Unlikely Informant is Key to Solving Murder of NYC Landlord | Cold Case Files | A&E

(low rumble) (tense music) (train rumble) (soft music) - Bruce was a very loving and caring person. He had a great sense of humor. He always wanted to help people and always wanted to make friends. He had many friends. - My brother was missing, we had not heard anything about him. After a couple of days and nothing shows up, then you start to think the worst. (tense music) - It all led back to Pérez. But when you can't even find a body and you don't have that witness, you have nothing. (tense music) We had a meeting about this

case

with the chief of detectives, and he said, "Well, stop everything else you're doing, this is what you're going to work on from now until you make an arrest." I'm looking Everything, everything leads to one person.

The DA's office is adamant about evidence and evidence. And the district attorney's office says, "Well, detective, how are you going to prove it? He has nothing." (tense music) In July, it's, I don't know, two or three in the morning, the phone rings (phone rings) and I say, "Yes, Detective Stradford." He says, "This is Detective So-and-So from the 73rd Precinct." I say, "Yeah, what can I do for you?" He says, "Someone found out, she knows about one of her

murder

s." And I said, "Did she tell you what

murder

she was?" He says, "She doesn't want to talk to anyone, she wants to talk to you and only you." Now I'm headed to District 73. (tense music) I sit down, I introduce myself, she tells me who hers is and she has her daughter with her.

And I said, "Hey, why don't you let them leave your daughter outside for a minute? You can talk to me." She proceeded to tell me what she knew about this

case

. And I say, "Well, why are you coming now?" And, you know, she says, "He hurt me and my mother once before, and I don't want him to do anything to my daughter or me. And I'm telling you this now, and you need to do something about it." And I asked her, would she be willing to record him talking about that? She says, "He talks about it all the time.

It's like a trophy for him, about how he got away with killing this man, and I feel bad, you know, for that man's family." We just didn't want to put her in a position where she would be discovered and harm would come to her. We got her a tape recorder, a mini tape recorder that she could use, and we showed her how to use it. How to turn it on, how to turn it off, where you should put it and what's the best time to, you know, where you should be. And in the end, you know, with the recordings of her, he told her what she did.

And, you know, she became a witness. He says, "Listen, I strangled him, I strangled him, you know, and then I tied him to a chair." -He used bleach to clean the drains, he knew how to cover the apartment with plastic, you know, on the floor and on the walls, she got a saw to cut it up. -And then he simply had the help of several homeless people. She paid them, they didn't know what they were doing and they simply deposited the bags containing Mr. Blackwood's remains at different locations in the area to be picked up for sanitation. (tense music) Most criminals don't sit down with their daughter and granddaughter in another room and explain how they murdered someone and disposed of his body, which makes it that much more disgusting.

I've heard some pretty bad things in my career. This was right up their alley. (tense music)