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Dateline NBC

A Promise to Helene

Dateline NBC

NBC News

True Crime, Culture, Social, Society & Culture, News

4.438K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When 21-year-old college student Helene Pruszynski is found murdered, the case remains cold for nearly forty years until a new detective uses an innovative method to catch Helene’s killer. Josh Mankiewicz reports. Originally aired on NBC on October 16, 2020.

Transcript

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0:00.0

What I focus on when I'm working a case what drives me the most is the victims

0:05.3

I wanted to speak for them. I wanted to speak for Helene.

0:11.5

I just turned on the news woman found murdered in Denver, Colorado. I just grabbed my son and

0:18.9

screamed and cried. I just couldn't believe it was happening. Not to Helene.

0:24.0

Was it somebody she worked with at the radio station? Could it be the boyfriend that she just broke up within December?

0:33.0

You're giving the detective's names of people. Yes, we looked at everything. I was even like where was Ted Vundy at that time.

0:41.7

We have to look under every stone, every pebble. They're talking about hundreds of names here. Hundreds, thousands. She's driven.

0:48.4

Her tenacity is just remarkable. I knew I was going to find him. It was a competition between him and I.

0:56.4

The hardest pounding like, oh my god, this is real. I said I found him. I know who killed Helene.

1:02.4

40 years is a long time. That's 40 winners here in Colorado and countless snowfalls.

1:17.4

It was on a day like this that a young woman disappeared. Her name was Helene and Helene had a friend named Kimberly, a friend who kept her word.

1:29.4

Do you have any idea how many years you were signing up for when you made that promise? No.

1:35.4

For those nearly four decades, Kimberly LaTurrett kept her promise. 40 years looking at faces. 40 years meeting with detectives.

1:45.4

40 years retracing Helene's steps. When I make a promise and make a commitment, I follow through.

1:53.4

Helene never knew it, but she had another friend. You never met Helene. You feel like you know her? I do. I feel like I know her well as well as I possibly could.

2:03.4

She and then was three years old when Helene disappeared. It was in 2019 that she accepted a challenge. I had to win. I wanted to win for Helene.

2:13.4

Helene Prasinski grew up as the baby daughter in a close-knit family of five in Hamilton, Massachusetts.

2:26.4

Everybody that met her liked her company. Janet was her older sister by nine years.

2:33.4

But you didn't treat her as like this annoying younger sibling. You guys were probably dead. We were. She was my best buddy.

2:41.4

She came, she was a surprise I think to the family. And she just brought sunshine and life to our household.

2:49.4

I met her my freshman year of high school. She was a sophomore. We both were part of a singing group called Harmony.

2:58.4

And that's really where I got to know Helene very well. She loved the sing. Yes, she loved to perform. I'm involved with her Harmony, which is a musical group at the University of London.

...

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