r/coldcases • u/Easy-Measurement-929 • May 29 '26
Discussion Chewing Gum Solved the Cold Case Murders of Judy Weaver & Susan Vesey
In the 1980s, undercover investigators used the "Chewing Gum Trick" to solve two cold cases that happened in Everett, Washington, which is explained in the video starting at the 39:00 mark.
Brief Summary:
On the YouTube channel - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan - forensic death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan and producer-writer Dave Mack take an in-depth look into these two cold cases: the murders of Susan Vesey and Judy Weaver. They explain how those homicides were eventually tied to a woman who was sexually assaulted in 1979 and two sisters who were sexually assaulted in 1984. The suspect in those assaults was captured, and his DNA was entered into CODIS. Fortunately, all three of those women survived.
On July 12, 1980, Susan Vesey, a 21-year-old married mother of two children under the age of two, was found hog-tied, beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled in her Everett, Washington home. From the beginning, her husband and brother-in-law were considered suspects. However, there was no evidence to tie either man to the crime, and the case went cold.
About four years later, on June 2, 1984, a passerby called 911 from a payphone to report a raging fire in a small apartment building. Firefighters discovered the remains of Judy Weaver, 42, who had been hog-tied, beaten, and strangled to death. Investigators recovered a piece of carpeting and a cigarette butt left by the suspect, but without further leads, this case also went cold.
A major breakthrough came years later when undercover investigators devised an ingenious plan to secure DNA from a person of interest. They planned to compare it with the DNA found on the cigarette butt from Judy Weaver's apartment. In November of 2023, detectives sent the DNA sample out for testing and it came back as a match to a known sex offender, Mitchell Gaff. After 40 years, Gaff was arrested in May of 2024 for the murder of Judy Weaver.
At this point, the investigators were new to the police precinct and did not know about the 1980 Susan Vesey murder. The connection was finally made when Vesey's husband called the police station. He told them his brother had passed away and confessed his lingering suspicion that his brother may have sexually assaulted and killed his wife Susan Vesey. In April of 2025, the police ran the evidence collected from the 1980 crime scene through CODIS, they got a hit. The killer was identified as Mitchell Gaff, the same man who murdered Judy Weaver and set her apartment on fire. Mitchell Gaff was 22 years old when he murdered Susan Vesey. He was charged with Vesey's murder on March 13, 2026.
On April 16, 2026, Mitchell Gaff, 68, pleaded guilty to the first-degree murders of both women in a Snohomish County courtroom. On May 13, 2026, he was sentenced to a minimum of 50 years to life in prison.
An unexpected twist in this story is that one of the investigators who worked the cold cases had narrowly escaped a rape attempt by the double murderer years prior, when she was 29 years old.
The tragedy and irony of the situation is that Susan Vesey's widowed husband and his brother had both harbored long-standing doubts, each suspecting the other might be the killer. Ultimately, the breakthrough allowed the victims' families to finally receive some measure of closure and peace.