A 13-year-old teen disappears and her body is soon found in nearby woods. An interaction at a yogurt shop would set police on the path to finding her killer. View source material and photos for this episode at: anatomyofmurder.com/unsuspectingCan’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc
Chapter 1: What happened to Milana Li?
Raising children can often feel like navigating a minefield of potential dangers. But for all of our modern-day methods for watching over our kids, from cell phones to doorbell cameras and GPS trackers, the risks to their safety never really goes away.
The fact is that a child's most treasured instinct, their curiosity, can also prove to be the most dangerous. Kids want to explore, meet new people, and obviously experience new things.
But there is a line between taking these healthy risks, the kind that build confidence and resilience, and the kind that, sometimes unknowingly, can lead to emotional, mental, or even physical danger.
And recognizing that line is not always easy, especially for teenagers who are often the ones most drawn to new people and new experiences, but do not always have the tools to protect themselves if those same people and experiences become threats to their safety.
Today's story takes us to Beaverton, Oregon, a leafy suburb just a few miles outside of Portland. Beaverton is filled with parks and tree-lined streets that weave through the quiet neighborhoods.
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Chapter 2: How was Milana Li's disappearance discovered?
But as everyone listening already knows, danger often lurks just under the surface of most idyllic towns. And in May of 2022, that community was shaken to its core when that danger came for one of its own, a 13-year-old girl named Milana Lee.
So I have prosecuted almost three dozen homicide cases. The majority of those were murders.
Like many prosecutors, Senior Deputy Attorney John Gerard had always felt a strong sense of duty, which is why before settling in Oregon, he served in the Army as a judge advocate and prosecutor.
And that's where I had my first exposure to criminal prosecution and decided that I enjoyed that and then went into the Washington County DA's office straight from there.
To be a successful prosecutor, you need to be disciplined, resilient, and have the ability to think strategically, all attributes which one would learn in the military.
And all the traits that John would deploy in his mission to seek justice for the most innocent of victims.
Thirteen-year-old Milana Lee and her family had recently immigrated to Beaverton from Kazakhstan. The bright young sixth grader hadn't been in the States very long, but she was already adapting well to life in her new hometown.
She was still making friends, getting to know people at her middle school, but she was generally quiet, liked by her peers and her teachers.
Milana was bright, she was kind, and at 13, already carrying a lot of responsibility at home, often watching her five-year-old sister while her mother worked long hours.
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Chapter 3: Where was Milana Li's body found?
But no one had seen or heard from her in more than 24 hours. And by the next day, the community was out in force helping to look for the missing teen.
One of her friends knew that Milana would sometimes go into this wooded area that was a little more secluded just to, you know, have time to herself and think. And so she and her mother went down into that wooded area.
And there, they stumbled on some articles of clothing that her friend recognized as belonging to Milana. They immediately retreated and contacted police.
Officers were dispatched to meet them at the scene. Body cam audio caught the moments officers arrived at the park.
I was looking and I found what I think are horseshoes and pants. I didn't touch anything. I made sure not to touch anything.
Do you guys want to wait up? Can you wait up here for me? And then we'll come back up and chat with you in just a few minutes.
There's also like just a weird thing in the water, but I don't, it doesn't look like there's anything under it.
Westside Linear Park was a popular recreation spot for walking and hiking. But it was also big, with trails winding through some pretty secluded wooded areas. As officers moved deeper into the woods, they kept their eyes peeled for signs of the missing teen.
It is not a well-marked area. And what we were able to see is there was kind of a footpath where you have to climb over a bunch of brush and rocks. And it was... very apparent that both juveniles and some transients would hang out in that wooded area. A lot of trash, clothing, there were like hygiene items that were scattered throughout this wooded area.
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Chapter 4: What evidence was found at the crime scene?
Figuring out who that person was started with the collection of evidence at the scene. A team of forensic investigators combed the area, searching for any clue, any fragment of evidence that might help piece together Milana's final moments.
In the water were both pairs of her shoes, one close to her body and one that looked like it had either been tossed further downstream or had floated downstream in the current. There were several articles of clothing. So there was a bra, a pair of girls' underwear, and then a couple pairs of men's boxer briefs.
all of which may hold biological evidence that could help identify Milana's killer, as could some of the items recovered from what looked like a nearby campsite.
Defensive wounds showed clear signs that Milana had tried to fight off her attacker, and her broken fingernails were also carefully examined for possible DNA belonging to her killer.
The big question, of course, was how Milana ended up here in the woods to begin with. The crime scene suggested that she was certainly alive before entering the park and was likely killed at the scene. So was she brought here against her will or did she come with someone voluntarily?
To answer that question, investigators would need to start building their timeline of her last known whereabouts on the day she disappeared.
And the quickest way to do that was to request location data from her cell phone to try to retrace her steps.
That turned out to be very critical to our criminal investigation because it showed where Milana went after leaving her apartment.
According to her cell phone data, Milana had left home in the early evening of Sunday, May 8th, while her mom was still at work. She and her phone then headed in the direction of a local outdoor shopping center where investigators hoped they could track down a witness that maybe would have spotted her there.
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Chapter 5: Who was with Milana Li before her death?
But there was nothing on his record indicating sexual assault or extreme violence.
Still, just the fact that he was seen with the victim on the day she was killed made him someone that investigators needed to locate and fast.
As the investigation proceeded, investigators learned that Daniel Gore regularly hung out at a public library because he would use the free internet services at the library. So one of the Beaverton patrol officers wound up just going to the local library branch to see if he was there. And it turned out that he was.
And as soon as Daniel noticed the officer, he ran out the back of the library and led police on a foot pursuit.
But rule of thumb to keep in mind, while you may be able to outrun the police, you can never outrun the radio.
I believe the Beaverton police did a dog track and chased him for about 20 minutes before ultimately finding him and then took him to custody from there.
When asked why he fled from police, Gore explained that he was on probation and was concerned he was going to be arrested or returned to his family. But he showed no signs that he knew the real reason he was being questioned by police.
Samuel, how are you? I'm all right. My name is Cindy. I'm a detective here, and this is my partner.
Police brought the teenager into an interview room and started asking questions, and immediately they were struck by his cooperative demeanor.
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Chapter 6: Who is Daniel Gore?
If Gore suspected that the interview had to do with Milana, he wasn't showing it. But as we've always said, a goal in any interview is to keep the subject talking. So investigators moved slowly and deliberately, building rapport as they zeroed in on his timeline for the days leading up to Milana's murder.
And then, so that's Monday, Tuesday. So what about Sunday?
Sunday. What happened on Sunday?
So Gore explained that he had spent the afternoon of Sunday, May 8th with a group of friends, but they eventually went their separate ways. It was then that he met up with Milana at the yogurt shop.
Where did you meet up with Milana?
Uh, Menchies?
Okay.
We're not at Menchies. There's a stairway right by Menchies. I was there using it for Wi-Fi. Then I went out and then she was coming down.
Okay. So you guys meet about what time you think that was?
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Chapter 7: How did police find and apprehend Daniel Gore?
Let's just pause for a second here to note that it's of course not unheard of for teenagers to experiment with alcohol. So we won't even get into where they may have gotten it or that larger discussion about minors and drinking. But we should remember that Milana was only 13 and she was physically small in stature. So any amount of alcohol may well have affected her.
According to Gore, the two get off the bus and hurry across the street to another stop, waited to catch a bus headed in the opposite direction.
But then that's when it started raining and she just left. And that's about when I went back to my tent.
Daniel claimed this was the last time he saw Milana, walking in the rain back towards the shopping center. He also claimed that the next day he even texted her, but she never responded.
When investigators asked for consent to search his phone, he did consent to that search.
On his phone, investigators discovered text messages from that evening that supported his claim that he left Milana at the bus stop, which of course made them wonder, could he be telling the truth? And if so, did they have the wrong guy?
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Chapter 8: What was revealed during Daniel Gore's police interview?
Still, he admitted being with Milana on the day of her murder, even to being the last one to see her alive.
Then of course you have his juvenile record, his admission he was intoxicated. It's very hard not to see this circumstantial evidence and magnify what may just be coincidence into a conviction that this was the killer. But the best way to guard against this tunnel vision is to go out and gather more evidence.
And that's exactly what they did. And as they looked for ways to corroborate his story, investigators uncovered a single inconsistency, but one that would turn the entire case upside down.
He was obviously unaware that we would be able to recover the surveillance footage from the public transit bus or those area businesses.
During questioning by police, 16-year-old Daniel Gore had a reasonable explanation for everything. What he and Milana were doing together the day she died, why his texts were on her phone, and most importantly, when was the last time he saw her alive?
Despite their suspicions, investigators didn't have direct evidence that Gore was anything more than a friend who had been with Milana on the same day she was believed to have been attacked and killed.
But they were convinced it was only a matter of time before they could tie him to the crime. And so while they didn't have enough to charge him for the murder, they could arrest him for a probation violation, allowing them to keep him in custody while they gathered more evidence.
Knowing that Daniel and Malan Ali had been in that frozen yogurt shop, it allowed our investigators to retrace their steps as much as possible by capturing surveillance footage that showed their path of travel.
As we have seen before, malls and shopping centers are often full of security cameras, so police can often follow someone's every move, and that was the case here. After leaving the yogurt shop, Milana and Daniel could be seen walking to the bus stop and boarding a bus, just as Gore had told police.
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