Conspiracy of silence

For almost three decades, Jim and Glenna Chandler have lived with the overwhelming grief of losing their daughter.

"You'd have thought after all this time you'd be able to talk about it, as you can tell, it's still hard," Jim Chandler told Dateline.

And they have had to live with the bitterness of knowing someone had gotten away with it.

Back in 1979, Janet Chandler was a 22-year-old music student at Hope College, in Holland, Mich. She was working nights as a desk clerk at a local motel.

Her parents' worst fears about that motel job were realized in the early morning hours of Jan. 31.

The Chandlers were frantic. Jim Chandler and his son, Dennis, searched for Janet all night.

A day later, a snow plow driver turned into a highway crossover south of Holland and spotted something buried in the snow. It was the naked and battered body of a woman, thrown away like road-side trash.

Janet's funeral took place in the same church where she had sung in the choir.

Janet's recording of 'My Jesus' was played at the service.

The Chandlers say after that day, they never listened to Janet's recordings again -- that it was too painful.

The brutal murder stunned the quiet, lakeside town of Holland. The police launched an intensive investigation, at one point focusing on some local men who had done some bar room bragging about being involved. But to the Chandler's surprise, no arrests ever were made.

The Chandlers have always believed someone from the motel must have seen something -- or heard -- something the night Janet was abducted. Not just the killer, but maybe others, too, were keeping a terrible secret. And police investigators were convinced someone was holding something back.

But no witnesses came forward. No one talked.

And Janet Chandler was all but forgotten.

But in 2003, the Chandlers discovered someone who did remember Janet. They were approached by Professor David Schock and his students at Hope College -- the same Christian school Janet had attended. They wanted to make a documentary about the unsolved case, marking the 25th anniversary of Janet's death.

At the time, no one could have imagined the far-ranging impact that documentary would have. In fact, in the beginning, some of the students thought the project wasn't such a great idea.

But when they met with the Chandlers and saw their pain, the students said they wanted to help.

It was easy to see why the students were so taken with the Chandlers. When we met them, they told us about Janet.

The students did their own interview with the Chandlers for their documentary.

And they met Dennis, Janet's younger brother.

The students said the experience left them a bit shaken, but even more committed to finding out what happened -- and who might be keeping silent about Janet's murder.

And so they began to document Janet's life and death, by first going back to Jan. 31, 1979: the night of Janet's murder.

Just after 2 a.m., police received a call from the motel where Janet worked, the Blue Mill Inn.

Holland police detective Jim Fairbanks had raced to the scene.

Of course, that missing clerk was Janet Chandler.

Fairbanks said Chandler's jacket was still on the chair, and her Salem cigarette still smoldered in the ashtray.

Fairbanks interviewed the man who had called 911, Robert Lynch., but Lynch said he had seen nothing.

The motel was full of guests that night, but Fairbanks said he could not find a single eyewitness. The students wondered: how could no one have seen or heard the abduction ?

The students say perhaps their toughest assignment was visiting that desolate highway turn-off where Janet's body had been dumped in the snow, and seeing the crime scene photos. Those photos showed Janet had been strangled with some kind of rope, wire or belt.

And the more the students learned about the crime, the more questions they had. When had Janet been killed? Was it just hours after the robbery, or was it closer to 24 hours later, when her body was found? And if she'd been alive for 24 hours, what happened to her after the abduction?

But 25 years after the murder, could a group of students begin to untangle the mystery that the police could not solve? Could they find out who killed Janet Chandler?

The student documentary "Who killed Janet Chandler?" opened at the Knickerbocker Theater in Holland, Mich., just days shy of the 25th anniversary of her murder.

The students had brought Janet Chandler's story back to life, but were no closer to solving the crime than the police had been 25 years earlier, no closer to figuring out how a young woman could be abducted and murdered without a single person seeing or hearing a thing. And yet the documentary was about to light a candle of justice.

Professor David Schock had been lobbying the police to use his students' documentary as a jumping-off point for a cold case investigation. But it wasn't an easy sell.

John Slenk heads up the state police cold case unit for southwestern Michigan. One big negative in this case, he says, was the fact that modern technology was not going to help solve it.

The case would hinge on tracking down witnesses and getting them to talk. No one had talked in 25 years, but investigators hoped the publicity generated by the documentary might encourage witnesses who'd kept silent in 1979 to come forward now.

And like the Chandlers, Slenk believed someone out there knew the truth. He assembled what he called a dream team of investigators: detectives Dave Van Lopick, Mike Jafri and Geoff Flohr from the state police. And detectives Rob Borowski and Roger Van Lier from the Holland police. They began by learning everything they could about Janet Chandler.

The cold case team went all out, casting a wide net to find Janet's old friends and co-workers. And Det. Jafri said they used the student documentary to jog memories -- and perhaps stir some guilt.

One of their first interviews was with Janet's old roommate, Laurie Swank. Swank was also Janet's boss at the motel, but was not working the night of the crime. They showed her a clip from the documentary, and Swank -- even after all these years -- appeared to be deeply affected.

Yet Swank said she knew nothing and saw nothing that could shed light on that horrific night.

The cold case team also tracked down a group of former security guards who had been living at the Blue Mill Inn in late 1978 and early 1979. The men had been in town to police a bitter strike at a chemical plant. But the strike ended soon after Janet Chandler's murder. Detective Roger Van Lier said the police never had a chance to question them all.

Could any of these security guards have seen what happened to Janet? In interviews, most of them said they barely remembered Janet, or didn't know any details about the abduction and murder.

With no one talking, the investigation seemed to be at a dead end after more than a year of work. But everything was about to change.

Johnson was a former guard who lived at the Blue Mill Inn. He said he'd heard a rumor, just a rumor, that a guard named Robert Lynch was involved in Janet's murder.

The cold case team had heard Lynch's name before. Remember that 911 call?

It was made by Robert Lynch. Detective Geoff Flohr listened to that call again, and something about it seemed phony.

The team brought Lynch in for questioning and found him evasive.

Now the cold case team felt it had its first possible lead, and the detectives went after anyone who had been close to Lynch back in 1979, once again showing clips from the documentary.

Keith had been Lynch's roommate at the Blue Mill Inn, and he saw something in that documentary, something that would lead to the discovery of key evidence in the investigation. It was a photograph of Janet. Keith told police he was the one who had taken it back in 1979, and he showed them other photos he'd shot during that time.

The Blue Mill Inn, the detectives soon learned, was party central for the guards, with a conference area set aside for big gatherings, and a rolling, room-to-room party that ran all hours of the day and night.

And there was Janet, a girl they said they barely knew, drinking, sitting on someone's lap, wearing a guard's uniform. Janet, the night clerk, police say, got a lot of attention from the men.

Robert Lynch was in some of those pictures as well, and he was brought back in for questioning.

Detective Geoff Flohr was the lead interrogator. He was brought on to the cold case team because of his skill at breaking down suspects.

In fact, Flohr had earned the nickname "The Closer" for his ability to break suspects, and now the closer went to work on Robert Lynch. He showed a clip of Janet's father, who appeared in the student documentary.

Lynch was affected by what he saw.

And finally, under intense questioning, Lynch cracked.

But what really happened? The cold case team had discovered what appeared to be the scene of the crime from a real witness. With Lynch's revelation, a conspiracy of silence was about to unravel.

"Listen to me, I want you to tell me the truth, and I want you to tell me the truth right now," Geoff Flohr says to Robert Lynch in the interrogation tape.

The cold case team was trying to crack a 25-year-old conspiracy of silence surrounding the murder of Janet Chandler, but first they had to crack Robert Lynch. He'd told detectives Janet Chandler was at a party the night she was killed.

Over 18 separate interrogation sessions, Det. Geoff Flohr broke Lynch down, and Lynch finally revealed the truth about that party.

And the truth about the murder plot was so elaborate and so unimaginable it even shocked these veteran detectives.

Robert Lynch said the conspiracy began to unfold the night of Jan. 31, 1979, at the Blue Mill Inn. He and another guard named Bubba Nelson told Janet there was a surprise party in her honor and got her ready to go.

According to Lynch, Janet left the motel calmly, expecting a surprise. It could be one reason why, perhaps, no witnesses had reported hearing a struggle. But what about that robbery? Police had found the motel safe open, and $500 missing.

In reality, Robert Lynch and Bubba Nelson were the robbers. They stole the money, then Lynch made that phony 911 call.

Janet was driven across town to a lakeside cottage where one of the guards had been staying, Lynch said -- the scene of the so-called party. Only after she was a prisoner in that cottage did she realize the frightening truth.

Now, Det. Geoff Flohr pushed Lynch even harder.

Finally, Lynch confessed to being one of the men who assaulted Janet, and strangled her with a belt.

The lakeside cottage where the murder took place stood here. It was torn down years ago, but during his interrogation Robert Lynch vividly resurrected it and all the horrors that took place here.

He said while he and other guards were raping Janet in an upstairs bedroom, there was a party going on downstairs. Lynch said there were perhaps 25 partygoers, both men and women. No one stepped in to stop the relentless assault on Janet, and for more than 25 years, no one went to the police.

Robert Lynch was arrested and charged with murder, but he still had one more surprise for the detectives. He said it wasn't just men who planned the attack; women were in on it as well.

He said one woman in particular was intent on getting Janet.

So detectives started to track down Janet's girlfriends from 1979. Diane Marsman worked at the Blue Mill Inn with Janet. She too had kept silent for years, but under repeated questioning, she finally she opened up for the first time.

Marsman said she'd watched from the balcony of the Blue Mill Inn that night when guard Bubba Nelson abducted Janet, and that she went to the party with another woman who worked at the motel, Cheri Ruiz.

Ruiz's admissions about the plans for Janet were even more shocking.

But remember, there was one women who Robert Lynch said was a primary planner. Finally, he remembered her name.

In 1979, Janet's roommate was named Laurie Swank. She'd been the night manager at the Blue Mill Inn at the time of the murder. Remember, when police first questioned her, Swank had even professed grief and disgust at the crime.

Detective Geoff Flohr, the closer, confronted Swank with Lynch's allegation.

And after several more interrogations...

The dam of denial started to break open.

And she finally admitted she was in on the gang rape plan from the start -- and was even there when it ended.

The 25-year silence finally had been shattered. Laurie Swank told investigators the whole story: that she not only helped plan the assault, but witnessed it.

On Sept. 20, 2006, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox announced that, in addition to Robert Lynch, five others were now charged with first-degree murder: Laurie Swank and former guards Carl Paiva, James ' Bubba' Nelson, Freddy Parker, and Tony Williams.

After 27 years of freedom, the defendants were going to have to answer for what they did a lifetime ago.

Facing life in prison, Robert Lynch and Laurie Swank pleaded guilty. Both were sentenced to 20 years in prison, and both agreed to testify against their co-conspirators.

But there were still unanswered questions. Police now knew how she died. But why was Janet Chandler targeted in the first place?

The news that five people had been charged in the 1979 murder of Janet Chandler broke like a winter storm over western Michigan.

For Janet's parents, Jim and Glenna Chandler, the news was welcome -- and long overdue.

By the time the police arrested the guards, many of the students whose documentary had helped to reignite the investigation had graduated from Hope College and had moved on.

But getting arrests and getting justice are sometimes two different things. The prosecution would be in the hands of Donna Pendergast, Michigan state assistant attorney general.

The prosecution would have to rely on the credibility of its witnesses -- but that much-anticipated witness, Robert Lynch, would not be among them. He suffers from alcohol-related dementia.

Instead, the prosecution would rely on the women who saw what had happened to Janet Chandler: the friends who had betrayed her, starting with Laurie Swank.

She was Janet's roommate and had once professed to be Janet's best friend. Swank testified that Janet was popular with the guards staying at the Blue Mill Inn. And that, it turns out, had a lot to do with why Swank began to hate Chandler.

Swank testified that in January 1979, she had a crush on defendant Carl Paiva, the supervisor of the guards. But Janet was in the way.

It was a classic love triangle. Laurie wanted Carl; Carl wanted Janet; and Janet was playing the field, which made Carl -- and some of the other guards -- angry. Swank admitted she would tell Paiva about Janet's alleged sexual escapades.

Carl Paiva "took care of it," Swank testified, by coming up with a plan to humiliate and punish Janet. She said other guards Janet had dated, and then dumped, also were in on the plan.

Swank said the plan was for Bubba Nelson to take Janet to the cottage where Carl Paiva was housed during the strike. Then Robert Lynch would stage the robbery at the Blue Mill Inn and make that phony 911 call to the police. Janet was taken away around 2 a.m. and held at the cottage until the party started the next afternoon.

Swank testified to the assault on Janet in graphic detail.

Swank described a depraved scene: she said there were spectators in the room who actually cheered on the rapists, and there was even someone taking pictures of it all.

And Swank admitted she was there for Janet's last, agonizing moments.

Witnesses Cheri Ruiz and Diane Marsman say they looked into that torture chamber as well, and backed key portions of Swank's testimony. But if they truly had any remorse about what happened, why had they stayed silent for so many years? Diane Marsman said it was because Bubba Nelson had threatened her at the time of the assault.

And Cheryl Ruiz also said she had been threatened repeatedly.

And it wasn't only threats that ensured the code of silence. There were those photos. A guard named Ron Wirick testified that Carl Paiva had directed him to take pictures that night.

Wirick said everyone at the party knew Paiva was holding on to those pictures and could use them against them if they went to the police. The pictures never were found.

In her closing argument, Donna Pendergast asked the jury to consider Janet's suffering, and the cover-up that had kept this crime secret for so long.

And that conspiracy of silence has been unraveled by the evidence in this case.

The 1979 murder case of Janet Chandler finally was in the hands of the jury....and as Jim and Glenna Chandler awaited the verdict, they say memories of their daughter came flooding back.

Her beautiful voice. Her playful personality. And the incredible loss they had endured for so many years.

In court, the usually stoic Glenna was emotional and apprehensive.

The jury came back with a verdict on the second day.

Arthur 'Carl' Paiva was found guilty of first-degree murder. The three other defendants were found guilty of second-degree murder, and guilty of additional charges. All four now faced life in prison. Jim Chandler softly whispered "amen."

Jim Fairbanks was the first detective on the case 28 years earlier. He had pushed hard for the cold case investigation.

Former Hope College Professor David Schock celebrated as well. He and his students had helped to revive the investigation with their documentary.

Before, during and after this trial, one question haunted those who knew the story of Janet Chandler's murder. Even taking the threats into account, how could so many people keep such a terrible secret for so long?

After the verdict, we explored that question. Why, in 25 years, had no one ever called the police? Why had so many people gone along with the conspiracy of silence?

Two of the witnesses who had kept silent about Janet Chandler's murder, Cheri Ruiz and Diane Marsman, agreed to talk to Dateline.

The women say they kept in touch with each other sporadically through the years.

But while Marsman regrets not speaking out, she says other people should not be so quick to judge.

Lt. John Slenk, who supervised the cold case investigation, says he does understand.

Geoff Flohr, the cold case team closer, doesn't buy it.

The four men convicted of murdering Janet Chandler would be sentenced a few weeks after the trial. It would be the final stop on the Chandlers' long journey to find their daughter's killers, and, perhaps, some peace.

Though their daughter's killers had been found guilty, there still remained one more heart-wrenching task for Jim and Glenna Chandler: speaking at the sentencing.

They meekly approached the microphone.

"Glenna and I have been waiting for 28 years for this day," said Jim Chandler.

"They thought they got away with it, and for the most part they did. But because of the hard work and dedication of the cold case team and others, they've finally been brought to justice."

Glenna Chandler said, "I thank you for upholding the laws of the land and the jurors for seeing the true evidence in returning a verdict of guilty of the torturing and murder of our beloved daughter."

One by one, the four convicted men shuffled to the podium to hear their sentence. Carl Paiva.

All four men were sentenced to life without parole. It was a bittersweet victory for the Chandlers.

And Jim Chandler offered thanks to the cold case team.

There had been a picture of Janet posted in the homicide division of the Holland police for 28 years. Now it could come down. The prosecutor says she also kept a picture of Janet nearby through the trial .

The Chandlers came by when we were interviewing David Schock and his students to thank them personally for the documentary that touched the conscience of a community -- and sparked the investigation that finally caught Janet's killers.

For the students, the experience of seeing their class project grow into a major prosecution was a life-changing experience.

Later, with David Schock and the family, the Chandlers celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary, and remembered that had she lived, Janet would have been 52 years old.

For 28 years, the Chandlers had been in the dark about the fate of their daughter. Now they knew all the facts of Janet's last, painful hours. But the most important fact had not changed.

The morning after the sentencing, in a freezing rain, Jim and Glenna made a short drive to Janet's grave.

At the grave, Mr. Chandler said "Thank you, Lord, for bringing us closure, for the conviction of these criminals."

Mrs. Chandler said "Someday, Jan, we'll all be together."

You may wonder, with so many people involved in Janet Chandler's death, why more were not charged. Prosecutors say they had to make tough choices, but in the end decided to charge only those with the strongest evidence against them.