Let's talk about drama. Because what's happening across the country right now? It's next level. Attacks are intensifying on reproductive health care, including abortion. Lawmakers who want to force their personal beliefs on everyone else are coming after birth control, abortion, gender-affirming care, and more.
Planned Parenthood fights back every single day, but they can't do it alone. Your support keeps Planned Parenthood going through every scary twist and turn lawmakers throw at our health and rights. Donate now to support PlannedParenthood at plannedparenthood.org/slash protect. You know that one friend who somehow knows everything about money? Yeah, now imagine they live in your phone.
Say hey to Xperian, your big financial friend. It's the app that helps you check your FICO score, find ways to save, and basically feel like a financial genius. And guess what? It's totally free.
So go on, download the Xperian app. Trust me, having a BFF like this is a total game changer. Good morning. Jane Pauly is off this weekend. I'm Nora O'Donnell.
And this is Sunday morning. Earlier this month, a PhD student named Brian Koeberger pled guilty to the murders of four Idaho college students in a baffling case that stunned the nation. Koberger had no known motive, no known connection to the students, and no murder weapon has ever been found.
So how did detectives solve the case? by using a technique called investigative genetic genealogy, a technique that's helping solve crimes across the nation. Aaron Moriarty will explain. 76-year-old Barbara Ray Venter may not fit most people's image of a crack investigator. When people meet you and they know what you accomplished in the Golden State Killer case, Are they surprised?
Yes. You were that confident that you would be able to find this guy. Yes. Meet the woman who's solving cold cases without ever leaving her house ahead on Sunday morning. Acclaimed singer-songwriter Billie Eilish has achieved quite a bit more than your average 23-year-old.
Reason Enough for a SUMMER SONG FROM ANTHONY MASON. Say Billie Eilish made a discovery while making her latest album. Have you found some part of yourself you didn't even know was there? Yeah. Yeah.
Oh yeah. I mean my voice. Hit me hard and soft. became the number two album in the world last year. Do you guys want to meet CBS Sunday morning?
We go backstage with Billie Eilish later on Sunday morning. With Connor Knighton, we'll be serving up something sweet. When you're washing the cherries you've picked up at the store, there's a good chance that before they were picked off the tree, they were dried by a helicopter. When you're up here on a beautiful day, what's that like for you? Ah, I never get tired of flying.
I'm really blessed that this is the career path that I get to do for a living. A job that's high and dry. Coming up? On Sunday morning. Also ahead this Sunday morning.
Faith Saley brings us a sweet memory of childhood. Remember Candyland? There. Here's Richard. Dr.
John Lapouc visits with Richard Kine, an actor you've probably seen, but whose name might not be quite so familiar. Plus a story from Steve Hartman. Another chapter about these United States. And more on this Sunday morning for the 13th of July 2025. We'll be back in a moment.
We begin this morning with Aaron Moriarty. Who takes a closer look at one of the newest and most essential tools in the never-ending effort to solve crimes? Barbara Ray Venter, a 76-year-old patent attorney living in Marina, California, thought she'd spend her retirement leisurely playing tennis, traveling, and indulging in her favorite pastime, researching her ancestry and building a family tree. It didn't quite work out that way. Did you ever imagine that something that started as a hobby would end up tracking down and capturing one of the most notorious criminals in California?
Absolutely not. No idea. Seven years ago, Ray Venter, using her genetic research skills, tracked down a fugitive in California who had eluded capture for more than three decades. And remarkably, she did it without ever leaving her home. We're going to begin tonight in California, where police believe they have solved one of the nation's enduring mysteries.
The fugitive was the Golden State killer. In April 2018, the FBI and California law enforcement made headlines with a stunning announcement. We found the needle in the haystack. And it was right here in Sacramento. The rapist moved into Condra Custa County in October, striking three times in just over three weeks.
Since 1974, investigators had sought the man responsible for at least 13 murders and more than 50 rapes in the state of California. But it wasn't until Ray Venter joined the investigation that they learned his name. Joseph James D'Angelo. It's not that I'm so very special, it's just I happen to be in the right place at the right time. Using DNA left by D'Angelo at a crime scene, Ray Venter identified him by using a technique now known as investigative genetic genealogy.
It's just basically doing The same as you would do if you're doing family history research and augmenting that with DNA to make sure that the relatives that you find are really related to you. Her crime-solving career began quite by accident. Ray Venter, who also has a PhD in biology, was volunteering as a search angel, a person who helps adoptees find their biological parents. It's such a fundamental desire. They are just so focused.
They just so want to know where they came from. I don't know that there's any cases. In 2015, Ray Venter responded to an email sent by this man and fell into her first mystery. Peter Headley, then a veteran investigator with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, was trying to uncover the true identity of a woman in her 30s who had been kidnapped. She really wanted to know who she was.
She was a living doe. What is a living doe? She's alive, but we have no idea who she is. That living Jane Doe went by the name of Lisa Jensen. At five years old, she had been abandoned at an R V park by a man called Gordon Jensen.
It turned out she had been kidnapped by the suspect. and he just told everyone that he was a father. Later, detectives learned that Gordon Jensen was just one of many aliases used by Terry Rasmussen, a notorious serial killer who died in prison in 2010 without ever revealing who Lisa really was. She doesn't know who her mother is. She doesn't know whether she has sisters or brothers.
Nope, nothing. Headley said that Lisa had heard about genetic genealogy and wondered if that could lead her to her real family. I said, okay, let's try it.
So opened it to Count for Guttering Ancestry, and we had some distant matches. And I'm like, this might just work. But this was new territory for Headley, so he emailed DNA Adoption for help and found Barbara Ray Venter. And why did you say yes? It was a puzzle.
Ray Venter began the laborious process of building family trees to find Lisa's real family. Is it more than just looking at the DNA? Oh, absolutely. The DNA is just the jump-off point. You're doing census records.
You're doing birth death and marriage records. My favorite is probably Facebook. I've actually built trees from the amount of stuff that people put in their Facebook pages. Headley helped by coaxing distant relatives to take DNA tests. People were skeptical, thought it was a scam.
One lady thought I was going to clone her. Clone her? Yeah. That's how little people really knew, right? Yeah.
And DNA tests are expensive. Peter and Barbara reach into their own pockets to help subsidize the cost.
So you're not only not getting paid to do this work, you're actually Paying for these tests. We probably each spent a couple of thousand dollars on kits. It took nearly a year, but in 2016, the DNA Trail led to New Hampshire. And the case of this missing young mother, Denise Bowdoin. she and her infant daughter had vanished from this home along with a man named Bob Evans, which turned out to be yet another alias of that serial killer, Terry Rasmussen.
The home has never been searched by law enforcement, so this is our first time in there. Investigators believe Rasmussen killed Denise and kidnapped her little girl. For the first time Lisa Jensen was about to learn her real name, Don Bowden. I called Lisa up and I asked her if she wanted to know her real name. We had figured it out.
And she just got real quiet and then very quietly said yes. Lisa has asked for privacy, but in a phone call with Ray Venter, told her that she could finally move on with her life, including getting married. She just said it didn't feel right when she didn't really know who she was or where she'd come from. And now that she knew that, she felt comfortable now going forward and getting married. I just thought that was so special.
It was one of the first times that genetic genealogy was used to solve a criminal case. The word spread fast. In twenty seventeen, Ray Venter got a call. Could she use the same technique to find the Golden State killer? There were, I think, six full-time investigators, three FBI agents searching for this guy, and they couldn't find him.
And you thought you could? Yeah, the the DNA should tell me who who he is. I was absolutely certain of that. Investigators provided a DNA profile left at a California crime scene, and Ray Venter uploaded it to GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA. This time, she was building the family tree of a killer 63 days later.
I'm sitting there at 3 in the morning, all by my little lonesome, staring at my computer. I know who you are. You're Joseph D'Angelo. And at that moment, were you the only person in the world who knew who the Golden State killer was? Besides him, probably.
It was an astonishing breakthrough, but Ray Venter's word was not enough to make an arrest. I'm providing an investigative lead. You still need some old-fashioned detective work.
So investigators got to work getting a DNA sample from D'Angelo himself to confirm he was the right guy. Within days, the brutal killer who had evaded law enforcement for decades was finally behind bars. Mr. D'Angelo will spend the rest of his natural life and ultimately meet his death behind the walls of a state penitentiary. Five years after DeAngelo was locked away, Ray Venter decided that it was time to share her incredible story in a book, I Know Who You Are.
I was asked to talk about the Golden State Killer. and uh how he was identified. And it's it's a little bit of a story. Ray Venter has been profiled in the New York Times and appeared on Time magazine's list of the most influential people. And she's come out of retirement.
I have a group called Firebird Forensics and we've probably now solved about 60 cases. Ray Venter works with law enforcement agencies nationwide to solve cases using genetic genealogy. She even travels around the country, teaching others her technique. It's a bit of a slog, isn't it? Figuring this out?
You know, it isn't really. It's very addictive. Because you know you're hot on the trail. And you just know if you keep going a little bit longer, you're going to find the connections you're looking for. You're the right person for the job.
But her line of work has also raised concerns about privacy. More than fifty three million people have already uploaded their DNA profiles to public databases. Should police be able to use that information to track down the user's criminal relatives?
Well unfortunately I think that horse left the barn a long time ago. And the trade off may be worth it, says Rey Venter and others, if it means getting killers and rapists off the streets. There was a lot of light bulbs going off across the country saying, what great technology, how do we bring it to our community to solve violent crimes? How Barbara Venter helped this Ohio prosecutor bring to justice a serial rapist known only as John Doe No. 147.
That's ahead on Sunday morning. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?
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Fire Country, all episodes now streaming on Paramount Plus. With Faith Saley, we take a trip down the sweetest of memory lanes. For the last 75 years, generations have taken turns weaving through a rainbow road, surrounded by all things candy. Playing Candyland is a stroll or a leap down memory lane.
So most families have one Candyland. And how many do you have? We have about nine different versions of the game here. Kindergarten teacher Tiffany Fox of Galleon, Ohio has quite a sweet tooth for the game. What are the most iconic characters in Candyland?
So, one of the most iconic characters is Queen Frostine, Princess Lolly, King Candy. Galopi was a fun one. He started as molasses, and then they kind of just kicked him out of the game. All right, your turn. Aside from its characters, Fox says the game offers life lessons.
Patience, winning, losing, taking turns, learning your colors. This is one of the first games that kids pick up, so they need to learn all of those skills to be able to play bigger games later in their life. Why do you think the game still hits a sweet spot? It comes down to candy. Who doesn't love candy?
When have you ever offered somebody a piece of candy and they said, no, thank you? You get to reach in and choose a piece of candy. Brian Baker also grew up with the game. Today, he's Senior Vice President of Board Games for Hasbro in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. To date, we have sold over 75 million copies of Candyland.
And after two years of research and development, this one. Oh, you like Lord Licorice? Orange, okay. A new 75th anniversary edition of Candyland is coming out this Tuesday.
So your goal is to meet the Gummy Bear twins to the castle before they mix all the sweet and sour candies up. Wait. Suddenly strategy is a part of Candyland? That's been one of the insights that we got from parents. With surprises for some loyal fans.
One, two, gay five. Good job. What's been a sweet success for Hasbro was first Milton Bradley's bestseller when the game came out in nineteen forty nine. What do you think would surprise people the most to learn about Candyland? I keep going back to the origin story.
Take a good look at the original because this world of candy was inspired by children who really yearned for escape. Candyland was invented by a woman named Eleanor Abbott, and she was recovering from polio herself and saw all these children. They were in iron lungs. She didn't just invent a game, she alleviated children's suffering. And this has to be Eleanor based on her yearbook photo.
Authors Sandra Miller and Margaret Muirhead in Arlington, Massachusetts, have been unwrapping Eleanor Abbott's life for a future children's book. And the object of the game, which is To get home takes on really special significance when you think about. these patients who are isolated from their families for really long periods of time. They want to give credit to an inventor long overlooked. She hit on a very simple.
Truth. And it's that children love candy. They love envisioning the dreamscape of a candy world. And That is her legacy. is that she created this enduring game.
I won't candy span. Don't turn the time. It's Sunday morning on CBS. And here again is Nora O'Donnell. Actor Richard Kind is a Screen Actors Guild Award winner.
He's been nominated for a Tony. and it turns out he has a lot in common with a sprig of parsley. Mystified? Here's Dr. John Lapouk.
Where did you get that walkman? Steve it? No. Oh my god, is there no end to your madness? If you turn on a TV or sit in a movie theater, It's likely you'll see this actor.
People with facial hair seem smarter. Really? Yeah. Think about it. Abe Lincoln, uh Albert Einstein, Burt Reynolds.
And there's also a good chance you won't know his name. I'm walking from the subway to the theater and a woman, I was in Times Square, so she's obviously tourists. She goes, oh my God, there's Hi-Ai-Hi-Ai-Hai. Didn't even know the name. The name is Richard Kind.
and he's quite happy being just a little famous. I'll walk down the street and somebody will go, oh, you're a national treasure. And then I pass 250 people who don't know who I am, and yet that person thinks I'm a national treasure. You're very attractive.
Well, thank you. That's not a compliment. For me, it's too much. Killing me. National Treasure Richard Kind has made a lot of people laugh.
and sometimes nap. When you're on the stage, do you ever look down and see somebody asleep? Sure. What's that feel like when you're on the stage? I say, I don't blame you.
We visited Kind at Sunset Gower Studios in Los Angeles. Speaking of Richard There's Richard. Hello, John. Hello, buddy. Hey everybody!
Where he's the announcer and sidekick on the Netflix talk show, Everybody's Live with John Mulaney. Yeah, I just came from the Met Scala. Oh my god! If you were at the Met Gala? No, the Met Scala.
Hello, little girl. Over the years, Kind has shown up everywhere. Maybe you've seen him on Pokerface. I've decided I want to go into the witness protection program on my own. Or Mid-Century Modern.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Where are you rushing off to? What do you got a roast in the oven? I want to hear about you. Or only murders in the building.
I am the African leopard on the Serengeti. Quiet, calm. Cunning. For 45 years, he's worked on Broadway and in movies and television to become a respected actor. But that wasn't always his goal.
When I was young, lying in bed dreaming of stardom, I wanted stardom. I didn't want to be a good actor. I wanted stardom. Richard Kine thought he'd follow his father into his Princeton, New Jersey jewelry business. That I'm an actor is so wrong.
I should have gone into my dad's store. I should be in business. I should have been a lawyer. I should have done what is expected of a suburban middle-class kid. Were you somebody who was teased?
More than Ost? I was. I was a fat kid. I'll bet I was a loser. I might have made fun of me.
But at summer camp, a A friend gave him what became an essential life lesson. He taught me how to laugh at myself.
Now, was that laugh at yourself before other people do, or as a defense mechanism? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. He was a fat kid, too, who then lost weight. I eventually lost weight.
Still a fat kid, even to this day. I'll never be a thin person. Like physically, but how about in your head? But in my head, I'm a fat, fat person. In the 1970s, self-assurance developed on stage at Northwestern University and at Chicago's legendary improv theater, The Second City.
six nights a week at Second City.
So that is my Harvard of acting. And some people would say, oh, it's the Harvard of comedy. It's not. It was my Harvard of acting. Even with that on his resume, there was still doubt.
My dad used to ask my professors at school or my directors, and these were his exact words: does he have it? Is he any good? He would not trust himself to say, oh, my son's a good actor. he would ask somebody else, is he a good actor? What the hell?
Look at me. I'm a good actor. Possibly his most memorable role to date? Bing Bong. An imaginary creature who ultimately sacrifices himself to save his young friend.
Take her to the moon for me.
Okay. I died for her. I died so that she might have a great life. According to John Mulaney, that moment says a lot about Richard Kind. That's about having to let go of your imaginary friend, right?
Let go of something in your past. And yet, I look at him, and there is the child is alive in him. Do you see that? 100%. And in many ways, by having him as our announcer, we've given our imaginary friend a place in a podium.
No, he's incredibly sweet, incredibly childlike, and a real man, and a powerful actor, and a great father. And here's another of the many roles you may have missed. It's my last time at batten. All I wanted to do. Was a hit a hole run from my pops.
They had me in Sharknado 2. A science fiction comedy in which tornadoes drop sharks on New York City. I hit a shark. out of the ballpark.
Now that's something. I don't think a lot of people have that on their resumes. I do. Look at that, huh? Oh, nice.
What are you gonna do? It seems like almost every place you go, you'll bump into kind. Here we are at a recent Mets charity poker event. I used to be very good at this, really. Then I had children and moved to New York.
Children can ruin a poker game. Because all of this, every time I bet, I'm like this, thinking, how will I pay for my kids' college? In some ways, Richard Kine's success is all about the risks he's taken. This business is very cruel. Two actors.
Truly. It's very cruel.
Some people call it insulting. I don't call it insulting, but I do say it is cruel. How much did I make my first episode of Curve Your Enthusiasm? How much did I make? Not a clue.
Take a clue. Take a guess. First episode. $2,500. That's a good guess, $700.
You go in with the attitude. Did everybody who's casting this product wants to make Seinfeld money. They want to make a lot of money. I walk in saying, I can help you make this great. I am the right guy for this.
It's pretty quiet up until tape. I could come running in- You got it! And with a flourishing career built on being exactly the right guy, Richard Kind is grateful just to be at the same table with other actors. I am parsley. on a plate of meat and potatoes.
Now, I'm good. I look right there. I'm the freshest parsley. But they're meat and potatoes. What do I do?
I help make the plate look great. That's fine. That's what I usually do. But I can be cut out. I'm just not necessary all the time.
And I'm fine, fine, fine with that. I re I've made a career of it. Haven't I? Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business.
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Get ready to laugh until it hurts. You know love this Novocaine is now streaming on Paramount Plus. I've got this condition. I don't feel pain. You're a superhero now.
Yeah. It's an adrenaline rush of fun. This is the best part. And a bloody good time. Almost got the best part.
It's the first great action comedy of the year. Let the magic happen. That's good. Looking forward to it. Nova K Rated R, now streaming on Paramount Plus.
This morning's offering from Connor Knighton comes complete. with a cherry on top. This is Cherry Country. Central Washington's long sunny summer days and cool evenings make the region an ideal place to grow all sorts of sweet cherries, from the deep red bing to the golden yellow tinted rainier. This is really, I think, the best place on earth to go cherries on Stamilt Hill.
It's a north. Kyle Matheson is a fourth-generation cherry farmer. His family owns Stamelt Growers in Wenatchee, Washington, one of America's largest cherry producers. In winter, their orchards are covered in snow. Then in spring, the buds began to blossom.
Come summer, it's harvest time. What types of cherries are these? These are skeenas. These are the ones that split when they see a little bit of a rain cloud. They don't take much to split a skeena.
A split or cracked cherry is not only less attractive, it's also more prone to rot. The fragile fruit can rupture if rain water sits for too long on the skin. It goes right through the skin of the cherry and this cherry swells and swells and pretty soon it swells so much that it breaks the skin. And so the idea is get that water off the cherry so it doesn't break the skin. Decades ago, cherry farmers came up with what sounded like a crazy idea to protect their crop.
They would blow dry the cherry trees from above with helicopters. Certainly we could go out there individually or with a leaf blower, but on the magnitude that we're talking about with the number of acres and trees that we have to dry, it's just really the only effective way to move through the orchard quickly. Pilot Ryan McDonald is the owner of Northwind Aviation, a company with a fleet of helicopters on standby during the summer, ready to provide drying services for Washington farmers. What's the time window like between when it stops raining and when you need to be in the air? Typically, you want to be done drying within an hour to two hours.
After the two hour window, the tree is really taking in a lot of that water and you're going to start seeing splits. A lot of these families Uh have been here farming. the same ground. for generations. MacDonald grew up on a Washington cherry farm.
A former member of the U.S. snowboard team and an Army veteran, his love of flying inspired him to start his own aviation company focused on agriculture. For cherry drying, pilots need to fly so low that it can be a risky business. There's just a lot of hazards in doing what we do. Obviously, we're hovering over trees, so there's not an ideal landing spot for an emergency.
Inevitably, there's power lines, there's other trees, obstacles around, and so you have to maintain a high level of alertness and pay attention, even though you're mowing the grass for hours on end. Every year, unfortunately, there is certain incidents that happen in this from pilots just losing focus for a split second. McDonald demonstrated his flying technique for us, but there hasn't been much need for cherry-drying this year. It's barely rained. It's been a perfect year.
I mean, it's probably one of the best chair years I've ever remembered. While some smaller farmers might take their chances with the forecast, Kyle Matheson pays a retainer to keep pilots on standby. When you need them, you need them.
So it's kind of like you're buying insurance, though. You're buying insurance, right? It is, kind of an insurance policy. You're right. Are there summers where you might not have them fly at all?
That's the best summer.
Okay. Cherry customers are choosy. The summer fruit is often an impulse purchase. People put bananas and apples on their grocery list, but very rarely cherries. And so the cherries are if they look shiny and fresh, then people buy 'em.
And that splits, they don't really encourage that purchase. For now, pilots like Ryan MacDonald are spending the summer watching the skies. ready to take off whenever rain starts to fall. Almost every person who buys a cherry at the grocery store has no idea that someone like you was involved in getting that to the supermarket. Does that bother you at all?
Nope. There's a lot of aspects about farming that people don't know are taking place. And there is a lot of links in the chain to get food from the ground. to the stores. And it's great to be a part of it.
Steve Hartman has a story that's truly. For the birds. That is not a blue jay you're hearing. Not a robin? nor a tufted titmouse.
Those sounds are all coming from a Samuel. An 11-year-old Samuel Henderson. Samuel, who is autistic and has Tourette syndrome, can perfectly imitate 50 birds. What's the hardest bird to do? Hm, probably the barn swallow.
How's that going?
Okay. Do you ever think you might be a bird? Yeah. Some people say that I swallowed birds. But you haven't swallowed any birds.
No. Well, chickens.
Okay. The kid is a born entertainer. Yeah, I know, I got it, I got it. But since he mostly practiced his calls on the playground, alone along the back fence. A lot of kids at his Choctaw, Oklahoma school hadn't ever heard.
Until the annual Nacoma Park Intermediate School Talent Show. Samuel really wanted to compete. But no kid from Special Ed had ever participated, and this would be mostly singing and dancing and band instruments.
So bird sounds? His mother was nervous. A subkance can be mean. And the thought of that happening to him on stage in front of the whole school. It would just break my heart if that were to have happened.
But Laurie says his teacher convinced her that Samuel needed to spread his wings, so to speak.
So he took to the stage. At first, the other kids didn't know what to think. It really sounded like there was a bird in the building. Exactly like. That was like, what?
is this? This is a bowled eagle. But as he continued, And laid his passion bare. jaws dropped. The crowd came alive and Samuel was not only accepted, He was admired.
He's really brave. It takes like a lot of courage to get yourself up there. He aced it. I don't think I saw one single kid like not clapping their hands. The kids are roaring.
Oh, so Happy to see him living his dreams. My heart would just explode. It's been more than a year since that talent show. And guess who now rocks the playground? What I Samuel.
That's who. Everyone? here can do a peacock. It goes like this.
Now that's something to crow about. Nothing left to lose without my baby Birds of a feather, we should stick together. I know I said it's Sunday morning on CBS, and here again is Nora O'Donnell. More than a year after releasing her last album, Billie Eilish remains a staple on the charts and on stages around the world. Anthony Mason has a summer song.
At the open of a Billie Eilish concert, a giant light box rises in the arena. Spoiler alert, I'm in the cube, but you can't see me. I can literally see everybody so well from inside this box, but they have no idea I can see them. It feels like I'm wearing an invisibility cloak. That's a luxury you don't have most of the time.
No, that's true. That's true, but it also makes me feel a little like I'm not real. Set up. Is it real? No, okay.
Her whole career has been kind of unreal. The 23-year-old singer has well over 90 million monthly listeners on Spotify. An ardent fan base that filled the United Center in Chicago last fall. Kinda want to introduce you to everyone.
So we do that. Baby, I think you were made for me. A few hours before showtime, Do you guys wanna meet CBS Sunday morning? Billy was scurrying around backstage, introducing us to her backup singers. This is Ava.
Hi, Ava. Hi, Ava. How are you doing? Thank you. Her band.
This is Abe. Hi. Hi, Abe. How you doing? This is Solo.
Solo? Nice to meet you. And taking us, have you guys gone to the puppy room yet? To a room full of rescue dogs. Welcome to the puppy room to offer stress relief.
He adopted one the other day. She adopted one the other day too. She's filled her crew with friends, even the furry kind, because this tour is different. How's it different?
Well, I don't have my brother. I'm the bad guy. Duh. Since Eilish broke out at 14, her older brother Phineas has been her producer, songwriting partner, and backing band. And I've never done a show without my brother in my life.
I mean, I've barely performed and sung without my brother, like, ever. But they agreed it was time for her to go out on her own. I was built into the show for several years in an irreplaceable way, and I always kind of was trying to make myself replaceable. Her mom, Maggie Baird, came to the Chicago show, but her parents also aren't touring with her anymore. Does that feel strange?
Yeah, it does feel strange, yeah. But it also feels okay. And there's also a lot of jobs I used to do where I'm like, I'm happy I don't have to do that one anymore. Honestly, she won't admit it, but I think it's been really nice for her that I've been gone. And that then she can come see me, and it's not just like her whole life.
I mean, I've been her whole life for like 23 years now. Yeah, pretty good life, though. Yeah. A lot, but yeah. Us to float.
Now I just fall down. Last year, Eilish won her second Oscar for the Barbie theme. What was I made for? I was made for Billy Eilish. Billy Eilish.
Billy Eilish. The singer who has nine Grammys. also had Spotify's most streamed song of 2024. I want you to stay. Billy and Phineas had struggled with the song Birds of a Feather.
We wrote like the first half and it was super good. And then we overthought it for like months and months and months. When you sing it. Do you hear all that you went through to create it?
Sometimes, sometimes when I listen to it, I hear certain parts that I'm like. Oh. That was such a nightmare. That was so Punishing. We're never better.
We just stuck together. I know I said I'd never at least until recently. You didn't think of yourself so much as a songwriter. My horse. Has that changed?
It's changed. I did way more writing on this album than anything ever. But this is the thing I'm trying to say: that I've been writing music since I was 11. Right. But because I wasn't as fast at it, or it wasn't as good as my brother.
I kind of thought, oh, I'm not a songwriter. But when they sat down to write Billy's third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, Phineas felt uninspired. We'd get in the studio to. Right, and I'd be like, can we go play pickleball? I know.
I think I just sort of had a little fatigue there. You were in different places. Different places. In that moment, did you feel Alone? Yeah, totally.
In the past, Phineas would help pull a lyric out of his sister. This time she had to coax the words out of herself. And then in just being given that space. I'd I'd come up with it. On the last chorus of Birds of a Feather, Eilish reached for a note she wasn't sure she could hit.
Yeah. For vocal bravery, came after she started taking singing lessons. Have you found some part of yourself you didn't even know was there? Yeah. Yeah.
Oh yeah. I mean my voice. I can't. express how Gratifying and satisfying and fulfilling it has been to learn these things about my own voice that's in my body that I didn't even know I was capable of. It's liberating.
It's so liberating. Don't wanna say goodbye. For all we may think we know about Billie Eilish. The singer is just beginning to know herself. What's interesting to me is you're talking now about two things.
One is you've discovered a part of your voice you didn't even know was there, and you've discovered you're more of a songwriter than you ever thought. Yeah. Where does that leave you? Great question. We'll see.
I don't know. Oh no.
Now streaming. Hi again. TV's quirkiest crime solver. I'm Elsbeth Tassioni. I work with the police.
Is on the case. I like my outlandish theories with a heavy dose of evidence. And ready to go toe-to-toe with a cavalcade of guest stars. Are you saying that this is now a murder investigation? Starting to look that way.
Don't miss a moment of the critically acclaimed hit El's Beth, all episodes now streaming on Paramount Plus and returned CBS Fall. That sounds like fun. Obviously, murder's not fun. The first season of CBS's new hit, NCIS Origins. is now streaming.
NIS, the hell's that? Naval Investigative Service. We go where the evidence takes us. We got this. 88% fresh on rotten tomatoes.
You don't see folks trying to affect change, but here you are. Ready, no rain. Got a body waiting for us. Give us. Welcome to the team.
NCIS Origins Season 1, now streaming on Paramount Plus. And now a chapter in the story of these United States. This is LeeCount. It was likely the most important land deal in history. More than 800,000 square miles of wide open space.
that went for about two cents an acre. bought largely sight unseen by the buyer. Thomas Jefferson. Mm. The president wasn't really seeking all that land at first.
All he really wanted for the United States was the valuable port city of New Orleans. then controlled by the French. Turns out Napoleon Bonaparte needed money for his wars in Europe. And that vast territory known as Louisiana, named in honor of King Louis XIV? was a drain on his resources.
So, in 1803, he sold the whole lot, lakes, rivers, forests, and prairies. lands from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. for $15 million. Our U.S. envoys in Paris, James Monroe and Robert Livingston, were stunned.
and without even asking permission from the President, they signed on the dotted line. As our Charles Kerrald once mused. Livingston didn't even know what he was buying. Lewis and Clark hadn't yet been west to see what was there. But they signed the papers before Napoleon could change his mind.
The United States was suddenly doubled in size. It was, of course, already home to Native Americans who had no say in the matter. Thousands died trying to keep their land. from westward-moving white settlers. It was manifest destiny.
Tested. and America's expansion. Wasn't over yet. Earlier, Erin Moriarty showed us how genetic genealogy became a vital part of crime forensics. These days, with the list of cases it solved growing exponentially, she looks at how what was once revolutionary has become almost commonplace.
Michael O'Malley is the prosecuting attorney in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and a witness to a sad statistic in this country. More and more serious crimes are going unsolved. I get violent crime reports that come across my desk every day, and only a fraction of those are solved. In 2020, his office set up the Gold Unit, a team of prosecutors who use the latest forensic tools to find criminals and get them off the streets. Supervising Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Mary Weston runs it.
We review cases, mostly sexual assaults and homicides at this time, that can be reinvestigated using perhaps updated technologies. Cases involving sexual predators like John Doe number 147. That's all we knew him as. On a hot afternoon in August 1997, a man grabbed a nine-year-old boy in these woods behind a school in the Cleveland suburbs and sexually assaulted him. Twenty-six years.
It's been twenty six years. It's This has been a lot of ups and downs, you know. The nine-year-old victim is now a 37-year-old man. We sat down with him not long ago. I had doubts thinking would I ever Would we ever find the guy?
He asked that we call him Michael and not show his face. I remember uh running to my dad. Him taking me to the hospital, but the most I can remember is my mom, she was just crazy. crying hysterically on the front porch. That's blaming herself and The neighbors are trying to calm her down.
What did investigators know about this predator back in 1997? The young boy gave a description roughly of his. Age? And his body builds But really that was it. There was DNA left on the child's clothing.
In 2003, a profile was submitted to the federal database known as CODIS, which contains DNA profiles of convicted offenders. And was there any match? There was no match.
So you have a DNA profile, but you don't have a name that goes with that. I was crushed. I think my only hope is just Gone. He's going to actually get away with it. To stop the statute of limitations for rape from running out, John Doe No.
147 was indicted, but with no leads, the case went cold. At the time, we were at a loss. What are we going to do for this boy? He's not a boy anymore, but what can we do to try to help solve his case? Were you scared?
that this guy might find you again? Oh yeah. I always thought could this guy be watching? and he threatened to kill me if I had told anybody about the horrible incident. The alleged Golden State killer was careful not to leave behind any incriminating clues.
But in 2018, Michael and the rest of the world watched the Golden State killer case play out on TV. He couldn't have possibly known he'd be unmasked by his own DNA more than 40 years later. It was like a light bulb lit above my head. I'm like, oh, there's another way. The capture of notorious serial killer James D'Angelo introduced the world to investigative genetic genealogy.
Could that same technique help solve Michael's case? Investigators would need a more complete profile of the rapist's DNA. But again, there was a hitch. What happened when you went looking for the rape kit? The rape kit had been destroyed.
But they didn't give up and got a stroke of luck when a key piece of evidence was discovered at the county's crime laboratory, an original tube used for testing that could have some leftover DNA. I was very, very, very excited. But then there's the waiting. Is it going to be enough? And then are you going to be able to work with this very tiny amount of DNA?
It's nine nanograms. Astoundingly, it was enough. And in March 2022, they turned to someone familiar, Barbara Ray Venter, the genealogist who tracked down the Golden State killer. You ended up turning to a woman who's 2,500 miles away to help find a rapist here in Ohio. Absolutely.
I mean, is that what the 21st century crime solving is going to look like? It certainly is. If I had faith in anybody to do it, it was her. She had solved a few cases for us already, and I knew that this case was in good hands. It took two months.
Ray Venter came up with a list of suspects, all brothers. Ohio investigators then were able to narrow that list down to just one and asked Michael to view a photo lineup. Immediately, you know, my heart started pounding, I started getting clammy and sweaty.
Sort of like a flashback, you know. to when I seen him standing there in the woods. The man he recognized was Dennis Gribble, an Ohio resident with a long history of sex crimes. It was all investigators needed to get a search warrant. Days later they appeared on Gribble's doorstep.
We're here to get your DNA. Please open your mouth. What was his reaction?
Well, he was stunned, but he complied. And we took it back to our lab and confirmed that he was the individual who sexually assaulted Michael back in 1997. Mr. Gribble, why don't you stand, please? And that's how in May 2023, John Doe number 147, now identified as Dennis Gribble, appeared in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs in a Cleveland courtroom.
Did you take a look at him today in the courtroom? Absolutely. I was just disgusted. I have learned to be a better person and a father than the monster you are and will always be. I wanted to show him he didn't get the best of me.
I'm not your victim anymore. I'm not somebody you prey on anymore. Let the record reflect. Defendant has pled guilty. Gribble, now 75, who pleaded guilty to one count of rape, is currently serving 10 years in prison.
The only way the public can be protected is for you to spend as much time in prison as I can give you. With a federal grant to help cover the costs of testing, the Gold unit has now helped solve 13 rape cases in the Cleveland area with Barbara Ray Venter's help. Have either one of you ever met? Barbara Ray Venter. Not in person.
Although we Zoom. Yeah. I mean, is that a little odd that you're working with this investigator who really never leaves her dining room table? That's where she does all her investigations. She never leaves it again.
The technique that Ray Venner used to track down Dennis Gribble has since been used to identify other elusive criminals, including Brian Kohlberger, who earlier this month pleaded guilty to killing four University of Idaho students in 2022. Michael O'Malley says he believes genetic genealogy will someday solve less serious offenses as well. Right now it's still a very expensive tool and it takes a lot of time, but I do see it expanding in the future. Still, as the field expands, so have privacy concerns.
Some states have set limits, although there are no national laws restricting the use of genetic genealogy by law enforcement. It was a needle in a haystack. The guy would have got got away scot free. And for victims like Michael, the benefits outweigh the risks. Genetic genealogy was his only chance.
justice. Had it not been for DNA and genealogy, would have never been here today. We wouldn't even be talking about it. I'm Nora O'Donnell. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again.
next Sunday morning.
