Slavomir Markowitz
Appearances
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
And then they both leave. They walk side by side through the parking lot. It looked like they both walked out peacefully. There's no struggle. We didn't know what to make of it.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
He seems calm and she seems calm. Do they know each other? Maybe she took the money and just wanted to have a good time somewhere. Did she leave willingly? Did she not leave willingly? Also, right next to the light switch, there's an alarm. If she was in danger, why didn't she hit the alarm? She had a perfect chance to press the alarm button. She didn't do that.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
As we were analyzing the video, we focused on the moment that she walked out with somebody.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
But when we looked at that video for a longer time... We noticed that there was like a light showing up on the counter. The light would come on and then it would disappear. So we thought that it could be a phone. And then we looked further at the video and I was surprised. We saw that after 11 p.m. the person came to the coffee stand. That person was wearing
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
headlight, you know, like right in the center of the head. He spent some time in the coffee stand looking for something.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
That also coincided with the fact that the first texts from Samantha's phone came at 11.30 p.m. So we have that person entering the coffee stand after 11 p.m., and then 11.30 p.m., a text comes from Samantha's phone.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
the family, James Koenig and some volunteers, started to distribute flyers about her being missing.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
At that point in the investigation, we learned that Samantha Koenig and Dwayne Tortolani had a joint bank account. And they both had debit cards for that bank account. And on the night of Samantha's disappearance, Duane saw a man in Samantha's truck. It looks like he was searching the vehicle, looking for something. Duane told us that nothing appeared to be missing.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
But we looked at the bank records, and we saw that Samantha Penning's debit card was used. We realized that it was Samantha's debit card that was missing.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
That was interesting. Someone had to know the PIN number. Why not take the money from the account?
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
Statistically, when a young woman is going missing, 80% or 90% of the time it's a boyfriend or husband or someone very close to her. So we had to look at Duane. Duane told us that he had called Samantha right before the end of her shift and told her he was going to pick her up. We saw in that video that's what happened.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
He came to the coffee stand about 8.30 p.m., and he walked around the coffee stand.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
Duane worked at a restaurant, and he had an alibi for that day. Fairly quickly, I realized it was very unlikely that he had anything to do with it.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
It wasn't like a normal missing person case. We are becoming more and more concerned. So we started to expand our investigation.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
You could see a couple walking through the parking lot near a busy restaurant and go into a vehicle, a white Chevy pickup truck.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
So we knew it was a white Chevy pickup truck that the suspect was using.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
There are 700 white Chevrolet pickup trucks in Anchorage and the area. So, of course, when you have that many vehicles, it takes a long time.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
It was a stranger abduction. During that time period, we told the media we have a video, and it's apparent from the video that it's kidnapping.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
And there was a lot of public demand. You know, we want to see the video. Why doesn't police department want to release the video? Police say it will not help them solve the crime.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
James Koenig pretty much called me daily. Slav, do you have anything new for me? Slav, is there anything we could do? He would tell me about his fundraising efforts. Of course, I had a lot of sympathy for him. My daughter at the time was working in a coffee stand. So, you know, I'm a police officer, but I'm also a father, and my daughter is in a very similar situation.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
You know, if it happened to Samantha, it could happen to somebody else. As days pass by, we are following up the leads, and we are hitting a wall everywhere.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
It's the first big break that happened in the case since obtaining some video evidence three weeks earlier.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
There was a photo of a young woman. She's naked, she's bound, her hair is braided, she's got duct tape over her mouth. The photo was very disturbing. It was a thumbnail-sized image. The more we enlarged it, the more grainy it was becoming.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
I contacted James Koenig. If it was really his daughter, I knew that it was going to be heartbreaking for him to see that photo. It was just me and James Koenig in the interview room. And I put the photo in front of him. He stared at it for a long time. And then he said, yes, it is Samantha in the photo. I saw him as a grieving father. He was worried sick and it was, you know, genuine.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
I knew that. At that moment, I had no doubt that James Koenig was not involved. Now we knew what the suspect was doing. The suspect wanted us to put the money in Samantha's account He had Samantha's debit card and he would be able to withdraw the money from ATM machines.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
Police departments don't have ransom funds. Maybe we could use the money from the reward fund. So I talked to James Koenig about it. and he agreed to put $5,000 into the account.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
Bankridge had about 500 ATM machines. We needed to be there within minutes, if not seconds, after using the ATM card. Our officers rushed to the scene. but the suspect is gone. But we are able to access the video.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
And then the next day, there's another withdrawal in Sheppard, Texas.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
My name is Slavomir Markowitz. I'm a retired sergeant with the English Police Department. I am originally from Poland and I have an engineering degree, but the police work was something that always fascinated me. So I applied to the English police department and I was hired. That was one of the happiest days in my life. I was at my desk in the homicide unit.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
The officer told me that we have a case of a missing person, Samantha Koenig. She was supposed to get a ride home from her boyfriend. When he arrived, she wasn't there. The Anchorage Police Department were close with the FBI, and they offered their help.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
James Koenig said that it would be totally out of her character to just walk away and not inform him. But on the other hand, it's a coffee stand right in the center of a big commercial area. It would be very unusual for someone to, you know, disappear without anybody noticing.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
Several officers were at the scene. We searched the coffee stand collecting evidence.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
It seems like Alaska has more than its share of missing persons cases. And a lot of that is not crime related, but just the wilderness.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
During the winter, there are people that fall through ice on snow machines.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
So we're wondering, who are these friends? What's her circle look like? Is there any truth to that text message?
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
The way the text was written didn't sound like Samantha Dalton.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
It's 2012. It's not like 80s or 90s where you build your cases only by fingerprints and witnesses. You know, now you look for video evidence. That's the first thing you do. Later in the afternoon, when we finally had the video, we played it in the Cybercrimes Unit office. We all wanted to see that video. the lieutenant, the captain, patrol officers, and some detectives from my unit.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
At one point, she turns towards the window and she reacts.
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Wild Crime: Ain't She Purty? | S4 Ep. 1
She then walks across the coffee stand and turns the lights off. Samantha took the money from the cash register. Then Samantha puts her coat on. That was the moment where a lot of detectives focused on. She casually pulled her hair from behind the coat and spread it around the coat. Some detectives were saying, well, look, she just behaves normally. There is no fear.