Material Witness | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

Canadian police are searching for a missing woman, although all signs suggest a murder, they must rely on a single strand of animal hair to prove it. When an Ohio woman disappears, suspicions swirl around her husband. What the police lack is hard evidence. In Missouri, they find a man. brutally murdered to catch his killer police must reconstruct his last minutes sometimes the murder suspect is immediately obvious but proof remains elusive when there are no

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es to speak for the victim forensic scientists must transform the smallest clue In a

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hidden in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the southeastern corner of Canada, is located on the remote and sparsely populated Prince Edward Island on October 7, 1994, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP responded to a complaint about an abandoned vehicle found on private property when the officer arrived and discovered the car. resting a few hundred meters from a private road no tags were present 41 to base a verification on the vehicle identification number it was revealed that it was registered to a woman named shirley duguay number ig4 ab69 the police arranged for the vehicle to be impounded and then the owner began to try to locate it, but when the woman did not return the calls, the

detectives

decided to go to her address.

There, they were received by Shirley Duguay's father and her children's nanny. The news of the abandoned car worried them. They surely said that they had not She hadn't heard from him for some time. The nanny said she last saw the 32-year-old mother of five four days earlier. Shirley was going to run some errands. She never mentioned where she was going. She said goodbye and promised to return in a few hours for RCMP inspector Alphonse Mcneill. The story had raised a disturbing question, we wondered why he was not reported missing. They said they were worried that a former common-law spouse named Douglas Beamish, with whom he had had three young children, would end up keeping the children.

If social services discovered that she was missing or gone, they then attempted to retain that information for as long as possible in the hope of finding it for investigators, the waiting time over for fear that Gay's Shirley may have come to harm. The police processed her. Their abandoned vehicle searching for clues, what they found was not encouraging: dozens of small reddish-brown stains tested positive for human blood and the barely visible bloodstain patterns found on the windshield and larger ones on the seat were consistent. with having been caused by someone being punched or There was blood in the vehicle.

Shirley Dugay had been missing for four days, so we were concerned that Shirley Duguy had met some type of death in that vehicle. Investigators returned to the area where the abandoned car had been found for hours looking for clues. The fate of the young woman did not reveal anything, then 500 meters from where the car was discovered, the investigators found something, it was a pillow stained with what appeared to be blood and a short distance away lay a shirt stained with blood, a shovel was also found near. One of the findings pointed to a murder and the shovel led police to believe that Shirley had probably been buried somewhere nearby, but an extensive search failed to find the victim's body.

Now the police wanted to talk to the man who had the most to gain from her disappearance. Doug Beamish, a former common-law husband and father of three of her children, admitted that his and Shirley's relationship had been problematic in the past and realized that her family probably blamed him for her disappearance, but insisted that he did not know nothing from him at the moment. For the sake of the children, he and Shirley had managed to resolve their problems. He said he last saw her about a week earlier. He had been having car trouble and probably offered to take it to a job site where he worked as a builder. worker on the road had a nice conversation about his children and planned to talk more later, then he dropped him off and the two said goodbye.

He hadn't heard from her since Doug Beamish sensed something was bothering Shirley, he speculated. that he had gone out of town to visit friends in Toronto but it turned out that no one had heard from her in some time. A woman who had been following the case in the media believed she had important information. This lady called and said, "You know." I remember when Shirley Dugay disappeared. I saw a car similar to hers on a road called Allen Road, which would be about 20 kilometers from where we found her car. I remember it was night. It was dark.

I saw two people on the side of the road, a tall man, a very short woman, they seemed to be arguing and I just passed by and I don't know if it's good for you or not, the woman couldn't be sure if she did. In fact, I saw Shirley Duguay still, the information was enough for police to search the area where the caller had seen the couple, but to cover the several square kilometers they knew they needed help, Canadian Army personnel agreed to participate. in the search for several days. The efforts were unsuccessful, but then they found something that seemed out of place.

One group found a white plastic bag. We had a police officer with each group of army searchers. The police officer took over the rear. Searching the area did not produce any results. Additional evidence at the crime lab examiners care

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y removed the contents of the plastic bag, recovering an old pair of white tennis shoes, there was also a large men's jacket stuffed inside several fibers and a single white hair, but closer scrutiny revealed the presence of tiny stains that tested positive for human blood based on information provided by the witness, the police believed it had originated from Shirley Duguay, now they needed to prove it, but there was a problem: we didn't have Shirley Dugay, so we needed being able to develop a DNA Profile the way we did, that is what is called in some cases reverse paternity.

We took a sample from her father, her brother and her two children, although each one's DNA is unique. There is a genetic family resemblance between blood relatives. When the genetic profiles were compared, examiners concluded that the blood found in all tests came from Shirley Duguay, although the whereabouts of the 32-year-old mother remained uncertain. All evidence suggested that she had been the victim of a violent crime. Police in Canada's Prince Edward Island continued searching for the missing 32-year-old mother. of five shirley duguay, although efforts to find her had been unsuccessful, authorities had found clues that suggested she had come across a violent forgery, among them was a blood-stained men's jacket that had originated from shirley who was searching clues as to who might want to harm the young mother officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police questioned Shirley's friends and all believed that Shirley's ex-husband, Doug Beemish, was somehow involved in the disappearance.

Recently, Shirley had started dating again, which had angered her possessive and jealous ex-husband now that she is with someone and Doug Beamish had a history of violence. When was the last time she saw those guys? But the friend couldn't remember if Beamish had a jacket like the one he found with Shirley's blood on it. Doug Beamish was becoming the prime suspect in the disappearance of Shirley Dugay. but until now investigators had no physical evidence to prove it, but you know, without that jacket being able to tie it to someone, we don't have much, how did you manage, so they had a break, we have something my dentist came back, uh.

They found white cat hair inside the jacket and all I could think about all the way here was Beamish and his white cat, his house, that was all Inspector Alphonse Mcneill needed to hear, we knew he had a white cat and There were white hairs on the jacket, so the process was to find a lab that could test them if we could confiscate the cat's blood with a warrant in hand. Police and a local veterinarian returned to Doug Bemish's home. The suspect continued to deny any involvement in Shirley's disappearance and stated that he did not have a jacket like the one that was stained with his blood.

The vet, although it seemed like a long shot, authorities took possession of their snowball cat in the hope that they could somehow establish a genetic link to the fur found. Samples of blood and hair from Beamish's cat were collected on the bloodstained jacket, but now researchers had to find someone who was an expert in analyzing cat DNA at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, they found. to one there. Biologist Dr. Stephen O'Brien has examined the feline genetic code for help in medical research. When contacted, he agreed to help Canadian police, but Dr. O'Brien and his team never imagined that by deciphering the feline genetic code they could also help solve a baffling criminal case, the request to compare a cat's DNA was unique in medical and legal history.

The first examiners generated a genetic profile of the white hair extracted from the bloody jacket. Once completed, the results were compared to the profile generated from the samples taken from Snowball. What we discovered was that the genotype was identical to what we had seen on the jacket hair, so we were pretty sure that the jacket hair came from a cat that had the same genotype as Snowball, even though the scientists were Sure of the results, they couldn't be absolutely sure of them, it was possible that the few thousand cats roaming isolated Prince Edward Island shared a common ancestor.

To find out that biologists needed to generate more DNA profiles from other cats on the island, we had to determine what the state of the population was so we could calculate the probability that this was the case. was that we were wrong to declare a match, examiners got to work developing the genetic profiles of 20 randomly selected cats on the island when O'Brien compared the results and found that none shared a snowball-like DNA signature. In fact, the odds that the hair found on the jacket did not come from Beamish's cat were 45 million to 1. Through a snowball, authorities had established a link between Doug Beamish and a jacket stained with his ex-wife's blood, but Inspector Alphonse Mcneill was not satisfied and later obtained a court order. to collect impressions of the suspect's feet I was now hoping to link the suspect to the pair of white sneakers found with the jacket, we thought well, if we can put those sneakers on Douglas Beamish's feet somehow, that would be pretty strong evidence.

In addition to his cat Dr. Keith Bettles, a forensic podiatrist received the evidence. He began by creating plaster casts of the suspect's feet to reveal all the unique features. People's feet are unique because we walk on them all the time, we have many different stresses, many different ones. forces on our feet feet are practically as individual as fingerprints beemish's foot molds aligned perfectly with all the wear patterns seen on the white shoe insoles a single tuft of cat hair and a pair of shoes In fact, seven months after Shirley Duguay's disappearance, severely decomposed human remains were discovered buried in a remote wooded area, dental records confirmed.

After the victim was Shirley Dugay and the medical examiner classified her death as a homicide, Douglas Beamish was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Investigators believe Beamish couldn't stand Shirley Duguay dating other men. Somehow, he manipulated her into giving him a ride in his car and directed her to a remote location, once there, he beat his ex-common-law wife to death, then buried her body in a remote area and abandoned the car. . Douglas Beamish was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. No place is immune. of violent crime and even the friendliest cities have problems with it.

Mansfield Ohio has been called one of America's most livable cities, making what happened here even more surprising. On January 2, 1990, a woman came to speak to Mansfield police and was concerned that something had happened. It happened to her friend Noreen Boyle, 44, when he last saw her a few days earlier, Noreen was shocked and visibly upset, her marriage of over 22 years.She was falling apart and her husband was not only moving almost 200 miles away, to Erie, Pennsylvania, but he was likely taking the couple's two children with him. Noreen was devastated when she tried to contact Noreen's husband. A prominent local doctor said Noreen packed up and left town after a fight, but the friend couldn't believe Noreen would abandon the two of her. children the mansfield police agreed to investigate the case and their first step was to question noreen's husband, doctor john boyle, when lieutenant david messmore arrived at the residence, he learned that john boyle was out of town, noreen's mother John Boyle explained to her that he had driven to Erie, Pennsylvania, a few days earlier, where he was opening his new medical practice a few days earlier and she was babysitting the couple's children until their son John returned home, the woman excused herself. to check on Boyle's young daughter, then the couple's son approached the detective and told him that he was afraid something bad had happened to his mother but before he could explain to his grandmother I came back sorry, no I have more information.

When he saw what was happening, he ended the interview and asked the detective to leave. I really don't have anything else to tell you. I really need to have the meeting with Evie, the police in trouble and Lieutenant Mesmore couldn't ignore that dr. Boyle had left town around the same time his wife was reported missing. I'm not sure where she is, but we soon found out the reason for the doctor's visit. On the trip to Pennsylvania it turned out that he had been hired by a very large medical corporation in Erie, Pennsylvania, so he was basically traveling back and forth between Mansfield and Erie for a period of time.

But where was Noreen Boyle later? that night? Detective Messmore returned to the residence, his visit had been anticipated by Dr.'s attorney. boyle opened the door you uh you represent dr boyle I do oh he's okay, is he home right now? Well, his client had actually returned home from Pennsylvania but due to the stress caused by the impending divorce, Dr. boyle didn't want to talk to the police about noreen, well, i'll get back to you, it wasn't the answer investigators were expecting. I was a little surprised that in the case of a missing person in your family, you would hire a lawyer to represent you when there are no accusations or even accusations of wrongdoing or even criminal matters involving the family, so it was certainly a situation very unusual to find out what Dr Boyle might be trying to hide from the police being questioned.

All of his friends and coworkers professionally agreed that Dr. Boyle had an impeccable reputation, but he was personally known to be a womanizer and was rumored to be involved in numerous affairs; In fact, one of his supposed lovers was pregnant and everyone speculated that the child belonged to Dr. Boyle, although that made him a bad husband, it did not mean that he was capable of committing physical violence; In fact, only one person seemed to believe otherwise and that was Boyle's son. Concerned for the boy's well-being, Lieutenant Mesmore found him after school. The boy was eager to tell his story, he said that the night before his mother disappeared, the sound of his parents arguing outside his room woke him up, he heard a loud bang and then there was silence, a few seconds later, his father The boy looked into his room. he was scared and pretended to be asleep the next morning his mom was gone his dad told him that she packed her bags and left but he didn't believe that his mom would leave without saying goodbye did you have a conversation with your dad even though the police didn't have evidence? that a crime had been committed they began to theorize that the noise heard by the boy could have been the sound of his own mother being assaulted or worse yet, police in mansfield ohio continued their search for missing mother of two noreen boyle and now theorized that her husband, Dr.

John Boyle, was involved in some way, although the police had no hard evidence that a crime had been committed. They were able to obtain a warrant to search Boyle's residence in Ohio using luminol, a chemical that reacts to proteins found in the blood. Technicians began searching the home, but their efforts failed to find any evidence of a violent crime, yet investigators persisted in learning more and contacted authorities in Erie, Pennsylvania, where Dr. Boyle was setting up his new medical practice,

detectives

from the Mill Creek Township, Pennsylvania, police department located a real estate agent there who had recently sold a house to Dr.

Boyle and a pregnant woman who introduced herself as his wife. . She recalled that Dr. Boyle was particularly interested in the concrete floor in the basement of the house. He said he was eager to tear it down to build a playroom for his children. He offered to pay the asking price as long as he could take possession of the house immediately, the real estate agent handed over the sales agreement which was signed by both the doctor and his wife. Pennsylvania authorities sent a copy to Mansfield Police Lt. David Messmore in that copy. It was noted that dr. boyle signed it and also one ending, sherry boyle and upon further inspection it was pretty obvious that noreen's name was not sherry for a middle name.

The doctor. Boyle had bought the house with a woman posing as his wife, investigators. They subpoenaed the suspect's most recent credit card statements, learned that he had used his card to rent a jackhammer and purchase indoor/outdoor carpeting and a load of concrete, suddenly all the pieces were adding up. I had the feeling and a very strong suspicion that the body would be in that place. The Pennsylvania authorities issued a warrant to search the basement of Dr. boyle under some shelves and the interior and exterior carpet, they found a patch of poorly poured concrete, it was about the size of a makeshift grave to which a team was called.

When excavating the concrete floor, after a while they recognized the unmistakable smell of a decomposing body, then, a few meters below, they discovered a tarp and inside it were the remains of a human body in serious decomposition. After care

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y excavating the grave, the remains were transported to the medical examiner. At the office, a watch and other pieces of jewelry worn by the victim matched the description of those worn by Noreen Boyle, and dental records confirmed that the victim was actually the 44-year-old mother of two. Noreen had been savagely murdered on January 26, 1990, almost a month later. After his wife disappeared, Dr. john boyle was arrested in ohio on suspicion of killing noreen, despite the evidence against him, the doctor maintained his innocence, which investigators found ridiculous to secure a conviction, they needed an eyewitness or physical evidence that Until now they had not done so, it was possible that Dr.

Boyle could get away with it, but almost a week after the arrest of Dr. John Boyle, a resident of Mansfield, Ohio, made a strange discovery: a pile of concrete had been dumped on a remote property, the field was almost 200 miles away. Far from where Noreen Boyle's body had been unearthed, but the man had followed the case in the media and thought there might be a connection, a crime scene technician was sent to the scene after photographing the area where The concrete was collected as evidence, police later determined that the property was owned by a close friend of Dr.

Boyles. The doctor had been there numerous times, but to prove murder, police now needed to prove that the concrete found in Ohio had originated from the suspect's home in Pennsylvania. Police had found missing 44-year-old Noreen Boyle buried. in the basement of her husband's new home in Pennsylvania, although investigators had a strong circumstantial case against her husband, they hoped that a pile of concrete found in an Ohio field could physically link him to the murder, samples collected from the field along with the concrete taken from the crime. The scene was sent to CTL Engineering in Columbus, Ohio.

There, lab supervisor Larry Piscitelli is an expert at analyzing the microscopic nature of rocks and concrete, without being told where the individual samples came from. He was asked to determine if any of the concrete pieces had originated. the same source to analyze the internal structure of the concrete the samples are cut into cross pieces using a diamond-tipped saw once finished the surfaces are smoothed and polished then Piccitelli subjects the evidence to a high-powered microscope the concrete is a mixture of stones gravel and sand called aggregates held together by a cement paste and some trapped air with the help of a computer, piscitelli measures and counts each of these components to the average eye, all concrete looks quite similar but, in fact , each piece has a unique story, each piece of concrete is usually different because the components vary slightly even if they come from the same load of concrete, two different samples from the same truck can be different because the percentages of air voids, voids small and formed or trapped air gaps may be slightly different.

He was unable to find significant similarities between most of the samples, but when he analyzed the results he found that two of the pieces stood out from the rest. They shared exactly the same number of unique components. These two pieces of concrete had some unique characteristics that were peculiar only to those. two pieces of concrete and based on all the data and analysis, the numbers were exactly the same. I was able to prove that those two pieces of concrete came from the same structure of the two samples that matched one that came from the pile of debris found in Mansfield, Ohio, the other was collected in the basement of the suspect's new home in Erie. , Pennsylvania.

The police now had enough to charge Dr. John Boyle with murder. Police believe John Boyle murdered his wife in the couple's home so he could start a new life. With her lover pregnant with her after the murder, he took her body to Pennsylvania and buried her in a grave he had dug in the basement of her new house. Investigators theorized that he then returned to Ohio and dumped the leftover concrete on his friend's property. Dr. John Boyle was convicted. for aggravated murder and abuse of a corpse he was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison john boyle thought he had buried all the evidence of his crime but in reality the trail of evidence extended for 200 miles other murders are more local but the path to solving them can take the same amount of time in harrison county missouri on june 26, 1995 a farmer who was out for a walk noticed a foul smell at first he thought maybe one of his animals had died but the reality was much worse hidden in some weeds lay the lifeless body of a man, after receiving the 9-1-1 call, dispatchers contacted the main case team officers.

A group of law enforcement personnel from several neighboring jurisdictions. Bethany Police Chief George Martz was one of the first to respond to the scene. When we arrived, we had no idea who. The victim had no identification on the body that we could determine at that time, but the manner in which he died was clear. He had been shot several times. Police recovered an empty ammunition box and found several spent ammunition a few meters away. shotgun shells and then Sheriff Greg Kuhn of the nearby Grundy County Sheriff's Department arrived at the scene and believed he recognized the victim as a local resident by the name of Al Pinegur.

After looking at the body, I felt it might have been Al Pinegur. who he had dealt with in the past in Grundy County I couldn't really be sure, but it seemed to me that it might be the one who wasn't sure what was evidence and what was roadside trash. Investigators collected numerous items scattered around the area they found and collected. A small plastic watch on the back had a torn adhesive with small synthetic fibers stuck to it. They also located a single strand of brown leather lying in the middle of the road. Police hoped that somewhere in the rubble there were clues that could explain this brutal murder in the autopsy.

The medical examiner confirmed that the victim had died as a result of multiple 12-gauge shotgun blasts. He had been shot twice in the back and once in the face. The victim's fingerprints were lifted and then transmitted to Harrison County Police. Investigators requested Al Pinegur's fingerprints. card that was on file in Grundy County when they compared those prints to those taken from the homicide victim they found a perfect match now theDetectives from the major case team had to figure out who wanted Al Pinegur dead. They soon had their first chance. Police learned that the victim had been reported missing a few days before his body was discovered.

Well, thank you, the report had been submitted by her fiancée. The police immediately arranged an interview. The victim's fiancee told detectives that she and Al had been living together for some time, she said. She said she last saw him a few hours before she disappeared; she had left the house to run some errands. Al said she was going to mow the lawn and do some work around the house. She hadn't mentioned any plans to leave that day. Recently, she had been trying to help him overcome a drug problem. He had been doing everything he could to stay away from her drug dealing.

He usually stayed with friends in the middle of the grass. She was suspicious, however, that he had seen some of them that day when she returned home. Later that afternoon she passed a van leaving her neighborhood. He didn't see everyone in the truck, but he knew the vehicle belonged to a couple he used to traffic drugs. He believed Al may have ducked to avoid being seen when The Fiancé came home to find Al and his 12-gauge shotgun gone. The information provided police with their first real lead. They did a background check on the couple identified as John Middleton and his girlfriend Maggie Hodges.

Middleton had an extensive criminal history that primarily involved drug offenses. To find out why he might have wanted to harm Al Pinegar, police tracked down Middleton's known associates. An informant described Middleton as an extremely unstable and violent person. He said that as a result of police efforts to crack down on local drug dealers, John Middleton. he had become increasingly paranoid he threatened to kill the people he did business with if he found out they were cooperating with the authorities no one doubted him not for a minute everyone was afraid of him all the information led the police to suspect paranoia of Middleton had probably led to the murder of Al Pinegur and they hoped that somewhere among the shotgun shells and the assorted trash collected at the crime scene was the means to prove it.

Police in Harrison County, Missouri believed a local drug dealer and his girlfriend were responsible for the brutal shotgun murder of 29-year-old Alfred Piniger. To prove it, investigators needed to physically link the suspects to the crime scene. , although several potential clues had been found there. An empty box of shotgun shells seemed to be the most promising clue. A price tag found on the box led investigators to the store where the ammunition had originated. An employee pulled up recent sales records. According to receipts, several boxes of shell casings were purchased on the day of the murder. The employee recalled that two men and a woman woman had gone in together to shop she also remembered something Additionally, a few hours after the purchase, two of the three customers returned to the store, they had unused cartridges and wanted to return them for a refund.

The employee did not remember seeing the other man who had been with them earlier when she flashed the photographs she chose. she identified Al Pineager, John Middleton, and Maggie Hodges as the three who purchased the boxes of ammunition that same day. She returned a second time and identified Middleton and Hodges as the two who returned to return the unused ammunition, although the evidence did not. To prove the murder it was enough for the police to obtain arrest warrants believing that Middleton and his girlfriend were capable of great violence, the police cautiously approached the house they shared, John Middleton was quickly subdued moments later, Maggie Hodges was also arrested after the suspects were removed from the scene, police began searching for evidence of murder inside middleton's van, they picked up a brown fringed leather jacket as the search continued, technicians found a potential lead, the chief of Bethany police officer, George Martz, we took a piece of the dashboard of Middleton's truck that had a sticky substance on it and in that sticky substance there were fibers, those fibers seemed to match the clock that was found at the crime scene, so we removed a piece of the board, the entire board and we send it to the laboratory for analysis.

All evidence was sent to the Missouri State Highway Patrol Crime Laboratory located in Jefferson City. There, criminalist Kathleen Greene worked on the case almost immediately. She immediately noticed that the fringes on the brown leather jacket looked identical to a piece of brown leather found at the crime scene. I looked at the jacket to see if any fringe was missing and found an area where there was a piece of fringe missing, then compared the question on the fringe to the area of ​​the question on the jacket to determine if it was originally attached to it, although the pieces They were neatly aligned in green, I could not conclusively state that the piece of leather actually came from Middleton's jacket.

He turned his attention to the watch stick found near Al Pinegar's body when he compared the adhesive on the back of the palm with The adhesive stuck to Middleton's board found numerous similarities It was the same size It had the same color It was both made of the same type of

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When the torn edges of the two pieces were placed side by side under a comparison microscope, the examiners Found a match, the following fibers found on the clock stick were compared to carpet samples collected from the vehicle found by criminalist Jenny Smith. One consistency after another we determined that the fiber from the watch face that would have been considered the fiber in question was similar in physical and chemical composition to the fiber from the suspect vehicle, therefore we would conclude that this fiber in question could have come from this vehicle.

When faced with the evidence, Middleton did not cooperate, but his resistance did not matter. The police had discovered the motive behind the murder. My belief is that Mr. Middleton thought that Alfred Pinagar was about to rat him out to the police department and law enforcement authorities and Mr. Middleton. I wasn't going to let that happen, but Middleton was wrong. The victim had made no attempt to contact authorities. Police believe that on the day of the murder, John Middleton and Maggie Hodges went to Al Pinegar's house and asked him to go shoot him. white and he agreed what he didn't know was that he was the intended target at some point, however, that became clear that it started inside the car.

Pinnager escaped but did not get far. John Middleton was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Maggie Hodges pleaded guilty. guilty and was sentenced to 50 years in prison it takes motive and opportunity to commit a murder and strong evidence is needed to solve it when clues are few forensic experts provide the knowledge to turn the most common object into a material witness that you