Crimes in Two Cities: The Sumpter Siblings Cold Case
America's Crime Lab
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.8 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Atlanta, the brutal rape and double homicide of siblings left detectives with plenty of evidence but no suspect. For years, the case went cold. Then, a violent crime in Michigan revealed new DNA leads that could finally identify the killer, and deliver long-awaited justice for the Sumpter family while their mother is still alive to see it.
America’s Crime Lab is a true crime podcast about how science solves cold cases, missing persons, and other unsolved cases. Hosted by journalist and clinical psychologist Elin Lantz Lesser, and powered by Othram’s forensic DNA lab, the show connects the science to the story, revealing what really happens in the lab and why it matters.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods |
| 0:13.2 | of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does |
| 0:19.2 | someone prove that they deserve to live? |
| 0:21.8 | We are starting the recording now. |
| 0:23.7 | Please state your first and last name. |
| 0:27.1 | Krista Pike. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, |
| 0:32.2 | on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:51.3 | Okay. Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just remember getting the text from my investigator. I just remember getting the text from my investigator. |
| 0:58.1 | I immediately pick up my phone and I was like, oh my God, what do we know? |
| 1:10.2 | She was able to provide a description of the man because he came into their home, he ate some food, he had some drinks. |
| 1:22.4 | When someone commits a crime, they inevitably leave little clues of who they are at the scene. |
| 1:28.7 | Sometimes it's a fingerprint, a speck of blood, or a drop of semen. |
| 1:34.6 | And while police collect the evidence, a lot of times it just sits, untested, for decades. |
| 1:42.5 | But now, the promise of new DNA technology |
| 1:45.5 | has some departments vowing to clear a backlog of cases. |
| 1:50.6 | Starting with the most violent. |
| 1:59.2 | This is America's Crime Lab. |
| 2:01.4 | I'm Alyn Lens Lesser, and I'm here with producer Catherine Fenelosa. |
| 2:06.5 | Alan, I want to tell you about a case from 1990. |
| 2:13.7 | It happened in Stone Mountain, Georgia, which is about a half hour east of Atlanta. |
... |
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