How to Catch A Criminal: Child's Play

Peoria Arizona, February 24, 1998. 31 year-old father of four, John Sansing, high on crack cocaine, hatches a plan. Sansing decided he needed to purchase more crack for he and his wife, but without any money to spend he would have to find another way. To get the drugs he needed something valuable to trade, and to get valuables he would need to rob someone. The Sansings also had to feed their four children, and because drug habits are expensive—especially for a pair of users—they didn't have money for food either. Sansing told his wife, Kara, he contacted the Living Springs Church in nearby Glendale, and had arranged for a charitable food delivery. The food was only phase one of the plan, however, as Sansing stated he intended to rob the delivery person.

John Sansing's misdeeds began at an early age. According to Kara Sansing's adopted mother, Sansing lived with his mother in Alabama during his youth. He was a thief and drug addict from a young age and served time in juvenile detention centers. In 1984, then in his late teen years, Sansing was sent to live with his father in Utah. There he met his wife in Salt Lake City and the couple soon had their first son. Sansing would rack up a slew of felony convictions in the state of Utah before moving his family to Arizona in 1995.

At approximately 5 p.m., 41 year-old Trudy Calabrese arrived at the Sansing home. She brought the box of food to the needy couple and chatted with them briefly. As Calabrese began to leave, she was attacked by Sansing. He restrained her and beat her unconscious with a club as she pleaded and prayed, and Sansing's children watched on. Sansing brought Calabrese to a bedroom where he raped her, stabbed her repeatedly, tied a bag around her head and neck, and stole her jewelry. With enough jewelry to buy their next fix, Sansing left the house to make the exchange. He later tried, in vain, to hide Calabrese's body behind a shed in the backyard. When authorities came looking for her at the Sansing residence, they located her body in the yard, and arrested John Sansing at his sister's home a short time later. Sansing was charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, sexual assault and  armed robbery. Sansing's wife, Kara, was also charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping. The Sansing children would testify Calabrese begged them to call police and cried that she didn't want to die before their father ordered them to watch television in another room. Both John and Kara would plead guilty to their charges and John Sansing was sentenced to death. Sadly there is no accounting for the trauma suffered by the Sansing children from watching their parents' drug fueled crimes, but otherwise this case was closed without much trouble. Tragically, as it turns out, this was not the first time Sansing subjected his offspring to his depravity.

Holladay Utah, February 1, 1991. 78-year-old grandmother Lucille Johnson was seen sweeping her front porch in the afternoon. This was the last time she was seen alive. The next day, a family member went to check on her after not being able to reach Johnson, and found her dead in her home, clearly not from natural causes. Johnson had been clubbed to death inside her home and robbed of a necklace and ring she was known to wear. There were no signs of forced entry, indicating whoever attacked her was allowed inside the house. Lucille lived alone and was known as a very tidy person, making the mess inside the home standout. Near the front door and across the living room, LEGO bricks were strewn. Lucille kept toys like this on hand for her grandchildren to play with when they would visit. Her family stated she would not have left toys out like that and would not have let a stranger inside her home. However, as a Grandmother, she had a soft spot for children, and may have allowed someone in if they and their child were in need. Investigators collected the LEGO bricks and DNA from under Johnson's fingernails, however no DNA match was found. Unfortunately, no one was charged with Lucille Johnson's murder and the case would remain cold for over 20 years.

In 2013 Detectives with Utah's Unified Police Department in the Greater Salt Lake area, reopened the case. They received a tip from a nephew of John Sansing regarding a murder in 1991. The nephew stated he heard on more than one occasion Kara Sansing arguing with John. During these arguments she threatened to tell Police about the elderly woman he killed in Utah in 1991. This specific information in mind, Detectives looked for matching cases. They came across the Johnson murder and reopened the case. With their prime suspect named, they began the work of tying Sansing to the case.

The similarities between the murders of Trudy Calabrese and Lucille Johnson cannot be denied. Both victims were female, likely making them easier prey. Both were kind enough to help a stranger, Calabrese with the food delivery, and Johnson welcoming a stranger and a child into her home. Both victims were beaten with a club, with Calabrese having the misfortune of surviving the initial beating only to suffer more horrors after. Both had their jewelry stolen, making robbery the most likely motivation for the attacks. All this evidence, however, is only circumstantial. The cold case detectives would need something more concrete in order to charge Sansing with Johnson's murder.

The DNA found under Lucille Johnson's fingernails was re-examined, and this time it produced a match in the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). At the time of Johnson's murder, CODIS was still in its infancy. Although Sansing had plenty of interactions with the law during his time in Utah, his fingerprints were not available for comparison in 1991. By 2013, however, Sansing was a death row inmate awaiting execution, and his fingerprints were most definitely in the database. Technology caught up with Sansing—as it does many criminals—and he could now be positively placed at the scene. A subsequent interview with Kara Sansing confirmed John had admitted to her around the time of the murder he had killed an elderly woman in Holladay. As this evidence erased any doubt about Sansing's guilt, investigators still looked to explain the LEGO bricks found at the scene. The bricks were examined and several latent fingerprints were found. Lining up the ages of Sansing's children, his oldest would have been 5 years old at the time of the murder. Now an adult, detectives were able to match his fingerprints to those on the LEGO bricks. It is believed the child was used as ploy to gain entry to Johnson's home and was left to play with the toys while Sansing committed the murder. Sansing was formally charged with the murder of Lucille Johnson in 2014 and pled guilty. He remains on death row in Arizona.

While Sansing's unwillingness to give up his life of crime eventually caught up with him, it was the investigators' dedication to the smallest detail, such as a fingerprint on a LEGO, which put all the pieces together.