EP6 | Cold

It’s a cold winter’s night in December of 1987. 17-year-old Barbara Blatnik is party hopping in her home town of Garfield Heights, Ohio. Shortly after midnight, despite the distance and the cold, she decides to walk to her boyfriend’s house. Early the next morning, a custodian finds her naked body along a service road of the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, nearly a 30 minute drive away. She had been raped and strangled.

For 32 years Barbara’s case went unsolved. Then, in 2018 an investigative journalist and rocket scientist joined forces through the Porchlight Project, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing funding for new DNA testing through genetic genealogy to break cold cases. In only a matter of days they cracked the case wide open, bringing justice to Barbara and her family.

Join Sword and Scale as we interview the detective who worked unceasingly for three decades as well as the investigative journalist and scientist behind the genetic genealogy that was instrumental in solving this cold case.

Crew

Host: Mike Boudet (@SwordandScale/@MBoudet)

Creator: Ash Patiño (@AshesToAshTV)

Director: Mark Serao (@Peacemaker_Picture_Society)

Director of Photography: David Patiño (@DavidPatino)

Producer: Dana Serao (@Peacemaker_Picture_Society)

Camera/Audio: Nicholas Goncalves (@NicholasAntonioGoncalves)

Additional Crew Listed on Episode

If you have a true crime story you want to share with the Sword & Scale team, please reach out to Ash Patiño ash@swordandscale.com.