Lauren Clark
Appearances
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Yeah. And Hutchinson, by the end there, was allowed to leave. They weren't able to arrest him right then. But Elfmont was pretty sure Hutchinson knew that his time as a free man was running out.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Yeah, I mean, Stephanie told us about Tom Elfmont calling her that morning. It was in the early hours of the morning that news kind of spread. And I mean, she was shocked. She had been preparing herself to be there every day through court hearings for trial. She was mentally and emotionally preparing herself. And then it was just... oh, okay, but now?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
And again, all these questions they have, the why, the how, the what actually happened? I mean, it's just gone now for them. And it's heartbreaking. It really is.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Yeah, I mean, that was definitely not part of our original plan. We had filmed with Stephanie the day before by the fishing access area where Danny's body had been found. And they avoided that area for a long time. Her mom actually moved away. She had just recently moved back and I guess told Stephanie that she had some of the ashes with her.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
So it really was incredibly profound that Stephanie trusted us to be able to do it on camera. Of course, the crew kept their distance. made sure she had the time on her own.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
But it was really just, yeah, this reclaiming of this scary place with where this horrible thing happened to her sister that now she can go back there and think of Danny, think of the beautiful area around her and have it be a good memory.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Yeah, my co-producer, Chuck, gave a call to Bill Slaughter. He was the Gallatin County Sheriff back in 1996. And he was up front with Chuck. He said, we sometimes withhold information so that we know when someone does come forward that that's the real information, that we don't have it all out in the press, that this is often common in investigations. But he says he never lied to the family.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
But, you know, for the family, that doesn't really help. They were left with this impression for so many years.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
The coroner's report said that her manner of death was undetermined. So while Sheriff Slaughter said, you know, we always investigated this as a homicide, there wasn't that, like, conclusive evidence that said... This was a murder.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
But, you know, this was something that really bothered a lot of people in the sheriff's office for a long time because they knew, like Danny's family knew, Danny was an outdoors person. She was comfortable in the mountains. She was wearing a leg brace at the time, which is something I think investigators did take into account.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
But Deputy Farquhar told us that he talked to Danny's doctor at the time and her doctor said there was no reason for her not to be able, even with a leg brace, to be able to turn herself over in that mud and still survive if it had been an accidental trip or a fall.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Yeah, I think Stephanie is really kind of a remarkable woman. She was 12 years old when Danny was killed. And in her show, she says, you know, I tried to be strong for my parents. Danny was killed on a Saturday. She went back to school on Monday. Mm-hmm. And she was just trying to keep it together and be strong for them because she knew that they were going to a lot.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
But this really, really affected her. I mean, this was her big, cool sister. It was like the mid-90s. She was like all grunge. She was just everything Stephanie wanted to be. So then Stephanie growing up and having that void in her life and always having these questions, you know, it was hard for her.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
And she told us, you know, every year her mom would send a note or call the sheriff's office, be like, hey, is anything going on? But It wasn't really a big push. And Stephanie kind of wanted to really push and ask questions. But some friends told her, like, make sure you're in a good place to take this on. Because once you take this on, it's going to be a lot. So it took a little while.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
And she got to a place where she really felt like, all right, now's the time. And so it wasn't until really 2020 that she was let in to see the pieces of the investigation, to see the autopsy. She chose to look at the autopsy photos herself. And that's when she was told that, no, they really believe that this was a homicide.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Yeah. Elfmont's dedication to this really was key to getting this solved. I mean, we've read his case notes. He did everything. He talked to everyone he could. And he had the enthusiasm to think outside the box a little bit, which ended up being what this case really needed.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty wild, honestly, what they're able to do now. These weren't just rootless hairs. These were like naturally shed arm hairs. They thought they were like little too. But back in 1996, you know, DNA technology was relatively new. It's not nearly advanced. It's where we are now.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
This is something that is still new in the law enforcement community, that this is a possibility that, you know, there are these companies out there like this Astraea Labs that Tom Elfman connected with, that they have like their own proprietary methods and software where they literally grind down biological samples to get as much of the DNA, as much of the cells in there as they can.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
And then they use computer technology to amplify the DNA in there. Sounds expensive. So, yeah, another thing about these DNA tests, they are very expensive. It can get into the thousands of dollars. And something in this case that really stood out to us is Tom Elfman told us he went to Sheriff Springer and was like, hey, can I spend some money here? Could I go to these outside labs?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
And Sheriff Springer told him, like, do what you got to do. I'm not going to let money get in the way of this. And that was a really big commitment and something that enabled them to do the testing they needed to get the break in this case.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
And think about just like how many cold cases are out there where there's evidence sitting in like the back of a file cabinet in the basement of the sheriff's office. You know, if something could be retested now or new eyes put on it. I mean, it's a total game changer. Think about this.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
No, it's actually there's two parts to Cece's work. She starts with the unknown suspect DNA profile. They get permission to test it against databases where people have volunteered. Basically, they take the DNA profile that they've gotten from like a 23andMe or an Ancestry, you know, one of those kits you do at home.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
But then individual users can choose to take that profile and upload it to different sites that contain these databases. And they do have to opt in for law enforcement to be able to search their profile in these. In this case, especially because in Montana, there are also a lot of personal freedom laws.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
So Tom Elfmont actually needed to get a subpoena from a judge to some of these companies for them to be able to, you know, basically compare the suspect DNA profile to these databases. So once they do that, they get a list of people that have similar DNA to the suspect. And that's when Cece gets to work. And in the next stage of her work, she does use Ancestry.com. She uses public records.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
The Mormon church has a giant database of family trees and everything. She goes through everything, and that's where she's piecing in those common connections. Fascinating.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Is there any thought that there could be other victims? Yeah, I mean, Tom Elfman is, as we said, a really experienced investigator. And if we had that first thought, he definitely had that first thought of are there more victims out there? And he told us, you know, it's not unlikely, especially for a sexual assault like this, for someone to have done it again.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
As of this day, we don't know, but they are actively investigating because Hutchinson was a big turkey hunter. And there's this thing in the turkey hunting community called the U.S. Super Slam, where you kill a turkey in every state except Alaska. So he was working towards this kind of certificate, traveling all over the country in these remote backwoods areas.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | It’s About Danni
Elfmont told us, you know, it'd be very easy for him to get in and out of somewhere. No one even knew he was there. Who knows what the possibilities are all over the country.