A Promise to Helene

**Lester Holt** (0:00)
I'm Lester Holt, tonight on Dateline, a cold case mystery and a 40-year mission to solve it.

**Shannon Jensen** (0:07)
What I focus on when I'm working a case, what drives me the most is the victims. I wanted to speak for them, I wanted to speak for Helene.

**Kimberly LaTourette** (0:18)
I just turned on the news, woman found murdered in Denver, Colorado.

**Janet Pruszynski** (0:23)
I just grabbed my son and screamed and cried.

**Kimberly LaTourette** (0:29)
Was it somebody she worked with at the radio station? Could it be the boyfriend that she just broke up with in December?

**Josh Mankiewicz** (0:35)
You're giving the detectives names of people.

**Kimberly LaTourette** (0:38)
Yes, we looked at everything. I was even like, where was Ted Bundy at that time?

**Shannon Jensen** (0:42)
We have to look under every stone, every pebble.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (0:45)
You're talking about hundreds of names here.

**Shannon Jensen** (0:47)
Hundreds, thousands.

**Janet Pruszynski** (0:48)
She's driven. Her tenacity is just remarkable.

**Shannon Jensen** (0:53)
I knew I was going to find him. It was a competition between him and I.

**Tommy Barella** (0:57)
The heart is pounding like, oh my god, this is real.

**Shannon Jensen** (1:00)
I said, I found him. I know who killed Helene.

**Lester Holt** (1:14)
Here's Josh Mankiewicz with A Promise to Helene.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (1:23)
Forty years is a long time. That's 40 winters here in Colorado, and countless snow falls.
It was on a day like this that a young woman disappeared. Her name was Helene, and Helene had a friend named Kimberly, a friend who kept her word. Do you have any idea how many years you were signing up for when you made that promise?

**Kimberly LaTourette** (1:48)
No.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (1:49)
For those nearly four decades, Kimberly LaTourette kept her promise. Forty years looking at faces, forty years meeting with detectives, forty years retracing Helene's steps.

**Kimberly LaTourette** (2:02)
When I make a promise and make a commitment, I follow through.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (2:07)
Helene never knew it, but she had another friend. You never met Helene. You feel like you know her?

**Shannon Jensen** (2:13)
I do. I feel like I know her well, as well as I possibly could.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (2:17)
Shannon was three years old when Helene disappeared. It was in 2019 that she accepted a challenge.

**Shannon Jensen** (2:24)
I had to win. I wanted to win for Helene.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (2:33)
Helene Pruszynski grew up as the baby daughter in a close-knit family of five in Hamilton, Massachusetts.

**Janet Pruszynski** (2:40)
Everybody that met her liked her company.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (2:43)
Janet was her older sister by nine years. But you didn't treat her as like this annoying younger sibling. You guys were pretty tight.

**Henry Lee Lucas** (2:52)
Not at all.

**Kimberly LaTourette** (2:52)
We were.

**Henry Lee Lucas** (2:53)
We were.

**Janet Pruszynski** (2:54)
She is my best buddy. She came. She was a surprise, I think, to the family, and she just brought sunshine and life to our household.

**Kimberly LaTourette** (3:04)
I met her my freshman year of high school. She was a sophomore. We both were part of a singing group called Harmony, and that's really where I got to know Helene very well.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (3:17)
She loved to sing.

**Kimberly LaTourette** (3:18)
Yes, she loved to perform.

**Helene Pruszynski** (3:20)
I'm involved with Harmony, which is a musical group at the Regionale.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (3:25)
Helene spoke about her school life for a classmate's local radio show.

**Helene Pruszynski** (3:31)
My philosophy on life? Yeah, I have one. You should just, I don't know, be yourself and make the best of everything. And smile.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (3:40)
And smile.

**Helene Pruszynski** (3:41)
Yeah, that's what I do all the time.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (3:45)
Here she is smiling along with Kimberly in their musical group, also joining in Kimberly's older brother, John.

**John LaTourette** (3:53)
There was a real feeling of camaraderie, but also dedication to excellence in our singing.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (4:00)
He remembers the day camaraderie turned to something else.

**John LaTourette** (4:04)
We started talking and for me, there was an immediate spark. It was that kind of fluttery feeling that you have when you know you're talking to somebody, that you realize you really like immediately.

**Kimberly LaTourette** (4:17)
They were just in love. They were each other's first loves in high school, but very genuine.

**Josh Mankiewicz** (4:25)
It didn't last beyond high school, but John and Kimberly both kept in touch with Helene after graduation. Helene attended Wheaton College in Massachusetts, where she sang in another group, the Wheatones. There she is in the back row with the black dress on.
One more thing. As much as she loved her singing, Helene had another passion, journalism. What did you think was gonna happen to her? Where was she headed?