Detectives' true crime podcast takes fresh shot at killer who vanished after caught-on-camera murder
A Colorado cold case that has stumped detectives for over a decade is getting fresh attention with the release of a new podcast hosted by the department working to solve the murder.
Chelsea Yasser, 21, was brutally murdered in an Aurora parking lot just before 10 p.m. on May 15, 2016 — just weeks after she moved to the area from Arizona.
Officers with the Aurora Police Department were initially dispatched to the scene after a caller reported finding a woman lying in the parking lot of a Burlington Coat Factory.
When police arrived, they found Yasser suffering from multiple stab wounds and subsequently transported her to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Despite Yasser’s murder being captured on grainy surveillance footage, the news of her killing barely made headlines.
"If you didn't pick up the paper or if you weren’t watching the news that day, you might not know anything about this case," Joe Moylan, a public information officer for the Aurora Police Department, told Fox News Digital.
According to police, a surveillance camera captured the moment a maroon van drove up and pulled Yasser inside.
"Chelsea was stabbed to death multiple times inside the minivan," cold case detective Jason McDonald told Fox News Digital. "And she was able to get out and stumble over the curb of the business where this occurred, where she succumbed to her injuries."
Despite the fact that the murder was caught on camera, McDonald said authorities have hit a brick wall due to the quality of the footage, which made it impossible to make out the vehicle’s license plate.
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"It’s kind of unique that the murder itself was on video, but we just haven’t been able to identify who the driver of the minivan was or the minivan itself," McDonald said.
Authorities immediately began investigating Yasser’s murder, but ultimately the case went cold after several months due to a lack of evidence and leads — until now.
"We're 10 years in. We have a few more investigative leads that we're pursuing, and we're working with DNA yet again to see what we can come up with," McDonald said, adding, "The department is kind of going outside the box and reaching a public that we may not normally reach out to, which is the podcast community."
The department combed through multiple cold cases before landing on Yasser’s story, and ultimately decided her murder would be the one to spotlight in its debut podcast, titled "The White Whale – The Chelsea Yasser Story."
"There's about a 30 minute window where we just don't know what occurred. So, it's a pretty tight timeline," Moylan said. "We think that there's somebody out there that knows who this person is."
The first installment of the five-episode series was released Monday, with the show set to dive into details surrounding Yasser’s murder and the subsequent investigation into her killing, with investigators revealing more information than ever before regarding the case.
"Our major crime and homicide unit has given us a lot more leeway to try to tell a fuller story than we might traditionally do with a more recent case," Moylan told Fox News Digital. "So I think just through the storytelling and getting to know who Chelsea was, talking about what happened the day of and then what has transpired in the years since — what we're really trying to do is identify the suspect and the driver of that van."
It also includes interviews with Yasser’s loved ones, in an effort to humanize the 21-year-old and not just portray her as a victim.
"We have become such a statistics and numbers-driven society that we often forget that there are real people behind the numbers," Moylan said, adding, "We don't want her to be a number. She was a real person. She had a family. She had friends. She had people who cared about her.
"She deserves justice," Moylan continued. "Her family deserves some peace, and the person who murdered her needs to be held accountable."
The modernized efforts to solve Yasser’s cold case reflect a growing trend throughout the country, in which police departments across the nation — including in New York City and Illinois — are turning to podcasts and social media as a way to draw attention to similar stories.
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"It's new to us," Moylan told Fox News Digital. "It's still a little bit innovative, but I mean, we've been doing this. We've been working with podcast companies and documentary companies forever on these cases, and just spreading the word and doing what we can to try to get that last piece to the puzzle and get this solved."
"The process of producing the podcast itself is a part of this investigation," McDonald added. "Like any other work we put into the case, doing the podcast is extremely beneficial, because of the potential it has with the huge audience that we're going to be able to reach."
Both Moylan and McDonald hope the series will draw fresh attention to Yasser’s case and potentially result in an arrest for her murder by relying on the public to work alongside the department’s seasoned detectives.
"Anything we can do to further the case, we're willing to do," McDonald said. "And I think this podcast is just one of those steps we're taking to further the case. I'm excited about all the results that we could potentially get."