Collective Justice | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

In Pennsylvania, the night manager of a fast food restaurant is found brutally murdered. The apparent victim of a robbery gone wrong for 15 years. Police cannot identify the suspect, but then an elite group of forensic experts agreed to take on the case of a man's disappearance. At his home in Lubbock, Texas, all signs point to foul play, but until the police can find the victim's body, they won't be able to prove murder when the trail of clues stops the homicide. Homicide investigators are often left with few options except an elite group of forensic experts known as the Vidoc society.

They can heat up a cold case and apply their experience to deliver

collective

justice

On February 4, 1984 in the Philadelphia suburb of Falls Township, Pennsylvania, the manager of a fast food restaurant arrived for the early morning shift and was alarmed to discover that the front door was open. There had recently been a series of burglaries in the area, nothing appeared to be missing, but in the kitchen he discovered the night manager, Terry Brooks, lying on the floor. She had been brutally murdered. Within minutes, officers and forensic technicians from the Falls Township Police Department arrived. At the scene they found the 25 year old victim lying face up on the kitchen floor, a large knife was protruding from his throat, they had used a plastic garbage bag to cover his face, judging by the coat he was wearing, it seemed that Terry Brooks was preparing to leave.

At night, in the restaurant's office, police discovered that the cash drawers and money bags had been cleaned out. The victim's shoes were found next to her desk. Although this was just one of several restaurants that were robbed within a few months, it was the first to be finished. in the murder, technicians looked for clues to the identity of the killer, they found nothing, no signs of forced entry were found around the open front door, based on the evidence, police theorized that after Terry Brooks left the restaurant, the thief ambushed her and then forced her to return.

Inside, her death had been violent. Terry Brooks had been beaten, strangled and then stabbed in the throat. She had been dead for several hours. Hair and skin scrapes were found on the victim's hands and nails, indicating that she had fought fiercely, but within days. Before DNA testing was available, examiners could only conclude that the samples had not come from the victim. Looking for any clues that would help them identify the suspect, investigators interviewed the victim's parents, Terry, and said that she was a cheerful young woman who easily made friends for whom she had submitted. She went to college and worked hard in hopes of owning her own restaurant.

One day recently, she had left her job as a waitress to have a better opportunity as a manager of the fast food restaurant. However, she had just gotten engaged to a coworker from her previous workplace. terry lived at home her parents didn't know her fiancé very well the engagement had been sudden they couldn't think of anyone who might want to hurt their daughter's fiancé Scott Keith, 22, also had no idea who could have committed such an act brutal the night of the murder he was at home sleeping he had to get up early the next day around 6 a.m.

The next morning he passed by her house on the way to work, he knew that Terry had worked late and he wanted to be sure she had arrived home safely when he noticed that her car was not in the driveway, he became worried and woke up her. When her parents discovered that Terry had not been home, they called the restaurant and that was when they found out that she had been murdered, although robbery seemed to be the motive behind the murder. The police returned to the restaurant to speak with the manager, they collected all the employee files looking for evidence that the killer may have been a disgruntled employee, the manager couldn't think of anyone on his staff who had a problem with him or terry everything suggested that terry brooks had been a random target and for the police those are the most difficult cases to solve, desperate to generate a lead, the examiners examined all the evidence gathered at the crime scene, they were lucky, a single latent fingerprint was found in the trash The bag that covered the face of the victim matched that of one of Terry Brooks' coworkers at the restaurant.

The

detectives

brought in the employee to question her and give her blood and hair samples, but she did not seem capable of the violence inflicted on Terry Brooks and the employee had an explanation about the footprint before leaving the night of the murder. She had replaced all the trash bags. She said she hadn't noticed anything unusual that night, we were told. However, she did remember an incident that occurred a few days earlier, near closing time. When two men entered the restaurant they appeared drunk and were causing trouble. Terry tried unsuccess

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y to calm the situation when he threatened to call the police.

The men became verbally abusive. They made several threats before leaving. The employee did not know the men and had not met them. He hadn't seen them since that night, the police finally had their first big break in the case, now they needed to identify the killers before they struck again. Several area store owners had similar encounters with individuals fitting the description of the two men, but no one seemed to know. who they were or where they could be found the identity of the main suspects in terry's murder continued to elude the police soon the investigation into his murder went cold and would remain so for the next 14 years after 14 years it seemed that the 1984 murder of the manager of a 25-year-old diner, Terry Brooks, would never be solved, but in 1998 the police in Falls Township, Pennsylvania, decided to re-examine all the unsolved homicides in their jurisdiction, Detective Sergeant Wynn Cloud found the case file of terry brooks, there was a lot of physical damage evidence available and I looked at all of that and it was good physical evidence and it was well preserved.

I think this had a very high solution. Sergeant Cloud enlisted the help of Homicide Detective Nelson Whitney and Deputy District Attorney Laurie Markel after reviewing case files. We found a hole in the research done over a decade earlier, at that time there were several fast food restaurant robberies that were happening in this area and the research done in the 80's had really focused on that idea, so we decided that In addition to looking at the possibility that the murder was a robbery homicide we would also learn more about Terry and investigate the possibility that the killer had been someone who knew his investigators.

They located people who knew Terry and his habits well. They tracked down his former manager when he saw the crime scene photos for the first time, one in particular caught his attention. Detective Nelson Whitney explains that one of the things Terry would do every day is clean the ashes out of the ashtray and place it on a small shelf on the desk. I would close the ledger on the desk I would put the phone in a certain position I would move the ruler away from the calculator The photograph of the crime scene desk clearly showed that the ashtray was in the middle of the desk that had ashes on it There was an open book there was a ruler outside a calculator outside Terry was also known to take off her shoes when working at the desk the information was at odds with previous suspicions that Terry was approached outside the restaurant and then forced back inside and that opened the possibility of that she knew her killer and had even let him into the store, but until now that was just a theory and one that got investigators no closer to identifying Terry Brooks' killer.

The police needed more help, so they turned to an elite. crime-solving team based just a few miles away in Philadelphia, there, in the historic downtown club building, some of the greatest criminal theorists have been meeting every other month since 1990. This is the home of The Bedok Society, a private, nonprofit think tank of the nation's most esteemed law enforcement officials, forensic experts, psychologists, and government agents, Dick Laventhal is the Communications Director of the Bedok Society, the Society It is named after Eugene Francois Vidak, a Frenchman who lived between 1775 and 1852. We credit him with being the father of the modern detective. practice He is truly our inspiration He is a man who thought outside the box He was the first detective who began keeping files and records on the methods of operations of criminals The society is limited to 82

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-time members one for each year of life from vidoc originally We met to discuss historical cases and unsolved mysterious crimes that soon changed very quickly.

We became an organization whose reason for existence was to investigate unsolved homicides and try to resolve the anguish of families when there is a loved one who has been murdered to have an unsolved homicide. Accepted by the Vidak society, researchers must first present their case to its members at the next Vidoc meeting. Sergeant Cloud precisely made me present this as fact. I didn't give any theory so as not to contaminate any of his opinions. Everything I said. These were the facts that I gathered from the case at the crime scene and when I finished presenting to them, probably 30 members approached, possibly even more, but 30 who were really interested in it, Doc Society co-founder Richard Walter offered to donate your experience to the case, my area is crime assessment and profiling and basically, crime assessment is the act of observing the crime scene, what is and what is not in that crime scene, then take that information and reconcile it with known patterns of behavior that we know in terms of criminal activity, so we know a lot about the criminal from the crime scene.

To Walter, the violence seen in the photographs suggested that the killer was motivated by revenge or anger, not money. Walter believed that the murderer was someone close to the victim and the robbery was organized to throw investigators off his trail due to the lack of organization observed at the crime scene. Detective Cloud also learned that the killer likely had little more than a high school education; He probably worked as a menial worker, perhaps as a pizza or burger cook. Because of his anger, experts theorized that he probably had difficulty maintaining relationships with women. Investigators turned to the victim's parents in hopes of identifying someone who matched the profile.

Terry's father was dying of liver disease. The couple did not know anyone who looked like the profile. profile However, they recalled that on the morning of the murder Terry's fiancé, Scott Keith, had acted strangely. Although Keith seemed upset to learn that his fiancée had been murdered, he refused to go to the hospital to help identify the victim. He said he didn't want to be late for work for Terry's parents. Scott's actions that morning had always led them to believe he was hiding something. The police agreed to find out what that was. Investigators interviewed Terry's old friends.

None of them spoke very highly of him. Scott everyone was shocked to learn that Terry was engaged to him. Scott was possessive and jealous and had financial problems that supposedly resulted from a drug problem. Things became more tense when Terry took a pay cut to manage the fast food restaurant just before she was murdered. Terry had talked about ending the engagement based on the detective's information. Cloud began to delve deeper into Scott Keefe's background, what he found was an uncanny parallel to the psychological portrait generated by the Vidoc society experts, right down to his work. Our main suspect worked at a pizzeria.

Over the years he had had several relationships. Personal relationships, but they were very. Rocky, with the help of the Budok Society, investigators had finally identified a suspect in the murder of 15-year-old Terry Brooks, now it was up to Falls Township Police to prove it with the help of the Budok Society, a group elite non-profit. Law enforcement officials in Falls Township, Pennsylvania, had finally identified a suspect in the 1984 murder of Terry Brooks. Now investigators turned to physical evidence collected nearly 15 years earlier to prove it. The biological evidence collected at the time of the autopsy was sent to the nearby drug office. scanning laboratory there, a new DNA technology unknown at the time of the murder had become a sophisticated crime-solving tool.

Forensic Scientist DianeMarshall examined the evidence. The samples had been carefully stored and the DNA is very stable over time. Genetic testing revealed that the skin found under Terry's skin. The nails had not originated from his marshal. I looked for DNA samples on the murder weapon to see if I could find a match, but after all this time there seemed to be no trace of blood left and I took apart the knife where the blade actually met the wood. . mango and I was digging around there uh with a scalpel, a clean scalpel and I really removed this old crusty material that was there and then I processed that sample for DNA.

I determined that there were two different types of DNA, one that matched the victim and one that matched an unknown suspect and that type of DNA from the suspect was the same type that was recovered from under the fingernails. Investigators had finally uncovered evidence that could link a suspect to the murder, although all circumstantial evidence pointed to Scott Keith, it did not. They do not have the tests necessary to obtain their DNA samples, they would have to find another way to obtain the tests they needed. Detective Whitney suggested they focus on his trash. Once trash has been placed on the sidewalk, it is considered abandoned property in the eyes of police. law police can legally examine and collect its contents on garbage day investigators arranged for a garbage truck to make a single garbage pickup in front of Scott Keefe's house a few blocks away police took possession of the garbage and personally delivered it to the crime lab in the hope of finding something that contained DNA samples, Diane Marshall focused on several cigarette butts recovered from the trash when you smoke a cigarette you deposit your saliva in the filter included in that saliva are epithelial cells which come from the lining of your mouth.

Marshall successfully extracted cellular material from two different brands of cigarette butts found in the rubble, so I isolated DNA from the saliva deposit on the filters of each of the brands of cigarettes and noticed that one brand in particular had a type of Specific DNA did not match any of the crime scene evidence, but DNA from the second mark did. On the 15th anniversary of Terry Brooks' murder, Scott Keith was brought in for questioning and to provide blood samples, according to the Detective Nelson Whitney. I never realized he was a suspect, we told him he was an important witness, that because of his close relationship with our victim, he was someone who could give us information that no one else could, that would help us in our case and he was very happy. to help after answering a few questions,

detectives

asked him if he would mind taking a polygraph test as a matter of routine.

Keef agreed that the blood samples were rushed to the lab. Yes, I think that's true, hours later, while waiting for DNA tests, Doc Society co-founder Bill Fleischer carefully reviewed the polygraph results. The polygraph records these physiological changes as part of our individual defense mechanisms commonly known as fight and flight in a polygraph situation we ask questions if those questions represent a threat to your well-being because you are lying to them and there is the fear of being detected in the lie your body reacts immediately the physiological heart begins to accelerate the blood is redirected to different organs your body your mouth gets dry your knees get weak the butterfly in your stomach your palms get sweaty although the suspect denied any involvement in the terry murder case fleisher concluded that scott keefe was being deceitful now the examiners sought to scientifically verify that keith was a murderer His DNA samples were compared to those recovered from the victim.

Examiners found a match. Police confronted the suspect with the test results. Scott Keith had no choice but to confess that Keefe stated that he often stayed with his fiancée at the restaurant. when she was working late on the night of February 4, 1984. Terry Brooks decided to end their engagement. Keith became enraged and killed her. He then staged the scene to make it look like the murder was the result of a robbery gone wrong after so much time the victim's family finally had answers the family of Deputy District Attorney Laurie Markel Terry Brooks had to live for 15 years without knowing who had killed her or seeing that person face any measure of

justice

.

It was a lot of power on the morning of February 5, 1999 to go to Mr. and Mrs. Brooks and tell them: we have arrested the person who killed your son. He is in custody. We have amassed considerable physical evidence against him and he has confessed to being Scott. Keefe pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison in the Terry Brooks case. A misleading crime scene led investigators to the wrong conclusions, but in some cases detectives face a more daunting set of circumstances. No crime scene on Sunday, May 19, 1991. Dunn and his wife received a late-night call at their home in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

The caller identified herself as Alicia Hamilton, the girlfriend of Dunn's 24-year-old son, Scott upset. , Alicia said that Scott had disappeared from his home in Lubbock, Texas, Jim told Alicia not to worry, he was expecting a call from Scott at any time, but Scott never called and Jim Dunn's attempts to contact his son were not successful, although he was concerned because he knew Scott was probably busy with his hobby buying and restoring cars. This is Jim Don Scott's father. He hadn't spoken to Scott. in about a week and we had been talking, usually we all talked at least once a week and of course Scott always had some kind of project going on, he was looking for money to help him buy a new car or buy a new body for car so he could swap the engines from one to the other, but after a few days passed without hearing anything, Jim Dunn contacted his son's boss at a car stereo installation company in Lubbock, Texas, the boss said that Scott had not shown up to work for several days.

The days she last saw him, Scott was not feeling well and asked her to leave work early. He left his tools and his car at work and had his girlfriend Alicia Hamilton come pick him up. Scott said he hoped to return to work in a few. days the chief told jim dunn that alicia hamilton called the store a few days later she believed scott had left her for another woman but scott's father didn't believe his son would simply abandon his prized cars, he contacted police lubbock to report his son missing but there was little investigators could do as an adult, scott dunn had a right to be missing, more importantly, there was no evidence that a crime had been committed, yet detective tal english agreed to investigate the case, he basically told me how unusual it was for scott to disappear at all just disappear like that and the two things that he was really worried about and worried about were his, he had left his tools at his work and he had left his car there and I had not taken either of those two.

The items were extremely important to him and Jim knew he wouldn't just walk away. Later that night, detectives contacted Scott's girlfriend, Alicia Hamilton, who had last seen him just hours before he disappeared. She said she brought Scott home from work after he complained. Feeling bad, she put him on the bed and made him tea. She wanted to stay and take care of him, but Alicia was already late for her job as a waitress. Scott insisted that Alicia go, she said goodbye and went to work. She hadn't seen him, although she had no idea where. Scott had gone, Alicia had discovered something unusual while rearranging the furniture, she discovered that a piece of carpet under the sofa had been carefully cut, unsure of the significance, the investigators asked them to look at the residents in the bedroom they found. the missing piece of carpet had been taped to the floor and covered a bare patch of carpet.

Alicia hadn't noticed it before. Underneath the patched carpet, investigators noticed large reddish-brown stains. They appeared to be blood when we saw it looked like a crime scene, we kind of backed it up, that's when they called our identification section, they came out and we wanted them to photograph the scene before anything moved. Tests confirmed that the stains were human blood, although it was unclear if the blood originated from missing 24-year-old Scott Dunn, the finding indicated that something violent had happened inside that room. A concerned father's intuition had exposed a possible homicide as he searched for answers in the disappearance of 24-year-old Scott Dunn.

Police in Lubbock, Texas, made a disturbing discovery. In the master bedroom of the apartment the young man shared with his girlfriend, detectives discovered blood stains under a section of the carpet. Authorities searched the room for more evidence under a light source. Technicians found large amounts of blood throughout the room, on the walls and ceiling. stains and streaks of more blood, it was a telltale sign that someone had tried to clean up the evidence of a brutal crime. Samples of blood, carpet fibers, and tape were collected from the bottom of the carpet. They also recovered Scott Dunn's hairbrush for possible DNA samples in the crime lab examiners successfully generated Scott Dunn's DNA profile from the hairs collected from his hairbrush when compared to those extracted from all of the evidence. blood, they found a match with detective tal english, there was no doubt that scott dunn had committed a crime, but the investigation was about to face a crushing setback prosecutors did not want to touch the case according to the district attorney's office district Texas law required that a body actually open a homicide investigation and we had no evidence to indicate that there was probably one that occurred but without that body it was going to be difficult to open it Texas authorities intensified their search for evidence that Scott Dunn had After being murdered, his girlfriend Alicia Hamilton was interrogated again although she couldn't explain the blood evidence.

Alicia remained convinced that Scott had run off with another woman as the interrogation continued, however, she thought of something else, she and Scott had been having problems with a neighbor, a man named Tim Smith, according to Alicia, Tim had been harassing her in recent weeks. Alicia said that she met Tim at a local nightclub a few years ago. Months ago, she admitted that she started dating him outside of her relationship with Scott, when she realized the mistake she had made, she tried to break up with Tim, but he couldn't seem to let go, he started following her and showing up at the apartment she shared with Scott, according to her she tried to distance herself from him, Tim didn't let that happen, he lived in the same apartment complex in an apartment that was down from where her apartment was and he was around a lot and she just couldn't get rid of him, Although authorities did not officially have a crime, they now had a potential suspect.

Before taking a closer look at Tim Smith, however, first they needed to rule out that Scott had left town with another woman. Investigators located a woman who had spent a lot of time with Scott before his disappearance, she admitted that she and Scott had become close friends, but nothing more, just before he disappeared, Scott told her that he wanted to end his relationship with Alicia, but admitted to being nervous about the confrontation. Alicia's ex-boyfriends had warned Scott that she was controlling and abusive. One stated that she was constantly looking for evidence that he was being unfaithful.

Something as innocent as a greeting card from an old friend would send Alicia into a jealous rage and threaten her former boyfriends. her physical violence and, at times, she attempted to carry out those threats. Scott feared how Alicia would react to the news that the relationship was over. Alicia Hamilton wasn't the caring, concerned girlfriend she'd made herself out to be, but that didn't prove she had anything to do. to do with scott's disappearance the police visited tim smith, the man who alicia claimed had been stalking her and scott, he was in the process of packing up his apartment when detectives asked him where he was going, he gave a surprising answer that he and alicia hamilton They had just bought a place and were moving in together.

Tim Smith denied any involvement in Scott Dunn's disappearance. Then officers noticed a roll of duct tape that appeared similar to the tape found in Scott Dunn's bedroom at the Department of Crime Lab. lubbock police. criminalist scott williams compared the tape found in tim smith's apartment against the tape found in scott dunn's bedroom. We looked at the physical characteristics, this would include looking at the color, texture, any type of relief on the tape and,Of course, in duct tape there are fibers or strands that run through the duct tape. We look at the spacing and what those fibers are made of.

All characteristics match. The chemical composition of the adhesive was then analyzed. The two samples were identical in every way and I noticed something else on the side of the Roland adhesive tape. There were fibers and hairs stuck to the side. I asked David Young, a person who does our hair analysis, to determine if the hair could have had any other common origins in the case. Trace evidence examiner David Young compared the hairs on the roll of duct tape found in Tim Smith's apartment to those on Scott Dunn's hairbrush, finding consistency after consistency, basically telling us that at some point Scott dunn was close to that roll of duct tape and so since we linked the duct tape to the part of the crime scene, he helped put scott dunn with that roll of duct tape that was possibly at the crime scene and the police now had a physical link between the possible crime scene and tim smith's apartment.

Tim Smith was now the prime suspect in a missing person's case and his relationship with Alicia Hamilton couldn't be ignored, but Scott Dunn's fate remained a mystery until authorities could produce his body, they couldn't prove the murder. Lubbock, Texas, police suspected that missing 24-year-old Scott Dunn had been murdered, his girlfriend Alicia Hamilton and a man. The names of Tim Smith emerged as the main suspects, but without the victim's body they could not prove that Scott Dunn had suffered damage. The case threatened to go cold, but Scott's father, Jim Dunn, refused to let his son's case slip away.

I would continue. I pushed the issue for almost a year and I was trying to find out everything I could about Lisa Hamilton, who she was and also the case had stalled because the district attorney had talked to him a couple of times and he said fact no. i know why you're calling me he said you don't even have a body you don't have a crime uh he said he's just a missing person determined to find justice for his son jim dunn traveled to albuquerque new mexico alicia hamilton's hometown began digging into her past Looking for anything that could prove that she was capable of murder, she found nothing.

She prepared to return to her home in Pennsylvania empty-handed. I returned to the hotel. I simply relaxed and felt a little defeated that I hadn't discovered anything that could really help me that much. and I turned on the TV and I saw the end of a TV show here were these detectives and a whole group of people called the vidoc society that investigated unsolved homicides and I said my God, those people are right in Philadelphia, which is like 25 minutes away. miles from where I live. I was in Texas. Jim Dunn contacted the group. Members of the Vidak society invited him to present the case at their next meeting after he finished the presentation.

The Bedok society co- Founder Bill Flescher spoke personally with Jim Dunn. He could see that he was out of his mind. He was a distraught father. He definitely believed that his son had been murdered. He felt that Alicia Hamilton was somehow involved in Scotland's disappearance and murder. and he was looking for help, he was a human being who needed help from professionals. Authorities realized that they first had to prove that a murder had been committed without a body, which would not be easy. Members of the Vidak society turned to renowned crime scene reconstruction expert Tom Bevel.

For help, crime scene reconstruction is especially useful in cases, for example, where there is no body and there are questions about what may have happened. Do we just have a person with a minor bleeding wound who got out on his own or? Do we have a case where there is a serious injury, such as possibly death? For answers, Bevel is needed to determine what type of object had caused the blood spatter patterns found in Scott Dunn's bedroom, although most of the blood stains had been smeared in an attempt to clean. Walking through the scene, some discarded patterns remained intact using an object covered in blood.

He was able to recreate the size and shape of the stains observed at the crime scene. They were consistent with being caused by a blunt object such as a bat or a pipe. Having established that Scott Dunn was violently beaten, Bevel then looked to determine whether the 24-year-old could have survived such an assault, for which he would need to establish how much blood had been spilled and poured blood on a similar piece of carpet to reach the dimensions of The stains matched those found on the floor of Scott Dunn's bedroom. He concluded that no one could have survived the amount of blood loss needed to replicate all the stains.

When presented with the findings, prosecutors finally agreed to take over the case that the society's experts had helped. Turning a missing person case into a homicide investigation was the break Lubbock police had been waiting for. Now investigators focused on finding evidence that could physically link Alicia Hamilton and Tim Smith to the murder. They began sifting through files in Looking for anything they might have missed, they found something. Some of the hairs recovered from the duct tape found at the crime scene did not come from Scott Dunn. Tim Smith was brought in for questioning the next day.

He continued to deny any involvement and willing to cooperate he provided police with a hair sample provided to him by Alicia Hamilton. Also, examiners compared samples taken from Tim Smith and Alicia Hamilton to unidentified hairs collected from blood-stained duct tape found in Scott Dunn's bedroom. Examiners concluded that the unidentified hairs had originated from the two suspects. For authorities, the findings provided enough evidence to arrest Alicia Hamilton and Tim Smith, the couple currently living together, who were detained and charged with murder. Investigators believe that when Scott Dunn tried to end her relationship with Alicia, she became enraged, unable to handle the rejection, lashed out and beat the young man to death.

She believed she then turned to her other boyfriend, Tim Smith, for help cleaning up the scene and disposing of Scott's body. A jury found Alicia Hamilton guilty of murder and sentenced her to 20 years in prison. Tim Smith was also found guilty of murder. He received 10 years. Parolee Scott Dunn's body has never been found. His father, Jim Dunn, was asked to join the Vidoc society to help parents of murdered victims. He agreed and because of my involvement there, I think as a result of being involved with the design of the V-doc, actually a member of the vedoc society who can I can go back a little bit and say thank you in a different way and to the At the same time maybe help someone else who was in the same position I was in 10 years ago when Scott was murdered, says the vidoc society.

Their only client is the truth in that sense, they are no different from the forensic and police experts they help, but when the murderers are cunning and the truth is elusive, the experts of the vidoc society provide a new perspective to bring cases to light. unsolved from the abyss.