48 Hours Season 39 Episode 2 - The Detective and the Chewing Gum Sting

Airdate: 2026-Oct-17

Episode summary:

Susan Vesey, a 21-year-old mother of two, was murdered in 1980. Four years later, Judy Weaver, a divorced mother, was sexually assaulted and strangled in her home. For more than 40 years, no one was held responsible. Then, cold-case detective Susan Logothetti linked both cases to Mitchell Gaff, a known predator released in 2018 after serving 33 years for violent sex crimes. But she needed fresh DNA to charge him, so she helped devise "the gum ruse," an undercover plan to get that DNA from a piece of chewed gum. The DNA tied Gaff to both murders and he was sentenced. Detective Logothetti did her first and only television interview on the case with 48 HOURS correspondent Peter Van Sant in "The Detective and the Chewing Gum Sting." 

About 48 Hours series:

“48 Hours Mystery is television’s most popular true-crime series, investigating shocking cases and compelling real-life dramas with jou...Show more >