Linda Zapata

And I'm sure I was 10, 11 years old.

Now, some 30 years later, Detective Stats was convinced that Jean had been killed.

But there was no body, no hard evidence at all.

It's one thing to believe something.

It's another thing to solve something.

And it's a completely different thing to charge it and be able to prove it in a court of law.

Early on in her investigation, Detective Stats went to the house where the Zapatas lived.

There, she discovered a crawl space in the basement.

It had not been mentioned in the original police reports in 1976.

So Detective Statz enlisted the help of some specially trained colleagues who can detect even the faintest scent of human remains.

Madison Police Officer Karen Corcoran has trained and handled cadaver dogs like Cleo and Molly for the last 10 years.

But it's hard to imagine that a dog can detect something from 30 years ago in a basement.

On January 5th, 2005, Detective Statz, Officer Corcoran, and Cleo went to work in the crawl space.

Then a second dog reacted the same way, and the police started excavating the crawl space.

We found some hairs.

We collected bug carcasses and Burger King cup.

We found things, but we did not find anything that we could tie to Jeanette Zapata.

Even though the search didn't turn up any useful evidence, Linda Zapata was pretty sure police were on the right track and looking at the right suspect, her own father.

I was hoping, hoping dearly that my dad would turn out to be innocent.

Her brother and sister believe he didn't do it.