanked me
and that kind of hit me.
I'm like, I was thanking him for being there.
- Because of DNA and a determined law enforcement team,
this terrible shrouded mystery seized the light of day.
- This was a case of complete pregnancy denial.
But tragic as this case was,
it united a whole community around this child.
(somber instrumental music)
- Maybe there's something about detectives
that wanna work cold cases, they're incredible.
I mean, these are like the best of the best
and they are not desensitized
and they care about these victims.
- And we're talking about a human life,
so I think it's actually wrong to have closure on that.
Andrew should be remembered.
The case should be remembered.
A long ways to get there,
but sitting in that courtroom and finally saying,
"Court adjourned," and walking away going,
wow, that was it,
we got it done.
(somber instrumental music)
(suspenseful instrumental music)