The Officer Who Investigated His Own Crime - Episode 100

She Texted Goodbye. He Described the Wrong Death.: The Death of Molly Marie Young

A 21-year-old woman was found on the floor of her boyfriend's bedroom with a gunshot wound above her left eye. When her boyfriend called 911, he described an overdose — never once mentioning the visible wound to her head. The gun that killed her left no residue on her hands. So how did she pull the trigger?

In this episode, we explore the eighteen-minute gap between Molly's final text and the estimated moment of the shooting, a .45 caliber handgun with no identifiable fingerprints on the trigger or magazine, and three unidentified male DNA profiles found under Molly's fingernails that investigators never matched. Was this a young woman in crisis who followed through on a desperate threat, or did someone in that apartment already know what had happened before anyone called for help? The forensic science and the 911 recording pull in two directions that cannot both be true.

Case Details

Victim: Molly Marie Young, 21, college student and aspiring artist.

Date: March 24, 2012.

Location: Carbondale, Illinois, USA.

Case Status: The case remains officially unsolved and active. Jackson County State's Attorney Joe Cervantes, elected in 2020, has stated he would have prosecuted the primary person of interest and has filed a motion to unrecuse Jackson County from further investigation.

Episode Key Points

- Molly's gunshot residue was found only on her right sweatshirt sleeve — not on either of her hands — despite the wound being classified as a contact shot.

- Richie Minton Jr. called 911 and described Molly as having overdosed and bled through her nose, never mentioning the visible gunshot wound above her left eyebrow.

- Three distinct male DNA profiles were recovered from under Molly's fingernails; only Richie's DNA was submitted for comparison, and the other two profiles were never identified.

- Richie's cell phone was in his possession at the police station for approximately thirty minutes before investigators took it, and when forensic tools were applied, the device failed to connect — a system his father, a digital forensics expert, had been specifically trained to operate.

Molly Young, Carbondale Illinois homicide, Jackson County unsolved 2012, Southern Illinois University death, undetermined ruling Illinois, homicide, forensic science, true detective, criminal minds, investigation, murder, unsolved mysteries, true crime English.