Natural Witness | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

Investigators hoping to solve a difficult murder case have a disturbing suspicion about who did it, but to catch the killer they must first catch his

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es. Detectives at the scene of a young woman's murder discover that the best tool to capture her killer may be a dustpan. a suspect when a woman is murdered in her hotel room investigators look at the murderer's own hand to prove his guilt in the absence of human bystanders sometimes insects or even microbes can provide the most objective testimony when the death is not caused by

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causes solving it often depends on a

natural

witness

3 david 31 in this case some of the names have been changed on august 4, 1982 the ventura county, california, sheriff's department received a call about a missing woman when Marcy Davis, 25, had not been heard from for almost two days.

Her sister became concerned several hours later, the department received a call about a vehicle stuck and abandoned in a ditch. A check of the license plates revealed that it belonged to Marcy Davis. there was no sign of her, she could have driven away to get help and possibly had worse problems or someone else could have abandoned the vehicle the cold engine made it impossible to determine how long it had been there a pair of women's jeans found nearby suggested foul play, but the The place was used as a dumping ground for all kinds of trash because the car provided the first real clue to the fate of Marcy Davis.

The Ventura County Sheriff scoured the scene to see what else they could find. They prepared for the worst. They found that what was assigned to the case was sergeant larry robertson the patrol division had decided that they should bring in a search and rescue team to look for the body, in fact, they found the body. She had been found strangled and left naked buried under leaves and debris. Can we call the forensics? Marcie Davis's blouse had apparently been torn and tied tightly around her neck. She could have been raped. The forensic team photographed any clues they could find in the darkness, but decided to leave the scene until daylight.

A guard was posted to keep her safe. Investigators had a lot of work to do before dawn. Hello, have you seen my cigarette can? If the victim's sister told the police that Marcy had left the house the night of August 3rd to go to a Tupperware party, she said she was going to her favorite JJ's place afterwards, can you describe the men with what was there? She told them that the victim had arrived around 11 the night she disappeared; she said Davis was drinking and playing pool with another bar regular named Michael Nottingham. She left with all the other customers around closing time at 2am. m. because Nottingham was the last person the victim had been with.

The researchers were. Seeing him at the time we feared that perhaps Michael Nottingham was with her and he too had been the victim of a homicide and we simply hadn't found his body yet, so the first thing we were trying to establish was whether or not his well-being might be affected. . verified, they found him safe and sound at home he agreed to come to the station to talk they showed him a photograph of marcy that his sister gave him that esteresa recognized the face but not the name she told him that she knew her how teresa took him He got home during about 10 minutes and then she left, that was the last he saw of her, he said her standby license was suspended.

Nottingham told them that after she left around 3 a.m., he walked to his girlfriend's house and crashed outside until his mother left at 9:30. She said no one saw him during that time after Nottingham gave his statement. The police went to the house he shared with his sister. They wanted to talk to her to see if she could confirm her alibi. She recognized her face in the photo as a woman. Michael came. At home the other night, she corroborated her account of her time at home to the point where she said he introduced the woman as Kelly and that wasn't the only difference.

She remembered that Michael and Kelly got into her car and drove off together, obviously. this was very different from the statements michael had given us the sheriff's department now had a contradictory story and a six hour gap in michael nottingham's alibi suspicion was building but they had nothing solid any forensic clues found in The victim's car would only support Nottingham's story that he had been at the crime. Investigators needed something to prove that Nottingham had been at the crime. In daylight. Investigators returned to the scene to look for clues that would link him there. long process left no stone or leaf unturned while Processing the scene I sat on the ground in the vicinity of the body and while we were removing leaves and branches one at a time looking for evidence, I sat on the ground next to the body for, I would say, the At least an hour, maybe an hour and a half yes, with this we found about six feet away from the vehicle, investigators found a tentative clue in the same area, an unfiltered cigarette butt on the ground near the abandoned vehicle matched Nottingham's mark, the lead was weak, but together with the conflicting stories, it allowed the police to arrest Nottingham on suspicion of rape and murder, all they had to do now was prove that Nottingham was arrested as a matter of course for cases of sexual assault.

They stripped him naked and photographed him. They took off his shirt. Investigators looked for scratches. or any other evidence indicating that he may have struggled with his victim, they found something else entirely, what about the up to 100 unusual small insect bites dotting his ankles and waist? Nottingham said they were flea bites, investigators weren't sure what they meant, but they documented the marks in case Sergeant Robertson woke up that night with itching around his ankles and waist. He recognized the unforgettable symptoms. I told my wife, if she didn't know better, she would tell you that these profusely itchy bites were tiger bites. and were exactly the same as the bites he had experienced in guerrilla warfare training in Kentucky during the Vietnam era, that these are the sites where they normally attack after his doctor confirmed his diagnosis,

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wondered if these little creatures somehow they could give them the great rest they needed.

On the advice of an expert, they consulted entomologist James Webb, who specializes in parasitic insects, and he told them that chiggers are larvae, the newborn spawn of a certain group of mites, they are born with a voracious appetite and are experts at getting their food and put it in their mouth. parts into the skin of the host and then with this special blade there is one on each side and then they inject saliva into the wound and the saliva then dissolves the skin protein and that pool of liquid is then sucked up by the trigger. uh, with a special intestinal pump, it delivers the material to the intestine, the saliva intestine, activates the host's immune system and causes a red, itchy bump around the bite, usually within 24 to 48 hours, a survey of the investigators who searched marcy's scene.

Davis's murder revealed that most bore the telltale marks of an attack. It's not because of the individual bite that we recognize the bite, we recognize it more as a pattern and usually in a place where there is constriction of the clothing because the trigger when the trigger moves up. the body will stop along the sock line or the panty line or the underwear line or the belt line outside of a case with no real clues a pattern began to emerge Michael Nottingham's bite marks They were care

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y photographed again at life size. The murder appeared. It could have had dozens of witnesses.

After all, investigators hoped that by capturing chiggers they could catch Marcy Davis' killer. I think we can do it. I suspect that Michael Nottingham swore that he had never been in the area where the victim's body was found. Sergeant Larry Robertson believed the stings. about Nottingham's body I could tell a different story, but I had never experienced chiggers in all my years of living in Ventura County, even though I was active in search and rescue, hunting and fishing, I had never heard of chiggers in Ventura County and had never seen them. and had never read about them in Ventura County, in fact they were extremely rare in this part of California, if investigators could isolate the chiggers at the crime scene they would have undeniable proof that Nottingham had been there, they called Dr .Webb to ask for help, what we wanted.

What needed to be done at the crime scene was to see if there were trigger mites there to support this hypothesis and we knew that lizards are good indicators of finding chiggers. The chiggers were attached to the lizards and fed on them. Traps were set to catch the lizards and examine them once they were found. to be infested webb and his team broke down the traps a trap is nothing more than a small black plastic dish that is placed where the chiggers are likely to accumulate the sun warms it giving a warm welcome to the annoying larvae these creatures are hungry no they are smart this This thing is a warm body much like a live animal, so the tigers, if they are nearby, will move towards the plate and crawl on the plate looking for a place to hold on.

Webb's team set their traps outside the Nottingham girlfriend's house. where Nottingham claimed he spent the night sleeping, they placed more traps 20 feet away from the crime scene and others even closer to where the victim had been found. They checked the traps every half hour during the day for three days. The results were not very clear. far from the crime scene where the body was found, we were seeing dozens or 20 or more at a time running on the black plate i.e. just big numbers, we also noticed some running around our shoes when we were standing in that same spot and crawling towards us, but only 20 feet from the body, the activity was minimal and at the girlfriend's house they found nothing at all.

The proximity of the chiggers to the victim established Nottingham's presence at the crime scene. I believe, based on our research, this was the first time. Once entomology had been used in a capital case, a murder case, to help investigators locate the suspect at the crime scene, from what the police could decipher, the victim drove Nottingham to the woods, perhaps she wanted to go, maybe he forced her to. go there, once there, they started fighting, the situation escalated and Nottingham beat her and killed her, finally strangulating her with her shirt. Michael Nottingham was found guilty of the attempted rape and first-degree murder of Marcy Davis.

He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Danger may lurk. on the outskirts of the city or may be even closer to home Seattle, Washington, once a rugged forest land, is now a world-class city of five hundred thousand people. Some people come here to take advantage of new opportunities, others come here just to take advantage of them. 28 year old Molly McClure had grown up in Seattle and been away from it, she rented a modest apartment and found a job she loved as a restaurant consultant at a hotel. In January 1986 she called the police to report an attempted break-in at her apartment, her upstairs neighbor, Sherwood Knight, told her.

She had seen someone trying to break into his window while he was out for his morning work, she scared the intruder by tampering with the window, it was evident that the police spotted a reporter, but the next day, January 17, the police were called. one more time. They arrived at McClure's apartment at the request of her boss, who had called them when she didn't show up for work and didn't answer her phone. The officers found her door closed and noticed what appeared to be new damage to the window, fearing that McClure might be in trouble the officers entered they saw no signs of a disturbance nothing seemed out of place then in the bedroom they found molly mcclure murdered in her bed appears to be working that way it was called homicide on detective hank gruber was assigned to the case the young girl was lying face down on the bed and was partially covered with a blanket but her head was exposed she had obvious wounds on the back of her head had a gag in her mouth with panties and were tied with a sock the medical examiner could tell from the hemorrhages in the victim's eyes that she had been strangled, from the degree to which the blood had pooled in her body, I could tell that she had been dead for four or five hours while the apartment was being processed.

Looking for fingerprints or any other clues, the medical examiner care

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y collected visible fibers and loose hairs from her body. The intensity of crime scene processing isHe interrupted momentarily. Sherwood Knight came to return a cookbook. He borrowed money from the neighbor. How are you? We are alone. By doing a little research around here, I may have his name. He was worried about Molly and was shocked to hear that she was dead. The detective sent him back and reprocessed the scene. The Washington state crime lab would examine the traces of evidence that

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gathered. We hoped that the solution to this case, if it existed, was somewhere in these little bags.

We had no idea who did this. It wasn't as if there were any witnesses or anything to go on and the case was easily recognized as one that, if it was going to be solved, would have to be done with traces of evidence. Whoever had tried to invade McClure's apartment the night before had evidently returned from the What looked like Molly McClure's killer entered through the guest room window. There investigators found a footprint on the windowsill that did not match the officer's shoes. This was their first clue. It was larger than a hair and needed to be preserved. after the windowsill was photographed, the technicians picked it up, if you can really take the item that has the fingerprint you have.

There are many more chances to be successful in comparisons than through images. The real item is always better, so we grabbed the windowsill at that time and took our samples from around the house. The print on the window sill had to wait until investigators could find a shoe to compare it with. While traces of evidence were being analyzed, detectives sought to find a rhyme or reason for the crime. The curious thing was why the culprit made two attempts to enter. to the victim's apartment detectives thought McClure might have been a victim of circumstance. The couple who lived in the apartment before her had a history of domestic violence.

Her boyfriend had moved out several months earlier. Police theorized that he might have returned to kill her daughter. ex-girlfriend without realizing that she had also moved away yes sir, okay, yes, she's married, she's here, hey Kristy, you want to go out, but when the police visited him, they discovered that the couple had reconciled, although the The victim's apartment was not ransacked. The police noticed her jewelry. The box was empty. A check of bank records showed that the victim's ATM card was used at an ATM several blocks away at the time of her death, so in addition to the murder and rape, the killer had gone there to steal.

In the autopsy, the medical examiner determined that the rapist's blood was type O, but so were the victims. More detailed analyzes could not be performed on the samples. The medical examiner sent the evidence of the leaves to the state crime laboratory where it was analyzed by the supervisory forensic scientist chestering switchlick now with switchlick and associates, she can distinguish a lot of the small fibers, they all have the characteristic set of debris, they all have only particles and fibers that cannot be found in anyone else in the world, we, we, We shed our hair, we go to work and we pick up fibers from the seat we're sitting on and we can pick it up if the person who worked there with us has a dog and we deposit dog hair on that seat, we pick up some of those dog hairs and They then become part of our set of debris each Every time we are in contact with someone we exchange some of our debris at the crime scene, it is up to the forensics to determine whose it is who.

The quick movement identified a piece of lint from the clothing. Blue synthetic fibers. A tobacco flake taken from under the victim's fingernail. A cat. hair and 18 fragments of dark human hair, determined that the characteristics of the hair suggested it was that of an African American, it was definitely not that of the blue-eyed blonde, Molly McClure, detectives returned to the scene to collect more clues, the debris did not They seemed like the victims, as she was also a non-smoker and was allergic to cats, but if the killer had left these traces, they would be concentrated around the victim and not elsewhere in the apartment.

They collected samples of debris from the floor of each moving room. to the corners where it tends to accumulate they found no cat fur or tobacco or African American hairs an image of the killer emerging from the dust could have been an anonymous intruder or someone closer to home in a murder investigation it is easier to eliminate familiar faces before look for new suspects Sherwood Knight, who had chased away the burglar at the victim's window, had been helpful in the investigation, but detectives investigated him anyway. Gruber's partner detective, Rudy Sutlovich, discovered that Knight had a record and a history. of robberies and robberies and other assaults and had been released from prison approximately three months prior to this, detectives visited Sherwood Knight and his girlfriend.

The couple lived in the apartment above the victims. Knight's girlfriend told detectives they had gotten into a fight. The night McClure was murdered and then you came back. Sherwood slept on the couch. She told police she woke up around 5.30am. I don't believe it. Knight had already left for her morning work. She came home a short time later wearing her running clothes. As he always did, he then rushed to his class at North Seattle Community College. He was registered there, but no one could remember seeing him. He didn't go to his classes or anything, but he had been telling his girlfriend that he was going to school during.

On the day, based on his past history, investigators thought Knight might be guilty of more than playing hooky. Got it, detector supplements. I have a search warrant. Okay, step aside please, yes, we have work to do here on January 21, four days after the murder. Detectives served a search warrant at Knight's apartment. They were authorized to collect evidence collected from corners of the department. Blanket fiber samples. Cat air. The clothes Knight was said to have worn the night of the murder and even the clothes he wore when they served. The detectives found the jogging pants soaking in a bucket of water, they collected the bucket of pants and all thanks to the gentleman, they read him his rights and detained him there, blood samples and saliva from his hair.

Authorities could not hold him for more than 48 hours unless tests turned up evidence that directly linked him to the crime. Hold still shoe print left on the victim's window sill matched the sole of the running shoes taken from the suspect, but the sneaker was ordinary. and the print would match thousands of others throughout Seattle. Trace tests required more time. The pants had to be dried before being examined. The fibers had to be examined one by one, even matching the hairs is complicated because two hairs taken from the same person may not necessarily match if you only look at your own hair, the hair of someone sitting next to you can see that some hair is thicker, some is thicker, some is thinner, some is darker, some is lighter, some is coarser, some is finer.

The 48 hours arrived and there was no definitive result the night had to be published but little by little the evidence began to tell the bigger story the distinctive shape and pattern of some hairs revealed that they were from a cat their length and color matched The knight's pet then swiklik analyzed Sherwood Knight's pants, red cotton fibers and cat hair were tangled in lint pills that were found attached to them. The pills matched the lint found on the victim, she was still not satisfied. Although it is very compelling evidence, I would have to say that there is a possibility that he could have done it.

They came from another pair of pants with red cotton and cat hair. Cats are not a rare species. Red cotton is not unusual as their tests continued. More fibers on the victim matched other items taken from the gentleman's apartment. Their hair also matched. with those at the crime scene No matter how incriminating that evidence seemed, investigators feared that no jury would accept a case that was solved with lint and cat hair, they searched for a variety of evidence since no smoking gun had been found, but were getting closer, they discovered telltale blood. stains around the waistband of the gentleman's sweatshirt the droplets had apparently escaped overnight technicians tested them with the suspects' and victims' own blood, although the tests were not as accurate in the 1980s as are today, the blood was found to be consistent with that of the victims, a Caucasian with the type or now investigators had blood in addition to hair and fibers to implicate the suspect all these small circumstances would not be enough to charge someone with a murder or any crime but adding up each of these little circumstances they all add up as long as they are all consistent with the same conclusion, which is that Sherwood Knight was at Molly's apartment that morning and that he was the one who committed the murder.

Investigators were ready to bring him in. The only problem was where to find him when Seattle police came to arrest Sherwood. Knight for the murder of Molly McClure, they learned he fled, a manhunt eventually led to an informant who told police his whereabouts on April 23. Sherwood Knight was arrested based on evidence and interviews with Knight's acquaintances. An image of the victim's last hours came to light. Sherwood Knight had faked the first robbery so he could inspect the victim's apartment while gaining his trust. The next night, he broke in, attacked her, and killed her, but not before forcing her to reveal the password to his ATM for his crimes.

Sherwood Knight sentenced to life without parole McClure case was solved by the combined weight of tiny fibers, a drop of blood and a few strands of cat hair at an Ohio hotel Investigators had even less to link a killer to the scene of crime Blue Ash Ohio is a quiet town on the outskirts of Cincinnati people here protect their privacy in this story the names of the victim and his family have been changed September 3, 1994 bert stein and June Mays had come to Blue Ash for a family gathering where they had left her sister rose levy in the room while they went to breakfast rose had promised to join them but had not arrived I don't know rose is breathing a joyful occasion turned into a family tragedy when rose was discovered 68 year old collapsed on the floor of her suite only 30 minutes gone she was clinging to life but just by the looks of it she had suffered a heart attack or stroke everyone back off please back off medical technicians They ran to save her.

The police also arrived as part of her normal routine. procedure rose levy died in the hospital it was not a heart attack or a stroke that killed her, she had already been beaten to death by the time the victim arrived at the hospital bruises and welts had begun to form, including heel marks on her chest and a strange rectangular mark evidently caused by the murder weapon the medical examiner could not discern what it was the body holds when it hits a brick wall at 40 miles per hour this was the unforgettable face of a blue ash murderer the Ohio police launched a investigation the room was cordoned off and searched for clues to determine useful clues it was not easy to assign them to the case Detectives Jim Shafer and Larry Stokes, the crime scene was extremely contaminated when investigators got there, but it was only due to attempts to resurrect her.

Detective Jim Shafer, in addition to blood, a footprint was discovered in the bathroom and many other items. which were later discovered to be items left by rescue workers. rose are you awake are you there according to june mays and bert stein rose was still getting dressed when they were ready to go to breakfast oh yeah she told the couple to move on without her don. Don't forget she would be down in a minute to join them, she's fine, she's fine, she's not, she's going to take a shower. She never made it as the investigation continued. Some items were discovered.

Corn was missing. Who left her bag in the room while she was there. At breakfast she realized that they had taken 500 from her. Thank you, man, where did you go? Later, the victim's family realized that when they took Rose to the hospital, she was not wearing her favorite ring and the custom-made pendant she never took off, they did not take it off. turned up in a search of the room, investigators recovered one of the victims' teeth from the carpet, but were unable to find anything linking the suspect to the robbery, homicide. stokes and shaffer had a lot of workahead, every guest and every employee was a potential witness or a potential suspect according to schaefer, everyone had to be interrogated with the cadre of the hotel's more than 100 employees and more than 300 guests with whom we began to establish alibis or whereabouts of each of those individuals while the detectives began the task of sending surveys to the guests in order to locate possible witnesses, they narrowed the field of possible suspects, the murderer could only have attacked during the 30 minutes that Bert and June were having breakfast, the door The room closed automatically, so someone would have had to be let in or a key would have been needed.

To gain entry, detectives focused on the hotel employees who worked that shift and had access to the access codes, asking each employee to report their whereabouts during that half hour and to name someone who could give information. faith of him, the main object of this investigation at that time became let's find out who can alibi for whom during this period of time and the person who will have no alibi will be someone definitely worth watching. Investigators knew it took a sick man to commit such a brutal crime. They were closer to the truth than they ever imagined, Detective Schaefer and Stokes began to advance the Rose Levy homicide investigation while calling the list of hotel employees, one employee mentioned Elwood Jones, a co-worker who was had called in sick with a hand injury that Jones had sustained. for workers' compensation saying he had cut his hand on a metal ladder at work detectives called him for an interview he was one of the only employees who had no alibi during that fatal half hour they wanted to know more about his injury they went to Bethesda hospital Oak bringing a court order giving them access to Elwood Jones' records.

Jones had been admitted to the hospital emergency room three days after the murder with a serious hand injury; the small cut above the knuckle of his left index finger had already been sealed. but an infection festered inside oh wow what is this? Jones' hand was very swollen and hurt intensely. He had a fever. Hand surgeon John Mcdonough was called in to examine the wound. This was a tremendous blow that he had received to his hand because it tore the joint capsule and inoculated the bacteria directly into the finger joint, it would take a significant amount of pressure for that to happen when mcdonough asked Jones what happened, said he had cut it in a dumpster at work, not only did it seem unlikely, but it also contradicted what he told staff earlier, Jones was left-handed to McDonough, the position of the wound above the knuckle of his dominant hand indicated that the patient was probably injured when he punched someone in the mouth;

In fact, the injury was very characteristic of a so-called fight bite that Mcdonough had photographed for use in his classes if that were indeed the cause. Mcdonough wasn't surprised that his patient lied about it. People who have human bite injuries try to hide them, they try to make light of them. They did something else like graze his hand against the wall or cut it into a dumpster. The wound that had caused it required immediate attention. McDonough surgery opened it and drained it, reserving some of the fluid so that the infectious bacteria could be cultured and studied once identified, the appropriate antibiotic could be prescribed.

A human mouth, even a clean one, houses 42 species of bacteria someone with dental hygiene problems may have more: a human bite can be similar to being cut by an object from the bottom of a sewer in the hospital microbiology laboratory. Bacteria from Elwood Jones' wound were incubated until the sample grew large enough to be recognizable. The culture of bacteria can occur overnight or will take more than a week Larry Gray is the director of the laboratory the technologist at the work table will look at the plates they will look at the organisms the texture the size of the colonies the size the color the result will then be stains revealing more characteristics of the species when examined under a microscope the bacteria are finally identified and antibiotics are administered Jones stayed in the hospital while his infection was treated much better after five days he went home I will get a copy of this and the I will put in your record the doctor told detectives that jones's hand was infected with icannella which corrodes what is a somewhat rare bacteria that thrives in dental plaque below the gum line to find it inside a man's knuckle It required some explanation mcdonough explained it when the hand hits a tooth the tooth can break or the sharp edge inoculates bacteria and in this case I can place allocarodins deep in the tissue.

I have been practicing hand surgery for almost 25 years and have only seen three cases of iconella infection, all three were associated with a human. Bite injury detectives felt that Jones might have contracted Iconella from hitting Rose Levy. They now had what they needed to isolate Jones as the prime suspect, but Jones offered an explanation, saying that after cutting himself in the dumpster, he sucked on the wound to clean it less. More than three-tenths of the population have iconella bacteria in their saliva, but authorities had to make sure they took a sample from the inside of Jones' mouth and sent the samples to the laboratory to be cultured.

The results were negative. The infection was consistent with injuries sustained during the beating death of Rose Levy and the rarity of Iconella infection was enough for detectives to serve a search warrant at the apartment Jones shared with his girlfriend. They confiscated her shoes so they could compare the marks of her heels with the bruises found in the victim's car. seized and searched for fiber, blood or other traces of evidence linking him to the crime, but the most compelling evidence was visible to the naked eye in a troublesome hotel and in a toolbox in the trunk lay the missing pendant of the victim.

Jones was arrested for the murder of Rose Levy before his trial the bruise patterns on the victim were digitally enhanced and the murder weapon was revealed the markings matched the walkie-talkie Jones carried at work his shoes also matched the bruises found on the body according to evidence investigators presented together the events in the hotel room when jones saw bert stein and june mays leaving for breakfast he thought the all clear for the robbery the suite they shared usually had only two occupants jones did not He had reason to believe that September 2 would be different He used his password to get in He was not expecting a witness Excuse me, I knew he couldn't afford one The murder accusation came from the victim's own mouth On December 11, 1996 Elwood Jones was declared guilty of aggravated robbery aggravated robbery and aggravated murder due to violence nature of the crime was sentenced to death the perfect murder has no witnesses the perfect murderer leaves no trace but the mere act of murder disrupts the natural order of things and always leaves traces behind science is learning to read those footprints no matter how insignificant they are.

First it may seem like it's you.