Mystery Murder Case Solved By Forensic After 14 Years | The New Detectives | Real Responders

the paper was light gold in medieval times i want tobacco sugar everything we thought we knew about the world could turn out completely wrong in pennsylvania the night manager of a fast food restaurant is found brutally

murder

ed the apparent victim of a robbery gone wrong 15 Police can't identify a suspect for

years

, but then an elite group of

forensic

experts agreed to take on the

case

. A man disappears from his home in Lubbock, Texas. All signs point to a crime, but until the police can find the victim's body they will not be able to prove it. Murder When the trail of clues stops, homicide investigators often have few options, but an elite group of

forensic

experts known as the Vidoc Society can heat up a cold

case

and apply their expertise to deliver collective justice on February 4, 1984 In the Philadelphia suburb of Falls Township, Pennsylvania, the manager of a fast food restaurant arrived for the early morning shift.

He was alarmed to discover that the front door was open. There had recently been a series of robberies in the area. Nothing seemed to be missing. but in the kitchen he discovered the night manager, Terry Brooks, lying on the floor. She had been brutally

murder

ed in a matter of minutes. Falls Township Police Department officers and forensic technicians arrived on the scene and found the 25-year-old victim lying face up on the kitchen floor, with a large knife protruding from her. A plastic trash bag had been used on her throat to cover her face, judging by the coat she was wearing, it looked like Terry Brooks was getting ready to leave for the night in the restaurant office.

Police discovered that the cash drawers and money bags had been cleaned out. The victim's shoes. They were found lying next to the desk, although this was just one of several restaurants that were robbed in a few months, it was the first to end in a murder, the technicians looked for clues to the identity of the murderer, they found nothing, no signs were found forced entry in the surrounding area. the front door open, based on the evidence, police theorized that after Terry Brooks left the restaurant, the robber ambushed her and then forced her back inside. Her death had been violent.

Terry Brooks had been beaten, strangled and then stabbed in the throat. Dead for several hours, scrapes of hair and skin were found on the victim's hands and nails, indicating that she had fought fiercely, but in the days before DNA testing became available, examiners could only conclude that the samples were not They had come from the victim, looking for any clues about helping them identify a suspect. Investigators interviewed victim Terry's parents. They said she was a cheerful young woman who made friends easily, had put herself through college, and had worked hard in hopes. from owning her own restaurant, one day she had recently left her job as a waitress for a better opportunity as a manager of the fast food restaurant, she had just gotten engaged to a coworker from her previous workplace, although Terry lived at home , her parents didn't know her fiancé very well, the engagement had been sudden, they couldn't.

I don't think of anyone who would want to hurt her daughter Terry's fiancé, Scott Keith, 22, nor did he have any idea who could have committed such a brutal act the night of the murder. He was at home sleeping. She had to get up early the next day. At 6 in the morning, he stopped by her house on his way to work. She knew that Terry had worked late and wanted to be sure that she had arrived home safely. When she noticed that her car was not in the driveway, she became worried and woke up her parents. When they discovered that Ella Terry had not been home, they called the restaurant and that was when they learned that she had been murdered, although the motive for the murder appeared to be robbery.

Police returned to the restaurant to speak with the manager. They collected all employee files looking for evidence. that the killer could have been a disgruntled employee the manager couldn't think of anyone on his staff who had a problem with him or terry everything suggested that terry brooks had been a random target and for the police those are the most difficult cases to solve desperate to be generated The lead examiners examined all evidence collected at the crime scene. They were lucky. A single latent fingerprint was found on the trash bag covering the victim's face. He met one of Terry Brooks' coworkers at the restaurant.

The

detectives

brought in the employee to question her and give her blood and hair samples, but she did not seem capable of the violence inflicted on Terry Brooks and the employee had an explanation for the print before leaving, the night of the murder, she had replaced all the bags of Garbage had said he hadn't noticed anything unusual that night, we were told, however, he did remember an incident a few days earlier, around closing time, two men came into the restaurant, they seemed drunk and were causing trouble. Terry tried unsuccessfully to calm the situation when she threatened. to call the police the men became verbally abusive they made several threats before leaving the employee did not know the men and had not seen them since that night the police finally had their first big break in the case now they needed to identify the killers before Attacked again, several area store owners had similar encounters with individuals fitting the description of the two men, but no one seemed to know who they were or where they could find them.

The identity of the main suspects in Terry's murder continued to elude police. The investigation into her murder went cold and would remain that way for the next 14

years

. After 14 years, it seemed like the 1984 murder of 25-year-old restaurant manager Terry Brooks would never be

solved

, but in 1998, police in Falls Township, Pennsylvania, decided to investigate again. Examine all un

solved

homicides in your jurisdiction. Detective Sergeant Wynn Cloud found Terry Brooks' case file. There was a lot of physical evidence available and I looked at all of that and it was all good physical evidence and well preserved. I think this had a very high profile.

Sergeant Cloud enlisted the help of Homicide Detective Nelson Whitney and Deputy District Attorney Laurie Markel. After reviewing the case files, the team found a gap in the investigation conducted more than a decade earlier, at that time there were several fast food restaurant robberies that were occurring in this area and the investigation conducted in the 1980s was actually had focused on that idea, so we decided that in addition to looking into the possibility that the murder was a robbery homicide, we would also learn more about Terry and investigate the possibility that the killer had been someone who knew his investigators located the people. who knew terry and his habits well, they tracked down his former manager when he first saw the crime scene photos, one in particular caught his attention, detective nelson whitney explains that one of the things terry would do all On days it would be cleaning the ashes out of the ashtray and placing it on a small shelf above the desk.

He would close the ledger on the desk. He would put the phone in a certain position. I would put the ruler in the calculator. Far away, the photograph of the crime scene desk clearly showed that the ashtray was in the middle of the desk that had ashes on it. There was a book open there. There was a ruler outside. A calculator was out. Terry was also known for kicking her shoes when he worked at the desk. , the information contradicted previous suspicions that Terry was approached outside the restaurant and then forced to return inside and that opened the possibility that she knew her killer and had even let him into the store, but so far that was just a theory and one that got investigators no closer to identifying Terry Brooks' killer.

The police needed more help, so they turned to an elite crime-solving team based just a few miles from Philadelphia, there in the historic downtown club that builds some of the greatest criminal theorists. They have been meeting every two months since 1990. This is the home of the Bedok Society, a private, nonprofit think tank of the country's most esteemed law enforcement officials, forensic experts, psychologists, and government agents. Laventhal is the director of communications for the society doc the society is named after eugene francois vidak, a frenchman who lived between 1775 and 1852. We credit him with being the father of modern detective practice.

He is truly our inspiration. He is a man who thought outside the box. He was the first detective to start keeping files. and records on methods of criminal operations, the society is limited to 82 full-time members, one for each year of vidoc's life, they originally met to discuss historical cases and unsolved mysterious crimes that soon changed very quickly, we became a organization whose reason for existence was to investigate unsolved homicides and try to resolve the anguish of families when there is a loved one who has been murdered in order for the vidoc society to accept an unsolved homicide investigators must first present their case to its members in the next vidoc meeting sergeant cloud did just that.

I presented this as fact. I didn't give any theories so as not to contaminate any of your opinions. All I gave them were the facts I gathered from the case at the crime scene and when I finished presenting to them, probably 30 members approached, possibly even more, but 30 were

real

ly interested in it. Doc Society co-founder Richard Walter offered to donate his expertise to the case. My area is criminal assessment and profiling and, basically, criminal assessment is the act of observing. the crime scene, what is and isn't at that crime scene, then we take that information and reconcile it with known patterns of behavior that we know in terms of criminal activity, so we know a lot about the criminal at the scene of the crime, for Walter.

The violence seen in the photographs suggested that the killer was motivated by revenge or anger, not money. Walter believed that the killer was someone close to the victim and that the robbery was staged to throw investigators off his trail due to the lack of organization observed in the crime scene

detectives

' cloud. He also learned that the killer probably had little more than a high school education. He probably worked as a menial worker, perhaps a cook at a pizza or burger joint because of his anger. Experts theorized that he probably had difficulty maintaining relationships with women. Investigators turned to the victim's parents.

Hoping they could identify someone who matched the profile, Terry's father was dying of liver disease. The couple did not know anyone who looked like the profile, however, they recalled that on the morning of the murder, Terry's fiancée, Scott Keith, had been acting strangely, although Keefe seemed upset to find out about her. his fiancee had been murdered he refused to go to the hospital to help identify the victim said he didn't want to be late for work for Terry's parents Scott's actions that morning had always led them to believe he was hiding something the police agreed to. find out what that was investigators interviewed terry's old friends none of them spoke highly of scott all were surprised to learn that terry was engaged to him scott was possessive and jealous and was in financial trouble that supposedly resulted from a drug problem the Things became more tense when Terry took a pay cut to manage the fast food restaurant just before she was murdered, Terry had talked about ending the engagement based on the information, Detective Cloud began delving into Scott Keefe's background, which What he found was a strange parallel with the psychological portrait generated by the experts of the Vidoc society.

As for his job, our main suspect worked at a pizzeria. Over the years he had had several personal relationships, but they were very difficult. With the help of the budok society, investigators finally identified a suspect in the murder of 15-year-old Terry. In Brooks it was now up to the Falls Township Police to prove it, with the help of the Budok Society, an elite group of non-profit law enforcement officials, the Falls Township Police, Pennsylvania, had finally identified a suspect in the murder of Terry Brooks in 1984. Now investigators turned to physical evidence collected nearly 15 years earlier to prove it.

The biological evidence collected at the time of the autopsy was sent to the nearby drug scanning laboratory. There, a new DNA technology unheard of at the time of the murder had become a sophisticated tool to solvecrimes. Forensic scientist Diane. Marshall examined evidence that the samples had been carefully stored and the DNA is very stable over time. Genetic testing revealed that the skin found under the round nails had not originated from her. Marshall looked for DNA samples on the murder weapon to see if he could produce a match, but after all this time there seemed to be no trace of blood left and I took the knife apart where the blade actually met the wooden handle and was digging around with a scalpel a clean scalpel and I

real

ly removed this old, crusty material that was there.

Right there I processed that DNA sample and determined that there were two different types of DNA, one that matched the victim and one that matched an unknown suspect and that The suspect's DNA type was the same as that recovered from under the fingernails. Investigators had finally uncovered evidence that could link a suspect to the murder, although all circumstantial evidence pointed to Scott Keith. They did not have the necessary evidence to obtain DNA samples from him. They would have to find another way to get the evidence they needed. Whitney suggested they focus on his trash, once trash has been placed on the sidewalk, it is considered abandoned property in the eyes of the law.

Police can legally examine and collect its contents on trash day. Investigators arranged for a garbage truck to do just one garbage pickup. In front of Scott Keefe's house a few blocks away, police took possession of the trash and personally delivered it to the crime lab in hopes of finding something containing DNA samples. Diane Marshall focused on several recovered cigarette butts. When you smoke a cigarette, you deposit your saliva on the filter. Included in that saliva are epithelial cells that come from the lining of your mouth. Marshall successfully extracted cellular material from two different brands of cigarette butts found in the rubble, so I isolated DNA from the saliva deposit on the filters of each of the brands of cigarettes and noticed that one brand in particular had a type of Specific DNA did not match any of the evidence from the crime scene, but the DNA from the second mark did.

On the 15th anniversary of Terry Brooks' murder, Scott Keith was brought in for questioning and to provide blood samples, according to Detective nelson whitney never realized he was a suspect we told him he was an important witness that he was because of his close relationship with our victim someone who can give us information that no one else could, that would help us in our case and he was very happy to help after answering some questions. Detectives asked him if he would mind taking a polygraph test as a matter of routine. Keefe accepted the blood samples. They were rushed to the laboratory, yes, I think that was it, hours later, while waiting for the DNA tests, the co-founder of the Vidoc company, Bill Fleischer, carefully reviewed the polygraph results.

The polygraph records these physiological changes as part of our individual defense mechanisms commonly known as fight and flight on a polygraph. In this situation, we ask questions if those questions pose a threat to your well-being because you are lying to them and there is a fear of being caught in the lie. Your body reacts immediately. The physiological heart initiates a much faster redirection of blood to different organs in your body. His mouth starts moving. your knees become dry the butterfly in your stomach weakens your palms become sweaty although the suspect denied any involvement in the murder of terry flisher concluded that scott keefe was being deceptive now examiners sought to scientifically verify that keith was a murderer when their samples were compared of DNA with those recovered from the victim examiners found a match police confronted the suspect with the test results Scott Keith had no choice but to confess Keefe stated that he often stayed with his fiancee at the restaurant when she worked late On the night of February 4, 1984, Terry Brooks decided to end their engagement, he became enraged and killed her, then he staged the scene to make it look like the murder was the result of a robbery that went wrong after so much time, the victim's family finally had answers, deputy district attorney laurie markel, terry brooks' family.

I had to live for 15 years without knowing who had killed her or seeing that person face any measure of justice. It was a lot of power, on the morning of February 5, 1999, to go to Mr. and Mrs. Brooks and say, "We've made an arrest." the person who killed your son is in custody we have amassed considerable physical evidence against him and he has confessed scott keefe pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison in the terry brooks case a misleading crime scene led investigators to some conclusions wrong but in some cases detectives face a more discouraging set of circumstances no crime scene on sunday may 19, 1991 jim dunn and his wife received a late night call at their home in yardley pennsylvania the caller identified herself as alicia hamilton the Dunn's 24-year-old girlfriend Scott's oldest son, upset, Alicia said that Scott had disappeared from their home in Lubbock, Texas, Jim told Alicia not to worry, that he expected a call from Scott any minute, but Scott He never called and Jim Dunn's attempts to contact his son were unsuccessful, although he was concerned to learn of Scott. probably busy with his hobby buying and restoring cars.

This is Jim Don Scott's father. He hadn't spoken to Scott in about a week and we had been talking. We generally all talked at least once a week and of course Scott always had some guy. of an ongoing project was looking for money to help him buy a new car or buy a new body for a car so he could swap the engines from one to another, but after a few days passed without hearing anything, Jim Dunn contacted the his son's boss. At a car stereo installation company in Lubbock, Texas, the boss said Scott hadn't shown up for work in several days when he last saw him.

Scott wasn't feeling well and asked her to leave work early. He left his tools and his car at work. and he had his girlfriend alicia hamilton come pick him up scott said he hoped to be back at work in a few days the boss told jim dunn that alicia hamilton called the store a few days later she believed scott had left her for another woman but the father Scott didn't believe his son would simply abandon his prized cars, he contacted Lubbock police to report his son missing, but there was little investigators could do as an adult.

Scott Dunn had a right to be missing. More importantly, there was no evidence that a crime had been committed. place yet detective tal english agreed to investigate the case, basically he told me how unusual it was that Scott had left and disappeared like that and the two things that really worried him and that worried him were his, he had left them. his tools at his work and he had left his car there and I had not taken either of them, those two items were extremely important to him and Jim knew he would not leave like that, later that night the detectives contacted Jim's girlfriend scott, alicia hamilton had last seen him a few hours before he disappeared said she brought scott home from work after he complained of feeling unwell put him to bed and made him tea she wanted to stay and take care of him but alicia She was already late for her waitressing job Scott insisted that she leave Alicia said goodbye and went to work She hadn't seen him since although she had no idea where Scott had gone Alicia had discovered something unusual while rearranging the furniture she found that a piece of carpet under the sofa had been carefully cut away, unsure of the significance, investigators asked to look around the residents in the bedroom, they found that a piece of carpet was missing, had been taped to the floor and covered a bare part of the carpet, alicia had not noticed before, under the patched carpet, investigators noticed large reddish brown stains, they appeared to be blood, when we saw it looked like a crime scene, we backed away, that's when They called our identification section, came out and we wanted them to photograph.

The scene before anything moved, tests confirmed the stains were human blood, although it was unclear if the blood had originated from missing 24-year-old Scott Dunn. The discovery indicated that something violent had happened inside that room. A concerned father's intuition had exposed a possible homicide While searching for answers in the disappearance of 24-year-old Scott Dunn, police in Lubbock, Texas, made a disturbing discovery in the master bedroom of the apartment the young man shared with his girlfriend. Detectives discovered blood stains under a section of the carpet. Authorities searched the room. To obtain more evidence under a light source, the technicians found large amounts of blood throughout the room, on the walls and ceiling, they found stains and streaks of more blood, it was a telltale sign that someone had tried to clean up evidence of a brutal crime, blood samples, carpet fibers. and duct tape was collected from the underside of the carpet, scott dunn's hairbrush was also recovered for possible DNA samples at the crime lab.

Examiners successfully generated Scott Dunn's DNA profile from the hairs collected from his brush when compared to those taken from all blood tests found a match with the detective such english there was no doubt that Scott Dunn had committed a crime but the investigation was about to face a crushing setback prosecutors did not want to touch the case according to the district attorney's office texas law required a body to We actually opened a homicide investigation and had no evidence to indicate that it was probably one occurred, but without that body it was going to be difficult to open it.

Texas authorities intensified their search for evidence that Scott Dunn had been murdered. His girlfriend Alicia Hamilton was questioned again although she couldn't explain the blood evidence Alicia remained convinced that Scott had run off with another woman as the interrogation continued however she thought of something else she and Scott had been having problems with a neighbor a man named tim Smith, according to Alicia, Tim had been harassing her in recent weeks. Alicia said that she met Tim at a local nightclub a few months ago. She admitted that she started dating him outside of her relationship with Scott when she realized the mistake she had made and tried to break up.

She broke up with Tim but he couldn't seem to let go, he started following her and would show up at the apartment she shared with Scott, according to her she tried to distance herself from him, Tim wouldn't let that happen, he lived in the same apartment complex in an apartment that it was down the street from where her apartment was and he was around a lot and she just couldn't get rid of it, even though the authorities didn't officially have a crime, they now had a potential suspect before they looked closer. Tim Smith, however, first had to rule out that Scott had left town with another woman.

Investigators located a woman who had spent a lot of time with Scott before he disappeared. She admitted that she and Scott had become close friends, but nothing more just before. he disappeared scott told him he wanted to end his relationship with alicia but admitted to being nervous about the confrontation alicia's ex-boyfriends had warned scott that she was controlling and abusive one said she was constantly looking for evidence that he was being unfaithful to her something as well as As innocent as a greeting card from an old friend would make Alice furious with jealousy. She threatened her former boyfriends with physical violence and sometimes tried to carry out those threats.

Scott feared how Alicia would react to the news that the relationship was over. Hamilton wasn't the loving, concerned girlfriend she'd made herself out to be, but that didn't prove she had anything to do with Scott's disappearance. The police visited Tim Smith, the man who Alicia said had been stalking her and Scott, who was in the process of packing up her apartment when the detectives asked her where he was going. She gave a surprising answer. He and Alicia Hamilton had just bought a place and were moving in together. Tim Smith denied any involvement in Scott Dunn's disappearance, so officers noticed a roll of duct tape that looked similar. to the tape found in scott dunn's bedroom at the lubbock police department crime lab criminologist scott williams compared the tape found in tim smith's apartment to the tape found in scott dunn's bedroom we look at the physical characteristics, this would include the color, the type of relief texture on the adhesive tape and, of course, theadhesive tape there are fibers or strands that run through the adhesive tape.

We look at the spacing and what those fibers are made of. All characteristics match. The chemical composition of the adhesive was then analyzed. The two samples were identical in every way, and I noticed something else on the side of the roll of duct tape: there were fibers and hairs stuck to the side. I asked David Young, a person who does our hair analysis, to determine if they might have had some other common origin in the case. Trace evidence examiner David Young compared the hairs from the roll of duct tape found in Tim's apartment. smith with scott dunn's brush found one consistency after another basically tells us that at some point in time Scott Dunn was near that roll of duct tape and therefore, since we attach the duct tape to the part of the crime scene, helped attach Scott Dunn to that roll of duct tape that was possibly also at the crime scene and the police now had a physical link. between the possible crime scene and tim smith's apartment tim smith was now the prime suspect in a missing persons case and his relationship with alicia hamilton could not be ignored, but scott dunn's fate remained a

mystery

until the authorities could present his body, something they could not prove. murder police in lubbock, texas suspected that the missing 24 year old scott dunn had been murdered, his girlfriend alicia hamilton and a man named tim smith emerged as the main suspects but without the victim's body they could not prove that the harm had been suffered by scott Dunn, the case threatened to go cold, but Scott's father, Jim Dunn, refused to let his son's case slip away.

I kept pushing the issue for almost a year and was trying to find out everything I could about Lisa Hamilton, who she was. and also then the case that had actually stalled because the district attorney had talked to him a couple of times and he said I don't know why you're calling me and he said you don't even have a body that doesn't have a crime, uh, He said he's just a missing person determined to find justice for his son. Jim Dunn traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, the hometown of Alicia Hamilton. He began digging into her past looking for anything that could prove she was capable of murder.

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

Vidoc Society Co-Founder Bill Flescher spoke one-on-one with Jim Dunn. You could see that he was out of his mind and that he was a distraught father. He definitely believed that his son had been murdered He felt that Alicia Hamilton was somehow involved in the disappearance and murder of the Scots and was looking for help He was a human being who needed help from professionals The authorities realized that they first had to prove that a murder had taken place without a body, which wouldn't be easy. Members of the Vidak society turned to renowned crime scene reconstruction expert Tom Bevel for help.

Crime scene reconstruction is especially useful in cases, for example, where you do not have a body and there is a question about what might have happened, do we simply have a person with a minor bleeding wound that came out through the body? your own means or do we have a case where there is a serious injury, such as possibly death? To get answers, you need to determine what type of object. had caused the blood spatter patterns found in Scott Dunn's bedroom, although most of the blood stains had been smeared in an attempt to clean the scene, some discarded patterns remained intact using a blood covered object that was able to recreate the The size and shape of the stains observed at the crime scene were consistent with having been caused by a blunt object such as a bat or a pipe.

After establishing that Scott Dunn was violently beaten, Bevel then sought to determine whether the 24-year-old could have survived such an assault for that reason. he would need to establish how much blood he had shed. He spilled blood on a similar piece of carpet until the dimensions of the stains matched those found on Scott Dunn's bedroom floor. He concluded that no one could have survived the amount of blood lost. Every stain needed to be replicated When the findings were presented to them Prosecutors finally agreed to take on the case Society's experts had helped transform a missing person case into a homicide investigation It was the break Lubbock police had been waiting for Now investigators focused on finding evidence that they could physically link Alicia Hamilton and Tim Smith to the murder.

They began to sift through the files looking for anything they might have missed. They found some of the hairs recovered from the tape. When questioned the next day, he continued to deny any involvement and was willing to cooperate. He provided police with a hair sample which Alicia Hamilton also provided one. Examiners compared samples taken from Tim Smith and Alicia Hamilton to unidentified hairs collected from blood-stained duct tape. found in scott dunn's bedroom examiners concluded that the unidentified hairs came from the two suspects for authorities the findings provided enough evidence to arrest alicia hamilton and tim smith the couple who currently lives together were arrested and charged with murder investigators They believe that when Scott Dunn tried to end his relationship with Alicia, she became enraged, unable to withstand the rejection, lashed out and beat the young man to death.

Police believe she then turned to her other boyfriend, Tim Smith, for help cleaning up the scene and disposing of Scott's body. A jury. found alicia hamilton guilty of murder and sentenced her to 20 years in prison tim smith was also found guilty of murder received 10 years probation scott dunn's body was never found his father jim dunn was asked to join the vidac society to help parents of murdered victims, agreed and because of my involvement there, I believe that as a result of being involved with the design of v-docs and actually being a member of the vedoc society, I can go back a little and Thank them in a different way and at the same time, maybe it will help someone else who was in the same position I was in 10 years ago when Scott was murdered.

The Vidoc company says that its only client is the truth. In that sense, they are no different from the forensic and police experts who help, but when The killers are cunning and the truth is elusive. The experts of the vidocq society provide a new perspective to bring unsolved cases back from the brink.