New Clues in Brittany Zimmerman's Murder

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record ," April 4, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: University of Wisconsin Madison students on edge. A killer has struck, killing a coed, 21-year-old Brittany Zimmerman found dead Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. by her boyfriend inside the apartment they shared. Brittany's killer has not been arrested. Now, here is what we have also learned. In the hours before Brittany's murder, there were bizarre incidents involving intruders and yelling in the area of her apartment. Are those incidents connected to her murder?

• Video: Watch Greta's interview

Joining us live in Madison, Wisconsin, is Abby Sears, the city editor for The Daily Cardinal, the University of Wisconsin's independent campus newspaper. Welcome back to the show, Abby. And what have you learned in the last 24 hours about this investigation?

ABBY SEARS, THE DAILY CARDINAL: Hi, Greta. The two main things we've learned in the last 24 hours in this investigation are, one, that police are still searching through Brittany's home and collecting evidence, collecting items from the home to be taken for forensic testing. The other thing we've learned is that they are looking at the homeless population in the neighborhood and trying to speak with those people to see if they know anything more about the investigation.

VAN SUSTEREN: Do you know when she was last seen before — her body was discovered Wednesday about 1:00, but when was she last seen?

SEARS: The police have not released when she was last seen, although I've heard some things about her being on campus and in classes throughout the week.

VAN SUSTEREN: What year is she a student? And what's she studying?

SEARS: She was actually a third year senior. She had amassed quite a bit of credits throughout high school, so I believe she entered college as a sophomore. And so she was technically a junior, but a third year student. And she was about to go to medical school. She was studying microbiology and immunology.

VAN SUSTEREN: And what I find unusual — I mean, I don't know if you know the facts of this, but her boyfriend found her about 1:00 p.m. He's not a suspect. It's the screaming was heard, or the yelling, about 12 hours earlier. Where was the boyfriend that night? Did he not spend the night at home?

SEARS: I'm not sure where the boyfriend was. Police have not released any of that information. But what I have found interesting is when I was at the scene of the crime, I actually spoke to several students who actually heard that yelling. These students were males and they lived in the same block as Brittany. They heard a man yelling expletives and then running away. And both of these students said that they didn't even think anything of this incident until the homicide investigation the next day.

VAN SUSTEREN: Abby, thank you. And I hope you'll come back as the investigation goes forward. Thank you, Abby.

SEARS: Great. Thank you, Greta.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, how do you find the killer? Where should the police start? Joining us live in Spokane, Washington, is former LAPD homicide detective Mark Fuhrman. Mark, we don't have a whole lot of information, but I guess every investigation starts without a lot of information. So where do you start?

MARK FUHRMAN, FMR LAPD HOMICIDE DETECTIVE, FOX ANALYST: Well, you start at the crime scene. And there is another homicide, of a 31-year-old man that's not a student. And he died by being stabbed to death, staggered from his house. So they have DNA on that suspect and a description. And now they're looking at that scene, and hopefully, they have DNA that they can either eliminate that other suspect from that other case and now they have a singular homicide, or they can expand that, get into the database of DNA or fingerprints. And hopefully, they have something there. If not, I think they're really approaching this in a very streetwise fashion by talking to the homeless people that are out and about during times when everybody else is inside.

VAN SUSTEREN: Mark, I read a report on line tonight that there's a new incident (ph) report released. At least, this is (INAUDIBLE) is that the Dane County coroner is saying that she died from a "complexity of traumatic injuries." I'm not exactly — it sounds like she got beaten to death.

FUHRMAN: It does sound something along those regards. Also, it could be camouflaged — you know, they can camouflage blunt force trauma at the same time stabbing — you know, stabbing wounds from an object like a claw hammer, where the claw part can stab you, the hammer part can create blunt force trauma. So I'm really a little confused. I've never seen something described quite like that.

But — and nonetheless, it was not a suicide or a natural. We could conclude that. They're in a homicide investigation. But like the Marina (ph) case, the man in the house, the weapon was a paring knife. I doubt that if the suspect brought it, it was to be used as a homicide tool. It could have been acquired in the house. And quite possibly, this weapon in this case was acquired in the house also.

VAN SUSTEREN: And we should remind the viewers that last summer, Kelly Nolan, who was a student from another Wisconsin school who was in Madison for the summer — she was found murdered, but that was a nighttime murder. And then you had the Marina one you're speaking about. That was in January, a home invasion. And this appears to be a home invasion.

FUHRMAN: Yes, you know, I have a tough time connecting all three of these. There's enough differences. The Nolan case, I think that was a very organized offender that not only was able to talk his way into the presence of the victim, but then somehow got control of her, then tried to dispose of the body and hide the body. And there's no leads in that case, or at least none that we know of. Very organized, where these other two cases are very disorganized — forced entry, yelling, screaming, chasing somebody down the street, leaving a house not knowing if the victim's dead or alive. And this victim, the Zimmerman case, the young lady is dead.

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