Mind Hunters, Obsession & Cold Cases | TRIPLE EPISODE | The New Detectives

a teenager is missing a police investigation exposes the deaths of dozens of children and young people all traced back to a single killer a photographer resorts to rape and torture meticulously documented his crimes on film and audio tapes in a quiet suburb four people are found dead police wonder what kind of madman could commit this crime for serial killers a death is just the beginning angry they attack again and again learning more with each crime improving improvement they are sure they will never be stopped but the

mind

hunters

work tirelessly for his capture abroad it is just after six in the afternoon on January 23, 1978 in California when the Sacramento County police arrive at the home of Terry and David Wallen.

A neighbor calls them there at David's frantic request. Terry Wallen, 22, has been brutally murdered. The house shows signs of an intense struggle between Wallen and his killer. Thank you. They shot him and cut up his body. A large knife runs across his entire torso. Some of his internal organs have been removed. Investigators are horrified by the cruelty of the crime. The scene. becomes more gruesome when they find evidence suggesting the killer may have consumed Wallen's blood. Officers find a yogurt cup with bloody lip prints around the rim. Sacramento police don't know what to do with the scene, but they know who can help them.

They call. a specialist a man who is familiar with

cases

of horrible and strange murders his name is Russ Warpagle he is an FBI special agent the brutality of the murder makes Warpagel fear that the killer cannot control himself and that Terry Wallen's death may just be the At the beginning of your Rampage, there's simply no need to disembowel a victim, no need to reach inside and cut off body parts, no need to cut a four-inch chunk out of a major artery and take it with you. I mean, we knew we had a nut. and we were worried and we knew something was going to happen vorpegel called an FBI colleague Robert Ressler has tracked and caught some of the world's most dangerous killers as a criminal profiler for the FBI Surveillance the darkest corners of a killer's

mind

in In the 1970s, he was one of the first to use the term serial killer to describe those who murder over and over again.

Robert Ressler is a mind hunter. The fighter strives to understand the mind of the killer by studying the crime scene and knowing how the killer thinks, it is essential to predict his next move, when he will attack, who he will attack, he must have an emotional need to solve a crime, he must want to know who was the criminal, you must know who that person is, what he or she is like, what he or she was like before, during and after. crime, but there is a danger of identifying too much with those who destroy. The fighter pays attention to the words of the German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, who wrote that whoever fights monsters must not become a monster and that when one looks into an abyss, the abyss unblinkingly stares back.

For Robert Ressler Nietzsche's observation is motivation and warning looking into the abyss for me means looking into the depths the deep cracks the dark crevices of the human mind of man and when he says the abyss look at me it means I am looking at myself. I'm seeing my reflection because in every horrible killer, you yourself are somewhere, in part, somewhere in your life, you could have taken the same path in the 1970s. The fighter was one of the original members of the unit of FBI Behavioral Sciences, the first FBI program to systematically investigate the motivations of a murderer.

The wrestler interviewed some of America's most notorious killers in prison to learn about their current habits and attitudes. The fighter is a private consultant working around the world to help solve serial murders in January 1978. The fighter applied his knowledge to help Sacramento. County investigators devise a psychological profile of Terry Wallin's killer. It was the first step in tracking down the killer. The fighter began the profile by examining the details of the crime scene. What is sought at the crime scene is the position of the body in the way it was left. on the part of the killer, you look at the state of the body from the standpoint of being clothed or naked, and of course you're looking for available weaponry or the killer brought a gun to the scene, used it, and took it away.

These are all. Things that really start to grow in your head After Terry Wallen is shot, the killer cut up his body with knives taken from his own kitchen and then left them visible at the scene, a detail that would prove instructive for the fighter because the largest number of series The Killers are men at that time. The boar Pagel and the fighter conclude that their suspect is a man. They also assume that he is white like most American serial killers. The brutality of the crime and the killer's apparent indifference to leaving evidence convinced the couple that his subject is mentally ill.

That helps them identify the age of the murderer. The fighter knows that mental illness usually begins in adolescence. It would take at least eight years for the killer to become sick enough to carry out the acts of violence he inflicted on Terry Wallen, assuming symptoms began at age 15. The murderer would be between 20 and 30 years old, somewhat older than he would have already committed several gruesome homicides. the fighter goes further. He believes the killer is schizophrenic. a mental illness characterized by delusions, hallucinations, and strange behavior. the heinous nature of the crime points to full. Psychosis breaks out, a total loss of contact with reality because it drinks the blood of its victims.

Investigators call him the Vampire Killer from his office in Virginia. The fighter works feverishly with Vorpagle in Sacramento to refine the profiles of the Assassin. What would he look like? The police are convinced. should look for someone thin male schizophrenics generally eat poorly when they eat everything and Russ Warpagel believes the killer will pay little attention to his appearance a guy who suffers from a significant mental illness will probably have deterioration in his hygiene probably won't won't cut himself hair wears the same clothes for weeks at a time does not brush his teeth looks stingy given his strange behavior the killer would probably live alone delivers a copy of the profile to the Sacramento police to circulate throughout the county, but no strong suspect Vampire killer still at large Will profilers find him before he kills again three days after Terry Wallen's brutal 1978 murder less than a mile from his home Vampire killer strikes again Police find bodies by Daniel Meredith Evelyn Merov and her son Jason is well missing and presumed dead is Mirath's 22-month-old nephew, Michael Ferriera, these new deaths convince the fighter and the forepagel that unless they quickly find this killer, he will attack again.

The mind

hunters

redouble their efforts using the information gathered from this crime scene. They refine their original profile again the vampire killer shot his victims again used knives taken from the victim's kitchen two knives were found in the room and another outside he doesn't seem to care that he left a gun behind thanks these details tell the profilers that the killer is not planning his crimes, although he brings a gun, cuts up the bodies with weapons he finds at the scene and then leaves them there. We have a knife that was used to mutilate the bodies, they took it from the kitchen and used it on the victim. then I ruled it out at the crime scene seeing this a second time it definitely reinforced in my mind that we were dealing with a highly organized and disorganized killer these words describe the behavior of a serial killer before, during and after a murder, Foreign serial killers carefully trace their movements and cover their trail so thoroughly that little or no evidence remains to link them to their crimes.

In contrast, disorganized serial killers act on impulse, their behavior is random, making them Your next move is difficult to predict. Investigators find blood stains in the bathtub. Profilers believe the Vampire. The killer may have bathed in a mixture of water and blood. The crimes are becoming more gruesome and the killer is more deranged and disorganized. Now we know very well that an ordinary person is not going to fill a bathtub with water and bathe in blood. here we see personality here we see mental illness we see mental deterioration from the evidence at the crime scene warpagal and the fighter reconstruct the horrifying sequence of events and the terrifying portrait of a man they have never seen begins to emerge reinforces the belief of hundreds of Mind you, the vampire slayer's appearance will continue to deteriorate.

He probably won't have changed his clothes unless he is single and lives alone. The murderer cannot escape. Note that his subject is a thin, scruffy loner of no more than 30 years old. Investigators are baffled when a murder occurs. Victim Daniel Meredith's stolen red truck appears a short distance away because it was found nearby. The fighter determines that the vampire's killer must have walked to the crime scene and then fled on foot after abandoning the car. The killer would be living a very close distance from that abandoned car, I said about a quarter mile the day after the Mirath murders, the police receive an unrelated report that a dog has been shot and mauled a few blocks from the crime scene for the Mind Hunters, it's the break they've been looking for, they know it.

As children, serial killers often maim or kill animals and he would go out and kill these pets by shooting them with the same gun that he shot Wallen, Miroth and Meredith with the same gun that you shoot these pets with and then he He catches them and drinks their bottles as much as possible. the animals are found dead the circle closes the mind hunters are convinced that the vampire killer lives near the sacrificed animals and his human victims will not have traveled far the police circulate the revised profile throughout the city in the hope that anyone has seen a disheveled or strange man Officers zero in on a quarter-mile radius of the murders as a woman in her 20s leaves a Sacramento shopping center.

A strange man approaches her to hear about the vampire slayer's murders. The woman contacts the police. The man she eluded at the mall. She tells the officers that he is a former high school classmate, Richard Trenton Chase, that she was shocked by his appearance, that he had blood stains on his sweatshirt, that his eyes seemed sunken in their sockets, that he had a yellowish scab around her mouth, according to the woman's description. Chase fits the profile of the Vampire Killer armed with a search warrant as officers enter Chase's home, unprepared for what they find. Nazi paraphernalia dominates the small apartment.

The place is full of pamphlets about alien conspiracies. Chaos in the living room fits the profile of someone with an equally chaotic mind. In the kitchen, the police find blood-spattered appliances, as well as newspaper articles about the murder of Terry Wallen. Several dishes in the refrigerator contain human tissue. The kitchen drawer has knives taken from Wallen's house. Investigators also find a toolbox. Rubber boots stained with blood. Chase is arrested and charged with six counts of first-degree murder, including the murder of Evelyn Muroth's nephew, 22-month-old Michael Farriera, whose remains are found not far from Chase's apartment. The jury deliberates only a few hours before finding Chase guilty on all charges.

The death knell for the electric vehicle. President in 1979 Robert Ressler decided to talk to Chase in prison. The reason I interviewed him very candidly was to validate making an update and to validate the profiling work that I had done to speak to him directly after working on the case after seeing. Crime scenes after now reading the police reports and of course the court records, is one way to really hone your profile. They changed Chase tells the fighter that he had killed only to preserve his own life. He needed blood. Chase says to survive. what he called soap dish poisoning Chase believed that a GUI residue under his soap dish proved that he was dying.

He claimed that his blood was drying up and corroding his body. His murders, Chase claimed, were committed in self-defense when he got to the bottom of the motivation, he said. that the blood in his veins, the blood throughout his body, was turning to dust or dust and that it was moving very slowly through his body, causing it to slow down, which made him fatigued and made him very sick and I felt like this was happening. Of course, he said that by the influence of objectsunidentified fliers and aliens and said the only way to counter this was to obtain a new supply of human blood, leading a man like Chase to murder an FBI study on 36 serial killers. revealed that although most began life in two-parent homes at age two, almost half of the children's fathers had abandoned their families, almost half of the offenders surveyed reported

cold

or indifferent relationships with their mothers, 26 reported such relationships with their parents, nearly 70 percent of families had a history of alcohol abuse one-third had a history of drug abuse almost all reported some form of psychological, physical, or sexual abuse in childhood when they were children many serial killers tortured animals most did not graduate from high school while men had the intelligence to perform skilled jobs most had poor work records only 20 percent or six criminals had managed to maintain a stable job but apparently serial killers They seem normal, like your neighbor or your friend, most of these people are like ordinary people, they are often intelligent.

Attractive, they are good conversationalists, IQ is usually at least above normal or beyond and they are very deceptive. The fighter opposed the death sentence for Chase Chase, arguing that he was mentally ill and should have been locked up for life in prison. The hospital's prison psychiatrists eventually agreed that Chase's sentence was commuted to life in prison at the California Medical Center in Vacaville, but Chasese committed suicide in his prison cell just after Christmas 1980. He had stockpiled his antidepressant pills and then he had taken them all at once. Richard Trenton pursues a brief and chaotic reign of terror had come to an end, in contrast, one of the most cunning serial killers in the United States was also one of the most organized, very intelligent and talented photographers, this murderer specialized in kidnappings, rape and torture.

The police called him unidentified subject or unsub. He was a master at planning. He used film and audio tape to record his crimes in a rented storage shed. He stored photographs. of his victims and recordings of his anguished cries, he was so meticulous that he left virtually no evidence of his atrocities, except for the photographs he himself took. The unsub customized his cars to look like unmarked police cars, adding heavy-duty suspensions and heavy restraints so that once inside, his victims had virtually no chance of escape for five years. He traveled from state to state and never stayed in one place for long.

He was self-sufficient. He financed his crimes of kidnapping, rape and torture with another crime. He was a skilled forger. He was confident. that he would never be caught in Manassas, Virginia, a team of former FBI agents hunt down some of the world's most dangerous criminals, they call themselves. The Academy group, between them, have accumulated years of experience investigating serial murders. The same

cases

of people as Robert Hazelwood and Peter Smarik are. experts in psychological profiles of criminals if in life you are an impulsive person you act without thinking well then that crime scene can be very, very careless and be a reflection of your impulsive acts on the other hand if in life you are a

cold

and calculating individual don't take unnecessary risks with that type of behavior it can also be demonstrated at the crime scene even with evidence from the crime scene categorizing serial killers is difficult some serial killers demonstrate a mix of disorganized and organized habits too often yes An investigator starts looking at a crime scene and tries to put the offender into one of these nice little categories.

He will be disappointed when the person he arrests doesn't fit into these categories. In all areas of the resort town of Ocean City, Maryland, a young woman has just finished his shift at a convenience store it is Memorial Day weekend in 1979. He is approached by a man who identifies himself as a police officer, shows him his ID, and drives an unmarked police car. She tells the woman that she is a suspect in a series of robberies and he insists that she accompany him to police headquarters for questioning. He handcuffs her and pushes her into the car.

It is the beginning of the longest and most terrifying experience in a woman's life. The man is not a police officer. He is not subscribed. She is his latest victim. He takes her to a deserted building where he repeatedly rapes and tortures her and records audio. I think one of the buzzwords we use today is power and control and if you're dealing with a rapist, if you're dealing with a serial killer. I think it still comes down to those two basic elements: power and control over another individual's life. He will eventually push the dazed woman back into her car.

He will take One Last Ride, stop the car, open the passenger door, and get the woman out. in a ditch but he did not kill her, she allowed this victim to live and as a result, within a few hours, when she arrived on the day, she was found, she was rescued and now it has become a full FBI investigation for kidnapping. The FBI organized a massive search for the unsub, the Ocean City woman, was the last in a long list of victims, some were tortured, others murdered, but many years passed before there was a break in the case, at the same time that the FBI was looking for the unsub and the Secret Service was on the trail. of an elusive counterfeiter, a man who routinely passed counterfeit twenty-dollar bills to unsuspecting clerks in malls and stores across the Midwest and East Coast, the one thing any law enforcement agency has, no matter how good we are , an element of luck is necessary and the cooperation of an alert citizenry is needed.

In this case, an alert employee recognized a composite sketch as a customer currently in the store. She notified mall security. Mall security notified local authorities, and within a short period of time, the suspect was detained by police. Arresting is James Mitchell of Bartolaban. The Secret Service soon discovers that De Barta Laban is not just a forger. Secret Service agents search a storage unit rented by Devarta Laban. Inside are wads of the counterfeit currency that has been passed around, but upon shooting them, the officers also discover a grotesque object. Treasure Trove of Photographs and Audio Tapes 1983 Discovery Unmasks Focus of FBI Investigation Robert Hazelwood, then an FBI special agent who had written a criminal profile of the suspects, reviewed materials seized from De Bartolaban's storage unit .

Agents find thousands of photographs of Barta Laban's victims. Among them are photographs and audio tapes of the woman kidnapped in Ocean City in 1979. Some of the photographs date back to the early 1960s. They contain the tools of a killer's trade. Victims' clothing. 10 weapons. Fake police identification diaries. Lingerie and jewelry stained with blood. The license plates allowed Barta Laban to roam around without fear of her car being tracked. The FBI also found handwritten notes containing codes referring to past and future crimes, although they uncovered De Barta Laban's cache of damning images and sounds. The killer's face literally remains out of the frame of the photographs he took with the victims.

Investigators will have to prove that debartolavina is the man in the photographs if they want to conclusively link him to the rapes and deaths during his FBI career. Peter Smarrick was a forensic photographer. expert the Secret Service sent him several photographs of Bartolaban to analyze several show a naked torso and bare arms smarik focuses his attention on the arms they have a distinctive pattern of small moles and freckles smarik asks the Secret Service to temporarily remove Bartolaban from his cell From the prison to photograph him in the same position as the person in the confiscated photos, the Gambit pays off when Smarik compares the photographs taken by the Secret Service with those found in the storage unit and discovers that the freckle patterns Agents are desperately searching for evidence and in all the years I've worked as a criminal profiler I can't think of another case where the criminal was such an excellent photographer that he unknowingly took his own photographs of the crime scene. who ended up imprisoning him. 1984 Barta Laban was tried and convicted today he is in a federal penitentiary in Texas sentenced to multiple life sentences he is one of the most dangerous criminals to ever walk the face of the Earth in my opinion he was able to commit a series of crimes over several years in a variety of states and have never had those crimes linked to him that made him extremely dangerous.

I think he is involved in many more crimes than we are aware of, yes, controlling every variable gun location and being a victim of the organized serial killer. can escape any Dragnet by getting away with a murder for years while hiding in plain sight, such was the case of John Wayne Gacy, a prominent Chicago area businessman, the beloved and respected Gacy camouflaged a terrible secret in 1978 in Des Plaines, Illinois, for fifteen years. Old Robert Piste Was Reported Missing After learning that Gacy was preparing a remodeling bid for a pharmacy where Peace worked, Chief Detective Joseph Kozenzak of the Des Plaines Police Department goes to Gacy's house.

Gacy denies knowing peace, but investigators are suspicious. A background check revealed that Gacy was once there. convicted of sexual abuse of a teenager Kozinzak places Gacy under surveillance initially Cooperates with the police Gacy becomes increasingly sullen as the investigation into Kozen's act continues, he had a really evil look in his eyes, you could feel that hatred there and he really didn't do it. What we were investigating he was more concerned with trying to stay out of the way. Gacy threatens a lawsuit if police continue their surveillance of him. The officers continue to suspect that Gacy has a lot to hide, but even they are unprepared for what they will find for several weeks.

In 1978, Des Plaines police kept an eye on John Wayne Gacy, it was finally time to search his home. The search uncovers a receipt with a photograph that belonged to Robert Piste and links Gacy to the boy's disappearance. A more thorough search would reveal even more information about the Boss. Detective Kozin'sak was the first to enter Gacy's house. I was one of the first people to arrive at the house. I entered through the back door. I walked all over the place. It was dark and creepy. All the window blinds were closed. Know? I don't know, it's actually a little sinister because we were starting to believe there might be people buried under Casey's house, based on the information we've gathered, the police interviewed Gacy's ex-wife's friends and former employees, Stories emerged that Gacy propositioned her. one of his workers suggested that they checked the crawlspace after rigorous questioning.

Gacy admits to

detectives

that four years earlier, in 1974, he killed one of his homosexual classmates. Gacy claims the murder was self-defense, he hid the man's body under the floor and then Gacy surprises investigators. He confesses that he murdered nearly three dozen young men and boys and also hid many of their bodies under the floor. The confessions trigger an intense search by

detectives

for the missing men. They examine the crawlspace hoping to find Gacy's victims, they discover three decomposing bodies and parts of other bodies, but the police do not stop in the crawlspace, knowing that more bodies must be hidden under the house, They cut through the floor to eventually find them.

They would find bodies buried beneath the dining room, and the garage floor beneath the house is a virtual killing field of buried bones and jumbled skeletons. The police arrest Casey for the murder of Robert Peace, although the bodies they discovered had been dead too long to be the missing boy, Casey. Um, he thought the best way to not get caught for his crimes was to keep control of his victims after death, but when you're a psychopath, a sexual psychopath, he thought no one would find those bodies down there because he was too smart. The police were smarter than anyone by hiding their victims in their own home.

Gacy maintained complete control over them even in death and could be sure that no one would find them without his knowledge. Such careful attention to detail, from planning to death, is the mark of a highly organized killer,Everything about the case, especially seeing the inside of the house, would indicate that Casey was very methodical, very well planned, and that he had thought these crimes out in great detail before embarking on them. Gacy also threw his victims into the Des Plaines River. Police recovered six more bodies there, one of them was Robert Peace. When it was over, police identified the remains of 33 people.

Bob was very interested in this process because the FBI was formulating within their behavioral sciences unit a sort of in-depth study of people who commit a series of murders and want to know more about them want to understand them and this was a classic classic case. The goal of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences unit is to map the mind of the serial killer for what many people believe is the sexual act. What he is doing with the victim is of primary importance to them. In reality, it is the whole game. that the selection process is important to them, the surveillance knowing that I have selected you to become my victim and you don't know it and then all the planning that encompasses the stages of carrying out the abduction, so they are rehearsing this and perhaps living it for weeks or months before the actual abduction and, to some extent, subsequent sexual activity occurs.

It can be almost a consequence of every murder. Gacy refined his methods by learning from his mistakes and improving his successes. He carefully lured his victims into a well-designed trap, distracting them with weight lifting, giving them alcohol and showing them pornographic films. Oh, we mentioned it, you can pick it up. Eventually it grew so much. Confident that he brazenly attacked a child in his own neighborhood, many victims came to Gacy's home in hopes of getting a job at his contracting company. He would meet them in his garage. The soundproof garage was designed by Gacy and built by his company.

A motorized door. it was the only way in or out if his victim didn't object. Gacy would demonstrate a magic trick using the good right, okay, done after showing how handcuffs work. Casey would persuade his victim to try them all right now. You did it the easy way, the hard way. he would then challenge him to try the trick behind his back if the victim agreed that the trap was sprung Gacy would change the trick's handcuffs for real ones once immobilized the victim was at Gacy's Mercy one two three turn only Gacy knows exactly what Gacy thought he had completely covered his tracks, but memories found during the search of Gacy's home provided key evidence, although police didn't know it at the time detectives They discovered driver's licenses, belt buckles, rings and other personal effects.

The fighter was alerted. investigators about the importance of these objects, we had actually found these items without fully realizing what we had found until Bob came in and started pointing out to us that to you the belt buckle is not important, but to the person who committed the crime yes it is. Very important is a visual process to help you relive the crime anytime you want to do it, so the memories are a reminder of your past murders and an inspiration to kill again. Together we see that this is a kind of symbol of your success and a reminder that enhances your fantasy and leads you to the next victim trophies I called for the serial killer uh, if you somehow enhance your fantasy, have these objects around more The haunting object found in Gacy's house was a map indicating the workplaces in the United States where he had worked as a contractor.

The fighter believes it is likely that Gacy would not have limited his murders to Chicago. It seemed logical that since Casey was traveling around doing this in Chicago he is also doing it in other places, which is why I firmly believe that Khan Gacy killed more than the 33 for which he was convicted. I think probably double that number. Forensic teams dismantled Gacy's home. In total they recovered 27 bodies there. How many more did Gacy kill the police? He would never know for 10 years starting in 1979. The wrestler interviewed Gacy in prison. The fighter was surprised to learn that he had grown up four blocks from the killer in the Chicago suburbs.

Gacy even recalled delivering groceries to the wrestler's family, recalling in detail the distinctive flower pots the wrestler used Gacy's mother also had darker memories of as a wrestler he described. A turbulent relationship with his father. The fighter was not surprised. Almost all the serial killers he knows tell similar stories. I ran away from home, as you know, when I was 19 because I couldn't. I didn't get along with my father, I mean, he was just overbearing. I was dumb and stupid, I would never amount to anything, so I just left and, hell, I was gone for three months.

Well, it's more like Gacy made a painting from prison. and I sent it to the fighter. It depicted Gacy dressed in a clown costume when I put on clown makeup. I returned to childhood. It was fun being a clown because you could be yourself or just go with the flow and act silly, you know how people are. uh if you're a businessman you have to maintain a certain relationship and stuff like that and everyone looks to you for a picture, but as a clown with makeup you can be clownish and funny and have a good time, that's why I always enjoyed doing the clown in Gacy's painting.

He stands in a grove of evergreen trees surrounded by balloons. The inscription on the back reads: You cannot expect to enjoy the harvest without first working in the fields. Gacy refused to explain the meaning of the painting to the wrestler or anyone else. The wrestler believes the painting hints at many more murders that Gacy committed. He said you can get away with a lot of things when you act like a clown because people see you as funny, they see you as funny, they don't. They don't know what's under the grease paint, they don't know what's under the fabric, he said clowns can get away with it.

John Wayne Gacy died by lethal injection on May 10, 1994. Since the early years of criminal profiling in the 1970s, other serial killers have been identified and captured names such as Son of Sam, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. have become known to mind hunters and to a public alternately fascinated and repelled by their crimes serial killers are driven by control by dominance by discipline by uh Authority have a very twisted concept concepts of uh of uh interaction with another human being they do not look at another human being as a human being they look at them as an object Robert Ressler believes that serial killings, while not limited to the United States, have intensified in this country since the end of World War II Worldwide, part of the reason has to do with the culture that glamorizes and encourages violence.

Culture produces, you know, produces violent crimes. I would say that 75 percent of the world's serial killers are American products. Yes, it sounds very strange, but he is one of us. I know it's like America, you know it's like baseball apple pie mom and cereal homicide. It's unfortunate and it's certainly tragic in a sense, but it's one thing in the world, criminology, America is absolutely broken. Log profilers must be careful that the poisonous thoughts of those they track do not contaminate their own. For those who stare into the abyss, there is the danger of falling. The fighter says that mindhunters must work to come back from the brink every day of their lives. lives I have maintained a balance I think consciously isolating myself from the horror of what I see uh to uh I go to work at eight I leave at five I return to a normal life I have a drink I watch the news mow the lawn I have maintained a perspective I have stayed in in tune with the mainstream and normal people of society because profiling fighters has less to do with drama than with analysis observing, thinking, concluding and realizing that there are no easy or quick answers, the movie Concepts is that the profiler will solve the case, everyone can fold up their tents and go home.

Profiling is a tool in the investigator's overall toolbox, it gives one more dimension, one more piece of that puzzle, and when you put it all together, it's sometimes very effective. Profilers explore the darkest regions of the mind bringing to light what is hidden, only then can you examine and learn the value of profiling, as in this case of Richard Chase, is to give the police some concept, some psychological portrait or an image from The Logical. type of subject they are looking for to give them a clear picture because otherwise it's just an empty room the strange monsters feel like they can never be caught they are invulnerable but with each new victim every drop of blood every fiber or strand of DNA left in At a crime scene, the Mind Hunters investigate deeper into the mind of the Killer, perhaps the day will come when profilers are no longer necessary, but for now the Mind Hunters will have to continue probing the abyss.

Thanks in Los Angeles, forensic experts try to do. sense of a photo shoot that crossed the line from daring to deadly in the Pacific Northwest. Law enforcement pursues a brutal predator whose lust for violence is reaching fever pitch while detectives track a killer. double homicide investigation stimulates an international mana that the law has There is no jurisdiction in the human mind where the twisted motives of a murderer can forever challenge the police, but actions cannot devise science through forensic science. The detectives hire even the most deranged criminals and put an end to their deadly

obsession

s in Los Angeles, where image is everything: a pretty face and a sexy body. can launch a woman into the spotlight, but not everyone goes that far.

In November 1995, a model went to a photo shoot and disappeared. Days passed without saying a word, her friends and worried parents had no idea of ​​her whereabouts, so she caught the attention of a passing stranger. One afternoon, a garbage collector working along the Angelus Crest Highway found a 10-year-old dream in the trash. Several days later he saw the woman's face again. She was Linda Sobek, a model from Hermosa Beach who had been missing for five days. She contacted the police. the strange discovery of her, yes, hi, I'm Frank Artino, yes, I'm calling you about that girl you have on television, a former host of La Raider.

Sobek, 27, was on a wave of success, her schedule was full of photo shoots for magazine covers and calendars. she had just landed a role in a popular sitcom the day she disappeared Linda told her mother she would be on a remote photo shoot with a photographer named Chuck her mother didn't know who Chuck was or where they were going Linda promised to call her After the shoot she would never No call came, the garbage collector showed the police where he had thrown the garbage bag on the side of the road. There they found more photographs. Pages torn from Sobek's appointment book and a makeup bag.

They also found a clue that they hoped would lead them to the model the receipt was on. for the loan of a sport utility vehicle a prototype that had not yet been released was signed by Charles Rathbun and dated November 16 the same day Sobek disappeared it seemed that the mysterious chuck had been identified Rathbun police Learned was a respected A photographer specializing in new car photography, he was considered one of the best in his field. Rathbun said he did not know how her receipt got mixed up with Linda Sobek's belongings, but he admitted that he was probably the last person to see her on the morning of her disappearance. said Sobek asked him to meet her in a restaurant parking lot she was looking for a job he wasn't interested Detective Mike Robinson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department took Rathbun's statement and said he met her briefly at the Denny's parking lot looked at her purse and told her he had a busy schedule and pushed her out of the car and left her there at noon the day she disappeared.

He said his last observation of her was standing in the parking lot unlocking Dotson Sobek's white car. She still in the parking lot, but there the tracking group brought out Rathland, the last one who saw her was the only clue to the missing model. The police asked him to come to the station for a more complete interview. She didn't come to her appointment. She called later. day and said he was having car trouble and then never showed up and never called back, but police learned that Rathbun had contacted a friend in law enforcement. She had received a rambling fax in which she confessed to having accidentally killed Sobek and she also threatened to commit suicide. they rushed to her house they found him drunk and incoherent they took him into custody to jail Rathbun gave him thepolice a second account of what happened admitted that he had lied when he said he had not hired Linda Sobek recounted a tragic accident on a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert Rathbun wanted to photograph Linda testing the rugged prototype.

He got behind the wheel to show her how to turn it. Thank you. He claimed that he had lost control of the two-and-a-half-stroke vehicle and the rear crashed into Sobec killing her. The panic rat man dug a grave with his hands and abandoned the body. He said he was so traumatized that he couldn't remember where the police had buried him. He didn't believe this sudden change of story, but nothing more. To continue, they could not refute his story, the alibis were flimsy or withheld in court. The researchers weren't about to let that happen. The case entered its next phase to find fault with Rathbun's story.

The police seized the car, unfortunately, it had been detailed. at least twice since Rathbun borrowed it Investigators hope some evidence survived the thorough cleaning The first task was to look for signs of impact Los Angeles County criminalist Heidi Robbins found none Initial examination revealed no such evidence On the outside of the car, being that it was a prototype, it was a completely new vehicle, fresh off the line, so it was very clean, which is not really what we are used to seeing as forensic scientists or criminalists, the vehicle did not I didn't even have a scratch there. no dent was seen maybe the victim had been run over not hit the vehicle was placed on a lift again the car was clean we did not see any blood or tissue or fiber evidence associated with the exterior or undercarriage of that vehicle The The next step was to examine the interior of the vehicle.

Although the leather seats looked impeccable, there was no blood. Debris was found in the crack between the seat cushions and was stained. Stitching tests showed that it matched Sobek's blood type, four long blonde hairs. They were collected and proven to belong to her. Robbins noticed that one of the doors had a deep dent. It looked like a fight may have occurred inside. The markings inside the car suggested a tail very different from that of the Rathbuns, but the whole story could not be explained. being informed without Sobek's body and the refund had conveniently forgotten where he was in custody, attempted suicide claiming it was all a mistake, he wrote it in his own blood, that he never intended to hurt anyone, the ACT could be read as desperation or as a cunning calculation.

In an apparent attempt to prove his sincerity eight days after Linda Sobek disappeared, Rathbun remembered where he had buried her and led the search party to a 6,000-foot Steep Ravine 40 miles from the photo shoot site, buried more than one week. The remains would likely provide few clues about the factors that led to her death. I have always maintained that Rathbun decided to contribute to our efforts on the day he did so because he felt the body would be so decomposed that we would not be able to determine those factors for Detective Robinson's confession and suicide attempt.

Rathbun did not ring true to him the photographer was controlling. ingeniously the investigation gathering information too little, too late His sudden memory of the burial site was the latest example supervised by a forensic anthropologist Robin The team carefully removed the body. Each rock from the top of the tomb was numbered and cataloged inch by inch. Soil was lifted from the grave, then sifted and analyzed after eight hours. Investigators had their most crucial piece of evidence two feet down. To her surprise, the elements had saved her, there was very little degradation and I think because of the cold and the altitude and the ravine she was buried in she had such minimal sun exposure that she was essentially refrigerated for those nine days that the researchers examined. .

The victim was hit by a car. She would have had injuries at knee level. Her legs did not have broken bones or abrasions, but they did. They had severe ligature marks. It looked like it had been tied around her ankles. The state of her clothing also suggested more than just an unfortunate accident and hasty burial—most women probably feel comfortable wearing a blouse with a zipper somewhere perhaps in the center of their chest—and Linda's clothes were zippered all the way to the top. base of your neck. I thought it was a very unnatural position and to me when seeing clothing that has a slightly unnatural position indicates the possibility that there may have been some repair or some alteration of the clothing in the unnatural position of her clothing it suggested that Rathbun had dressed her possibly after her death and apparently trying to erase the evidence, Rathbun inadvertently created a second clue that revealed she was not telling the full story she was a model, she wore makeup, she was on a photo shoot. and when she was recovered from that grave there was a total absence of makeup or residue thereof that we were able to detect at the crime scene and what also worried me was the state of her clothing, the makeup and the marks around her ankles suggested that the victim She was not just standing before she died, something else was happening and it pointed to a murder Linda Sobek was last photographed on the autopsy table from the marks on her body the medical examiner was able to tell she had been asphyxiated bleeding in her eyes showed the breath was literally taken from her and she hadn't gone without a fight her wrist was sprained she had been tied up the physical evidence mangled rathbun's story of a car accident as the case went to trial a charge of first degree murder seemed inevitable but rathbun didn't was ended in a bid for a manslaughter conviction offered another account of what happened his new version explained all the evidence in what was now the third interpretation of rathbun claimed that Sobek began to undress and strike erotic poses said he was in trouble When he took pictures of her, he put the camera aside and they started kissing, but she didn't let it continue after things calmed down and she got dressed.

Wrathman showed him how to turn the car, but he was too reckless. thank you, he thought he had beaten her and killed her, but she had just tripped trying to get away from her. She cut her face when she fell. Rathbun told authorities that he put her in the car to take her to the hospital. She became hysterical, fought with him and threatened to kill her. In the lawsuit, he tried to restrain her with a bear hug, but she only became more agitated and violent as a last resort, he sat on her and she finally calmed down and then he realized that she was not breathing, he took her out of the car to try to revive her. but she was dead to explain the ligature marks.

Rathman said he then tied the model's ankles to better maneuver the unwieldy body back to the vehicle. He then buried her. It was a colorful story, but once again it felt too contrived. I felt that when trying to answer. Every piece of evidence that the prosecution had presented, he constructed a kind of patchwork quilt, it wasn't really square on the edges, it just wasn't the right shape. If Rathbun could sell this fabrication to the jury, he would probably get it. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter to prove his case. Rathbun gave the court five rolls of film from the photo shoot.

He explained that he had left them in the desert after they killed the victim. He asked his brother to get them back for him. Four of the roles showed Sobek modeling. but the fifth role was almost unrecognizable. Rathbun explained that it contained intimate photos of Linda Sobek that showed she was making fun of him, but in the heat of the moment he grabbed a roll he had already taken without realizing that she had taken photos of Linda Sobek. On the images of the Lexus interior, the harsh desert climate had apparently also affected the papers, ruining the emulsion.

Rathbun presented 13 distorted images of a woman in double-exposed pornographic poses on the inside of a car and along with them served a modified version of what happened this The version better explained the state of the victim's clothing and makeup at the time. . The facts of history changed. At this time another version of the truth came to light and it was suggested that this time his death was not actually due to a vehicle, but rather due to this consensual sexual activity that had gotten out of control too harshly and accidentally resulted in his death these days. Photographs were introduced to prove this latest version of the truth Investigators set out to prove that the photos were fake Detective Robinson felt that the photographs were too damaged to To be conclusive, he needed to determine if the Lexus and the woman in these photos were really who Rathbun said they were.

He learned that several weeks before borrowing the Lexus, Rathbun had photographed a 1998 Oldsmobile prototype; the detective requested Rathbun's photographs of the interior of that car from the manufacturer. Heidi Robbins took the double-exposure images and interiors of the Oldsmobile to the National Law Enforcement and Correctional Technology Center in El Segundo, California, for comparisons. The agency provides sophisticated forensic imaging technology to authorities. The images were scanned on a high-speed computer and enhanced with graphics. software before they could make sense engineer Bill Repetto digitally enhanced contrast, shadow detail and color, the films are in very poor condition, in fact much of the emulsion is missing, so detectives really can't They had a complete shot of the entire board using our equipment.

We were able to alter the contrast, fine-tune a little, look for features that were difficult to do in the conventional photographic process, but we can do it in real time on a computer, so I guess we What you are interested in knowing is that it is a part of the body. Or is that part of the dashboard once the images were fine-tuned, in repetto size and superimposed on the Oldsmobile's dashboard? On top of the damaged negative, their goal was to see if the car in the photos was really the Lexus that Sobek died in or if it was the Oldsmobile that you can match things like the speedometer dial oh, the steering wheel spoke unfortunately not we can see this pattern.

The logo on the steering wheel matches quite well. I mean, you work with this for just a few minutes and it's pretty obvious. This is not a Lexus, this is an Oldsmobile Rapido. Then he had to eliminate Linda Sobek as a faceless model. She compared the So Beck War dress in the photo shoot to a portion of lace shown in the double exposure images because lace patterns repeat, it just takes a little time. fragment of the material to point out a mismatch now in this image you can see that there is a definite pattern here there is a boot-shaped mark, you know, a vertical feature and it bends to the left and that is repeated up here, the patterns lace were inconsistent so were comparisons between Sobek's anatomy and the model in the photos.

Rathbun's last account was refuted. The defense in its fourth and final version of the truth when the defendant took the stand had to come up and explain all the findings of the physical evidence and the circumstances surrounding the death and in his testimony he initially stated that this was the Lexus and that of fact it was Linda Sobek and it was very powerful rebuttal testimony when the jury could see for themselves that not only was it not the Lexus but it was clearly not Linda Sobek once again the facts contradicted Rathbun's story the jury did not believe any of it. the tales of Wrathman Charles Rathbun was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Almost from the beginning the photographer was the focal point of Sobek's case, but when the murder is more random, investigators must take A broader view in Beaverton Oregon on the morning after Valentine's Day 1981.

Police were called to a home in a quiet neighborhood where they found the body of Julianne Reitz, 18, who had been shot. in the back of her head with two .38-caliber bullets, apparently while she was running for her life. The medical examiner determined that she died between 3 and 4 a.m. while investigators processed the crime scene. Detective Dave Bishop gathered the first major clue about the telltale signs where the victim was located. He knew who killed her, the door was open, the stereo was on, there were a couple of wine glasses in the sink. At least I was able to search the house for any traces the killer might have left behind.

No fingerprints were taken, but technicians recovered hair and fiber. samples upstairs found signs of struggle the bed was a toy torn sheets everywhere and it was obvious that you know there was a war up there the stains on the sheets showed that a man with type B blood had had sexual relations relations with the victim A week after the murder, detectivesThey questioned more than 150 of the victim's friends and acquaintances, several mentioning an older man who had recently resurfaced from his past, working at a local club and dating her once or twice a year before coming to him.

He was a bit overbearing and decided they should just be friends His name was Randall Woodfield Randy had been an All-American athlete and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers for a brief stint in the NFL He was a fun-loving, affable guy but he was no boy scout the police found out he was on parole after serving three years for robbing joggers in Portland. The police arranged an interview with him. He vaguely remembered the victim, but said he had not seen her in months. The researchers found him sincere and pleasant. I didn't know him, he would be the boy next door, I mean he was, he was and he was nice to talk to, he wasn't very bad words.

The soft-spoken Woodfield was frank about his past, but suspicions arose when he refused to send hair samples. or take a polygraph test. Entering seven grueling hours of interrogation produced little information, but he managed to wear it down. He finally agreed to let the police search his apartment. I told the detective that the first thing we grabbed when we entered the house were the sheets. office bed and since that was going to give us hair and blood, investigators got the hair sample they wanted from Woodfield's sheets, they also found a .32 caliber bullet and a roll of sports tape in his gym bag.

Usually these articles meant nothing now that the police were around. He was so sure the sports tape was a crucial clue when a series of unsolved rapes and murders that had been occurring along Interstate 5 for more than two months, detectives wondered if they were onto something bigger than a homicide. isolated. Suspicions intensified when investigators checked Woodfield's phone bill to see if he had called Julie Reeds, he was living with a young woman at the time, he actually owned the house and was renting out a portion of the house. I said, do you know if he made any phone calls to Beaverton and his response?

It was probably because I just got the phone bill today, it was over 200 and some dollars, so he called everyone. He obtained a copy of Woodfield's phone bill from his housemate when he was away. Woodfield liked to keep in touch with ex-girlfriends who charged calls to His housemate's phone, Bishop searched the bill for Reese's number, didn't find it, but the other numbers on the bill formed a chilling pattern, but of Suddenly while I'm going through this it becomes very obvious that what I'm seeing is terrifying, it's a map of I-5 from December 1980, a predator chased along Interstate 5 in three states, stole roadside establishments, sodomized and killed the young women who worked there, a task force had been created to catch the Killer's movements and piece together the insignificant clues. was rigorously consistent Weighing strangers without leaving traces has dark hair dark eyes described his hands often wore false beards and hoods about six foot two on January 18, 1981 a month before the REITs were murdered police and called the rescue to an office building in Salem Oregon, several miles up I-5 from where Julie Reitz was killed, what have you got?

Lisa Garcia and Sherry Hull were cleaning an office when an intruder entered. The women were sexually assaulted. Both were shot in the back of the head. Surprisingly, García never lost consciousness although she was dazed and confused she was able to dial 9-1-1 a twist of fate had prevented two Bullocks from entering García's brain Paul was not so lucky she died in the hospital detectives analyzed the scene of the crime office collected hair and fiber samples and two .32 caliber bullets, the evidence and method of attack matched the profile of a killer who had been creating a one-man crime spree.

Oregon detectives believe they may have stumbled upon the trail of the serial killer prowling along Interstate 5. -5 The killer's victims were always attractive young women with long hair. She often tied their wrists with the same brand of white sports tape and when she killed her she went with bullets to the back of the head. Many robbery victims had seen him, but Lisa García was the only one who had seen him kill. He was described as a white man in his 20s with thick dark hair. He was wearing an adhesive bandage on his nose. The witness probably distracted his victims from noticing his features, but the police didn't know that yet. who was had committed more than 20 acts of rape and robbery and was already suspected of having killed five women Julie Reitz made six as the office building in which García was shot Reit's house was along corridor I- 5 Garcia gave the I5 killer a face REITs gave him a possible name Randall Woodfield compared to blood and hair samples collected from Woodfield's apartment, bolstered by the paper trail of his phone bill, gave Authorities have enough evidence to go to Woodfield's house and arrest him on suspicion of murder as I-5. killer, but to build their case they needed as much evidence as they could gather Lisa Garcia, the only survivor of the murderous attacks of the I-5 killers, was called to identify him, do what I tell you and you won't get hurt, don't call the police. where is the back room? thanks a line was organized the participants were asked to recite statements made by the murderer I-5 the circumstantial evidence against Randall Woodfield was solid his physical description and his movements matched the profile of the murderer his housemate confirmed that he was outside the house the nights the killer hit the hairs in Woodfield's bedroom matched the strands found in Julie Reitz's bed and in the office building where Lisa Garcia was attacked she had type B blood do what I tell you and you won't get hurt no call the police all the police needed was a credible witness do what I tell you and you won't get hurt Lisa Garcia unequivocally chose Woodfield from the lineup, it was the voice that said that assured him if the bullet found in her apartment could be related With the .32 caliber bullet extracted from Lisa García's skull, the case against Woodfield would be closed, but the police faced two problems: the only bullet found in her possession had not been fired, so it had no marks that would allow the police to compare it. with a bullet from any crime scene and, worse still, they didn't have a gun to test fire with.

Traditional ballistic tests would be useless; Instead, researchers needed to compare bullets atom by atom in the state of Oregon. University Radiation Center analyst Michael Conrady uses nuclear energy to put criminals behind bars. They called us and described the evidence they had and asked if we could help them with that. We told them that this was an ideal situation and for activation analysis. received four bullet fragments from crimes that police suspected were the work of the I-5 killer. He was also given the bullet found in Woodfield's gym bag. His job was to see if they matched. Manufacturers produced bullets in batches.

Each tank of lead contains different amounts of the trace elements silver, copper, tin, antimony and arsenic. A process called neutron activation analysis allows scientists to compare minute levels of these elements. This allows them to identify bullets produced in the same batch by cutting a sample from the bullet. He flattens it into a wafer and cleans it in nitric acid to remove contaminants. A pneumatic tube sends it on its journey 16 feet underwater to the core of a nuclear reactor. At the core, the sample is bombarded with subatomic particles called neutrons. of the atoms in the sample absorb some of these neutrons the sample becomes unstable releasing additional neutrons in a burst of energy in a process known as radioactive decay.

Each element releases this radiation in its own unique and consistent pattern. By reading the pattern, the element and its quantity can be identified once the container is returned to the laboratory. Conrady has to hurry before the radioactivity subsides, otherwise you won't have anything to analyze. I have one minute to take this decapsulated sample and at the detector place the disk on a computerized sensor. The system produces a pattern showing the relative amounts of each trace. element in his sample, if the shot not fired from Randall Woodfield's apartment matched the bullet taken from Garcia, the suspect would not be able to avoid a conviction, the samples returned an identical pattern.

Neutron activation analysis showed that the bullet fragments from the crime scene and the bullet from Woodfield's apartment came from the same batch. The bullet from her apartment matched the one taken from Lisa Garcia aerial fiber and phone records linked to several other scenes. Woodfield was a cunning and methodical killer who prepared for his attacks with a ritualistic intensity, his pattern was as consistent as it was deadly, his formula for targeting random victims made him seem unstoppable, but then he broke his routine and turned against someone he knew, which ultimately led to his capture based on evidence investigators gathered in Julie Reeds' final hours.

Mr. Woodfield would be coming to her house at about three in the morning contact her he had been drinking asked her if he could stay there for a while she apparently agreed they had a couple of glasses of wine uh she put some coffee on oh yeah, that's cool that time you pulled out the gun he took her upstairs he raped her sodomized her and then on the way down the stairs he shot her twice in the back of the head armed with an imposing forensic case the prosecution was able to prove that Randall Woodfield was the I-5 killer and was found guilty of murder, attempted murder. and two counts of sodomy, he is currently serving a life sentence plus 165 years in the Oregon State Penitentiary.

A killer's motivations often lie beyond the reach of forensic investigators. Detectives must content themselves with knowing how, when and who committed a murder on the afternoon of April 3. 1985 a bridge club met at the home of Derek and Nancy Haysom in Boonsboro, Virginia, although both cars were in the driveway, neither Derek, 72, nor his wife opened the door for fear of trouble, the guests They called a family friend who came with a spare key. They were alarmed. Derek never missed his weekly game, certainly not when he was hosting. Investigators with the Bedford County Sheriff's Department were confronted with a gruesome scene, here anyone can call corner, but determined that Derek and Nancy Haysom had been murdered on the weekend. from the previous week in their throats.

Their bodies were stabbed, disfigured by numerous wounds. Detectives eliminated robbery as a motive for the murder. There was no forced entry. No valuables or money were taken. The floors were stained with blood. Investigators wondered if the strange patterns pointed to a cult murder. Forensic expert Steve Rush was one of the first on the scene, but the entire discharge had been cleaned up with blood, all of which made me recoil because it was so unusual that someone at the time I thought was playing with the blood as investigators scoured the scene. scene looking for evidence, they realized that the cryptic swirls were actually the work of a killer trying to cover his tracks.

They feared he might have accomplished it too well. Normally a messy crime scene provides many clues, but the scene at the Haysom house in Virginia was not the result of a careless killer when the criminal noticed he was leaving footprints he took off his shoes and camouflaged the footprints a single Prince survived the flat oak tree that looked like it was sent to the lab for analysis at the Virginia Division of Forensic Science Dr. Robert Hallett uses footprints to stop criminals in their tracks, working from life-size photographs to keep original prints free of damage caused by Telltale knitting patterns.

He could see that the Haysom house impression came from a foot in a sock. A Barefoot would have made his job easier because Pete likes his hands. They have small grooves called friction ridges. The impression expert relies on these ridges to accurately match a footprint to a person. They can make a positive identification to the exclusion of any other person. They could say that that print was made by the person who gave them a familiar impression. It is not possible in this exam. Hallett would have to base his analysis simply on the anatomy of the foot, although the photograph from the Haysom house indicated that the foot had been dragged.

He was satisfied with the evidence. The impression is complete. I have a heel. I have a bow. I have a metatarsal pad or ball of foot and I have five toes that show clearly and that is considered an excellent photograph to work with, but until HalletIf you had anything to compare it with to the bloody sock print it would be useless, you would have to wait for a suspect to appear despite the lack of concrete evidence, the lead investigator, Lieutenant Ricky Gardner, was already forming an impression of the attacker, it was Obvious from the beginning that whoever carried out or committed the murders was very angry with both of them, Mr.

Miss Hassan the haysoms seemed to have met their attacker and even shared a meal. Stale remains of food and wine remained on two place settings, but three chairs, not two, appear to have been abruptly pushed away from the table. The haysoms were killed by someone they didn't know. Fear not, but Gardner's team should have looked for any little clues, they could find some hint of the Killer. They attempted to obtain latent fingerprints by sealing the house and filling it with superglue fumes. Hours passed as they laboriously analyzed a house full of fingerprints. but of the thousands lifted from each surface no suspect could be found the killer left no fingerprints chemical combinations with blood even droplets imperceptible to the human eye when the light is turned off, the luminol-enhanced blood glows under an alternative light source and filters out the luminol indicated to us by a person leaving the house, going down to the driveway and appears to enter a car these were photographed and samples were taken and identified as blood the victim's blood traced on the killer's socks revealed only one set of footprints which confirmed that this was a lone killer a more intense search continued inside To see what else the blood could reveal they once again poured over every inch of the house looking for telltale clues to the killer's movements throughout most of the house, the luminol didn't tell the investigators anything they didn't already know, then, In the bathroom, the chemist revealed a single drop separated from the rest, the murderer could not wash it completely.

Detectives assumed it came from the killer's own womb. Tests showed that the drop was type O. It could not have come from Derek, who was type A, or from Nancy, who was type A B. If the killer had bled elsewhere in the house, his blood would be He would have mixed with the victims and became unidentifiable. The careful killer had left a vague trail but there was no clue as to the motive. Investigators questioned friends and family, asking each one where they had been the weekend of the murder and reviewing each story, no evidence emerged. No suspects expected that the haisum Their daughter Elizabeth could provide information since she had just left her home, Washington, DC, a freshman at the University of Virginia.

She was an extremely bright young woman educated in Swiss and English boarding schools. She described the Haysoms as warm and loving parents. She couldn't imagine who she was. I would want them dead Elizabeth said that she and her boyfriend had been in Washington DC when the murders occurred. She was able to provide movie recaps from the weekend to verify her alibi. Gardner obtained hotel and car rental receipts. The documents raised more questions than they answered. The car rental receipt showed they had driven 669 miles, but the round trip from Charlottesville to DC is only 240 miles. When I went to Charlottesville to talk to Elizabeth, I confronted her with the fact that we had found out about this and she said that they had traveled a lot and gotten lost on several occasions and I would say that you have to suffer a major loss to have that many miles on the car.

It was inconceivable that they would rack up an additional 429 miles in two days of city driving, unless a trip to Boonsboro was added to the equation. Gardner contacted Elizabeth's boyfriend to hear her side. A German citizen and the son of a diplomat shared Elizabeth's intellect and international background. The Jefferson scholar didn't seem like the violent type like Elizabeth. He said they had put extra effort into the car when they got lost while sightseeing. Suspicions peaked when Jens refused to provide a blood sample or foot print, claiming his involvement could jeopardize Jens's diplomatic status. his father. Police arranged a second interview with Yens which he never showed.

Instead, Elizabeth's half-brother found a note in Elizabeth's apartment. In the note, Jens explained that he and Elizabeth, tired of the investigation, had left town, he claimed his innocence stating that he was not a violent person. A search was carried out. Jens and Elizabeth could not be found. You won't be back here several days later. The car was located 340 miles away, at Newark Airport, detectives believed the couple had fled to Europe with their international background. Elizabeth and Yens would have no problem covering their tracks abroad. Interpol was notified, but had no recourse. No charges had been filed.

No evidence had been presented against them. Once the data was collected, the investigation came to an abrupt halt. The only thing the police could hope for was that one day soon the couple would slip up and resurface. Seven months passed, the main suspects had fled to Europe, and in May 1986, a British detective searched the apartment of a young couple. who had been arrested for check fraud when leafing through a box of their love letters he realized that they were guilty of more than just fraud the lovers had planned a murder the letters and the diary told a very different story from the one Yens o Elizabeth had shared with the police In Virginia, Elizabeth had hated her parents and their stifling involvement in her life.

She was particularly bothered by his attempt to separate her from yen. She wanted them dead. Would it be possible to hypnotize my parents? My parents just lay down and die. I despise them so much. Jens wrote that he was willing to help come up with a plan to achieve this. A Scotland Yard officer contacted Detective Gardner and said: "I understand you may be interested in Yin, sorry or." Elizabeth Hayson and I say yes all the time, you know, I'm sliding a little further in a chair and he says, where were her parents murdered? Gardner took the next plane to England to confront Jens and Elizabeth with his own words, Elizabeth.

Full of remorse, she admitted that she knew about the murders beforehand but did not commit them. I think she had never seen him. She returned to Virginia for the trial and admitted to having killed the Hasoms, but as a German citizen, she hoped that her case would be transferred to Germany where she would be tried. As a minor, if he were found guilty, he would only serve a few years there and then he would be able to reunite with Elizabeth. He told me that he was ready to tell me the truth and it started with uh when they met in The Fall of he and Elizabeth met in the fall of 84.

They fell in love and one thing led to another. Jens told Gardner that he was so in love with Elizabeth that he would do anything for her, including kill. I mean, he was obviously in love with Elizabeth, I mean this was probably, if not the first, the first relationship he had and I mean she had manipulated him into getting the feeling that you know you're my future and we're going to spend the rest. of our lives together and you are my only love and he, you know, he tried, he fell in love, but in Virginia Elizabeth turned on her lover and portrayed Jens as a bloodthirsty psychotic who killed without much insistence that she had vivid. "A state of terror afterwards," she said, fearing that Yens would kill her if she went to the police on August 24, 1987.

Elizabeth pleaded guilty to being an accessory before thinking she would get off easy, but was sentenced to 90 years in prison. prison. Jens bought extradition for three years and then the UK agreed to extradite him when Virginia promised she would not seek death. pity if found guilty when it was clear that Jens would face hard times in the states changed his story attributing the murders to Elizabeth claimed that the roles of murderer and accomplice were reversed Elizabeth had killed his parents while he remained in Washington He had lied about this until now to protect her Jens was a good Storyteller but the forensics would provide the definitive account.

The next step in the murder investigation took place in the laboratory where Elizabeth Hassam and Yen Soaring made Footprints and Now I Want You to Walk. through make sure all the parts touch well stop now just move on Robert Hallett compared these prints to the print collected at the crime scene transparencies were made of Prince Hallett He drew parallel lines through each image to compare them a distinctive feature appeared In the photograph of the bloody footprint, the toe of the Killer formed a plateau between the second and third toes, following the paddle line, found a striking similarity with Soaring's footprint, it touched exactly those same two positions in Yin Soaring's impression, however, when that The parallel line keeping it equidistant throughout its entire length reached this position for Elizabeth Haysom.

The metatarsal pad was significantly lower. Elizabeth's print did not have this feature and was removed. Hallett tested Yenza's imprint further. This is the impression that we. I'm trying to determine who did it and put an overlay on it. Yen's right foot. Elevated finger placement. Metatarsal pad. The front part of the foot. The arch and heel match exactly. There was no difference in Hallett's opinion. Soaring had left the imprint, the foot that made that impression is the foot at the end of Soaring or someone who had a foot exactly like his and I have never seen such a condition exist after a sample of Soaring's blood was tested against the unique A drop found on Hasten's bathroom floor matched.

Both were type O. The increase could not avoid the evidence in the case. A single sock print and a drop of Wayward's blood indisputably placed him in the house on the night of the murders. The letters spoke of premeditation in the trial. The story of the murder was reconstructed. Jens and Elizabeth had met at school, but the Haysoms didn't think Yens was good enough for their daughter. They had been threatening to use their influence to expel Yens from the University. Come on, determined to stay together. Yen said he and Elizabeth made a plan while she created an alibi in Washington.

Jens drove to Boonsboro to kill his parents. They invited him in. He made a final plea to continue dating his daughter. Derek Haysom refused. He swore that he would do everything in his power to keep them apart, that was when Yen lost control, pulled out the knife she had bought that day and killed the haysoms for her crimes. Yen Rose was convicted of first-degree murder and received two life sentences. Forensic science can't explain a killer's lethal

obsession

s, but detectives and the scientists they trust are driven by their own obsessions in the field or lab. They are on a mission to stop the killers no matter how long it takes.

Police find a frozen body in the Arizona Desert, chilling Discovery sends investigators searching for more victims in a small town, a brutal murder and a killer who could be anywhere when all clues are exhausted. The investigation centers on a blurry surveillance photo. The mother disappears. The detectives are left with few clues, but little by little the evidence. begins to point out a dangerous and twisted predator a lack of clues It may cool down in hot and hot integration but there is no statute of limitations for murder it may take months or even years before forensics can start a fire under these cases without solve 1991 foreign investigators from the Costa Mesa, California, Police Department stopped in front of an abandoned car on the Corona del Mar Highway.

They were responding to a call about a missing person. Page 23. No one had seen or heard from her for almost 24 hours and that wasn't the best thing for Denise. A friend had found her car on the side of the road while she was looking for it. Investigators examined it closely, but other than a flat tire, nothing appeared to be missing. The only personal item they found was a pair of pantyhose in the front seat. Denise preferred to drive without them. Although nothing in the car tipped off investigators what had happened, Detective Ron Smith concluded that Denise ran into trouble shortly after leaving the road.

What we found unusual about the scene and concerned us from the beginning was that she was very close to her. car there were emergency call booths there were pay phones there were convenience stores open all night none of which Denise went to to call her parents or ask for help we knew immediately something was wrong something was wrong the person who saw Denise was your date from the night beforeshe left him after a concert she never came home bright popular freshly graduated from college she wasn't the type to worry her parents by leaving without a call or note her family and friends started looking for her the next morning after recovering her car, Costa Mesa police launched a massive search for Denise Huber, they notified law enforcement agencies across the country, they followed every tip, every lead, Denise's friends and family put up signs and appeared on news shows asking for information. as the months passed.

And the years went by, the leads dried up, but the police kept Denise's case open and as actively as they could every day we would do something with the Denise Huber case, we would review old leads, we would go over old reports again, we would look one more time. . in the photographs we never gave up even though we never had anything good to work with after three years no one could tell her grieving family and friends what had happened to her. Denise Huber had meanwhile simply disappeared more than 300 miles away, in Arizona's Prescott Valley. Authorities were dealing with a mystery of their own on July 9, 1994 and went to buy paint at a swap meet while she was waiting for him, she noticed a rented truck with padlocks and cans of paint and chemicals cluttering her yard. .

She thought they seemed out of place for such people. a respectable neighborhood and she wondered if she was breaking some suspicious law. She called a friend who worked for the police. Her friend thought it sounded like a clandestine drug lab that the police dig up in the most unlikely places. He dispatched investigators from the Yavapai County Sheriff's Department. The truck with the California tags looked like it hadn't been moved in months, the electrical cord sticking out of it and the paint cans everywhere reinforcing the idea that this could be a mobile drug lab check if the tag showed that The truck had been stolen armed. with a Warren The police cautiously opened the loading door, inside was a freezer ready, guys we are opening not knowing what it might contain, dressed in protective gear, there was a puddle of frozen blood, carefully moving the bags to the side, The officers hoped to find nothing else.

Instead of a deer, Lt. Scott Masher initially discovered a horrible mystery when we opened the black bags and could tell we had a human, a frozen body with handcuffs behind the back, ice crystals, it was grim, the owners had not yet returned, so the police. I checked the license plates of the white truck that was also parked in the driveway. The owner was identified as John Joseph Fomalero. After an hour, Pamelero and his mother stopped at the house. Sheriff's deputies detained Colero, accusing him of stealing the rented van they were eager to discover more about the body in the freezer.

Thirty Mrs. Famularo, who lived in the house next door, told detectives that her son was a servant, which explained the paint cannons. She said the truck had been parked there for about two months. She didn't know anything about the freezer or. its contents, except that the electricity at John's house had been turned off for a day and he had asked to run an electrical cable from his house to the truck. The police station Famularo was polite but uncooperative, refusing to answer questions and asking to see his attorneys, without the help of their suspected investigators, would have to rely on physical evidence at the scene to identify the body in the freezer and figure out how. got there.

They charged Malero with a murder warrant in hand. Investigators entered Famularo's home hoping to find information. about the victim in the freezer in his frozen state they couldn't even discern the gender of the victim look through these things in the chair the fomalero's house was packed with his belongings this was the house of a man who never threw anything away if there was clues here It would be difficult to find After more than two weeks of searching, researchers found several promising clues. The first was a set of handcuff keys that matched the victim's handcuffs. Well, the next glue took the researchers by surprise.

Two complete Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department uniforms in In the garage, deputies found two boxes marked for Christmas, but there was nothing merry about them. Inside, officers found blood-stained women's clothing and a bloody hammer and nail puller. They also found a pair of women's shoes. The backs were very scraped, as if the woman who wore them. They were dragged away, that wasn't all, we located numerous female IDs that included unique security cards. I think some driver's licenses and other IDs obviously raise concerns that perhaps we would have additional victims. Yavapai County Police had to face the very real possibility that John Fomalero.

He is a serial killer, so Arizona investigators investigating a murder had every reason to believe there may be more than one victim to test that theory. Investigators brought in cadaver dogs to locate more bodies on John Fomalero's property, dogs trained to detect the slightest smell of decomposition. I alerted his handlers several times, the officers dug up each location and still found nothing, but they never completely abandoned the suspicion that the killer had struck before. To their relief, they discovered that all the women were alive and did the math, except for one from Costa Mesa, California, whose name was Denise Huber to confirm her identification.

Yavapai County forensic technician Mike Winnie took a fingerprint from the defrost victim and compared it to the one printed on Denise Huber's California driver's license Prince compared Huber's identification as the victim to authorities in Arizona the name meant nothing but for Costa Mesa they detected it Ron Smith was the news I had anxiously waited three years to hear the call I received from Lieutenant Scott Masher of Yavapai County was that he thought maybe he had a body identified as Denise Huber and He asked us if we were familiar with the news. Hoover, well, of course, I almost fell off my chair when you mentioned the name now that investigators had found her in Arizona. determining how he had died working with the frozen and decomposed remains presented a unique set of challenges for the Maricopa County Medical Examiner and the bubble environment examining a frozen body is very unusual, we deal 99 of the time with people who have been exposed heat. elements and that's more our area of ​​expertise than someone who's been in a cold environment.

It took approximately two days for the body to thaw, where we were able to perform the internal examination on Friday, July 16, 1994. Yavapai Detective Scott Mescher and Costa Mesa Detective Ron Smith. along with other officers gathered at the medical examiner's laboratory to observe the autopsy, the cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the skull resulting in multiple fractures to identify the murder weapon, investigators needed to evaluate the entire skull To see where and how the blows occurred, they called forensic anthropologist Laura Fulginiti. How many days are we seeing here? Reconstructing a person's skull is very similar to making a puzzle.

Essentially, you have about 50 pieces and you need to put them back together. which you know is the correct composition, it took Unity two days to reconstruct the skull without losing sight of the fact that this victim was once a person and I remember being in this very room thinking to myself how did you come to be in my sphere , this is not OK. it is not natural that you are here she determined that the victim had received more than 35 blows to the head the injuries were consistent with the hammer and nail puller taken from the box in Famularo's garage to be sure that the laboratory performed tests that the technicians were able to establish a DNA profile from the blood residue on the nail puller matched the DNA profile taken from the victim's own blood the coincidence confirmed that they had found the murder weapon to build their case the investigators had To retrace the events that led from the victim's abandoned car on a California highway to John Famularo's freezer in Arizona, it was very important that both agencies, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office and the Costa Police Department Mesa, will work together and assemble the evidence from California and Arizona into a solid case to successfully prosecute.

As the Costa Mesa Police Department gathered information about Famularo's activities during the time he lived in California, they learned that he had assisted the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department reserve account. I couldn't pass the grade and dropped out of school after just a few weeks, he kept the uniforms from him. that police found at his home Additional investigation led detectives to a warehouse in Laguna Hills 12 miles from where Denise Huber's empty car was found. John Fomalero had stored some paint and supplies in the warehouse and then moved everything out. When he left the area in August 1992, 13 months after Denise Huber disappeared, investigators thought it was likely that Famularo had committed the murder.

Here they hope to recover forensic evidence that will link the killer to the crime and determine where the killer's trial will take place. I searched the unit for evidence of the crime using luminol to expose traces of blood applied to a surface and viewed under an alternative light source. Luminol reveals blood stains invisible to the naked eye, even traces left years before, we discovered that the warehouse was huge, but I wanted to. every square centimeter of luminol for blood, almost the last bottle and the last corner we looked, we sprayed luminol in the corner against the wall and suddenly the luminol lit up, this bright glow showed us that we found what we were looking for.

Technicians compared this blood to a sample taken from the victim in Arizona. They matched the forensic analysis. They gave Costa Mesa Police Detective Smith the evidence he needed to make the case. Forensic science and blood testing were absolutely critical. Number one established that the crime occurred in California and that established jurisdiction also positively identified that blood as Denise put Denise at that scene palmolero never confessed the forensic evidence spoke for him investigators had successfully matched the blood in the California storage unit with the victim in Arizona and that placed the victim within deadly proximity of John Fomalero.

Authorities believe Huber ran off the road with a flat tire when he saw her prey. John Fomalero approached under the pretext of lending a hand and kidnapped Denise Uber in a touching moment in the early hours of June 3, 1991. . Famularo murdered her some time after she hid her body in a freezer, transported it by truck to Arizona and stored it until police discovered her crime three years later. Well, John Famularo was sentenced to death, awaiting execution on California's death row. pomalero hid his crime by keeping the body near him other murderers are not so lucid scheming it was a December afternoon in 1990.

Peggy Phillips wondered why her husband Dean was taking so long to close the laundromat they owned in Ozona, Texas, it was just next door but had been After 20 minutes, she found him lying on the ground bleeding and barely conscious, police and paramedics rushed to save him. Peggy thought Dean must have fallen and hit his head, but the paramedics could see it wasn't an accident. Dean Phillips had been beaten almost to death. Peggy watched as the pyramid blew up her husband in the ambulance. It was the last time she saw him alive Dean Phillips died at the beginning of the following term on 26 December.

The cause of death was blood force trauma to the chief. Investigators determined that Phillips had interrupted a robbery and paid a high price. To this end, they found only one solid clue: a single fingerprint taken from a box of coins left on the floor. They sent the print to the Texas Department of Public Safety, like small-town police departments. Across Texas, Ozona police relied on the DPS crime lab to conduct forensic testing. Services this time, although the Department of Public Safety found an empty coin box, the fingerprint did not match anything they had on file. News of Dean Phillips' death spread through Ozona.

Crockett County Deputy Sheriff Alton Davis was determined to catch the criminal who had shattered the silence of In this small town we have a population of probably three to four thousand people, so it is a small town in the that everyone knowsknow and it was a real shock to the community that something like this could happen in Ozona. The community stepped forward to help the At the investigation, a witness reported seeing two local men wearing bloody clothes. Gentleman Phillips was killed. A court order was obtained and their bloody clothes were confiscated before they had time to wash them.

They were taken for interrogation. The men claimed that they were hunters and that the blood was from a Deer they had poached last night. Investigators were very skeptical until they got confirmation from the DPS crime lab. The blood was actually from a deer and the men's fingerprints did not match those taken from the coin box in Phillips' laundry. The first case. promising lead was of no use an employee at a convenience store just off the interstate gave investigators their next lead got a couple of minutes i can talk to you yes a man arrived an hour before the murder and asked where there was the laundromat and we were just checking out the neighborhood, she described him as a stati with dirty blonde hair and a t-shirt with radio lyrics.

Yeah, what time was he driving a beat up blue van with a green door on the passenger side? It's possible there was a passenger in the van. Investigators hope to see the suspect on the store's surveillance tape. Well, okay, listen, have a good night, thank you very much, but the security camera was old, the man's face was blurry, neither DPS nor the FBI could electronically enhance the image. They were convinced they had their suspect on this tape, but he thought their chances of finding him were slim. How are you today as the investigation into the murder of Dean Phillips continues?

Witnesses reported seeing a strange blue van in town the night of the murder, some thought they saw two people in it. Sheriff Alton Davis believed Phillips' killer was a stranger passing through town. Ozone is right on Interstate 10. They're pretty much in the middle of nowhere. This is the first one we have where Someone drove off the interstate and murdered one of our local people. Investigators knew the killer was probably hundreds of miles away, and then they got the call. A van matching the one described by witnesses was stopped about 200 miles west of the city. Davis accelerated.

Upon arriving at the scene we found an old light blue GMC truck that had a dark passenger door with a dark colored primer and we took pictures of the truck we spoke with. There was a Hispanic man driving it, which did not fit the description of our our suspect. The case had reached another dead end. As they reviewed the clues they had gathered so far, investigators realized that all they had to follow was a Fuzzy surveillance tape and fingerprints from a store employee's memory needed some way to turn these confusing clues into solid information, then they remembered Karen Taylor, an experienced forensic artist with a Texas DPS special crime service.

Taylor had worked with Ozona police on missing persons cases. She pioneered the art and forensic science of facial reconstruction, developing vague descriptions of Witnesses into recognizable ones. faces of criminal suspects, my role is to take a bit of information from a crime that occurs, produce some type of visual image that can be published in the media and hopefully generate additional information that can be used to connect the crime to the victim or connect the crime to the suspect Ozona police sent Taylor photographs taken from the videotape, but after she evaluated the black and white photographs she wasn't sure she could help, so I had to look at those photographs to see What I could determine about the face was very blurry, the quality was quite poor, so I could see that there wasn't much chance that we could electronically enhance that video and it would probably come down to me trying to make some kind of sketch based on what I found.

I could see, Taylor knew that while every feature might not be perfectly represented, the sketch's resemblance to the suspect would be strong enough to aid in the investigation. After years of doing this, I have come to believe that the most important thing to capture in a face for a forensic artist to activate recognition is to obtain the correct proportions of each of the component parts of a face each of the features the eyes the nose The mouth is important but it is not as important as the arrangement of those features on a face. Taylor was not sure the image had enough information to work with, then she noticed a feature she had overlooked, the store clerk with who had spoken face to face with the suspect.

Taylor hoped the employee could provide the missing details she needed to bring the image into focus. Using still images from the video, I prepared as much of the drawing as I could, maybe 85 percent of it, and then faxed it to the witness. I spoke with her on the phone and she was able to make some changes. She said she wanted me to make her eyes look clear. the lower part of the face looks thinner and I did it, we hung up. I spent about 15 minutes making those edits and then I sent it back to her and she looked at it and said yeah, that's right, so I could take advantage of her long distance entry.

By phone and using the facts here, he was the most likely suspect in the murder of Dean Phillips. The Crockett County Sheriff's Office prepared a crime bulletin. Karen Taylor's drawing of the suspect's face was circulated throughout the country's radio station, where someone might recognize the call letters on the suspect's T-shirt Taylor's drawing represented the investigation's last hope, but when all the publicity failed produced an answer, the Dean Phillips murder case reached a stalemate. The beating death of Dean Phillips seemed destined to remain unsolved. Sheriff Alton Davis and his team were exhausted. the last clues from him, we eventually ruled everyone out, we were running late, we stopped showing up and we had nothing to work on and it kind of cooled down and we had to brace ourselves until we got some other kind of clues.

Five years passed without another lead or lead, but Peggy Phillips was determined to bring her husband's killer to justice. She contacted a television crime show and asked if they had published her story in August 1996, a little more than five and a half years after Phillips was murdered. killed the television show aired the story of her murder and featured the drawing of Karen Taylor that's what made phones ring across the country viewers called clues Texas Ranger Jerry Byrne answered the calls and led the investigation a clue brought Paul Wesley Taylor a convict to Utah's minimum security prison in Draper Ranger Byrne contacted the Draper prison and asked for Taylor's records and a photograph when he saw him.

Vern felt like they had finally located his suspect. Paul Worcester Taylor's photograph was almost identical to a composite drawing that a DPS artist had directed in 1991. I initially felt it was too good to be true. Burn sent Taylor's records and fingerprint card to DPS. They compared Taylor's right ring finger to the fingerprint on the coin box after years of no progress. This was a big step forward. Investigators returned to the original set of Clues looking for more connections to the suspect. They discovered that Taylor's brother worked at a radio station with the call letters seen on Taylor's shirt.

They were now certain that Paul Wesley Taylor was involved in the murder of Dean Phillips. but they wanted to know about the passenger in the van, a witness or possibly an accomplice in Phillips' murder. Taylor's arrest record showed that his girlfriend had been with him at the time of his arrest in Georgia. Georgia authorities located the woman. His answers filled in the remaining gaps in the case against Taylor, he told Ranger Byrne that they had traveled through Texas in December 1990 and that the tailor stopped outside a laundromat and went in, saw him fighting, returned to the van with blood on his face. the shirt, she certainly didn't know. someone had been murdered he never said he killed she led investigators to a field where Taylor had gotten rid of her bloody clothes along with a stolen box of coins they now had a credible witness who placed Taylor in the laundromat at the time of the murder Utah extradited Paul Wesley Taylor returned to Texas almost eight years after the murder.

He pleaded guilty to the capital murder of Dean Phillips. He was first sentenced to life in prison by forensic artist Karen Taylor, who had turned a single blurry photograph into an image that helped unmask and arrest a bald man. When that photograph and that drawing were presented, they knew it was Paul Wesley Taylor. That photograph and that composite drawing is what opened this case. Investigators speculate that Paul Wesley Taylor pulled off the interstate in Ozona to get some food and gas. money Taylor had the idea of ​​knocking down the laundromat after closing time Dean Phillips was in the wrong place at the wrong time in other cases tragedy stalks its victims August 16, 1989 Joe Gilbreth finished the job and came home in Villanow Georgia was anxious before spending the night with his baby Amber and his wife Nakia, he realized that his wife's car was gone.

This was strange. Nikia was usually at home preparing dinner at this time when she came in, she started to worry. Nakia would never let Amber sit in her pajamas. all day and there was no way she was leaving the baby alone in the house the doors were open it didn't look like they had been tampered with when Nakia's family told Joe they hadn't heard from her and called the police. The Walker County Sheriff's Department sent deputies to investigate Joe and his mother-in-law reported three items missing. A blue telephone cable that had been torn from the wall.

A quilt that had a sheet sewn into the side and all of Nakia's underwear based on what she found in the house Detective Pat Bedford believed that Nakia Gilbreth's disappearance was more sinister than the simple disappearance of a person's case. He was originally sent to investigate. My first impressions. Do you know? They took her out here tied. Someone was forcibly removing her from this residence. The fact that he noticed that an entire drawer full of underwear and lingerie was missing makes you think we're dealing with a serious crime. See if anything is missing by chance. Joe Gilbreth told police the day was over.

It started like any other house, the alarm went off at 5:30. Joe got up and got ready to go to work. Nakia went back to bed and at 6 a. m. The house was in silence. Joe and the baby were the last to see Nakia. The patrol car was parked. at home in case she could return, but Nikia never returned home on August 18, 1989, the day after she disappeared. The Walker County Sheriff's Department had little to go on. We have a tragedy here. We have a problem. At first there are no good leads to follow. Her car had not been located, she had not been located.

He didn't seem to have any leads after talking to neighbors and searching the immediate area. We didn't have anything at the time, but that soon changed. Her mother found her daughter's car abandoned on Logging Road, half a mile north of the Buen Breath House, investigators hope to find clues that will help locate her. Technicians lifted fingerprints all over the car, but they belong to members of the Gilbreth family. Officers found signs of a second car parked next to Nakia's. an ominous sign, but the tire track was not clear enough to photograph or print. Nikia's mother noticed that the baby quilt that Nakia always kept in the back seat was missing and that nothing in the scene offered a clue as to what had happened to Nakia or where her family might be now.

She was hopeful that she would return to them. Although investigators believed he was a victim of foul play, they had no evidence or suspects. Joe had passed a polygraph that indicated he wasn't involved in anything. There were some missing items and an abandoned car, but still no sign of Nakia. Two days later, a boy collecting empty cans along the road made a crucial and horrifying discovery. A visual ID, although she was a white woman about Nakia's size with the clothes and jewelry Joe had. The dental records described confirmed everyone's worst fears. The autopsy determined that Nikia had died of asphyxiation.

The examination also revealed marks around her wrists and ankles. Marks that could have been made with a telephone cord, but there was no other significant forensic evidence. There were no hairs orfibers. There were no fingerprints. the body nothing that could dictate The next step of the investigation the investigators considered several suspects but none of them found any dry leads the case went cold unfortunately we were going nowhere in the case we had no good leads no good suspect any advice we got We did everything from roadblocks, car to car, house to house, door to door searches, we searched the air thoroughly and couldn't really locate anything that would help us.

Several months passed and we didn't really make any progress on the solution. This money and you can't let something like this continue, you have to be able to cultivate this case. Then, four months after Nikia Gilbreath disappeared, investigators learned of a similar case in nearby Gordon County, a young woman was kidnapped by an intruder while her son slept for 14 hours forced her to model lingerie for him and assaulted her repeatedly then brought her back home before police could identify the woman's attacker the case took a strange turn the investigation into Nakia Gilbreth's death had led to a similar account of During the kidnapping of a woman, the connection It was weak but it was their only clue.

Two days after the assault, the woman's father reported to police that he saw a strange man leave a Christmas tree at his house when investigators checked the truck's license plate and discovered it was registered to name of James Ray Ward he worked for a nearby well drilling company the woman chose Ward's photo from a photographic cover she remembered that during the day she was detained she told her attacker that she had not had the opportunity to get a child for her his son Christmas Tree officers arrested Ward shortly afterward, Ward pleaded guilty to rape and was just beginning a 20-year prison sentence in their verification of his whereabouts before his arrest.

Police learned that Ward had drilled a well in Gilbreaths a year earlier, returning to check it out in July 1989, just a month before Nakia was killed. Ward's employers said the Drillers were never sent back to verify that Wells had acted on his behalf. The similarities between the kidnapping of his rape victim and the kidnapping of Nakia Gilbreath provided police with their only lead when officers searched the home Ward shared with his wife and children and found a stash of women's underwear that did not belong to Ward. Lord's wife. Closer detectives also discovered a receipt for drilling a well in the Gilbreaths' name, but it was much more than a receipt.

I had directions, the name of the road, the mileage that would have taken me directly to the Gilbreath residence. The description of the victim I had written there matched his description, including the age of a daughter the victim had and we later had. Their first direct link to the murder with a suspect, investigators also found missing items from the Gilbert home: the bottom of a bathing suit, a baby quilt, a bedspread and a blue telephone cord to build the strongest case. against Ward that investigators needed to prove the premeditation they obtained. A statement that Ward had written about the kidnapping to which he had pleaded guilty wanted to compare this sample of writing with the incriminating notes on the Gilbreath receipt found in his home. document examiner Karen Scott performed the analysis A handwriting comparison is basically a handwriting comparison - In comparison, I look for characteristics in the handwriting of one set and see if I find the same thing in the other set and look for things like how the letters are in the sheet of paper, how they are formed, how they are formed.

You're spaced Scott looks for the idiosyncrasies, the little details that give a person's writing its individual character, for example, the F in the word fine, is very short, at the bottom, the D and the word Way and side They are written in opposite directions. people are taught the staff first and then the round part, although this is not in itself unique to this writer, it is not the way he was taught to do it after comparing the note with Ward's known handwriting . Scott was certain that both documents were written by the same person, investigators then examined the bedspread and the bottom of the swimsuit found in Ward's home.

Nakia's mother provided the matching top she found at Gilbreath's house because hundreds of identical swimsuits were made and sold. The prosecution had to prove that the bottom. tied on Wards and the upper part founded, the gilbreaths were parts of the same suit. To make that evaluation, the lab had to compare the amount of fiber wear on both parts of the suit. They concluded that the bottom matched the top, the suit belonged to Nakia Gilbreth. The research focused on the other two items, the quilt and the baby quilt, even before she put them under a microscope. Trace testing technician Terry Santa María recognized its importance.

He knew that these types of quilts did not come commercially from an area made from a sheet. so he knew that someone had altered the article after determining that I then examined the baby quilt when I took out the baby quilt. I immediately recognized that this was a homely Santa Maria named Detective Bedford. These two items, the quilt and the blanket, were absolutely unique. one-of-a-kind items were a direct link from the suspect's home to the victim this evidence completed the case against James Ray Ward at Ward's trial Nikia's mother-in-law testified that she had sewn the sheet into the quilt to cover the rough fabric and she sewed the baby quilt for her granddaughter.

The only way they could have gotten into Ward's hands was if he had broken into the Gilbreath house and Nakia's car and taken them away. Ward never confessed, but based on the evidence, investigators put together a scenario. for the murder on the morning of August 17 Ward saw Joe Gilbreth leave for work when he saw that he was safe, he entered Gilbreath's house and kidnapped Nakia. I think he kept the phone cords and cable away from the wall. I think he tied the Raptor to him. In the quilt and on the way out the door I also took a drawer full of his underwear as a trophy.

Prosecutors called Ward a meticulous, organized stalker with a perverted mind. Investigators speculated that he fantasized that the women he was assaulting liked him. That could explain why he once again placed a Christmas tree on the doorstep of one of his victims' home. Jurors convicted him of murder and in July In 1991, after deliberating only three hours, he was sentenced to death for murdering Nakia Gilbreath when clues disappear and an investigation stalls, which does not mean that a homicide case is closed. Investigators have an arsenal of forensic techniques at all times in the world to catch the killer.