Random Targets | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

Police in central California are in the midst of a violent crime wave. At first the deaths appear unrelated, but

detectives

uncover evidence that points to a single killer in Virginia. Women start turning up dead in their own homes and it appears that a sadistic serial killer is placing the blame, but until the police can identify a suspect, they remain powerless to stop him when there is no obvious connection between the victim and the killer. Solving a murder can be difficult, but forensic experts can play a vital role in exposing the predator choosing

random

targets

in this

episode

.

Some of the names have been changed California's Central Coast is famous for its rugged beauty and isolation, but in the early 1980s the city of Santa Cruz became the backdrop for a series of violent crimes on the 23rd. April, rescue workers and police from the Santa Cruz Sheriff's Office responded to a call about a vehicle found burning on a rural mountain road, the car had been burning for hours and was completely destroyed to authorities it appeared to be The work of vandals, but closer inspection revealed an act far more gruesome than arson. A human body burned beyond recognition lay in the front seat.

The unidentified victim was pulled from the burned remains and transported to the doctor's office. forensic for autopsy. Investigators began looking for clues to explain the fire, but found none of the telltale signs that suggested an accident or engine problem was to blame. A check of the tags revealed the car was registered to 20-year-old Mark Farrell, who listed an address less than a mile from the scene. Detective Sergeant David Deverell supervised the investigation. The lack of an obvious cause of the fire was concerning. there was no reason for the car to catch fire there was no dynamic crash um it's very unusual to have a burned body in a vehicle with no explanation of how it happens police were hoping the autopsy would yield more answers this is wild with detective devarell the pathologist Current coroner, Dr.

Richard Mason, began his examination by taking X-rays of the victim after reviewing the results. It was clear that this death was not an accident. I could see evidence of at least three, possibly four, bullet paths through the chest, entering from the right and exiting from the left. There is also a very likely gunshot wound to the head. The young victim had been murdered, but the heat of the fire destroyed any ballistic evidence that may have been left behind, but then embedded in the young man's chest, Dr. Mason found a single bullet. which had somehow survived the intense heat.

Dr. Mason, a weapons enthusiast, analyzed the fragment under a microscope. It was a unique bullet. I am a long time rifle pistol shooter and recognized it right away as a 38 special wad cutter. They are heavy and very penetrating. and they will pierce deeply into a body. Dental records will later confirm that the murder victim was actually the owner of the burned car, twenty-year-old Mark Farrell. Now the police had to find out who had killed him and why investigators questioned the young man. The man's mother couldn't imagine why anyone would want to harm her son. She said she last saw him the previous afternoon.

Mark. A college student studying engineering arrived late for the night shift where he worked as an analyst at a nearby electronics company. There didn't seem to be anything about Plant that worried him. Mark was very loved by all who knew him. He had no obvious enemies or suspects. Police are seeking to piece together the final hours of Mark Farrell's life. His employer confirmed that Mark had worked his entire shift the night before and left around 2 a.m. m. There was no indication that anything out of the ordinary had happened during his shift and he said Mark got along well with all of his co-workers.

The manager handed over the company videotape. security camera at the santa cruz sheriff's office detective devarell reviewed the tapes the surveillance watched as mark farrell left work without incident looking at the tape there was certainly nothing unusual about it it seemed like you knew it was the end of the night he was Coming Home, there was absolutely nothing in it. Weeks passed with no additional leads, soon the investigation went cold and the caseload for Santa Cruz homicide

detectives

was about to increase Two months after the murder of Mark Farrell, the tranquility of the nearby Laguna Beach community was shattered .

The lifeless bodies of two men were discovered on the beach. Crime scene officers and technicians were dispatched to the scene right here, right there they found two young Asian men who had been shot in the back multiple times. Police began processing the scene for clues. in the chest pocket of one of the victims they found a wallet, okay, say something else, no, that's good, I got the injection, we can put them back down and it's okay, it's okay, and inside was an ID that belongs to a man named check chin, a resident of San Francisco police were unable to find any identification for the second victim, however, they did locate a set of car keys.

Detectives theorized that the double murder was the result of a robbery gone wrong. Using the set of keys, police were able to locate the victim's car based on the vehicle's registration. They believe the second victim was the car's owner, thirty-year-old Han Lee, also from San Francisco. It looks pretty good, so we'll bring Dave here. When the police began looking for clues to the identity of the killer, they noticed an empty spot nearby. parking lot and there were recent tire tracks in the space. He wasn't sure if the killer had left the marks. Crime scene technicians collected the evidence using a plaster cast.

The nature of the double murder. Concerned police. It was a really unusual scene for us. We had two bodies up. Here on the road, multiple homicide is certainly something that we do not see, it is something that worried us a lot. The victims' bodies were transported to the coroner's office for autopsy again. Dr. Richard Mason worked on the case. Sure, when you're done with the checks for a While in his position, we'll take his ID photo. He extracted the fatal bullets from the victim's back. He had seen them before. They were single .38 caliber cutters, identical to the bullet recovered from Mark Farrell's body two months earlier.

The police now had. three unsolved murders on his hands and it seemed that the same weapon had been used in all the homicides dr. Mason and Detective Deverell realized it was too much of a coincidence to ignore. It is an unusual book. Police in Santa Cruz, California, had three unsolved homicides on their hands. his hands and the bullets recovered from all the victims appear to have originated from the same gun to discover that the bullets were sent to ballistics expert paul doherty at the san mateo police crime lab, because of the size and diameter, he confirmed that all They were 38 caliber. wad cutter bullets, usually wad cutters are used for aiming, a shot cutter is a projectile that is designed to punch a hole in paper to shoot at the target, so that you get a hole nice and clean so you can gauge the accuracy of your score, in other words in some cases when you get right to the line you want to make sure you're cut, if you cut the line the score goes up and that's what it does, just cuts a nice clean hole, each gun leaves unique marks on the bullet as it passes through it. barrel When examiners compared the bullet recovered from 20-year-old Mark Farrell to those taken from the two Asian victims found in Laguna Beach, they found they all shared the same characteristics after thorough investigation authorities determined that the marks left in the bullets had probably been produced by some weird big west single action revolver maker and let's see if we can get somewhere with it, although it gets a little problematic when you start looking, it was a promising lead, but it was almost It was impossible for police to locate everyone who currently owned the gun and, although it seemed unlikely, Detective Dave Deverell had to consider that the three murders were unrelated.

Look, it's going well, maybe the gun passed from one person to another and there's really no connection between the cases. It didn't work for any of us, it just wasn't, it didn't make sense that a gun and bullets would somehow be transferred from one person to another and used again in another homicide to find out if there was a connection. Detectives traveled to the Chinatown district of San Francisco. Where the two Laguna Beach victims, Han Li and Check Chin, had lived, it was a notoriously isolated community and investigators realized that obtaining information would not be easy.

A team from the Santa Cruz Sheriff's Office worked on the case. homicide detective joe hanard uncovered a possible lead. we had information. that both victims had worked at the Golden Dragon restaurant in Chinatown, where two years earlier there was a shootout between gangsters where several people were killed. He worried us that there might have been gang activity, that these guys were followed to Santa Cruz and shot. and murdered on the way to the beach by an interpreter for the San Francisco Police Department's Asian Gang Task Force, the restaurant manager described the two young men as decent, hard-working employees; in fact, he last saw them the day before they were found. murdered it was payday and the men were eager to receive their checks they had made plans to take a day trip to Laguna Beach the manager did not believe the two men were involved in any gang activity he could not think of anyone who was Being able to do so, he wanted to harm them, having found no connection between the victims.

The detectives realized that they could not prevent more murders. The investigation into the murders of Mark Farrell, Check Chin and Han Lee, had soon reached a dead end. The case was very frustrating we had the bullets that linked the murder victims we knew what kind of weapon we were looking for we had a lot of evidence in the case but we didn't have a clue as to why these three people were killed, but a year and a half later all that changed to a man named dave bonan contacted police his daughter lynn said she was in great danger she had recently broken up with her boyfriend mark cunningham and now he was stalking her the daughter feared for her life mark cunningham had allegedly bragged about killing three men a year and a half earlier It was the break the police had been waiting for.

The father took them to talk to Lynn at the grocery store where she worked. Her daughter was afraid to talk to police about Cunningham, so she offered to take her out of the store, but there was just one complication. mark cunningham was there talking to lynn dave bonan got his daughter's attention and took her outside when detective dave deverell heard the suspect was inside he quickly interviewed lynn and did the fastest interview on record you know we were lynn your father she tells us that her boyfriend may have killed some people and we need to know what happened Lynn told the police that a year and a half before she and Mark Cunningham were driving near Laguna Beach, suddenly Mark pulled into a parking spot claiming that he needed cash, he said.

He would be right back but he didn't tell her where she was going. Lynn told police she was gone for several minutes. She recalled that when she returned she was agitated and out of breath. She believed she saw a gun in her can. The police noticed. It was the same place where the two Asian men were found murdered. It became evident to us in this short actual interview with Lynn. Mark was the guy we were looking for when Lynne finished telling her story. Mark Cunningham left the store in an open parking lot. There were many ways the suspect could escape and if Mark Cunningham was actually the killer, police feared he would not hesitate to use violence.

After a year and a half, police in Santa Cruz, California finally had a solid lead in three unsolved homicides that Mark Cunningham had committed. He allegedly bragged to his ex-girlfriend that he was responsible for the shooting deaths. Cunningham cooperated and was taken into custody without incident. He insisted that he knew nothing about any of the murders. I'm sorry. He actually claimed that his girlfriend Lynn Bonan was trying to get back at him for breaking up the relationship, he denied having a large Western single action revolver, the type of gun used in all three murders, the police didn't believe him but they had no hard evidence. to prove he was lying, but Cunningham remained in police custody.

When a few days passed with no additional leads, police turned to his ex-girlfriend for more information.Lynn Bonan had reason to believe that Cunningham had committed the murders, she said that a few days after the two men were found murdered in Laguna Beach, Cunningham admitted to the crimes then, without warning, pulled out an old revolver and forced Lynn to lie down. down. He threatened to kill her and her father if he ever said anything to the police. A short time later, Cunningham disposed of the revolver. Lynn didn't know anything about Mark. Farrell, the 20-year-old man who had been shot and burned in his car along a mountain road at some point;

However, in the past, she, Cunningham, and some friends would hang out on that road and light bonfires. Cunningham often brandished his gun at passersby who complained about the illegal fires the police had strong circumstantial evidence linking mark cunningham to the scenes where the three victims had been found murdered now they needed hard evidence they turned to the tire marks found in Laguna Beach nearly two years earlier, the tires of the truck that had The tires were collected and sent to the crime lab for analysis. First, examiners generated an ink impression of Cunningham's tire tracks and then transparent overlays were placed on top.

From life-size photographs of the tread found in Laguna Beach almost two years earlier, they found that all the characteristics of the class, including the shape, size and dimensions of the tread design, lined up perfectly. : Evidence had placed Mark Cunningham's vehicle at the scene of the accident. double murder but to link it to the three homicides they needed to find the murder weapon. Lynn Bonan agreed to help. She led investigators to the area where she believed the gun had been dumped. She seemed like a waste of time, but then, buried under dirt and rubble, they found a gun. a rare single action revolver from the great west to prove it was the murder weapon.

Police sent the evidence to forensic examiners. Ballistics expert Paul Doherty knew it wouldn't be easy. Rust had severely damaged the gun, but after days of cleaning the revolver he was able to get it. the gun to fire three two one shot ballistics tests showed that the gun was used in both the Laguna Beach murders and in the death of twenty-year-old Mark Farrell Cunningham, he was later charged with three counts of murder. Police theorized that Cunningham had started a small bonfire on the side of the road. Mark Farrell was heading home after a long night of work.

He saw the flames and stopped to find out what was happening. Without warning, Cunningham pulled out his gun and shot the young man. several times in an effort to cover his tracks Cunningham then doused the car with a flammable substance and then set the vehicle on fire. It was a crime of opportunity that the killer would repeat several weeks later in Laguna Beach. Mark Cunningham was tried and found guilty of three counts of first degree murder to which he was sentenced. life in prison mark cunningham preyed on victims who crossed his path, but in richmond, virginia, a killer care

full

y searched for

targets

who shared something in common on the morning of september 19, 1987, a man noticed a car with the engine running stopped on the sidewalk.

It appeared that the vehicle had been abandoned, the man called the police. 911 dispatchers checked the tags and discovered the car was registered to a woman who lived a few blocks from where the vehicle was found, but when efforts to contact her failed, police located her. His landlord sent an officer to the residence. The landlord was also concerned because he had noticed a screen was missing from the window and feared the place had been burglarized. Not knowing what to expect, the officer cautiously made his way through the apartment into the bedroom. made a gruesome discovery a woman lay dead she had been tied up and strangled within minutes richmond police and crime scene technicians were dispatched to the scene the woman found

full

y clothed was identified as 35 year old donna doyle there does not appear to be any missing articles robbery was not the motive behind the murder believing the killer had entered the residence through the window, technicians searched the area for fingerprints but found nothing and the victim's car, which had likely been taken by the killer and then abandoned, the autopsy yielded no additional clues, the medical examiner determined that the death had been the result of ligature strangulation the device had been made from a sock cord and a vacuum cleaner tube Donna Doyle had been slowly strangled although the victim was dressed in cut-off jeans and a shirt there were indications that she had been sexually assaulted biological evidence of rape and Some stray hairs were collected at the time DNA testing was in its infancy and everything that Serologists were able to determine that the murderer had type O blood.

Homicide Detective Ray Williams was assigned to the case and realized this investigation would not be easy. I worked with Thomas Hat for 20 years. strange years in the city and after reviewing the scene I knew it was a very unusual homicide, either way she was tied up and strangled, it was very evident to me that at that time we were not dealing with an ordinary murderer waiting for more detailed information . The hairs recovered from Donna Doyle's body were sent to forensic experts from the Virginia Division of Forensic Sciences, who determined that two of the hairs had not originated from the victim and, based on their texture and cross-sectional shape, examiners concluded that they came from of an African American. man for investigators there was not much to learn more detectives questioned the employer of a local bookstore where donna doyle worked on the day of the murder donna had worked her usual shift unusual had occurred that day she described donna as a dedicated employee and a very nice person, although she was a bit shy after closing the store, donna headed home, her employer didn't know if she had plans that night, he believed donna lived alone and didn't know if she had a boyfriend after two weeks.

Detectives had no luck identifying a suspect or an obvious motive The investigation into Donna Doyle's murder was going nowhere So emergency operators received a 911 There had been another homicide as police in Richmond Virginia struggled to solve the brutal rape and murder of 35-year-old donna doyle received news of another homicide the victim identified as doctor stephanie harris, 32, was discovered inside the bedroom closet by her husband the scene was less than two miles from the scene of donna's murder Doyle's hands and feet were tied and a cloth belt was wrapped tightly around her neck. She had been sexually assaulted by police.

The crime scene looked eerily familiar. There was no sign of a robbery and it appeared that the killer had entered through a window but was They found few clues about his identity. The victim's husband explained that he discovered his wife around 2 a.m. Upon returning from Maryland, where he was a law student, he had no idea who could have done this. He was later cleared as a suspect, police felt the two murders were connected and discovered that Chief Coroner Marcela Fierro began examining Dr. Stephanie Harris. found broken blood vessels in the victim's eyes called petechial hemorrhages like the donna doyle case which suggested that stephanie harrison had been slowly strangled when the victims were examined there were certain patterns of injuries that were common and those patterns included evidence of restraint evidence of strangulation injuries that took place over a period of time that was very disturbing because it would indicate a pattern of torture the similarities between the crimes led authorities to believe that the same sadistic killer had committed both murders when autopsies are done you gain insight into The nature of the person who committed the crimes was evident from the injuries caused by the handcuffs and from their physical findings that these were very cruel deaths and that they were committed by someone who enjoyed doing it.

Biological evidence recovered from Stephanie Harrison was sent to a forensic center. The serologists' analyzes revealed that those samples and those collected from Donna Doyle shared the same blood type, both were type O. The Richmond police were certain that they had committed the same murderer dubbed by the press as the South Side Strangler and having found no obvious connection between the two victims it seemed that he chose his victims at

random

fearing that he would attack the question again. Now was where and when they got their answer Two months later, on November 22, 1987, police, just a few miles from Richmond, in Chesterfield County, were dispatched to the scene of a murder, the victim, Dawn Chang. , 15, had been brutally raped and strangled in her bedroom, as in the other cases, the perpetrator had entered the bedroom through the window.

Interestingly, investigators found a figure of eight painted on the victim's body, but other than a few stray hairs, little physical. Evidence was recovered, however, the hairs were enough for authorities to conclude that Dawn Chang had been the third victim of the South Side Strangler, unlike the other victims, Dawn was a teenager, she was Asian and did not live alone, so In fact, his parents slept in the next room. room at the time of the murder they never heard anything they described their daughter as a typical teenager they last saw her the night before after dinner dawn said she had some homework to do and planned to go to bed after she finished told her good night and went to her bedroom the mother discovered her daughter's lifeless body the next morning the authorities had a serial killer on the loose and he seemed to be spreading beyond the city limits of Richmond his ability to avoid detection Leading police to believe he had done this before becoming desperate to generate a lead, Detective Ray Williams contacted police departments across the region looking for unsolved cases with a similar month within a hundred miles. away, in the washington dc suburb of arlington, virginia, received a discovery there, detective joe horgas of the arlington county police department.

She had several unsolved rapes and murders dating back almost three years. Their details were eerily similar to the murders in Richmond and Chesterfield counties, three weeks after the murder of fifteen-year-old Don Chang. Arlington County police had been dispatched to Sandra Thomas' home. look what it was stefan the 34 year old woman had been discovered raped and murdered in her home she lived alone and like the victims in richmond she had been strangled with household items, hair and biological evidence recovered from the scene the police determined that the murderer sandra thomas was an african american man with blood type or the other unsolved crimes in arlington in a similar manner had been committed in 1984.

At first it seemed strange to Detective Horgus that the murderer suddenly stopped and continued three years later, He didn't stop because he got a girlfriend He didn't stop because he got married He stopped because he moved He's dead and he's not dead If he's doing the others or he's in prison Detective Horgas reviewed recent probation and parole records looking for African American men who were arrested in Arlington in 1984. Then he found something, in early 1984, a 21-year-old man named Timothy W Spencer was arrested in connection with a series of break-ins and petty thefts, although these were non-violent crimes.

The records also indicated that he was identified. as the prime suspect in a series of unsolved rapes throughout Arlington, yet he was never charged with those crimes after serving three years on robbery charges. Spencer was released on parole and that wasn't all his parole officer here in Arlington knew about him being released from prison. to a halfway house in Richmond and released about two weeks before the first murder, if Detective Horgas was right, Timothy Spencer was now the prime suspect in at least four murders across Virginia, but unless investigators could link him physically with the crimes, would remain Free to Kill Again, police in Arlington, Virginia, had finally identified a suspect in a series of unsolved rapes and murders spanning a three-year period, and those homicides bore an uncanny resemblance to a series of serial murders that took place 100 miles away in Richmond.

Alright, here's Tucker's Ham to find out if they were dealing with the same predator. Arlington County Homicide Detective Joe Horgas traveled to Richmond. There he associated withDetective Ray Williams. After comparing the details of all the homicides, there was no doubt that it was the same killer. had committed all the crimes detectives learned that their main suspect, Timothy Spencer, had recently been paroled and was currently living in a halfway house in Richmond, according to the house manager, the suspect was currently running errands. The detectives asked to see the log book. which contained the times and dates that a parolee leaves and returns to the house according to the records, Timothy Spencer had signed out on September 18, October 2 and November 21, dates that corresponded to the murders in Richmond and Chesterfield counties.

He had also signed him out. on november 25 to spend thanksgiving weekend with his mother in arlington arlington county detective joe horgus realized that timothy spencer's mother lived a few blocks from where the latest victim, sandra thomas, had been murdered that same weekend what are the odds that 100 miles away our lady? up here that murdered ammunition fits identical to theirs down there and where is Timothy Spencer he is up here at the same time too many coincidences just don't add up what adds up is logical this is our man a short time later Timothy Spencer returned home and the police They were there waiting as the alleged serial killer was arrested on suspicion of murder.

A search of his room at the halfway house failed to produce any compelling evidence linking him to the murders, but on his bed they discovered a drawing of a similar figure of eight. The one found painted on the body of fifteen-year-old Dawn, he claimed to have no knowledge of rape or murder and denied having drawn the eight found on her bed. Detectives sensed that he was lying and are now looking for forensic evidence. As evidence, hair and blood samples were collected from the suspect at the Virginia Division of Forensic Science, criminalists compared the hairs taken from Spencer to those recovered from several of the crime scenes.

The shape, size, color and texture of the hair were identical, although Timothy Spencer had the type. Examiners turned to a more sophisticated type of recently developed analysis called DNA testing. Tests revealed that the suspect's genetic profile was identical to those generated from blood. biological evidence left at four murder scenes the chances that the killer was someone other than timothy spencer were almost 900 million to one that he was charged with four counts of murder investigators theorized that after randomly choosing his prey, spencer a thief experienced would slip silently through his victims windows once inside he raped and strangled them timothy spencer was sentenced to death for the murders of donna doyle dr stephanie harrison and dawn chang in richmond and for the death of sandra thomas in arlington he was the first person in the united states to be executed based on dna fingerprints for richmond homicide detective ray williams, new forensic technology couldn't have come at a better time.

Word if not for DNA evidence, Timothy Spencer would never have been convicted. Look, when a case is presented to a jury, the jury has to do it. vertocar feel and hear we didn't have much for them to see touch feel and hear other than DNA and that's because DNA speaks for itself some murderers don't need any motive to commit their crimes and for homicide detectives to identify a suspect can be a challenge, in those cases you must rely on physical evidence to expose a killer who has set his sights on random targets that you