Andrea Canning and Blayne Alexander sit down to talk about Andrea’s episode, “The Premonition.” In 2006, respected dentist and father, John Yelenic was found brutally murdered in his Blairsville, Pennsylvania, home. An investigation into his death revealed a contentious divorce, a messy custody battle, and a suspect with deep connections to law enforcement. Andrea and Blayne discuss the relationship troubles that led to John’s death and the two share stories about what brought them to Dateline. Plus, Andrea and Blayne play listeners’ questions submitted to @DatelineNBC and do their best to answer them. Learn more about the unresolved case of Olivia Lone Bear here: https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/unresolved-the-case-of-olivia-lone-bear-119617605728Listen to the full episode of "The Premonition" on Apple: https://apple.co/4hLJlf1Listen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6uSH9iZjB1VhpR9aO62qdP
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Hello, I'm Blayne Alexander, and I'm here with Andrea Canning, and we are talking Dateline. So this episode is called The Premonition. It's about the 2006 murder of a beloved dentist, John Yelnik, who predicted his own death and the obstacles that investigators had to overcome in bringing his killer to justice.
Now, if you haven't listened to the show yet, it's the episode right below this one on our list of podcasts. So just choose from that. You can go there, listen to it, or if you want to watch it, of course, you can stream it on Peacock and then come right back here.
When you come back, Andrea has an extra clip that she wants to play for us from her interview with Dr. Mark Perlin, the chief scientific and executive officer at Cybergenetics. And then later, of course, we're going to answer some of your questions from social media. So make sure you stay tuned for that. Okay. Let's talk Dateline.
Let's talk Dateline. Hey, Blaine. Hey, Andrea. How are you? I'm good. I haven't even seen you in the new year. So it's a little late, but happy new year, Blaine. Thank you. It's always appropriate. And happy new year back to you.
Yeah. I have to tell you that this story, it literally had me hooked from the very first line, right? To say, hey, I paid you $10,000 to investigate my murder and I'm not dead yet. That's wild.
It is wild. And it's something we see in different forms on Dateline, where someone writes a letter to themselves, or they write it to someone else, or they tell someone, you know, if something happens to me, you know, so this was... more uncommon because he's paying money and he's actually like enlisting the help of his attorney.
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Chapter 2: What details emerged about John Yelenic's murder?
But definitely over the years, people have predicted their own murders on Dateline, sadly.
There were so many parts of the story that were just gripping. I think past the premonition, the person who found John's body, his nine-year-old neighbor, Zach, found his body. And this really gory scene. What was it like talking to him? Of course, many years later, but that was just a hard thing.
Well, it's always horrible when a child has to be the one to find someone who has died. It happens too often where children are dragged into these things where they have to see these horrific things that they can't unsee. And imagine how that shapes your life at that point. You know, that you've seen something so gory and awful and you're just a child.
I mean, you're forced to grow up, right? You're forced to, in that moment, grow up much faster and much more immediately than you would ever expect, right?
Yeah. I mean, in this case, the neighbor was, you know, kind of collateral damage, right? That he had to be the one... To find him.
To find him. Yeah. And he was going over to look for a playmate. He was looking for his son, JJ, to play together. That one touched my heart. Like, oh, he just wanted to find a friend. And that's what he found. Oh, my gosh. I know. I want to talk about John, you know, 39 years old and clearly successful, right? I mean, he'd wanted all his life to be a dentist. He's always on the honor roll.
He's a partner at his own dental practice where he used to go growing up. Like, it had to have been a really interesting full circle moment for him.
Yeah. I mean, he put his mind to something. He set out to do what he wanted to do and he made it happen.
I'm curious about full circle moments. I was thinking about this. I mean, it's something he always wanted to do. He was able to do it. Did you always know that you wanted to be a journalist? Like, is that kind of did you start off intentionally on this path?
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Chapter 3: How did John's relationship with Michelle influence the story?
And speaking of JJ, I mean, when they have JJ, they have now their three children. And it really seemed like everything was falling into place. I remember looking at the home that they had and I said, this is gorgeous. Obviously, this was before Instagram. This is, you know, early 2000s. But when you think about seeing people's lives on social media and thinking, oh, my God, this is perfect.
They would have been the people that you would have looked at and said, oh, they're perfect. They adopted a child. They're so cute. You know, to go from that to this very, very bitter divorce. You know, there's certainly a lot in there that we'll never know, but it was just really kind of an interesting fall, unfortunately. Yeah, and infidelity on both sides. Yeah, yeah.
You know, that was one of the points Michelle admits that, you know, she cheated on John, but then he admits the same and she just like loses it. Like, talk about that dynamic.
You know, what is it? Don't throw stones at glass houses. I just feel like if you're going to have an affair, then you really... Can't judge your partner for having an affair.
Absolutely. You know, I want to talk about kind of this heated custody battle for JJ. JJ really becomes at the center of this, right? One of the people that you interviewed was Maggie, one of John's friends, who said that at one point he was crying on the phone to her saying that he didn't think that he would see his son again. And that's just, you know, heartbreaking for any parent.
It seems like a lot of these cases do stem from custody battles.
Yeah. Like what if it was amicable? What if there was like a different way to handle it? Could his life have been spared?
When we come back, we have an extra clip from Dr. Mark Perlin, the chief scientific and executive officer at Cyber Genetics. His technology played a crucial role in solving John's murder. to talk about Corporal Janelle Lydic. She was kind of the MVP of the story. And I was so I've got a couple of questions about her.
I just was really struck by her instincts, even though this was her first murder case. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it was. So the first thing that really stood out to me is that she gets the call. She's on like a family outing. Right. And she's got her husband. She's got her kids in the car. Yeah.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did John face in his custody battle?
We're at the jail now. We're not going inside. You're not. I think a lot of moms would
identify with that right but yes exactly what you said there's a handoff at some point you have to do something but i also thought that it was interesting because it kind of showed her dedication to the job she was like i want to get there i want to be there immediately i don't want to kind of waste that time going home and then at one point she kind of describes how she's standing in between the car and the house to block her kids and you know we went in that house we shot in that house and
And it's always like add sort of that extra layer of chilling moments when you get access to the house where the murder happened or the field or whatever it may be, because you're really going back to that moment exactly where you can see that person like going through what they went through. Of course.
But I want to talk about the psychics, the psychic sisters. Oh, my gosh. Have you ever had psychics involved in a story before?
I'm trying to think if I've interviewed other psychics. I probably have at some point, but no one stands out more than the sisters. Oh, my gosh. I mean, I still remember sitting there outside talking to them. They were funny, but they said that they they felt a dog tag. You know, they were thinking military, but they weren't that far off.
I mean, you know, police, military, you know, maybe that's like where they're, you know.
where they were headed. It's so interesting to me. I think that time and time again, you see people when they turn to psychics or just some sort of kind of unexplained anything, people are really kind of at their most desperate point. They want to know, they want answers. They've gone through everything and they're like, well, maybe these people know something, right? That's kind of what we saw.
But then there's people who actually believe in psychics as well. So maybe they're not desperate. They just actually really believe- And the power of that. Yeah, the power of that. I mean, I've I've been to psychics in my life. I wouldn't say that I'm like some huge psychic believer or regular visitor to a psychic. But I remember it's so funny. I still have the piece of paper, the psychic.
This was before I was married. She said she was writing everything down and she said she said, your your husband is up in the air. And I was like, well, up in the air. Yeah, of course he's up in the air. Like everyone's husband is like up in the air if you're single, right? Like, and then I ended up marrying a pilot. A pilot, yes, that's amazing. He was up in the air.
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Chapter 5: What role did psychics play in the investigation?
Yeah, that was interesting because those shoes were not available for purchase in the area. And then they, of course, they find out that Foley has ordered those shoes through like a law enforcement type, you know, website where you can, you know, I mean, what are the odds?
What are the odds that you commit a crime and you're wearing these shoes that are so rare? He had to have been kicking himself for that one.
Right. And I'm going to use a pun, gumshoe detective work at its best.
Absolutely. It was. It was such a big piece of evidence, though. Corporal Lydic, she had some interesting instincts. The fingernails, she kind of kept them in an evidence refrigerator just because she thought, maybe I should just hang on to these.
Well, I think it was that whole, you know, he's a state trooper and she's being told not to interview him or Michelle, which is just odd. That baffles me to this day. And also apparently Trooper Foley would make comments like, you know, I wish he was dead and, you know, and things like that. And they're going through a divorce. I mean, hello. That's the first place you look.
So so, you know, putting those the fingernails like I think she just had that instinct. I think she was just nervous that given his connection to the state police, like I'm going to keep these a little closer.
So cyber genetics was also presented during the trial. They've been now used to kind of solve a plethora of cases. Right. But at the time, this was something that was really groundbreaking, this kind of DNA technology. Their technology showed that the DNA under John's fingernail had a one hundred eighty nine. billion to one match to Kevin's DNA. And that was huge.
That compares to the FBI's match of like one in 13,000. Yeah. Yeah.
DNA is an investigator's best friend. Those fingernails just became everything.
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Chapter 6: How did law enforcement respond to the case?
The Foley testimony happened in two stages. The first was a hearing where my only audience was a judge. And what I was armed with was scientific studies and metaphors and translating for the judge that the science predicted exactly what we found.
So the judge obviously agreed and allowed it into trial?
Yes.
A judge is one thing, a jury is another.
Correct. And so now the jury was 12 interested students as opposed to one.
Did you have any doubt that the DNA found under John Yelnik's fingernails belonged to Kevin Foley?
Mathematically, based on our studies, no.
You were convinced you had your math.
The chance of it not being him was so small based on the match statistic that it was not feasible.
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