Beaten, Strangled, Dragged Behind a Car: Who Killed Melonie White?
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan
CrimeOnline and iHeartPodcasts
4.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2024
⏱️ 45 minutes
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Summary
On a hot August day in the Nevada desert, two hikers find the body of a young woman about 20 miles east of Las Vegas near the Gypsum Wash in Clark County. The next day, August 28, the Clark County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as 27-year-old Melonie White. Her death is listed as homicide due to strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head and police say she was also dragged behind a car before her body was left in the desert. Melonie and her infant son moved to Las Vegas with her boyfriend four months earlier from Phoenix, Arizona. But the boyfriend doesn't get a job and leaves Melonie alone with her baby in Las Vegas. Police investigate the case but fail to develope a viable suspect and the case turns cold. Joseph Scott Morgan will explain how the case that went unsolved for 30 years has finally been solved with DNA, gentic genealogy, and Othram.
Transcript Highlights
00:00.00 Introduction - First trip to Las Vegas
02:21.07 Death of Melonie White, 30 year mystery
05:06.81 Melonie White beaten, strangled, dragged by car into desert
10:12.12 Brothers report Melonie missing
16:26.41 Police say Melonie was tied to back of car and dragged
21:11.46 Las Vegas is an Oasis surrounded by nothingness
26:05.98 Joe describes other evidence needed
31:22.50 No Lack of trauma
35:19.83. Very personal attack
40:16.59 Describing solving cold case
41:34.76 Genetic Genealogy solves murder
44:27.92 Conclusion: Case solved after 30 years
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Moore. |
| 0:04.0 | The first time I ever went to Las Vegas was for, believe it or not, seems counterintuitive, was for an academic meeting. |
| 0:16.0 | I'd never seen the place. I'd never had. I'd heard that it's something you never forget. |
| 0:22.1 | And I think probably adding to that, I arrived at night. |
| 0:28.0 | And for those of you, my friends, that have never been to Vegas, and you fly over coming from the East Coast, I always fly out of Atlanta. You fly over, once you get past |
| 0:42.4 | Texas, everything just goes dark out there. There's nothing. As far as the eye can see. |
| 0:51.1 | And all of a sudden, and this was my experience, all of a sudden, off in the distance, there was a glow. |
| 0:59.1 | Kept looking out the window. |
| 1:00.5 | People had told me about this, there was this glow. |
| 1:04.3 | And as you're on final approach, everything is illuminated. |
| 1:10.3 | It looks like this gigantic rainbow of neon |
| 1:14.9 | that illuminates everything. |
| 1:19.4 | But still all around it |
| 1:21.1 | is black. |
| 1:26.3 | Over the past few years, we've heard quite a bit about Vegas in one particular way and |
| 1:34.2 | that is bodies that have been found in Lake Meade. The water level had dropped and there |
| 1:42.2 | were bodies being found in old oil drums. |
| 1:46.8 | Today, though, I want to talk about a body that was found just outside of Vegas. |
| 1:53.7 | Not recently, though. |
| 1:55.7 | And near Lake Mead, but not in it. |
| 1:59.0 | I want to talk about the death and now the conclusion of a 30-year-old |
| 2:09.4 | mystery involving the death of a 33-year-old lady by the name of Melanie White. |
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