New Nancy Grace series highlights 1984 Ozaukee County cold case
The 1984 murder of Saukville teenager Traci Hammerberg, solved last year thanks to DNA evidence, is the focus of an installment in a new truecrime series hosted by Nancy Grace.
“Bloodline Detectives,” a new syndicated series debuting the weekend of Oct. 2, shows how DNA profiling technologies, genetic genealogy and familial searching are used to solve cold cases.
Grace, the former prosecutor best known for the crime-commentary shows she hosted on HLN and Court TV, lays out the cases, and the “bloodline detectives” use witness testimony, interviews with forensic experts and archival footage to reveal, well, whodunit.
The second episode in the series, airing the weekend of Oct. 9, is “Murder in the Snow,” on the murder of Hammerberg. Her body was found on a driveway in the Town of Grafton in the early morning hours of Dec. 15, 1984; she had been raped, strangled and bludgeoned to death.
The case remained open for more than three decades. After getting help from the Los Angeles FBI Forensic Genetic Genealogy Team, investigators sent DNA evidence from the crime scene to a genetic genealogy database, using family-tree connections to home in on a prime suspect: Philip Cross, who died of a drug overdose in 2012. A DNA card for Cross proved he was a match.
In Milwaukee, “Bloodline Detectives” will air late Sunday nights — technically, at 1 a.m. Mondays — starting Oct. 5 on WVTV-2 (Channel 24), branded as My24. The Hammerberg episode airs at 1 a.m. Oct. 12.
Other Wisconsin stations carrying “Bloodline Detectives” include WAOW/WYOW-TV in Wausau and WXOW/WQOW-TV in La Crosse. Check local listings for times.